guttervomit

67

Money Chains (addendum to the supplement)

17 May 2006

Sorry I keep reworking this post everyone, but I got another interesting comment and well, I like comments.

Mr Clean said:
Interesting post, although I think I have to point out that not everyone can do what you do and be "free", so to speak. I know I’m taking this to extremes, but if everyone suddenly decided not be average and be their own boss to get rich and live comfortable lives, well, the world as we know it would collapse, wouldn’t it?

I guess my point is that for some people it’s enough that they make a monthly paycheck. Their lives aren’t their jobs, but the time they spend with friends, family, etc. But if they feel like corporate monkeys and they feel dissatisfaction, then its up to them to either quit the job and try something else or just stfu.

Unless they have 2.5 kids with one needing braces and one on the way to grade school and mortgages to pay. You sort of just have to let them whine a bit because that’s all they can do now. :P

well, some of the conclusions you came to are pretty arguable (for one thing, i don’t actually think the world would collapse without the master/slave-driven economy; it would totally change, but i doubt it’d be for the worst.) i do agree that there are people out there who are perfectly content to just make a monthly paycheck, and they’re definitely not the people I’m writing all this for.

in fact, all that’s beside the point because i wasn’t saying that everyone should quit their jobs. what i was saying was that everyone who wants to get rich should quit their jobs*. (although to be perfectly accurate, my father said that. i’m just echoing his sentiments.)

here’s why:

statistically, only 1 out of every 10 startup businesses ever become successful (and only 1 out of every 10,000 ever get acquired by Yahoo, but that’s a different rant altogether). that means that, yup, 9 out of 10 businesses don’t really go anywhere and will eventually fade into oblivion. however, if that sounds like crappy odds, think about the chances of an average rank-and-file employee eventually becoming a general manager earning a comfy 100k per month. that’s a really easy equation to do because there’s only one GM in each company. that means your chances of being the GM are 1 out of the total number of "eligible" employees. and seeing as most GMs would not be earning 100k a month unless they were managing a fairly healthy-sized company, i’d say your average chances would be 1 out of 50 at best, probably closer to 1 out of 100.

here’s me jumping to the killer conclusion: that means that you have better chances of succeeding by starting your own business than succeeding within someone else’s business. in fact, you could try and fail up to 5 times, and still experience roughly the same odds of success as if you had gone the old ball-and-chain route within the corporate system for the rest of your life.

sounds crazy? yeah, it is, a little. but i’m not saying all this because i’m trying to convince everyone that reads this blog to quit their jobs. the truth is, everyone wants to be rich, but they’re not sure how to do it. if you stay in your job, the odds are 99 out of 100 that you will never get rich. if you venture out by yourself, your chances are nearly 10 times better. you can’t argue with statistics, man. especially half-made-up ones.

* please be aware that i am not writing this from the standpoint of someone who perceives themselves to be rich and therefore, knowledgeable on the ways by which one could obtain said richness. i work my ass off every month to afford what i’ve got. that’s about the extent of it.

Posted in Goin' Legit | 67 Comments »
39

The Company Website Redesign: Idea #2

17 May 2006

One of the first things they teach you in poker academy (or in any
strategy-related endeavor, for that matter), is the fundamental
difference between strategy and tactics. One could look at strategy as the overall mindset that you would employ going forward, and tactics as being the specific actions you would take along the way to achieve your goals.

You
can apply this to design as well. In my previous post, I outlined my
design strategy by listing a few key phrases that were foremost in my
mind as I was building the design. As is often the case with these
things, the actual tactics were left unexplained. (It’s far easier to
talk in broad, conceptual strokes rather than to have to explain precisely why I selected 3-px wide dashed #999 swirly line as the killer background element.)

But I digress.

It
seems that the issues people had with the previous study were
half-strategic and half-tactical, with the latter being largely
irrelevant and the former being a whopping showstopper.

Why? Because tactics are easy to adjust so long as they still fall within the ideas set by your overall strategy. But if your strategy itself is flawed (even slightly) … well, that’s when you go back to the drawing board.

So here I am again, with a strategic overhaul and a whole plate full of new design tactics.

