IMHO Patrick is the smartest guy in software at the moment. I can think of any number of bigger, more profitable and more exciting software businesses, but none that make the owner quite as radiantly happy as BCC makes Patrick. I feel slightly uncomfortable talking in such a hippyish manner, but there's a certain Zen quality to the way Patrick does business; Like a rock garden, BCC is at once a metaphor for life and something purely abstract. His way of doing things seems as much about being a better person as it is about running a better business.
If you desperately want a squillion dollars, read PG.
If your idea of fun is running a big office, read Spolsky.
If you have other priorities, I can't think of a wiser voice than patio11.
Oh come on. I think Patrick is awesome too, but you're going a bit far.
And if you think Patrick is some kind of monk doesn't want a "squillion dollars" you haven't been paying very close attention.
Patrick is a smart (and very nice) guy with some really useful knowledge and a very analytical mind. He's also exceptionally good at communicating.
It's that last part that he has in common with PG and Spolsky.
His actual advice and experience is severely lagging behind his ability to promote and communicate. Certainly his ideas about how to run a business are far from proven. He hasn't even repeated the success of BCC himself yet.
PG's startup advice is directly responsible for dozens of very successful companies. Probably hundreds. Spolsky's advice on running a software company improved the way thousands of them are run.
Patrick may get there eventually (he's got all the right skills), but let's not get too carried away yet.
Although it shares most of a title with an old blog post of mine, this is actually a new hour-long presentation that I did at Microconf this year, with slides and textual accompaniment. Comments are appreciated as always.
Approximately 30% of the Japanese workforce is salarymen. The rest runs the gamut in terms of working conditions -- the key difference from the Japanese perspective is that salarymen are guaranteed against virtually all risk from the time they join the company until death. I'm not married -- the company was willing to take care of that. I had problems with my landlords? The company would have taken care of that. I needed intercession on visa/tax/etc issues? The company took care of that. We had a bad year and people needed to get cut? They'd sooner dissolve the company than fire seishain -- we cut contractors/etc instead.
People get explained the rules in the same fashion that Americans learn that work starts at nine, being late is discouraged, and that accepting bribes is improper -- yeah, if you slip up, you'll be reminded of them, but they're for the most part cultural background. Do you remember the first time you found out that your dad had to go to the office every day? Imagine finding out, that day, that he was going to be there until 11 PM. And that's just how it was, for nearly everybody you knew. And if it wasn't the case for your friend's dad, you'd keep quiet about it, because you didn't want to embarrass your friend that his dad had a crap job. That's the kicker: these jobs are the brass rings that people aspire to. (And if you wonder why I go on the warpath when folks suggest the Valley-esque work/life balance is to be emulated, there is why.)
More than quitting in frustration, the bigger phenomenon is younger folks just dropping out of the traditional labor force, which is a large (though probably exaggerated because it is shocking) phenomenon in Japan today.
The government and industry have made a lot of noise about humanizing working conditions for the last generation. We get reminders to stretch now! Yay! Seriously though, the cult of salarymanhood is very gradually losing cultural hegemony, partially because some companies are abandoning the lifetime employment guarantee (without which it is a very, very raw deal), partially because the Japanese labor force is broadening away from Men Doing Men's Work Like Manly Men which was always the core of the system, and partially because all cultures change over time.
Really good talk. I'm curious if you can expand on how you would optimize for maximum benefit of an exact match domain. It's a singular event obviously, so do you need to lead up to it with relevant content or will it just sell itself because people are already searching for it? Are there ways to get a multiplicative effect out of it, say use it to boost other products? Also, how do you keep taking advantage of it even after the event passes?
So exact match domains are certainly not limited to events on the calendar, but to the extent that mine are:
1) The way to get extra benefit out of Halloween is to, well, wait 12 months.
2) Getting people's email address is the single best way to boost other products, if there is any overlap in customer needs. (This is my single biggest d'oh should do more with that in my business, for five years running.)
3) If you have their email address and permission to contact them, the party never stops.
Fabulous. I would have bailed due to sound quality (I don't hear speech real well in general), but the content was worth squinting my ears for an hour.
Will have to check this out this weekend. Any idea if the other MicroConf talks will be posted? I'd like to see the talks from Justin Vincent (from Techzing) and Noah Kagan.
