For the purposes of this post, without even looking at a dictionary, I will simply say that I am thinking of mindfulness in the context of being aware of your decisions and thoughts at an abstract level. In other words, you aren’t just thinking about your business and your startup, but you are thinking about how you think about your business or startup.

Why Think about Thinking?

I believe this is important because inherent in human nature is a slew of assumptions we make surrounding all of our daily decisions, including those that impact our startups. This is beyond the typical assumptions we make when we plan businesses – those are normally readily identifiable. For example, if you are creating financial projections or forecasts, you probably have done something like this:

If I can get 5% of the people who see my application to download it, and 2% of those users to opt for a paid version, and I can increase adoption by 6% per year, then by year 5, we will make $20 Kazillion per month. 

Those are important things to think about – at a minimum, they give you a baseline to work with, as unrealistic as 95% (and that’s being generous) of financial projections are.

But you need to go beyond this. To quote a well-known expression, you have to remember to see the forest for the trees. I think in the first 30 pages of The Lean Startup, Eric probably says five times that it doesn’t matter if your product comes in on time and on budget if no one wants it – a point that I actually made in a blog post of my own back in June discussing productivity.

Homer Simpson, probably not all that mindful!

In the same way that if you want to be a better pilot you need to know how the physics of flight work, so too do you need to understand and be mindful of your decision making progress if you want to be a better entrepreneur.

It’s not enough to think about the question at hand and the facts surrounding it to come up with your answer. You have to understand how your mind comes up with the answer and then validate that as well. While this can certainly be a cyclical neverending process (don’t worry, I won’t get all Inception on you!), being mindful in general will greatly help to consider the indirect assumptions and personal traits that impact your decision making processes that you might not even be aware of.

In the above example of financial projections, understanding why the financials are important (not just because you are checking a box on the business plan), how those metrics change over time beyond simple assumptions of growth, and considering whether the metrics really matter in delivering value to the customers, are some examples. Then, take it another level and ask yourself, how do you know what is bringing value to the customers? Are the people you think are your customers even your customers?

By the end of this backstepping, you may realize the projections you were capturing weren’t as critical as you originally thought.

Being Deliberate

Mindfulness is more than simply thinking about how you think. It’s also about being present in the moment with that thinking and making decisions deliberately. This flows from the previous points – being deliberate can mean considering various answers before you even knew there was a question!

For example, you will make snap decisions because you inherently believe you have the right answer. Being mindful means you work to build awareness of these snap decisions so you can truly analyze them, even if they seem obvious. This is a bit like a game of chess – you need to think about how your decisions (that you might not even be aware are decisions!) can each affect the game several moves further along.

You Can’t Escape Yourself Entirely

We all have these built-up perceptions of the world around us – and no one can clear that out entirely. But if you are mindful in your business, at least you can identify when you might be making these decisions.

The other mitigation strategy is to ensure you enlist the help of others and frequently talk about your business against any sounding board who will hear it – customers, partners, other entrepreneurs. This will keep you thinking about your strategy and decisions and force you to contrast your perceptions on your business against the perceptions of others. Reading is another great way to get you to chisel away at your preconcieved notions. Heck, this post started with me reading Eric’s book, and mindfulness doesn’t even show up anywhere in the text of the book.

What are your thoughts on mindfulness? How do you ensure you keep a holistic view of what is going on?

An example that comes to mind is when calling a businesses and the first thing you hear is, “Please listen carefuly, as our extensions have changed”. It seems like it is so ingrained in our business culture to keep promulgating these nonsense messages.  I want those 10 seconds of my life back!

Why do businesses feel the need to spew this stuff? Is it just because others do it? The answer is probably more complicated than we can uncover in a blog post; but my guess is it’s the same reason why individuals tend to conform. It’s just human nature to want to fit in. Everyone else is doing it, so it’s a self-perpetuating situation.

One of my favorite things about the startup community is that they tend to cut through the BS. Some of the most admired startup companies are brutally honest, for better or for worse, but consumers never really have to guess what they mean. The benefits of this are many – it makes people feel like they have a personal connection with a company – more like a connection with a person, and less an unnamed entity. This is probably easier with startups because they are often much smaller, and they can create a persona that mirrors the owners of the company.

Jason Fried of 37Signals wrote a great article in INC magazine about this. It has to do specifically with exaggerating your size, but the advice applies to all aspects of your company. He writes:

When I helped launch my next business, 37signals, we decided from the outset that openness, honesty, and transparency would be core tenets. The plan was simply to be honest with customers and let the chips fall where they may. That’s exactly what we have done for more than a decade—whether it’s admitting when we mess up or making sure our prices are public, with no hidden fees. We sleep well at night knowing we have nothing to hide.

Not everyone will appreciate your brutal honesty. But you will be true to yourself, and ultimately that means you are true to your business. I find that companies that are authentic also tend to be more long-lasting and more able to adapt. Maybe this is just because they are able to honestly assess what they are doing right, and wrong, instead of blindly convincing themselves of some falsehood. No one and no business is perfect, so why pretend to be?

Anecdotal evidence, but I find that companies that are honest and truthful make me more excited to do business with them as a customer. I’m guessing you feel the same.

Be Clear

With TotalTab, Ryan and I make a conscious effort to be clear about what we are doing. That means cutting out the adjectives and stating your point. Today, everyone’s attention span is shorter than ever; and being clear and concise helps you get your message across in a way that makes sense.

When was the last startup pitch you saw that rocked the house that sounded like this:

Don’t be those guys! I can’t tell you how many networking events I have been to in and around Boston where some entrepreneurs just have a hard time saying what they do. Granted, I’m lucky with TotalTab – one sentance. Application that allows patrons of restaurants and bars to open, view, and pay their tabs from their phones. Other startups have a more difficult time explaining it. But if you can’t make it clear, you need to rework it. This is part of your elevator pitch, and it needs to be simple to explain what you are doing.

