Entrepreneur On The Move - 3 Shifting Gears By Jack Krupansky I'm almost starting to get a little settled here in Manhattan. After three months I've managed to cut back on expenses, pay off the credit cards, and even lay out my budget for the next year. I'm even just about ready to release a new product. And somehow I've even managed to have a little fun! I don't know how I'm going to pay my taxes in April, but that's just one of those little details that should take care of itself. My second experience with Amtrak was a trip to Washington, DC. It took three hours to get there and four hours to get back. The return trip took longer because I bought a much cheaper ticket. Not a bad experience. Much more scenic than flying. Most of my efforts in these three months has been focused on consulting to pay the bills and my moving and startup expenses. Now I have a little breathing room and can expand my thinking. Hard Disk Warranties I solved my hard disk's intermittent problem by calling the vender's tech support line and explaining the problem. They asked a few questions and had me try a few experiments. The conclusion was that the drive would unexpectedly "spin down". Their solution was for me to ship the drive back and ship me a replacement. The drive is under a five-year warranty. Since I didn't want to be without a drive, I gave them my credit card number as "security" and they shipped the replacement overnight with the caveat that if I didn't ship my drive within ten days then I'd get charged for the replacement. They charged $25 for shipping. The drive came and works, so I'm back and running! All I had to do was restore from my backup tape. New Product Last summer I had just about finished a new software product and was deciding how to market it when I began considering my move to New York. I put the product on the shelf with the idea that I would begin marketing when the move was complete (or aborted.) As I began to feel settled down in late in November I decided to go ahead with the product. It had a few features left to complete, but it was close enough. The product is basically a repackaging of my current product, an interpretive, C-like object-oriented programming language and class library called Liana, to be a dynamic link library which can be called from C/C++ applications which want to dynamically interpret expressions and macros or scripts. You could use it to add a macro or scripting language to your application. Or just use it to evaluate user-supplied expressions. I decided to take a low-budget, go-slow approach to marketing. My best response for Liana had been advertising in The C Users Journal. Since I had exposure there and the rates are reasonable I decided to run an ad for three months. But after making the decision and then thinking about it I changed my mind and went ahead with a full one-year contract to get a cheaper rate. If I don't get good response within a few months then I'll redesign my pitch and possibly reintroduce Liana or offer some sort of bundling. My other reason for taking the longer contract is that sometimes you really do just need to be patient and hang in there. Another goal is to catch the eye of some larger company that might be more interested in licensing the technology. Even though my ad isn't out there yet, I've got my first order, from a guy in Australia. This helped me focus on getting the product finished and I shipped it to him yesterday. He says he heard about it on the Internet. But I never put anything on the Internet! I did submit a listing (free) to the Microsoft Systems Journal Windows tools catalog. That listing got included in some other Windows or OOP list which in turn was placed in a "web" page on the Internet. Naming and Trademarks The original name for my new product was LMACRO. The "L" stood for Liana, my existing product. The "MACRO" expressed the fact that the product enables applications to offer their users a macro language. My product is an example of an "embeddable macro language." But after talking with a friend we concluded that "macro" was not a good choice since C already has "macros". So I decided to go with the alternative word which is "script". In other words, my new product is an "application scripting language." Since the primary market is C/C++ programmers and my language is very similar to C, I decided that I really wanted the product name to begin with "C-". The result was C-Script. Since there are already a lot of "C-" products I decided to do a little due diligence. I looked in the Programmers' Shop catalog (and even called them since not all the products they carry are listed), talked to a friend, and called one of the other C- xxx venders. The result was positive, no one had heard of a C-Script. So I put the name in the ad and shipped it off to the magazine. Then I thought some more and decided maybe I should talk with my attorney. I decided to go ahead and do a low-cost "common law" search which scans a database of periodicals for phonetic matches. That would uncover trademarks that may have common law protection. No match on "see-script", which merely means the name has not recently appeared in print. I decided to go ahead with a federal search (which means that my attorney paid a search firm to do