John Reel’s Blog

I once had enough money to do whatever I wanted thanks to a successful start-up.  Sadly, like most lottery winners, I was unprepared for this and mismanaged my new-found wealth.

This is what I learned from being rich for a little while:

1.  I can get rich.
I think one of the biggest things holding people back from getting rich is the belief that it is possible.  I did it once, getting past this roadblock by finding mentors to guide and inspire me.  I will do it again soon, better, and with more ease, simply because I know I can do it.

2.  Success begets dangerous opportunities.
When you do well, suddenly a lot of doors open up to you.  May I humbly suggest that you ignore them unless they are directly part of your plan.  Otherwise, you may find yourself distracted, spread too thin, and losing ground.  Related, I suggest flushing out fully everything to do with what made you successful in the first place before moving on to something else.  There probably are other ways to take what you’ve done to greater success, riding on the wave you’ve started instead of starting a new wave from scratch.

3. Money does buy you happiness.
To all the people who say otherwise, I say hogwash.  There was a dramatic change in my personality when I had money.  A tremendous weight was lifted when I suddenly went from a low income to (apparent) financial security.  In a society ruled by money, no longer having to worry about money is something very worthwhile that money can buy.  (Note:  I know very happy people with no money, living off the grid.  Money is not the only route to financial security!)

4. Stuff does not buy you happiness.
There is an image that our society as a whole seems to subscribe to of what it means to be rich, and a good part of that image is attached to buying stuff.  With a lack of a different role model, I found myself subscribing to that belief system, even as I questioned why the heck I needed these things.

Next time I’m rich I’m not going to attempt to fill holes in my life by purchasing stuff.  I’m going to use the money to do good and live a more extraordinary life, defined by what I do and experience, not what I own.  Stuff just ties you down and forces you to make yet more money.  You can be rich with a lot less money if you stop buying lots of stuff!

Very inspiring quick read: 10 Unexpected Costs Of Owing Things

[As an aside:  It seems almost a right of passage with many Internet entrepreneurs to buy a really expensive car.  Why?  Why?  Why?  If I really wanted to spend that kind of cash on myself, I would get a full-time personal chef.  Now that's a luxury!]

5.  It’s important to know why you want to be rich.
Money is a means to an end, not the end in of itself.  With the pace expected of Internet entrepreneurs, the means tends to become all consuming, and when the money comes, I think many people forget what the point of it all was and continue doing what they were doing, just on grander scales.  That’s what I did. I squandered the freedom of being able to do whatever I want, and it took (temporarily) losing the option to allow me to discover what I really want to be doing with my life.

I’m actually glad that I have had this experience of gaining and losing wealth.  It has given me more balance to my life now.  It has also prepared me to gain wealth again, keep it, and live my life in a much more intentional way doing things that really make me happy.

By the way, in future posts I will write about all the things I did right and wrong in my start-up, and the lessons I learned in the process.

Got 40 minutes or so? I really enjoyed this. It’s like looking into a crystal ball and seeing the future of this blog, muhah ha hah ha!

UPDATE: Direct link is http://www.drhorrible.com/

Earlier this week, the signs went up all around Guelph, Ontario, where I live.   The by-election was called.

For those who don’t know, a by-election is something that happens when there is a vacant spot due to illness, death, criminal conviction, etc., in a riding.  The spot can only be vacant for six months, before a by-election needs to be called to fill the space.

In Guelph, the Green Party have a strong following. The Green candidate, Mike Nagy finished with nearly double the national average for the party in the 2006 federal election.  The Ontario Green vote went from 2.8% in 2003 to 8.01% of the popular vote in 2007, described as a “protest vote” to send a message to the main parties.  The Green Party is the 4th biggest party in Ontario with just under half the votes the NDP received.

Generally in by-elections, fringe parties get more votes and voter turn-out is lower.  Apparently, if everyone who voted Green in Guelph in the last general election votes Green in the by-election, Mike will win, even if voter turn-out is above average for a by-election.

There is a strong chance that Guelph will vote in Mike Nagy in the by-election, giving the Greens their first seat in Parliament.  The ramifications of this are huge.  Canada’s traditional parties have a “no seats equals no podium” argument, which is currently keeping the Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, from speaking in the televised debates.  If Mike wins the by-election in Guelph, Elizabeth gets to speak for sure, which will in turn help the Greens win more seats in the next general election.

