Skip to content

My favourite business author on start ups, surviving, Google, Apple and Microsoft - Paul Graham

Open SourceSuretec Hi all,

I'd like to share some of my favourite essays from Paul Graham. These are in a kind of order of which I love the best and are related to software startups, but they can really, really help any business:

You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss - http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html
Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy - http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html
Good and Bad Procrastination - http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
How to Do What You Love - http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html
How Not to Die - http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

Why There Aren't More Googles - http://www.paulgraham.com/googles.html
Apple's Mistake - http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html
Microsoft is Dead - http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html
What Business can Learn from Open Source - http://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html

Why to Not Not Start a Startup - http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html
How to Start a Startup - http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html
Organic Startup Ideas - http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html
Startups in 13 Sentences - http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html
How to Fund a Startup - http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html
The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups - http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
The Hardest Lessons For Startups to Learn - http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html
What Startups Are Really Like - http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html


How to Disagree - http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Copy What You Like - http://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html



Please read them all!

VoIP solutions could benefit from iPhone 4 - Why bother? Get an Android Open Source phone and the new VoIP features now

AsteriskFreeSWITCHLinuxOpen SourceSuretec Hi all,

The iPhone 4, which was officially unveiled on the June 7th at a presentation in San Francisco, includes several new features that will benefit VoIP users. These are touted as:


  • Multi-task when making a VoIP call, so customers can access other applications, such as a calendar, during a conversation.

  • Built-in noise cancellation to eliminate background sounds when making VoIP calls.

  • Videoconferencing will also be possible between iPhones via the Face Time feature, allowing remote employees to partake in business meetings.

  • Longer battery life, while the screen resolution has been significantly improved compared to previous models.



The iPhone 4 will be available in the UK from June 24th.

Wow you may think this is amazing, but all these features have been available on Android phones (Google's Open Source mobile operating system) for ages. I've just got an HTC Desire from O2 and it's the No.1 phone in the world right now. It can do all of above and more, plus the Sipdroid VoIP client is free and works on 3G and WiFi using our VoIP services or anyone elses. Best of all it's free software and just works.


Another good blog post covers why the iPhone can never keep up with Android or Open Source:

"Through a bevy of handset makers, Android can offer a variety of phones that will make it difficult for
Apple to beat with just one hardware release a year. While it is hard to

ever go wrong with an iPhone, Android offers a ton of alternative form

factors, price points and carriers: Sprint (NYSE: S) has released the

first 4G phone on Android; T-Mobile has a new competitive Android phone

with a slide-out keyboard; the HTC Incredible sold by Verizon has been

flying off store shelves; and even Google’s Nexus One still boasts some

of the latest hardware. Not to mention new Android phones from Samsung

and LG (SEO: 066570) coming later this summer."


Google now have figures to show that 100,000 open source Android mobile phones are getting activated daily!

Gavin.

Marketing, Bootstrapping and VC funding

Open SourceSuretec Hi all,

We follow the KashFlow Blog as we use them for our accounts (the only non open source software we use and is based online). Duane, the owner, did an interesting blog post today about External Funding vs Organic Growth.

We're in the Organic/Bootstrapping camp as that's how we've funded our upcoming VoIP service provider called SureVoIP

In the two articles he links to, I liked the TechCrunch one as it lists these 16 things to help raise your profile to help bring in the business to bootstrap:

0. Get on Twitter and Tweet smart things [added Dec 2009]
1. News is a Purple Cow – UK translation: Man Bites Dog
2. Keep in contact – conversations usually beat press releases
3. Negotiate your exclusives
4. Don’t be a leech – Be part of the community
5. Conferences are not news
6. Be a great contact
7. Be a friendly blogger
8. Should you hire a PR firm?
9. Want to join in? Network.
10. Please pitch like a human
11. Understand who you are talking to
12. The media likes CEOs
13. Do you really need to have formal press meetings?
14. One company in a space is not (generally) a story
15. “Yes, but how do I get on TechCrunch.com?”
16. “Strike when the news is hot” added 16 March 2010


In summary Duane closes with something I agree with:

So where does that leave us? I spend a lot of time talking to startups
and there are no hard and fast rules that apply to them all. What I would say is that if there is the opportunity to build a profitable business, while maintaining control and enjoying a reasonable quality of life and all while bootstrapping, then this is the ideal route to take. If there are market forces, competitive issues or limited lifespan pressures that mean that a funding route is the only way to go, then so be it.


Warning: Use of undefined constant CHARSET_NATIVE - assumed 'CHARSET_NATIVE' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/suretecsystems/www/blog/serendipity_config.inc.php on line 182
tweetbackcheck