Some of the comments I received regarding the previous design, which have affected said strategy profoundly:

“We are a fun, vibrant, quirky company but to me the design feels a little to cartoony”

“More professional look?”

“As an expression of a potential brand it doesn’t work for me any where near as well as your present design.”

“I think the circles suck. But they are cool and a great idea at the same time!”

So
I’d like to say thanks for all the
feedback — your candor was invaluable. Hopefully we can move closer to
our goals with this new study.

Posted in Goin' Legit | 39 Comments »
42

The Company Website Redesign: Ideas

16 May 2006

Redesigning one’s own company (or personal, for that matter) website is always a tricky endeavour. My personal philosophy on the matter: in terms of both the look and the functionality, attitude is everything.

In the case of my personal blog, for example, I designed it the same way I designed my apartment—flat, no-nonsense colors; lots of space; everything but the most important stuff kept out of sight until needed. But that works for me because my attitude (in life as well as in design) has always been minimalistic but bold, i.e., little things in big ways.

In the case of Pandora Squared … well, it’s even trickier. Not only does a redesign have to evoke the company persona, but it has to allow for the attitudes of the team within as well. So what is the company persona? Having just recently joined Pandora Squared, I have the distinct advantage of being able to see this company without the years of brutal deadlines and unforgiving workloads “clouding” my judgement.

Atthe risk of sounding cautiously evasive, I’ve come up with a list of phrases that I think are descriptive (if not entirely accurate) of this thriving company:

Huge Vision.

Controlled Flambouyance.

Deep Philosophies.

Not exactly an award-winning haiku, but that’ll do, pig.

Hunter mentioned that he’d like to see something very simple with the coming version, ala 37Signals. I suppose it’s arguable what “very simple” actually means, but my personal feeling is that we could get away with something just a touch more graphical (read: whimsical). With that in mind, my first design study is below. (Full-sized version here.)

Fire away, folks.

NOTE: This entry was originally posted on the PandoraSquared blog.

Posted in Goin' Legit | 42 Comments »
4

Money Chains (supplementary)

15 May 2006

Tundra made this comment on my original Money Chains post, which I felt deserved a reply:

dude, you’re still making a hell of a lot more than the average
corporate slave in the Philippines. If you can afford a place of your
own and buy the gadgets you have, I’d say you’re pretty well off. other
people would need to go abroad to make what you do.

I do feel your pain though. Being an outsourced phone monkey, what
we earn of course is way below the minimum wage that US clients pay for
their employees (who do the same work we do here). But that’s the
number one reason they get pinoys to do call center work, since it’s so
much cheaper from their perspective. Their purchasing power is bigger
when dollars are converted into pesos, which is good enough for the
average pinoy, but waay cheaper for them.

That’s essentially all true, and I didn’t write the Money Chains article because I wanted to rant. I’ve been pretty fortunate over the past year to have met up with clients both local and overseas that pay well enough and consistently enough that I can maintain a relatively comfortable lifestyle. I recognize that, but I also know that it isn’t that hard to pull off. My issue with tundra’s comment is this bit right here:

… a hell of a lot more than the average
corporate slave …

At the risk of sounding condescending, you only become a corporate slave if you choose to be one. People aren’t born into corporate slavery, they volunteer for it on the assumption that that is the only avenue open to them. In this age of outsourcing and telecommuting, that assumption has never been more wrong. If you refuse to be average, then you won’t be.

Or, as my father likes to put it, "If you want to get rich, quit your fucking job."

Posted in Randomness | 4 Comments »
0

Scary Movie 4

15 May 2006

My capsule review, as posted on FilmCrowd:

Suprisingly entertaining, but mostly only if you’re expecting something
totally insipid. The payoff towards the end isn’t nearly as gratifying
as some of scenes in the second act, and you can’t help but feel that
you’ve heard some of these jokes before. For example, there’s one scene
wherein Anna Faris’ character talks to the little kabuki-boy in The
Grudge in faux nippongo; Team America creators Trey Parker and Matt
Stone should send them their bill for that gag. And the Tom Cruise
meltdown spoof at the end has been parodied so many times I can’t even
recall who started it first.

