These are companies providing Legal Services to startups (from the Seattle 2.0 Service Providers Directory):

Find other services for your startup or add your business if you provide services to startups.

It’s almost a tautology that startups are founded by smart, motivated, aggressive people.  These qualities are all great – and necessary, but there’s one situation that these qualities can work against you.  It’s called the “Not Invented Here” syndrome (aka "NIH"), and refers to the impulse to re-invent everything yourself.  In a tech startup, it means that you or your team will have to fight the urge to write all sorts of software because you can’t find anything “out there” that exactly meets your needs.

My friends and I used to joke that there were three pieces of software that every developer wrote at least once in their lives:

• Time tracking software
• Content management software
• Logging software

Why?  Because (a) everybody needs it and (b) it’s so easy to explain the requirements for each.  But unless your primary business is in (a) time tracking, (b) content management, or (c) logging, you shouldn’t roll your own.

Why?  There are several reasons:

1) In a startup, time is your most valuable resource (more valuable than cash, even). You should spend your time doing what you do best.  Writing utility software takes time away from your own niche, your own secret sauce, your own activities that add unique value.

2) Somebody out there has already done it better than you can.  Don’t believe me?  Look harder.  Often times, there’s a lot of hard thinking that has gone into making these pieces of software _seem_ easy.  Elegant, even.

3) TCO.  Yes, you’re supposed to think about the total cost of ownership.  Look at the following chart:

What this chart is supposed to represent is that the initial cost of developing a piece of software is overshadowed by the cost of maintaining the software over time.  The day you release (labeled "R" in the graph) is only the beginning. Maintenance can easily represent 70% of the total cost of a piece of software.  Even if you think you can “bang it out”, it’s a new piece of software that’s going to eat resources from now until you retire it.

4) Scaling. You can’t write ten new software applications by next week, but you can download and install ten (or twenty) new software applications. Open source and freeware solutions abound for almost every utility task you can think of.

Look, every competent developer fights the NIH urge.  It’s natural and shows that you have a healthy amount of confidence and a go-getter attitude.  It’s also true that 3rd party software, of any type, and at any price point, has problems.  Recognizing that means you have a healthy respect for quality and “doing it right”.  However, look at your startup with a broad perspective, and ask yourself – daily, or hourly – whether the time you’re spending writing code couldn’t be put to better use, and whether or not an acceptable alternative already exists. Note I didn’t say “perfect” – I said “acceptable”.  Unless it’s the very heart of your business, the criteria for “acceptable” may be lower than you think – and, by making the choice to use 3rd party software, you may be freeing yourself up to devote the time it takes to make the unique assets of your startup as close to perfect as possible.

• Sporcle (17) mentally stimulating diversions
  
• Entertonement (18) soundbite collection and sharing
  
• AppStoreHQ (22) mobile app discoverer
  
• EVRI (24) information discovery engine
  

• Zulily is on a tear.  They moved up 16 positions to number 43.  And that's after moving up 20 positions last month!  They continue to get plenty of media coverage including love from mommy bloggers and the new addition of Red Envelope Exec David Atchison as their new VP of Marketing is probably helping too.
• Other double digit movers include:
• Online work collaboration site OneHub, up 21 points to position 46
• Gaming companies Fantasy Moguls up 15 to number 58, and Amaranth Games up 19 to number 72
• Card trading site CheckOutMyCards jumped up 12 to number 74.

Do you feel overwhelmed by all the tools out there to improve your product but don't have time to research them?  Do you wonder what the top startups are doing to improve their products and get them out the door faster? Do you wish you better understood what your development team is doing and what they are capable of?
 
Network with the innovators of the products of the future
When we created Deploy these are exactly the kind of questions we set out to answer.  We asked leading technologist to share the tips, techniques and cutting edge tools that are helping them deliver quality products quickly.
 
Best prices end tomorrow

Seattle 2.0 is excited to bring all of this to Seattle.  If you register today for this all-inclusive conference you will get the best prices of $95-$195 plus you'll be entered to win a membership to startuptodo.com or speaker Vanessa Fox's new book "Marketing in the Age of Google".

• Building and managing a rock-solid development team
• Incorporating lean practices so your team works and learns fast
• Leveraging and integrating social media APIs and location-based services, so Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Salesforce and LinkedIn can help you grow your business
• How cloud computing can save you time, money and sleepless nights
• Bringing your product into the mobile world
• SEO best practices, so the search engines can build your user base while you focus on your product
• Creating an eye-catching design and user interface for your product – even if you can’t draw a decent stick figure
• How pair programming can strengthen and speed up your development efforts
• Engineering best practices
• Using continuous integration to get and stay production-ready
• And more!

