Month of November, 2007

Memories

6th Grade - I never had a good complexion (until age 28 when I moved to the desert). In 6th grade, I had a huge pimple on the end of my nose. Scott asked me if I was a witch with a wort on my nose. He was one of the hottest boys in school so that comment stung a lot. Somehow I was able to feel sad when I heard he died in a plane accident in his early 20's.

8th Grade - Rachel made me cry day after day of basketball practice. What was it about her that could make me so angry/sad? I was glad she changed schools in 9th grade so I could have all the point-guard-glory to myself. In my 20's, I bumped into her at the gym. I felt superior because she was a stay-at-home mom and I was getting my MBA.*

*Now that I'm older, I think that women who can stay at home with their children are very blessed.

Thankful

Karen wrote a lovely post about what she's thankful for. She's inspired me. At Thanksgiving, it's a family tradition to tell everyone at the table the things you're thankful for. Chris and I did it with my parents while they were visiting. Now I'll do it for you all. (This ritual always makes me a little watery-eyed so bear with me.)

Chris - I'm very, very thankful for Chris and my relationship with him. I am so happy sharing my daily life with a wonderful man. I love how we communicate and how he's always emotionally supportive. Plus, we have a lot of fun together! Living with Chris is so, so much better than seeing him every two weeks, like we did for the past year. I'm very thankful he moved to Arizona.

My Job - Since my move in March from a large corporation to a small web company, I've been a lot happier. A LOT. I found the balance between work and life that I was missing before. I love my coworkers and have been reminded that laughter at work is a benefit of immeasurable value.

Summer's Baby

Summer is very, very pregnant (see pictures from my visit a few weeks ago), which means a baby will be here very soon! She passed her due date this weekend so we hope it's even sooner. Send that baby good thoughts so he/she will join us really, really soon!

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Thanksgiving

For me, Thanksgiving was a much needed break. I absolutely loved having so much extra time to relax and just bum around the house. It's amazing what a long weekend will do for one's outlook.

On Wednesday morning Mom, Dad, and the little dog, Mia, flew in from Texas. Chris picked them up and spent the day with them while I was at work. Wednesday night we went to Sassi, a lovely rustic Italian restaurant in Scottsdale. The meal was divine, especially the made-from-scratch pasta. I especially enjoyed the view of the city since Sassi sits on a higher elevation. It was a wonderful and relaxing night.

On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we stayed close to home. The only venture out was to take the dogs to the dog park. Mac loves the dog park because of the dogs. Bentley likes the dog park because of the people. Mia didn't seem to like anything about the dog park. She was clearly overwhelmed. Back at home, I spent a leisurely morning preparing side dishes for our traditional Thanksgiving meal. Chris managed to get Mom and Dad to try the Wii (that I had borrowed from work). The turkey finally went in the oven just as the Cowboys game started. All the food was complete just in time for an early evening meal. For me, the best part of Thanksgiving was not feeling stressed over the food (by doing little bits throughout the entire day, it felt really easy) and not feeling sick from eating too much.

Early Friday morning my parents caught a flight back to Texas and left Chris and I to ourselves for the weekend. Friday we played the Wii all day long. Yes, seriously, all day. It was the relaxation I needed! Saturday and Sunday we did projects. Chris put a new suspension on his car. (Wow!) I met a customer who was in town for the holidays and did a whole bunch of sewing. (No pictures of the sewing since it's all Christmas presents and I don't want to ruin the surprise.)

Saturday night Chris and I went out on a date - dinner and a movie. We saw Beowulf in 3D. The movie was fun but we enjoyed Grandma's Boy on video even better. (Thanks, Phil, for that recommendation! It was hilarious.)

View the entire set of pictures.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My parents arrived this morning to celebrate Thanksgiving with Chris and me. Today is the last day of work for the next four days. FOUR DAYS! That's awesome. Especially since the commute this morning took an hour and ten minutes. That's 30 minutes longer than normal. (Painful.)

The plan is much relaxing, some cooking (a turkey, even!), watching TV, hanging out, sewing Christmas presents, and staying as far away from a mall as possible. (Hear that, retailers? I don't care that Kohl's opens at 4am on Friday, because I'm not going to spend a penny on retail. Not one.) Though the movie theater might be a different story.

