Pets.com may be the most notable of all the dot-com flops.  One of the last of the dot-coms to IPO before the bubble burst, it has become the classic example of why so many of these businesses failed.  Too much VC, too much hype and too little consideration to running a proper business.  [Side Note: I'm reminded of the slogan some of us adopted during my own dot-com debacle:  "We loose on every sale but we'll make it up on volume!"]  Aside from the history lesson, why bring it up?  Because I was just thinking that one major change has occurred since it failed... Time.

On the surface the idea seems sound.  Pets require a constant stream of products and if I can get those products delivered to my door when I need them and without a large premium, who wouldn't like that?  Pets.com made lots of bad mistakes including a land grab strategy where they sold below cost to try and gain market share (we all know how loyal people are on the net ;-})  They spent a fortune on advertising, arguably their only real success (their sock puppet mascot went on to become the mascot for 1-800-BAR-NONE)  They devoted another small fortune to building up an infrastructure including warehouses and undoubtedly IT. 

Fast forward to 2008.  Amazon (interestingly enough connected to one of the initial investors) provides all the necessary services for creating an efficient and robust online store.  Companies like FedEx provide cost effective shipping services when you absolutely positively don't have to be there overnight.  Amazon and UPS provide warehouse logistics services for those few instances when you can't convince a supplier to offer drop shipping.  eBay and craigslist allow you to connect with new customers for almost nothing.

It seems to me that the overall cost of starting up something like Pets.com has fallen so far in the past 8-10 years as to make it almost reasonable to attempt again, albeit with a number of changes:

1. Socialize it.  I can't think of a better application for social networks than a place for people who love their pets to talk about them with other people who love their pets.  Allow customers to share pictures, videos and stories of their pets and they will keep coming back.
2. Target the marketing.  You buy chew toys for big dogs.  I know you have a big dog.  Why would I ever show you gerbil cages?
3. Virtualize it.  You can always rent a warehouse later if it makes sense to do so, but there is no reason you should buy anything to start with.  Choose your services ala-carte and only pay for what you use.
4. Provide expertise.  Give people a reason to come to you.  Buy the very best content so that you become the source of reliable, easy to find information on everything pets.  Provide people with more than just another store front.

Maybe the biggest blunder Pets.com made was bad timing. 

Pets.com came to mind because it was so notoriously bad, but I would bet there are many other examples of companies that died during the dot-bomb days that have at their core very valid ideas.  Perhaps there is a solid business venture in simply refurbishing old sites by applying some more modern techniques.  After all at some point people thought pets.com was a good enough idea to invest millions in!

TTFN

I'm currently "working" on 2 projects that are sure to change the Internet, maybe the whole world!  Or more likely cause some fat guy in Indiana to chuckle briefly when he accidentally stumbles upon them via a bad Google search.  I have a number of notebooks, Wiki pages, text files and the like sitting around each filled with ideas.  Most of the ideas I'm sure are crap.  Some are good, some are great.  Many of the older ones have come to pass because they were so clearly needed and evolutionary that other people with more time than me devoted some effort to creating them.  Just today, Sara came up with another idea which stemmed from the Open Source Boob Project.  The idea is just so amazing I almost can't resist starting it.  I can't go into details but I can say it involves 3D modeling, Rapid Prototyping machines, lots of ballistic gel and will change the whole world, at least as far as the fat guy in Indiana is concerned ;-}

What I'm thinking about is taking a week off.  Not a week off to go on vacation with the family or to finish my honey-do list, but a week off to pursue some of the projects that I know I can't do justice to part time.  I've heard people like Bill Gates hole up in a hotel somewhere for a week or two every year to catch up on things and meditate on future directions and that sounds like a great idea.

When I run the world (expecting that to occur any day now) I think I'll make it a point to give people a week or two every year to do their own thing.  Get a house or apartment away from their day to day life and let them concentrate on whatever it is they feel they need to concentrate on.  They won't be allowed to do anything work related but otherwise can chase after whatever it is they want.  Maybe catch up on some reading or learn a foreign language or even catch up on some movies they've always wanted to see.  Seems like a good idea.

In the mean time, I have to get to bed, busy day tomorrow.  Have two soccer games, dance pictures, concession stand duty, pick up my oldest from all night bowling with grandpa and get my oldest daughter ready for a birthday party... then make lunch.

TTFN

I was excited when I started my most recent job just over a year ago.  I knew the company had a lot of problems around execution and I had a lot to bring to the table in that area and fully expected to turn the company around in very short order.  A year has passed and I've come to realize that not only have I not been able to advance the company as much as I initially had hoped, but the company has beaten my down more than I could have imagined.  It's time to get back on my feet!

Every company has its own unique set of problems.  What's interesting about the one that I'm currently at is the problems are obvious, the solutions are obvious and yet it seems that every small improvement must be fought for tooth and nail.  Everyone in the company wants things to be better but it seems that no matter how hard we try we continue to fall short.

At first I didn't realize what was happening to me.  I noticed that I wasn't keeping as up to date with what was going on in the industry and figured it was just because I had too much work on my plate.  Then I noticed that I pretty much stopped blogging but again figured it was just because I was too busy.  I also noticed that I seemed to be producing at a much lower rate than normal, still above most other developers but way below what I am capable of.  I half-heartily chalked it up to the extreme task swapping that goes on but I was beginning to realize that there was something deeper going on.  Recently it occurred to me that the real problem is the demoralization caused by the continuous production of sub-par products.