Speakers include:

• Bob Walsh- Best-selling author of "The Web Startup Success Guide" and founder of startuptodo.com
• Vanessa Fox - Creator of Google's Webmaster Central and author of "Marketing in the Age of Google"
• Poornima Vijayashanker - CEO of BizeeBee.com, former Software Engineer and third employee at Mint.com
• Brady Forrest - Founder of Ignite, and chair of O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 and Web 2.0 Expo
• Scott Porad - CTO of Cheezburger Network, creators of icanhazcheezburger.com and failblog.org
• Tony Wright - CEO of RescueTime, featured in New York Times, sold previous startup to Jobster
• Damon Cortesi - Web security specialist and CTO and co-founder of social media company Untitled Startup Steve Newman - CTO of Gist
• Galen Ward – CEO of Estately.com
• Anthony Stevens - Founder of Crowdify.com
• And More!
  

I remember playing a game with my mom when I was a little girl. It went like this:

Why I am Not Currently the Point Guard for the Lakers 

Dramatic much? Welcome to my brain. (I blame too much Beverly Hills, 90210 as a child. In fact, if you listen closely, my brain sounds a lot like Valerie Malone.) 

My mind’s told me this story before. Many times. If you look at the historic evidence, this story is later proven to be a colossal lie. I know now that when my mind kicks in with that story and doesn’t let it go, I am on the precipice of enormous personal and professional growth. I’m about to develop new skills and new ways of thinking, a broader, deeper sense of confidence; I’m about to become braver and sharper and more polished, to make a quantum leap in my capabilities, in my sense of self.

That doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

“I know at my core that I can be successful at anything I set my mind to,” I told her, because my mother’s words to me as a child squirmed deep into my chest and put down roots.  They have never left; they have stood their ground quietly but firmly and grown with me all these years. “But something in my brain is trying to tell me otherwise.”

She nodded knowingly. “We call that critter chatter," she said. 

“Most people,” she explained, “can never tame the critters. There are only a very few who are able to harness it and use it to power the whisper voice. Those are the people who succeed in entrepreneurial ventures.”

The Part Where I Swear to You That All This Helps 

Am I ever in over my head? Sure, yeah, sometimes. But never for long. When the bar is set higher, I always rise to it, despite how uncomfortable and insecure I may feel during the process; despite the fear I experience when I’m dangling mid-air, and I’m too far up to get footing below, and I’m too far down to get my hands around anything above me.

I have been here before. I will end up pulling myself clear over the bar.

But right now? Still a little bit terrifying.

Why You Shouldn't Be Ashamed of Yourself for Agreeing to Read Past the "Critter" Incident

I’m sharing this because I can’t be the only one who feels this way, who goes through this set of feelings and thoughts when they’re starting something new, when they’re voluntarily putting themselves in a position where they know they’ll be forced to grow -- and it’s a great accomplishment just to find yourself among that subset of the population, I’d say.  

When we talk about tech entrepreneurship – about dev teams and VCs and marketing strategies and viral campaigns – we never talk about the fear that goes hand-in-hand with the excitement and opportunity of the startup world. We never talk about how this risk/reward proposition we’ve all assumed manifests for us emotionally. We’re not really a touchy-feely crowd. So everyone goes around assuming that they’re the only one who thinks about it.

Nearly everyone battles thoughts like these – even folks who have built tens of successful startups and just got funded for another one. (Perhaps those people even more so, because a failure is infinitely more visible.) 

But if you’re here, if you’re even reading anything posted on Seattle 2.0, odds are you have a pretty kick-ass whisper voice. That you, too, have something buried deep inside you that tells you that you can do anything you set your mind to, even if it’s comparatively quiet on some days.

Listen to that voice. Listen to the critter chatter, too. Separate the two, and be aware of which one’s talking at any given time. When you hear the critter chatter, thank it politely for sharing, and move on. It’s a vicious lie, but the mental energy it creates as it buzzes around in your head can be repackaged and used to help you move forward, toward your entrepreneurial goals.

Next week I will talk about how burning sage in your new office space helps clear out negativity left by the previous occupants, and how best to move energy through crystals if you’d like to secure a spot in this summer’s TechStars.

