The Hardest Part of “Starting Up”

Aug 21, 2006 by Sinclair Schuller

Ok, so I’m making a small assumption in this post title: if you are a “start up”, you went through the process of “starting up”, or the process of moving from a motivation or idea into a full fledged (or slim fledged) company. That’s definitely something we’ve been through at Apprenda. I was recently asked by someone “What was the hardest part of starting a company?” The answer is concise, simple-sounding, circular, yet deceivingly complex: The hardest part about “starting up” was “starting up”. I write that with a straight face. The process of starting up forced us to realize quite a few things. I would like to share what those things were and why they added to the difficulty of “starting up”. I’m curious if other entrepreneurs feel the same. The hardest part of “starting up” can be broken down into a variety of issues:

1. Organizing into a company is important and will prove to be one of your first challenges. While running your life ad-hoc may seem appropriate, lack of organization will make business life difficult. Every minute wasted because of lack of organization now costs money, and wastes the time of those that depend on you.
2. Realizing that different things have different priorities is another major step a start-up should take. This statement is all inclusive: being an entrepreneur requires that we prioritize our personal lives, our business objectives, the various pieces of code we write. The rule of thumb I follow is that if you can itemize it, you can prioritize it. This will prove to be invaluable in getting that which is essential the attention it deserves.
3. Space is definitely an issue. I’ve tried to venture off into “work at home” type projects, and granted, while it can work (open source is definitely an example), the phase that allows a group of individuals to brainstorm and flesh out a basic concept into something more full-fledged greatly benefits from being in a room together. Furthermore, even more benefit is realized if you have an office space of some sort rather than someones bedroom or basement. It creates an environment conducive to work, void of distraction. Basically, rent an office. Can’t find a cheap one? Talk to a local incubator or find another company that might divide a larger space with you.
4. Last is have fun. Formalizing your idea into a small/nascent stage company can be daunting, particularly if you decide to pursue it full time. As long as you’re having fun, most of this goes away. Most entrepreneurs are in the game because they’re passionate about what they do. Keep that as your focus, and don’t let formalization get in the way of your vision.

As we progress, I hope to post more articles related to our start-up experiences, so stay tuned! Check Out Entrepreneurship@Technorati

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The Convergence & Popularity of Programming Languages

Aug 21, 2006 by Sinclair Schuller

Matt Ammerman recently forwarded me this diagram, which describes the evolution of programming languages in a timeline fashion. Although in the back of my mind I was aware of how many languages exist(ed), to see it laid out is remarkable. Computer Science as a field has gone through massive change, with programming languages defining a “fossil record” of sorts.

Looking at the diagram, the most interesting thing is the seemingly strong correlation on how popular (where popularity should be taken literally, meaning number of people or percentage of industry using it)a language is/was and whether it existed in its own evolutionary tract or was a convergence of multiple, older languages and paradigms. Obviously, there are some exceptions to this correlation, such as a COBOL and Fortran, but looking at which languages are popular in the modern day, it seems quite apparant that those languages which merged various constructs from multiple languages tend to be more popular (such as Java, Ruby, and C#). Assuming convergence continues to happen, will we reach the level of one super-language, abstract enough to cover all needs yet powerful enough to be useful? From this diagram, things seem to trend towards yes.  The beginning of the timeline introduces a small number of distant languages. The middle seems like a Manhattan traffic accident, with splinters fragments of languages as well as the introduction of new language tracks, making for a heavily saturated section of time. As time progresses to current day, we see some heavy convergence and “thinning out.” Although I doubt this will lead to one “super language”, it does seem reasonable to think that we’re going to continue refining the best languages, and weeding out those that are considered unproductive quite quickly.

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Security Flaw Update

Aug 9, 2006 by Sinclair Schuller

My last blog post discussed a certain security flaw with Windows. I submitted it to the Microsoft Security Response Team, and they opened a bug for it, so it looks like people cared after all;)

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