Apr 13 2013
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Bitcoin for Dummies

Tips :D - 1JQotmnRhVwPXSn2ZRnXKKcZknEr8RJSsD

Here is a simple video explaining some of the basics of Bitcoin.  The rest of the article will try to give you broad overview.

Bitcoins are created out of thin air through a mining system similar to a lottery,  giving away a commodity like gold. I’ll try to define the two key words here ‘Lottery’ and ‘Gold’. ‘Lottery’ meaning that your computer is basically trying to figure out a 64 digit number before anyone else on the mining network does. Each time your system gets the 64 digit number right before anyone else, a new block is created and 25 BTC (currently) is awarded to the miner or pool (group of miners). And ‘Gold’ meaning only 21,000,000 Bitcoins will ever be created just as only X amount of gold will ever be discovered on Earth.  Thus, this form of payment tends to see an opposite affect of that which you are used to.  Bitcoins become worth more as time goes on (finite supply) vs. currencies today which lose more value as time goes on (infinite supply).  So for all you smarty cats out there, would you agree it makes more sense to invest in a currency that is finite instead of infinite?

As bitcoins continued to be mined they begin to create more value since more and more people begin to own them. You can kind of think of them as trading cards or beanie babies. Since the longer you hold on to these things the more value they tend to take on. The biggest difference is you can’t take your ‘Babe Ruth’ rookie card to the car dealership and trade it for a car because its not a universal means of exchange like Bitcoin or Credit Card.

People worked their asses off for at least a few days/weeks/years to mine these things, plus all the hardware and electricity they used.  This is where the initial value of the currency is born since time and money was used to create them.

Put yourself in the shoes of a miner, you put time, $$$ and brainpower into mining these coins against thousands of other people around the planet. You’re not just going to give them all away for free. Everyone wants to get their money back from these things, so people started exchanging Bitcoin for different things. In return this allowed new people outside of the mining ring to get into Bitcoin and the network began to grow, which started to create a networking effect.

Now normal everyday people are exchanging cash for Bitcoins. Wondering what the hell can I do with these things?

Why are people investing so much money into bitcoin?

Because it’s like Gold, its the Gold of the internet.  As long as people trust that this currency has value people will continue to invest in Bitcoin.  Given all the problems we’re seeing in world economies, like what happened at Cyprus. People are rapidly beginning to lose faith in their standard currencies like the EUR and USD.  I mean the government can literally seize your assets in the bank if things get as bad as they did in Greece.  With Bitcoin they can’t.  They have no access to your funds.  Your Bitcoin wallet is essentially your bank.  It’s similar to the idea of people stuffing cash into their mattresses, except this is a lot more profitable and accessible. It’s the gold rush of the 21st century.

I hope my answers helps you out. Bitcoin or Cryptocurrencies are not an easy thing to wrap your head around.  Imagine trying to explain the internet to someone who lived in the 70′s, they might think they get it, but without them actually experiencing it they’ll never really understand.  So dive in because I honestly don’t think Cryptocurrencies are going anywhere. It’s been 4 years and there still haven’t been any major issues just massive growth spurts.  I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what the world may be like 5-10 years if cryptocurrencies really do take off. Whom ever Satoshi Nakamoto is he’s a freaking genius.

Apr 12 2013
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New startup to offer easy money exchange via Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the new hot thing… In a matter of a few years Bitcoin has grown thousands of percent and some are predicting this currency may rise to over +$100,000/BTC.  We’re either looking at an enormous bubble or the coming of a new renaissance.

People are starting to wonder how exactly do you get Bitcoins?  The process is long and somewhat strung out, but can be done with certain ease. So now that people are beginning to exchange bitcoins for real currency like dollars and euros they’re starting to wonder, what exactly can I do with these things now?  That’s where this new stealth startup comes through…

gBit a new company offering a very cool service is coming soon. Using a Facebook connect backbone people will easily be able to exchange Bitcoins with friends and family for virtually no fees.  User will simply connect via Facebook, enter in their Bitcoin wallet ID and voila! The user is now connected to the system and will be able to share Bitcoins with friends and family  at the click of a button.  Imagine if next time you see you’re buddy and he says “hey where’s that $10 you owe me?”, you can conveniently exchange bitcoins with him instead”.  Not to mention with the rise in bitcoin prices we may see bitcoin begin to overtake conventional commodity’s like gold and silver.

gBit’s design is going to allow for tremendous growth and with a little bit of elbow grease they may be able to design a completely mobile exchange forum.  Where people would easily be able to exchange USD for BTC and vice versa.

Bitcoin has a lot of potential and could be the future of banking for the entire world.  But this is very early in the life of bitcoin, so we’ll have to sit back and watch how this one plays out.

Feb 24 2013
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Inspiration, Techy

The 10 Most Interesting Things on the Internet…

Here is a simple list of the 10 most interesting things I know of on the internet…

1. The Stoned Ape Theory.  A great philosopher of our time, Terrence McKenna, proposed a very interesting theory that human consciousness (brain evolution) spawned from primates eating psychedelic mushrooms.  Here is a simple clip from the Joe Rogan podcast, where Joe goes into more detail about the theory.

2. The Simulation Theory.  Is our universe real or is merely an super advanced computer simulation?  Some scientists believe this may in fact be true. Here is a short and simple video explaining the theory.

