Marc Gayle

Many people misunderstand the true meaning behind 'fail early, fail fast'. The most 'high-profile' of which is Jason Fried and our friends at 37Signals.

Fail early, fail fast isn't encouraging you to fail. It's encouraging you to act/move/start.

Read the phrase again, with emphasis: fail early, fail fast.

The idea behind the saying is, just do something. It's easy to get trapped in a 'secure' situation. Whether that is a 'stable/cushy' job, or using a product that is OK. It's this inertia that kills innovation. It's fear of the unknown or fear of the failure that also dis-incentivizes people from striking out and making that killer product they have always envisioned, or recorded that song they have written, or sold that painting they have stashed away in their basement.

People get accustomed to procrastinating and delaying that they don't attempt to do what they say they want to do.

The phrase 'fail early, fail fast' is attempting to take the sting out of the fear of failing - by using the terms 'early' & 'fast'. Makes it sound 'quick' and 'painless'. Ever been to a doctor to get an injection?

'It will feel like a mosquito bite' is what I am always told.

It's kinda like that - especially since creating a new product is so hard, the last thing a creator needs is the fear of failure hanging over their heads (although, to be fair that fear can be a good motivator).

I am not advocating failure, but anything that removes one more psychological barrier for inventors can only be good for society.

So, go ahead and fail as quickly as you can. Pick yourself up, and try again.

Editor's Note: Please note that I am not encouraging people to strike out in an attempt to fail. Simply to not be afraid of failing - if that wasn't clear enough in the post.

This is pretty ingenius. If I were hiring a creative guy, I would definitely hire this guy. 

We all know that the US military is powerful, but I think it is easy to underestimate exactly how powerful they really are. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was recently giving a speech at the Eisenhower Library on the 65th anniversary of the allied victory in Europe. He was pitching the case for cutting down the size of the defense budget, and addressing the concerns of many that America will lose it's strength if defense spending is overhauled. He was quite confident that that wasn't the case. Here is a choice excerpt (note, I added the emphasis):

Finally, this Department’s approach to requirements must change.  Before making claims of requirements not being met or alleged “gaps” – in ships, tactical fighters, personnel, or anything else – we need to evaluate the criteria upon which requirements are based and the wider real world context.  For example, should we really be up in arms over a temporary projected shortfall of about 100 Navy and Marine strike fighters relative to the number of carrier wings, when America’s military possesses more than 3,200 tactical combat aircraft of all kinds? Does the number of warships we have and are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners?  Is it a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?

I am a military geek, so these numbers didn't entirely startle me, but it did give me pause. To read the entire speech, check it out here. Upon reading this speech, it reminded me of an article that The Economist published some time ago. Choice excerpts are as follows:

THE Perseus, a 900kg (2,000lb) bomb made in Greece, incinerates almost everything in an area larger than a dozen football fields. Farther out, oxygen is sucked from the air and people may be crushed by a pressure wave. The inferno is similar to that caused by napalm—a jellied-petrol explosive heavily restricted by a United Nations weapons convention.

That was just the prelude. Here is a much more impressive excerpt:

On April 2nd 2003, during the second Gulf war, a hundred or so Iraqi armoured vehicles approached a far smaller American reconnaissance unit south of Baghdad. Responding to a call for help, a B-52 bomber attacked the first 30 or so vehicles in the column with a single, historic pass. It dropped two new CBU-105 bombs, and the result shocked the soldiers of both sides—and, soon enough, military observers everywhere.

While falling, the CBU-105 bombs popped open, each releasing ten submunitions which were slowed by parachutes. Each of these used mini rockets to spin and eject outward four discs the size of ice-hockey pucks.

The 80 free-falling discs from the pair of bombs then scanned the ground with lasers and heat-detecting infra-red sensors to locate armoured vehicles. Those discs that identified a target exploded dozens of metres up. The blast propelled a tangerine-sized slug of copper down into the target, destroying it with the impact and the accompanying shrapnel. The soldiers in the 70 vehicles farther back in the column surrendered immediately.

They recently published, essentially, the state of Afghanistan in April 2010 in Pictures. Below you will find some of my favorites.

(download)

Click here to download:

afghanistan-in-april-2010-in-photos-szskzHEAojwJGhyCemzx.zip (810 KB)

Have I mentioned how much I love Boston Big Picture? The truth is, I saw the name of their latest article and didn’t even see the pictures, but I knew I had to write a post about it. They are always that awesome, that I never pre-screened it and picked the images as I went along. I had to restrain myself from including more from the post, because there are so many awesome ones.