Especially if you use a lot of filler words, like “paradigm shifting game changing consumer-centric marketing technology that connects with social media in a transversive way to allow for optimized viral connections”. Huh??

An Example

One of the most poignant examples I am seeing in the press today is RIM (Research in Motion) and their Blackberry product, which is presently struggling against Android and Apple.

An article on BNET yesterday discussed their fuzzy math used to discuss their layoffs. The status of RIM is widely known and reporting in the tech sphere, yet company insiders writing the investment articles include tidbits like:

According to the Message from the Co-CEOs, the company’s “year of exceptional growth and accomplishment” (code for losing market share, being late with new product, and creating a public operational embarrassment)

Now, I understand the CEO’s have an obligation to the shareholders to maximize value. They certainly don’t want to write that the wheels are coming off the bus and the company is screwed, and see share prices plummet (even more). But to stretch it to a “year of exceptional growth and accomplishment” seems just daffy. I’d rather have a company say they are struggling, but here are their plans to improve.

As Mark Twain says, there are three types of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. Every metric and performance number in a company could be on the decline but if your employees used 50% more water cooler water, you could claim growth. But it wouldn’t be genuine, and everyone knows that.

Reality Check

Where does this leave us? Again, startups are fortunate because it’s easy to manage communications when companies are small and easy to create a company persona that potentials customers and clients really like. But it’s also easy to get sucked into the “me, too” mentality of trying to sound / act like the big boys.

My advice: stay true to yourself and to your business. Be honest and ethical. That means to everyone: employees, investors, and of course your customers. You’d be amazed at how much support a company can get by just being truthful. And on the flip side (particularly in today’s connected world where bad news can spread like wildfire) how badly you can be burned by massaging and flexing reality into some obscure adjective-laden BS statement.

What are your thoughts? What are some examples of the most onerous doublespeak you have had to deal with? Post up!

In a few brief words, the post had to do with burnout and how slowing down once in a while can actually keep your overall speed up. It’s kind of the old Tortoise and the Hare story, which says that slow and steady wins the race. Let’s face it – no human can possibly go 100% forever. Productivity is just like physical exercise – you experience fatigue and need to rest.

But does the Tortoise really always win? And how can we apply this logic to a tech startup?

Normalizing productivity

I have a tendency to think about things in mathematical terms so stick with me while I do some ‘splaining.

When I read the post, the first thing that came to my mind was this type of graph right here:

Should you be the red line or the blue line?

From a purely theoretical standpoint, I have two lines in this graph – the blue line (the Hare), which represents a huge outburst of energy followed by a complete tanking of productivity as a result of burnout. The second red line (the Tortoise) shows a more metered approach to productivity that is fairly straight and level.

In early Time, the Hare gets more done. The work the Hare does above and beyond the Tortoise is represented by the area shaded in yellow. However, as Time progresses and burnout sets in for the Hare, the Tortoise pulls ahead, and is more productive than the Hare – represented by the area shaded in green.

Now, who actually gets more done?

Brad’s post postulates that the Tortoise gets more done* – i.e. the green area exceeds the yellow area. While this certainly can be the case, I think there are a lot of other factors involved that need to be considered.

*definitely not suggesting Brad is saying that slowpokes get more done. It’s a metaphor, OK? He means (from my interpretation) that a metered approach actually speeds up work.

How long is Time?

Let’s say the timeline is shorter. Half the time. All of a sudden, the graph looks like this:

In a sprint, the Hare may win!

If there is really an end date on what the product / project is; then it may be that the Hare wins, particularly if that duration is close to the productivity intersection between the Tortoise and the Hare during burnout.

On the flip side, if Time is indefinite – and let’s face it – a tech startup (and even applied more broadly to your entire life) – is normally longer than the single burnout cycle shown in the first graphs; the graph may more realistically looks something like this:

In this example, the Tortoise wins over time

You have to take into account all the burnout cycles and add them up over time to really see efficiency. But alas, it’s not that easy!

Not all Hares and Tortoises are the same

There are slow Hares and fast Tortoises (Well, maybe they are pretty close, but for the sake of this post just bear with me. It’s a metaphor for humans, OK?!).

Every person is different. Some superhuman entrepreneurs are way up on the Y-axis of productivity here. Others have less dramatic crashes as Time progresses. For some a burnout cycle may be a week. For others it may be two months. (or any other time duration, really!).

In the last graph, we showed the productivity over two “burnout” cycles, with the Tortoise being ahead. But this again depends on the individual and the project. The graph might also look something like this:

In the example here, the Hare is pulling ahead. I’m willing to bet some people operate like this. Some of that yellow is what developers call the “zone”. Cram sessions where productivity just explodes.

Productivity isn’t an On / Off switch – maybe the Mouse wins the race!

The examples presented so far assume some level of normalcy over the course of time and assume workload is consistent. In reality, businesses experience crunch periods and (comparatively) slow periods. This impacts the way the graph looks. Also, not everyone is necessarily leveled out over time – sometimes the productivity line trends downwards, and sometimes it trends upwards.

Beyond that, it’s important to aslo remember that there are more than just a Hare and a Tortoise in the race. There may be something in between, like a Mouse, whose cycles are less dramatic and may be higher or lower on the X-axis overall (which is what really determines how much productivity is generated).

Stop and smell the flowers, would ya?

There really isn’t a right answer, and there is more too it than just productivity. For example, Brad astutely points out that being the Hare may also result in having your head so far into the game that you can’t see the forest for the trees. There isn’t even an easy way to represent that on a two dimensional graph, but suffice it to say this is very true. Even if your productivity is up as the Hare, does it do you any good if it results in producing something that no one wants? Stepping back and giving some perspective can make your productivity more effective – even if the output is somewhat less.

There is no right answer. Every situation is different, every startup is different, and every founder is different. There are so many variables out there that this post could fill a textbook – but most entrepreneurs have an innate understanding of these types of variables and know how it impacts them. An expression almost everyone has heard is that you should “stop and smell the flowers” -  as entrepreneurs, we often want to try and smell every flower in the field.

