Time-constrained ...

Sorry for the lack of updates. That usually means progress, and I'm too busy to write. Sometimes, however, it means hopelessness. The software startup is progressing well, the six-month startup had some rough patches but is back on track this week. I'll share more when I have more time. In the meantime, be sure to follow the @iterinc twitter feed. I do post there more frequently, especially when time is lacking ...

Small-business email and mistyped addresses

Just got off the phone with a potential supplier who I had spoken with last week about the six-month startup. I had promised to send him some specs. Why hadn't I sent them yet? 

I was surprised. I had sent the email, and was wondering why he hadn't responded. Was I being blown off because we are too small, or is he not that responsible about following through?

Turns out that there were two problems. I had mistyped his email address when he gave it to me over the phone, so he didn't receive it. But his company's email server should have immediately bounced my message as undeliverable. It didn't, so I didn't even know I had made a mistake. Frustration and impatience were the results on both sides, although the phone calls helped clear up the situation and get things back on track.

The moral of the story: If you are a small business owner with a dedicated .com domain for your email, make sure it is properly configured to handle email problems, and notifications are sent out to anyone affected by or responsible for missent emails or email outages. Really small companies may not have a dedicated IT staff, but there are consultants out there who can troubleshoot and fix problems. Many other people (myself included) have our company email hosted on Gmail through the cloud-based Google Apps.  

The six-month startup has a name!

I'm so glad we've chosen a name (which I hope to reveal in the not-too-distant future), and grabbed the .com domain. It gives us an identity to hang our hat on, and is something that conveys more legitimacy to potential partners and customers than just our names and gmail addresses.

Both of us feel more invested in the venture because of the new name.

Next steps: Email, Google Apps, Website.

Phone vs. Email

I admit it. I'm an email guy at heart. I'll gladly spend 10 minutes hammering out an email (or using any other form of asynchronous, electronic dialogue like a forum, Twitter, or G+) than picking up a phone for one minute.

Why? I'm not as good at spontaneous discussions as I am at writing. There's no record of the conversation that I can refer back to. I worry that the person on the other end doesn't want to talk with me for some reason. I hate to make small talk. I forget to ask or say certain things. Sometimes I say the wrong thing. Because it's spontaneous and anyone can say or ask anything, I don't have control over the conversation in the same way I do with email.

But my reluctance to pick up the phone is a limitation, and not just because it takes more time to write an email than it does to speak on the phone with someone. A sizable portion of the population of the population prefers to use the phone over asynchronous communication. For instance, at my old job, I learned who these people were, and tried to accomodate them. Sometimes I was forced to -- they did not consistently respond to email, which meant that I had to pick up the phone or grab them in the hallway if I happened to see them.

I've found that of my two new ventures, the people I interact with for the tech startup are very much focused on email, Yammer, and Twitter. The phone is important only when we have a face-to-face meeting and need to let the other party know where we are or that one of us will be late.

For the six-month product startup, on the other hand, I have found that almost everybody is a phone guy. I suspect it relates to the quick-moving culture of manufacturing, where people tend to be on the shop floor or moving between meetings. Of course, they won't necessarily adapt to my communications needs, so it's up to me to adapt to their ways of doing business -- which means organizing my thoughts, gritting my teeth, and picking up the phone.

Communicating with suppliers: Local accents rule!

I've found that when I am talking to people on the phone for the product startup, local suppliers often have local accents. It's not surprising; die-cutting shops and some printers are blue-collar places. They are usually staffed by people who grew up in eastern New England. When I hear this on the phone, I almost unconsciously shift my own accent away from standard "North American" to something that's a bit more Eastern Mass. But just a bit.

It's not hard to do. I grew up here too, and while I never had a Boston accent -- my parents were from out of state, only a few friends in high school had light accents, and I spent most of my 20s overseas -- speaking with a slight inflection feels natural. I assume it helps a little in terms of letting people on the other end feel more comfortable, but maybe I'm assuming too much.

Design problem: Die-cutting at an angle

A message to my partner in the six-month startup:

Just spoke with someone at in New Hampshire, who designs dies for die-cutting presses.

He said it's not possible to design dies that go at an angle. This is what you originally thought (the cookie cutter model). I spoke with another die designer in Wakefield, who confirmed this but added that when you are stamping foam, it usually ends up with concavity because the foam compresses as you push down (this kind of jives with what seemed to think it was possible). However, the Wakefield die designer said that he is not sure if you could design a die that tried to get a uniform concavity every time. He noted that it's usually something people try to eliminate with foam.

He suggested that different cutting techniques -- reciprocal knife cutting and water jet cutting -- might be possible, although the latter might not be appropriate for foam.

I got another piece of intel from someone who actually operates die presses -- she said it's basically 15 cents every time the press comes down.

So, we have a few options:

- Pursue die cutting, test concavity on different foams with different foam densities
- Explore alternate cutting tech (reciprocal knife cutting)
- Molds?

Die cutting costs, and a metrics mistake

Talking to a local die-cutting shop, as I research potential suppliers and prototype manufacturers. Found out that the creation of the die is actually done elsewhere, and that once a production run starts, "every time the press comes down it's 15 cents."

Then there was this, when I was describing the dimensions of the product we want die cut in millimeters:

"What's that? We don't do millimeters."

Chalk it up to quirks of the American manufacturing industry ...