An Open Discussion Of My Personal Business Strategy

How cool (and appropriate) if I renamed this to “Zachary Burt’s Strategy Blog”?

Anyway, the launch of my newest site, AwesomenessReminders, spawned this comment on Hacker News:

Zack,

I am a fan, but your recent rash of “sites” is worrisome. You launched: HipHopGoblin (<1 year, down), CustomerFind (1< year ago), NYC-Chicago-Bus (49 days ago), EndAnts (23 days ag), CompassionPit (5 days ago!) and now this, AwesomenessReminders.

When do you even have time to improve, even promote, projects if you’re tossing them on a weekly basis? It takes time to make anything monetizable, at least you need to create it first.

I think you’re just an small sample of a generation of people who are coming to see businesses as just “idea + landing page”. Sell, then build. A/B test today and build when the money piles up. etc. etc.

Slow down, for your own sake. Maybe even work on something you actually care about.
HipHopGoblin had a lot of potential, I used to listen to it; so you’re at least capable of discovering and executing good ideas. You just need patience, and maybe someone to ask you “how’s it coming?”. Perhaps .. ProgressReminder?

The reply I wrote was so long that I feel it’s better formatted as a blog post. So here goes:

I agree that HipHopGoblin had a lot of potential. Fortunately, so do a lot of other people. HHG has been acquired by another team and they’ve given me some equity. In return, I am staying on in an advisory role. This allows them to turn the dream into reality and me to do more of what I enjoy (networking with hiphop fans, rappers, and hip hop industry figures… Jay Electronia is following me on Twitter, why aren’t you?). Of course, it’s possible that staying on board in a more dedicated role and seeing it through to the end could have produced a more likely chance of success, I have to an extent de-risked myself yet still exposed myself to the upsides of an excellent outcome. The truth of the matter though is that I completely lost motivation to do programming on HHG, so I was hopeful when the opportunity to pass the torch came into my life and I am confident in the top-tier programming abilities and general caliber of the new team.

As far as CustomerFind, which was started as an indirect offshoot of HHG: I hack in new features when I get the inspiration, but CustomerFind continues to be a profitable, zero-effort source of passive income. Unfortunately, it’s also completely stagnant — zero growth. I believe that the site has extra potential; however, I’ve tried growing it in a few different directions but have each time been stifled because I’m not exactly clear how to market it (or how to grow and rebrand it). Some serious customer engagement would probably be advantageous, but I feel like each customer is using it for a different thing, and there’s not enough of a sample size in order to figure out how to pursue it. I could drive some traffic through an AdWords campaign, and I hired a designer to help me redo the landing page before doing it. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a critical thinker, and ultimately the onus was on me to design the site, but mental blocks and excuses prevented me from doing this (sample thoughts: “i don’t know how to design a fun ux”, “how do I lay out the landing page for an archetypal customer if I don’t even know ANYTHING about who they are?”). But I could just update the website to mention the new Facebook monitoring features I built, but I haven’t. So that’s what’s stopping me from CustomerFind, and I’m glad I have an opportunity to publicly ask for some help – some guidance. The very act of writing this out has actually triggered some inspiration about how I might go about doing it (highlight the main 3 benefits on the homepage, spend some $ trying out different ad combinations). It would require a commitment of a marketing budget, though, and finding a programmer to work on the code base: because I don’t actually feel like doing any programming work on it, myself. I wonder why that is – is it because I’m more eager to hack on early prototypes of fun ideas than continue them? Or is it because the code base is so development-unfriendly that working on it is just no fun? (For example, there’s no automated testing.) Soliciting feedback.

I did do some Customer Development meetings related to CustomerFind, and pivots suggested room for a potential enterprise-y Social Media dashboard product. Unfortunately, I am not thrilled with the prospect of competing in that market (hint: against Radian6, Alterian SM2), given how much funding those companies have as well as their development squads & adoption rates. I do have an idea for an easy SaaSy product in that niche that I may yet develop, but I’m going to keep the idea secret for now lest someone steal it. (It will probably be my next product once AwesomenessReminders is fully humming.)

Oh, and I do have one other idea about how CustomerFind could be huge. It will probably involve about $3000 in expenses to solve a few important customer development hypotheses (there is technology risk AND market risk, but if the technology works I will just use it for myself and not bother taking it to market unless I feel like world domination). Big “if” there, though.

EndAnts is getting scrapped. It’s something that I believe should exist, but I don’t know how it should be presented. At this point the UI sucks so bad that even I don’t enjoy using the product. Apparently, at least some people like it, given that they’re motivated enough to email me about it. How many people like it? I don’t know, I don’t have a good device for keeping track of Retention metrics (Google Analytics’s “New” vs. “Returning” feels too vague). Any suggestions for dealing with this?

