Why I bleed orange

Happy New Year! I had the opportunity of taking a long vacation...

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:03:00 -0500

Happy New Year! I had the opportunity of taking a long vacation over the holidays and taking a rest from the hectic day-to-day of it all. There’s nothing better than spending time reflecting to truly assess where you’re at.

In addition to the “veging” out, I got to spend a lot of time in Hatian Refugee camps helping out and experiencing extreme poverty first hand. A life changing experience to say the least. I am going to put up a post later this month to share the experience in detail.

Lastly, while I was gone some great things happened at Curve. In December we had a huge feature in Dental Products Report, were featured in the New York Times and had our best sales month ever. A big thanks to the Curve team and our customers for believing in us!

That’s all for now!

A Lesson in Marketing

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:15:00 -0500

Okay, this is a reputable company that sells software and services to ensure mission critical SaaS applications have increased data integrity and availability… really?

I'm not dead and Curve is hiring!

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:49:00 -0400

Woah. Time seems to have sped up. Lately I’ve been laboring in the details and sometimes when you’re deep in the trenches it’s difficult to smell the roses… or blog.

Speaking of details, I wanted to share a new job posting we’re putting up for our Director of Infrastructure role. It’s a vital role because it relates to data security and server uptime. And, we all know there’s nothing more important than nailing those two things in a web company.

I like to think we try to take different approaches to things at Curve whether it’s small stuff or big stuff. It’s just part of our culture, and we certainly try to do that when we’re looking for new talent. Most job postings are uninspiring and don’t really tell anyone about the type of person they are looking for. They reference skills, etc., but it’s really attitude and character that determine whether or not a candidate will be the right fit for your company. Take this snippet from a typical job posting for example:

- Creates and executes development plans and revises as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements.
- Keeps project manager well informed of status of development effort and serves as liaison between development staff and project manager.
- Ensures technical teams are contributing to our code library.
- Owns the development lifecycle and is responsible for managing technical risks throughout the project.
- Communicates and enforces coding standards
- Performs code reviews and mentors junior developers.
- Manages technical resources within budget and project schedule.
- Consistently delivers high-quality services to our clients.

Despite it being boring and uninspiring, I don’t even know what much of it really means.

If people are the most important part of any organization (which they are), then let’s start putting more company culture and clarity into what type of people we’re looking for.

P.S. Now that I’ve ranted, I really hope this post lives up to expectations :|.

—————-

Director of Infrastructure

Elevator pitch

Hello. We’re looking for someone who can be responsible for developing and maintaining our production servers.

It’s a big responsibility.

We’ve built an award winning web application that dentists all over North America rely on and there’s nothing more important than making sure it’s available 60/60/24/7/365/100^928293.

We’re bringing the web to dentistry and as users begin to abandon their ball and chain desktop systems questions like: What if your servers go down? Is your application secure? Do I own my data? Is it slow because it’s online? … are among the most asked by our current and future customers. It’s vital that we can answer these questions truthfully by providing a best in class application architecture and production environment.

Customer up-time and data integrity is the most important thing in our company and we need someone who has the experience, depth and skills to lead this area of our company.

So, if you’ve got the chops and aren’t afraid of being responsible for something as important as a NASA space launch, come talk to us and lets see if there’s a fit.

Some key attributes of someone who would be awesome for this role:

“Experience is having screwed things up personally” There’s a big difference between knowing something and actually having walked the path. We want someone that’s had experience scaling an important and highly-complex web 2.0 application.

Spiderman said that with great powers come great responsibility. There’s a big difference between having a job and having a responsibility. Your peers and customers count on you to ensure the most important thing is always up and running.

You’re okay with sometimes not getting the credit you deserve because you know most people just aren’t capable of seeing what you do. Your contribution is less visible because you’re constantly playing defense, fixing problems before they happen.

You care about up-time and data security more than our customers do.