3. Computer Code Found in String Theory Equations.  Recently a professor from the University of Maryland has found a type of self correcting computer code embedded in the very equations physicists are using to describe the universe. This strange find has created quite a bit of discussion on the internet and has people questioning wether or not our universe is indeed a very advanced computer simulation. 

4. The Milgram Experiments.  One of the greatest social experiments ever conceived,  The Milgram “Obedience”  Experiment gives insight into on how something like the Jewish Holocaust could have ever taken place.  This dark social experiment will leave you questioning the very morality of humanity. 

5. John Conway’s Game of Life.  One of the most bizarre discoveries of last century would have to be “The Game of Life”.  Using only FOUR simple rules this game outputs some of the most bizarre results you can imagine, giving insight into how complex systems can be created from simple laws and our universe.  Here is a great video that gives you an introduction to the rules of the game and various simulations performed.  

6. Killer Asteroid Predicted to Hit Earth in 93 Years.  Yep….a huge asteroid is predicted to hit the earth in roughly 93 years that could wipe out life as we know it.  But don’t worry they’ve already started training Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to save the world. Link

7. Is Time Disappearing from the Universe? Will time eventually cease to exist? Physicists propose a new theory that suggest our universe is not expanding, but time itself is slowly diminishing giving the impression of an expanding universe.  As strange as this sounds relativity could support this argument.  Link

8. Manned Mission to Mars in 2023.  A company from the Netherlands, Mars One, is planning on sending a group of astronauts to live on the surface of Mars “indefinitely” within the next decade.  Yes that’s right, most likely these colonists will remain on Mars for the rest of their lives.  1000′s of people have already applied for a position.  
9. DMT: The Spirit Molecule.  One of the most fascinating chemicals man has ever studied is probably DMT or dimethyltryptamine.  It is the most potent psychedelic we know of and the most bizarre thing is that our brain produces this drug.  Not to mention it is also found heavily throughout the animal and plant kingdom.  What I find so bizarre about this drug is the fact that everyone experiences relatively the same thing.  Here is the first video I watched that introduced me to this bizarre chemical, it’s an excerpt from Joe Rogan explaining his first experience using DMT. 

10. Strip Search Prank Phone Call Scam.  A few years ago in Mount Washington, Kentucky a man called a McDonald’s store manager claiming to be a police officer.  He then explained a female employee working for the manager stole money from one the customer and then convinced the woman to strip search this employee.  The story goes on and things get a lot worse.  It’s hard to believe how far and how long this prank goes on for, but this story backs up the results found from the Milgram Experiment.  They recently made a hollywood movie about this story called “Compliance” it’s well written and very close to actual account.

Jun 08 2012
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Inspiration, Techy

Dear Silicon Valley, A Message for the Future Generation of Entrepreneurs…

As we have recently been in what I would consider a “lull” of innovation in the internet startup industry. I feel recent changes in technology (hardware and open-source software) and the world economy are going to trigger a couple of specific key trends for startups to come. I feel these trends are going to be some of the most important things any entrepreneur can be working on at this point in time.

#1 Connecting people locally. There have been many apps that recently have been launched that are trying to solve this problem in their own way.

  • Foursquare, Meetup, Banjo, Highlight, Gauss, Circle, Glancee, Mingle, and many others…

#2 Innovative products and services that easily help the average person make more money. There are up and coming big movers in this space, but there is a ton of room and untapped potential. Currently some of the biggest and most tractional ideas to date are:

  • Kickstarter, Zaarly, Airbnb, Etsy, TaskRabbit, Flattr, oDesk, Car sharing services, Ride sharing services, and many others…

So why are these two particular spaces going to be big trends in the startup world?

Our world is changing faster than you can imagine.  The standard of living for everyone in the world is increasing exponentially as well as the unemployment rate. Innovative technologies consequently eliminate jobs, but in turn create new jobs and free our lives from things we probably don’t care to do.  It is a paradox.  As we naturally adhere to creating products and services that make things simpler and easier, we in turn affect our long term well-being as a sustainable society.  Therefore, we will continue to evolve societally in unpredictable patterns. As people begin to lose their jobs they are going to begin depending on new innovative products and services that effectively improve their current status quo, such as:

  • Innovative social products that help people stay intimately connected with their local communities. Local networking is going to be key to allow people to save money, find jobs and live their day-to-day lives more effectively. People within cities are going to need to begin to work together in order to support one another.  Supporting local businesses is going to be vital in order to help recirculate the money within communities that will ultimately create more jobs and create local economic growth.
  • Innovative tools and services that help people develop a self supporting income. Many college graduates are receiving degrees from quality universities in the US, but still are unable to find jobs upon graduation. Not to mention all the workers who have lost their jobs in recent years and have no formal education background.  These people can’t support themselves or pay for a formal education without jobs. They are going to look to their local community and the internet for help.  You can’t support the lifestyle most americans expect working a minimum wage job, especially if you have children. Heck, you can barely afford to put gas in your car with a minimum wage salary.  People are going to have to begin making more money on their own and make more efficient modifications to their day-to-day lives using tools that currently don’t exist.

