a canadian startup

How to Run a Startup Conference

Read this quotation from Founders at Work – Startup School 2008:

The event is free, because we know that the one thing most startup founders lack is money. It always seemed odd to me that so many conferences having to do with the web charged so much to attend. Many founders we knew (even ones with some funding) who were at ground zero of all the new things happening on the web, tended to be priced out of these events.We run Startup School like a startup. We offer bagels and coffee in the morning and not much else. There’s none of the extra stuff usually associated with conferences– no sponsors, no introductory remarks, no exhibitors, no bags full of schwag. Startup School is just about the content. And like a startup it has grown by word of mouth.

Great content, no schwag. Conferences that are designed for the participants (not profit, the media, or self-promotion) — how brilliant!

That Depends.

The Semiotics of Start, Stop, Play

On our site, not yet on the live site, we have a slide show to cycle different promotions (made in Flash).

I wrestled with Chris a bit on what the icons on the little buttons should look like (he finds it funny how much I argue about tiny little UI elements).

I didn’t like that there were the double arrow buttons on the right hand corner considering that this was a slideshow, not a movie. The double arrows, to me, means “go faster”, whereas in this context, he intended it to mean, “go to the next slide”. I suggested just a single arrow, but Chris validly rebutted that this symbol was already in use for the notion of “start/pause”. It is being used in the middle of the three right hand buttons.

In UI, you have to be careful about using well-known symbols, as humans develop connotations in their minds about what these symbols mean. Even if the user can make the desired action happen with your misused symbols, there will be a subconscious feeling of disconnect in the user’s mind.

After thinking about this, here’s my list of how start/stop/play symbols should be used.

I am very busy.

Powerful New Ad Campaign

Alex just dropped the new proofs on my desk for our site’s newest marketing campaign. Comments welcome.

Link: The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment

Quotation from blog.pmarca.com: The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6

First, an entrepreneur, like any CEO, has to make tough decisions about what her company will do, and those decisions will often run counter to the preferences of her employees. You don’t have to be involved in that many startups to find one where the entrepreneur knows she needs to make a tough decision — such as change strategy, or cancel a flawed project — but can’t quite do it because employees won’t like it. Of course this always backfires: employees also don’t like leaders who don’t make the tough decisions that have to be made.

I am interested in the concepts of cognitive bias and rational choice theory on their own. I try to apply them as fundamentals for negotiation, marketing, management, and (especially) strategy. (Can you recommend any good books?)

Venture Hacks has a summary of Mark Andreessen’s article. Both are good reads.

Guelph VC Roundtable with Rick Segal

Rick Segal from JLA Ventures is coming to Guelph for an intimate discussion on VC’s.

More information on the talks is available here:

Here’s the link to register:

Guelph VC Roundtable – Event Registration Powered By Eventbrite

(registration for other cities is available here)

It will be hosted downtown, and I believe it will be amazing as Rick is the most famous Canadian VC. He’s always direct and to the point. I’ve learned something every time I’ve heard him speak.

Link: mesh conference

The mesh conference tix are now on sale. I went last year (before Well.ca was a real thing) and loved the crowd. I recommend this conference to anyone that’s trying to enter the Internet business community in Canada.

mesh conference – connect | share | inspire » Blog Archive » Time to get your mesh on!

Link: The Lost Art of Caring

The Post Money Value: The Lost Art of Caring

Rick Segal talks about caring. So important.

Link: stevenf.com: The First, The Free, and the Good

Three ways to be number 1 in software:

stevenf.com: The First, The Free, and the Good

via funkaoshi

My Mom and Email

For the last two years, I’ve been training my mom to stop sending me spam forwards.

But still, a couple days ago, we had the following exchange:

To which my mom replies:

Well played, mom! Well played.