You watched the x-files a lot as a kid. You question everything and trust no one. You build contingency plans for contingency plans, spend too much money on disability insurance and paid to have your first will written when you were eleven.

The Flintstones were popular a long time ago. You continue to recognize this by automating absolutely everything. You despise the Flintstones.

If you were hit by a bus tomorrow it wouldn’t matter. Well that would suck (luckily we don’t know you yet), but, regardless of what happened, our infrastructure would continue to tick like clockwork with or without you.

You once read the American Declaration of Independence because of your passion for documentation and policies. If government wasn’t so ineffective at making stuff happen you’d probably consider a career there due to the mounds of documentation and policy.

Sometimes it takes more time and energy to point fingers than to just get your hands dirty and fix it yourself. Beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. You take initiative at big and small levels because at the end of the day you just care about making things better.

Despite being slightly unpopular in high school due to your role in the chess club, you were never afraid of sticking up for your beliefs. You are to the point, articulate and tell it as it is, even if it’s not great news. For example: It’s Tuesday AM. Your boss is upset. Things are delayed again, emotions are running high and you stand to be publicly ridiculed. Instead of wimping out, you give the straight goods and paint a realistic picture of what’s going on. In the end he respects you for it, you hug, and fix the problem. Yay.

You started playing Halo 3 on legend mode right out of the gate. You know life’s short and that solving simple problems only gives you a false sense of achievement. So instead, you spend your time working on stuff that is interesting, complicated and challenging.

You allocate part of your annual salary to speeding tickets. Despite being a cautious and meticulous driver, you realize that life is short and speed is important. You know application speed and performance are essential to making people happy.

You’re capable of managing projects && humans. Even though you know humans aren’t rational, you make due and try your best to keep your team passionate and thriving. You’re a good mentor, teacher and leader in your area of expertise.

You counted cards to help get you through university. You are a data junkie. You put processes in place to give you real-time visibility of what’s actually happening in order to improve your chances of making the best possible decisions.

Things we’re looking for in terms of more specific skill-sets and experience:

Bachelor in Computer Science or equivalent experience
Masters in Computer Science or engineering degree is an advantage
8 + years relevant experience
Experience overseeing a highly sophisticated and critical application infrastructure in a previous role

Experience maintaining and scaling a significant web application:
Experience or familiarity working with virtualized cloud services like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure
Experience with AWS cloud resources (EC2 virtual machines, EBS data stores, Amazon S3, etc.)
Scripting and automation of AWS cloud operations (scaling, networking, etc.)
Experience with hands-on management of backups, fail-over systems, and high- availability infrastructure.

System administration of staging and production servers:
Management of Linux operating system, packages, and updates
Installation of new server software
Administration of security and system access
Hardware training and/or certification in systems and storage management is a plus (Red Hat Linux, Sun Microsystems, Hitachi Storage Solutions, EMC, Dell, Solaris, etc.)
Solid networking experience - TCP/IP, administration of networking hardware, and load balancing
Firewall/security experience - access control list management, secure remote access management practices, etc.
Experience building and configuring major Internet host/network services including but not limited to: Web (http, SSL, etc.), Mail (sendmail, etc.), DNS, NFS, NIS/NIS+, databases (PostgreSQL, etc.) and Java

Programming and scripting experience:
Programming and scripting experience in Python, Shell, Perl, C, PHP or Java
Knowledge of object oriented design and application architecture

Application and server monitoring:
Experience with enterprise monitoring and management frameworks (Nagios, etc.)
Experience monitoring Apache logs,

Security, Backups and Data Integrity:
Strong general security background
Experience with networking, cryptography, PKI, authentication systems and logging infrastructure

Database and web server experience:
Extensive Apache experience
Experience with database design, improvement and maintenance. Expert knowledge of MySQL or Postgres
Experience with detailed data analysis including SQL databases and log files

Application profiling and performance measurement:
Web server performance profiling, configuration and optimization
Database performance profiling, configuration and optimization

Deploying Patches and Releases:
Experience with management of schema changes and mass-data updates

Work with customer implementation team to deploy solutions for new customers:
Assist with import and export of data for new customers
Develop tools for non-technical implementations and support staff
Provide second-level customer implementation support

Setting up policies for off-hours server support

Get in touch with us!