In a recent poll, 62% of Canadian believe that Stephen Harper and Jack Layton are worried about facing Elizabeth May in the debates and 77.2% of Canadians polled want to hear Elizabeth speak in the next debates, even if they traditionally vote for other parties.

Below is a video of Elizabeth May being making a promise I think she can keep about the debates:

I figured I will start off with a somewhat interesting post to the marketers who might still read this blog, and for any startup people who tune in.

First, a back story & update:

A year ago, I made a video post (since deleted) asking people if they wanted me to review a software outsourcing product that had been mailed to me.  (I never found out how they got my real address.)

That was the most commented post I’ve ever had.  I didn’t follow up on it because:

1. Much of it was an out-of-date repackaged product.
2. The people behind it were using fake names.
3. They lied to me when I confronted them on these counts.
4. It took a long while to sort all that out.
5. As far as I know, they never sold the product, making it all irrelevant.

I could have given a comprehensive review (though not favorable), as I have a great deal of experience in this area.  I have been a high-end professional software designer since I was 18.  In the last six years I have worked with about ten different outsourcing providers from India, China, The Ukraine, and elsewhere, all found on www.elance.com.  Budgets for these projects have ranged from $200 to $200,000.

Pitfalls of outsourcing:

On the surface, it sure seems to makes sense.  Many North American companies consider outsourcing, lured by the low cost for developers in other countries. Rates range from $8 to $15 per hour, with the majority at just $10/hour.  (Rates in USD.)

Here are seven things to consider before going down this route:

1. Language Barriers: Oh, sure they can read/write English, but the subtle things can be lost in translation, which means you spend a lot of time explaining things to them on Instant Messaging.
2. Sleepless Nights: Since all of these companies are on the other side of the planet, you’re doing all that explaining at night, which leaves you tired and much more likely to make mistakes.
3. Too Literal: Most of these providers try to do exactly what you say like little coding drones.  It is rare to find someone who can see the big picture and will check in with you before doing something “stupid”, even if you asked for it.
4. No Continuation: It is very hard for these outsourcing companies to keep their staff.  The competition is fierce for programmers.  Their rates have doubled in the last year and many programmers switch jobs frequently, using the demand to continually increase their rates.  Even if they can keep their staff, if you’re not keeping them busy full-time, the people working on your projects naturally get reassigned to other clients, and you might not be able to get them back when you need them.  Long projects and outsourcing don’t mix very well.
5. Undocumented: Good luck getting well documented code that someone else can easily take over.  So, when you lose your programmer, there is often a long delay while someone else gets up to speed.  Make sure to ask for excellent documentation as part of the quote and get examples.
6. Bad Quotes: Many providers have no idea how to quote.  One guy quoted me $200 for every project, no matter how big or small.  Unless I want something really small done quickly, I work with teams with project leaders and testers, etc.  They have an idea how to quote.
7. Dishonesty: When I first started searching for providers I would ask for samples of their code.  I would then search the Internet for any identifiable bits from that code, and usually I would find it was part of some open-source project.  I would then check if the developer(s) were part of that project, which of course they were not.  I then got in the habit of hiring them for small projects and split-testing two teams against each other to see which provided the best results before going on to bigger projects.

Disasters of Outsourcing:

While I’ve had some success with this route, I’ve also had two massive disasters, amongst all the regular day-to-day challenges of outsourcing.

1. Company Vanished: I worked with one Indian company for a year who seemed awesome.  Then they vanished one day, when the project was about 95% complete and paid for.  I had no way of getting hold of them.  About five months later, they reappeared, asking if I needed any work done.  The project was abandoned by then.
2. Abandonment: After spending about $75,000 with one company, they shut me down with no notice, redistributed my team, and almost put me out of business.  Why?  They had invoiced me 10 days ago and not heard from me.  I had never missed a payment, and when they invoiced me I was on my first vacation in years and returned with a flu.  By the time they got paid, my staff had been reassigned to other projects and that project got delayed by a year and counting.  (It’s almost done now.)

Conclusion and recommendations:

I started outsourcing because it seemed so inexpensive, but I have my doubts that it is the best answer in the long run.  For future projects, I will try hiring well recommended, extremely talented, experienced, high-end local programmers. I’ll give them shares in the company to keep them around.

The theory is that they will produce better, more transferable code, and I’ll get more sleep.

Of course, I’m still working with an outsourcing team for now.   The code is good and the project leader is very competent.  It’s just a matter of keeping staff on board.