Remember, there is life outside a startup, so do get out there and experience some of that as well. You might be surprised with how it impacts you. Even if you are a Hare.

Even on Twitter, where we follow search results for Mobile Payments, we have seen results steadily increasing daily – from several dozen tweets just a few weeks ago to several hundred in recent days. It can be somewhat confusing for consumers, so we took a stab at comparing some of these new technologies, and giving our take on how they stack up against each other. Keep in mind, this isn’t intended to criticize any particular solution – we love all these new technologies and are excited to see changes coming to payments in all shapes and forms.

So, to start; here is our initial chart we came up with comparing some various payment types against some different factors and consideration on a “5 star scale”, with 5 being the “best” and 1 being the “worst”. Couldn’t quite fit the full size chart in the post, so click it for the full size version!

At least we didn't include Personal Checks!

Let’s discuss each one in more detail!

Branded Payment Apps

We consider branded payment apps any payment application that has a specific brand associated with it. The most well known one today is likely the Starbucks app, but there are also apps for other quick-serve restaurants like Chipotle.

The Starbucks mobile app (available on Android and iPhone) allows customers to pay for their order at the register with a Starbucks prepaid card that is loaded on the phone. The process involves first typing in the Starbucks card number on your phone to display the balance. When you get to the register, you pull up the app, click “Pay”, and hold the generated bar code under a scanner. A quick beep, and the cost of your grande latte and scone are deducted from the balance on the card.

In general, these payment apps work very good for their unique situation. If you are a frequent customer of Starbucks, this is a pretty great application to have.  Same with Chipotle (Although seriously, how many burritos can you really eat?!).

Where we see a downside here is fragmentation. We don’t believe you should have to download an application for every place you frequent. Just take a look at your monthly card statement, and how many vendors you frequent – imagine having a separate application for every one of these places? You could easily have hundreds, or even thousands, of mobile apps clogging up your phone over time.

Other explanations on our ratings:

• Checkout speed is quicker than paying with cash or card, but you need to manually enter your stored value cards initially, vs. having to do it just once for credit card based payment methods
• Queue elimination is somewhat faster since you can prep your payment ahead of time, but you still have the line to contend with
• Security – depends on the application and the company. With the Starbucks app, this is pretty poor – anyone who picked up your phone could use your balance at Starbucks, exactly like they could if they found a gift card that had some value remaining on it
• Rewards can work OK, but only for that branded establishment, so we docked some stars
• Cost to consumers – we docked a point here because with the Starbucks example you need to prepay for your card – which means you tie up money ahead of your purchases on a card. This may vary from merchant to merchant
• Cost to merchants is very poor – for an independent business this is likely the most expensive solution for you as you need a custom-built application and payment integration for your specific circumstance. Starbucks had to install new barcode scanners in every one of its locations
• Consumer reporting is also poor – you get the same level of information as you get when paying with a credit card – your monthly statements at best

Mobile Wallet / NFC / PayPass / Pay by Phone

NFC (near field communication) falls into this category – as does the new technology introduced by Zoosh this week which uses ultrasound to pass payment information to the register.

These technologies are very cool in that they replace your credit cards with your phone, and also assimilate all those irritating rewards cards and track it all automatically. But, as we posted about here before, it doesn’t eliminate the line at the register or waiting for a server in a restaurant or bar. So, while we think NFC and the ultrasound technology introduced this week are preferable over plastic, we don’t think it beats a self-checkout option for the patron.

Other considerations on our ratings:

• No line elimination, but does get an extra star for being slightly faster than credit card / cash
• Strong security, utilizing PIN number
• Very strong on rewards and coupons, and cross-merchant implementations. Although, this could change depending on who the major NFC players end up being
• Merchant cost is fairly good. Some opportunities exist to save money by offering steering incentives to consumer to use payment mechanisms that are cheaper (e.g. giving a discount for using a particular card)

Point of Sale Replacements

Square, recently identified as a billion dollar company, falls in this category. They recently introduced a pretty cool new point of sale “app” that sits on an iPad and allows merchants to quickly process payments and manage transactions in what is probably one of the cleanest implementations we have seen to date. For small boutique retailers – this is a fantastic technology and gets them in business quickly with about as low overhead as you can get.

Again, the downside of this is that it doesn’t remove the patron’s interaction with the register from the equation. The consumer can pay via phone or even by saying their name, but they still need to get to the register and talk to the cashier.

Other examples of this include web-based and cloud-based point of sales systems that are emerging with greater frequency. More commentary on our ratings:

• Checkout speed is pretty much the same as any other register based system.
• Line elimination – same issue as with NFC – the line / queue still exists, but is faster than cash or credit card
• Fairly secure – the Square implementation has a photo of your face for verification. Unless someone pulls off some Hollywood makeup, it’s gonna be tough to fake
• Rewards and coupons are OK, but you need to setup profiles with Square for each merchant. That can again mean hundreds or “cards” in the app, even if they are just in one app.
• Merchant cost is a big plus, particularly when you include the capital expenditure of a new POS system that you can effectively skip
• A downside is that this solution probably isn’t tailored to high volume /  multiple lane / multiple location implementations, at least not in its current iterations

Pay At Table

Specifically in the restaurant / food service space, there are really two different technologies in this arena – patron-driven on-table payments (like E La Carte) and restaurant driven checkout (like Micros’ MobileMicros). You’ll also see this in some retail establishments, like the Apple store, in which all employees carry around hand held point of sale systems they can use to check out customers on the fly.

Again, we think this is a great solution – heck, the idea for TotalTab was formed by us thinking about how the Apple store model of employees carrying around pocket size registers could be made even more efficient by removing the employees and their devices from the equation entirely. The patron drive on table payments like E La Carte are a great step in the right direction; however E La Carte won’t apply to all establishments. Fine dining, for example, and the nightclub scene won’t lend themselves well to this technology. Meanwhile, establishment driven checkout like the MobileMicros solution, while elegant, still requires the assistance of a server to actually close the tab.

