Agilion Apps

No more financial automation. Why I'm using spreadsheets in 2013.

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:26:00 -0500

I love automating things.

Automation, as a web application developer, feels natural. As soon as a task or process becomes repeatable, I tend to automate and forget it to free up time for other things.

Occasionally it’s good to pause and reflect on the direction and results of automated tasks. While I’m closing out finances for 2012 and thinking about necessary changes in business and family over the next year… it’s clear the first quarter in 2013 will require an extra effort. I’ll be shifting, adding and cutting expenses in business and family and automating finances isn’t appropriate.

So to de-automate finances I’m doing three things:

Eliminate subscriptions to automated financial tools
Shared google spreadsheets for finances
Use Accomplist to form daily habit of < 5 min reviewing finances.

I use Mint.com for personal finances and Xero.com for business finances. These tools will be eliminated in 2013 from my workflow. While standard financial tracking and reporting methods are insightful and easy with Xero.com, the reality is 95% of information needed to make financial decisions boils down to good records using a simple ledger and a fast way to generate basic balance sheets, cashflow, and profit and loss statements.

So google spreadsheets can work just fine.

The real value in a manual spreadsheet process is that it’s only effective when you make time to keep it updated and stay aware of the whole situation. As finances become automated the risk is letting unwanted expenses go unnoticed for months while you’re busy with a million other things.

While the thought of manual record entry is painful; I’m hoping it helps my other goal of adopting a minimalist mindset in both business and family life. So if spreadsheet entry is taking longer because of too many records, then chances are there will be items to eliminate or services to consolidate.

To be realistic about keeping a daily habit, it means the manual system must be simple and effective.

The personal finance spreadsheet system I’ll use includes two pages on a shared google doc with my wife.

Monthly Budget
Daily Cashflow

We’ll use Accomplist to help form a daily habit of updating the financial spreadsheet for the next 365 days. Accomplist is a tool for helping individuals and groups do more by sharing, appreciating and tracking performance of accomplishing lists and actions. With this tool, I’ve set up a recurring Daily TODO list with an action item to reflect and update my financial spreadsheets on family finances, Agilion Apps and rental property for no more than 5 min each day.

Designing a budget

When designing a budget, it’s helpful to think about a goal period which works best. A monthly timeline tends to be good for me, because most income and expenses are setup on a recurring monthly schedule. It’s also best to think of budgets on a strict cash basis (vs. accrual) for what is actually coming IN and going OUT.

If you’re a small business owner like me, then sometimes this can be a harder exercise. If bad things happen like slow paying customers, vendors failing to deliver, natural disasters, etc, then it makes for stressful months and an owner has risk of sacrificing take home pay.

This is one of the reasons I’m transitioning my company to an S corp and automating direct deposit payments of a minimal base salary to help out with family budgeting. Profits will only be drawn out four times a year at the end of each quarter. So it should make monthly budgeting a little easier.

Money IN

The first section is Money IN. Here my wife and I list all income sources in order of residual to labor. This helps visualize a long-term goal of generating higher percentage of income from residual sources and less from labor.

Money OUT

I like breaking out expenses into just a few categories that mean the most to me for the year. For us it includes:

Reserve savings contribution
Debt service
Mandatory expenses
Food expenses
Other expenses
Giving funds

In each category, we’ll list a few sub-categories but be cautious not to get too detailed.

I write the monthly dollar estimates and calculate a “% of IN” column to keep an eye on percentages of each income and expense source as compared to total monthly income.

Reserve savings contribution

This is the first category in my expenses this year because we’ll need more discipline to rebuild a reserved savings account after a few big purchases in 2012. It’s easy to let a savings habit slip when it becomes an after thought on other expenses. A rule of thumb for investing to savings or retirement accounts is at least 10% of your monthly income. I find that rule helps us think critically about taking on other expenses.

Debt service

This represents monthly payments on reducing liabilities. I like to list the order of precedence from good debt to bad debt. Good debt is any monthly debt service that costs less than monthly income from a corresponding asset. Bad debt is any high interest consumer loans like unpaid credit card balances.