This is a nice movie to be watching while you’re drunk or high with your friends. That’s about it though.

Posted in Movies | No Comments »
1

Money Chains

14 May 2006

In The Bootstrapper’s Bible, author Seth Godin has an interesting anecdote on the "real" cost of an average pair of sneakers. Assuming a retail value of US$80 (your regular mid-range Nikes), Godin breaks down the actual costs to be something like this:

$1 -Materials
$3 -Assembly Labor
$1 -Shipping

At this point, the shoes that have been built and delivered to the manufacturer’s distribution center cost about $5. These are 100% functional shoes, completewith pretty packaging and the white-paper-stuffing. So where does the other $75 in final MSRP come from?

$35 -Manufacturer, for sales and marketing costs
$40 -Retailer, for selling the shoes to the consumer

I remember being pretty peeved when I first read this, but it explains somethings that were bugging me about my previous business relationships. A couple of years ago I was working with this small startup that was feeding me projects from offshore clients. They had a small studio based in the Philippines, with marketing partners in the US. I was essentially their one-man development arm, the $5-for-Materials-Assembly-and-Shipping guy at the very bottom of the foodchain.

I would build sites for them for an average cost of Php35,000-40,000, around US$750, which (I later discovered) they were marking up about 2.5 times to US$2,000, and their marketing partners in the US were in turn marking up to about US$10 -12,000. By the time the work reached the actual client, its cost had ballooned to about 1500%.

These were, to me, small little corporate websites that I’d churn out in about 2-3 weeks time, but were being sold on the other end of the pipe at prices that were mind-bogglingly bloated. I couldn’t understand how you could put such a huge cost on marketing and networking, when these guys wouldn’t have a product to sell if I hadn’t made it for them. It’s this disparity between building and selling that I’ve never been able to fully accept, and is probably why I accept work from middle-men so grudgingly … you never know exactly how much they’re making off of "your" hard work.

But the reality of this chain is that the selling of your product requires a certain set of skills and resources that your average builder does not have access to. Having a network of connections, people who know people who know people with money to burn, is a resource just as a builder’s equipment or experience are resources.

Of course, the question still remains, is it worth the extra US$10,000 being tacked on at the tail-end? I guess that’s arguable (or I really should say, that’s capitalism). I do think that the US partners in my example were seriously overboard, but I guess they took advantage of the fact that their development partners were based in the third-world, and thus cost next tonothing to keep happy. They could continue selling websites at their average $10-12,000 cost, and gained a seriously healthy profit margin.

In Bootstrappers, Godin writes:

Many bootstrappers are tempted to delegate the sales process to a representative, anagent, or an employee. Big mistake. The sales process—regardless of your business—is the heart of your business. As long as you control it, you control your company. Without it, you are at the mercy of whomever you delegate it to.

This is pretty much the reason why I broke off with the studio, because I hated sitting around and waiting for them to give me stuff to do. I felt powerless. Now that I’m on my own, I make only a little bit more than I previously did, but I at least feel like I control my business’ direction. It’s not a lot of power, but it’s a start.

Posted in Goin' Legit | 1 Comment »
2

PinoyWeb2

12 May 2006

Here’s a little something I’ve been working on over the past week for PandoraSquared.

PinoyWeb2.0 is a community focused on the promotion and discussion of the new generation of web applications, in the context of our great little country. This was totally a team effort, as all I really contributed was the design and user-interface, and a tiny bit of code here and there. The site is built using Pandora’s Genesis engine, which is in turn built on top of the illustrious Rails framework, so I’ve had my hands full deciphering all of it while trying to integrate my design.

I love a good design problem, and for PinoyWeb2.0, the conditions I set for myself were to 1) use the Philippine flag colors and elements and 2) make it snazzy. The sun element was particularly testy; it took me awhile to figure out how to place it on the page without making the whole thing look like a tropical resort site. I have a version of this design where I actually had stars on the page, and yes, it looked terribly Powerpuff. I eventually replaced them with the rays in the background :)

Check it out here.

Posted in Software | 2 Comments »
3

Moving Out: I Heart PLDT

11 May 2006

Right, so still no DSL.