There is a high potential first world nations are going to see some serious economic problems in coming years.  USA, Greece, Spain, and Italy are just a few that have shown some early signs of things to come. The economy of the world is interconnected and interdependent.  Thus, when one of us has an economic problem, we all absorb a part of that problem into our own economies. As economic problems continue to occur in separate nations at a non-linear rate we could possibly see an exponential decrease in economic growth. However I would argue this is a very good thing our world is so interconnected and interdependent because it should mitigate the probability of any sort of large scale war.  We more than likely will never see a war with two major economies (China and the US for instance) since they are now so interdependent on one another. The US can’t just go to war with China because so much of the american lifestyle depends on the goods produced there, just as so much of Chinas growing economy depends on the US and other countries to finance it.

The world as a whole will continue to become more interdependent as our standard of living increases, which is fundamentally the problem at hand.  Economic growth must continue to produce more economic growth in order to sustain itself. Therefore, we as entrepreneurs need to focus on creating products that will help eliminate these issues. We need to quit focusing on these quick to cash ideas, ideas that revolve solely around an entertainment value. These products are nice, but should not be consuming a majority of the capital needed to create the products and services we need to sustain our growing economies. We need to shift our focus on the problems to come.  Solve those problems and trust me, you will make money, more of it than you can possibly imagine.

However, I hope the next generation of entrepreneurs realizes making money is only skin deep. Making a profound positive impact on the world is going to feel far more rewarding than just making a lot of money. The smartest ethical people know that if they’re able to do this, consequently they will make a lot of money.  Think about it, would you rather have Steve Jobs money or Steve Jobs legacy?  If you want to make a positive impact on the world you can’t be consumed by the idea of being rich.  You have to be passionate about what you’re building and what you’re trying to do for the world.  People are smart and thanks to the internet, they’re even more informed then ever before.  Being a corrupt corporate crook is going out of style, thanks again to the innovation created through the internet. You can’t get away with a lot of stuff like you used to.  You must act accordingly in the internet society, otherwise everyone you’ve ever known will know what a crumby person you are. I feel the next generation of entrepreneurs should aspire to fill the shoes of some of the greatest mind our world has ever known, not just tech/biz giants. The next generation of great entrepreneurs will be primarily empowered by the fact they have the ability to create mass change faster than ever before, not by money.

You may want to argue with me and say the problem is education and we need to focus on that, and you’re right. A serious disruption in the US higher education system is long overdue and trust me it is coming, but it’s not going to solve the problems we are facing in the near future.  Re-educating the world is going to take time and a lot of it. The youngest generations are going to be the ones who benefit from a large educational disruption. Since this is more of a social policy problem we need to push our politicians to create innovative changes within our governments. Cheap high quality education is very much a conceivable reality.  Germany seems to have figured it out without the help of any innovative products or services.

So sorry to break the news, we are not going to live in the world our parents grew up in or told us about, but that’s to be expected.  Just as our parents never lived in the world their parents dreamed of. But, thankfully technology and worlds perception of the internet is now in a position to allow these “essential for the future products” to be created and take off faster than ever.  It’s our job as entrepreneurs to help create this reality and realize that it’s not going to be a new president or economic policy that changes everything. Economic and political policies just can’t change the world fast enough. Those days have come and gone, our world is too complex and interconnected now. The bottlenecks inhibiting our economic and societal growth are the very policies trying to maintain it. It’s our job as entrepreneurs to step up and initiate these disruptions on our own.

And this goes for everyone.  We are all social entrepreneurs at heart, as we all aspire to live in a better world. You can define an entrepreneur to be any individual wishing to create change in a system that is unpredictable. Wether you are implementing change through your own technologies or just along for the ride, we can all help by contributing to the solution and embracing innovative products and services that will eliminate potential future economic problems.  If we want to continue to grow technologically and societally it’s going to take a lot more than just voting for a guy who has the word “Change” written on his campaign poster.

May 31 2012
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Experience, Inspiration, Techy

I’m a creative guy who can’t code, how do I find a technical co-founder? 2 years later…Answer below.

I saw this question on Quora recently, which brought me back to a couple years ago when I too was in the need of such a person.  I though I might document how I was able to successfully locate my co-founder for a bootstrapped internet startup.  We have now been working a project together for about 6 months on a part-time basis.  We also have one of the best working relationships I’ve ever had in my working career.
I am going to focus primarily on the scenario of a non-developer (me) seeking a developer for a web startup.

1.  Pay off as much debt as you can and start saving your money. Put yourself in a position to walk away from your current job.  As soon as I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur I analyzed my current financial situation.  I WAS F$^#*$&D!!  I graduated school with a ton of debt. I bought an expensive car. I moved to the city and started spending money I didn’t have.  Once I realized how screwed I was, I eliminated as much waste as I could.  I sold my car, moved out of the city and started paying off debt as quickly as possible. What I realized is the more debt I had the more I was enslaved to my current status quo.  Thus, I began preparing for the day when I would feel comfortable enough to quit my job and start my life as an entrepreneur.  I used mint.com to get myself out of debt and to optimize my monthly budget.  Read my blog post about that if you don’t use Mint.com already: http://loopswoopandpull.com/2010/10/07/mint/ .  I was able to save up quite a bit of money in the matter of a couple years that would later put me in the position to make such a change in my career.

