Christopher Herot's Weblog

Jeff Pulver's “Confessions of a Parallel Entrepreneur”

Jeff Pulver posted some advice for prospective entrepreneurs that's worth repeating:

• Believe in yourself. Find your own identity. Don’t confirm. Be passionate. Share your passion. (It is very hard to get outside money for a project where the passion of the founder isn’t felt.
• Nothing is Impossible. “Impossible is a frame of mind.”
• Follow your heart.  Explore the opportunities which feel the BEST to you.
• Find your inner “Super Hero.” Those who do are able to stand apart from those who haven’t. In my book just about everyone is a “superhero.” It is just that for some people it takes a lifetime for people to discover what their special abilities are while others discover their abilities at an early age.
• Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Or can’t be done.
• Embrace your creative spirit. Encourage the discovering the unknown. Your “bad mistake” could be your discovery of a new technology; a new technique; a new solution to an existing problem.
• Know when to reboot your personal buddy list. If you have friends who don’t support your dreams or your efforts or your vision it may be time to find new friends.
• Avoid hiring people with negative energy; avoid the people who tell you what you are trying to achieve just can’t be done.
• Imagine the possible. When needed, close your eyes, “see your future.”
• Don’t let business models corrupt your dreams. Remember what inspired you to launch your business before allowing yourself to get distracted by trying to rationalize the business opportunities that may exist around you. Sometimes it can take years before a business model materializes.
• Be positive. Stay the course. Believe in yourself.
• Do the Unexpected. Challenge yourself, your team and your industry.
• "Being paranoid is ok."
• Understand that being lucky is also ok; don’t apologize. Being smart and lucky is a good thing too.
• Help make fun happen.
• Invest in your dreams
• Remember to give back to the community that helped you become you.

Eggs and Social Media

Jeff Pulver, who doesn't even live in Boston, has emerged as one of the prime movers behind creating a high-tech community here. After bringing the VON conference here, and hosting several evening events, Jeff shifted to the morning hours with a Mashup of Social Media and Eggs at the venerable ("Have some more eggs, Hon") S&S Restaurant in Inman Square in Cambridge.  In addition to the expected talking and eating, Jeff encouraged the 50 or so participants to engage in a real-world form of social networking.  While writing our names on the stick-on badges, we were asked to write a line that would encourage further conversation.  Jeff handed out little labels that could be used for tagging (literally, by sticking a label on a friend) and yellow Post-Its that were the meatspace version of the Facebook Wall.  (Aaron Strout's said "Social Media Guy").

The badges worked.  I was intrigued by Len Edgerly's line "Tech Evangelist to the Arts" and wound up learning about how artists promote their work with Podcasts and sell virtual paintings in Second Life's Artropolis.  Also talked to Aaron Strout and Michelle Heath about the state of the mobile phone industry, the strength of brands (especially Apple), the implications of renaming companies (Shared Insights -> Mzinga, Convoq -> Zingdom), and the importance of opt-in for on-line marketing (Facebook's Beacon vs. MatchKey.)

Jeff, please do this again soon.

FWD International

I had a chance to catch up with Jeff Pulver last night and hear about his ambitions for FWD International. He has recruited Tom Evslin, Dan Berninger, and Yossi Vardi to join this relaunch of what was Free World Dialup (FWD).  FWD was arguably the original VoIP business.  In twelve years it provisioned 700,000 SIP accounts and provided SIP registration, peering, and PSTN connectivity.  As disruptive to the telcos revenue stream as that was, the services it provided were essentially a re-implementation in IP of the traditional telco model.  In this next iteration of the business, they plan to make a clean break from the past, renounce the POTS legacy, and re-invent real-time and near-real-time communication.

Their first effort is a Facebook application for leaving Voice Mail but they are planning to turn FWD into a platform that will let any developer take advantage of their services.  If through doing this they can further the development of social networks as the basis for communication that will be a good thing.  One way to sum it up:

• Old: I want to call Jeff, so I reach for my phone and dial his number.  I may have a built-in directory so I can dial by name, and I may have shopped around for a cheaper way of calling him if he's in Israel, but it's still a phone call.
• New: I need to communicate with Jeff, e.g. to ask him a question.  I find him in my social network and tell my computing device (desktop, laptop, mobile device, etc.) to contact him through the most convenient means, which is more likely to be a text message but could also be voice (live or stored).  When he replies, it is through the mode that is most convenient for him, which may or may not be the same mode I used initially.

I.E. It's not about a phone call, it's about communicating.