Yes I know I never blog, I’m a terrible person The good news is that Tubes is rollin and soon you’ll be able to use it, bad news is that I can’t say when that’ll be.

I’d like to point out that an organization that I co-founded along with Adam Kalsey, called SacStarts, is hosting the first ever BarCamp Sacramento June 2nd and 3rd. We’ve got some fantastic sponsors already, and some pretty amazing tech people are signed up to participate. There is still room for more sponsors and still lots of room for presentations and workshops. BarCamps are typically very tech-programming-web-startup-related, but so far it looks like we’ll be the biggest food BarCamp ever, with presentations on roasting your own coffee, baking your own chocolate, and one of the most famous food/cooking bloggers is signed up to come. I have no idea what I’m going to present yet, but it’ll probably be related to Max/MSP, PD, 3D audio or something else that I don’t remember how to do.

Read more about BarCamp Sacramento, BarCamp in general (Wikipedia page), and SacStarts, and I hope you come and join us!

One thing I’ve really noticed is how much I dread doing the stupid stuff. I don’t dread it because it’s boring or useless because it’s not, but there’s something highly ineffecient about doing a startup the old-fashioned way.

Before I had a team, the support of good advisors and a good lawyer, or any kind of technology demo, I wrote the business plan. At this point in time it’s literally 40 pages of shit. Maybe I’m lazy or maybe I just have a strong attraction to doing things efficiently, but now that the business plan needs a re-write I sure as hell don’t want to do it. I just don’t think it’s a very smart time/energy expenditure.

Many of the core values and influences and goals that Tubes was born out of are still the same, but the actual product and business goals have evolved. I’ve kept the financial plans up to date but the executive summary and Powerpoint deck both need some TLC as well. The question now is do we need them?

Things are different now. I have many things in place including the start of a really amazing team, and we have a lot of code written that does what it needs to do. There is definitely a general path that we’re following, but it’s very difficult to put everything on paper. As impressive as the original business plan might have been, is it a failure because things didn’t materialize as planned? Of course it’s not because we’re farther along now, and some of the kooky ideas in the business plan have been laid to rest while we’ve put focus on the real important and compelling stuff. Maybe it wasn’t a good plan to begin with… or maybe the business plan isn’t such a great format anymore for web startups. Also… do I even want a description of what we’re doing on paper or electronically that can be passed around to competitors? I think I prefer to show people and give them the story in person.

I have a lot of friends in startup-land, and for the most part their strategy doesn’t even include an inkling of Powerpoint or business plans or even financial models. Their strategy is to build and release, and hopefully people like it. If they do then hopefully the application or service can generate revenues… somehow. I don’t think that’s a good model to follow either, but there has got to be a better way!

I’m going to stop this post right now, because I don’t have the answer. If anybody has ideas on better ways to manage business development and direction, acquisition ideas, or anything else then please contribute and add your comments. Right now I can tell you that our internal development wiki for Tubes has become absolutely essential for keeping track of all kinds of shit.

Not really, but there are no girlfriends around the Meetro HQ. Last time I checked women weren’t too fond of urine stains on the couches Okay kidding aside, this is a great article on how the employees of social IM company Meetro live and work. I know Paul Braigel because we talked a bit about stuff before they moved out here to Cali. He’s a cool guy and I really do think that Meetro is ahead of it’s time. When the Meetro-style functionality reaches a critical mass it’s going to be MySpace all over again, at least I hope. I wouldn’t mind meeting the single women who live down the street from me Props to Dan the Tubes designer who sent me the link for the article which you can read here.

Scott Johnson likes to talk, and if you’re smart you’ll listen to his stories and his advice. Check out this recent interview that covers:

• his background
• his new company Ookles
• why Ookles should NOT set up in Silicon Valley
• the remedy for logfile issues that affect Google to Friendster to Feedster
• the Bill Gates rule
• the Bob Metcalfe rule
• why it’s smart to raise money early and raise a lot

More details
Download the mp3 (right click to save)

This last Saturday I was a speaker at the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy, along with geof lambert of the California IPv6 Task Force and Dave Kovar who has a chain of martial arts studios in the Sacramento area.

