_recentdev({"version":"1.0","encoding":"UTF-8","feed":{"xmlns":"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom","xmlns$openSearch":"http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/","xmlns$georss":"http://www.georss.org/georss","xmlns$thr":"http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0","id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840979806248747743"},"updated":{"$t":"2010-08-04T13:18:48.302-07:00"},"title":{"type":"text","$t":"thisDev"},"subtitle":{"type":"html","$t":"development \u0026 execution"},"link":[{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/feeds/posts/default"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default?alt\u003djson-in-script\u0026max-results\u003d3"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/"},{"rel":"hub","href":"http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/"},{"rel":"next","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default?alt\u003djson-in-script\u0026start-index\u003d4\u0026max-results\u003d3"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Roy Leban"},"uri":{"$t":"http://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"}}],"generator":{"version":"7.00","uri":"http://www.blogger.com","$t":"Blogger"},"openSearch$totalResults":{"$t":"90"},"openSearch$startIndex":{"$t":"1"},"openSearch$itemsPerPage":{"$t":"3"},"entry":[{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840979806248747743.post-5280454705935181995"},"published":{"$t":"2010-02-24T15:46:00.000-08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2010-02-24T15:46:00.250-08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"entrepreneurship"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"startups"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"investors"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Research Then Development"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"A lot of companies talk about R\u0026amp;D -- Research and Development. If you're doing a startup, wipe that phrase out of your vocabulary!\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eIt's simple, really. Investors don't want to pay for research. Research is open-ended. Research doesn't have an answer -- at best, it has a theory. I was talking with an entrepreneur recently who has an idea about something that might work. If it works, it might be cool. If it's cool enough, it might make money. That's all fine and good, but investors aren't going to pay for all those \u003ci\u003emights\u003c/i\u003e. They don't want to invest in a theory -- they want as much certainty as possible. Their ideal scenario is where you're already making money and you just need money to expand. Certainly, you can find investors who will take more risk, but the more uncertainty you can remove, the better.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eDon't get me wrong -- research is important. Most of the time I spent on Puzzazz in the last year and a half was research. But unless you work at Bell Labs or Microsoft Research, don't count on somebody else paying you to do it.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eInstead of R\u0026amp;D, you have to think about \u003ci\u003eR then D\u003c/i\u003e, with investors coming after the R and some of the D.\u003cdiv class\u003d\"blogger-post-footer\"\u003e\u003cimg width\u003d'1' height\u003d'1' src\u003d'https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8840979806248747743-5280454705935181995?l\u003dwww.thisdev.com' alt\u003d'' /\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/feeds/5280454705935181995/comments/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/research-then-development.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default/5280454705935181995"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default/5280454705935181995"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/research-then-development.html","title":"Research Then Development"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Roy Leban"},"uri":{"$t":"http://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$extendedProperty":{"xmlns$gd":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005","name":"OpenSocialUserId","value":"06017760101554595384"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840979806248747743.post-606099270244203032"},"published":{"$t":"2010-02-22T17:40:00.000-08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2010-02-23T10:43:12.786-08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"puzzazz"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"passion"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"startups"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"What Are You Passionate About?"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"Adeo Ressi of the \u003ca href\u003d\"http://www.founderinstitute.com/\"\u003eFounder Institute\u003c/a\u003e likes to ask the question \"What are you passionate about?\"\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eI love this question because there are many wrong answers but there is no right answer. Adeo doesn't ask this question because he wants the answer, though he is interested in what you say. He asks the question because he wants \u003ci\u003eyou\u003c/i\u003e to think about the answer. If you don't think about your passions and if you don't do something that you are passionate about in some way, then your chances of success go way down. This is true in life, but it's even more true if you're an entrepreneur.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eThere isn't a one-size-fits-all way to be passionate. It's all about you. My mother opened an optical shop and she wasn't passionate about eyeglasses -- she was passionate about service. She wanted everybody in town to be able to afford a pair of quality, stylish eyeglasses. She succeeded in her business because of her passion, which permeated every aspect of her business. And her shop changed how eyeglasses are sold in Lawrence. Yes, the change would have happened eventually (it's happened everywhere else), but her passion made it happen sooner.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eAs I \u003ca href\u003d\"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/learning-from-failure.html\"\u003ewrote recently\u003c/a\u003e one reason that I killed my coordination services startup was that I wasn't passionate enough about it. I still think it's a great idea, but it's not my last great idea, and somebody else -- somebody else who is passionate about it -- will do it, probably even better than I would have. I wish them luck.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eIn case it's not obvious, passion is one of the big reasons that I'm \u003ca href\u003d\"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/jazzed-about-puzzazz.html\"\u003ejazzed about Puzzazz\u003c/a\u003e.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat are you passionate about?\u003c/i\u003e\u003cdiv class\u003d\"blogger-post-footer\"\u003e\u003cimg width\u003d'1' height\u003d'1' src\u003d'https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8840979806248747743-606099270244203032?l\u003dwww.thisdev.com' alt\u003d'' /\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/feeds/606099270244203032/comments/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/what-are-you-passionate-about.