Patricia Handschiegel wrote a great post today about the emotional states entrepreneurs cycle through. Reading it, I saw myself working on People's Software, and feel some of the same feelings working on the new thing we're readying for 2009.

Patricia's identifies the following problem feelings as cycles entrepreneurs go through:

1. Feeling overwhelmed--that's obvious, right?
2. Shockeds & surprised--who knew X ?
3. The big decision--once you make it, that's it, whatever it is.
4. Mourning: Sad when startup takes over most of your life.
5. Tired: Anyone not get this one?
6. Hatching--launch or sale, it's the rocket ship ride.

Patricia's list is much more detailed, and both useful AND funny--check it out here.
(And did I mention how kick ass Patricia is? A real inspiration.)

"Catering to the need for intellectual stimulation is a little nebulous, but obvious at the same time. Designing the APIs in a particularly elegant way will naturally help bring in the best and the brightest engineers; throwing together something that barely does the job will inevitably turn off the elite. One subtler example: creating "simple" and "power developer" APIs will help the newcomer developers get up to speed very quickly, but not rob the advanced ones of the full power of the platform.

It's worth pointing out that ultimately, until non-advertising business models are devised for social applications (and probably even after they are) valuable distribution (reach + frequency) is going to be the main underlying goal for all developers, commercial and otherwise. The examples above simply illustrate what the platform can do to refine the definition of "valuable distribution" for the developers."

--Max Levchin, Slide, writing about motivating developers in social media applications, aka "games."

This weekend was all about product ideas, user values, specs, user flow, logic and building prototypes. That means we were able to walk into the office on Monday morning and show folks what we'd done and get feedback. Wow, did that feel good.

We've got a ways to go, but I feel like we're finally getting to one of the places we need to be at--having ideas ready to turn into code, commit and eventually go live, just so we can release, get people using it, learn from their feedback and then  do the whole thing all over again, hopefully many times.

Here is what I did this weekend:

• Write product vision white papers
• Write specs
• Draw pictures on coffee-stained paper with a smudgy pen
• Consume far too much coffee, diet coke ad white wine.
• Eat at wierd hours, pretty reasonable stuff ('cept for the trip to IHOP, Lisa's favorite food spot (and they have free wireless, too!).
• Talk to Lisa as she worked away
  

Here is what I did not do:

• Get a manicure/pedicure
• Go hiking
• Obtain a bike and ride it around
• Buy the BF a birthday present (I did look)

And here is what we got: Stuff to move forward with. Well worth the time.

"...all startups have a natural life. Some live forever and some are killed in their cribs."

--Boulder technocrat around town and VP of Biz Dev at Lijit Networks Micah Baldwin, writing the three big lessons for start up success.

Susan sez: BTW, I am working my little tail off and posting like a bunny on the start up life at Peoples Software blog.

So it's been two weeks in Boulder @techstars, and working with my co-founder Lisa Wiliams on Peoples Software. Twp weeks ago Friday, A & I were in a hotel in Sacramento, then in Salt Lake, and finally, here in Boulder. It's been 10 days since the TechStars program started, and we're running, hard.

Some observations of place:

• The Rockies are beautiful. You can see them from everywhere in Boulder. If I didn't live in the Bay area, I'd think this was the most beautiful place I could ever be (but I am obsessed with California, even more.)
• The body fat ratio is the lowest here, ever. The number of fit, trim, thin people who obviously spend portions of most days riding bikes up rocks, training for triathalons, or bounding to the tops of mountains to do stretches that put their legs over their heads is huge, higher than anywhere else I've lived.
• Boulder's nickname could be "Gluten Free."  All the healthy, fit people are obsessed with diet, so vegan (that's pronounced vey-gan) and gluten free foods are big here, both in grocery stores and restaurants/cafes.
• Trustafrarians are the ultra-skinny vegans with the skateboards and the dreads, smoking 420 at the Maceo Parker concert. Some of them have some gorgeous steampunk clothes and piercings that make you stare (they make me stare).
• It's a dog town. Labs and Goldens are the frisbee/ball-throwing standard for pups, but Big Daddy Winston (my American Bulldog) gets lots of puppy love. If you have a big dog, this is paradise, pretty much.
• Santa Cruz, CA should take a leaf from Boulder and replicate the moves that are turning this place into a super-desirable way station to incubate companies.Moving more and more high-tech into Boulder seems like a smart way both to boost the economy and attract a high number of "digital nomad" refugees, Bay area expats, and people who want to merge high tech development with keeping their body fat down (okay, with spending time outside in this glorious place.)

I wish I could tell you I've met alot of great people, and what the city is like, but truth is, I've been head down in a windowless room most of the time here, coming up for dog walks (the paths and trails are glorious and the mixed used spaces impressive), dinners, and some great bits of fun (Maceo Parker, hiking).

"Here's my own definition: It's the things we wonder about as we walk (or drive) the streets of our community.  Today, for instance, I was thinking --

•  What's with that used-book store?  The sign in its window seems to say its business is failing.

•  What's the asking price for that house?  What does it look like inside?  Why are they selling, anyway? 

•  Have any of my friends been to that new restaurant?  Could I take the kids?

You were thinking completely different things, I'm sure.  And that's the point: Hyperlocal should be relevant to you.  It should be about your day-to-day concerns in your local community.  Those definitions are personal, so hyperlocal must be personal, too. "

--Loladex founder Lawrence Hooper, discussing what problems hyper-local products should solve for communities.