Turn over at the company is very high, my estimates put it somewhere upwards of 30% per year.  On any given day I will work on five or more different products for different clients.  In order to be profitable we need to roll out a full blown custom product every 6-8 weeks.  Currently we are about to start three new projects which will be divided among the 6 remaining developers, all of which must be delivered in the next five weeks.  Needless to say quality goes right out the window!

The worst part of the whole situation is that it has had a devastating affect on other aspects of my career.  As I mentioned earlier I all but quit blogging, I let most of my other contracts expire and haven't replaced them, I'm haven't remained as up-to-date on technology as I feel I should and I've had a difficult time producing even basic projects.  So I've decided to take steps to turn things around.

My first step was to make a list of things I've been meaning to do and to start doing them.  Some of the things on my list include:

• Starting to blog semi-regularly again
• Hard-wiring my house
• Updating my business cards
• Starting a podcast
• Writing a couple of papers
• Learning Silverlight
• Updating my personal web site
• Creating a few simplistic sites

This isn't my exhaustive list, and I have no pre-conceived notion that this will reverse all of the damage I've incurred over the past year or so but so far it seems to be helping a little.  It took over a year to cause the damage, I don't expect to reverse it over night.

TTFN

Maybe I'm just a cranky old man but it seems to me that software development just ain't what it use to be.  I'm not talking about standard consumer grade software which seems to be getting more and more interesting albeit at a much slower pace than I would have predicted 10 years ago, I'm talking about the software that makes the world go `round.  The software you run your business with.  Enterprise level software.

Robert X. Cringely did a recent column with a similar bend (The Truth About IT Consultants: Some are great but most are not.  April 18, 2008) in which he points out what seems like a no-brainer; Everyone is not created equal.  While I don't think his article is 100% on target, it does hit on a few main points which I think are obvious but apparently are not.

The first point which I've brought up numerous times in the past is that software developers are not interchangeable parts.  There is a vast difference in abilities from one to the next and the gap between the top-of-the-heap and the middle-of-the-road seems to be growing larger and at a very rapid pace.  This is because there isn't a carrier path for developers.  Old developers are like baby pigeons, you just don't see them.  Once you have reached a certain level as a developer you're expected to go into management or start a company or like so many others, find a foothold and dig yourself into a technology or system that no one else wants to support. 

The truth of the matter is I am a much better developer today than I was 10 years ago.  I'm not a better coder, but I am a much better developer and this is why: I know why I do what I do.  10, 15, 20 years ago I wrote code because it's what I was born to do, and without being too modest, I was quite good at it, but then something happened.  Instead of worrying about how to make a tighter loop or a more robust library I started to think about why I was writing the code in the first place.  I started to think about the people who were paying me to write it and what it was that they wanted.  What I realized was that none of them wanted a tighter loop or a more robust library, they wanted to solve a problem or gain some insight to their business or streamline a cumbersome process, but there was never a case where they wanted sexier code.

In my entire career I have only come across maybe 1/2 a dozen developers who actually get that, and coincidently enough they are the best 1/2 a dozen developers I've come across in my entire career.  Unfortunately they are treated almost exactly the same as your typical middle-of-the-road developer and their rare talents are not truly appreciated until they have moved on.  Sadder still they usually do the work of 3 or 4 lessor developers but rarely see more than a few dollars difference in salaries.  Despite that they still do the best job they can because they care about what they do.

Another point I'd like to bring up is the danger of hiring a poor developer.  One of my many rules is that adding a good developer to a 5 person team can boost productivity by 10-20%, but adding a bad developer can reduce productivity by 90-100%.  Everyone who has been in the industry for any length of time knows this to be true and can probably point to very specific instances of this in their past.  What confounds me to no end is why, with knowledge in hand, do people continue to think that they are the exception to the rule?  I'm astounded at the number of times I witness management on an already tight project attempt to cut corners by staffing it with down right incompetent people. 

And while I'm on the subject let me bring up the importance of the developer actually understanding the business that they are developing for.  A typical interview for a C# developer may include questions comparing the use of String.Format to StringBuilder or the proper use of a Command Pattern.  While this may be slightly important I would argue that any developer worth his salt could quickly adapt to any language and / or platform quickly enough and with enough depth that these kind of questions are of little value.  Some forward thinking shops may try to heuristically gauge whether or not a candidate may be able to work well as part of the team.  This is an important metric but is little more than guesswork and something that most developers who work with other people can get a feel for in 5-10 minutes.  What no one appears to ever interview for is industry knowledge which is the one thing that is hardest to come by.  Just because you've been a DBA for accounting firms for the past 10 years does not mean you have any understanding of the needs of a DB for patient care.  Not that you couldn't learn, but it's much harder for a developer to learn a completely different industry than it is to learn a new programming language or toolset.

This is an issue that has plagued me for many years.  In professional sports, the top players a clearly differentiated from the average players, and the poor players are eliminated completely.  In software no such delineation exists between the best and the worst and even the truly terrible continue to thrive in the marketplace. 

TTFN