Can you really startup a company in only 54 hours?

The answer is… YES!  Of course there’s always that little ‘depends’ that always hangs around questions of this sort, but let me share with you my experience.
I’m a student at the University of Arizona, and I’m studying systems engineering.  About a month ago, I got this email from my department, about Startup Weekend in Tucson.  I read about it, and said to myself:

“Sure, what the heck. It’s just a weekend… Little did I know that this event would change my life forever!”

I know that’s a pretty bold statement, but it really is true.

I went to the event not knowing a thing about starting up companies.  I don’t want to be the peon working for major corporations.  I want to be my own boss, and working with friends or colleagues that I can trust and have fun with.  So I felt like this would be a great experience for me to start getting into startups.

The first night was pitches, and I’m not going to lie, there were some pretty out there ideas.  But there were also some really neat ones as well, like feeding the hungry through aquaponics, or making sure that the code examples your find online, match the version you’re using.  I even decided to pitch an idea I thought of that morning.  And that’s were I learned my first thing about starting up a business…

“It’s terrifying talking to a crowd of just 100.  You need to be prepared on what to say beforehand, and be clear in your speech.” 

I stumbled through my pitch, and when people came to talk to me afterwards, they had a completely different understanding of what it was. 
After pitches, everyone voted on the best ones.  There were roughly 15 selected, mine wasn’t one of them, but I didn’t care.  However, I noticed that a few of the people that pitched and didn’t get selected, simply left for the night. 

“Don’t be offended if you’re not successful at first.  It’s a part of life to fail, and sometimes your ideas just plain suck, or people don’t care about them!  Just get to work, and make with what you can.” 

It’s the simple, make lemonade with life’s lemons theory, and that’s exactly what I did.  Me and and a friend went around and checked out some of the other ideas and finally settled on one.  We had about two hours for the rest of the evening and started working on the idea.  After those two hours, I knew that this idea wasn’t the one that I wanted to work with and couldn’t really put my heart in.

I realized right then and there, that if I’m ever going to startup a business on my own, I have to have the passion, drive, and heart to go through with it. 

Unfortunately, this meant that I was left back at square one.  I went home, feeling a little scared on what to do next.
The next morning I decided to talk to one of the guys that put this event together… @warneronstine and he gave me some really good advice.  He said to go and join up with a group that had some previous experience in starting up a company, and pointed me in the direction of @davidleary and his TshirtRESUME idea. 
I’m not going to lie, I was a little hesitant about joining up a team that wanted to put a resume on the Tshirt, but from the little bits of interactions that I had with David, I did know that we would get along.  So I gave it a shot.  And I’m glad I did. 


TshirtRESUME isn’t about putting your resume on a Tshirt, but actually creating your resume with Tshirts!  “Your shirts are your resume!”  Here’s the official description we put together on Facebook:

“Paper resumes are dead, LinkedIn is getting boring, and recruiters need a faster and more visual way to sift through your job experiences. Everyone has work T-Shirts. TShirtResume brings you the ability to link online pictures of your T-Shirts to your profile, giving you the visual edge for recruitment.”

Ok I’ll quit advertising for our business, but needless to say, I found a niche that really fit well.  I was able to really get into the idea, and the more and more I thought about it, the more ideas would start popping in my head on what we could do! 
And so we started, and worked.  We worked hard.

“I’ve never worked so hard in my life, and had so much fun doing it.  That’s what makes an experience like this so successful.”

By the end of the day, we had a full idea of what we were going to do and how we were going to get there.  We had definitely come a long way and learned a lot.  None of us knew how to use API’s and what was in involved.  We didn’t know anything about OpenID or Oauth, but by the end of the day we had an ok grasp on all of those things.  We also had a front end GUI that worked, thanks to Sherif from StartupTucson.  You freakin rock dude!  We literally went from nothing to something in one day.

Today, was day two, and we continued to work harder and harder.  Our poor coder was pushing to his very limits.  There were a few times that I thought we was going to leave because of all the pressure that he was facing (and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he did).  But he stuck through it, just like the rest of us, and that’s what helped us to produce a product.  Within 54 hours, when it was time to pitch to the judges, we had a product, idea, and business model to present to them.  We presented and didn’t win, but that didn’t matter to us. 

“What mattered most, out of this whole experience and has ultimately changed my life forever, is the fact that I now know that it really is possible to startup a business, and I can do it!” 

I always thought that starting up a business took really intelligent, business savy individuals, but it doesn’t!  You can startup your business, if you have the guts to go out there and just try.  Most of the time, you’ll probably fail, but it’s from those failures that we learn the most. 

