Quipol Blog

"And then, let’s not forget YouTube. Everyone is supposed to be dumping TV and heading to..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 22:34:00 -0400

“And then, let’s not forget YouTube. Everyone is supposed to be dumping TV and heading to video, right? Well, how can that be if most online consumption is headed to mobile? With so few mobile users having unlimited data plans … what is YouTube going to do when users start complaining and going nuts over the fact that they are having to pay for the data they use to watch YouTube mobile ads? How many YouTube ads have you seen on a mobile device lately?”

- One interesting point among many from the ever-abrasive Mark Cuban

maxyoder: Watched the sun come up from a building top. (Taken...

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:01:44 -0400

maxyoder:

Watched the sun come up from a building top. (Taken with instagram)

Thanks for showing Quipol such a nice time, San Francisco.

I’ll be in San Francisco for the next week. Get in touch.

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:44:00 -0400

I’ll be in San Francisco for the next week. Get in touch.

Confusing Simplicity with Clarity

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:44:00 -0400

This comment struck me as profound. It’s a rebuttal to Aaron Levie’s recent FastCompany article, “The Simplicity Thesis,” where Levie argues for “the radical simplification of everything.” All credit to Mr. Nathan Shedroff for the following points.

Mr. Levie, like many, I’m afraid you’ve confused simplicity with clarity. Nobody wants a simple life with few choices—especially those preconfigured by others. None of Apple’s products are simple in any way. [What] we want and what Apple’s products deliver is a tremendous amount of functionality, and the ability to customize the experience, but in an exceedingly clear way.

Simple is a life where you have few options. It’s a map that only has the most obvious information on it—one that makes no allowances for unforeseen circumstances (like a road under construction). Simple is “one size fits all” and “any color you want as long as it’s black.” Simple delivers little or no context and answers that don’t fit our lives.

Clear is a path to a new destination that doesn’t delete every landmark or context that might help orient us and, thus, get us there. Clear is alternate views that allow those of us who are visual, spatial, readers, or more comfortable with speech to learn, search, make, and understand in ways that make more sense than the “average.” Clear isn’t eliminating features from systems but arranging them to be found and available JUST when they’re needed in a context that is natural and “obvious.”

There really isn’t anything simple about Square, for example—not in the backend technology, the ecosystem, the partnerships, nor even the front-end. What makes it appear simple is that it is so CLEAR (and obvious to many, though not all) that we think it’s simple and even natural. It is neither and THAT is the magic.

I’d love to hear Levie’s response to this perspective.

Character

Fri, 11 May 2012 07:27:00 -0400

I found this passage in a seven-year-old notebook of mine. I didn’t write it, and I don’t know who did, but it’s spot on.

Character can be defined as a description of a person’s attributes, traits, or abilities. These are the things thats make each and every person special and unique. You and I are not born with good character, but we are born with the ability to build it. It is how we act in front of others just as much as it is how we act in solitude that determines the character we have. Nobody has fully mastered the art of self-control; this is what makes good character such an admirable thing, and earns those who have it respect.

"Hang out with people who aren’t looking for shortcuts. Learn from them."

Thu, 10 May 2012 13:05:41 -0400

“Hang out with people who aren’t looking for shortcuts. Learn from them.”

- My favorite point from Seth Godin’s “How to Many Money Online” post

Why I'm Paying for Espresso

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:45:19 -0400

Espresso, the web editor from MacRabbit, has become one of my favorite applications. I’ve been demoing it for weeks, enjoying its usability and charm, and now I’m ready to buy the full version.

I’m blogging about this trivial bit of history because I love the way Espresso got me to upgrade. I’m about to pay $79, not for any new functionality or features, but for the ability to save my documents without a ten-second delay.

You see, the only impediment Espresso puts on free users is that it forces you to wait about ten seconds every time you want to save your work. You click save, and this drop-down is revealed:

The actual animation of the circle is much more elegant than this gif allows, but you get the idea. It’s a subtle reminder that you’re using something that was built with care by people who respect you and, at the same time, still like getting paid.

Freemium models aren’t easy, but, in my eyes, Espresso is employing theirs well, while teaching me a lesson about creativity, mutual respect, and the power of pause.

Perspective is everything.

Tue, 08 May 2012 07:38:40 -0400

Perspective is everything.

"Privacy was a much different concept in former times. In inns, sharing beds remained common into the..."

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:28:00 -0400

“Privacy was a much different concept in former times. In inns, sharing beds remained common into the nineteenth century, and diaries frequently contain entries lamenting how the author was disappointed to find a late-arriving stranger clambering into bed with him.”

- This is an excerpt from At Home by Bill Bryson

The 75 best startup tools, featuring Visually, Slideshare, Basecamp, Dropbox, and Quipol

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:39:05 -0400

The 75 best startup tools, featuring Visually, Slideshare, Basecamp, Dropbox, and Quipol

Pitching Investors

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:40:00 -0400

I had a meeting with a renowned entrepreneur last week. This is the format he uses when pitching investors.

Here’s a big problem in the world. Here’s an idea for a machine that I invented to solve that problem. Here are the materials I need to build and grow that machine. Here are the craftspeople that I need to put those materials together. Here’s how much it’s going to cost me to do it. Here’s what happens when I put a dollar into the machine: (show more than one dollar coming out).

It’s a succinct and effective methodology that should be shared.

Moon Walking or Deep-Sea Diving?