In our comparison chart, we considered an E La Carte style solution for our ratings:

• Speed is quick, just behind self-checkout. No line, so you can pay when you are ready
• Security is poor – just like with a credit card, anyone can swipe a card and sign for it. All the same risks of fraud exist here. We give an extra star because at least customers maintain possession of their cards
• Rewards and coupons is mediocre. A restaurant can introduce their own coupons on a system, but aggregation or storage in some consumer account is tricky at best. To the consumer, it’s like any other credit card transaction
• Cost to Merchants is high – this is definitely a capital investment, plus likely additional support and ongoing maintenance costs
• Consumer reporting is poor – same is if you used your credit card in a store. You can check your bank statement, basically.  One extra star given since some systems allow you to email yourself a receipt, so at least there is an electronic copy of it for future reference

Traditional Cash and Credit Cards

Not really too much to add here, we are all familiar with the Benjamins  – some commentary on the comparison chart:

• Cash is very insecure since you don’t know who it really belongs to. A dollar on the street belongs to whoever finds it. Credit cards are slightly more secure in that they need a signature and you can dispute charges, but fraud is still very frequent
• In terms of speed, we didn’t put personal checks on the comparison table but that is pretty much the only thing slower than cash
• For rewards – you can clip coupons and bring in your rewards cards to accommodate your cash or card purchases. Beyond that, good luck!
• Cash has the edge in one category – cost to merchants. No processing fees! (No, I’m not including extra points for under the table payments, so don’t ask! Make your payments to Uncle Sam!)
• Reporting for consumers and merchants is minimal for both technologies. With a card purchase you can at least check your bank statements for history. Cash you have a paper receipt and that’s it!

Consumer Self Checkout

With the obvious asterisk that this is what TotalTab does, we believe this is an obvious solution in many ways. AisleBuyer is doing this in the retail space, and we are looking to bring it to restaurants and bars.

The biggest benefit of self checkout is, as we have said before, putting the power of the checkout in the hands of the patron. Leave when you are ready. Your time has value, right?

Other factors:

• Checkout time and line / queue elimination is the quickest, since there is no checkout process. You just click a button on your phone and walk our the door
• Security is very strong, since you need a PIN to checkout. Credit card data is never stored anywhere but on your own phone in an encrypted format
• Great integration with rewards and coupons systems is possible – it won’t be in TotalTab’s first iteration but look for it in the future once we finish nailing down the payment app!
• Merchant cost is low – no upfront fees, and a low variable cost tied to usage that is almost entirely offset by the time savings gained and additional table turns realized
• Consumer reporting is available from the web or from the phone, at any time. Eventually, we will enable reports to be run from the web based on date ranges – if you are a sales rep or have to take people out for business lunch, this is going to make your reporting a breeze

There’s a Whole Lotta Room for Shaking Things Up!

The bottom line is that cash and card are quickly being usurped by some amazing technology that is being implemented in countless ways – and all in ways that benefit the consumer and merchants. And consumers have the voice to pick and use the technologies they want! In many cases, the options will all be available, and you can use whatever floats your boat!

Post up in the comments if you agree or disagree with our star assessments, and let us know if you can think of any factors we should have included that we missed! Disclaimer: obviously, these results are subjective and were formed during the creation of this blog post, so we are open for a nice discussion in the comments on everything here!

All this results in a more honest and compelling interaction between businesses and customers that results in consumers being better served.

Getting the product you want

Doesn't this cookie just make you smile?

Back when I was in college in the late 90′s, I remember doing case studies on Dell, and how their personalization work was revolutionizing markets from electronics to clothing. The idea was that you give customers the power to create the product they really want by starting with a template or base and letting them choose, a-la carte, the options they want.

At the time, this was a radical shift in thinking in the business world. Previously, a computer company would offer a half-dozen models, ranging from cheap to powerful, with incremental steps in features across the board. But what if you wanted more RAM, but didn’t care about the processor speed? You couldn’t get that specific. The Dell model upended this by literally giving consumers the ability to create hundreds, if not thousands, of combinations of features to build exactly the kind of computer an individual wanted.

Today, customers of everything from clothes to cards expect to be able to pick their features that meet their specific needs. In the web-based (and particular the SaaS world), you see this with multiple options for software that cater to different levels of consumption. In services businesses, you see this in a homogenization of the hourly rate structure. In hosting, you see this with cloud services and utility-billing consumption models.

The end of push marketing

At the same time as personalization, the growth of the Internet provided opportunities for consumers to drive their own purchase decisions internally – a dramatic shift from times when a typical consumer’s knowledge of a product was limited to the marketing they were exposed to and anyone they personally knew who used or owned a product or service.

Today, marketing is primarily for creating brand awareness. The best marketing programs out there make a few key players knowledgeable about the product or service, prove the value it brings, and then let these players evangelize the product for them. Meanwhile, review sites for everything from restaurants to products make it all but impossible to hide bad customer service or a product that really isn’t good.

This means consumers get a clearer picture of a product that more accurately matches the reality of that product, as opposed to the idealized version driven by the business itself.

The next step: Payments

Why do we bring all this history up? Simply to provide context to the fact that the mobile payment revolution isn’t a standalone or abnormal event; but rather another indicator of ongoing consumer empowerment. At TotalTab, we call it “Power to the Patron” – and it means giving the power of the checkout to the consumer.

Consumers until now have picked up the ability to drive the what, where, why, and how of purchases. Mobile payments provides the “when”.

Right now when it comes to the actual purchasing experience in physical stores, you often need to wait at the behest of the retailer. This is the case even with emerging technologies like NFC.