When I started Tubes I went into it head first without any experience, so I was bound to do my share of spinning my wheels and making mistakes. In fact I think there’s no better or faster way to learn, but if I had known about the SEA and how great of a resource it is I would have gone through the program. How many places and people are out there to truly help you as an entrepreneur? The answer is “not very many” if you don’t already know. Trust me I know first hand that most entrepreneur resources and “help,” are most often somebody else’s business and they do want your money. The people behind SEA do it because it needs doing, and as a result entreprenuers and companies are created. Wow. This is probably the best thing you can do as an entrepreneur getting started.

I already knew geof lambert because he puts on a Tuesday Dinner once a month, and from our conversations he and I are almost completely on the same wavelength. Well… except for the fact that he thinks “blogworking” is going to be a big deal, and I am 100% certain nobody will ever give a #$%& about the word Actually the concept holds water because it’s a dynamic that is very much alive inside of MySpace and LiveJournal, but the word definitely sucks.

I did not know Dave Kovar, and honestly my first impression was that he was a complete beefcake and that his profession gave him an excuse to beat up little kids Well little did I know this guy really has it together, and soon enough I find myself taking notes. I never take notes! FYI they plan to change the studio name from Kovars Martial Arts, to “Satori” which is Japanese for “enlightenment.” So one thing I learned is that you’re supposed to drink enough water every day to equal half your weight in grams. I know I don’t drink enough water so I’m going to buy myself a trendy Nalgene water bottle, and I’ll probably be making trips to the can every 15 minutes.

One of Dave’s mentors is Dan Millman, who is famous for being the author of “Way of the Peaceful Warrior.” Dan has a system which Dave has adopted, and if everybody adopted it the world would be a better place. The rules are as follows:

Pretty basic but the implications can be astounding. In business this is particularly smart because acting out of emotion in a situation will usually result in doing or saying something regrettable. Here’s a quote by Benjamin Franklin that Dave said that is worth relaying:

Dave actually added some lines of his own to this: “Who is brave? He who is smart enough to be afraid but does it anyway. Who is mighty? He who has control over his emotions and can make friends with the enemy.”

One last thing that really hit home with me, is that he said people for the most part want only the best for you and eachother. In the context of public speaking and performance, if somebody isn’t really being 100%, then the audience is mostly sending them good thoughts. Of course there are times when every person is critical or mean, but most of the time most people are not. I don’t know how much truth there is to this but it’s certainly something to think about. If there happens to be only one guy rooting for you or your team, that should be enough.

I’m very happy to welcome Ross Mayfield to the Tubes’ advisory board. Ross is the CEO and founder of Socialtext, which is an enterprise wiki solution and also the first wiki company.

While I’m at it I should also introduce the rest of the Tubes’ BoA. There are a lot of great people involved with Tubes in some fashion or another, but advisors fill a very special role. However good/smart an entrepreneur I might be, Tubes would not be what it is without the help and support of these people. They have helped to refine the good parts and to put to rest the less-than-compelling/less-than-strategic parts, and as a result we’ve ended up with a kickass value proposition.

Kevin Drost has been an advisor for a while now, and he and I have spent many hours on the phone talking about music industry and artist issues. Kevin comes from Sony where he was a global A&R executive assistant, and among other artists he helped to sign Franz Ferdinand. The music industry is in shambles, and Kevin’s experience coupled with the relationships he has with many bands has given him a first-hand view at how inefficient the industry truly is.

Cynthia Typaldos is an expert in social networking and online collaboration. She founded RealCommunities and GolfWeb which were both acquired, and now she’s back in entrepreneur-mode working on some new ideas. When she’s ready with something I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Andria Tay has a lot of experience in marketing and artist developement for companies such as MTV and EMI. She was recently VP of Marketing at EMI Jazz & Classics, which involved working with artists such as Norah Jones and Sarah Brightman.

Jordan Ritter co-founded Napster. The real one. Need I say more? He also founded Cloudmark, which is likely the world’s most effective anti-spam solution because of the way they leverage the intelligence of their millions of users.