I’m kidding. After this post, I’ll probably have to write next week’s post entirely in Rails to keep this job.

Bring it on. 

Editors Note:  This is a guest post from Poornima Vijayashanker, CEO of Bizeebee.com, former engineer at Mint.com and speaker at Deploy 2010. 

 

Poornima will be speaking about the Three S's to Successful Product Launch at Deploy 2010. 

  

Early bird pricing ends Friday and we will be drawing names of today's registrants to win prizes like a membership to StartupToDo.com, and an autographed copy of Vanessa Fox's new book "Marketing in the Age of Google" it only takes a few minutes to Register Now.

Before you spend anytime coming up with a solution to resolve user issues there are a few questions that should be answered?

   1. How widespread is this feature limitation or bug?
   2. Is it a show stopper and is there an interim workaround?
   3. What other features or user workflows is it impacting?
   4. What is the cost associated with fixing a bug or implementing an enhancement (time, money, introducing additional bugs)?
   5. What are the short and long term benefits to fixing a bug or implementing an enhancement (cleans up a slew of tangential bugs, save on customer support time)?

Determining the size of your bug

To answer #1 you need hard data as in how many users are actually using this feature, or experiencing this bug.  Its easy for user to file tickets and be vocal on forums.  To get hard data grep the logs for error and exception counts over the span of the days or weeks in which the issue was reported.  Next, perform some database queries to figure out how many users are actually using the feature, that will tell you what percent of your active user base is affected.

Massive Problem or Easy Workaround?

When answering #2 realize that every user has influence especially the vocal ones!  So once you've figured the actual percent of users its time to figure out if there is a short-term workaround.  For example, is it only affecting people who use IE6?  Message the workaround to your customer support staff and user forum.

Is the Issue Systemwide and If I Fix It Will I Face New Issues?

 

The point of answering #3 is to put the fire out in one feature before it becomes a conflagration.  Think system or product wide rather than just about the isolated feature that is causing the current bug.

Even in times of continuous integration there are hidden costs associated with resolving user issues.  Leaving aside the fact that a fix or enhancement can cause additional problems, it also takes away time that would have been spent on other tasks.  So its important to understand the business priority of fixing bugs or coming up with enhancements before allocating and spending too many resources (developers and designers).

The corollary is that a resolution might improve product's quality and business' relationship with its user base so its worth investigating and resolving now.

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs talking about their idea, product or business. It happens all the time at networking events, pitch events, email, coffee meetings, etc., and there are two types of business that make me go “oy!”: Jobs and online marketplaces.

Jobs and online marketplaces have the exact the same problem, which is why I’m not a big fan. They are a two-sided marketplace where you are not in control of demand or production. In other words, people will only come if there are lots of products (or jobs), and the sellers (or employers) will only list their products (or job openings) if there are a lot of people coming. Call it “catch-22” or “chicken-and-egg” problem, and it’s a big deal.

Usually the pitch goes like this:

Them: I’m creating a new job marketplace for [fill-in your niche].

Me: What’s wrong with the existing job sites?

Them: Employers can’t do [missing-feature-on-monster.com]

Me: And why would a company put the opening on your website if you have no one visiting it?

Them: Well, we have a plan which is [plan about offering things for free in the hope companies will come]

On the Job marketplace side of things companies care if you offer them the people and people care if you have the right jobs available for them. To go from zero to the tipping point is hard. And it’s the same thing for an online marketplace. You bet it was very hard for Etsy or Bonanzle to get started. It probably took them more than a few handshakes to convince manufacturers to list their products, and a lot of marketing to get people to come see these products.

And that’s the catalyst strategy: what can you do to get the chemical reaction going?

This is not an easy answer and you probably should hire someone with this kind of experience (going from 0 to 60) to help you out, but there are strategies that have been proven over time, including using a bait-and-switch strategy.

For example, you start your “job marketplace” by scrapping openings from Monster, Craigslist or Hotjobs and brand yourself as the destination for, let’s say, Graphical Designers to find work. If you do a good marketing play and add little bit of value, you could become a top destination for Graphic Designers to find work. Once you have that brand – and don’t underestimate how long it takes – then you can start offering your own job posts and start to slowly cut out Monster/HotJobs/Craigslist from the picture. There, you kick-started a real business.