CompassionPit is growing. It has proved to be a source of relief for many people. I’m slowly launching a PR campaign for it. One thing I’m working is making sure I use the principles of SUCCESs in the pitch, which is useful in getting people to remember your ideas. Incidentally, I’m thinking of forking it off and rebranding it as Webconfessional.com, geared towards Catholics. How selective is the Vatican with their RFQs? Are they ready to go digital? Religious groups need digital solutions.

And it’s looking like AwesomenessReminders will be another source of passive income, with over 19 signups already (zero paid traffic sent!).

So yeah – to address the original concerns, maybe in a sense, I should be swinging for the fences, trying to go big or go home. Maybe I should pick a market that I really personally care about and dedicate myself to it. To these concerns, I have nothing but rationalization. (The “try it and see” has worked profitably in the past; I’m also building up a skill set that will make me better prepared for when I sit down for “the long haul” (once I identify the right market); at least I am collecting persistent sources of income along the way (this blog is one of them, but it’s also technically a loss given the amount of money I spend on books: please donate to my Amazon.com book fund to encourage future posts! PayPal payments to zackster@gmail.com would be greatly appreciated).

I welcome your thoughts, and opportunities for collaboration.

P.S. Anticipating a potential criticism, I am being open, but not transparent. I have a few other products in the pipeline, but I am not ready to launch them yet so I am remaining mum for strategic purposes.



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AwesomenessReminders: a great and hilarious way to show someone in your life that you care.
AwesomenessReminders is owned and operated by me, Zachary Burt.



  • Allena

    Hey Zack, I think you’re moving in the right direction as I can see your latest projects more deeply reflecting personal interests (tech + psych, personal development). I think you’re on the edge of finding something you’re truly passionate about and that once you find that… you’ll be able to keep focus and take it all the way. Keep Truckin’!

  • Jonas

    can I ask you how you get those phone calls done for Awesomeness Reminders? I signed up yesterday and I’m curious to see how she (the receiver) likes it.

  • Anonymous

    I was about to ping you about the same thing when I saw you come out with awesomeness reminder.

    I will say that I’m doing the same thing. If you saw my portfolio over the last 2 years, it’ll look like one small project after the other. The benefit I see with this method, though, is natural selection. All these little living projects compete for my attention and eventually the most interesting one wins out. Turns out this is a great filter. And my current project, Nebulous Notes, is going to end up being my most successful while simultaneously the one I’m most passionate about.

    VCs invest in 10 companies in the hope that 1 makes it. If those are the odds entrepreneurs face, then maybe it’s better to create 10 companies yourself and let one hit it big.

    You are interested in ideas and in expressing them as quickly as possible. And that’s great, keep going with that. Maybe eventually, you’ll find one that is worth going into more depth with. Or maybe you’ll have so many little soldiers, that you can just coast off off the aggregate sum of their effort.

  • Allena

    Hey Zack, I think you're moving in the right direction as I can see your latest projects more deeply reflecting personal interests (tech + psych, personal development). I think you're on the edge of finding something you're truly passionate about and that once you find that… you'll be able to keep focus and take it all the way. Keep Truckin'!

  • Jonas

    can I ask you how you get those phone calls done for Awesomeness Reminders? I signed up yesterday and I'm curious to see how she (the receiver) likes it.

  • Philosophistry

    I was about to ping you about the same thing when I saw you come out with awesomeness reminder.

    I will say that I'm doing the same thing. If you saw my portfolio over the last 2 years, it'll look like one small project after the other. The benefit I see with this method, though, is natural selection. All these little living projects compete for my attention and eventually the most interesting one wins out. Turns out this is a great filter. And my current project, Nebulous Notes, is going to end up being my most successful while simultaneously the one I'm most passionate about.

    VCs invest in 10 companies in the hope that 1 makes it. If those are the odds entrepreneurs face, then maybe it's better to create 10 companies yourself and let one hit it big.

    You are interested in ideas and in expressing them as quickly as possible. And that's great, keep going with that. Maybe eventually, you'll find one that is worth going into more depth with. Or maybe you'll have so many little soldiers, that you can just coast off off the aggregate sum of their effort.

  • Jonas

    A tangential business idea. How about you call people every day and check up on their goal? Say a 30-day challenge to quit smoking or whatever. I think you could charge a lot more than $10 for that.

  • Jonas

    A tangential business idea. How about you call people every day and check up on their goal? Say a 30-day challenge to quit smoking or whatever. I think you could charge a lot more than $10 for that.

