Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/demibrooke/2550349404/

It’s common in life to encounter problems that are a) really big, b) difficult to understand or c) a brand new area that you’ve never encountered before.  In areas like software development, developers are always dealing with new domains that are totally different than what they’ve seen before.  In my years of experience, I’m still finding new techniques but here are some that I’ve found helpful:

- Don’t let the helplessness set in – It’s so easy to look at the problem at absolutely melt into the ground and slip away with a heavy heart.  Don’t let this happen!  If you’re put in this position to fix this problem, someone has confidence you can fix it.  If you’ve brought this on yourself, that’s okay too!  Look at previous insane things you’ve wrestled into submission.  If this problem SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult?  Probably not.  So take heart!  You can do this.

- Get some help.  Introverts typically do really well sorting through things by taking time to just think them through.  Extroverts (as in my case) typically need an external source to help them sort it out.  If I know someone who knows this domain well, I’ll call them up or meet for coffee and get their take on the problem.  Ask questions like: “have you had this type of problem before?”, “How would you approach this problem?”, or if you’re really stuck: “What should I do?”

- Write down the core of the problem – When your brain is trying to get a handle on the problem, it is going through all the hypothetical situations and is going a mile a minute trying to figure it out.  Instead, try writing down the problem in one line.  When you do that, magically you’ve been able to contain the entire problem into those couple of words.  It is now “bounded”. From there you can try this second technique:

- Breakup and isolate the problems – For most problems, you can break them up into smaller chunks.  This helps you take a very abstract, pie-in-the-sky idea and make it into very actionable and concrete problems.  Examples:  “Find a better job within 6 months” can be turned into something not nearly as scary:

1. Think of jobs I would like
2. Talk to friends who have cool jobs and find out what they did to get them
3. Find a local meetup for people interested in this area
4. Purchase a book on amazon about that job
5. Find out the education or experience needed to get that job

- Set realistic and attainable goals – If you plan to fix the world today, you may be disappointed by the time your heads hits the pillow.  Instead in the morning, think of one thing that will contribute (even in a small way) to achieving your goal.  The other really positive reason is that reaching your goals gives a surge of energy that will propel you forward towards your next goal.  Instead of “build this application that everyone would love” it could be “create this <small> feature and tell a friend to get their feedback”.

- Work in fixed time periods with deep focus – It is harder than ever to stay focused on the task at hand.  It’s so much easier to check facebook and your favorite blog than to do hard work.  Since I’m sure you didn’t know this (kidding), you’re now without excuse.  Try some of the strategies to rebuild your focus on Lifehacker here.  Personally, I use the Pomodoro technique and the time located at tomatoi.st

- Don’t avoid the hard parts – Following the last point, start with the hard parts first and when you have the most energy.  Otherwise, are you actually going to tackle the issues towards the end of the day?  I didn’t think so..

- Dive in and just start – I have found that poking around into the core of the problem and seeing how stuff works (breaking the code in the software case) is the best way to actually understand how I could fix the problem.

If you have other tips, I’d love hear them.

Following suit with the States, the Canadian government injected a massive amount of stimulus spending into R&D to support small business growth.  I pitched the idea to a local government R&D representative.  After some other loops, I had secured close to $50,000 allocated to my company to pay Canadian employees.

My next major issue was employees.  Where do I find solid Rails people?  I had attended some local Ruby meetups but never made a major attempt at finding people to hire, only potential employers.  So where do I go?  How many Rubyists are Canadian?  So away I went, posting on Rubynow, Railswork and a couple of others.

I received 30 resumes.  Only 3-5 who were Canadians.  I called one person up who sounded really great: positive about the project, done recent work in that domain and was very polite.  When asked about references, they didn’t have a list on hand but they’ve shipped over 30 apps.  After pushing harder for to get the references, the candidate started talking about great new ideas for the project and when we could get started.  As I _really_ desperate a solid rails guy, I took ‘em.  In retrospect, this leads to my first two major lessons learned:

Tip #1: Check out real references of people.  If they cannot produce any there is probably a reason behind that.  Ask the references: How are they to deal with?  Are they humble, egotistical, have authority issues, focused, stay true to their word etc etc.  If they are active in the rails community people _will_ know them and more than likely give you the low down.

Tip #2: If you are desperate, you’ll either a) do something crazy or b) get taken advantage of by people who can tell.  Instead, find a trusted source to give you advice in the particular issue you’re having be it hiring, finances, next steps, marketing whatever!  Lots of people love talking about prior experiences and are sometimes flattered to be asked for advice.

As we needed a few more developers, my first hire recommended two friends who turned out to good developers but admittedly less experienced.  The friendship lead to a major problem that I didn’t see in advance.  In all conflicts, these friends sided with their friend who recommended them.  If this developer didn’t like a stance I took, the rest of the development team (his friends) sided with him.  Understandably, this made it very difficult to push through tasks that really needed to get done.