To keep it simple, the debt service represents top line numbers of money going out for a loan payment on mortgages, car loans, student loans, etc. The principle, interest and taxes will be clarified at tax time, and that’s good enough for this purpose. The total debt service percentage for this category is called a Debt-to-Income ratio. It’s a good number to keep an eye on as a gut check. If the ratio gets too high, then best option is increasing income to pay it down or sell off some assets.

Mandatory expenses

Mandatory expenses include bills related to housing, transportation, communication, insurance, etc. ”Mandatory” might not be the best phrase as it’s always possible to get by with less and less. However, I think of mandatory expenses as anything for the living situation and for the most part it’s hard to reduce these numbers without a bigger lifestyle change.

Food expenses

My wife and I enjoy good quality food and feel it’s worth an extra price of groceries to stay healthier and keep health care costs lower (hopefully). However we also tend to enjoy dinner out and coffeeshop lattes a bit too often. It’s unrealistic to cut this entirely from our lifestyle too fast, but this year we’ll keep a closer eye on dining, snacks and latte’s to ensure it’s a lower percentage of overall food expenses.

Other expenses

This is a catch all for things like child care, cloths, entertainment, etc. If situations get tough financially, then these are areas we could reduce immediately.

Giving fund

I feel grateful for the opportunities my family has and believe it’s important to give back to society and others. Sometimes it’s not always possible to give monetarily, which is why it’s at the bottom of the list this year. As personal savings increase and debt service is reduced, then a goal will be moving this category higher up in the list. For now, we’ll give back mostly through volunteering and good thoughts.

Purpose of tracking daily cashflow

A couple years ago I met with a financial coach, Danielle Livellara, for some insights on expanding wealth. She showed me a great system for becoming more aware and grateful on generating income. It was really simple. Just write in how much money comes into your life each day for 30 days. Even the penny you find in the street. It’s pretty simple and effective.

The purpose of daily tracking is to keep a small awareness on the topic. So that’s why this year my goal is to dedicate no more than 5 minutes writing out the following each day (as applicable).

TOTAL IN
Reserve savings contribution [SAVE]
Debt service [OUT]
Mandatory expenses [OUT]
Food expenses [OUT]
Giving funds [OUT]
Other expenses [OUT]
TOTAL OUT

The spreadsheet has 365 rows. One for every day.

While this is an easy task to automate, by keeping it manual, it will help us become more aware of expenses and income and allow us to modify behaviors if we want.

Resources

If you’re interested in the spreadsheet, then send me a note and i’ll email you a template.

For those interested in trying out Accomplist, the service is free and you can create a new account here.

How I thinned my book collection by 540%

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 13:25:00 -0400

…and how I decided to keep the others

Today my family is preparing to move to a new house in a couple weeks. I love moving. It’s an opportunity to cleanse accumulated items that are no longer relevant or necessary. It’s a time to start fresh again.

The basement is easy. Stuff barely touched in the last four years go into donate or throw away piles without thinking.

My office starts out easy. I walk in with a war face ready to throw all remaining papers into a shred pile. We live in a digital world and I’ve accepted that it’s better to scan and archive required papers electronically. No physical paper records anymore.

Next the bookshelf… this is the moment where my ruthless cleanse mode is defeated.

My wife jokes (or is embarrassed by the fact) that I’m a business / technology / self-help book junkie. My hobby of consuming one of these books is a fun pass time and time waster. It helps me unwind and reflect on my current experiences. Sometimes I’ll re-read the same book over and over because I enjoy the new perspectives over time.

While I do use an Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad more frequently now to read things, there is something about a paperback or hardcover book that can’t be replaced. Maybe it’s because I’m often in front of computers and it feels good to escape on a couch and read something from a non-electronic device.

As a result of this book addiction from the past few years, and an average consumption rate of 3 books per month… the house is littered with hundreds of books despite my goals for minimalism.

As painful as it was, I ended up archiving over 50 technology books on specific programming topics. Not sure why I kept them all in the first place. It’s easy enough to find technical answers online and the content gets stale so fast because technology is evolving rapidly.