If we haven’t scared you away yet then go ahead and send your resume to devjobs@curvedental.com with the subject line: Director of Infrastructure! Don’t forget the exclamation mark :).

If you prefer a more natural approach to communication, your carrier pigeon will find a handsome roost on the roof of our building. We’ll be sure to refresh your bird prior to responding to your message.

Our exact GPS co-ordinates are 40°18’47.86” N by 111°42’22.48” W at an elevation of 4,757’ (according to Google Earth).We have no reason to believe that these co-ordinates are the target of any rogue missile. Our offices are quite comfortable, appropriately appointed and you’re welcome at any time.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know Is In A Book Somewhere One of...

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:02:00 -0400

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know Is In A Book Somewhere

One of my life long goals is to build one of the world’s most amazing public libraries that’s dedicated to getting to your greatest self. I think I’m off to a decent start; every month I try to buy and read as many books as I can that can help me with the current challenges I’m facing in business and life. I usually don’t get a chance to read them all, but by buying more books than I’ll ever be able to read I’m just accepting the fact that knowledge is infinite.

People talk about the importance of education but sometimes forget that education comes in many different forms; conversations, traveling, life experiences, schooling etc. My favorite form of education happens to be reading a great book. To me, there is no better way to learn and grow than to vigorously read. Any questions you have, challenges you’re struggling with and virtually everything you ever wanted to know about our world has been written about in a book somewhere. And, the great people and leaders that have walked our earth haven’t been afraid to share their knowledge and life lessons. The Martin Luther Kings, Ghandis, Richard Bransons, Warren Buffets, Benjamin Franklins, etc. have all written books outlining what they did right, what they did wrong, their opinions, beliefs, etc, and what is reading a book other than just having a conversation with the author?

At the end of day people might have a bunch of fancy degrees and expensive pieces of paper hanging from their walls, but I’ll take paying $23.95 at the local Barnes and Nobles and hearing it directly from the source over that stuff any day of the week.

Standing on The Shoulders of Giants Just got back from an...

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:18:00 -0400

Standing on The Shoulders of Giants

Just got back from an amazing short vacation in Quebec and Halifax for one of my good friends weddings. I’m not going to lie, after my first adult wedding I’m pretty stoaked for the string of weddings to come - good times. During the trip I had a lot of time to reflect out in the woods, went sky diving, lobster catching in the Atlantic ocean and almost got arrested for busking in streets of Old Quebec (apparently you need a permit to play guitar outside; oh well, the $18.75 was worth it :) ).

Anyways, one of the things that I wanted to talk about was the importance of surrounding yourself with people that make you better. I think it was Newton who said: “in order for us to see further, we must stand on the shoulders of giants”, or something like that. I think this must have been break-through number two after gravity.

In the book Good To Great, Jim Collins categorizes leaders from level one to level five. In his extensive research on what the differences are between good companies and great companies, he found that the great companies had level five leaders at the helm. What was unique about level 5 leaders? He found that the level five leaders weren’t afraid to hire people smarter than them and didn’t care who received the credit.

It’s amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit.

Most people’s egos are too big to have people around them all day long that are smarter, more capable and more experienced than them. Don’t be! It’s essential to getting where you want to go and becoming a great leader.

Lets face it, the people we choose to spend the most time with eventually define us and our organizations, so choose wisely!

Clarity Precedes Mastery. Hanging in the Auckland airport...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:26:00 -0400

Clarity Precedes Mastery.

Hanging in the Auckland airport eagerly waiting for my connecting flight home to Calgary. For the past two weeks I’ve been at Curve’s New Zealand office planning new feature designs and working on the early stages of new product we’ll be releasing code named “social butterfly”.

