Bjarni's Blog :: startups

3004 users: Extrapolation

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Last time I checked, PageKite had been tried by 3004 people, which just happens to be my birthday (April 30th). How awesome is that?

This week has also broken our previous weekly sales records by a margin of 8% and the past month is definitely our best month ever, but I won't know by how much until tomorrow when I update the "Door to money".

Passing 3000 users is sixfold growth since exactly 16 months ago. Although 3004 isn't a particularly big number on the Internets, I actually consider that a good thing: it means there is plenty of room left to grow.

Growing 6-fold in 16 months works out to about 2.6% average growth per week. Logarithms say so! Paul Graham wrote this about startup growth:

A good growth rate during YC is 5-7% a week. If you can hit 10% a week you're doing exceptionally well. If you can only manage 1%, it's a sign you haven't yet figured out what you're doing.

Since I am relatively comfortable admitting that I don't really know what I am doing, I'm OK with being a bit lame by PG's high standards. I would like to grow faster though.

Warning: Extrapolation Ahead

At this rate, assuming revenue growth matches the signup rate (a very reasonable assumption), the company's current burn rate (including my token salary) should become sustainable in about 9 months. This is only a little bit more money than we already have lined up, and the overdraft will cover the difference. So the numbers suggest PageKite will survive! Hooray!

Projecting further: if we sustain this level of growth for a full year, I'll be able to (just barely) live off PageKite with no other sources of income. If it keeps up for 2 years, I'll be an overpaid computer brat again. At 3 years, I'm an overpaid computer brat with 5 well paid employees, which is pretty much my own personal definition of success.

Obviously there is no guarantee that I can keep growing at the same rate for 2 or 3 more years. All this extrapolation assumes business is growing exponentially, but what if it's just linear? Linear is so boring, I'd be forced to get a real job. Woe!

But on the more optimistic side, these numbers are all calculated without the assumption of branching out into larger markets or selling tech to bigger companies with established sales channels, either of which could completely change everything. I would like to do both.

PageKite should be able to grow quite a bit faster.

The Startup Kids

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Saturday was the premier of the Startup Kids, a documentary about young entrepreneurs in Europe and America.

I enjoyed the film and thought it was a pretty decent introduction to the world of Internet startups. I spent the rest of the evening all fired up about my own little project.

That said, I'm going to point out a few limitations to the reality it presents. It's interesting to watch a film like this and think about how the film maker's personal views and goals influence the choice of material and presentation, and this film was actually quite biased.

First off, the film reinforces the probably false idea that startups are only for young people. Obviously, considering my age and my choice of profession, I'm not going to just nod and agree.

This bias was to be expected given the title of the film and the fact that it was in part sponsored by a youth grant. So that's fine, they did a good job telling the story that young people can start meaningful companies.

Another thing they did, was find a nice mix of men and women, and a decent mix of Americans and Europeans to talk to. Also no big surprise, as the film makers were two European (Icelandic) women. But the ratios presented in the film, sadly, have little to do with reality. The world of startups is still very much dominated by American boys. Again, this doesn't detract from the film in my opinion, because I would like the startup and tech worlds to become more balanced. Providing all sorts of role models as this film does is an important part of making that happen.

(Now, if they'd also had a black founder, a really old founder and a handicapped founder, we'd really be talking...)

I guess my biggest beef with the film, was that it and the people interviewed, did nothing to counter the common claim that startups have to be work, work, work and more work.

The American idea that if you want to succeed, you should work 16 hour days and never take a holiday wasn't questioned even once, and the people being interviewed were eager to justify spending all their time at work by talking about how much fun it was and how they loved living with their coworkers, and so on.

The more I read about startups, the more I've become bothered by this, and when combined with an emphasis on youth (read: inexperience and insecurity), it actually takes on a slightly sinister tone.

It's well known that productivity drops off pretty rapidly after 8 hours on the job. It's also well known that working too hard will lead to health problems. I've suffered my own minor break-downs after working too much, and it seems this is a common problem in the startup world.

So I worry a little that the film fell into the trap of glorifying a slightly unhealthy system where dreams and VC money drive young people to work themselves to death creating companies others make a profit selling. The VCs don't want older, more demanding founders who will stick up for themselves and focus on building something sustainable - merely sustainable companies are a failure by VC standards. They want a shiny, hyped up company they can sell for a profit. So they glorify youth and glorify the ideas that overwork and aiming for the moon are the only way to succeed.

And unfortunately, that was a core theme of the film.

But... all that aside, I still left the cinema feeling inspired and motivated to get back to work. It seems that even though I'm 36 years old and should know better, I still just want to be a Startup Kid. :-)

Introspecting the Doldrums

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Revelation: I have been dealing with bouts of "startup depression" for most of the year.

Don't Panic!

My mood swings are not going to kill me, and they are not going to kill PageKite either... the feeling of futility, darkness and despair isn't constant, but it is way more frequent than I would like.

Startup depression is the only reason PageKite isn't fun all the time; when it is bad I just want to give up and do something else.

