Obie Fernandez

Stocking Stuffer: Mental Notes

I've now bought a few of these Mental Notes decks for the Hashrocket offices. Each card (52 in all) has an insight drawn from psychology that can help you with brainstorming and problem solving. They arrive in an attractive faux leather box and the whole package seems like a great little Christmas gift. I'm not making any money from this referral -- I just think they're great.

Mental Notes (about $50 incl. shipping to US destinations)

Get the first 7 cards as a PDF download

This Is Not The Greatest Song In The World

...It's Just a Tribute

Change is one of the only constants in life. Today marks a big change in our life at Hashrocket as we say goodbye to one of the original Rocketeers, Jon "Lark" Larkowski. He's taking a break from consulting and moving on to greener pastures on the west coast. Don't recruit him all at once now. Seriously.

Once it was established that Lark was actually leaving Hashrocket, I knew I had to put together a tribute blog post. After a ridiculous amount of clicking on the Older link in Gmail's search results, I was able to dig up Jon's first conversation with me. It was his emailed application to work with me on the Citycliq project back on August 29, 2007:

I want this job.  You would have to train and mentor me on the deeper Rails parts.  The web design and CSS, I know.  As for personality, I have a feeling I'd be a great fit.  Let's find out.

I left my .NET job two months ago, because I discovered joy in Rails.  Learning Rails this last year has made me feel like a kid again.  I realized I want to be a dynamic player in a vital, thought-leading, intelligent scene, for a change.  Saw you at RailsConf/RejectConf, though we didn't meet.  A chance to work/learn/play with someone of your reputation in the community would be exciting.

I can start Monday, unless you take Labor Day off.  In which case, I love the beach!

Read on for my resume.  Call if you're interested.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

Jon

I've since used Lark's email as an example of how to apply to a job with boldness. He flattered me without coming off as (too much of) a fanboy. The "I can start Monday, unless you take Labor Day off" line was priceless. I remember exclaiming "Who is this guy?"

Who indeed! It wasn't too long before Jon and I were off on adventures together, including coming up with the Hashrocket name and logo, as well as being part of the original small team that got the company off the ground.

As some of you might know, "Hashrocket" was one of the proposed names for our electronic+metal band project. Our only production was a rough cover of the Michael Jackson classic, Dirty Diana, with vocals by a girl named, you guessed it, Diana. No you can't get a copy of it.

Our first serious business trip together was kicking off a deal in NYC with Thomson Reuters. As we hustled over from our hotel to the Reuters building in Times Square, just a few short blocks away, I decided we should buy some authentic New York bagels for breakfast. Thing was, we didn’t quite have time (nor space in the cramped bagel shop) to actually eat the bagels and enjoy our coffees before 9 am, the scheduled time we were to meet the client. Instead of waiting to eat later, or skipping a meal, we took our bagels to go, in little brown paper bags, and continued on our way.

At the lobby of the Reuters building, we were held up by the fact that the client was delayed and unavailable to let us up to the appointed floor. So we stood there, hungrily, debating the timing of our breakfast. One the one hand, a warm bagel is much better tasting than a cold bagel. On the other, it would be easier to sit down for breakfast once we made it upstairs to an office, rather than chowing down in the Reuters building lobby. I told Jon, “You know, we could just wait until we got upstairs and then we could eat our bagels as we meet the new clients.”

“That... would be quite a power play,” responded Jon, with his signature wit, adding “there’s nothing like eating during personal introductions to really establish who’s in charge.”

And that's exactly what we did. Reuters remains one of the largest accounts we've ever had in the history of the company.

One of Lark's favorite contributions to Hashrocket was our bookclub, which he produced and hosted on a regular basis after I threw a fit about none of the Rocketeers having read The Rails Way yet. The phrase "it's not about book club" has become our shorthand catchphrase when there's any sort of organizational interpersonal strife or miscommunication. It started when Lark frustratedly called everyone out at an all-hands company meeting for not participating in book club. It was a cliche case of good intentions gone wrong. Lark was trying to promote continuous learning, social gathering, and intellectual discussion. But due to frustration it came out all wrong, and it ended with Lark stammering, "It's not about book club!" So, this was the archetypal event that we now allude to with the phrase. It also sometimes a playful euphemism for, "Fuck you, Lark."

I asked most of the old-time Rocketeers to share their favorite memories of working with Lark. Desi and Sandro were quick to reply, so their comments are below. Corey, in typical fashion, sent pictures of himself sans comments. Dammit, Corey! (The rest of you can chip in via the comments if you want.)

"Fear is the mind killer"

...Lark said this to me all the time in the early days and it drove me nuts, but now it makes me want to cry because I am gonna miss him. One thing that is super memorable about Jon it's his laugh. I can hear it in my head I know it so well. I'll definitely miss the laugh. - Desi

 

Lark was the mother of Hashrocket. Lark made it his purpose to continually ask how each of our decisions affected our company ethos. His largest concern was that we'd turn into just another development shop so he organized extracurriculars to ensure we took advantage of all the great minds at Hashrocket. - Sandro

Comcast Trickery: Keeping the Numbers Up

I got an interesting, unsolicited call from a Comcast salesperson yesterday. I only stayed on the line at first because I thought I had forgotten to pay the bill or something. Before I could cut her off, the rep offered me 22 megabit service (an improvement from my current 6) for $1 less that I'm paying now. That works out to $59/month and no further contractual agreement would be needed. After some back and forth over the details I agreed to the deal. Seemed innocent enough.