I love coming over here because it gives me an opportunity to temporarily get away from the daily chaos of being in a fast-growth company and regain clarity around why we’re doing what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

Clarity is power, and taking genuine time to reflect on where we’ve come and where we’re going is the first step to realizing that power. Clarity is at the root of any great achievement, no matter how small or large, and in many cases is more important than luck, skill or talent. As human beings we have the remarkable ability to achieve nearly anything we set our minds to but many times fail to do so because we don’t choose to set our minds to anything.

Clarity is really a dream on steroids. It is the ability to take an intention, dream or idea and articulate it in a way that is so precise it might as well be real. It’s the process of defining exactly what you want, how it will happen, and when.

So on that note, lets chill out, put down our blackberries, iPhones and twitter for a second and take some time to reflect on exactly what it is we want in our lives and organizations.

The last thing any of us want to do is find out we spent our lives climbing to the top of the wrong mountain.

Delivering Happiness One Customer at A Time

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:42:00 -0400

On my flight home from Toronto to Calgary tonight I read an amazing book by Tony Hseih, the CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos.com.

Zappos is one of my favorite Internet companies and it’s no doubt that Tony is one of the truly great entrepreneurs of this generation. At 24 he sold LinkExchange for $265 million to Microsoft and then became the CEO of Zappos.com, where in 10 years he grew revenue from next to nothing to over $1 billion in sales. Recently they sold to Amazon for $1.2 billion; it’s a pretty amazing story to say the least.

In the book, Tony breaks down how they built Zappos.com from the ground up and argues that their chief competitive advantage was their unique company culture all around giving customers an unforgettable experience. He talks about how the core mission of the company was customer service, and how customer service shouldn’t just be the responsibility of a division, but should be the responsibility of every employee in the organization.

He talks about their unconventional hiring practices and how they indoctrinated people into the culture by focusing on employee happiness and development before anything else. Most companies focus first on looking after their shareholders, then customers, then employees. In Zappos case, they focus on things in the exact opposite order: they focus first on looking after employees, who in turn look after customers, who in turn look after shareholders :).

To back it up, here’s some interesting best practices that Zappos uses:

— After they hire someone, the new hire is given an opportunity to take a $2,000 cheque to NOT join the company. This ensures people aren’t just coming to the company for a paycheck.

— Salary raises are tied to a structured personal development curriculum which include internal courses on zappos culture, customer service, business development, etc.

— Zappos employees are trained to find and direct customers to competitive sites if a customer is looking for something that is out of stock at Zappos.

— Zappos regularly surprise upgrades shipping for free so customers receive their shoes in under 24 hours. Imagine ordering shoes at midnight and having them show up at your door in the morning.

— Zappos pays for shipping to and from the customer and has a 365 day return policy. Customers regularly order 4 or 5 shoes, try them on and then send the ones back that don’t fit.

— 75% of Zappos daily sales are from existing customers. For this reason, they take what they would normally spend on marketing and put it into customer service. Tony argues that the best form of marketing is providing great service to existing customers who go on to tell their friends and family about their amazing experience. Zappos mostly achieves this through telephone support; building customer relationships one customer service call at a time. Call center employees don’t have a script and are empowered to do anything to ensure the customer has an amazing experience.

50 years ago, building a brand was about deciding who you wanted your company to be, what you wanted your company to stand for, and then spending as much money on advertising to make sure consumers got the message.

Times have changed, with how connected we are to each other we’re moving closer and closer to an open and transparent society. We’ll all soon be completely naked. It doesn’t matter what your advertising says about your company. Your brand is the bi-product of the thousands of conversations customers, employees, vendors, etc. are having about your company.

So what can we learn from this little shoe company? Caring about customers can make a difference. In Zappos case it was just a little over a billion dollars worth of it :).

In Montreal today meeting with some potential partners for Curve...