So Dave Sifry announced the private beta of his new personalized and printed travel guide service, offbeat guides, last night. Back when I was still casting about for the next good thing, I spent some time with old friend Dave and heard about the ideas and the prototype.  I was excited then, and still am, and here's why:

• Picking through the comments by friends on TripAdvisor and on blogs to compile what people really think about places, lodgings and attractions for a destination is time-consuming, unwieldly and un-efficient.
• Even if you do this work, finding a place to save/store it can be a pain. And there's no good way to do the wisdom of crowds and find others' compliations (or annotations).
• When you're on the street in Rome, unless you have a smarter phone than many people do (I don't think most people today have a BlackBerry, iphone, smart phone, etc.--though they will--)paper really matters. And guidebooks just don't always have what you want. Or have too much. And tear out pages is ugly.

So, there's something great about being about to print a custom travel guide, focused on what you want to know, for a place you are headed. Having both a digital copy and a printed copy is cool, useful, disruptive--it diminishes the importance of the airline aggregator and the publishing business as middlemen, as well.

And finally, I think it's neat that someone who built something very distinctive in search back in 2003 is tackling a totally different set of problems here in 2008--and this time, it seems like Dave's been able to build some initial business models right in.

More in the breaking TechCrunch story, here.

"What we want to do in the venture capital business is take a lot of risk (which should be rewarded with a low entry valuation) and then actively mitigate the risk we took as much as we can (thereby reducing the risk for future investors and increasing the valuation).

It's the same thing that entrepreneurs want to do. When they leave their safe job and go out on their own, they are taking a lot of risk. Their entry valuation should be zero, meaning they (collectively if they have partners) own 100% of the business for whatever startup capital they invest.

By the time they offer equity to new investors, they should have reduced some of the risk. By developing a product, or by developing a technical and operating plan, by attracting other talented people to the team, or by getting customers and revenues (and sometimes even profits)."

--VC Fred Wilson, writing about risk and rosk mitigation on his blog

I've spent part of the morning--and will spend some more time--updating my lifestream data to reflect what I'm up to right now. So Louis Gray asked, what am I up to?  So, here's where my attention is going to be these days:

Co-founder, People's Software Company
People's Software Company is creating a new community platform that will make it as easy to start a community site as it is to start a blog today. Even better, our tools will make community sites lively and sustainable even for small groups. It's the magic of crowds -- for smaller crowds.

I'll be writing about our start-up experiences here and on the soon to be launched PSCO blog, will share more about our products, roadmap, business model and what problems we've solving/what's different as it moves from concepts to execution.

And of course, as a TechStars 2008 company, we're getting a great incubator experience.

Evangelist, Knight News Challenge, 2008-09
The Knight News Challenge just awarded over $5.5 million dollars to  16 software development projects from across the globe that support online discourse, community dialogue and engagement, and news as an empowering information tool.

I was a reviewer in 2007-08, and I will work with the strong team at Knight to run the 2008-09 awards. Applications will open in September, and we want to have a broad diversity of great projects...more on plans to spread the word and support prospective applicants in the next few months,

BlogHer CE
I've been writing for BlogHer since the early days, and value a chance to be part of this community. Sometime, it's a stretch, time-wise, but I want these connections to deepen and continue, so I keep fitting it in, somehow.

What's off the list?
Consulting, advising, general trouble-making will have to be on hold for the foreseeable future. 
Those 22 working hours in every day just aren't going to be enough, so this is going to be working smart, prioritizing, and GTD, all the way. And it will be tough, I know that--but I am excited about our plans and the value these projects can deliver to people.

I've been at TechStars for about 36 hours; the program started Tuesday night and it's Thursday morning now. My hopes when I accepted the spot we were fortunate enough to be offered was that this would be both an accelerator for building our company and launching our idea, and a good school to learn about being a CEO and co-leader of a small business.

After 36 hours, my sense is that it is going to be both of those things (more all all that in some other posts), but it is also going to be a major journey of transformation.  After 3 months of this program, I am going to be significantly altered in what I know and what I have experienced--and that seems amazingly exciting.

Two of the themes that have started to emerge at TechStars are: "Find amazing mentors" and "Early stage VCs fund people, not ideas."

TechStars director David Cohen (who is wonderful) is the proponent of the first statement and what it means to him (and therefore to all us eager students), is Find people you click with, who have knowledge you need, and listen deeply, learn from them, and build those relationships."  We have about 50 mentors who are part of the program, mostly local (or seriously passing through) and a big part of the focus is meeting with them.  But we're also encouraged to reach beyond these folks, into the local community and into the world, letting the TechStars team help make connections, if needed.)

Brad Feld, another founder (and a bold and interesting VC), is the person who talked about how early stage VCs fund people, not ideas. According to Brad, much of  the judgments about early investments are based on feelings about the founders, the team and whether the person can deliver. Because ideas morph, both to meet budgets and timelines, but also because of user feedback on your early releases, So while having a business plan, a sense of where revenue is going to come from, and some solid data are all important, the relationships are core(at least for Bard and his circle.)

For me, this implies that part of the TechStars experience is learning how to develop ideas and run companies; while getting the right focus for our big idea and truly defining what problem we are solving--and then iterating a product solution to address these solutiuons --is key, so is absorbing this wisdom so we can do it again and again--and that feels amazingly transformative.