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:35:00 -0400

Quipol

"Type has rhythm, but it’s like cooking—you can follow a recipe to the last gram, but if the..."

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:11:56 -0400

“Type has rhythm, but it’s like cooking—you can follow a recipe to the last gram, but if the love isn’t there, it’s just flat and bland.”

- Erik Spiekermann

To-Do Lists

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:21:53 -0400

I like to-do lists. I’m not sure how other people use them, but I have a simple rule about mine: it can’t be on the to-do list if it doesn’t need to be done today. I’ve found that having current and future to-dos on the same list just gets out of hand and distracts me.

I switched from Producteev to iOS Reminders a couple months back, and it’s been a good transition. Producteev makes a great app, but it’s more fitting for teams, and I’m mostly a one-man shop. My friends love Flow, but that’s another team-based to-do app that does more than I need. I’m excited about Reminders for Mac, because I’d like to be able to manage things from my laptop and not just my phone, which was simple with Producteev.

One of the Many Things Quora Has Taught Me

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:39:00 -0400

For awhile, I didn’t really understand or appreciate Quora. I signed up for the service, and promptly forgot about it. Then, a few months later, I started recieving these little digest emails that featured interesting questions and answers from Quora users. The emails would hit my inbox every week. Sometimes I’d read them, sometimes they’d end up dying in my archive folder. But over time, they worked. I started to understand why Quora was worthwhile, and today, I use the service often to ask and answer questions and learn a thing or two.

There are a lot of wrong ways to do email marketing, and I believe the Quora team is doing it right. Now, I’m challenging myself to figure out ways to nurture the users who signed up for Quipol on a whim but still don’t appreciate or understand its power. I hope I’m able to do it as successfully and charmingly as Quora.

Before I go, here’s a little gem from my first digest email.

New Features: Simple Sharing (and Improved Commenting)

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:12:00 -0400

Today, we’re adding “Share Vote” buttons to all active Quipols. This move is all about helping Quipols spread more effortlessly across the web.

Here’s how it works: just vote, and connect to your Facebook or Twitter account.

You’ll see a new button to go along with the traditional commenting options.

When you click the button, Quipol will share your vote to your connected account, like so:

I say thumbs up: Are you planning to ditch cable? quipol.com/3IVObEXl
— Carolyn Burt (@CarolynSBurt) March 5, 2012

This addition was one of our most-requested features, second only to video Quipols.

…

Improved Commenting

We also made some improvements to the way commenting works. From here on out, when you share a comment socially, Quipol will publish the first 115 characters of your comment to your Facebook or Twitter account, followed by a link:

RE: I’d much rather use the Google Earth flight simulator. quipol.com/8dpAewbW
— Jon Showalter (@JonShowalter) March 5, 2012

That about sums it up for today. Now go give it a try.

"I’m not sure that I do. I’m kind of all over the place, with my attention split between web apps,..."

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:06:00 -0400

“I’m not sure that I do. I’m kind of all over the place, with my attention split between web apps, iOS games and apps, and Safari extensions…. If I feel my focus waning, I let it wane. Curiosity or that unpleasant feeling of leaving something unfinished usually draws me back to a problem or task before too long.”

- Shaun Inman’s response to the question, “How do you stay focused?”

I’m on a train, coasting through Virginia, on my way to...

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:07:00 -0400

I’m on a train, coasting through Virginia, on my way to New York City for the week. I’d love to see you if you’re there, so drop me a line.

Song via magnificentruin

"So don’t let all the news of the day slow you down. Don’t let your competitors press..."

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:35:00 -0400

“So don’t let all the news of the day slow you down. Don’t let your competitors press releases and launch parties get inside your head. Plan, build, ship, and scale. Assess. Repeat again and again. Win.”

- Your Worst Enemy is Yourself

Oink

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:19:00 -0400

I had mixed emotions when I saw Oink call it quits today.

In a weird way, I felt like the Oink team and the Quipol team were in this together. Much of that feeling stemmed from the fact that we launched within days of one another.

Of course, our launch experiences couldn’t have been more dissimilar. As Kevin and team benefitted from a fury of PR, I sat back and marveled, wondering how I’d even get one person to write about Quipol. I think they signed up about 22,000 folks on day one, while I racked up a grand total of 37—and that included my mom, dad, brother, sister, and girlfriend.

In spite of all that, I still felt a connection. I rooted their team on. I imagined they’d do the same for me if they’d known I existed.

But that’s done now. For whatever reason (I’m assuming it had to do with poor active-user numbers) Oink is no more, and Milk will see what else it can cultivate from its talented team.

We’ll never know if they gave up too early. That’s the trouble with giving up—the data stops coming in, your influence and energy are redistributed or lost, and everything that happens from then on may or may not have happened had you stuck around. It all becomes guesswork and conjecture, and those two things can be really frustrating and definitively unreliable.

Last week, when Pinterest Co-founder Ben Silbermann talked about his startup at SXSW, he explained that Pinterest’s early growth was nothing special. After nine months, they’d acquired fewer than 10,000 users, and most of those users were barely active. But they pressed on, and the rest is recent history.

Maybe the same would have happened to Oink. Maybe not.

I’ll go ahead and stop asking questions that can’t be answered. Before I stop talking about this, though, I would like to second this guy’s idea about an Oink postmortem. Such a thing would make the whole startup ecosystem stronger.

Update: Looks like we won’t be getting that postmortem.