Nearly Nicole

I’ve never had a bad experience on CraigsList.  Sure, I’ve had lots of people TRY to change that statistic for me, but it seems pretty obvious when someone is trying to scam me on CL.

But I love selling things on Craigslist.  I always meet the most interesting people.

My husband and I are finishing our basement, and we just swapped out the crappy alumnimum windows for the  slightly less-crappy home-depot-vinyl kind.  We had 4 aluminum windows to sell on Craigslist, and the guy that bought them was awesome.  He and his wife are building a house, in their driveway, on a truck, that they’re planning on transporting to Mexico.  They bought a little piece of land somewhere on the beach for next to nothing and are planning on dropping that house on it.  Saves them the headache from building in Mexico.  Anyway, it’s fun to think that those shitty windows will end up retiring in Mexico much sooner than I will.

So long windows – happy to hear you’re going from my dark, dusty, underground basement to a beachfront view in Mexico somewhere.  And I’m so happy I’m in some stupidly small way enabling that couple’s dream of Mexico!

I’m in the process of switching banks.  My current bank, Compass Bank, was a small community bank that I loved for many reasons, but was recently acquired by BBVA and now they suck.  In the last few months, I bet I’ve accumulated over $250 or $300 in fees simply because I don’t read my mail all that frequently, and I don’t balance my checkbook monthly like I probably should. So in the process of searching for a new bank, I’ve come to learn that I’m a demanding customer.  I want everything, I want it to be free (or at least modest and predictably consistent), and the very last thing I want to do is ever think about or deal with my bank.

For instance, I was shocked at how many banks wanted me to think about my account balances all the time.  If the balance dropped below a certain point, they were going to charge me.  What?  Really?  You’re charging me for the privlidge of having access to my money and loaning it out to others?  I don’t think so.

I was surprised at how many things they wanted to fee me for.  Statement?  Fee.  Overdraft protection.  Fee.  Using another bank’s ATM?  Fee.  Using the ATM at all?  Fee.  Online access?  Fee.  Check images?  Fee.  Quit nickle and diming me to death (what BBVA Compass did to me)

I was surprised at the number of banks that were proud of the # of branches or ATMs they had.  I don’t ever want to visit a branch, ever.  An ATM occasionally is nice, but I’m not driving out of my way for it.  So don’t boast about the # of ATMS you have, but rather boast about the fact that I could use any atm, anywhere, for free.  Now that’s convenient.

I was also shocked to see the number of banks that wouldn’t let me open an account online.  You mean I have to come in?  Really?

And I was shocked to see the number of options I had for various checking and savings and business accounts.  There you go making me think about my account again.  Just give me a checking account and a savings account with some competitive interest. The rest of it I assume should be included (statements, ATMS, online access, transferability, etc)

I’ve recently discovered USAA and am in total bank-love.  I could open the account online, transfer $ from my non-USAA accounts, deposit checks with my iPhone (LOVE THIS!), they pay all my non-USAA ATM fees up to $15/mo, the list goes on and on.  They just understood me.  They made banking a non-issue in my life.  My only hope is they open small business accounts next.  (By the way, what’s the difference?  A checking account should be a checking account.  I want all the same features, who cares what kind of entity owns the account?)

So bravo USAA.  I applaud you for fundamentally understanding your customers – they’re such a passionate group that they take time out of their busy lives to write blog posts about you.

(disclaimer – I’m not being compensated in any way by USAA for writing this.  I’m just that happy I found them).

For those that haven’t followed along yet, TechStars partnered with Bloomberg to launch a documentary on what it’s like to be a founder going through the TechStars program.  The show was filmed in NYC (no, I’m not in it) and offers a glimpse of startup life in the program.  The show airs weekly on Tuesdays at 9pm ET/7pm MT on Bloomberg.  So join in and watch!

I’ve been looking at TechStars applications basically nonstop for the last couple of days.  I thought I would put together some tips on my dream application video for teams that are still applying – since I know how much effort everyone puts into these!