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:14:00 -0400

In Montreal today meeting with some potential partners for Curve and came across what might be one of my favorite TED talks of all time; and I watch a lot of TED.

In his talk, Simon Sinek does a brilliant job at breaking down the difference between good companies and great companies, good leaders and great leaders. He essentially argues that there are only two ways to make change happen: you can manipulate it, or you can inspire it… and that inspiring it is the only sustainable way to go.

He goes on to argue that to inspire change, whether it is bringing on the right people, customers, investors, creating beautiful products or whatever, you need to focus your efforts on WHY you exist as opposed to WHAT it is you do.

Seems like a simple idea, but how many companies do you interact with that deliver on this simple concept? When I think of most companies I buy products from, they don’t inspire me. In fact, I usually come away feeling jaded, feeling like they only exist to exploit or profit off of me, and definitely not that they truly care about making things better for me.

At Curve, it’s simple. We exist because at the very core, we want to make dentists lives better. Software? Well that just happens to be our medium for making it happen. What we make is irrelevant. When we’re building our products this is what keep keeps me up at night. Are we delivering on our promise? Are we making people’s lives better? When people are talking about us in the market THIS is what we want them talking about, not just some shiny new feature we made. If we make money but don’t make people’s lives better in the process we’ll have failed.

So, what could you or your company be doing to inspire change? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you exist? Do your employees know WHY? Do they feel it? Do they bleed orange?

Burn your Boats!

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:49:00 -0400

I was talking to one of my good friends today who’s been thinking of leaving his job to start a company. He’s got all of the ingredients he needs to build something great but is afraid of taking the leap… come on!

In my opinion, the best way to achieve anything is to create an environment that forces you to do what’s necessary to be successful. Human’s are naturally lazy and sometimes need dire circumstances to reach their true potential.

In any worthwhile endeavor, there’s going to be a period of discomfort, there’s going to be a period of risk, but the best way is to embrace it and not put it off. Tomorrow never comes and there will never be a perfect time to do anything; there’s no better time than RIGHT NOW.

In 1959 a Spanish Conquistador named Hernando Cortez landed in Mexico to sieze the greatest known treasure at the time which was under the Aztecs control.

The funny thing though, was that Cortez’s army was much smaller than the Aztecs. But Cortez was a smart dude. When he landed on the shores of the Yutcan he burned all of his mens boats; retreat was not an option.

So yes, they won.

So if you’ve got something you want to do but haven’t pulled the trigger, don’t be afraid to be like Cortez and burn your boats.

In Virginia watching an amazing talk by the CEO of...

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:51:00 -0400

In Virginia watching an amazing talk by the CEO of mydentalcmo.com on the importance of social media. They just played this killer video and I had to share.

Steve Jobs being brilliant. Check out more SJ videos from the...

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 22:00:00 -0400

Steve Jobs being brilliant. Check out more SJ videos from the recent all things digital conference at http://d8.allthingsd.com/speakers/steve-jobs/.

Sitting in the Calgary airport en route to NYC and then Virginia...

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 11:59:00 -0400

Sitting in the Calgary airport en route to NYC and then Virginia Beach. I’ll be giving a talk at the annual AADA (American Association of Dental Accountants) conference about the huge cost savings of web-based practice management systems compared to traditional client/server based systems. This group represents over 10,000 dental practices in North America and what accountant doesn’t like cost savings?

On a side note, I was just informed the televisions aren’t going to be working on my flight.

I was sad, and then I remembered this clip. Be grateful, Matt.

Authenticity > Professionalism

Thu, 27 May 2010 23:45:00 -0400

As Curve continues to get more traction I’m surprised at the small number of people that are uncomfortable with our public image. I guess some think our marketing is too edgy, some think our orange shoes are too loud, and some think my infamous “kill dentrix” t-shirt is maybe taking things a little too far.

Entering a professional field like dentistry and trying to go against the grain is tough. Early on I very consciously considered what I wanted our public perception to be and after lots of thought decided that being authentic out-weighted the potential risks of being perceived as different or unprofessional.