2.  I started by trying to understand the tech industry.  Easiest way to do this just read TechCrunch/Hacker News everyday.  I realized that if was going to be the creative guy in a company I would need to stay up to date with what’s going in the startup industry.  I needed to use other peoples creative ideas as inspiration for my own.  I also felt as if I needed to appear like I knew what was going on in the world of tech.  This would help add value since I had no real development skills. So why follow only TechCrunch and Hacker News? Because they are the New York Times and the Reddit of the tech industry. 99% of all the stuff you probably need to know will show up on either of those two sites.  Usually all the major tech industry stuff is on TechCrunch.  All the big developer stuff is usually on Hacker News, so it helps me stay up to date with the developer world. You’re not going to be a journalist/blogger so don’t waste too much time consuming. I see too many entrepreneurs do this stuff and it makes no sense to me.  You just need to learn the lingo and learn what is going on. Spend a maximum of an hour a day doing this.  Also use a tool like Quora for asking questions and finding out more detailed information about other companies. Watch any videos you can of successful entrepreneurs giving advice this is the most beneficial thing you can do.  Don’t waste too much time thinking about business stuff.  Instead try to figure out what made the successful companies like Facebook, Google, etc. successful. Look at their launch and their strategy, what core features did they have in their initial product? Don’t forget to read books.  Books I would recommend reading are:

  • Delivering Happiness
  • The Art of the Start
  • Getting Real
  • The Lean Startup
  • Re-work
  • The Power of Positive Thinking
  • The Go-Getter
  • Steve Jobs Biography
  • The Facebook Effect
  • Anything that summarizes Lean Six Sigma.

3.  I spent tons and tons of time thinking about what I wanted to build.  I had lots of random ideas, but I thought to myself what was the “biggest” idea and the one that I am the most passionate about.  Not necessarily from a technical standpoint, but more pertaining to how big the idea could eventually become.  Make sure you pick something you’re passionate about. It’s going to be the only thing that gets you through the hard times and yes there will be hard times.  Harder than you can imagine, being an entrepreneur sucks. It’s hard man, and I’m not kidding. If you choose this life, just make sure your baby (startup) is one that you love and you see yourself pursuing for a few years.  A big idea to me would be something like Apple, Google, Quora, Pixar, Evernote, Facebook, Path, Groupon etc. All these companies envisioned building a community around a single product then expanding it to encompass much more.  With time their products became more and more valuable. I wanted to make sure that whatever I decided to start building would fall into this category, thus I took a long time to choose an idea. After I chose my big idea, I began scaling it down to point a where I could grow it.  Start thinking about verticals, key features/communities you can use to get this product off the ground. Try to think about how you can build a product that touches people on an emotional level, this is the golden key to building any great product. This is why Apple has been so successful, they build products that make people emotional (positively of course). Try to separate someone from their iPhone or iPad and see what happens. If you can’t make people feel like that about your product you will be successful.

4. Learn how to use photoshop, so you can visually represent your idea(s). Developers are just like everyone else, they like pretty pictures. It’s 10,000 times easier to pitch your idea to them if they can visually see what you want to create. If you can’t learn to use photoshop than you might as well go back to your 9 to 5 job in the cube farm because this is going to be the easiest steps in the whole process.  Find some tutorials, download UI and button samples, mess around with it. It’s like MS paint but it uses layers.  Most of the tools on photoshop are not even used by designers, so don’t feel overwhelmed by all the tools.  To design your web/mobile app you only need the basic tools. See how similar sites are laid out and copy sections of their interfaces. Trust me everyone does this wether they like to admit it or not.  You don’t need to read too many UI design forums, just use your intuition and try to make it look pretty.  Start on paper then move to the computer.  Or even use uber cool tool like http://gomockingbird.com although I recommend going straight to high-fidelity mockups on Photoshop.  High-fidelity is little more time consuming, but its 10,000 times better, so it makes more sense to skip all the low-fidelity mockups and wire frames.

5. OK. Now you’ve got your idea and it’s drawn out. Now you need to learn how to Pitch. Pitch your ideas to your friends and families. Try to focus on the people that would potentially be your most avid users. For example: I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg didn’t waste a lot of time pitching the idea of Facebook to his grandparents during its infancy.  Be smart. When you pitch this idea and people don’t like it, find out why they don’t like it. Brainstorm with them. Use this at the beginning of most sentences “What if…”. Get the pitch right to the point you’re consistently selling people on this idea. Try it with some randoms you meet at a party and see if they bite. Perfect the pitch until it feels natural.

6. Go to meetups in your city geared for developers and go to all of them. Search meetups.org for meetups pertaining to development.  Usually developer meetups revolve around languages like PHP, Ruby on Rails, Java, Jquery, etc. When people ask you what the hell you’re doing there, just tell them you’re a designer and you want to stay up to date with whats going on with the development world. You’ll probably be one of the few non-technical people, which is a good thing and developers will appreciate you because you’re actively taking a step into their world. Tell them you’re clueless when it comes to development stuff, it’s ok to be clueless it’s what will make you a good leader. When you show up to these meetups, talk to people. Ask them about what they’re doing now, they’re life etc.  Try to make friends with as many people as you can. What you’ll learn during this step is how to effectively network with developers and since you’re not a developer this is very important.  If you want to work with a developer you need to understand their world. The things they think about and what they ultimately care about in life.  If you’re looking for a co-founder you should be on the same page with this kind of stuff.