1.  SHORT.  < 2 minutes short.  Maybe go for 3 minutes, but that’s the max.  A majority of the videos I’ve been watching are +5 minutes – let’s do a little math…  Let’s say I get 500 applicants (expecting much much more), and 85% of them have videos.  That’s 2,125 minutes or nearly 40 hours of just watching videos.  That’s not including the time to read your application, think about what you’ve written, or click through and play with your site.  I tend to not watch longer videos – I skip through to find the important parts and am probably missing some gem of information.

2.  I want to see the team, get a feeling for the personality of the founders, and see a demo of the product.  This is hard to do in 2 minutes, but you can do it.  I’ve seen lots of great videos accomplish this;  the time makes you focus on what matters.  Take a look at TechStars Boulder 2010 company, ScriptPad’s video.  While you can’t see the founders in this video, it didn’t matter because they were renting space from the Bunker at the time, so I saw them nearly every day.

3.  Use humor!  Well, unless you don’t have a sense of humor.  Don’t be something that you’re not.  But I’m looking at a lot of videos, help me enjoy yours.  My favorites include founders showing their personalities.

4.  If you password protect the video, please include the password in the app.  Seems like common sense, but it’s amazing how many people forget, and it makes me do one extra step.

5.  Don’t spend time on things like advanced animation and fancy screens.  Sure, it makes it look pretty, but all that tells me is that you know how to do video.  Spend time where it matters, on the team and on the product.  :-)

6.  A small pet peeve of mine – please don’t demo your login screen unless its something other than username/password.  I’m going to watch 500 videos and every single login process is identical (unless of course you’re doing some fancy retinal scan with your webcam, THAT would be sweet!)  Save me the 10 seconds.

7.  Have fun doing it!

I attended BDNT last night in Boulder. It was my first time in a while, given my 10 month old daughter. It’s good to get out because often I’m so laser focused, I forget to look around once in a while.

At the start, Robert Reich gave some predictions for 2011, one of which was Design is the New Black (he got this from somewhere, I cannot remember where). I’m not designer, but I’m fanatical about usability and design, and I wonder why more companies don’t do this. I think there are two big companies in the US that are arguably the best at it. TiVO, and Apple.  My mom regularly breaks electronics, she still doesn’t know what copy/paste is on a computer, and doesn’t know how to create a folder.  But she loves her iPhone and her TiVO. I love them too because my mom never calls me to help her figure out how to do something on either device.

This morning, I opened up my December 2010 copy of Wired Magazine (yes, behind on reading too).  And there it was – another fantastic lesson in design and usability.  Wired took it upon themselves to update a blood test report from a lab.  By quickly reading their re-design, you could see what was concerning, where your results fell in comparison to normal, and actions to take to bring the items of concern back to normal.  The design took it from just data, to knowledge and insight.  I love it.  I’m not relying on my doctor to interpret the results (or to tell me everything on the chart), I’m not relying on my memory to remember what the hell I’m supposed to look out for.  I’m pretty sure I would get more tests and more blood workups, just to get this kind of knowledge about my body.  Look at that, design breeds spending.

I really wish someone (uhem, GOVERNMENT) would do this for our taxes.  Granted, there would have to be some visibility into what the hell the government spends our money on.  But still.  I would love to see it.  Here’s one company that got close to doing this.

I also wish the TV/BlueRay/cablebox/receiver/xbox/DVR/ guys would get their stuff together and put some usability into making all of those devices play nice.  My dad has the Harmony remote, which was a valiant effort, but not even close to getting there.  I don’t blame them, they’re trying.  I still need 4 remotes to either watch TV, play a movie, or play xbox.  Look people, it’s not hard.  On.  Off.  Volume up down.  Channel forward/back.  Play, stop, FF, RW.   Select Device.  Really.  I can’t even mention trying to set it all up.  You should see the insane mess of cables hiding behind the TV.  At some point, I just gave up and started pluging things in to any slot.  Eventually it worked.

I tried to heat up some food at my folks house over the holidays in their microwave.  I literally couldn’t figure out how to turn it on.  WTF?  My mom (oh the irony) had to show me how to turn on the microwave for 15 seconds.  All you need is Time, Power Level, Start, Stop.  Speed cook, slow cook, defrost meat vs defrost veggies vs convection, fan high, fan low.  Seriously people.  Over-engineered.

