I have a Jura coffee machine at home. I bought it because I love coffee and the Jura is a fantastic machine that makes GREAT coffee that is consistently, wonderfully, perfect.

When I turn the Jura on, it goes through a little routine that heats the water and cleans things out. It takes about 45 seconds. And then, it is … ready. I don’t have to guess. I didn’t have to read the manual to discover that readiness follows the heating-rinsing routine. The machine tells me. The little LED display goes from Heating, to Rinsing, to Ready.

And every morning I think – as I press the button and breathe deep – wouldn’t it be lovely if everything was so well behaved, and told you when it was ready for action. The idea, the plan, the presentation, the product, the team, the soufflé.

Sometimes it’s obvious. Most of the time, not.

Take the guesswork out. Test. Get out of the building, and test.

Put together your best version of the answer. Take it on the road. Talk and listen. Test.

What do you think? Is it ever too soon to test?

Image copyright: captainmcdan via Flickr

Neatly filed under Managing,Skippiness
Tags: doing, product, start

Whether to name your company Bland or not is one of those decisions you’ll live with for a while – a few months at least and probably for years. It can be tough though – probably better done in a series of 10 minute discussions than with hours spent at the whiteboard or domain-name engine.

In Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki suggests:

A remarkable name for your organisation, product, or service is like pornography: It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Coming up with a good name is easier than creating a product or service, but you wouldn’t think so based on the atrocities out there.

So the challenge is set.

Looking for a name myself, I came across the fantastic wikipaedia – list of company name etymologies – that walks through 440 (on the day I looked) company name stories.

Here’s how they break down (allowing that some names made it into more than one category):

• 149 – based on founder names (like Adidas)
• 142 – portmanteau words or initials (like Amoco)
• 76 – based on location (like 3M)
• 62 – clever names (like 3Com)
• 31 – quirky names (like Blaupunkt)
• 27 – language based names (like Akamai)

Three caveats: the source is wiki-selected, so not cleverly chosen to be representative of all names; my categorisation isn’t scientific (or probably repeatable, even by me); there’s no suggestion that these names are particularly good, although most are extremely well known.

However, three things strike me about the results:

1. With all the creativity that founders show to get their new business out of the traps, fully one third have fallen back on the names they were given by their parents. Does this mean that naming is unimportant or difficult? That founders are vain? That the search for clever is overwhelmed by the need for a working title?
2. Location – Pacific this, Brazilian that, Stanford the other. Is this a cheap form of marketing (we’re from the same place as you) or again, is it expediency?
3. 34% come from letters a-e.

I find it comforting to know that others find naming difficult, and liberating that some of the most well known companies have changed their name along the way, some more than once.

Names are important, no more than that. A great name is inspiring, but finding one shouldn’t get in the way of building a great company. I’ve spent too many hours fretting in meeting rooms, coffee shops, offices, (and bed) often to the detriment of Getting Things Done. Not smart.

The alternative might be to get someone else to do it. A little outside perspective is always useful but take care with companies offering naming at a fee. Salon covered this a few years ago (which you can find here) – sadly they’ve deleted the main copy, this link leads to the for-printer version.

Neatly filed under Foundations,Making Promises
Tags: naming, start

What happens when the slow controls the quick? Sometimes the quick gets stuck.

Bre Pettis and Kio Stark may have the antidote.

Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

Which was quickly transformed into this poster by James Provost.

Which all reminds me of something by Yoda said ….

There is no try. There is do, or not do.

It’s too easy to get stuck. Instead … get done.

Neatly filed under Innovating,Keeping Promises,Managing
Tags: build, motivation, planning, start

Steve Wozniak is an engineer who sits in the middle of the personal computer story.

The way I heard it, Wozniak was the last person who created a whole computer – pulled the hardware together, wrote the software, built the Apple.

I was reminded of Woz today by this post from Guy Kawasaki, who also spent time at Apple. Wozniak is an engineer but the parting thoughts are good for anyone starting or building a business. Now I realise I’m quoting a quote but, according to Kawasaki:

“The book ends with Woz’s thoughts on being a great engineer:

• Don’t waiver
• See things in gray-scale
• Work alone
• Trust your instincts”

Starting and building a business is a test of will. The problem has never been a lack of ideas. Any organisation that’s been around for more than five minutes is presented with more opportunities than it will ever have the resources to chase down. The difficulty is in choosing what not to do, which rocks to put down, when to say no.

The antidote to too many opportunities is to know what you’re up to:

• Get it clear and firm in your head; then don’t waiver.
• Understand the truth at the heart of the thing, what’s really going on; see things in gray-scale.
• On your way to market, only work with people who care as much about the success of your thing as you do; work alone with that team, there’s plenty of time for interested parties after you’ve nailed it.
• By definition, you’re doing something that no-one has done before. No-one knows whether to zig or zag, it’s your decision; trust your instincts.

Neatly filed under Focus,Leading
Tags: Apple, build, start