7.  Keep attending developer meetups and start pitching.  When I found my co-founder we had both attended a Hacker News meetup in Cologne, Germany where we briefly met each other. I then went to another meetup involving Web Performance Optimization and he was the only the person in that meetup that also attended the other Hacker News meetup.  So, now that you’ve made a few friends and hopefully you bumped into a few people a couple times you can start pitching your idea to developers as I did. So Pitch away.  You’re guaranteed to get shot down, but keep pitching.  Pitching for me has always worked best one on one. It’s more personal and people are easier to convince when they are one their own.

8. Recruiting a technical co-founder.  Try to connect with them on the internet and check out projects they’ve worked on.  Use their portfolio as a screening of what they’re capabilities are.  Now send them some emails suggesting you sit down and grab some beer.  People like beer and beer always relaxes the situation.  Don’t focus on developers that are working full-time on other projects.  There are still plenty of developers out there that aren’t tied up. Since you have no experience or proof that you’re capable of launching a company you’re best bet is to stick to a developer who is a noob like yourself. Now, Boost your confidence level, believe that if you found the right co-founder you could get this thing off the ground. You need to believe this and people need to be able to feel this when you speak to them about your idea. Now once you have candidates lined up this is the hard part.

9. Choosing a technical co-founder. So now you might be thinking who is going to be the right one?  The most important things you should look for in this person are:

  • Are they passionate about the idea you want to build? (Rate this on a scale of 1 to 5.)
  • Do they like to be challenged to do thing they’ve never done before?
  • Even though they may have never built a site like what you want to build, do they know what it needs to work?
  • Do they have front-end and back-end coding skills?
  • Are they capable of communicating with you effectively? (Shy developers may not make good co-founders)
  • Do you get a long with them? Can you joke with them?
  • Are your values and goals in life on the same page as theirs? (Are you both money hungry, or are you more worried about changing the world?)
  • Are they cool with you being a non-developer? (If no, ask if they would still be interested if you recruited another developer to help out)
  • Look at your potential co-founders and think would I want to marry this person (non-sexual of course)?  If your project becomes as successful as you hope you need to understand that this person is going to be the person you call at 3am when the servers crash and all hell breaks loose.  This person must be someone who you feel very comfortable with.

10.  Start off slow and test the waters.  Remember your just working on a project, you’re not starting a company.  Don’t make things serious until they need to be. Work part time. Plan a little bit and start building.  Don’t think too far ahead. Maybe even start with a really small project. You just need to test the waters on each other.  You need to begin learning about your Co-founder and what makes them tick and how they like to work.  If you’re bootstrapped like we are, it can be difficult to stay motivated with no other incentives. So don’t get your partner and yourself burned out too quickly by making this project more serious than it needs to be.  There is probably a high probability that your idea sucks and it’s not going to work. That’s ok and to be expected. That’s the beauty of building software, it can be quickly iterated.

11. So what is your job then?  EVERYTHING ELSE. Start with designing the product. You should already have a high fidelity prototype by now.  Focus religiously on your product.  Test it, break it, tear it apart.  Figure out ways to consolidate features.  Figure out what you don’t need.  You need a lot less than you think you do. Start a beta sign-up page using something like launchrock.com.  Start getting people to sign-up.  Start getting your first batch of beta users lined up. Start thinking about how you are going to promote your launch.  Make a video, here’s the one I made.  It cost us $0 and ton of work but we finished it before our official launch. I left my co-founder completely out of this one, he had enough on his plate anyways. Show your partner you’re working hard to get the product they’re building off the ground.  All developers want to build products that people will use. A billion dollars isn’t cool, you know what’s cool? A billion users.

12. Stay focused. Try to keep yourself and your partner focused only on the most necessary features.  Your main job should be the project manager, but in a cool subtle way.  Usually the developer knows what to do and where to start, most of the time they just want a little bit of reassurance on your end when they ask if they should start building something.  Trust them, trust that they know what they’re doing.  Don’t try to control their side too much.  Focus on things that add value to a users experience. Your product is the most important thing, nothing else matters that much except for your marketing strategy.  Luckily with the tools we have today you can build viral loops into nearly any product that will help eliminate the need for a major marketing campaign. Examples: Pinterest, Instagram.  These companies are the most effective users of Facebook Connect in my opinion. Once you have signed up for their service, you get email notifications every time one of your friends sign-up.  This gives you the perception that your friends are now beginning to use this service and if you’re friends think something is cool than so will you (most likely). It’s not in your face marketing either. It’s made both of these companies hugely successful.

This is how I found my technical co-founder.  By no means have I built a successful startup of my own yet (I’m still 26), but I would say I have been very successful in finding the appropriate technical co-founder and we have developed a very successful working relationship.  It took me nearly 2 years, but I did it. This was a post I wrote on Hacker News nearly two years ago when I had just started searching.  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1919583

May 03 2012
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Experience

Maybe you don’t have a sleeping problem, maybe you have a creativity problem? Creative Insomnia.