America is filled with corporations that talk a good game but aren’t delivering on what really matters. They’ve become purely motivated about making a profit and have forgot that companies exist to SERVE their customers. There’s neatly designed mission statements hanging on boardroom walls around corporate America that ring empty: integrity, professionalism, innovation, blah, blah, blah, yeah right. No one reads this garbage and no one cares.

Take this image for example that I took at the grocery store the other day:

Well I can tell you that wasn’t my experience at the grocery store.

Life is too short to live according to what society thinks is proper; it’s about living according to what is right in our hearts. If we try to be everything to everyone, we’ll be nothing to anyone.

Maybe instead of standing for everything, CO-OP should stand for one thing and scream it at the top of their lungs.

At Curve, I’m less concerned about delivering on ten picture perfect values that corporate America thinks is right, and more concerned on delivering on one thing: REAL VALUE. It’s simple: Curve exists to deliver the best possible service to our customers. That’s it! Who cares about the rest.

So to that end, we will continue to show off who we are, and while it may make some hate us, that’s a risk we’re willing to take to find the people that will love us.

Even Brooklyn Bleeds Orange

Sat, 22 May 2010 12:45:00 -0400

Had breakfast in Brooklyn, NY this morning and noticed someone with Orange shoes; I just had to stop her and take a picture.

She’s part of a dental revolution and doesn’t even know it.

Chilling in our Utah office board room talking about changing...

Thu, 20 May 2010 17:23:00 -0400

Chilling in our Utah office board room talking about changing the world… I mean dental industry :) .

Eat Your Own Cooking!

Wed, 19 May 2010 00:31:00 -0400

Working away at our head office in Orem, Utah and something interesting just happened:

To me, there’s little more important than eating your own cooking. The point is this: If your cooking is so bad that you won’t eat it, how do you expect others to?

In Curve’s case, it’s web technology. Why are we telling dentists they have to move to the web? Because it’s what we’re using!

We believe so much in the benefits of the web that our whole business relies on it, and I’m not just referring to the products we offer. To us the web is like a religion, it’s a way of life, it’s a lifestyle. All of our business systems and software is based off web technology: accounting, implementations, development, support, sales, etc. all rely on web-based technology. Our calendaring, email, documents, wiki, etc. are all delivered online through Google Docs Enterprise. We use tripit.com to manage our hectic travel schedules and even our entire phone system is based on a voice over IP network.

We have offices in Utah, Canada, New Zealand and these tools are what allow us to stay connected. I feel as the founder of Curve, it’s my duty to make sure our team members are all leveraging web-based technology so we can better understand what we’re providing to our customers.

Now never send me a word document again!

CDA Spring Meeting in California

Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

I spent the last few days at the spring meeting in California with our VP of Marketing, Andy Jensen. Andy knows how to pack a schedule; for three days we had meetings from the early morning to the late evening, mostly talking about what’s new with Curve and the big things that we have on the horizon.

There were really three key messages we tried to impart to the thought leaders on this particular journey:

1) Later this year, we’ll be be announcing a new free product. Not Eaglesoft free, “Really Free!”. We think it’s going to be have a big impact in the marketplace and will make dentists smile. Dentists need love too.

2) We’re currently in the early stages of the FDA approval process for our proprietary digital imaging system. This is an important part of Curve’s offering and is going to fundamentally change how digital imaging “happens” right now in the dental industry. Think of never having a server again, never having to worry about storing and backing up images, being able to access your images from any web-enabled device… way cool, I know.

3) Lastly, over the past year we’ve build the first truly customizable reporting engine for practice management in dentistry. Our engine gives users significant power over the data that resides within Curve and allows our users to search, filter and organize data in a really awesome way. Later this year we’ll be opening this platform so consultants, thought leaders and other experts working with dental practices can customize and provide tools that give dentists better insights for how to manage their practice.