the search.) Bingo. A software company in Alabama registered "C/Script" eight years ago and has kept its registration current. Back to the drawing board. At first I decided to give up on "script" and looked for synonyms. I considered "Talk": C-Talk (as in Smalltalk), but rejected it since in my mind "talk" is associated with voice and natural language processing. Since "rap" is similar to talk I tried C-Rap, but I'd quickly get tired of explaining that it's pronounced "see rap", not "crap". I talked with my attorney some more and we concluded that I could keep both the C and Script if I stuck some verbiage in the middle. Not only must the mark look different, it must also be pronounced differently. The goal of the law being to prevent consumer confusion between two products. Since this is a Windows product, I tried a "w": C-wScript. Clumsy and not very pronounceable. I added an "o" for "object-oriented: C-owScript. But I wouldn't get much benefit from "cow script". I dropped the "w" to get "C-oScript", but that had no real association and is in fact a registered service mark for promoting prescription drugs. But "co" did remind be of "code" and "code script" definitely has a strong association with the purpose of the product. I considered "CodeScript" without the hyphen, but then realized that "C-odeScript" also associates with "ode" which is a lyric poem and captures the essence of scripts being more approachable than reams of code. I pondered the hyphen and this "ode" thing and decided this was one of those 50-50 decisions where a "wrong" decision is unlikely to significantly affect the outcome. So C-odeScript it is. My attorney ran both searches again and it came up clean. I automatically get common law protection when the mark is "used in commerce" (i.e., sold.) But that protection is not absolute and limited to geographic localities where sales have occurred. I considered registration, but we decided to wait until product sales really take off. Federal protection begins from the date of filing. But the availability of the mark does not assure registration since it must be reviewed by an "examiner" at the Patent and Trademark Office and they might reject it for their own reasons. Internet Now that I had my revised product name, I had to ship the revised ad artwork to the magazine, well past the artwork deadline. Internet to the rescue! I developed the ad using Word and kept it simple with no fancy graphics or oddball fonts, just variations in the standard Windows typefaces, point size, bold, italics, borders, and backgrounds. I told Word to print to a file for a PostScript printer and e-mailed that file to the magazine's Internet address from my CompuServe account. I had them fax back the printed ad to make sure it got through okay. No problems. I am reluctant to fully embrace the Internet, but do find parts of it very useful. Through CompuServe (which costs me $10 per month) I can receive and send Internet e-mail. In theory, all this web stuff will be available within the next year. It sounds good, but performance and capacity are unsolved issues. I'd really like to "do business" on the Internet, but I think it will be awhile before the economics compete with what I can get today for an under $500 per month ad going to a focused audience. Contacts in New York I got a call from a guy who saw one of my articles (in another magazine) and called me to get some advice concerning marketing of his company's proprietary programming language. We talked a bit and he asked if he could stop by my office to continue the discussion. I was a bit surprised that he'd be willing to come all the way to my office. I asked where he was located, thinking he was probably hundreds or thousands of miles away, and he said "downtown" -- right here in New York. I still haven't gotten out of my mind-set of being isolated in the mountains of Colorado. Due to my intense focus on settling down, I hadn't gotten around to making contacts in New York yet. But this out-of-the-blue call has reminded me of what I need to do. I met with the guy, we discussed our products and mutual interests, and I'll be visiting his office in the near future. Maybe being in New York really will pay for itself. Short-term Projects I got a call from a licensee who has been interested in my technology for some time and always not quite ready to go forward in a big way. In addition to buying a copy of Liana, we negotiated a source code license for portions of my technology to be combined with his product. But now he has two short-term projects that would have modest short-term payback. For one project I would be a sub-contractor for development of a GUI application for one of the stock exchanges. Not very exciting, but it would pay hard currency that I could really use on April 17th. The other project involves mocking up a GUI interface for a traditional non-GUI programming tool. If the mockup and presentation go well, more dollars could follow. But the real payoff is that this project would help showcase the advantages of my technology. Although our relationship has not yet born significant fruit, I just have a feeling that this is just one of those situations where patience and persistence win. Project X I assume everybody has some "Project