Over the past few weeks I’ve experienced weird patterns of sleep disturbance.  Most days I could fall asleep at about midnight, but a few nights I couldn’t sleep at all.  During each of those times I couldn’t fall asleep I experienced very intense patterns of creativity. It was as if my mind began thinking so focused and clear that I began to feel adrenaline rush through my body. As time went it began to feel like my whole body was exhausted, but my mind was running 100 mph. Thinking of new creative ways of doing things became very easy. Wonderful new creations, loopholes, consolidating existing technologies, business dev ideas, etc.  Everything was coming so quickly I couldn’t keep up with it. It felt as if the moment I would break my train of thought to capture something, my flow of creativity would be lost by focusing too hard on the act of capturing the thought.
You know how when you’re in a dream even the most complicated crazy stuff makes sense? Well it kind of felt like that, but I was awake and the things that were making sense were actually making sense in the real world. Everything just made more sense, specifically making things more efficient and simpler. Eventually, I fell asleep and when I woke I could remember a few of the ideas I had, but not everything. The things I did remember have now actually realized in to real ideas I’ve implemented into an existing project today.
Which started making me wonder if creativity and sleep disturbance (temporary insomnia) are related.  I Googled it and there’s actually a wiki article specifically for describing the correlation of sleep and creativity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_and_creativity

Many people over the past few centuries have experienced the same things I experienced.  Also, many of which actually embraced this concept and actually leveraged insomnia to help them become more creative. Normally I would read something like this and think that doesn’t make any sense. But I actually experienced this first hand on several occasions without ever realizing it.
Maybe you don’t have a sleeping problem, maybe you have a creativity problem?
[Reply by Bob Eberle, Psychologist]
Creativity resides or is accessed in the theta state, which is the state we enter on the way to r.e.m. when we fall asleep.  This has been recorded easily as far back as Archimedes, who farted in the bathtub as he was beginning to drift off and shouted, “eureka.”  which translates to “I got it!” or “I shit myself!” depending on your bent, discovering the concept of gas displacing liquid.  Anyway, theta state is a level of brain activity that lies just below the conscious threshold – or alpha state (daydreaming) where the brain begins to work through the thought debris of the day and make memories either more permanent or discard them.  You are lucid – conscious – but not seemingly dreaming.  Enjoy, but do try to get sufficient rest or you risk losing some of the associations.  I have experienced the same thing driving along 70 between Glenwood Springs and Vail when I was creating dialogue between two and three characters and it flowed seemingly in their voices; while driving no less.  Milton Erickson referred to this kind of event as the “everyday trance,”whereby we seem to be somewhere else and go on autopilot.  Remember driving and missing the exit?
 
Similar to lucid dreaming, the creative state often needs some structure to save the flow – whether a tape recorded or a pad to paper to record your thoughts or dream images.  This is the tricky part that I will leave up to you.  Whatever works, great.
Mar 06 2012
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German Language

German is like Unix and English is like Mac.

This is a response to a friend I wrote that asked me:  “Is learning German annoying?

I’ll just be blunt and say German is very hard. I’ll use a technology analogy to explain this since I’m a tech guy.  I don’t know if you’re a Mac user, but I like to think of the German language this way.

German is like Unix and English is like Mac.

Like Mac software, English is a very simple language when it comes to doing the basic things it’s very easy. However, even though it’s roots are simple, it’s a very powerful language when you know what you’re doing and when you’re really trying to show off, it can be quite complicated. Like using Final Cut Pro versus iMovie.

German on the other hand does not have simple roots, but very complex ones. When it comes to saying easy things correctly, it can be hard to do.  Like Unix, things that should be easy aren’t as easy as they should be. And things that are complicated, but once you understand the language you can do complex things simply. The german language is extremely powerful when you know what you’re doing, but quite often no one knows what the heck their doing!! (Some times even native German speakers)

So for us native English speakers German is tough, because we’re making the roots of the language we’ve learned with English, much more complex with German. Some of the things that are hard about German compared to English:

  • German has 4 cases (Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genetive). We don’t really have cases in English.
  • German has 10 different ways to make a word plural, English we typically use 1 (add an “s” at the end).
  • German has 5+ ways to say a definite article (the) or an indefinite article (a, an).
  • When you say a two digit number in German you say it backwards. For example: In English we say “Twenty Four”. Germans say “Vierundzwanzig” which literally means “Four and Twenty”.
  • Words you never would have imagined exist in German. They have verbs for very specific things. Like “Zeitgeist” meaning “the spirit of the time” we use this word in english because we don’t have a word for this in English.
    • German words are also quite often very long. Examples here (how specific the words are and how long they can be seen on the list)
  • There is a lot more as well…but there are things that are easier in German. I just can’t remember them :p

Theres a lot of logic behind the German language, the problem is there is just a lot more to memorize than in English.

Ok. Thanks. Now I really don’t want to learn German.

Ahh I don’t mean to scare you. I’ve been living in Germany for 6 months and my German improves every day. I haven’t been trying that hard until the past month and thats only because I’m in an intensive language course (20 hours week). You’ll find that nearly everyone in Germany who is younger can speak English quite well. So knowing German is really not a necessity, but much appreciated by native speakers and will change your whole experience when traveling Germany.