Thanks to all those that helped to put this together.  Without you, I wouldn’t have the hope to startup my own business.  

If you’re curious about the winners of the competition here they are:

• Sportinception.com – free web directory that consolidates links for sport teams’ news, shops and tickets
• Smartrek – a fun and rewarding way to avoid traffic
• ComedyPunchUp – Advertising using tweets and some comedy
• EarShot.me – the spontaneous social music cloud that allows people to quickly and easily share music with their friends.  (This one is going to be big!)

What programming has taught me.

I’m a fairly new programmer to the programming scene.  I took a class about 6 months ago on C and haven’t stopped trying to learn since.  Since then I’ve taught myself Python (by which I mean continually searching on Stack Overflow and bugging Ivo Flipse).  I’m also working to try to understand Assembly (not by choice but for class) and I’m also looking to take up either C++ or C#.

But here’s the single most important thing that Programming has taught me thus far:  If you want to really learn something, YOU PROGRAM IT!

Take for example this past semester for me.  I’m taking 15 credits of pure engineering courses, one of them, the dreaded Probability and Statistics course.  I was having a difficult time understanding what was going on.  Between all the Weibull’s, discretes, Bournolli, HyperGeometrics and all other ways to use probability with statistics, I was getting lost. I would lose interest so quickly in class that I would fall asleep.  I pretty much felt like this:

However, one night while doing homework, this all changed.  I had a problem that required the use of the HyperGeometric Probability Model for 20 different values of population and 20 different value of success’s.  That’s over 400 calculation I had to do BY HAND!  I decided to take this to the next level. 

I fired up Spyder from my python(x,y) and started to program.  It took me about 20 mins to code and debug, and was only 39 lines of code.  I ran it, copied the results and turned in the homework as well as the code to my professor and was done.

The professor emailed me later, and asked if he could meet with me.  Believe it or not he was impressed!  Asked if I could put together some more code to share with the class and to maybe even present to the class on how to use programming and computers in Statistics. 

Well I did just that.  As class has been going along, I started writing more code.  The fact that I had to write something that worked, forced me to study more and pay more attention in class.  I now know when to use the Binomial model instead of the HyperGeometric.  I know what a Normal Distribution is and why it’s so useful! The list just keeps going on!  I actually know why this is funny now:

Funny thing is, now I actually kind of enjoy statistics.  It’s fun to know that I can 33.32452% of the time somehow “predict” what’s going to happen in the future.  I also got a 100% on my last test in the class.  That’s a first EVER in my college career.  

Recently I was just given a project from my professor to create a program that is pretty intensive.  I had every right to say no, if I wanted to as he gave me plenty of opportunities to do so, but I didn’t  Why? because after this I’ll know exactly what “Probability Integral Transforms” are, and won’t have any problems for the next test.

So if you’re looking to understand a subject, and I mean really understand it in and out, then learn how to program. 

My “Pimped Out” Cooler Master HAF 932

As I’ve been testing the Kingston SSD’s out this weekend I also decided to take some pics of my Cooler Master HAF 932, case and give my review of it.  So here goes.  This is what the case looks out of the box (straight from their site):

It’s pretty sleek looking of a case, but what I didn’t like about it, was the nasty gray inside the case, and the fact that everything else was black.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the black outside look, but I decided to add some ‘flair’:

Painting was actually a breeze.  I diasassembled everything and painted only the mesh parts, hard drive bays, and Water Cooler ports.  I also spray painted the inside of the case a matching black of the outside. 

This case looks freaking awesome straight from purchase, but add a little color, and it’s even better.  But this isn’t the real reason why I love this case.  It’s how customizable the case is.  First:

The hard drive bays are quick release.  There’s only two screws that you use to fasten the drives to the bay, and that’s it.  They then just slide right in and fasten.  With 5 HDD bays, there’s plenty to do whatever you want to do with your system. 

Second:

There are up to six 5.25 expansion slots!  And they’re all quick release as well.  This makes installing a DVD-RW a breeze.

Third:

 

CABLE MANAGEMENT!  Although it may not look it (mainly due to all the SATA cables, and HDD mess), the cables are well managed and easy to trace.  Cable Management with the HAF 932 is really easy, as there are built in “loop” to attach zip ties around the cables.  With all of this mess on the back it makes a clean looking case from the other side of the case. 