If you are considering creating software and have a limited budget, I recommend hiring someone experienced in your field to design/manage the project and to manage the outsourced developers.  It probably will save you money.  If you’re planning on a big project, I would be very wary of outsourcing.

What are your experiences?

The history of GoTryTHIS 2.

1. In July 2006, I launched GoTryTHIS, which did very well.
2. I promised a free update for multi-domains.  At that point, the code was already done, and apparently just needed tweaking to make it reasonably fast.  A month of development and version 2 would be out.  No problem.
3. Turned out, we had to totally rethink how to make it work.  It took a long time of R&D and over $100,000 to create… for a FREE upgrade!  On top of that, another few hundred thousand dollars went into related technology.
4. During that process, a major disaster struck, and our full-time programming team was taken away and reassigned to other projects, without notice.
5. The combination of the costs and loss of staff almost put us out of business.
6. After some delay, I got back the key developers and continued to work with them on GoTryTHIS2.
7. I thought it was nearing launch several months ago and in testing with real client’s data, we discovered that it wouldn’t load when there were millions of click records.  We spent the last few months redesigning the database and now it loads quite fast.
8. As of last week, it is in regression testing to make sure nothing else was broken in the process.  We are also going through all the setup and upgrading processes, testing them.
9. It should be ready for select testers to use it safely in about a month, but I’m not making any promises.
10. While all this was (and is) going on, I’ve done a few other things to keep money coming in to support all this development.  I continue to experiment with various things and see what sticks and what doesn’t.  That has in no way slowed down the work on GTT2.
11. At some point, we’ll start selling the new version, and we’ll give everyone who has version 1 the upgrade for free, as promised.
12. Version 2 really was supposed to JUST be the addition of multiple domains in one interface.  The free upgrade is really version 3, with a much more powerful interface.
13. I am going to switch it to a recurring payment structure for new customers and for anyone who wants further updates.  This will ensure that we can continue to provide high quality support and also continue to keep the programmers that we need, adding new features full-time, now that all the R&D and hard stuff is out of the way.

This has been a long haul for everyone, especially myself.  I hope that the new version makes it up to you all, whenever it does get released.

Thank you,
John.

I’ve been running companies on the web since 1994 and my first web 2.0ish startup made $750K so far, almost half in the first week.  I’ve got some useful insight for for marketers, startups, and programmers.

Yet, I stopped blogging.  Here’s why:

1. I like my privacy.  (I think.)
2. Only marketers know I exist and I also want to write about other things that are more interesting to me.
3. I get distracted easily.
4. If I’m at a computer, I should be working, not blogging.
5. It’s sunny out.  Why am I in a dark room blogging?
6. I feel arrogant.  Who could possibly care what I have to say?
7. Some of the things I think are rather counter-culture and/or cynical.
8. Once in a while, I change my opinions frequently.
9. Blogging is out there forever and attached to my name.
10. I can’t spell, and I don’t have spell-check on my blog.*
11. I get distracted easily.**
12. People I care about might read this.
13. Nobody might ever read this.***
14. My editor, Jane will be offended by my bad grammar.****
15. Anything I write may be used in a court of law, against me.
16. UPDATE: And of course, because at least one person always has something negative to comment on whatever you write online.

However, I have a lot on my mind, and I feel like sharing, for better or worse.

If you care to read or subscribe, please be aware:

• Some of it might help you with your business.
• Much of it will be random topics that will only appeal to me, stalkers, and Internet voyeurs.
• All of it is me.
• Very little of it, if anything, will be for promoting affiliate products.
• This is kind of practice for the new direction I want to take with my life.  More on that in future posts.
• I might get distracted by something shiny at any moment and forget all about this.

Notes:

* Firefox used to spell-check automatically for me, and now it doesn’t.  What’s up with that?  OK, I just installed a WordPress spell checker plug-in.

** Yes, I said that already.  I really get distracted easily.

*** Please comment and let me know if anyone is out there!

**** If you want your written work to make you look smarter, hire Jane at http://www.WickedlyGoodGrammar.com

(I can promote Jane’s editing service because it isn’t an affiliate link, I use her services often, she is really good at what she does, she is a close friend who I see frequently, and she taught me the correct use of commas in lists such as this one.)

This is what’s on my mind at the moment, something I’ve thought about often.