Being able to self-checkout isn’t just about convenience, although that is a huge part of it. It is about putting the control of the process in the hands of the consumer, even in physical stores. Why should control of the checkout process reside anywhere else but the consumer? Whether in a clothing store in the mall, a hair salon in a strip mall, or a restaurant; consumer driven self-checkout is the real future of B&M payments. No more lines. No more waiting.

Benefits to everyone

If you are a business owner, you can’t fake value. So make sure you give your customers something awesome!

Ultimately, a smarter consumer and a more honest business that produces better products benefits everyone. A consumer focused checkout process is in the same vein – it provides a win-win for all involved. With TotalTab, for example, restaurant and bar owners increase server efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and find new clients. Patrons improve their experience and can avoid risking security concerns associated with leaving your card with a bartender or server. It’s not the end solution, but it is an important part of the consumer revolutions that started many years ago and continue today.

Besides, that is what the consumer revolution is all about – improving the experience for the customers that in turn improves business.

What are your thoughts on the consumer revolution? Where will it go next? How do payments fit into the picture? Go ahead and pipe in, we’d love to hear from you!

The average smartphone owner has perhaps a few dozen apps on their phone. And by and large, the majority of phone owners are downloading the same mainstream apps – Angry Birds, Google Maps, YouTube; plus some ancillary ones that are interesting to them and their hobbies (like a golfing app or bartender app). There is a very high signal to noise ratio in these marketplaces. Fortunately, through rating mechanisms and various aggregation / review sites, you can sort out the best apps. But there is still a ridiculous amount of horrible apps that are really just big pieces of shit. All developers should strive to build better apps, on any platform.

What makes an application high quality?

It’s difficult to describe exactly what makes an app crappy. In taking a statement from the Supreme Court, it’s like pornography: you know it when you see it. Long loading times. Resource hog. Unintuitive user interface. Having to sign in every time you launch the app. A million other things. Basically, an experience that ultimately leads to a quick uninstall.

Quality is important for all products. Even ice cream.

There are many reasons why there are so many bad apps. One problem is that many developers building mobile apps came from the web world – and usability is completely different on a mobile device. You see this when an app uses text links, or links that are so close together on your phone you hit the wrong button. We’ve all done it, and we have all wanted to chuck the phone across the room when this happens. Especially if it means data re-entry, which is tedious on a mobile device.

Many other developers are simply building apps that serve no purpose. Apps are no different from any other product or service – they should fulfill a need. So do some research and business planning!

What kinds of things should you consider when designing and building your apps? This certainly isn’t an all-inclusive list, but some obvious considerations include:

• Have a purpose – Seriously. It sounds obvious, but have a purpose!
• Intuitive - You shouldn’t have to hunt for what you want to do. A back button should go back a page, not exit the app (unless you are on the apps home page).
• Functional – Crashes, force closes, and broken functionality destroy a user experience. If it’s in the app, make it work. This goes hand in hand with user interface design.
• Engrossing vs. Enabling - Sometimes apps are intended for your attention, like games or a reading app. Other apps (like TotalTab) should get out of your way. Don’t mix these up!
• Big buttons with proper spacing – A user should never hit the wrong button by accident. Think about the thumbs!
• Minimize data entry - Software keyboards suck. Don’t make anyone use them unless absolutely necessary.
• Consider the use case – Where is a user going to be using this app? In a restaurant? While walking across the street? While running?
• Auto-login – Don’t make your users log in again when they re-enter your app. Phones are for multitasking – make easy to switch in and out of the app.
• Security – Respect the data your customers give you by handling it securely.
• Implement features that enhance, not distract – Does your app really need GPS? If yes, include it. But don’t include it just because it makes it look cool.
• Tie in to other services – If you store phone numbers in your app, let users dial those numbers without needing to memorize or copy the number.
• Speed - Make sure your app is fast. A parking app that takes twenty seconds to boot up and show you available spaces is too slow when you are parked in the road.
• Keep it simple – Lightweight apps are easier and more friendly than bloated ones with obscure features users might never touch. Plus it complicates the interface.

Again, certainly not a comprehensive list – but some of the more obvious ones. Bottom line: use common sense, and while building your app, do your best to think like a user! Even better yet – get your product out there and get feedback from your users!

Minimum Viable Product

How much does quality increase for each additional unit of time?

We are still building TotalTab, but we are considering all of these things, and many more. We don’t expect to get it perfect out of the gate; and you shouldn’t, either. The best validation of your apps quality is the feedback that comes from users. The tech startup world has a concept called “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) – the lowest level of features and polish necessary for a product to be released. Many entrepreneurs say they wish they had released their app earlier; since the validation and feedback from the user base is critically important. After all; these are the people using your app!

Now, this is a bit of a gray area – and again, common sense applies. You don’t want to release an app that doesn’t work. If there is a button on the app – it should work. Your user interface should work and be reasonably clean. The idea of MVP is about getting out early so you can get feedback from users - such as what features should go next, and what bugs they discover. Some books even suggest that if you weren’t embarrassed of your app when you released it, you waited too long.

This doesn’t mean you should release garbage – simply that you don’t need every feature in the book. If the app were a car, it just needs brakes and an engine (that work!) – it doesn’t need leather seats and power windows. Our first iteration of TotalTab probably won’t have a “About Us” page in the menu. It’s just not needed in the beginning. Take a look at the graph on the left – you have to strike the balance between quality and time. There comes a point where an additional unit of effort only results in a marginal increase in quality. That path goes on forever – it’s an asymptotic curve, since 100% quality is really only theoretically achievable. Don’t get caught trying to hit that elusive 100%.

80% is probably good enough! Especially if your product is in Beta!

Use beta liberally and release often

Beta – Use it!

Going into discussion on agile methodology is beyond the scope of this post (look for it sometime in the future!), but there are a few things to consider when it comes to app quality. First, use the Beta tag! Beta means you get a break, because you are setting the expectations of your users. If something is in beta, it is understood that things might not work right. More so, users are encouraged to report defects and will often work with you on resolutions. Beta can feel like an “exclusive club” to early adopters of your product. Try that with a product you claim is 100% market ready!