Hope you have a very happy holiday!

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Stumbling on Happiness

Recently, I've been reading a few blogs that focus on personal finance. I really enjoy Get Rich Slowly and FiveCentNickel. One of these sites (or both, I can't entirely remember) recommended the book Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.

I've been thinking a lot these days about happiness. Generally speaking, I'm happy. I like my life and feel in control of it. But within the past six months, there have been a lot of changes in my life such as my recent engagement to Chris & his move to Phoenix to live with me. Currently, I am very, very happy (if I knew living with Chris would be so good, I would have done it a year ago!), but that doesn't mean I didn't worry about it tremendously before it happened. And as is my nature, I've been worrying plenty about the future. Will marriage make Chris and I more or less happy? How about kids?

I haven't read much about happiness despite thinking about it a lot. So I went to the library and picked up the book. (Actually, I requested it via their website and it was put on hold at the library closest to me so I could pick it up. How convenient!) The author looks at happiness from a scientific perspective. He sites study after study to back up his points. For me, this book was great. I learned a lot about humans and how our brains work. It opened my eyes to happiness and is helping me worry a lot less about the future.

Here's a summary of the key points from my perspective:

• We rely on our imagination to determine if we'll be happy in the future. We "imagine" the future situation. But our imaginations are bad! They only fill in part of a story and can never provide all the details of a situation.
• Our memories are bad! We only remember small pieces of our experiences (like a snapshot) and our imagination fills in the rest. We are bad at predicting the future because we are bad at remembering the past. Our memories just aren't accurate.
• The best way to know if you'll be happy in a particular situation is to ask someone else about their experience of that situation. Don't rely on your own imagination!
• Money doesn't lead to happiness. Once you get your basic needs met, there's little improvement in general happiness. The specific study showed little difference between people who made $100K a year and people who made $5M a year.
• Society perpetuates ideas about happiness in order to perpetuate itself. For example, society says money will make you happy in order to keep the economy going. It says having children make you happy too. Imagine what would happen if people stopped having children! The book showed four studies that showed happiness diminished with the introduction of kids to a family.
• Humans are really good at rationalizing really bad situations. We have a tendency to make the best of all situations so generally, we're happier than we imagine we would be. For example, we see the loss of a job as the opportunity to begin a new career.

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Travis Visited

This weekend Travis visited us. Travis is a good friend of Chris' and his roommate for 5 years (before me). Travis' family is spending the holidays in Sedona and Phoenix. Lucky for us he made some time to hang out. It was really good to see him. We had lunch in downtown Scottsdale at Dos Gringos. We lounged around the house Saturday afternoon. Saturday night we had sushi at Sakana and drinks at Casey Moore's. (I think Travis really enjoyed the people watching at Casey's.) Sunday morning Chris made pancakes (yum!) before we dropped Trav off to start his family vacation. A short, but great visit!

Local First Arizona

Need to make some time to investigate this site later - Local First Arizona. It's got a directory of local businesses. Could be a great resource to help me find some new things in the area!

Thanks, Aaron, for the link.

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Facebook Developers Garage Phoenix

Tonight I went to the Phoenix Facebook Developers Garage. I heard Dave Morin from Facebook (FB) talk about the company, the platform, and developing apps. I didn't stay for the whole event but look forward to hearing about it from others who stayed. But here are my notes from Dave's presentation.

• Facebook is fundamentally a technology company. They make software whose goal is to be a social utility. They want to help people share information.
• FB has 50+ million active users.
• Over half of the FB users are outside the US. FB is the biggest social network in the UK.
• Over half of the users return daily. "We provide utility almost as good as email."
• FB is #6 on the web. Below Google and above eBay. *
• FB's key is the social graph. The social graph is a network of people connections.
• Build a FB application to "build a business of have fun on the side." (At least Dave was realistic about it.)
• FB application developers have the same access to FB as the creators themselves.
• FB has a grant program for application developers called fbFund.
• Over 8000 applications built in just over 8 months. Dave said they are "humbled" by such a response from the development community.
• FB recently released "pages" which allow non-people to have a profile or page. This is for bands, companies, etc.
• When asked, Dave said FB is evaluating Open Social and they think it's cool. But right now, FB is not participating. One of the reasons is their concern over people's privacy and they don't think Open Social has high enough privacy.
• For more information, go to developers.facebook.com.