Do yourself a favor, go and check it out, you will thank me later.

However, there is a little bill that was passed in May 2009 that I, personally, have directly seen the effects of. 

Below is one of my credit card statements as of February 2010:

Contrast that with my statement from March 2010:

March is COMPLETELY different. Breaking down how much I will pay total if I stick with the minimum payment or if I paid a higher amount. It doesn’t matter much to me, because I always pay more than my minimum, but it just jumps out at you how much you are paying in interest.

That, is change I can believe in!

P.S. Image 1 courtesy of Andres Rueda on Flickr.

I just finished reading Rework and am pumped to continue working on my side projects. I also just read an interesting post titled ‘I am a racist’ by Mark C. Chu-Carroll and they both really got me thinking.

I am a huge fan of 37signals (who isn’t these days?), and typically agree with their business philosophies and software development approach.

DHH recently had an interview with Jason Calacanis, where there was an interesting face-off between the two schools of thought. DHH is a major proponent of building your company from internal cash-flows and eventual profits, while Jason C. believes you should take outside funding when you can (I am simplifying here, so please don’t send hate mail if this doesn’t spell out their philosophies exactly).

During this interview, DHH mentioned that you should always be working on your best idea – i.e. there is no reason for you to want to sell your company because there is no guarantee that you will come up with as good an idea, or even a better idea, the next time around. In his case, he can see himself still with 37signals in 20 years, because he is confident that he is working on his best idea now. He has no plans to exit. Jason Fried even went so far as to write a blog post blasting the sale of Mint.com to Intuit because Aaron Patzer (Mint’s founder) ‘sold out’.

During another interview with Jason Fried on Mixergy, Andrew Warner (the interviewer) challenged him about wanting to build a large business and Jason pushed back defending his stance about staying small.

There is a certain zen-like quality to these notions that Jason & DHH espouse, and I whole-heartedly adopt many of them. I understand, and agree with, Jason & DHH’s point about focussing on building a solid company based on profits and real customers rather than VCs and eyeballs. I also agree that large companies tend to be inefficient, cumbersome and slow-to-respond. I do acknowledge that there are inherent risks with leaving one successful venture behind. In that, it is possible that you will never be able to ‘strike gold’ twice and come up with more than one businesses that are as successful as the first.

However, where I fundamentally disagree with them on is the notion that we should never sell and stick to one company for many, many years (if not our entire entrepreneurial lives).

The reason I disagree is because by the very nature that I have the ability and wherewithal to build a large successful company and sell, there is a high probability that I can do it again (when I say I, I mean anyone – not me specifically, but hopefully me in the future:) ). This ability is so rare, that those that have it, should not squander it – for the advancement of our civilization and the betterment of society. I once heard, can’t remember from where, that the most effective poverty-reduction mechanism that mankind has ever seen is capitalism. Capitalism has raised the standards of living of more people than any other initiative and system before it – by a factor of many multiples.

As Warren Buffet said, the mere fact that we (able body entrepreneurs) won the ovarian lottery and were born to the right vagina comes with a certain amount of responsibility. Lady Luck (nothing we did to deserve it) allowed us to go to school, meet the right people, have access to information and resources – which hundreds of millions were not so fortunate. On top of that, we were given the ability to create companies that can create wealth for many shareholders, customers, clients & employees. I believe, this obliges us to build the best businesses we can (grow as much as we can – not necessarily in terms of bulking up employee count, but grow revenues and profits). If we get an offer to sell, which could have a material impact on improving the financial security of said stakeholders, it should be seriously considered. Then do it again.

So, while I understand that they (Jason & DHH) are basically pushing back against the Silicon Valley ethos of coming up with an idea, seeking VC money, hiring a bunch of people, selling to the biggest gullible buyer and then chilling on mojito island for eternity. I think they tend to be a BIT too overzealous with the opposite stance.

Aaron Patzer (of Mint fame) is now free to start a foundation and have a more significant impact on many lives, than he had before, all the while investing in other companies and starting another one for himself.

The fact that he can, and hundreds of millions can’t, I believe means he has a fundamental responsibility to maximize his capabilities as much as possible.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8[/youtube]