I later tweeted about the exchange, taking particular delight in the exchange around whether new equipment would be needed, to which the rep had said, "Oh yessir, otherwise it would burn up your modem!"

Today I spotted a link to news about the mass of customers canceling their cable television service and I realized that there may be some trickery afoot that I didn't initially detect. You see, the package that I was sold included "20 basic cable channels for free."

When told that I informed the rep that I had purposely canceled my cable tv service 6 months ago. She acknowledged that fact readily, but insisted that I would get the "free" television service as part of the higher speed package and that it required no additional equipment or contractual obligations.

"So I just have to plug the cable straight into my television?"

"Yes."

Okay, I guess I'm fine with that. But am I? My choice to disconnect cable television did not solely reflect a personal desire to be more effective with my time. It was also a statement of rejection of cable television overall, since I favor a future where television content is streamed on demand and ala carte. Besides that cable news makes my head explode.

So anyway what do you want to bet that an important part of this Comcast campaign is artificially inflating the number of cable television subscribers? Or at least mitigating the drop? Seems to me that they'd be doing whatever possible right now to keep their numbers up.

BizConf 2010 Recap Video

Our annual BizConf recap video is ready! For attendees a chance to reminisce and if you weren't there, well, this is what you missed: connections, creativity and community.

BTW dates for BizConf events next year should be announced before Christmas.

Liveblogging: Lean Startup Machine Chicago

9:51pm Sunday

Well, we didn't win the grand prize, but I'm very proud of our team. We worked really hard and got a ton of useful advice and encouragement from the organizers, judges and mentors. Big thanks to Eric Ries and major props to Bernhard, Brandon, Eduardo, Trevor, Kyle, and Ben for putting on such a kickass learning event.

4:13pm Sunday

Whew! Presentation is over. I think we got our story across correctly. Now we sit tight and watch the rest of the competitors.

Companion Links for KickEatery.com Presentation

First MVP is our landing page, which is unchanged at KickEatery.com. After this morning's major pivot we linked that landing page to a followup form to help us gauge adoption at our initial commitment levels of $10 to $100.

Thanks to good participation from twitter followers and a small investment in Facebook ads, were were able to drive a healthy amount of traffic and conversions to our landing page. We even did some A/B testing around our tagline. Here is a screenshot of our Unbounce dashboard showing conversion stats of approximately 3%.

Throughout the weekend, we also created a Startup Canvas to help us achieve a shared understanding of our business concept.

3:27pm Sunday

Finally the presentations and judging kicks off. First up is RoutineMachine, which is a tool to help people be accountable over the course of a 30 day period. The presenter just told us he got the best reaction/responses to man on the street surveying by telling them they were part of an "Apprentice-style reality tv show. Seriously..." The room got a good chuckle out of that.

2:52pm Sunday

The heat is on. Second MVP prototype is deployed. We're waiting for the final "pencils down" from the organizers as Rob puts finishing touches on our slide deck, which now includes a breakdown of our hypotheses and assumptions, "pivot table" showing how our business model evolved over time, screenshots of our MVPs and a revenue model.

Excited about our potential, but I've zoned out of what the other teams are doing so I have no idea if we'll be in the running for the final $1000 prize.

12:08pm Sunday

Thank goodness that we "fell back" to DST last night. That extra hour of sleep was very needed.

The team is now over an hour into a heavy discussion about pivoting. We've split into a few different work streams to handle the presentation, number crunching and next version of our MVP. If we validate and adopt this pivot then KickEatery will have an actual product and profitable business model. Things are getting very interesting at this point.

9:00pm Saturday

Launched! Checkout kickeatery.com (In case you didn't figure it out yet, our name is inspired by kickstarter.com)

Looking back, I'm pretty impressed that we did some fairly extensive customer research and achieved our MVP in less than 12 hours. Total cash outlay: approximately $60 for Facebook advertising and registration of the kickeatery.com domain with Namecheap.

Wait, MVP? Really? Well, I guess the point is that for now the minimum viable product is a website to validate the concept and make sure that the investment that we would put into creating a feature-filled application would be worth it. These lean startup guys are definitely on to something.

Since the team has now dwindled down to just three members, we're looking at how to wrap up the day. We're gradually filling up our Startup Canvas as well as brainstorming how we can prove the concept prior to an actual website implementation. I'm thinking that a successful fundraising effort would probably garner news coverage and serve as good PR fodder for publicity and showcasing on the kickeatery homepage in the future. My Jacksonville Beach peeps can look forward to a "Bring Indian Food to the Beach" campaign in the near future. :)

7:41pm Saturday

After a quick break for dinner and socializing, the landing page is almost done. It was easy thanks to Unbounce. We're still tweaking a more detailed survey that we plan to send to the folks that gave us follow up information on the previous survey, but that should be done soon. We're also working on a Startup Canvas to draw out information that we'll need for our presentation tomorrow.

