David Heinemeier Hansson recently wrote about growth and startups. It’s nice to see my sentiments articulated, and by someone who’s successful despite having an uncommon take. The last two paragraphs sum it up nicely: As Douglas Rushkoff says, we need a new operating system for startups. The current one will keep producing the same extractive and monopolistic empires we’ve gotten so far. No, what we need is a new crop of companies that are institutionally comfortable with leaving money on the table.
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Read linked content The article hits home (click the title). And when you’re a creative type giving things away for free it can make you feel run-down and used. I’ve had a few thoughts for infusing my Flam Swiss “brand” with more value. Producing more content that teaches is one idea. Wish I could say I had others.
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Knocked out Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It book a few Saturdays ago. Of course, this got me thinking once-again about other ways I could make some money. Flam Swiss is fulfilling, but since by choice I’m targetting the high school level, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity for making money. Or at least not that I’m seeing right now. Most schools don’t have the funds to pay for music, and even fewer high school students are able to donate or purchase.
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Think I listened to 8 Charlie Rose episodes yesterday while working. All of Michael Arrington’s (because I was curious), a few with Bill Gates and the newest with Jeff Bezos. I think if I could trade places with any successful tech CEO/entrepreneur, it would be Jeff Bezos. He’s 100% likable, with tons of energy. Charlie asked Jeff which qualities most helped him be successful and Jeff responded, “The willingness to be misunderstood.
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On Nov 11, I updated the survey system on Flam Swiss, my drumline cadence composition venture. In the process I also thought, I’ll dedicate the right side of the site to surveys, that way they won’t be missed, and visitors will know what to expect. Well, this also means I removed my photo from the right-side of the site. It was on every page and sat just above the survey questions.
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With so much to learn about my target market for Flam Swiss, I’ve been making use of surveys to find out who my site visitors are. Wufoo is great, but I only had 1 response when visitors were asked to visit a link in order to fill out my Wufoo survey form. When I decided to embed the Wufoo form directly in my webpage I got** 12 responses**. So much better!
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