As far as learning about it, I really enjoy it. Quite often it’s like figuring out a puzzle and you just need to get the pieces lined up.  Plus you start to learn and understand it before you know it.  It just takes practice.  Also, most people don’t expect you to know German if you’re a foreigner and if you do know some that’s great. Native speakers usually understand German is a hard language and most people are patient with you.  German really is a beautifully complex language, it just takes some time and work to get used to it.

Tell me what you think.  Feel free to comment :)

Jan 13 2012
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Inspiration

When I pray…

Today I went online and came across a site called ChiselSeason – A Place for Spiritual Shaping from a video I saw earlier today  on youtube called “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus” .  It’s a poem written by Jefferson Bethke discussing the underlying differences between “Religion” and “Jesus”.  I personally found it very moving and he seemed to put to words what has been getting tossed around in my head for the past couple of years.

So as I was reading through the site, which Jefferson Bethke contributes to, I came across a couple short blog posts by another one of the contributors “Jonah Oh”  writing about his struggles with prayer, Prayer – Part 1 and Prayer – Part 2.  I wrote him a reply about the techniques I use when I pray that I thought anyone who struggles with prayer might appreciate.  Here it is below:

“When I pray, I try to visualize myself sitting with Jesus, as if he were my best friend. I talk to Him like I’m having a conversation with my best friend. I don’t use any language I wouldn’t normally use. I then try to visualize and feel Him speaking back to me. Almost like I’m watching myself in a movie. Our conversations aren’t always serious as well, I often try to visualize Him laughing with me. Especially if we’re talking about something I shouldn’t have done. We’re laughing together thinking that was pretty stupid.

When I’m working I try to visualize Him by my side, as if I am working with someone. When I’m walking down the street he’s walking with me. I don’t visualize the Jesus in a white robe, beard and long hair. I visualize what he might look like today in our society. He wears clothes I’m familiar with, he looks like any normal guy. He looks like a best friend should.

Everyone thinks they don’t pray enough, but maybe we’re just looking at it all wrong. I don’t think you need to be still, have your head bowed and hands crossed to pray. All you need to do is have a conversation, eyes wide open, walking down the street, lying in bed, any time, any place. It shouldn’t feel like work, it should feel like you’re talking to your best friend.”

Just my thoughts on what prayer means to me and how I do it. I was inspired to use some of these techniques through a book I read called the “Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale.  A book written about 50 years ago I picked up from a Goodwill. I found it fascinating, filled with really wonderful stories and very inspirational.

Aug 23 2011
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German Language

Learning German with Audio Tools (Pimsleur and German with Michel Thomas Review)

It’s been roughly a week since my last blog on my pursuit towards fluency in German and I thought I’d share some thoughts on what I’ve learned so far…

First thing I want to start off with is what tools I’ve been using to help teach myself the language. Since I began a month ago I have been primarily focused on using audio training tools.  The two particular audio tools I’ve been using are, Pimsleurs German I and German with Michel Thomas.  So far I have enjoyed using both tools and have tried to use one or both of them at least 5 days a week.  I have found that using audio lessons is much easier then I originally thought since they really only require you to listen, repeat and respond.  As opposed to other methods that require your fully devoted attention, audio lessons do not.  It’s quite easy to do mundane tasks while doing the lessons, such as, driving, laundry, dishes, relaxing on the couch, mowing the lawn, etc.  Any task that does not require an immense amount of focus will not distract you from a foreign language audio lesson.  Any how, regarding the audio training programs themselves I will give a short review on my thoughts of each.

Pimsleurs German I

Pimsleur German I

Pimsleurs training does an excellent job in my opinion.  The methodology behind Pimsleurs is really repetition and focus on essential vocabulary and phrases.  So instead of learning useless words like “horse” and “grass” you learn words that you’ll actually use when you talk to someone such as, tonight, today, over there, where, when, why, i would like to, would you like to, etc…  The Pimsleur method is really focused on teaching you conversational language skills.  Each lesson is about 30 mins long and continuously grabs your attention.  The beginning of each lesson starts off with a conversation in German usually between two people.  In the beginning you have no idea what they are talking about, but after a 30 min lesson you can understand the whole conversation.  After the conversation they start breaking down all of the words used in the conversation and many of the phrases.  They do an excellent job teaching you how to pronounce the words since they use a variety of German speakers.  Difficult words they will break down and repeat slowly, so you learn how to pronounce them properly.  Once they teach you a phrase or a word they ask you to use it in several different ways.  The narrator also asks to speak phrases in German constantly throughout the entire lesson which engages you much more than a formal foreign language lesson from my experience.  As you move to later lessons they continuously review old material and add new material. Sometimes the author will even explain some of the more simple rules like the difference between masculine and feminine and so forth. As time progresses you slowly but surely begin building a vocabulary and very easily remember key phrases and grammar. Eventually they even begin replacing English commands with German commands like “Listen” and “Repeat”.  Each lesson also ends with reading practice where you can see how words you’ve been using are spelled and the sounds letter combinations produce.