Of all the business and self-help books, I decided to do the following exercise.

Quick Sorting

Move all books to one location
Pick up each book and quickly think of it’s value.
Do I know instantly what the value is for me? If yes, place it to the right. If no, put it in the giveaway pile.

Next, I picked up each book in the new pile that made it through stage one and gave myself a bit more time to think. I made an honest assessment if I’d really go back and read it again, and also forced myself to write out why I’d read it. Since I’m a lazy person… this exercise helped me throw away a few more.

The end result of the exercise are these 65 books listed below which will move with me to the new house.

Tao Ching, translation by Stephen Mitchel - Simplicity, Patience, Compassion
Running Lean, Ash Maurya - faster method to discover and evaluate businesses
Start Small, Stay Small: Developer’s Guide to launching a startup, Rob Walling - Blueprint for a SaaS app
Art of the Start, Guy kawasaki - Pitching & Presentations
Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill - Getting into a mindset
Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think, Peter Diamandis - an “Upper” for depression
Built to Sell, John Warrillow - Craft services like products
The 4-hour workweek, Tim Ferris - Niches, Automation & Outsourcing
Rework, Jason Fried & David Hansson - Practical guide for running a company
The Seven Spiritual Laws for Success, Deepak Chopra - Mindset
The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber - Work on business, not in it,
Subject to Change, Peter Merholz - Communicating product vision
1-Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard - Tips on making time & mentorship
The Dip, Seth Godwin - recognizing when to quit or persevere
E-Myth Enterprise, Michael Gerber - Perceptions of growth business
All marketers Tell Stories, Seth Godwin - Crafting product message
80/20 Individual, Richard Koch - Leverage strengths; outsource the rest
80/20 Principle, Richard Koch - fun read on Pareto’s principle
Power, Jeffery Pfeffer - Perspectives on speaking
Catching up or Leading the Way, Yong Zhao - Don’t play the game others are winning
1-Minute Sales Person, Spencer Johnson - Tips on selling
A Tooth from the Tiger’s Mouth, Tom Bisio - Qi Gong, injury recovery
21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, John Maxwell - Business case studies
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli - Perspectives of government thinking
Smart & Gets Things Done, Joel Spolsky - Hiring technical talent
Purple Cow, Seth Godwin - Product positioning perspective
Making Things Happen, Scott Berkum - Perspectives on bigger company issues
Getting Things Done, David Allen - Personal workflow diagram
Go It Alone, Bruce Judson - Keeping things simple
Power of Focus, Jack Canfield - cutting the nonessential
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell - Thin slicing and decision making
Super Brain Power, Jean Stine - Perspectives on innate intelligence
1-Page Project Manager, Clark Campbell - techniques to communicate status
1-Page Project Manager for IT Projects, Clark Campbell - techniques to communicate status
Nanotechnology Demystified, William Adams - Exercises on Nanotechnology
Electricity Demystified, Stan Gibilisco - Exercises on Electricity
Fluid Mechanics Demystified, Merle Potter - Exercises on Fluid Mechanics
OOP Demystified, Jim Keogh - Exercises on Object Oriented Programming
UML Demystified, Paul Kimmel - Exercises on Unified Modeling Language
How to Make Millions with your Ideas, Dan Kennedy - Business model ideas
The Go-Giver, Bob Burg & John Mann - On giving
Perfect Phrases, Harriet Diamond - Perspectives on speech
Less in More, Goldian Broeck - philosophy and mindset
Magic of Thinking Big, David Schwartz - On belief systems
Living Energies, Callum Coats - Viktor Schauberger’s work on natural sciences
Secrets of Resilient Leadership, George Everly - Remaining calm in tough times
ABC’s of Real Estate Investing, Ken McElroy - Recognizing property deals
What every Real Estate Investor needs to know about Cash Flow, Frank Gallinelli - Structuring investment offers
Start Small, Profit Big in Real Estate, Jay Decima - Tips for property strategy
Asset Protection 101, Donald Trump - Perspectives on managing assets
Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Peale - Perspectives on belief systems
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards - creativity exercises
Toward Sustainable Communities, Mark Roseland - Context of different capital forms
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse - fun read on meditating
Biomimicry, Janine Benyus - Patterns in nature. Innovation inspiration
On the Warrior’ Path, Daniele Bolelli - On staying present
An Open Heart, Dalai Lama - Reflecting on compassion
4-Hour Body, Tim Ferris - Reference for exercise tracking
Martial Arts Teaching Tales, Pascal Fauliot - Getting into right mindset
The Art of Peace, Morihei Ueshiba - Moving beyond conflict and ego
Common Purpose, Joel Kurtzman - Designing an organization
Pragmatic Thinking & Learning, Andy Hunt - Exercises on effectiveness
The Agile Samurai, Jonathan Rasmusson - Process for big software teams
Agile Coaching, Rachel Davies - Perspectives on agile teams
Presentation Zen Design, Garr Reynolds - Inspiration on written communication

