Double Encore: The Manhattan Project for Ideas. Coming Soon.

Many have asked about what I’m up to.  In traditional fashion, I’ve said little.   As we build the business, I’m going to use this blog as a place to reveal more.  Not only the “what” of the business, but also more of our specific trials and tribulations that might be helpful to other startups.

Double Encore has grown out of my startup experiences and time working at a Fortune 500.  There is no perfect, but we started by thinking long and hard about what type of workplace we dream about going to every day.  We believe that an inspired workplace is a breeding ground for innovation.

And so we begin.  

The Startup Culture

As used-to-be startups like Google become giant enterprises, the great struggle is how to retain the culture that propelled them to what they’ve become. Startups usually don’t “focus” on their culture–at least not until Google decided to pay for three squares a day and provide on-site massage services–but the mere nature of a startup creates a David vs. Goliath environment where most are bought-in and aligned towards accomplishing some future goal.

I’ve thought a lot about culture lately. Reflecting on my past startup experiences as well as life in corporate America. Even the best cultures aren’t without their share of posers and opportunists.

So how do you protect a culture from those that will harm or worse– destroy it? The Founding Fathers tried to protect the fabric of American democracy through a system of checks and balances. As we have seen, this stifles the ability to make change– even for the most optimistic, capable politicians. If we don’t have checks and balances, there is organizational vulnerability. If power swings too far one direction– individuals can wield too much power and have a devastating impact.

What’s the answer?

Executive Summary “Detail Creep”

Despite all the planning in the world and knowing full well that an executive summary is a high level overview, I found myself recently diving a little too deep. I recognized that the “detail creep” is not wasted effort, just isn’t relevant to the executive summary. So reviewed my work every so often, and cut and paste any “detail” into a scratch document. This way, I had plenty of great material on paper that could be used later on in the business plan.

Travel and Blogging

Well, I apologize for a lack of updates recently. I spent the past few weeks traveling, but
will get back into gear this week. Expect some great updates soon!

PowerSet Goes Beta

I’ve talked about PowerSet before. Yesterday it went into public beta. Currently, it only crawls Wikipedia and performance isn’t that great (compared to Google), but surely it will improve over time.

BusinessWeek also has a nice summary of PowerSet if you aren’t yet familiar.

CrowdSourcing… An Internet Labor Model

ReadWriteWeb has a fantastic overview of CrowdSourcing. In my view, these CrowdSource sites try to benefit from the best of Open Source, by merely stuffing some of the concepts into a walled garden. Open Source is so much richer– not merely one site or one project. CrowdSourcing may need a portal that marries “wants” with “needs”, directing people to an appropriate venue.

Certainly, some successful examples exist. Digg has CrowdSourcing features (”micro-CrowdSourcing?”) though even it has not yet reached a critical mass.

What Makes a Killer Workspace?

Okay, I would love to hear from you:

• What makes a killer workspace?
• What do you have that rocks?
• What do you wish you had?

Respond in the comments or drop me a line.

The Startup Process - Two Rabbits & Wa-Wa

I always hear people talk about how ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is king. While I don’t disagree, few people go so far to describe what good startup execution looks like.

A friend and I were talking about this very subject and the idea of Wa-Wa came up. As I
he and I were discussing my latest idea (more on that in a future post), his advice was clear: “What Are We About?”

In other words, define what’s at your core and use it to focus.

For example, at Terra Soft we recognized that our Wa-Wa included two things: Linux and PowerPC microprocessors.

Over the years, we faced a number of critical decisions that could have dramatically altered our business. In each case, we returned to “What Are We About” and asked ourselves if the decision aligned. If it didn’t, we had to decide whether it made strategic sense to alter course. For us, the hardest part was saying “No” to deals that didn’t align and wouldn’t have made us better even if it meant turning down cash flow.

In starting up, have a mechanism to ensure that you stay focused yet have a tool to help you identify your strategic alternatives. All startups have to course correct. The key is making the right corrections soon enough to make a difference.

Clear Markerboards

If anyone out there has experience using Clear Markerboards, please let me know your opinion compared to traditional whiteboards. They seem cool, albeit pricey!