German with Michel Thomas

German with Michel Thomas

This audio teaching tool is far different than Pimsleurs, but also seems to be a winner.  Unlike Pimsleurs this training is very similar to one on one tutoring with a foreign language teacher.  Each lesson is a few minutes long and is a recording of German teacher teaching German to two other American students that know little to no German.  During each lesson the teacher discusses the German language and begins telling you how things are similar and different from english.  He then goes on to tell you how say certain words in German and begins touching on some basic grammar skills like using weak and strong verbs in the same sentence. Within the first couple lessons you are learning to build fairly complex sentences like “Möchten Sie heute abend mit mir essen? (Would you like to go eat with me tonight?)”.  Surprisingly you begin catching on quicker than you think.  Constantly like Pimsleurs the teacher asks you over and over how do you say this and how would you say that, which really makes you think and begin using the vocabulary.

Summary

I’ve enjoyed both of my audio training tools and surprisingly by coupling the two together I felt it really enhanced my learning experience. Pimsleurs does a good job teaching words and phrases, but lacks in the explanation and rule area, which is where German with Michel Thomas helps out since the teacher explains many of the simple grammar rules and tricks of the language.  Such as how to say “this evening” in German they don’t say “this evening” they say “today evening” which in German is “heute abend”.  Another example of a simple rule Michel Thomas reviews is when you have two verbs in a sentence the first verb get conjugated and the second verb moves to the end of the sentence always and stays in its full form, such as “Would you like to buy something now?” -> “Möchten Sie jetzt etwas kaufen?”… All in all, I feel I am learning, progressing, and not getting bored with any of the trainings so far.

Tips off the top of my head:

  • German V’s sound like English F’s – Verstehen (to understand) – Fur-stee-hen
  • German S’s sound like English Z’s – Sieben (Seven) - Zee-ben
  • Larger numbers in german are backwards for us english speakers, for instance we say “twenty two” they say “two and twenty” or “Zwei und zwanzig” oder “Fünf und vierzig (forty five)”
  • All nouns are either neutral, feminine or mascualine, which changes several different articles you would associate with those nouns, such as “the” (das(n), die(f), der(m)), “a” (ein(n), eine(f), einen(m)) “no or none” (kein(n), keine(f), keinen(m)) and more… Ich habe das buch (i have the book), Ich habe ein bier (i have a beir), Ich habe keine wine (i have no wine).
  • I realize that this may seem tough to have to remember a gender form for every noun, but you just kind of learn it as you go and if you use “das” instead of “der” the person is still going to understand what you said.  So don’t get hung up on the nitty gritty details, focus on communication for now.  You won’t every be able to speak another language perfectly, the sooner you accept that the more willing you’ll be to try to speak the language and really force yourself to learn. Can you speak english perfectly?  I can’t. I’m sure you can find a variety of grammar, spelling, and punctuations errors throughout this entire blog.  Does anyone really care (besides your english teacher) probably not, so don’t sweat it and enjoy making mistakes.  It’s the only way you’re going to learn!

Feel free to comment with questions or thoughts if you have any…

Aug 15 2011
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German Language

Iche werde Deutsch lernen! (Translation: I will learn German!)

Crazy German Flag Guy!

In an attempt to expand my language abilities I have decided I am going to learn and pursue fluency in the German language. For all you that don’t know me I am  25 years old, native to the United States and have no formal German education.  I currently live and work in the United States as a full time engineer.

Regarding my experiences with learning a foreign language, I took 5 years of formal Spanish training between middle school and high school and honestly did not learn much. I can understand a little bit when spoken, more when written, and my speaking skills are very limited, only knowing keywords and not really any useful phrases.  All I’m trying to convey is that I do not consider myself gifted by any means when it comes to learning a foreign language.

I originally began pursuing fluency in the German language almost 2 years ago through a program most of you have heard of, Rosetta Stone.  I kept with it for about 3 weeks (1 hour a day) and eventually abandoned it due to severe bordem and lack of feeling like I was making any valuable progress.  I enjoyed Rosetta Stone for one aspect, vocabulary.  Well more like non-useful vocabulary.  I felt  Rosetta Stone taught me very non-essential verbs and vocabulary.  Such as, bike (Fahrrad), cup (Tasse), schwimmen (to swim), man (Manner), woman (Frau), etc. Most of the words would not be used during a common conversation. The initial stages of Rosetta I saw were filled with non-essential words.  All other aspects such as normal phrases to use, understanding grammar, and USEFUL vocabulary, Rosetta Stone is dreadful.  It’s also incredibly tiring and requires a lot of attention and time.  I am not by any means saying Rosetta Stone is not useful, but at my current knowledge of the German language it is not the right tool for me.

I am now pursuing fluency again and started roughly 3-4 weeks ago and since then I have made much more progress than I did with Rosetta Stone and I am not nearly as bored.  I have decided to begin blogging my progress of learning the German language.  I will share my thoughts about the language, resources I am using, and any tips I gather along the way through this blog.  I am also hoping that by writing about my progress it will push me to learn more and to learn faster, while also helping others at the same time.  Feel free to comment and share your thoughts, all non-haters welcome!

Tip(s) off the top of my head:

  • Nouns in German are always capitalized
    • Example: Where is the restaurant?  - Wo ist das Restaurant?
  • W’s in German are pronounced like English V’s
    • Wo? (voe) -  where?
  • Hello – Guten Tag! (gooten talk) (Lit def: Good day!) / Hallo (ha-lew – try to make the end sound more like an a quick “O”)
  • Thank you – Danke (dawn-keh)
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