Filling the vacuum…

A fun thing happens when recycling old books.

I’m feeling more open to reading some new books. If you have any recommendations on good books related to technology or business, then please follow me on tumblr and send me a few recommendations.

Many thanks,

Adam

A day at Google Ventures Startup Lab

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:58:00 -0400

This afternoon, I had the opportunity through BuysideFX, to attend a Google Ventures Startup Lab on Product Management. The lab was held in Mountain View, CA and led by presenter Scott Johnson, the PM for Google Drive.

He did an excellent job giving us lessons and tips for becoming exceptional product managers. It was a fun presentation with a couple memorable quotes like:

Product success belongs to the team, product failure belongs to you

Excessively communicate. …you’ll be bored by your own repetition

Providing detailed feedback is not micro-management. Telling them how to solve things is micro-management

For me, the best part about the Startup Lab was the room itself. The set-up crew did a good job decorating the pedestal, a comfortable chair, projector screen and whiteboards well positioned, and all with a clean black backdrop. It felt as if I was actually in the room, when in fact I was laying down on my office couch in Burlington Vermont watching the whole thing on my 22” Apple display.

Icing on the cake was when Scott read my question (from the interactive google doc) to the audience on discussing which development process works best: Kanban, Agile or design your own?

His response was pretty much how I feel… adopt your own so it works best for you and the team. Guess that pretty much sums up his point earlier on “Situational Management”.

Thanks for the class GV!

Announcing AgileTrac

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:51:00 -0400

Question: If you could improve your ability to generate new business… would you?

If you said “yes”, then you may enjoy investigating a free trial of AgileTrac.

AgileTrac is a business development methodology that’s slowly evolved over the past five years. It’s a simple process to help teams get results.

Stay tuned for more info…

Experiments with a contact form

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:44:00 -0400

The last Burlington Web App Group event on UX/UI Lightning talks was inspiring. One of my takeaways is the constant reminder to reflect on design as it relates to connecting with people. As an experiment, I decided to try a different type of contact form on the Agilion Apps website.

I used to think the best approach to an online contact form is to embed a simple form with limited fields, in order for people to connect with the least amount of resistance. Currently, I’m tracking the results of a different approach and the verdict is still out…

The design of our current contact form is based on the following objective:

“The Contact Us form will offer flexibility that adderesses the customer’s communication preferences in a respectful way. The customer can choose how he or she wants to interact which will enable them to feel accommodated and in control. Upon selecting an option we transition into a mini form that continues the process.”

Our design gives the visitor a choice of:

let’s email
let’s talk
let’s skype

This suggests that by engaging with Agilion Apps, the customer will be starting a conversation… which is an approach that I prefer. There are no commitments or pre-qualifying judgments at this stage. Based on the early conversation we’ll both figure out if there is potential for business. If business isn’t right between us, we’ll be able to direct each other to parties that are best suited.

The new contact form is doing well, but I’m not sure yet if it’s more effective than a simple message form. A couple more months and we’ll have more data to figure out the winning approach.

What are your thoughts on this approach? Send me a note.

How I finally got trained to use a VA.

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:04:00 -0400

For about three years I’ve unsuccessfully used virtual assistants.