*This made me wonder what stats Google shares in their presentations.

All in all, it was a very good presentation. Dave Morin is a great speaker. He came across passionate and down to earth. He was extremely comfortable answering questions. This guy is definitely the right person to have in front of a crowd. I was very impressed.

The event was at the Tempe Center for the Arts, which is a new and incredibly beautiful space. I'm definitely going back to enjoy other events there & to check out the incredible architecture. Thanks to the sponsors for doing this - Terralever, Go Daddy, and Microsoft. The open bar and appetizers were especially nice!

Weekend with Summer

Summer is my best friend from high school. We've been friends since we were 16 years old. In the next two weeks, she'll be giving birth to her first child. A lot changes over the years, doesn't it?!

I'd been missing Summer a lot so took the weekend to hang out. Plus, I wanted to see her one last time before everything the baby arrives and everything changes. So I flew out Friday night and stayed through Sunday evening.

Our visit was super laid back, which was exactly what we wanted. Summer and I just hung out. We talked about everything we haven't had time to talk about the past few months - work, the men in our lives, the baby, my thoughts about a wedding. It was great. It was wonderful to hang out with her in the baby's room and go through some of the baby's things. I can't wait for him/her to get here!

See all the pictures of the weekend.

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Dear USAirways

Last night on a flight from Denver to Phoenix, just as I was boarding the plane I had my roller suitcase taken away from me. I was told that it was "too big and too heavy" by a not-very-pleasant gate agent. She said it would have to be placed with the checked luggage. I always travel light so I can carry on my luggage and save time bypassing luggage claim.

Your agent was wrong. My suitcase is the appropriate size for the overhead bin. It fit in the bin on the way to Denver and was even lighter leaving Denver. As a business traveler, I've been doing this for years. It's never been a problem on a plane that is larger than a regional jet.

I tried to reason with the agent, but she insisted her manager said to do this. I asked to speak to her manager. She said that if I talked to her manager and made the flight late, they would pull me off and rebook me for the next morning. I told her I didn't need to be threatened over a suitcase. She insisted it wasn't a threat. Sure, telling me that I might have to stay in Denver another night isn't a threat. She then started talking to the next passenger to take away their suitcases, which were the same small size as mine. It was clear that she didn't want to deal with me any more and that I wasn't going to talk with a manager.

I simply wanted to insist that this requirement to check my bag was unnecessary. It would fit in an overhead bin. It always does.

I was sent over the deep end of anger when I got on the plane and saw that every single bin on the plane had plenty of space. I was one of the first 20 people to board the plane so there was still tons of room. There was no obvious reason for my suitcase to be taken and placed in luggage. It was simply another inconvenience without explanation. The real kicker? We left Denver with overhead bins that had extra room. My suitcase could have easily fit in the bin across from my seat. But instead, I had to spend an extra 30 minutes in the airport collecting my bag when we arrived in Phoenix.

US Airways, in the future please don't waste my time and your employees time by doing silly things like this. And if you need to do this, please give me a realistic explanation. Because hearing the gate agent tell me that her manager told her to do this simply isn't enough of an explanation.

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Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference

Thursday I attended the "Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference. I was lucky enough to attend this event for free by helping Sean and Kimbro record the sessions for Grid7. Very soon all the sessions from the conference will be online at Grid7. It was my pleasure to work with Clay and his team from Arizona Corporate Broadcast Company (AZCBC) who handled all the audio visual for the conference. They were great!

For me, the conference was very enjoyable and motivating. These are my notes and may be a little scattered but will help me remember the event.

Announcement:
Lahn Safko, Robert Scoble, and Chris Heuer are writing a book about social media using social media. We were asked to contribute to the book by going to the site - ContentConnections.com/SocialMedia2007. Thy hope to get the "largest collaboration ever to get into the record books."

Keynote Speaker: Pat Sullivan - founder of ACT & SalesLogix, current CEO of JigsawHealth.com
Disjointed lecture and all over the board at first. My notes...

