Three requirements to starting a business - (my take)

I think at a very high-level there are 3 things of which you need atleast 2, lets look at them below:

• Skill - Skill in whatever field your business is in, an understanding of the caveats, technologies or intricacies that allow you to stand above the others
• Money - To pay for resources
• Time - To spend on the business in its early days when baby sitting is required

Obviously having all three is ideal but in most cases we have 2 but not all three otherwise everyone would be successful business men. So lets see what you can do with the different combinations:

Skill + Money: Great combination, you know the business intimatly and have a sound understanding of how things should work whether its technology skills, people skills, marketing skills whatever. With skills and money to spend for resources you dont need (as much) time as you can buy time through resouces.

Skill + Time: Another good combination however not as good as Skill + Money. Again with skill you have a sound understanding of how things should work, but without money then you must use time. In most cases it usually means you use your skills to do most of the work in order to save the small amount of money that you have. This works fine bit it generates a bi-product called 'not enough sleep :P)

Money + Time: Another good combination but again not as good as Skill + Money. You can have alot of time and throw alot of money at a project/business and if you have enough of both eventually your business/project will come out alive but i think we have all seen alot of examples of individuals who have alot of money and time but no skills. Sometimes it makes me cringe at the amount of wastage of both those resources when we know with alittle skill it could be done with alot less waste of time and money.

I think i dont have to state what the outcome would be if we only had one of the three pillars listed above but i will do it quickly.

• Money only - Paris hilton
• Time only - Couch potato - TV All day, internet all day, x-box all day
• Skills only - This is actually one of the sadest things, someone with alot of skill but not enough time to put their skills into action and not enough money to buy time through resources. What comes to mind here is most company employees and subject matter experts in a specific highly skilled area such as engineering, marketing etc etc

When we started our startup these things were considered, skill + time is all we had (and time not in that much abundance either, but we make do). So before doing a business or startup, take a look at what you have, if you really want to start a business and only have one of those skills try to somehow make up for the other ....

My 2 cents on the matter :)

Great Article ...

Not a long post .. was reading the Ycombinator website and came across this link .... great read .... check it out :)

http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2008/05/18/the-single-most-important-career-question-you-can-ask-yourself/


Thats about it, im pretty tired 3-5 hours of sleep every night for the last 3 months ... time to hit the sack :) Nites ...

Something just isnt right .....

One of the best movies i think i ever watched was The Matrix (part one). It started out dark and lonely with Neo doing hacks for various different individuals in order to make money. When i look back at the movie i think now i like it even more. The reason is i can relate, its almost like a metaphore for what life is like for alot of guys like us who loved computers and technology, had alot to give and willing to learn but ended up doing things in the corporate world that was just plain boring, unfulfilling, full of beaurocracy and people that (outside of work) would never even make the far outer reaches of the circle of friends you have.

There was one thing that i clearly remember from the movie, its when morpheous talks to Neo and says, Neo do you feel that something just isnt right ... that something is missing ... that there is more to the world then you see .. (or something along those lines) and Neo replies with .. YES ...

Sometimes i feel the same way, that things just arnt right, that the work i do and the way i do things just doesnt seem to fit in. That even though i earn alright money it just all seems to suck ... Dont get me wrong, i love my life and most of the things in it, i just hate my work, not any job specifically but just all of it.

This morning i wanted to go to the gym but my clock said 7:30 (which was wrong, it was fast it was only 7:10 grrr) which is abit to late. So instead i started watching youtube videos to start my morning and i came across a great video ... The realization that the speaker talks about is the EXACT same sort of feelings that i have had for a while. If i reflect back to first day at work when i was enthusiastic to even now, nothing i did ever made sense and everything felt DRONE like and uncreative ...

Anyway, watch the video above, i loved it and i thought it was great, it took me about 5 years to make the realization and another 2 years to do something about it. On my defense i must admit, the 5 years to get to the realization, nothing you can do, sometimes it takes time to process all the things you have seen and interprate them in a useful manner but the 2 years of doing nothing (slap on the wrist, thats unacceptable) .. so here it is, a great video (above) ...