Occasionally, I’d search “how to use a virtual assistant” on google and inevitably read the same lists of advice.

However, today, I can finally say that I’m starting to get the hang of it! …and I’m grateful to Joanna for helping me along the way. (I’ll introduce Joanna a bit later).

If you’re still reading this blog post, then I’m guessing that you, too, are seeking help to free up your time. I thought it might be helpful to you, to share my original story of failure and how I, eventually, found a solution.

When I read Tim Ferris’s book The Four Hour Work Week, I was instantly inspired and began examining my life to see how to do some personal outsourcing. Since I’ve been in manager positions most of my life delegation came easily to me. Yet, for whatever reason, I couldn’t figure out how to effectively outsource personal responsibilities to an assistant.

I found my first few virtual assistants via platforms like Odesk and Elance. I’d experiment by assigning tasks like “research airfare deals from Burlington, Vermont to San Fransisco, California leaving June 3rd, 2009 and returning June 18th 2009. Provide links so that I can make the reservation”.

Using this process, I’d always spend more time finding an assistant and explaining the task than it would take me to do the online research myself. I also didn’t fly more than a few times a year, so it really didn’t make much sense.

Later on I tried outsourcing my calendar to a virtual assistant to help schedule meetings. Yet again, I’d spend more time writing back and forth with the assistant than it’d take to simply opening my google calendar and booking a meeting directly..

So when it came down to it, I didn’t know what type of tasks to give an assistant. And, it always felt faster for me to do the simple stuff myself. Yet, for about three years, I’d give it another try every few months or so… and just repeat the same failed approach.

Then, about seven months ago, a snapshot of my life looked like this:

My first son was born
After a year of building and 60 - 70 hour workweeks, my business was beginning to accelerate
It seemed like my new tenant was requesting things every few days
was in the process of considering another web developer to join our team
we had a bunch of repairs on the house to make
I was solely responsible for making an income to pay all the bills for my family
found myself with more obligations than I could possibly complete

In other words, something had to give and I no longer “wanted” some help… I “needed” some help.

So when I came across an advertisement in my inbox for a six-month package with Zirtual, I made an impulse purchase out of desperation. I decided that this was going to be the time that I finally learned how to use a virtual assistant. It would have to be, because I was drowning.

Mentally, I was less concerned than I had been about making it work right away. I purchased six months in advance, so it felt like an investment. Zirtual, also provided a cool training program by sending an email to me every day that said:

“What is the one thing I can do for you today?”.

I made it a habit to not over-think it. If I read the email and couldn’t think of anything to task out, then I moved on. If it sparked an insight, then I’d send out a request then and there. Still, sometimes weeks go by and I don’t request any tasks.

However, over time this process has helped me realize all sorts of things to outsource. For example, one day I had Joanna copy and paste a bunch of project feature requirements from a proposal to an online collaboration tool. That was cool. It would have taken me 10-15 minutes to do it, but it only took about 3 minutes to write the request. A small win! Other days I’ve had Joanna proofread web copy, or do different research projects for whatever I happen to be working on.

So in summary, here is what worked for me:

Purchase a few months of someone’s time. This larger purchase helped me feel obligated to make use of my investment.
Have your assistant email you every day asking: “What is the one thing I can help you with today?”

Both the time and persistence will help you overcome whatever specific challenges you have with leveraging an assistant.

I really do love Zirtual. They helped me learn how to use a virtual assistant. If you’re interested in trying them out, then please sign-up through my referral link here: http://mbsy.co/cHD

Burlington Ruby Conference

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Announcing the Burlington Ruby Conference to be held July 28 - 29th, 2012 in Burlington, Vermont.

The 2-day conference will be a single track speaker venue for current or aspiring web application developers, programmers, designers and tech enthusiasts. We have limited seating for 200 - 250 people and we’re attracting an audience from nearby cities like:

Boston, Massachusetts
New York, New York
Montreal, Canada

We expect a few attendees from as far away as California and Washington D.C. Our audience will consist of people who want to converge with likeminded folks, and hang out in the best place to be in the summer: Burlington, Vermont… waterfront!