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default/606099270244203032"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default/606099270244203032"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/what-are-you-passionate-about.html","title":"What Are You Passionate About?"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Roy Leban"},"uri":{"$t":"http://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$extendedProperty":{"xmlns$gd":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005","name":"OpenSocialUserId","value":"06017760101554595384"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840979806248747743.post-8708567990090286944"},"published":{"$t":"2010-02-21T11:47:00.000-08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2010-02-21T11:47:00.998-08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"puzzazz"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"entrepreneurship"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"startups"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Jazzed About Puzzazz"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"It took me a surprisingly long time to come to this conclusion, but I'm taking the experiment that is currently Puzzazz and turning it into a real business, hopefully a big one.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eI've been passionate about puzzles for most of my life. In my spare time, I'm a professional puzzle constructor, with puzzles published in the New York Times, GAMES Magazine, and plenty of other newspapers, magazines, and books. I've constructed thousands of puzzles. I also co-founded Microsoft Puzzle Hunt and Microsoft Intern Puzzleday, two events that are still going on long after I left the company. So what was the holdup? Did I think I was too passionate about it?\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eHonestly, that was part of it. I wasn't sure I had the proper distance. I was concerned that, because I loved puzzles, it would cloud my judgment and I wouldn't be able to accurately assess the potential business.\u0026nbsp;But there were two bigger components.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cb\u003eHelping the World\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eThroughout my career, there's been a common thread. I do things which help people, enable people, or empower people in some way. Usually, it's been stuff which made them more productive, like word processors, web publishing software, databases, and personal information managers. But I've also done educational software (twice, most recently at \u003ca href\u003d\"http://www.dreambox.com/\"\u003eDreamBox Learning\u003c/a\u003e) and even an embedded system for hardware that assisted the kidney dialysis process. How can puzzles stack up with any of that?\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eIt took other people to help me realize what is now obvious. Mostly they just echoed back what I was saying, but hearing it from somebody else really helps.\u0026nbsp;Puzzles aren't just fun. Like my current Puzzazz users who visit the site every single day, many people find the fun and challenge of puzzles an essential part of their life. There's a reason fifty million people in the US solve crossword puzzles regularly!\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eAnd, in the online world, there are an awful lot of crappy puzzles and puzzle games out there. Providing people who want puzzles, who can't live without puzzles, a better experience is definitely making their lives better.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cb\u003eBuilding a Big Business\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eHow can puzzles and puzzle games be a big business? It took me a long time to see this, too. Sure, lots of people solve crosswords. Sure, people go nuts for Sudoku. But a big business? When I did some research I learned that the casual and mobile games markets combined are about a $5 Billion market and growing strong. About 20% of that is puzzle games -- honestly, not very good puzzle games. So, the market is there.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eI had started Puzzazz as a fun experiment. I picked a narrow range of puzzle types and I did a number of different things to learn what would work, from the different perspectives of puzzles, site features, and revenue generation. Over time, I've come to realize that it's not just an experiment -- it's a successful one. Even though it's a\u0026nbsp;tiny site at the moment, it's making a large amount of money on a per-user basis. Even if I did nothing else, Puzzazz could be profitable by just increasing the number of regular visitors. But I've got much bigger and bolder plans than that.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cb\u003eLearning from Failure\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eIt turned out that by trying to make sure I didn't let my passion cloud my judgment, I allowed it to stop me from seeing what is now pretty obvious. Puzzazz has the potential to be a really great, profitable business!\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eI spent a lot of the time between the time I launched Puzzazz, in September, 2008, and now, trying to start another business \u003ca href\u003d\"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/learning-from-failure.html\"\u003ethat didn't make it\u003c/a\u003e. I'm avoiding the same mistakes. I have a good, practical plan, without unreasonable deadlines. I'm not trying to \"boil the ocean\" and the plan involves steady growth, with multiple solid revenue sources. I'm doing something I'm passionate about, where I already have a ton of knowledge, both in puzzles and in building large, scalable, quality web services.\u0026nbsp;I've already gotten traction and revenue without requiring skills that I don't have (although I have started looking for my first business person). And I'm having fun with it.\u0026nbsp;That doesn't mean it's a cakewalk. Nope, there are plenty of hard problems to solve to get it done right. And, though I've started the process, there's a long way to go before Puzzazz is what I want it to be.\u003cbr /\u003e\u003cbr /\u003eIn other words, like any good puzzle, it'll be both fun and challenging!\u003cdiv class\u003d\"blogger-post-footer\"\u003e\u003cimg width\u003d'1' height\u003d'1' src\u003d'https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8840979806248747743-8708567990090286944?l\u003dwww.thisdev.com' alt\u003d'' /\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/feeds/8708567990090286944/comments/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/jazzed-about-puzzazz.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default/8708567990090286944"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8840979806248747743/posts/default/8708567990090286944"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http://www.thisdev.com/2010/02/jazzed-about-puzzazz.html","title":"Jazzed About Puzzazz"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Roy Leban"},"uri":{"$t":"http://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$extendedProperty":{"xmlns$gd":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005","name":"OpenSocialUserId","value":"06017760101554595384"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}}]}});