EDIT: Even though im still working 4 days a week, doing the startup for the rest of the three days is one of the most exciting things (yes even though sleep is optional), its because everything is new, and very very creative, when your an engineer it doesnt matter if your a manager/director in the corporate world and how much you say you want to work up the ladder, the taste of creativity, vibrante energy, creating and working in a good team just cant be beat .....

Ciao ... and have a great day at work today :(

Updated ... Random Pictures from NYE

Singing our way through to the new year, great night great people.
When the group is into it, its always fun :P

Cheerssss !!

The beautiful view of sydney darling harbour on a clear

sydney night. This is why i love sydney so much. Even up close

Sydney is great ...

The Boys all singing ...


Taking a chicking break between between songs



What a view for new years :P

How to start a startup ...

The title is stolen from paul grahams article -> (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html). I live in Australia and like earlier mentioned we do have some startup talks that i have been introduced to but not as much as there would be in the US. This is why i rely alot on youtube videos, articles and friends that do have their ears constantly to the floor when it comes to the latest information regarding different talks.

This information from paul graham is old, published 2005 to be precise, its long but i still enjoyed reading the article. It provides the tiny bit if information you need to know so that you know how to progress and what to ask/do next. You dont know what you dont know and atleast the article fixes this problem to some extent by providing a high level overview of startup architecture.

I know how to develop and have some understanding of technology, but as someone who enjoys technology my business skills are mainly around common sense and basic rules (and what i read in articles etc), nothing concrete or solid. I do plan to attend a school that could teach me about business in detail and to experience this whole new area (hopefully somewhere in the us) if all goes to plan and that is why when i read a specific passage from paul grahams article i thought it was quite true and i firmly agree :

The rulers of the technology business tend to come from technology, not business. So if you want to invest two years in something that will help you succeed in business, the evidence suggests you'd do better to learn how to hack than get an MBA.

Thats about it, started first day of new job yesterday, what can i say, yeh its work, whatever ... my mother told me not to say anything if there was nothing nice to say ... :)

New Years Party '09 GaRaGE StYle ...

So we had it, the new years party at good ol darling harbour ... how was it ?!? ... it was totally awesome and im pretty sure everyone that came had a good time.

Pretty much all my close mates came and we had a great time singing, playing poker, drinking and eventually passing out on the couchs and various other random places ... Its good starting the new year having some fun with people that you know and trust. We did the usual things you do at a new years party. We also ended up singing and making up lyrics as we went along (cause we had forgotten the real lyrics) making it alot more fun :)

Our good friends jageermiester, good old jack, mr crowny and a few tall long red's kept the night happening, (blurry, happy whatever ...) Eventually though, after all the singing, i did run out of songs to play so to continue the night and keep it exciting we pulled out garage datacenter hitmans poker set which kept everyone entertained until the wee hours of the morning ... it was a great game, i tried to bluff my way right at the end with an all in and got called ... was a good thing cause i was able to sleep then ....

As of now, there is 2 more days to go till i have to head back to work, totally blows, however our startup is going to launch real soon (hopefully within the next 2-3 months). This is mainly thanks to the efforts of garage datacenter artist who has been going hard cooking up the templates and making corrections lighting fast to ensure there are no delays. Hopefully when this is launched it will mean a bigger, brighter and more exciting '09 for the whole team.

So, with all parties behind us, a fresh new year and ideas bubbling, I hope everyone has their plan ready for '09, has learnt from all the mistakes of past years and is ready to attack this new year with guns blazing ... me personally ... im ready for the new year ahead and god willing (as always) hopefully it all plays out as expected.

OK so with no further adue, here are *some* of the pictures from '09 new years party !! ...

Fireworks at darling harbour 9 oclock


Fireworks at 12:00 darling harbour

Dancing partners thanks to the motivation given by mr crownies


Mate we are watching ok ... mens toilets are downstairs ... !

Gay behaviour, dry humped by your good mate (what a way to start of 09)

There you have it ... So to all, lets begin this new year making the best of all the opportunities that will come during 2009 !