It's a bit weird and surreal, because when I ask myself why I am so upset, I usually don't know the answer. The problem solver in me considers this to be a very serious matter. How can I fix the problem if I do not know what it is?

I think in the end, I suspect it is mostly about ego. I created PageKite and I have in a very public way bet on it. No matter how it goes, I am now the PageKite guy. Whether that the venture succeeds or not reflects pretty directly on me.

Or at least that is how it feels.

My brain knows this is false: whether we succeed or fail at making a sustainable business depends on many factors that are out of my control: luck, timing, whether we find enough like-minded people to build a community and a team. It's not all my fault. But it is tempting to feel like it is.

There are other factors too: money is a minor one, being proven wrong (or irrelevant) in my misgivings about the cloud is another. The fear that some competitor will show tomorrow up and solve the same problem in a dramatically better way... there's lots to worry about, if I am thus inclined. The trick is to avoid the temptation.

Strategic PageKite

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

How's this for a strategy?

Build a personal (runs on your computer) web-app that developers like.
Give developers the tools they need to build personal web-apps for everyone else.
World Domination!

I understand and am capable of #1, I am making progress. Step #2 is already happening, it just needs care and feeding.

I want #1 and #2 succeed, and I think I can make a living doing one or the other, or both. I could even build a medium-sized business and feed some families doing those things. I do miss having a proper pay check and even a few co-workers, so this is important to me.

But that's not why I decided to go into debt and live frugally and work every waking moment for months and wake up stressed about how slow the progress feels at times... It's #3, the dream of World Domination that motivates me.

It's the ball I keep my eye on as I implement what looks like "just another app".

Maybe later I will write about what it means, to me (hint: not just money).

Never Gonna Give You Up ...

Mon, 30 May 2011 18:00:00 +0000

During the last few days I've chatted with a few people who read this blog and seemed to be taking my complaints and my plans to get a part-time job a little more seriously than I meant them.

A clarification is probably in order:

PageKite is still my #1 priority and I still love it.

I am nowhere near giving up.

I know we have a brilliant, innovative product, which has the potential to make us some money, make people's lives easier and potentially change the tech world just a teeny tiny bit for the better.

I've just been realizing that getting attention, mindshare and ultimately customers, will take a while - and our most pressing concern right this instant is putting food on the table and staying sane so we can continue Getting Shit Done. That's what the part time work is for: paying for food and beer and pool - and eliminating a major source of stress. That is all. And we're making fine progress.

(To answer another common question: seeking further funding one of the many things I would rather do when relaxed and sane.)

Regarding the mood swings... well, this blog post on A Smart Bear describes pretty well what's going on, and gives me some advice on how to deal with it.

It's normal. :-)

I also quite like how the blogger's day starts off almost exactly like mine does...

TechCrunch Erupt

Mon, 23 May 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Today did not get off to an early start, as I was up until about 4 a.m. with Már brainstorming about the PageKite website (it needs work) and the PageKite.py app (it is awesome but also needs work)...

So around noon, I was about to have my "morning" coffee, when Ewelina asked me if I knew TechCrunch Disrupt was in Reykjavik this year.

What? No it isn't!

Turns out, part of it is - thanks to an ash cloud. Gunnar and the guys at Clara decided to get people together for an impromptu mixer, beer on tap and TechCrunch on the projector.

So I drank my coffee and went to meet people I'd otherwise have to travel to the U.S. to see. There was no particular goal - we're not exactly looking for Silicon Valley press or money or anything right at this moment - I just wanted to meet people and network. After an hour or so, Ewelina joined me.

It was fun, we met some nice people, debated the relevance of desktop applications vs. the cloud, and discussed the pros and cons of things to do with tech investing... all good.

I gave away some stickers and swapped cards.

Thanks ClaraBar!

This week sucked!

Fri, 06 May 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Today sucked. Yesterday sucked. The day before sucked.

Fuck it. The entire week sucked!

I am really quite bummed that we only have 2 months left of PageKite "runway money". It feels like our message is still completely unfocused and as a result not resonating at all and our product is still too rough for general consumption... and now that we're running low on cash again, I have to stop working on the fun tech stuff and the fun speaking opportunities and go looking for money. Again. Ugh.

We won't hear from Rannís until too late, we need to figure this money thing out first, without them. Ugh.

I'm also totally jealous of projects like Showoff and Unhosted that get good press and are generally awesome... even though when I take a step back, and think objectively, their technology is even less mature than ours and they also have a long way to go. But that doesn't matter, I'm still jealous of the attention they're getting. Jealousy is not a nice feeling.

Ugh.

I guess I'm going through one of those emotional rough spots I was warned about in all those start-up blogs I obsessed over last summer.

I also remember enough "emotional intelligence" mumbo jumbo to know that the way out of this funk, aside from complaining on the Internet, is to work and make progress and remind myself that we're making progress. Which we are.

But it's hard.

I'd rather stay in bed and feel sorry for myself.

Later ...

Violence fixes everything! Or karate anyway, does wonders. I feel much better. :-)

Sunday Már is coming over and the three pagekiteeers will discuss money and other things.