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.