When your beta users do identify issues (and they will!) get a fix out there and release updates to the app often!  Quality can be a perception issue. A stagnant app that works OK can have  lower perception of quality than an app with a greater number of bugs but a development team that is on top of deploying fixes and releases that address issues active users are identifying. So releasing often assures your users you are actively involved with improving the app and making it better.

How do you build quality into you work?

Needless to say, this is a topic that can cover an entire book – so please chime in in the comments with your thoughts on quality, usability, and ease-of-use! I’d love to hear about what you love and hate about the apps that are out there today!

The news yesterday and today is overloaded with members of the press calling this a revolution with phrases like, “radical change“. If you follow TotalTab on Twitter, you will already know that we strongly disagree with this sentiment.

NFC is an Evolution, not a Revolution

Now, don’t get us wrong. We think NFC is a great technology and we definitely look forward to being able to abandon our wallets (at least to some degree) when making purchases and dealing with rewards cards. Heck, as far as we are concerned, let’s move the drivers license and passport onto your phone as well!

However, NFC is an evolution in the payment ecosystem, not a revolution. Let’s step back a bit for a more detailed explanation:

One of the great things about the Internet and e-commerce is the seamless payment model. When shopping online, you simply gather the things you want to purchase, put them in your shopping cart, and when you are ready to go, you just check out. Simple as that. Some companies, like Amazon, make this even easier with one-click. It’s a pain-free process.

It sounds similar to a physical store, right? You put stuff in your cart and wander over to the cash registers. But there is something you have to deal with when you go into a store that you don’t have to when buying stuff on the Internet- a line.

With NFC, You Still Have to Wait in Line

Just the thought of these lines makes me want to abandon my cart!

It frustrates so many people that there are actually Facebook pages dedicated to those who hate waiting in line and those who hate waiting for a check. Imagine if you went to make a purchase at Amazon, and you had to wait in line behind other online shoppers to checkout? How ridiculous would that be? Yet, we still have an expectation that that is simply the way it is with physical, brick-and-mortar payments.

The reason we consider NFC to be an evolution is that it represents a step forward in the payment mechanism (using your phone instead of a card, check, or cash). But that is not a paradigm-shifting (as Guy Kawasaki would say) change. It might save a few seconds on the checkout. Maybe you get your coupons and rewards cards integrated. And you also can get an email receipt. But those are all tweaks to an existing process, they are incremental improvements, not a redefinition of how we make purchases in physical stores.

And don’t forget, even with NFC, you are still going to need your wallet. What happens if your battery on your phone dies? (EDIT: An astute reader notified us that the NFC chip draws its power from the terminal – so in this case a battery dies might be a non-issue. Thanks!)  You still might want to carry some cash on you. You might want to carry other cards that haven’t been digitized yet, like your social security card, your driver’s license, or your insurance cards. Eventually, all this might make it onto digital format, but it’s going to take time. So don’t expect that you can literally leave your wallet at home for several years yet.

Still, NFC is a few degrees easier than taking out your credit card and swiping it; and it can definitely serve to alleviate frustration with coupon codes and rewards cards. But the jump from plastic cards to NFC pales in comparison to even the shift was from writing personal checks to debit cards (come on, admit it: we know you have been in the grocery store behind Grandma Jones as she writes a personal check for $12.84 worth of Metamucil).

We are definitely happy to see NFC enter the marketplace and gain traction. But there is a more dramatic shift underway!

What Constitutes a Revolution?

We believe that in the 21st century, and with the technology we have available today, we can actually make a revolutionary shift in the brick and mortar payment world. There is no reason for a consumer to have to wait in a line, especially if you own a smartphone, at any store. Some companies, like Boston-based AisleBuyer, are making this a reality in the retail world (just walk out of the store with your stuff). TotalTab, our company, is making this a reality in restaurants and bars (open, view and pay your tab on your phone directly).

Our vision is a world with no more cash registers (Inside info: when we first started TotalTab, our working name for the product was NMCR, for “no more cash registers”). Or at the minimum, registers that do not need to be staffed and have a queue of customers forming up behind them. The sole purpose of the register will be to receive and transmit payment information that is made directly on a consumer’s mobile phone.

Think of it as Amazon One-Click in any store you walk into. Now that is a true revolution, because it puts the power into the hands of the consumer. At TotalTab, we call it “Power to the Patron”. There is no reason for a consumer to wait on anyone else other than themselves. Checkout processes and queues don’t benefit the business – who has to staff for those spikes in sales – and they definitely don’t benefit the consumers, who hate waiting in line at a clothing store or waiting to close out their checks at a restaurant or bar.

NFC and On-Phone Payments are Not Mutually Exclusive

Again, we are definitely excited to see NFC make its way into the marketplace and think it’s a great alternative to paying with a credit card.

The bottom line is that the real commodity is time and consumer empowerment, and NFC is a marginal improvement to that model. It’s the same thing you do today. Just swap out your credit card for a mobile phone. TotalTab, on the other hand, is what we believe will be the future of payment technology. It fundamentally changes the way you interact with businesses in a way that improves the transaction for everyone. Businesses save time and money on manning cash registers, and end up with greater satisfaction in the transaction because of the ease of purchases. Consumers get to get in, get out, and get on with their lives.

All in all – it’s an exciting time to be in the mobile payments industry, and every day there is new news on turning the existing business model on its head – and we couldn’t be more excited.

What are your thoughts on Google and their NFC Mobile Wallet? Do you think it is a revolution, or an evolution? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

When I first came to Massachusetts in 1999 to start my freshman year of college, I remember being immediately drawn by the city, for reasons I really could not explain. The photo in this post makes me think alot about why I love the city so much – the energy, the intelligence, the passion that exists… its truly palpable. You can feel it. During college, I spent many nights walking around the city, getting lost, sitting on Long Wharf, just thinking about the future and what kind of great things it could hold.