Again, it’s doable and new marketplaces have been create online and offline for a long time, but it’s very hard and it takes a lot of that catalyst juice to get it going. So much so, that you might never recover your initial investment.

If there is anything good about being 40 and newly single, it is that I am old, stubborn, strong, and smart enough to know that pretending to be anyone other than who I am won’t get me the kind of relationship that I want. For better or worse, I am my own brand, and if I try to be anything else, everyone involved will be proverbially screwed.

What does that have to do with business? Everything. You have to know who you are, what you can do, what you can’t do and present it all honestly in order to attract and retain customers. This is always true, but it is at its most  painful as you develop your brand. For a young business, this awkward stage is the rough equivalent of throwing yourself into the dating pool and hoping you have the right lure to attract exactly what you want. Your brand is that lure.

Just like dating, we  spend far too much time trying to guess what the other person wants and trying to morph ourselves into that, rather than getting good and clear about who we are and stating that in a direct and authentic tone.

Some of that is because of the rules of business that we’ve all been taught.

1. Just Look The Part. We have been taught to identify our target market and appeal to them with a complex matrix of language, graphics, fonts and colors that they like, and that are cool in the current zeitgeist. (You have done your 10 page 'branding brief,' right?) This is not possible.

I was in a branding meeting a few days ago with people who are launching a product that has broad appeal across several demographics. The team plodded down the predictable path of identifying each of those markets and trying to find verbal and visual cues that would relate to each. As a result, the phrase, “but that won’t appeal to X” was often repeated. If they were too funny, it would turn off one group, too serious would turn off another.

So I asked them, “are you approaching this with a sense of humor and is that important to you?” “Yes.” “Then be humorous.” Followed with, “Do you want to position yourselves as experts, or as facilitators of dialog?” “Not experts.” “Then don’t try to sound too serious.” The bottom line is this, be who you are. An authentic brand enables informed decisions and authentic relationships. You can’t be all things to all people, don't even try. You can be yourself.

Dating Example: You have a thing for scholarly types. You hate to actually read, analyze, discuss and stuff. You just find corduroy and facial hair really hot, especially when mixed with condescending glances and a state of confusion. You decide to dress the part, hang out in libraries and at discussion groups to pick up a titillating treat in tweed. You got the walk, no prob. Now it’s time to talk. Enough said.

2. Just Nail Your Demographic. I will smack the next person who tells me about the demographics of their target market. You cannot tell squat about a person based on their age, sex, zip code, political affiliation, education level and income. I dare you. Look me in the eye and start a sentence with, “divorced women in their 40’s want…..”

For most of us, the demographics of our market will be widely variable. However, they will all, hopefully, want and need the same thing (your product) and be open to receiving it how you want to give it to them. That’s what you need to be focused on.

What do they want? What is their current pain? How are they getting their needs met now? How will you be able to improve their lives? Most importantly, how will their needs and your product integrate, “marry” even? Whether you call it psychographics, needographics, or wantographics, focusing on these things will make your branding task much easier. These things will present you with a vocabulary that will transcend demographics, inform both your brand and your product, and allow you to connect authentically to form a functional relationship with your target customer. Look at what they DO, not what they SAY and how they LOOK.

Dating Example: You have a thing for earthy, greeny hippie chicks – they’re so low-maintenance and mellow and all that. (A little body hair is a small price to pay for the absence of drama.) You find one, easily identified by her gauzy skirts, turquoise earrings, long hair and how she talks about souls and healing and yoga. But you realize that she gets upset really easily, storms out of the room a lot and lacks a certain passion.  And she sure spends a lot of money and time in her anxious quest for tranquility. And….  Yup. You can’t judge a book by the cover. It’s not about what “type” she is, but about her needs, wants, expectations - and you can't meet them….. Turns out, it’s not a hippie chick you want, it’s someone who.... Not demographic, but psychographic - so to speak.

3. Just Make A Good First Impression. People spend a lot of time and money worrying about making an incredible first impression. Things like names, logos, colors etc… This supposes that there is such thing as a name, logo and palette that will appeal to everyone. There isn’t. Give it up now. More than that, it assumes that your customer is so shallow that they won’t see through it and into your real offering – that’s a little insulting, and certainly not the foundation of a meaningful relationship.

