Although not having the cash can, in itself, be a time waster (for things that get faster when run in parallel anyway). Some times the only way to run fast is if a sugar daddy is carrying you...

I am mostly more Pete than Pete on this subject, but there's definitely a time and a place for it.

But Pete, if we raise money we could each buy one of these:
http://bit.ly/eLUoYE

:-)

Damn, you're getting the hang of this journalism thing. Great post!

And I love that sheep foraging got you to this article.

All I can say is Baa (a risky Baa, of course).

Hi Tony,

Thanks for stopping by and sharing some thoughts. As you note, my comments were directed at a fundamental failure in execution, not the product itself. As the wise old phrase notes, "90% of success is simply showing up", and in this case Zerista absolutely failed to show up.

For conference attendees, I do believe this is a real problem to be solved. My time at CES, Defrag and other shows (large and small) would be far more effectively spent with a useful match making tool.

That being said, I think there are some obvious flaws in the products I've used (including Zerista). It's not my intention to keep beating them up, but they are simply the most recent product I've tried to use.

As I recall, when registering for Zerista, I was given the choice of creating my new account by connecting to my Gmail, Facebook or Twitter accounts. Initially I proceeded with Gmail, but Google informed me that I would be granting access to my contacts as part of the deal. For me, that's an instant dealbreaker. My contacts are literally my business and I share them only when and as I see fit. I don't know Zerista and I have no idea if they will act honorably, or if some intern will get to spam my contact book because sales are down for the quarter (seen that happen). For me, Facebook is still a personal network and I use LinkedIn for business, so there's zero benefit to using Facebook. As for Twitter, I use it, but not regularly enough for that to be a useful connection for an app like Zerista, and again, I don't want the followers I have spammed by anyone, let alone a company I don't know and trust.

Option B was to create a new account. At this point I need another social network + login like I need a hole in the head, but since I have no basis for trusting Zerista and they insist on over-reaching with their access requests, creating a new account was my only choice.

This all just seems ass-backwards to me.

Suggestion #1: The conference organizer has access to my email address. There are great tools like Rapleaf that enable products like Rapportive to match up email addresses to online profiles. Why can't my profile be auto-assembled? Sure, I'd want the ability to edit it and tailor my message for the conference, but at least fill in the blanks with basic information.

Suggestion #2: Give me decent privacy controls. Let me choose if I want to be publicly findable, or only reachable by a chosen few. Or, here's a magic idea, give each profile an automatic rating based on their profile/experience/relevance and only let people with a rating above value X contact me. And make sure there's an "I've been spammed" box that destroys the user's rating if they spam me.

Suggestion #3: Don't automatically ask for my contacts database. If for some reason you do ask, tell me exactly why you want it, what the benefit is to me and go to great lengths to convince me that you won't do something evil with the data.

Suggestion #4: Get a real mobile interface. I have my phone with me at all times. I may not have my laptop, or the battery may be dead, or I may just not feel like firing it up. Let me choose whether I get emails, SMS messages, both, or neither. Depending on the location and mobile operator, SMS may be the only reliable method of contact. Make your mobile app so it can run in the background and provide a notification (or not, you need to let me choose). And above all else, do NOT make the mobile app some kind of read-only WAP-wants-its-glory-days-back waste of time.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck with the business. I find it interesting (although not surprising) that I was contacted by a competitor to Zerista before I heard anything from Zerista themselves, but I guess more than one person is asleep at the switch over there.

-Nick

That would absolutely be my defense! 

Hey Pete,

Not to be a data Nazi, but I think a Petabyte is 1000 terabytes. An Exabyte is 1000 petabytes, i.e. 1B Terabytes.

Yay data!

As entrepreneurs, I think we are hard wired to solve problems, but we are equally well wired to ignore elephants in the room.

