I have a full schedule next week. I'll probably get to meet a bunch of new people, drink a lot of beer and see some good old friends on the following events next week:
Thursday: WTIA Investment Forum where I'll be representing Sampa and presenting our past, present and future (DeBeers theme song on the background) at the Bell Harbor Conference Center.
If we haven't meet yet this is the perfect opportunity for you to bribe me to move your company up on the Seattle 2.0 list. I accept beer, scotch and wine, but not mixed together.
It has been more than 14 months since I gave any pitch/talk about Sampa. Since then, Paul has been doing all the pitches, demos, talks and answering the phone.
This Thursday you'll have a rare opportunity to see me talk about Sampa's past, present and future - from product to business through marketing.
I love when people start talking about saving the planet, buying organic food and having a green life style. Today is Earth Day which can also be known as hypocrite day.
Let me start with all the people that drive a Prius and think they are saving the planet, and I have more than a dozen friends on this category so they will forgive me for telling the truth.
Prius is not a "green car". No hybrid is a green. They are still internal combustion engines which *do* releases all kinds of bad stuff into the air, except instead of putting 100 lbs of shit in the air per year, they put 70 lbs of shit. Yay! Mother Earth thanks you.
Now, let's suppose that everybody on the planet decide to stop using their cars and either ride a bike, use a hydrogen or electric car or walk to work. How much good would this do to global warming and saving the planet? Zilch! Nada! Nothing! Surprised?
Most of the polution that is destroying the planet doesn't come from cars, or from any other source where individuals have control over. They come from airplanes, factories, power plants, big delivery trucks, trains, etc.
Here is a fun fact: A single cross-country airplane trip will probably generate all the carbon monoxide your car will generate all year long*.
The sad part is that I don't have an answer fo us to save the planet, but I know for sure people telling me to not print an email to save some trees is not it!
Happy Earth Day, Earth.
* Need to verify this claim, but I'm pretty sure it's true.
Let me just clarify my post yesterday about Hypocrite Day.
If you read it carefully, what I'm saying is that saving the planet is much bigger than what any individual can do, and bigger still than a majority of individuals could do together. It's mostly on the hands of governments and heads of industries to fix global warming.
Now, let's be clear that driving a hybrid is better than driving a non-hybrid (and biking to work is better than both). Local polution levels also benefits from hybrids, but it has no affect at the global level.
Yes, we should do the right thing and buy cars that consume less gasoline, recycle, try to eat organic and non-transgenic food, bike and walk more often. But don't be mistaken that if all of us did that we'd be saving the planet, we wouldn't.
I have too much to write about and too little time since I'm preparing for the WTIA presentation tomorrow (I'm soooo unprepared that I'll make a fool of myself) and I'm heading for the UW Business Plan Competition in a few hours.
Anyway, this is what I have to say:
I had coffee with Andy Sack yesterday. This guy doesn't stop amazing me on his way of talking, his energy and the good that he's doing for the startup community in Seattle. Is there a State medal we should nominate Andy for?
I went to nPost Network. Event was packed, fun. I was really impressed by RescueTime (way to go Tony), and with Alerts.com. On Alerts.com it reminded me of a time that we talked about our "personal assistants" that would find things that mattered to us, tell us of things that we care and wanted to be remembered, etc. Alerts.com has an aroma that resambles it. Finally, Nathan Kaiser just did a great job organizing the event.
Lastly, went to Jackson Fish Market to see Hillel unveil his new baby. I've got there 7:50 PM and it was packed, the food gone and I've got a half cup of beer from a Keg and it was gone too. Oh well, the event was fun and I saw some old friends I haven't seen for ages. Hats off to the JFM team to pull out a launch party like this (this is how startups should be doing it).
The WTIA Investment Forum is about to start. Several companies will be pitching to investors, entrepreneurs and service providers about their company. I'll be presenting Sampa.
I might try some living blogging between my mental rehearsals of the presentation.
At this point the place feels very empty. The Welcome by Ken Myers was supposed to start at 8:30, but it's already 8:35 and the room for 300 people has less than 20 right now.
I'm a Web-Consumer guy. That's my industry. I love to be part of it, I find it exciting and I want to dedicate the rest of my life to it.
Hearing the morning panel (Keith Grinstein, Steve Lidberg, Mike McSherry and Sid Parakh) talk about the Wireless industry I can think of a single word to describe it: b-o-r-i-n-g.
For me, Hardware, Wireless, Server Products should just work. Those are the commodities for me.
What you might not know is that on a previous life I worked on Telecommunications and on that world, software and the web are the commodity and the hardware is the key differentiation.
In other words, I'm glad there are people that are passionate by things I find boring. Otherwise I couldn't do what I love to do.
It's a bit weird to blog about the "competing" companies at the WTIA since I'm a presenter, but I just can't stop myself:
Demoxi Demoxi is an interesting proposition w/ interesting technology to create a new ad serving platform that lives on your PC. Remember when you'd install some application and it would hijack your adds, show you popups, and control your PC? That's what Demoxi is, except they are doing it w/ the end-user in mind. So you control what happens, how it happens and when it happens. That's my understanding. I think there might be something for Sampa users since we are branding ourself as a "family safe" company Demoxi positioning is very much aligned with us.
Earth Class Mail I've seen they talk many times, and the whole send your mail to ECM and check it online simply doesn't work for me, as a consumer, but I can see the value for the enterprise or people that are seldom at home because they travel a lot. I think they will burn a lot ($$$$) of cash. The initial cost to get going is very high and they probably need a few million customers to break-even.
Yapta Yapta is really interesting and valuable to travelers. They nailed the technology and the website, but they have to create a brand and attract customers. I blogged about this before, but I think they should either merge with TripIt or duplicate TripIt's technology, which isn't that hard to do. The most valuable aspect of Yapta is the opportunity to get a refund on a price reduction of an airline ticket you already purchase.
I just presented at the WTIA. It took me 7 minutes to present and the Q&A lasted 10 minutes.
I begun by getting a laugh out of the crowd (don't remember exactly what I said), but it certainly helped. I tend to have these spontaneous moments that I don't prepare for and I don't know where it comes from, but the audience usually enjoys. That's one of the reasons I hate to be over-prepared to give a talk. It kills spontaneity.
My goal was to tell the story of what Sampa used to be, what Sampa is now and where we want to go. I think the mission was accomplished.
The Q&A from the panel was much easier than I expected.
The other good thing was the fact there was only 50 people on the room, so the worst case scenario I've made a fool of myself to just 50 people. :)
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at Columbia City Theater
October, 2007