These are just a few of the small things we’re working on, but we’re excited. We’ll keep you posted as these changes begin to unfold.

Left to Right [Ties Carter, Editor of Dental Products Report, Roger and Lorie Streeter from the American Association of Dental Office Managers and Dr. Marty Jablow]

- Matty in LA

Fish tacos, listening to Lil Wayne, mac laptop, working away, in...

Thu, 13 May 2010 15:38:00 -0400

Fish tacos, listening to Lil Wayne, mac laptop, working away, in San Francisco, long delay en route to the California Dental Meeting in Anaheim to meet with a bunch of awesome thought leaders.

Thank you cloud for allowing me to work anywhere.

Dr. Ali Attaie, the founder of HelloSmile contacted Curve to see...

Mon, 03 May 2010 15:26:00 -0400

Dr. Ali Attaie, the founder of HelloSmile contacted Curve to see if we could help them with expanding their practice base. HelloSmile is a group pediatric organization dedicated to reducing caries in children, especially in under-served communities like Queens and The Bronx where caries much more prevalent. To give you an idea of how serious this is, carries is found in 51.17 percent of children between 6 and 11, all of which is completely preventable.

I was immediately blown away with their passion, organization and commitment to make a big change in New York and beyond.

Last week they flew out to our technology office in Calgary and we began looking at the details of switching them over to Curve. With Curve, we’ll give them the ability to completely centralize their operations, provide a higher level of patient care and drastically reduce IT expenditures.

I’m excited to be a part of their mission. I guess ones and zeroes can make a difference :).

I spent the day in San Francisco today at a conference called...

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0400

I spent the day in San Francisco today at a conference called Starup Lessons Learned. It was an amazing conference and the first of its kind. Check it out here.

Anyways, what was interesting about the trip is that I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing an iPad. No joke. Nearly everyone at the conference either had a Mac or an iPad and it just struck me how Apple products are continuing to take over the world. Every single bus stop, bill board, etc. had an iPad ad. Even the doorman at a bar we went to had an iPad and was checking people in.

It just surprised me how quickly people are adopting something new like the iPad when it’s really not a revolutionary device. Come on, it’s basically a big iPhone (I already have an iPhone) that doesn’t have a camera, doesn’t use flash, can’t multi-task and doesn’t have a ton of applications. It’s really not a computer, can’t store files the way I want, I can’t customize it the way I want, there’s just soo much it DOESN’T DO.

So how the hell did they sell over one million units in just 73 days, about 2 and a half times as fast as the first iPhone did?

It’s obviously a whole bunch of things, but if someone other than Apple or Steve Jobs had of pitched this product to a venture capitalist I’m sure they would have laughed. What’s your value proposition? What’s your competitive differentiators? What features or benefits does the iPad provide that competitive products currently aren’t getting?

In my opinion, the iPad doesn’t really allow anyone to do anything new. And, the last time I checked there wasn’t millions of people rallying about how difficult it is to surf the web with a laptop on your couch.

I think Apple understands a few things really well:

Less is more: It’s not about how many features you have or how many things you can do. It’s about how many things you do “WELL”. There’s a concept. How much of Dentrix do you use? How much of Microsoft word do you use? But consumers and companies out there still think that quantity is more important than quality. It’s difficult to have both, even a multi-billion dollar company like Apple knows that.
Pain where people don’t know they have pain: You don’t know that what you’re using sucks right now, but it does. Everything can always be better. If Henry Ford had of asked customers what they wanted before he created the model-T they would have asked for a faster horse.
Cool factor: It takes a lot of time and money to make something feel good and be cool, but it’s important. People care about that stuff and it’s evident in how consumers make purchasing decisions. Apple understands that these details are what differentiate their products.

Oh yeah, and they obivously understand marketing.

What’s the moral of the story? I went and bought an iPad, even though I didn’t want one and so did a couple million other people.

Damnit. I guess we’ll just have to build some awesome Curve applications on it :).

Matty in SF