My final reason why I love the HAF is these massive Guys:

There’s a reason why HAF stands for “High Air Flow,  three 230mm fans and a 120 out the back come stock with the case.  These fans are also designed to maximize cool air flow through the system and hot air out the case.  Here’s a good diagram to show:

 

The front fan is used to cool the hard drives.  The bottom “cool” arrow is the fan coming from the side.  Heat then rises and escape either out the top vent or out the back.  I was also very impressed with the fact that the back vent matched perfectly with the CPU cooler, making a direct air flow for heat from the CPU. 

There you have it.  The HAF 932.  It may be a little outdated as the HAF X has already come out, but if you want a cheaper, and still just as good option, go with the HAF 932. 

Be sure to watch the Super User blog, as I’ll be posting SSD results very soon. 

Unboxing the SSD’s

After a long day at school and work, I came home and awaiting me were the Kingston SSD’s.  I decided to put together a quick unboxing of them:

Here they are in all their glory.  Kingston sent three drives for us to test out.  Here’s a close up of one of them:

 

This kit is the desktop kit, which includes the drive, 2 brackets for mounting screws, SATA power and data cables, and software to clone your drive.  The notebook upgrade kit comes with the drive, an enclosure case (nifty!) and the software as well.

Now lets open it up:

Within the box the cd, drive and cables are packaged very nicely within a sturdy plastic container.  Opening this up and taking out the cd the drive, cables and brackets are revealed:

I took out the drive, as was very surprised as to how light the whole thing was (especially compared to the SCSI drive that came today as well)! 

I took out the contents and here’s the result:

Well that’s about it.  Up next I’ll be testing the drives and comparing them to HDD’s.  Some testing will include:

• Testing a singe drive vs. two in a RAID0 array
• Cloning my netbook drive onto one of the drive and testing differences in performance
• Boot time between a HDD and a SSD (and maybe even a 15000 rpm SCSI drive)
• and many more.

Check out the Super User Blog for more detail testing!

Also right now there’s a great deal for these exact drive: 128 gb for only $125!. 

Me vs Active Directory Round 1

Recently I was asked to be a Sys Admin of a small practice Doctor’s Office locally.  I thought, “Sure, what can be too hard?”  I looked over the previous setup and their current DNS/AD server was… ancient!  It’s running Server 2000 and barely limping along, as it serves as also their Exchange, Fax, and File servers with a single core, less than 4 gigs.  Luckily they have a spare server that currently only serves faxes. 

This morning before I school I decided to head over and upgrade the new server as an Active Directory and DNS server.  Shouldn’t be too hard.  I’ve dealt with AD before and how difficult can it be to setup?  Besides Server 2003 has wizards that make things simple to setup!

I went through the wizard and got everything running.  The server needed to be rebooted and so I did.  Once it booted, it asked for the admin password, which I made sure to remember, and entered it in.  Didn’t work… o_0 Tried again… still nothing.  I was sure that I remembered, how could I fat finger something wrong twice?  I kept trying and trying and trying, until I locked the account out. 

Now I was in a big pickle.  No way to access the server, and the office was about to open… without a fax server which meant no faxes!!!  I was starting to sweat, and finally turned over to my buddies over at ServerFault for some guidance. 

At first I thought that I had set the domain admin password, but then I realize I hadn’t set the admin password but actually a Directory Server Recovery password. 

I tried everything to recover the password, between booting and using ntpassword to reset the password (which doesn’t work).  I tried this nifty guide (still no luck).  After about 4 hours of swearing, praying, pleading, talking to the server, and almost throwing the server out the door, I was no closer than I was when I started. 

Finally,  I came across the answer.  I had to uninstall Active Directory.  I did and everything was restored back to it’s original state. 

I missed all my classes for the day, worked on a server for over 4 hours to only get back to the same spot and no pay (I didn’t feel right charging them for nothing). 

What did I learn? 

• Read through EVERYTHING when installing
• Research, research, research!
• Don’t do anything major IT right before or during office hours
• Sometimes, you’re just wrong. 

Learn from my Fail everyone!

Until next time….

Been Busy

This is going to be a short post for my 1 so far follower, and any other viewers that may read this from time to time.  I’ve taken on the challenge to work heavily on the Super User Blog.  This means that what I meant to be doing here has mostly been moved over there.  But fear not my good citizens, I will still be posting to this blog about different things that are happening. 

In fact one thing I do want to mention is that in conjunction with the Super User Blog, I’m going to be receiving some SSD’s!  Exciting huh?!  I’ll be conducting various tests on them and will be posting most of the material on the Super User Blog.  However I plan on posting fun stuff and pictures here along the way. 

Until next Post,

SuperKronos