• PC is going away and being taken over by gadgets.
• Microsoft will go away
• Now is the best time to start a business and be first (so was the 80's & 90's).
• Do one thing really, really well. Infusion Software - help people sell on the internet really, really well.
• Jigsawhealth focused on a star product (just like Apple & the ipod) in Magnesium with SRT. They have a "19% conversion rate" through the web, see Inc magazine 500, when average us < 2%.
• Google is scary, because of the information they can collect about people. "Do no evil" mantra. Sergey decides what is evil & Pat doesn't trust one person. See "The Google Story," a book about Google.
• "There just isn't much VC in Arizona." You CAN do it here! Money comes to a great idea no matter where it is.

Eventually, he got to the meat of his presentation, which was about raising money.

"Pat's Top Ten Tips for Getting Money for a New Business"
1. Do you need money?
2. "I'll lose control" - to get money, you'll have to give up some control. But if you're good, you won't lose all control.
3. How do you know you can raise money? You have sales. You have convinced toehr people. You are the best at something.
4. Do a roadshow - talk to as many people as you can in a short amount of time. Build a sense of scarcity (do it all in one timeframe to get leverage over the VCs).
5. Sell, don't educate - "You are your pitch." CEO is chief salesperson.
6. Throw a perfect pitch - 1 minute pitch, <10 slides
7. Sell your secret sauce - why are you different, how can you sustain it
8. Forget about your financial projections, it doesn't mean much.
9. Don't say "no one can do what we're doing" "no one is doing what we're doing"
10. Recognize a "no" - "We think this is interesting...stay in touch", "We'll get back to you."
11. Recognize a "yes" - meet the whole team, take them to dinner, term sheet

Bonus advice - Have a great lawyer. You need a strategist.

Keynote Speaker: Mark Canter - CEO Broadband Mechanics
The title of the presentation was "Inspiring the Troops - advanced course in the school of hard knocks." My notes are incomplete as I was only able to attend part of this presentation. But one of the impressions I got was that Mark brought some baggage with him. At one point he said, "Ning was my idea and they ran with it. It would be nice to get some credit."

• Invest in health
• Make your business personal.
• How do you define success? Happiness. YES!! Set your own metrics - 5,000 people or 500,00 people.
• Get your priorities straight. "Money is not the most important thing. Changing the world is." YES!
• The blog is all you need. It is your voice, your marketing tool.

After Mark Canter spoke, Francine Hardaway was on stage and said this priceless quote, "I spend my summers in Half Moon Bay making those important connections so you don't have to."

Session: Real Estate 2.x - How real estate is changing (not just in Arizona)
This was a panel of men in real estate who answered the audience's questions. A few of websites they mentioned were propertyshark.com, vflier.com, zillow.com, and residentialtoolbox.com.

What is the future of real estate? What's your prediction?
• David Miller, Chicago Title - There's a lot of pent up demand for a home, but people are waiting for the tide to come in. Problems with submarket loans are a wall street problem and making normal people worry artificially. Believes seeing a correction in the market. Last week saw new orders double. Estimate 200K people looking to buy homes. By the end of the
  Volume of transactions in 2007 is inline with 2003. You can't compare to 2005, 2006 as a baseline.
• Steve Groves, blogger - From Portland, OR so can't speak to Phoenix. Heard estimates of turnaround in mid-2009 from a conference in August.
• Brendan King, - From Canada...sees listing. Time of listing is elongated. But there are people moving to Phoenix. Have to improve in 16 months - 5 years.

Session: Women as Entrepreneurs
Be passionate about the mission of your business.
Treat people right - example, many of these women paid for full health care for their employees.
Brag about the things you're good at! You'll get good attention for it.

Keynote Speaker: Dan Morrison - IT Toolbox
Background in management consulting then moved into IT. Built IT Toolbox in his living room and recently sold the business after 9 years.

