2013-04-19

Managing resources

Today, I reached a new milestone in my life-long attempts to improve my resource management and planning skills, and I wanted to share.

I wanted a bagel for lunch, and found that not only did I have exactly one bagel, I also had exactly enough cream cheese to cover that bagel. Exactly. No tiny amount left over to dry out in the container, and not so little I had to spread the cream cheese very thin onto the bagel.

I may never achieve this again, but one must keep trying.

2013-04-16

Why old media always loses, part MMMMMCL

Last night, I was checking out Hulu (no link for those idiots) on my office PC and was happy to see a show I watch had a new episode. So I went upstairs, hooked up the tablet to the TV and got ready to watch.

But the new episode wasn't showing.

Heck, the whole show was completely MIA.

After muttering "WTF" a few times, I drilled down into my options in the Hulu app and saw each thumbnail for that show read "Web Only".

I am not making this up. I am allowed to watch a show on my computer, but I am not allowed to watch that same show on my tablet. Both using the same IP address and the same (paid) account, so presumably at home (not, god forbid, daring to watch a show while commuting or at a friend's house).

How exactly does this help anyone? The producers, the actors, the fans, Hulu? Who gains from this bullshit? Nobody.

The people making deals at old media companies need to retire already and put people who actually get the internet in charge.


2013-04-05

Who says the enterprise software world isn't eccentric

Get a load of the crazy wild outfits these enterprise software guys are wearing. In public, no less. Pretty bold statement if you ask me.


2013-04-02

A new startup

Inspired by the success of so many other start-ups in the red-hot monthly subscription, food, and cloud-based logistics-as-a-service (Laas) spaces, I have decided to jump into the fray and revolutionize the stuffy world of high-end international teas with my new venture, Senchabox (getsenchabox.io).

At the intersection of luxe, gourmet beverages, social and high tech, Senchabox offers an amazing selection of socially-curated, organic, fair-trade teas from around the world, delivered monthly in a handsome gift box ethically made out of fast-growing bamboo and natural latex from recycled tires. Twice a year, subscribers get a bonus mystery Senchabox containing a selection of teas especially curated by Senchaboxers whose impeccable taste has garnered the most badges through in-app game mechanics.

For $99.99 a month, subscribers receive 2 ounces of the most exquisite teas imaginable from all corners of the planet. 

Check out our home page:


My co-founder Richard Head and I will be co-CEOs--he's more of a biz dev guy, and I'm more of a geek, so it's an epic marriage of equals with fantastically complementary skill sets. We're pre-IPO at the revenue stage with a very promising pipeline of brands highly engaged in leveraging our powerful, highly disruptive distribution platform to increase their social reach. We've set up shop in an awesome co-working space in the heart of SoMa in San Francisco, with an amazing open floor plan and a fully-stocked kitchen replete with raw organic fruit and nuts and catered lunches every day.

Our fulfillment center is powered by a homegrown high-availability real-time non-blocking event-driven Clojure app on top of a lightweight SOA Node.js backend written in Coffeescript. All our warehouse employees are equipped with top-of-the-line iPads running our custom order management app to fill orders at the speed of light.

We're looking for superstar Ruby on Rails experts with significant large-scale cloud experience (Heroku or EngineYard a plus) to take us to the next level. 

Every dev gets complete latitude in their choice of awesome workstation (either a 27-inch iMac or fully-loaded Macbook Pro; we're proudly non-corporate and therefore Windows-free, and we take Steve Jobs' exhortation to "Think Different" very seriously). 

We offer full health, dental and death benefits (including your spouse or domestic partner), and we don't meter vacation time as long as you bring tea back from your trips. We also plan to encourage every Senchabox employee to take a 2-year sabbatical doing charitable work in devastated regions of the world (one of our founders recently spent 18 months in AIDS-ridden Swaziland training the locals on Twitter and Foursquare using hand- and solar-powered One Laptop Per Child computers).

Think you have what it takes to join our elite group of product, design and hacking geniuses to change the world and take on really hard problems on a daily basis? Apply now by DMing @http417 on Twitter (be sure to include your resume as a Dropbox link).