This morning I got a really cryptic SMS from whoever was handling my account on the other side of the Iron Curtain, which I will copy and paste here with significant sic:

gud pm,sir im sori, da instoler did not cum dis afternun coz ur dsl cn’t done already 2 our system.

Hrmm. Although I appreciate the occasional naughty text, I’m not sure I understood anything beyond the instoler not cumming this afternoon, and how sorry she was that he hadn’t.

After a brief phone conversation, it turns out that the instoler could not cum because he/she was waiting for the actual phone line to be summoned by whatever dark wizards were responsible for that sort of fiber-optic sorcery. Only after the phone line was created could the instoler cum forth. And only then could I stop gassing up at the coffee shop in return for wi-fi.

At this point I was well-beyond the anger stage and was instead simmering in a numb little bowl of apathy. Yup, lack of DSL has got me waxing poetic. Frickin’ beautiful.

Posted in Randomness | 3 Comments »
4

Moving Out: Homesick

10 May 2006

God I miss home.

In particular, I miss the 200kb/sec super-phat DSL. I miss the "let’s wait 2 minutes to get this 30mb download", and the "let’s stream this high quality Quicktime trailer in real time," and the "let’s download that new Lost episode in less time than it takes to watch it."

I miss it so damn much that I actually went over today just to leech off the wi-fi.

(You know, like I do everyday at Coffee Bean.)

And the reason why I have chosen to do this is because I am getting quite desperate. PLDT told me this morning that they don’t think they can get my phone line installed within the week, so things are looking pretty grim. This is, btw, a sterling example of their ongoing "Super Bilis Kabit Promo 2006." Because, you know, prior to said promo, it took over a year to wrestle a working phone line from these crazies.

I may just end up going home every day just to get online. I feel so independent.

Posted in Randomness | 4 Comments »
2

Moving Out: The Motivation

8 May 2006

Well, I guess I should have expected this.

It’s now been 7 working days (or 12 days total, counting weekends and holidays) since I submitted my phone + DSL application to the hulking colossus that is the Philippines’ leading telco. So far, I’ve followed it up three times over SMS, and each time I got a brief message back reassuring me that they were working on it, and that they would have my service-order number soon. (The service-order number, btw, is the reference number that you present to the PLDT payment office; only after dropping 500 bucks will they send your information to engineering/technical, and only then will it get queued up for installation and activation. Given the speed at which they work, I am expecting to be offline until mid-July.)

I haven’t really had a chance to get pissed off about all this yet because I’ve been too busy running from my condo to Coffee Bean every few hours just to get online. Last Friday, I actually hit Coffee Bean four times in the same 16-hour period. My workflow was basically: read client instructions on email, run upstairs to implement instructions, run back down to upload new files, wait for feedback, rinse, wash, repeat.

The only good thing about this whole experience is that Coffee Bean’s internet connection is plenty fast for my purposes, and pretty reliable too. I’ve been going daily for the past two weeks and they’ve only had connection problems once. In this country, that’s practically 100% up-time.

But all that isn’t really the point of this post, because I really wanted to write about my current attempt at self-improvement.

So basically I’ve been waking up at 7am every morning for the past 10 days, having breakfast and hitting the swimming pool for half an hour. By 830 I’m back in the apartment, and by 9am I’m working. I have lunch at 1130, and get back to work by 1215 (depends on whether I’m eating in or out, though), and finally "clock out" a little before 6pm.

The point of all this? I’m not really sure, but I do know that I accomplish a hell of a lot more these days. I’ve designed two very decent UIs in the past week and learned an entire boatload of new programming tricks. I sleep like a baby every night and jump out of bed before my alarm clock sounds.

It occurred to me that the real reason why I didn’t do this before was because I was still deeply embedded in the whole slacker-geek ethic (i.e., work until the wee hours, sleep until noon, game like there’s no tomorrow, etc). I think I’m finally sick of it, after living it for the past 6 or 7 years.

I can’t really say if I’ll ever find myself back in that whole slacker lifestyle, but I know I need this change right now, and so far I don’t miss it at all.

Posted in Randomness | 2 Comments »