Once I graduate from college, I got my first “real” job in the city as a construction project manager (not that much later, I would switch to become an IT project manager. It didn’t take all that long to realize construction wasn’t the industry for me) . I remember coming to work in the city and just loving it – everyone was working towards something and it is really motivating to be around movers & shakers.  At the time (around 2003 – 2005), I had no idea of the startup and technology community that existed in Boston.

Awesome People

One of the things I wrote about in Startup Accelerators and Older Founders had to do with the importance of making connections with the right people. There are a lot of books and blog posts about the importance of networking, but the truth of the matter is – the tech startup community is small and intimate. It’s actually pretty amazing how seemingly large industries (like construction and insurance, both of which I have worked in) end up being so small and intimate, where everyone knows everyone. The tech entrepreneur world is really no different.

I love that dirty water….

While the vast majority of us startups will never get to go to an accelerator; we still need to build those connections. And I’m not convinced there is any place in the world better for that than right here in good ‘ol Beantown. Need proof? How about over 900 technology inclined folks for the ridiculously awesome RubyRiot event at Scholar’s last night? Or how about the three to ten events taking place every day for startups in the city?

If you are a tech entrepreneur, there is no excuse not to get out there. As for TotalTab, we just started attending networking events last week, and have already been to three events and met dozens of entrepreneurs, a handful of investors, and a lot of other really interesting, really great people who are all about making Boston the greatest place on earth for technology and innovation.

It doesn’t matter if you are networking or looking for a star-quality employee. Boston has some of the best to be found, hands down.

Unbounded Energy

Other things that really rock in Boston are the general energy level – you can feel it just walking down the road. Like anything is possible, and the sky is the limit. It’s an unbridled sense of optimism that permeates throughout the community. There is also a great level of understanding of success and failure. It’s OK to fail, and for the most part you won’t get too many negative marks for it. Pick up and try again!

On the Whole

I consider myself very lucky to be surrounded by such a great environment. I believe it would be a lot harder to start a tech company in a place like Idaho or Montana – the atmosphere just isn’t there.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts in the comments. One hole in my perception is that I’ve never been to Silicon Valley. Secretly, I’ve always wondered about the signal to noise ratio there: I’ve assumed Silicon Valley, for all its greatness, also might have the flaw that there are just too many startups and you are competing against a much larger field. It’s like your typical wannabe Hollywood starlet that is waiting tables in Los Angeles. In addition, I think it’s probably easy to get overwhelmed with the technology that exists and lose sight of the end user product and how a product you are developing actually improves someone’s life.

What are your thoughts? What could make Boston better? What don’t we have that you would like to see?

I took a look at the TechStars site and I was very encouraged by what I saw. Young entrepreneurs. Seed funding. But most importantly, unbelievable mentorship with some of the most renowned and well-known names in the startup world – names like Dave Cohen, Dave McClure, Brad Feld, Sim Simeonov, and more. While the mentorship is critically important, I think the associations with these individuals and connections that result can be even more important. As I have moved along more and more in the development and preparation for the first releases of TotalTab, it is more apparent how important the connections you have are. And these accelerators provide that!

Mass Challenge

Mass Challenge isn’t really an incubator (they don’t take any equity, for one thing!) but they are a well-funded advanced “business plan competition” that really takes some cues from the startup incubators out there – in terms of providing mentorship and a multi-month “heads buried” phase of mentoring and product building.

We were on the cusp of applying to Mass Challenge for the 2011 season; but unfortunately it just became too much. In a startup, you need to spend every minute focusing on the most important thing at the top of that list. I haven’t read much about lean startups, but this is an agile development concept – always be focusing on your #1 priority at any given point in time – and right now that is building our product. We did submit our plan to the RI Biz Plan competition (and made semifinalist – and got our first press!), but the process was much simpler – really based on your business plan alone, not on your social proof like Mass Challenge looks for, which I actually think is a feather in the cap of the Mass Challenge.

What makes it hard(er) for older founders?

Where am I going with all this? One thing that really made it difficult for us was the commitment required for these accelerators and incubators. Don’t get me wrong – I am 100% committed to the success of TotalTab. Ryan and I work every night and every weekend, every free minute, to deliver and prepare TotalTab. But Mass Challenge, TechStars and other accelerators require you to drop everything else in your life for it.

Maintaining Balance is Critical to Startups

As much as I’d love to do that, I’m 30 years old. I have a house and a mortgage. I have a wife and 2 dogs, likely to be followed in the not-so-distant future with some rugrats of our own. I can work every night until 1AM and every weekend, all weekend – but I can’t afford to go full-time on TotalTab while we are still building the product; at least not if I want to keep a roof over my families heads!

So here’s the deal, I think the accelerators are awesome for kids who are just out of college, or even older folks who have limited responsibility and can afford to have zero salary. I wish I had started something earlier, but I had to work on my own path and find my way to entrepreneurship – and as I alluded to in my last post about moving from idea to execution, TotalTab probably wouldn’t have worked even a few years ago, when I was younger with less “real” responsibilities.

So while it’s unfortunate, I’m not counting it as a negative in my book. I’d love to take three months off and just commit to a startup accelerator. But it ain’t happening.

You still have to make those connections!

Just because you can’t feasibly survive a startup accelerator doesn’t mean that you can ignore what you get out of them. Sure, I can’t float three months with no income – but startups still need to be out there, building connections, finding mentors, and learning about business and entrepreneurship – and you don’t need to be in an accelerator program to get that experience!

At TotalTab, we are fortunate to be in a great startup city – Boston. There are literally dozens of startup events each and every week. From Mobile Monday, to Drinks on Tap, to UltraLight Startups, to Boston Innovation, there are meetings, gatherings, and get-togethers galore – and going to these events and mingling with fellow entrepreneurs, for advice, friendship, mentoring, partnering; or anything else, is critically important.