5:19pm Saturday

Relocated to Hashrocket Chicago for a change of pace and better chance of getting Rob's laptop online. (I also wanted to pick up some yummy raw food at French Market before they closed.)

Now we're talking about followup to the survey results, which indicate enough interest in the core hypothesis.

A quick look at the list of deliverables for tomorrow indicates that we need to boil the information we've collected so far:

• Make a clear statement of business assumptions (i.e. problem, business model, etc.).
• Validate or refute assumptions based upon user or customer feedback.
• Create a clear MVP (or MVP spec) that sheds light on assumptions via real data.

We're thinking our MVP (Minimum Viable Product) might simply consist of an ad campaign and a landing page to collect information about our champions.

3:30pm Saturday

After a tough iteration, we finally agreed on a survey for restaurant owners. We needed to validate the questions in some way, so I called up my friend Guy, who owns a local Thai restaurant in Jacksonville. We got some interesting insights from the conversation, especially around the importance of competitors within a 5 mile radius.

Now we're trying to figure out if the data collected means we need to "pivot" from our original concept.

1:35pm Saturday, Nov 6

Bernhard Kappe is mentoring our team and telling us to not put the cart before the horse. We need to determine that people have the problem we've identified before we propose the solution that we're discussing. Where is the pain?

The group believes the pain is there for the consumer. For the restauranteur, we don't know and we need to find out.

1:11pm Saturday, Nov 6

I'm currently participating in Lean Startup Machine, a weekend-long startup competition that conforms to Lean Startup principles, a method of using customer feedback to rapidly iterate your product to reach product/market fit.

Eric Ries kicked off Friday evening's event followed by networking and pitches. Kevin Taylor of Obtiva advised us to leave Agile practices for when fea Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits, authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development also gave brief presentations and are functioning as team mentors for the duration. Participants selected ideas and formed teams to work on their project over the weekend. On Sunday, teams will pitch their business and Minimum Viable Product to a panel of well-known entrepreneurs for cash and mentoring.

I pitched my idea and enough people liked it that I am now leading a startup team. The root of the concept is the lack of cuisine diversity within particular neighborhoods and suburbs. My gut (haha) says that there is pent-up demand that would make itself manifest if given the right vehicle. The backstory is that for at least a few years I've been ranting about the pathetic fact that there is no Indian food near Jacksonville Beach. We have to drive at least 20-30 minutes to the Baymeadows area of South Jacksonville, where there are at least half-a-dozen Indian restaurants.

Our hypothesis is currently split in two parts:

 

1. Customers with pent-up demand will pledge seed money to attract a particular type of restaurant to their neighborhood.
2. Restaurant entrepreneurs will be inspired by a successful campaign to open a restaurant that fulfills customer demand.

 

It's been a lot of fun so far. My teammates and I are currently trying to validate the first hypothesis and the assumptions behind it using a quick 4-question survey.

Playing the Radical

Back in 2008 I was a hard-charging Democrat for Obama. I believed in CHANGE. I believed in HOPE. Yes we can. And yes I did buy the buttons and the t-shirts. I wore them too, even in my crimson corner of South Georgia known as Jacksonville, Florida, a place where my bank teller at Wachovia didn't hesitate to inform me that she just didn't "think the country is ready for a black president."

It's not like I went all out with the campaigning stuff. The demands of building Hashrocket and heavy travel schedule kept me occupied. I did however attend several party meetings, befriended Max the local party activist, and donated money, at least a couple thousand dollars. I hosted a primary-watching party at my home. The whole quest restored my sense of belonging to a valuable, life-saving cause, and just in time too. It was happening just as the fervor over Ruby on Rails was starting to subside. Zed had just called our neighborhood a ghetto, and although he was right in so many ways, Rails had already won, so evangelizing it was losing some of its currency.

I even canvassed for Obama a couple of times. Once in Jacksonville Beach and another in Riverside. The experience mainlined snapshots of my childhood deep from the darkest recesses of psyche, stirring memories of Saturday mornings, reluctantly hawking Watchtower and Awake! magazines from door-to-door. My virgin zeal in party politics represented a complete repudiation of everything that I stood for in my youth while still feeling natural. This time I had Democratic party flyers and was reminding people to vote in November instead of suggesting the possibility of living forever in a paradise earth.

I remember 2008 fondly because I love playing the radical. It didn't matter that 51% of the country was on my side. November arrived. Obama won. My friends raised glasses and much celebration ensued. I couldn't get a copy of the Times and settled for a copy of its pathetic cousin, USA Today, which I went to the extreme of framing and hanging with pride on the wall behind my desk at the office. For a moment, I exhaled and felt the satisfaction that comes with making a dent, a contribution, albeit tiny, to making our country, maybe even our world, a better place.

This past election day came and went and I barely noticed. Politics is one of the farthest things from my mind. It just doesn't seem like it's going to make a difference who wins or loses. Despite my doubts about Democrats, I remain a fan of the coolest president in our history.