Back to Test:Unit

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An analogy of Martial Arts and Programming

Back in 2004, I was fascinated and passionate about practicing many different martial arts including Bagua, Tai Chi, Aikido, KungFu, Jiujutsu, and several others… including the study of their different philosophies. Eventually that led me to appreciate and devote more time to practicing the art of Chi Gung: a way of breathing and moving to cultivate energy. If you think of different forms of martial arts as different types of cars (i.e.: Porshe, Honda, BMW, Hyndai, etc), then Chi Gung is like the fuel, which is the common denominator that makes any of those cars drive.

One of my favorite quotes from those days is a quote by Bruce Lee, founder of his own martial art called Jeet Kun Do. He states:

“Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I’ve understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation.” -Bruce Lee

Now, several years later, I’m reminded of the above quote which describes a path towards simplicity.

In programming, there are many different “forms” of server-side languages like Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, .NET, etc. As a developer it is good to understand the “Chi Gung”, or common denominator of programming in order to become better at any of those languages. To be honest, after seven years of programming, I’m still in search of the essential “Chi Gung” for programming… but simplicity comes to mind.

Path of learning and testing

Our company, Agilion Apps, is in the business of developing web applications. As an organization, we seek to deliver custom solutions using the best possible practices with an eye towards quality and craftsmanship.

Part of “best practices” today is utilizing techniques like Behavior Driven Design and Test Driven Development. Well-tested code pays off in the long run to help maintain an application. It only takes a few hours of troubleshooting a difficult bug on a late night with an angry customer, on a two-year old code base, for a developer to understand why good automated testing is important.

We use Ruby on Rails as our current server side framework of choice which has a simple built in testing framework called Test:Unit. Test:Unit allows a developer to write simple tests in order to verify that the production code works as intended. An example might be something like:

#code:

def WakeUp

@person.awake = true

end

#test

test “person wakes up” do

assert true, @person.awake

end

Like other rails development teams, we began using 3rd-party gems in our projects to go deeper into testing the quality of our code base. Eventually our gem file started to include a variety of tools like RSPEC, Cucumber, Capabarya API, spork, watcher, etc, etc, etc…

Today, I’m happy to say that our team is finishing a project that uses the built in Test:Unit of Rails 3.2.

Current Understanding

When we started testing… a test was done via Test:Unit
After we learned a bit more on testing… tests required more diligence. Rspec provides additional tools.
Now that we understand a bit more… Test:Unit works just fine.

It also feels really good to see a few less gems in the gemfile.

For further reading on testing with Test:Unit vs. Rspec check out this article by the Object Reload crew in the UK.

Who is Notabli?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

You’ve asked who is Notabli? …well read on

Notabli is the best way to capture, share and remember your kids’ most notable moments. We’re proud to have partnered with Notabli’s design team to build a robust alpha version of their service. We’re happy to share that they’re moving forward and actively collecting interest in their forthcoming beta service via their new splash page.

According to Rob Walling, a successful software entrepreneur, an email notification list is the most effective way to gain the highest number of sign-ups on the date of a product launch. The earlier you start, the better. We hope our other start-up customers emulate Notabli’s approach.

Add your email at Notabli.com, and be one of the first parents invited to use their great service.

BTVWAG is growing

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Burlington Web Application group is growing!

Last few months in 2011 showed strong turn-out for the Burlington Web Application Group - A place for technology enthusiasts focused on web development come together to share ideas. In October, Pete Brown and Alan Peobody from Draker Labs led an excellent presentation and discussion on Behavior Driven Development / Test Driven Development. That crowd hit our max attendance at +30.

In December, Rik Dryfoos from GE Healthcare gave a presentation on Software Craftsmanship to around 50 people! It was a great venue, complete with speaker phones, big projector screen, calendar and bracelet give aways, lots of pizza and drinks, and of course a fun crew of technology enthusiasts and professionals in web application development. It was great having a mix of more product owners at the last event.

We added a jobs section to the BTVWAG site that is free for Burlington employers to post web application related jobs. So far 9 listings have been added. Not bad.