X" which is an idea that is so far out that: 1) it would be difficult to pull off, 2) it would require more resources than we have available, 3) it would be extremely risky and unlikely to succeed, 4) close friends, associates, experts, and loved ones would laugh at it, 5) it would be a really big success if you could pull it off, and 6) it probably would succeed if only we would get our act together, get started, and stick with it. So I've got this idea that would involve a mix of hardware and software. It's potential applications and low- cost are mind-boggling. Lot's of potential for patents and technology licensing (and associated legal battles.) So, what's holding me back on my Project X? One obstacle is resources. The project really needs (or at least I think it needs) full-time attention. I can't do that and still pay my bills. Then there is "technology convergence": even if I had the money I couldn't build it since it needs better/cheaper components than are available today. Also, I'm too busy on my other projects to drop them and risk everything on my crazy idea. But of course the real reason I have held back is that I just haven't made the decision to go forward. Even if I can't build it today, I can still do the design and be ready to hit the ground running as soon as the relevant technologies have converged. Even more significantly, maybe I just need to break down my grand idea into more manageable pieces and focus on a stripped down version which could be built today with my limited resources. Going Nomadic Now that getting settled in New York, it's time to think about where to move next! I'll be here at least for a year, maybe two. Actually, I'll stay till I'm bored. There are a lot of places I'd like to live for awhile, such as London, Paris, and Hong Kong. In truth, I really don't want to live anywhere, but would prefer to live a more "nomadic" existence. A month or two here and there, never sure where I'll be in three months. There are several obstacles. There are lots of people who are "mobile", but they do depend on a "base" for support. When I say nomadic, I mean living without having that base to fall back on. First, although laptop computers are advancing rapidly, I always seem to need just a little more. Currently I am developing heavy-duty multimedia applications with CD-ROM and an add-on MPEG decompression card. I'm also into Windows NT. I'm using most of my 1.7GB disk and dependent on my DAT tape backup. My current client may get me a loan of a Panasonic notebook that has a 500MB disk, internal, full- size CD-ROM drive, and MPEG decompression cartridge. Even assuming my hardware fit in a notebook, I have stacks of CD-ROMs I'd have to lug around. The Microsoft Developer Network alone comes with sixteen CD-ROMs! They're worse than floppies. I need the true Information Superhighway. Maybe next year. A second obstacle is trying to run a business without an address. I probably could arrange some sort or service that would receive my mail and handle typical paperwork. Then there are all my paper files. I'd like to scan them onto CD-ROM. Then there are books and manuals. A lot of documentation is appearing on-line, so that obstacle may quickly go away. And when software gets distributed via the Infobahn then I can really break loose. One prospect is that you could download portions of applications as needed rather than clutter your disk with the 85% of a typical product that you don't need. Then there is all my junk. I really don't have too much, but there is more than enough. Actually, most of it is still out in Colorado in the basements of various people. I think I could get by with a trunk for clothing and CD-ROMs. And I probably don't need many books - they're available in libraries or bookstores and aren't terribly useful anyway! Accommodations are an issue. I don't think I'll be making enough money to stay at luxury hotels all the time ($250 per night is $7,500 per month or $90,000 per year) and I don't think I'd like the hostel thing or camping. Even a really cheap motel at $35 per night would cost more than my apartment in New York. It is possible to find short-term rentals, but the price is much higher than a long-term rental. Then there are things like drivers licenses, voting, health care. Although I no longer have a vehicle, didn't vote last year, and don't have any health insurance anyway. Hmmmm... Maybe I really could pull off this nomadic thing when I leave New York in a year or two. At least it's a challenge worth considering. So what will my priorities be tomorrow? First, my bill-paying consulting. Second, trying to clean up a lot of little loose ends in the new product. Third, think about how much time and energy I want to spend on short-term income boosters. And fourth, set some goals for Project X. I suppose I should formalize my "to do" list for going nomadic so I'll know how close I am as each element of technology begins converging. ------ Jack Krupansky runs a one person software business, Base Technology, which develops and markets the Liana object-oriented programming language and offers Windows software development consulting. He may be reached at 800-786-9505, e-mail at jack@basetechnology.com, or on the web at http://www.basetechnology.com.