This all brings me to my point.  I agree.  Design is the new black.  I think people will pay for less features but easier usability and cleaner designs.  LESS features people.  I think if you need to include a manual, it’s already too complicated.  I think UI/UX developers will be the superstars of the software world.  So as we’re moving into TechStars Boulder Season #5, I’d love to see some teams that get how important design and usability will be.  The key?  Don’t think you know how to design.  Let your users tell you.

Forbes visited TechStars recently.  I don’t know who was editing the video, but they apparently didn’t realize they left me in it.  :-) Yep, TechStars has had quite the impact on Boulder.

I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for nearly a decade now – and most recently through my role as Managing Director for the Boulder office of TechStars.  Its a role I love dearly – there hasn’t been a day since I started that I didn’t want to go in to the office.

TechStars has a mantra – Do More Faster.  I think of it as focusing in on what matters, and eliminating or finding other ways to accomplish everything else.  Its why you shouldn’t confuse busyness with productivity.

In the spirit of Doing More, Faster – Brad Feld & David Cohen (founders of TechStars) have come out with a crowdsourced book of shorts heard frequently around the TechStars program.  The book is entitled – wait for it – Do More Faster, TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup.  Each chapter is only a few pages long, focusing in on what really matters, written by mentors and entrepreneurs.  Most of it is around lessons learned and advice on how not to screw it up.  :-)  I have a chapter entitled If you want advice, ask for money.  If you want money, ask for advice. It’s the first time since college that I’ve been officially published.  Woo hooo!

The book is available for presale now at Amazon.  It would be a great gift to the entrepreneur in your life – so make sure you order it today!  Yes, yes, I’ll even autograph it for you.  (All of a sudden Flight of the Concords comes to mind…)

My neighborhood has a 2ce annual garage sale every year.  I wasn’t big on garage sales until I had one, really it was hilarious watching people wade through my crap and actually buy it from me.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  Then I became a big fan of garage sales when I had a kid – she got an entire wardrobe with tags still on it for under $5.  I hate paying for something thats only going to be used once or twice before discarded.

Anyway, this year one of our neighbors discovered, in a routine doctor’s visit, he had an extremely rare kind of leukemia (10 cases annually).  The entire neighborhood got together donated the proceeds of their collective garage sales to the family.

I had fun shopping for Aleka at this year’s garage sale.  Everyone was rounding up.  By a lot.  I overheard one transaction where the woman rounded up $45.  Her bill was $5 and she just handed over $50.

I’m thrilled to be living amongst people who are caring enough to make this kind of effort and give freely to help this family.  It reminds me that it doesn’t just take a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to care for eachother all the way through old age.  It’s a reminder how important community is.  If you didn’t get to the garage sale but still want to help – send an email to helpingthewrights at yahoo dot com.

This has been a whirlwind of a year.  I had my first kid, my mom moved in to help Mark and I through the TechStars session in Boulder, I was awarded the Managing Director role there (yay!  Congrats to me!), Mark and I are working on a biz plan, and we’re finishing our basement.  As I look back on it, I had zero time to do anything.  Showering was sometimes a chore (sorry for those sitting near me!).

I’m sitting here catching up on my reading in an extremely rare hour alone – specifically I’m catching up on Brad Feld’s and David Cohen’s blog. I work closely with David, with Brad at a distance, and they are probably the two busiest people I know.  I’m thoroughly impressed with the quality and depth of the writing on their blogs given their schedules.  It’s shameful to me and downright inspiring.  I’m making a commitment here to work better at getting in a writing rhythm.

Although I must admit, there is a part of me that likes anonymity.  A few weeks ago, a stranger wished me happy birthday on the street.  We’re probably connected somehow on Plaxo or LinkedIn, or maybe he saw the tweets wishing me a happy birthday, but it still creeped me out. (Stranger – not that YOU creeped me out, just that someone I don’t recognize can find out intimate information about me).  I guess birthdays aren’t intimate anymore.

Regardless, I’ll try harder.  Okay, I’ll do.  Thanks Yoda.