  • Beeeph

    Very inspiring article, thank you!

    Could you impart a few tips for being a more prolific developer. Aside from your hard work, are there any methodologies or technologies you frequently use speed up the development of your software ideas?

    Thanks and keep up the excellent work, I just signed up with AwesomnessReminders.com and plan to gift the calls to my friends/family.

  • Beeeph

    Very inspiring article, thank you!

    Could you impart a few tips for being a more prolific developer. Aside from your hard work, are there any methodologies or technologies you frequently use speed up the development of your software ideas?

    Thanks and keep up the excellent work, I just signed up with AwesomnessReminders.com and plan to gift the calls to my friends/family.

  • http://www.zacharyburt.com/ Zachary Burt

    for me it’s “code in order to bring an idea into fruition.” i love computers and the automation that they can accomplish but i am not into programming for its own sake. thus, for me the process is something like this:1) have idea2) figure out what i need to do in order to bring idea from idea to reality3) do those thingsfor example, in 10th grade i learned perl solely because i wanted to make AIM bots (AOL Instant Messenger). meanwhile that year, i BSed my way through my ap computer science class, earning me a 3 on the exam. for efficient coding and deployment, i like textmate + github. i value easily-readable code over terse elite snippets. to me, exploring advanced technology for its own sake is a good thing because it builds skill set and can be fun. but since goal is to set up a new idea as soon as possible, it doesn’t make sense to learn a new framework. if something promises real improvements, i can be motivated to learn it (i did that for jquery), but when nosql was all the rage i did not invest time learning it because at present it’s just not relevant to my “purposes”. if i were to partner with another developer, i would choose someone more technically adept than me, who prefers to invest more time specifically building the programming skill set out of passion

  • http://www.zacharyburt.com/ Zachary Burt

    for me it's “code in order to bring an idea into fruition.” i love computers and the automation that they can accomplish but i am not into programming for its own sake. thus, for me the process is something like this:

    1) have idea
    2) figure out what i need to do in order to bring idea from idea to reality
    3) do those things

    for example, in 10th grade i learned perl solely because i wanted to make AIM bots (AOL Instant Messenger). meanwhile that year, i BSed my way through my ap computer science class, earning me a 3 on the exam.

    for efficient coding and deployment, i like textmate + github. i value easily-readable code over terse elite snippets.

    to me, exploring advanced technology for its own sake is a good thing because it builds skill set and can be fun. but since goal is to set up a new idea as soon as possible, it doesn't make sense to learn a new framework. if something promises real improvements, i can be motivated to learn it (i did that for jquery), but when nosql was all the rage i did not invest time learning it because at present it's just not relevant to my “purposes”.

    if i were to partner with another developer, i would choose someone more technically adept than me who chooses to invest more time specifically building the programming skill set out of passion

  • Beeeph

    Thanks, Zack!

    I fall into the category of engineers that is passionate about building my skill set and, as such, I feel I spend more time than needed in the tech design phase trying to write the perfect line of code. I actually wish I was more like what Joel Spolsky considers you and other prolific developers as Duct Tape Programmers…

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html

    As Bruce Lee said, ” If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” I guess battling my instincts to spend time on unnecessary design is my surest way to becoming more prolific.

  • Beeeph

    Thanks, Zack!

    I fall into the category of engineers that is passionate about building my skill set and, as such, I feel I spend more time than needed in the tech design phase trying to write the perfect line of code. I actually wish I was more like what Joel Spolsky considers you and other prolific developers as Duct Tape Programmers…

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html

    As Bruce Lee said, ” If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” I guess battling my instincts to spend time on unnecessary design is my surest way to becoming more prolific.

  • Beeeph

    Thanks, Zack!

    I fall into the category of engineers that is passionate about building my skill set and, as such, I feel I spend more time than needed in the tech design phase trying to write the perfect line of code. I actually wish I was more like what Joel Spolsky considers you and other prolific developers as Duct Tape Programmers…

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23….

    As Bruce Lee said, ” If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.” I guess battling my instincts to spend time on unnecessary design is my surest way to becoming more prolific.

  • Rixter999

    I disagree with the comment that you should settle down and not try so many ideas. In my mind, you’re right to experiment. Think of it as dating. You need to play the field before you know you’ve found the right one. You’re at the right age for this now. If you’re still jumping from idea to idea when you’re 40, then yeah, settle down.

  • Rixter999

    I disagree with the comment that you should settle down and not try so many ideas. In my mind, you’re right to experiment. Think of it as dating. You need to play the field before you know you’ve found the right one. You’re at the right age for this now. If you’re still jumping from idea to idea when you’re 40, then yeah, settle down.

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