I heard from Rob that they don't have any particular plans to use the talks at the moment, but might if they decide to do the conference again next year. That means that the raw video files go out to the individual speakers. Whether they post it is up to the individual speaker -- actually doing so takes a bit of work.
I agree with many of his points, but I think it very much only applies to the burgeoning stages of a bigger vision or a solo ran / small vision product.
As many, many successful entrepreneurs have said before, outsourcing will absolutely not equate to quality in the long run. You need more control over execution to build the best product.
Now don't get me wrong, I respect Patrick for the business he's built - it's a lot more than most. We should all give props.
It depends on the scope of the project, among other things. Some projects are too big for one person to tackle. Others are too small to pay more than one founder.
[+] [-] jdietrich|15 years ago|reply
If you desperately want a squillion dollars, read PG. If your idea of fun is running a big office, read Spolsky. If you have other priorities, I can't think of a wiser voice than patio11.
[+] [-] staunch|15 years ago|reply
And if you think Patrick is some kind of monk doesn't want a "squillion dollars" you haven't been paying very close attention.
Patrick is a smart (and very nice) guy with some really useful knowledge and a very analytical mind. He's also exceptionally good at communicating.
It's that last part that he has in common with PG and Spolsky.
His actual advice and experience is severely lagging behind his ability to promote and communicate. Certainly his ideas about how to run a business are far from proven. He hasn't even repeated the success of BCC himself yet.
PG's startup advice is directly responsible for dozens of very successful companies. Probably hundreds. Spolsky's advice on running a software company improved the way thousands of them are run.
Patrick may get there eventually (he's got all the right skills), but let's not get too carried away yet.
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
FWIW, I think even small software businesses have a lot to learn from pg and Spolsky (among others).
[+] [-] evanrmurphy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanrmurphy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jswinghammer|15 years ago|reply
Is this a common situation to find oneself in?
Does someone explain the rules or do you just figure it out by what every else does?
Does no one complain or quit in frustration?
Does anyone try to stop this practice?
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
People get explained the rules in the same fashion that Americans learn that work starts at nine, being late is discouraged, and that accepting bribes is improper -- yeah, if you slip up, you'll be reminded of them, but they're for the most part cultural background. Do you remember the first time you found out that your dad had to go to the office every day? Imagine finding out, that day, that he was going to be there until 11 PM. And that's just how it was, for nearly everybody you knew. And if it wasn't the case for your friend's dad, you'd keep quiet about it, because you didn't want to embarrass your friend that his dad had a crap job. That's the kicker: these jobs are the brass rings that people aspire to. (And if you wonder why I go on the warpath when folks suggest the Valley-esque work/life balance is to be emulated, there is why.)
More than quitting in frustration, the bigger phenomenon is younger folks just dropping out of the traditional labor force, which is a large (though probably exaggerated because it is shocking) phenomenon in Japan today.
The government and industry have made a lot of noise about humanizing working conditions for the last generation. We get reminders to stretch now! Yay! Seriously though, the cult of salarymanhood is very gradually losing cultural hegemony, partially because some companies are abandoning the lifetime employment guarantee (without which it is a very, very raw deal), partially because the Japanese labor force is broadening away from Men Doing Men's Work Like Manly Men which was always the core of the system, and partially because all cultures change over time.
[+] [-] physcab|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
1) The way to get extra benefit out of Halloween is to, well, wait 12 months.
2) Getting people's email address is the single best way to boost other products, if there is any overlap in customer needs. (This is my single biggest d'oh should do more with that in my business, for five years running.)
3) If you have their email address and permission to contact them, the party never stops.
[+] [-] sixtofour|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mise|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbellis|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanrmurphy|15 years ago|reply
--
Update: OK, I see. It's in the Quitting The Day Job section starting at "Also at Christmas I had a conversation with Thomas Ptacek".
[+] [-] swanson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] armandososa|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
If you absolutely need an offline copy, see http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/files/video/patrick-mcke... It is 400 MB and not set up for streaming, so I'd strongly suggest using the one on the blog, but if you need to download it go ahead.
[+] [-] rimantas|15 years ago|reply
Was that Google?
[+] [-] becomevocal|15 years ago|reply
As many, many successful entrepreneurs have said before, outsourcing will absolutely not equate to quality in the long run. You need more control over execution to build the best product.
Now don't get me wrong, I respect Patrick for the business he's built - it's a lot more than most. We should all give props.
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dablue|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eurohacker|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanrmurphy|15 years ago|reply