The next BTVWAG event will be presented by Agilion Apps. The world of Model-View-Controller (MVC) style javascript frameworks is quickly changing and while Backbone.js appears to be leading the way there are some other real contenders. Join us as we explore Shopify’s entry into the arena, Batman.js. Batman.js is a framework for building rich web applications with JavaScript or CoffeeScript. Batmans.js is following in the footsteps of Ruby on Rails and values convention over configuration. Allowing you to write elegant JavaScript applications without all the boilerplate. Join us on January, 25th at 77 College St. Burlington, VT .

UPDATE: The event sold out at 40 tickets in about a week or so after it was announced!

How to transform and scale a service business

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Three questions to ask about your business:

Product or service based?
Cash-flow positive or negative?
Dependent on you?

Your business is scalable if it’s a positive cash-flow product business that can operate without you.

Many service businesses are the exact opposite. This article offers a few tips for helping companies move into a more profitable and scalable category.

1. Is your business a product or service based organization?

Many people assume a product based business requires a physical product or object. This implies skilled labor like locksmiths, accountants, plumbers and web designers are not scalable.

Untrue.

We live in a world where physical products quickly turn into commodities as global competitors easily replicate and drive down prices. Increasing value is placed upon makers and artists who produce high quality work with expert skill and craftsmanship.

That’s good news for traditional service companies.

There is nothing preventing a labor business from turning their service into a standard offering. Your business scales based on your ability to step back and create methodologies allowing consistent results.

An example:

A business management consulting firm realizes only three of their twenty services generate 80% of their profits. The firm decides to discontinue all other consulting in order to create a standard offer for their three most profitable services.

The owner writes out any explicit steps to achieve the successful results of their previous work. An internal web-based application is implemented to automate some of the explicit steps. This empowers employees to invest efforts towards their most creative and valuable customer contributions.

Having more time, the owner reflects on years of experience and develops a supplemental Software-as-a-Service product to augment their standard offering. This provides the company an additional revenue stream with potential for residual returns.

In each of the above steps, the service company is learning to leverage a systematized process to teach and produce consistent and measurable results.

2. Does your business operate on a cash-flow positive or negative cycle?

Are you collecting revenue from customers before or after an exchange of goods and services?

In a traditional service based business model, a client expects service first and then pays ten to sixty days after receiving an invoice. On the other hand, a customer expects to pay for a product at the time of sale.

Notice product businesses receive cash up-front for goods or services rendered, while a service business may spend weeks rendering their labor and then wait months to collect payment. The latter is a recipe for challenging debt cycles and limits ability to innovate financially.

The more cash-flow positive you become; the more you will be able to scale.

3. Is your business dependent on you?

If your business relies solely on you, then it will not scale.

A service-based business is typically constrained around labor. Time focused in the business prevents transformation to a vehicle for growth beyond the individual craftsman.

This can be a trap for solo business owners. If you’re a solo business owner, then consider augmenting revenue streams with a Software-as-a-Service product and/or develop a teachable and scalable process to hire and train others to replicate your work.

An important point to note, is that scalability does not mean unlimited employee growth and expanding locations throughout the world. Sustainability is just as important as scalability.

Scalability is the ability to accept increased volume without negatively impacting your margins.

——

Are you a service business and wondering how to implement automation tools or Software-as-a-Service products? A subset in the Agilion Apps 3-Step Product Roadmap is to help identify and recommend potential areas of scalability. Contact Agilion Apps at info@agilionapps.com for more info.

How to build a successful startup team

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:02:00 -0500

Many clients of Agilion Apps are within the first three to five years of being in business. Simultaneous goals at this stage include:

find clients
build products or services
hire employees
find partners and vendors
increase or become profitable
ensure proper financial capitalization
create and adapt processes
evolve business model
at least 500 more things…

Our role is typically the technology partner or software vendor. We create products or internal tools that allow clients to grow their business.

While our focus is developing technology, we also relate to other items on the todo list. We are less than 2 years old as well.

So getting to the point… how do you build an effective start-up team?