In general I am quite dismayed by television, though I have found some shows that really inspire me. I’ll tell you about them below after I make my case for why television programming desperately needs to be rethought.

Social-proof works for all types of behavior from influencing what we buy to how we live our lives and even how we die. There is a concept called “The Werther Effect” where the reporting of one suicide actually results in an increase in suicides over the following weeks or much longer depending on circumstances. This is because it is normalized and it becomes a more acceptable looking solution to a problem.

The Werther Effect is so strong that many countries ban reporting of suicides, yet our society has no problem sensationalizing murders and glorifying the ones responsible for the act. Hmm.

As strongly as I feel about that, I’m not talking about video games and violent TV turning kids into killers at their high schools. (Of course, the more sensational press it gets each time it happens, the more normalized it gets and the more of an acceptable solution it seems to people who are anywhere near the edge, and the more it will happen.)

What I’m talking about is much more subtle. My dismay with television programming is that it is a fountain of social-proof and it demonstrates really poor role models. Often these are people’s most significant role models and even if you try to avoid it, this stuff soaks into all levels of our culture as sure as it’s bad to wear socks with sandals. Says who? Everyone! Why? Where did that come from dang-nab-it. Sometimes I like to wear socks with sandals! Shun me! shun me!

Television was (and is still mostly) driving into our culture many very bad examples of how to socialize, communicate and problem-solve, turning our society into a much less happy place than it could be if our social media were more positive.

Of particular annoyance are many of the half-hour sitcoms that show family-life where the main couple is outright nasty to each other and it’s funny. Oh sure, I’ve laughed at it, but I felt dirty afterwards. Worse yet, I sometimes catch myself mimicking them in an attempt to be funny with my friends or someone closer. Guess what? The person on the other side doesn’t even get that it is a joke. It isn’t funny in real life but it insidiously finds its way there and I suspect it ‘innocently’ harms family life and interpersonal relationships for most people on so many levels it’s staggering.

Culturally, I think we believe that we can separate entertainment from how we act in similar situations - that we are intellectually above influence. But the truth is that we just are not. That’s why there is so much advertising and why product placement makes shows so much money. We are strongly affected and shaped by what we watch on T.V.

So what shows do I really like? I watch very little TV now, but I do have some shows that really make me feel good to watch. Two of them were on tonight with new episodes, or new to me in any case.

Boston Legal: This show is awe inspiring and I have a great deal of respect for everyone involved with it. With few exceptions I can aspire to be as good a person as any the characters on the show. They are good people with strength of conviction. They deal with very controversial issues eloquently, bringing things out in the open that need to be talked about… and I laugh out loud many times during the show, imagining how much fun they were having when they were filming it. Thank you for that show!

Family Guy: Yes, Family Guy. My parents hate that show and I can understand why, however; after Boston Legal tonight I watched this show and was delighted at how brilliant it was. I admire the creator’s bravery at having nothing be off limits in shockingly exposing our failings as a society and at their creative ability to take you in unexpected, riotously funny directions from moment to moment. Thank you to them as well.

Television is one of the biggest influences in our culture, if not the biggest. People spend hours a day in this private school with the best teachers money can buy, and the curriculum is to turn us against each other. Much of it makes our society a worse place by getting us alone and giving lessons on how to interact in a very detrimental fashion for when we leave the classroom. Sound like brain-washing to anyone?

I hope more shows come out that help shake us up and make us take notice of some of our crazy belief systems and mind-bogglingly bizarre priorities. I hope more shows follow Boston Legal’s guide by giving us people we can really look up to, both the fictional ones and the performers and writers for taking a stand and being a positive influence and making us better people in the process.

BTW, my television is currently for sale on Kijiji.

Hi.

If you have subscribed to this blog or to its mailing list, or are coming here looking for anything to do with products I have been or am involved with, please read this post about the shift in all future postings.

This blog has my name on it and it will reflect me, not my work from this point forward. I’ve removed any sales-type posts, but kept a few key-moment posts for now, until I move them to more appropriate sites.

If you are interested in getting to know me, what I like, what’s going on in my life - to a certain degree anyway - I welcome you to stay on this list and/or check back in from time to time. I also invite you to share with me your thoughts on what I write.

I only ask one thing: Please keep things positive. I have been known to take your comments personally.

Thank you,
John Reel.

Congratulations to Simon and Cheryl! 

They had their baby yesterday, a healthy girl they have named Ivy.  All went very well.