Lessons Learned:
1. Many paths lead to success - A good idea and an entrepreneur who will do anything to make it succeed.
2. Pros/Cons to bootstrapping (not taking VC)
   PROs: make all the decisions, choose your own timeline, growing from cashflow makes you do good decisions
   CONs: slower growth, limited access to experienced resources, VCs can be 2 years ahead of the market
3. With some things, there really is no substitute for experience. Knowing good employees and how to manage & coach them. Knowing which key metrics to measure.
4. Find trusted advisors with experience & utilize them, specifically a lawyer, accountant, banker.
5. Join an executive network (YEO,YPO, Vistage, etc.) - Other CEOs have the same problems and you can learn from their experience. Group holds you accountable for your actions/commitments.
6. Understand your value (and challenges) as the entrepreneur - Know your vision & believe in it, even in the face of conflicting advice.
7. Do the job of the CEO - Set the strategy, build & develop a team to execute the strategy, manage operations, cultivate key business relationships (lawyers, bankers, customers). Stop doing what you were good at and start being the CEO. Create an organization that can succeed with average people. Then put above-average people in it and achieve unusual results. You can't scale your company by creating roles that require rock stars because there isn't a good supply of those people.
8. Success is directly correlated with (and limited to) the number of highly talented people on your team. You must have good people.
9. Steps to Successfully Sell a Business:
   • Value is optimized when multiple parties are interested.
   • Hire a good investment banker and attorney.
   • Prepare the offering documents.
   • Send the deal to market.
   • Select a winner.
   • Complete due diligence & close the deal.

   Generally takes 4 - 12 months during which time the business can not slip

10. Selling Lesson: The highest bidder is not always the winner. There are multiple factors in choosing a buyer - how much money, certainty to close, cultural fit.
11. Selling Lesson: Micromanage due diligence
12. Do not lose faith. Trust yourself and your idea even when other people don't (but don't ignore new facts).

Session: Exit Strategy - Selling the Company
Zenter, Wayne Crosby & (unfortunately I didn't catch the other gentleman's name) - Online presentation software aka the "Powerpoint killer." Company was founded in January and sold in June to Google. Enabled by Y Combinator.
Technology was very important. Did not reuse existing technologies (open source libraries). Wrote everything from scratch. That was what Google was ultimately interested in.
Limelight Networks - Bill Rinehart, "Be careful what you wish for because it might come true."

Keynote Speaker: Ingrid Vanderveldt, Club E
I missed much of this speaker as I went outside to take a phone call. But what I did catch was a story about being too busy to connect with another entrepreneur that wanted her help. When he finally offered her an introduction to someone she found valuable to her business, she made the time for him. The moral of the story was entrepreneurs need to figure out what they can provide for another entrepreneur in order to get what they want.

Keynote Speaker: Michael Gerber, author of the E Myth

• Today is the age of the new entrepreneur.
• Language of the new entrepreneur is the language of meaning. What is the meaning of your business? If the meaning of my business doesn't meet the meaning of my life, why am I doing it? Furthers the good of rather than the consumption of.
• What do we sell and do we want to be identified with it?
• New entrepreneur dreams about what is impossible because they are moved by the impossible.
• In the Dreaming Room - Michael's new business to help people get unstuck. The reason to come to the dreaming room is because you don't know what you want. It costs $3000 because it is a business.
• Michael was wearing a yamika and told how it kept himself mindful. "Remember Myself" - that's the moment you create

Michael was a great speaker in that he knows exactly when to pause. Great cadence. While he was speaking, I went to look for his book. Turns out the Phoenix library has the E Myth Revisited available for download on the web (for PC users only).

*Update* - The recording of all the sessions can be found at http://www.grid7.com/archives/190_podcast-29-arizona-entrepreneurship-conference-2007.html

Kimbro & Lisa's Wedding Reception

Chris & I had the pleasure to help celebrate Kimbro and Lisa's marriage on Saturday. They had a private ceremony in Sedona last week and a reception in their backyard on Saturday. It was lovely. (Chris and I were taking notes!) I really liked that both Kimbro and Lisa seemed very comfortable and relaxed. They even had their dogs there! It was great meeting their family and talking with mutual friends. It was fun to be a part.

Oh yeah, the cake was delicious! There needs to be a lot more wedding cake in the world, in my opinion.

View all the pictures. And check out the fun picture Preston captured of Chris and I.

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