Hey, part of being an entrepreneur is working with the cards that you were dealt – and I have commitments now that I need to be committed to (the same way I am committed to the success of TotalTab). The same kind of commitments I am making to beta clients, our test restaurants, and my family when I stay up late every night with my head buried on the computer, working on figuring out what to do next! Rolling with what you have is what matters.

You aren’t the only one working hard!

I read a somewhat jarring blog post last week called, “Startups are Hard“. It’s worth a read. It threw me for a wrench though – I’ve been so optimistic about TotalTab. I bet most entrepreneurs are the same way – we feel confident about the validity of our idea. The post discussed how difficult things really are – going into detail about everything, including the strain it put on his relationships. Maybe I’ve got my rose-colored glasses on; but I just have faith in what we are doing and really believe we are going to create fundamental change in the way we handle payments in physical establishments. I’m open to all options and recognize the difficulty involved, but I see what we are doing as inevitable. Also, the guy who wrote that post ultimately dropped everything in his life to work on his startup – and I’m not convinced you need to jump off a cliff to succeed. There comes a point of no return, certainly; but that process can be metered and managed like anything else.

So, if you aren’t a great candidate for a startup accelerator, or you don’t get accepted – my (admittedly newbie) advice is – keep going! Build those connections manually. You don’t need an accelerator program to meet inspirational people or find good mentors. It sure helps, but is it necessary? No! Many great companies never had the opportunity to go through an accelerator, so don’t fret!

We will get TotalTab in businesses this summer. We are going to start making revenue shortly thereafter. And we are going to be successful. And (personally) I am still going to maintain my family values! Just wait and see! (side note: I’ll have to revisit this post in six months from now to see if any of my perspectives have changed!)

Share your stories in our comments about how you maintain a work-life balance, particularly if you are an older founder with more commitments than a college age kid!

I’m 30 years old now; but my passion for entrepreneurship started when I was in college almost a decade ago. I knew then I wanted to work for myself (I actually wrote an honors thesis on entrepreneurship!), but I had no idea what that actually meant.

Thinking vs. Doing

I’ve always been a big thinker. I used to carry a notebook with me wherever I went (now, it’s just my Android!) and I would write down ideas as I had them. They weren’t limited to technology. Some would say they were all over the place, including a plan to place advertisements on the underside of powered paragliders and buzz up and down the beaches in the summer (cheaper than renting an airplane to pull banners!). I spent time looking at buying existing businesses vs. starting from scratch (figuring reduced risk with buying an existing business). I looked at moving companies, tanning salons (what was I thinking??!!), and construction companies. None of them ever really panned out, even when I came close a few times to making purchase offers on some of these businesses.

Don't worry eco heads, it's a CFL

I started three companies, which all still run today, but are all fairly small. A web design company I started in 2002 (when I started, I didn’t even know what a server was!). A short sale software company I started in 2008 (which is now for sale, by the way, let me know if you are interested!). And most recently, an internet community focused on skiing, another passion of mine. All of these companies are hobby or side-project businesses. They are businesses I can run nights and weekends after work, and would never require any outside investment to grow or thrive. But they were all small ideas or at the most middle ground ideas.

It took me until late 2008 to realize, once and for all, that where I wanted to be was the Internet. I never formally went to school for computer science; but having worked in all manners of the Internet and being a technology geek; and I just knew my passion.

I always wanted to start and pursue something BIG. But truthfully; that made me nervous, because BIG also means BIG risk and BIG potential failure. It’s so much easier to read, to plan, to talk about it… and never do it. Some call it “analysis paralysis”, and that’s probably a good explanation. I always liked to analyze everything ten ways to the sun, find reasons for not executing. “Too much competition”. “Not enough market”. “Something else that is unknown”.

What’s the bottom line? Stop thinking – and start doing. I wish I did it earlier (not gonna lie; it’s definitely easier to launch products when you don’t have a mortgage!), although our business concept would have been very premature even a year ago.

Having a GREAT Partner

Having an A+ competent partner really makes all the difference in the world. I am not a superstar programmer. I have an idea of how things work. Enough to explain them. But having the right person alongside to round out those gaps in your knowledge means having a team you can be confident in. And I’ve never felt this good before about a team! Ryan rocks out his side of the house, and I rock out my side. During our weekly meetings, its amazing how much progress we make every week. In every aspect of the business. Coding. Solving problems. Identifying customers. Researching next steps. Working on the website. Business planning. And on it goes!

There is no way I could do it by myself, both from a technical perspective but also from an emotional perspective. Having someone you can intrinsically trust, particularly in a software startup, is critically important. All the start up accelerators say that they want to see at least two co-founders, and now I absolutely can appreciate why.

Get the best partner out there. Not OK, or decent, or good, but the best, and it will make moving to execution so much easier. You will motivate each other even when you uncover enormous hurdles.

Being Passionate

The other thing that makes it a lot easier to move to execution, is to be truly passionate about your idea. I’ve read quite a few entrepreneurial geared books and they all say you have to have passion for what you are doing  - you have to want to change the world. Of all the crazy ideas I’ve had (custom-made pet jewelry?), none of them has inspired me to lose sleep as much as TotalTab. I literally wake up every morning and can’t stand being in bed anymore because I want to get working on things and write down all the things I thought of overnight in my sleep. I love sitting in my office at home until midnight or later reading, planning, reviewing.

We are only 8 weeks into this adventure, but Ryan and I have probably put in (keep in mind we are both still full time employees) a combined 700+ hours into TotalTab. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t feel like a burden. If anything, it feels quite the opposite: liberating and encouraging. Every hour makes me want to put in another hour, like a book you can’t put down. I can’t wait to put in the next hour on TotalTab because I literally can barely wait to see what happens next.

Sometimes, it feels like almost every morning is Christmas morning. Can’t wait to see what we can unwrap next!

What are you Waiting For?

So those are some of the initial thoughts I’ve had. What are some of your ideas for moving from idea to inception?