Simple, do these three things:

1. Understand necessary personality traits in a team

2. Identify and discuss how team members relate to each other

3. Balance team personalities for exponential success

1. Understand necessary personality traits in a team

Michael Gerber, in his book “E-Myth Revisited”, says a successful business must balance three personality traits:

Entrepreneur: Future thinking; Sets vision; Never satisfied.
Manager: Past thinking; Manage workflow; Tracks performance
Technician: Present thinking; Get things done; Craftsman

Every business owner and employee possesses a mix of these three traits, but some are more dominant than others.

This mix is validated within the context of creating web application products as attributed to Dave Mclure from 500 Startups via Quora comment by Jason Putorti, co-founder of Votizen. He says, an ideal web application start-up consists of three people with main roles broken into:

Hustler: Focus on business model and get customers
Designer: Focus on interface improvements
Hacker: Focus on code

2. Identify and discuss how team members relate to each other

It’s helpful for a team to get feedback and outside perspective from time to time. This can be from a Board of Advisors or an outside consultant.

In order to gain deeper perspective, the Agilion Apps team participated in a Myers Briggs workshop conducted by Debra Howard Consulting along side our client Draker Laboratories. In her workshop, Debra expertly explained how it provides a framework for helping individuals understand how they relate to each other vs. pigeon hole individuals into a stereotype.

We discovered the Agilion Apps teams consists of an ENFP, INTP and ISTP.

While the lists read like a horoscope, and may or may not be accurate, it did serve value to empower team discussion on how we approach problems and tend to interact with each other.

Myers Briggs can provide a context for team members to better understand potential sources of disagreement, conflict, and help the team celebrate and leverage each others strengths.

3. Balance team personalities for exponential success

While a team member may tend toward certain traits, it is important that a start-up team consist of high performing generalists who will fill any role as a situation requires.

As the company grows, high performing specialists may join the team and take over specific functions of the business. In other words, a group of generalists will do very well creating 80% of the value across all functional areas, but it may take specialists to drive up additional 20% value in each function later on.

Yet, in order to hire those future specialists, it’s vital the start-up team performs well enough to offer that opportunity.

Back in the year 1965, Bruce Tuckman wrote about the four stages of group development: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. He says only some teams reach a “Performing” stage.

As long as your team understands each quality is needed for success,

openly discusses how they work best, seeks balance between extremes, and passionately makes progress towards common purpose… then the team will perform.

In conclusion, the effectiveness of a team will become exponentially higher as the three traits of Entrepreneur, Manager and Technician come into balance.

How to maximize trade show exposure

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The Burlington Free Press highlighted 9 of 82 exhibitors at Tech Jam 2011 via the following quote on Oct 28:

“All of the big players appeared to be present at Tech Jam, from Dealer.com with their ping pong table directly inside the front door, to Fletcher Allen with their videos of cool medical procedures on the second floor, to MicroStrain, MyWebGrocer, Chroma, Green Mountain Coffee, Logic Supply, BioTek, Agilion Apps…you get the picture.”

see full article at The Burlington Free Press

Agilion Apps invested less than $950 on marketing for the event and no more than a days effort of each employee in prep work.

Here’s how we did it:

Registered early and got a booth near a wall: $250
Hired Tuxedo Ranch to make us t-shirts: $350
Hired Sign A Rama to make us a banner: $300
Showed up early, assessed situation, and made booth as visible as possible: $35 for a curtain rod
Gave t-shirts to clients and referrers before and during expo: $0
Tweeted before and during the expo: $0
Encouraged friends and family to show up and wear Agilion Apps t-shirts: $0
All Agilioneers attended, all day, everyday, and talked to people: $0

End result? …well Paula, from Sign A Rama says it best.

Randomizer Gem

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0400

While attending Tech Jam 2011 we decided to offer a chance to win a free Agilion t-shirt in return for joining our mailing list. We needed an efficient and transparent way to randomly choose the winners. Yes, there was probably an easier way to do this besides writing a gem, but being the Rubyist that we are, we just couldn’t help ourselves. Here’s an example of the Randomizer Gem in action.