Examples:
Problem: Computers cheap enough for every home
Elephant: Why would you want one?
Result - Microsoft/Intel/Apple

Problem - Make a better search engine
Elephant - Many seemingly good search engines already existed
Result - Google

Problem - Electric personal transport
Elephant - Really, people want _this_?
Result - Segway

Problem - Easy real time conversations
Elephant - How do we make money?
Result - twitter (and of course the jury is still out on revenue)

Sometimes you can only succeed by ignoring the elephants. Other times, that is the worst thing you can do. Either way, you don't find out until until you have the benefit of hindsight.

I think it's inevitable that our problem solving and elephant ignoring skills spill over into our personal lives, I'm just trying to be more aware of the elephants.

Last point: no relationship crumbles because of one person. It takes two to break things. It may be 60/40, not 50/50, but it is never just one person's fault when you look at the big picture.

Hang in there...

"I feel like the whole world was against me, including my wife"

I sooooo remember that with my (now) ex-wife. I had a 40 minute commute which gave me some thinking time on the way home, but there was still a laundry list of of stuff I really needed (or thought I needed) to talk about when I got home.

Of course, the last thing a spouse/partner wants to talk about is the very thing that made you late home in the first place. But it was hard to see and understand that at the time.

I think the networks will be forced to come around one way or another.  Once Google figures out advertising and other stuff of value, they won't be able to say no.  I think the cable companies are going to be hard hit too.  Not sure how you justify $100+/month for cable when I can get everything I want through Hulu Plus and Netflix for about $25...

I really do think the apps are the killer feature for both this and Apple TV.  My kids still find seeing things on the big screen magical.  It's somehow different to seeing it on the desktop or laptop, and the right app will capitalize on that big time.

Hey Pete,

Since I'm sooooo many years older than you, you get stuck with the "benefit" of my wisdom. Lucky you ;-)

I at least have the benefit of having done it the wrong way and relatively the right way, although the latter story is as yet unfinished (fortunately).

Like Kin, I had a 9 year marriage / 11 year relationship that ended and a big factor was how buried I was in my work. I'd worked for a bunch of small/startup companies, but the one that killed it was a turn-around that i was responsible for. Looking back, I see that I did a progressively shittier job of drawing a line between work and home. Other than trips to see family, I don't think we took a proper vacation in 5+ years. When we finally did, it was too late.

After that, I spent a good few years in the wilderness. Being newly single as a 30+ guy with no dating experience in the current century (literally) was beyond strange. Some fun stuff, some very much not... and plenty of hedonistic behavior to fill the void.

I quit the job I had and did a start up. Only this one was engineered to let me have something of a life. It was a simple business with a partner I knew and trusted. After 4 years, I was seriously losing my edge and needed to be challenged.

At the same time, absolutely out of the blue, I met my wife. It could not have been more random and it happened at a point where I had sworn off proper relationships entirely. Things moved very quickly and within a year we were living together with a daughter on the way.

I started another company, and you know how that ended (badly). Like any startup, it was also a roller coaster on a weekly basis and my wife and daughter were dragged along for the ride. However, unlike my previous behavior, I kept my wife absolutely in the loop of truth at all times. Despite my best intentions, I jeopardized our house, our savings and my creditworthiness, a mess I am still cleaning up.

We talked and agreed that there needed to be more ground rules other than simply keeping to the truth. If you're not willing to sacrifice your relationships (something I am no longer willing to do) you have to make other compromises. That's why I now have a startup and a consulting business. Yes, VC's hate the idea, but they're not the people I want in my personal life.

For me, there has to be more balance. You can't stay happy and walk away from your passion and a desire to build things, but that passion can easily blow up the rest of your life. Being hyper focused on work is the natural tendency for an entrepreneur, but for most of us, I don't believe it's effective. You lose perspective, miss opportunities and make mistakes. Not that you don't make mistakes otherwise, but at least if my work life sinks, I have a rich personal life to anchor me. That gives me the chance to reset and try again.

One of the biggest reasons why I chose not to go back to CA was that there is a deep rooted culture of imbalance there. It's expected that you forego your personal life in order to build something world changing. I tried that path and it's not me. The new one suits me far better, even if it risks my not building the next Google.

There. I wrote all that and managed to avoid references to things oceanic and aquatic vertebrate animals with scales.

See you for beer in a couple of weeks.