WeWork Labs Demo Day

Most of you probably know but if not, I'm one of the co-founders of a space in SoHo, NYC called WeWork Labs. My partner, Matt, and I opened it in the beginning of April of this year and it's been amazing! The people that work out of here (47+ entrepreneurs) and the startups that are being build here (currently over 24) are just fantastic!

In order to help people share their ideas and gain helpful feedback we hold "Demo Days" frequently at the office. These demo days are very informal, and usually consist of 6-8 great people sharing their products in 4 minute chunks. Everyone in WeWork Labs shares their thoughts, offers their support (sometimes morale and other times real development, design or business support) and has a good time learning about their fellow office-mates.

We have one scheduled for next Friday, August 12th. Right now we have 8 great companies scheduled to demo. If you'd like to swing by to see some of the awesome startups that are working out of here, let me know. Send an email over to jesse -at- guyhaus.com and I'll send you the details.

From idea to product in 24 hours...

Many would think it's not possible but it is once you've got a little practice under your belt.  It's great to continue to hone your skills. When you're a business man or woman you should be out there closing deals. As a technical guru you should be fixing problems and coding away. And when you're a startup guy you should be making things that solve problems or provide people joy. That's what I decided to do this weekend.

While I was getting ready to go to bed around 10:30pm on Saturday evening I came up with the idea. I had a few things I needed to get done on Sunday and I needed a quick way to make sure I got reminded to do simple tasks when I needed to. So I set out to build it myself.

I woke at 10:15am on Sunday morning and I got to coding (eh, it's more hacking than coding when I do it) and within a few hours I had a framework for my product built on a platform called Twilio. Twilio lets you build apps that interact with real telephones (both phone and text) and that's exactly what I needed.

As I walked out the door at 1:30pm to wander around the city with my wife I also set out to figure out a name for the project. I turned to a friend's awesome product, Domainful, that was built to solve a personal need as well. Domainful lets you check on available domain names and then purchase them all through a couple of text messages. It's super simple and in only a few minutes I found one I wanted and bought it - HitYouBack.com.

Once I finished grabbing coffee, wandering around Union Square and checking my mail at the office we headed home. As Magda made dinner I put a few finishing touches on HitYouBack. I added some error checking and helpful messaging and threw up a simple site. It went live at 7:28pm with a tweet.

So in actuality it took me about 21 hours to go from an idea to a simple product. Since I'm building a startup full time right now, GetMinders, I need all the help I can get. And what better way to continue to educate myself than launching new things all the time?

P.S. - If you'd like to give HitYouBack a whirl it's pretty easy to use: Create a new text to 484-819-0577 that begins with the number of hours (from 1-24) until you'd like the reminder to come and the message you'd like to receive. If I wanted to remind myself to go to the post office tomorrow around noon, I'd send "12 Go to the post office" since it's almost midnight here. Enjoy!

Android versus iPhone: Winner Takes Most

That's right, my belief was that the Android platform would beat out the iPhone OS way back when and that time is coming just around the corner.  Google announced some major improvements at the Google I/O conference that really turns their flagship mobile product into the best mobile platform out there.  Let's take a look at four reasons the little green alien will kick ass:

• The faster and more powerful browser - While Google already had a pretty decent browser built into the Android OS, it was still the younger, more awkward version of the iPhone's browser.  Actions while browsing the web on an Apple device were simply smoother and faster to load.  Android had no problem with this before as they allowed any browser to come in and fix the problem (and people did - Dolphin, Sky Fire, Mozilla, etc) but now they're taking the lead and rolling out a browser that's not only faster, but sexy and simple to boot.
• New APIs - I know this seems a bit technical but it's not that complicated.  The Android OS is fairly open (there are still some hooks that are unavailable to the normal developer) and this means one thing for end users.  More amazing applications that continue to rock your world.  Sure the iPhone has some snazzy games but the latest Android release opens up tethering, more security features (for the enterprise) and an unlimited amount of space for applications (now that they can be saved to the expandable and removable SD card).
• Oh yeah, that little thing named Flash - While Apple continues to believe that just because they don't support it up on their platform the rest of the world will roll over and simply replace all of their Flash developed apps and sites, Google is embracing the fact that there are numerous technologies out there.  With this latest release, Flash will be supported directly in the OS (because of their open platform, Sky Fire already does this on Android).  This doesn't meant that Google isn't looking forward.  Their browser supports HTML5 and all of the other great web standards but they've given users the choice to log on to their everyday sites.  This is a big deal for more people (and their grandmothers).
• Multitasking - Need I say more?  The ability for me to run multiple applications at the same time is important to my productivity.  If Apple wants me to replace some of my everyday hardware with theirs, they have another thing coming.  I, along with the rest of the world, work on more than one thing at a time.  I hope Apple gets with the program but for now, this is a major reason to stick with Android in my book. 

I'm not saying that the iPhone (or other Apple products) will be obsolete any time soon but I do believe that over the next 12-18 months people will realize that Google's product is pretty amazing and will eventually win the mobile war if Apple doesn't choose to open up and smell the web (the open web that is).  People need choice, it's part of what makes us human.

The lowest common denominator theory (with technology)

I've been talking to a lot of people about a project that I'm working on (it's still sort of in stealth) and one thing that has come up time and time again is the idea of a lowest common denominator (LCD) when it comes to technology.  The idea is simple: Develop a product that requires the least amount of technology to succeed.  So many products ask too much of their potential market to gain massive adoption.  Make it simple for people but most importantly, make it usable without adding any additional overhead to what they already have or do.

Facebook, in its early years, wanted to reach the college student.  They required only internet and a .edu email address.  Five years prior, not everyone had a college email address and some people didn't even have internet in their dorm rooms (crazy, I know).  But Mark and team looked at their demographic and realized that their users had the tools necessary to join the network so they in turn are now one of the most popular sites in the world.

Google wanted to launch a search platform.  Back in the day (1998) people didn't have high speed internet as readily available as they do now, computers were slower and monitors were smaller (now my 24" screen is outdated).  Because their product didn't require massive amounts of processing power and kept the design simple, everyone was able to access the site and search the globe.  Because they offered a service that matched their LCD they too are one of the most visited sites on the web and they are making over twenty three billion dollars per year.

When you're working on your next project, make sure you think about who your target is.  Cater to them.  Make your product simple.  And most of all, think about that LCD.