Tip #3: As a project manager, more than half the job is managing relationships.  Always be watching for subtleties in the team dynamic to ensure it’s not personality conflicts that stop things from progressing.

At the beginning of the project, to develop a continuous velocity I had asked for a level of energy commitment from the various employees.  There were major issues with people making excuses after excuses as to why they couldn’t meet the target commitment level.

Tip #4: All startups have a window of opportunity.  If people can’t follow through on their commitments on a regular basis, this kills the momentum of the project.  Start looking for someone to replace them asap.  “Fool me once, shame on you.. fool me twice, shame on me”.  You do not have time to mess around!

Sometimes I would notice on Pivotal Tracker that a feature was complete, then login to the site to see it a) was broken b) it wasn’t what was agreed upon or c) wasn’t the top priority.

Tip #5: Expectations for feature releases have to be crystal clear.  What should it look like?  Should tests be completed with a feature?  Code reviews?  GUI and backed completed for each feature?

When I hired the gang, right off the bat, equity was given to the developer.  Oops.  They started arguing (right away) about the direction of the business, what features should be done, how I’m not managing the business with their interests in mind, I should buy them new Macbooks etc etc.  In short, without doing any work, the developers were owners already.  This leads me to my next tip:

Tip #6: Make equity based on clearly outline deliverables or effort.  That way, the employer/employee relationship is very clear from the start.  Once they show commitment levels, they earn their right to part ownership of the company.

Towards the end of the project (4-5 months), I made some really good contacts in the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation.  I would periodically meet with them to discuss issues and they would give me some really, really solid advice.  Had they been around for when the business first started, I’m sure things would have turned out differently.  This leads me to my first and most important tip:

Epic tip #7: Network, network, network.  Find people who will mentor you and offer advice for your project.  Find local developers who you know and trust.  Build relationships with the local entrepreneur network and start talking to angel investors.  You never know who you’ll meet or who they know that can help you along your journey.

I lost hours and hours of sleep over this company, mainly to try to figure out how to keep the project moving on all the while working full time at my day job.  I would think about MyMapNow most of the waking hours of the day.  I simply could not shut it off!

Was the project a success?

• I learned an absolute ton.  Not just about technology; but business, management, project management.  More than I’m sure I did in any one semester of university.
• The government was able to pay some Canadians for R&D work during the “economic downturn.”
• It’s now open source on github: http://github.com/jevy/MyMapNow
• So absolutely!

Conclusion

I now know what it takes to run a startup.  Basically: EVERYTHING.  I’m not ready to do that yet.  If the right opportunity and team came along, I’d jump right in.  For now, I won’t be actively looking for one and invest in my family and mental health instead.

In the short term, I’m going to keep consulting (to make other companies do great things) and real estate investing.  Which I’ll post about in the near future.  Thanks for reading!

I Wasn’t Happy

I was bored out of my mind.  To keep the creative juices flowing, I took up interesting challenges outside of work:

• My wife and I (with hired help) converted a single family home into a rental property.
• I started a web application company, got some government funding for it and hired a bunch of people.

I then spent a couple of evenings over a period of two months objectively looking at my life with these three questions (with some answers):

What don’t I like about my work?

• I don’t feel like my job is important.
• The work isn’t fun or interesting.
• People constantly back-bite and gossip about one another.  It’s not positive!

What are the priorities in my life right now?

• To do meaningful work to make a difference.  I don’t care how!
• To do some awesome problem solving using technology.
• Work with a team of people who have a common purpose, who enjoy each other and are collaborative.
• Work the flexible hours I want and the amount I want.  i.e. if I did great work and I want to leave at 1pm I can.

After I did this, I spent a good while researching possible alternative options for money.

1. Work for someone else – A company with strong management, who hire great people.
2. Build a product – Start my own company and hire great people.
3. Consult – Work as a consultant who only works on interesting projects.
4. Start a muse – Work at home to start a muse (a la Tim Ferris), and code for fun.

So what did I do?

As of June 24th, I’m starting my own software consultancy called “Quickjack Solutions” working with local and remote companies to help them to great things!  I’ll post more about more details how I got started later.

What about you?

If you’re really not happy about where you are in life, I would highly recommend you take a really hard look at your life.  What are you passionate about?  If you could do anything in the world what would it be? Some books that really help me come to this conclusion are below. All excellent books:

• Tim Ferris – The Four Hour Work Week
• Gerald M. Weinberg – The Secrets of Consulting
• Steve Pavlina – Personal Development for Smart People

I have a contract lined up for the next three months and then after that is a big question mark.  I’ll be spending lots of time “getting out there” networking and building some open source software to get my name out there.

Freelance Freedom