There is no perfect name. There is no perfect logo. There is no perfect anything.  There is good enough, and good enough is good enough. Pick one, and make it work. Yes, it needs to reflect your tone, your product, your “special sauce,” but it does not need to be perfect. So many people spend more time and money than they have in the pursuit of perfection with names and logos, and it doesn’t really make a difference. It does not get your product to market faster, it does not help you build reputation faster, it does not generate revenue. It does nothing. You lose more than you gain.

Dating Example: You’re in a relationship with someone with whom you have a great time, shared values, excellent sex, intellectual compatibility and are comfortable. It’s really pretty damned good. But you can’t shake the feeling that there may be something a little more perfect out there. So you don’t commit. Time passes. They give up. You go look for something more perfect. More time passes. Turns out, there’s nothing more perfect, and even the things you thought were, had other drawbacks. But s/he already found someone who wanted them, and was willing to do something about it. You lose. Bummer.

4. Just Ask The Experts. There aren’t any. And if you don’t have the courage of your convictions, then go get a job.

To be fair, unless you are a graphic and branding genius, you’re going to be contracting a lot of this work out (and you should.) However, you need to remember that all they are doing is executing on your vision. You may not be able to design a logo, or come up with a tagline, but you can choose one. You, and only you, know when it “nails” you for what you really are and what you really want the world to know about you. It’s okay if you can’t explain how or why you know “this one works!”

Your branding team should be asking you lots of questions, some of them hard. You have to answer them, even if they’re hard. They should be presenting you with options, but you have to pick one. You are the brand, and only you know if something is off brand or on brand. If you don’t know that yet, go back and get to know yourself, but you cannot delegate self-awareness. This is about YOU. It is not about your brilliant branding expert, no matter how brilliant they are, how much they cost or how many coffee cups their work can be seen on.

Dating example: Listen to your friends, but make your own decision. If you don’t know what you want, that’s your problem, not the fault of the other person. And you are the only person who can figure out what you want and need, and the only person responsible for getting it. But, passing up "good things" because you want "perfect" things will leave you where you are now - alone.

Alyssa Royse is better at branding than dating. Branding is fun. Dating is scary. If you want her to help you sort through branding stuff, let her know, she’d love to help you put your best face forward. She can probably help you with dating stuff too, she’s awesome at match-making – for other people, that is.

• (On teaching yourself to code or learning anything else) Treat it not like a task but something you want to know out of intellectual curosity.
• Raising money doesn't mean success.  You're here to build a business, not raise money.

 It came accidentally, actually. My degree is in English and I loved writing so much that it never crossed my mind to spend much time with non-literary pursuits. But once I got involved with technology, it really appealed to my interest in learning how things work, building things, fitting puzzle pieces together... I actually was a technical writer early in my career and then moved into user experience, and it was very helpful to be able to understand both users and developers when building products.


Tell me a little about Google's Webmaster Central.  Why was it an important product for you?

Webmaster Central was a significant shift in the relationship between search engines and content owners. Before Webmaster Central, how search engines crawled, indexed, and ranked web sites was almost entirely a black box. When I was working on the XML Sitemaps protocol and started talking to internal search engineers as well as to site owners, I realized that both sides could benefit from a lot more communication. But we had to figure out something scalable for the entire web. I think the combination of educational content, discussion forum, and site-specific diagnostics and statistics really worked well for that. And now site owners have access to information that they couldn't have gotten any other way -- such as when Google had trouble crawling pages of a site. These issues can dramatically impact how well a site does in search, but there was just no way of knowing about them before Webmaster Central.

I feel like we really were able to build something valuable for both site owners and Google and the team is continuing to launch awesome stuff.
 

What do you believe it takes to get a successful product to market?

Lots of collaboration. Most of the time, no one person is completely right and knows everything about the audience, market, technological issues, etc. This also means, of course, that you need a strong leader to take all of those perspectives and drive an actionable strategy.


Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

Even when I've worked in large organizations, I've always been a bit of an entrepreneur -- I would see something that needed to be done, and just do it. Webmaster Central started that way -- just as an idea that I started working on. And that tendency is how I ended up where I am now. I didn't think to myself, oh I want to be an entrepreneur and run my own company. I thought, there's this great need for foundational, actionable information around how to operate a business within our current online, searching culture. And Google can only go so far in providing that. I want to provide that next layer to help evolve the way we approach marketing and product development.
You just published a book "Marketing in the Age of Google" -- why should startups care about search engine marketing/optimization?

 Everyone searches these days. When I speak at events, I often ask how many people have done a search that week. And everyone laughs at such a crazy question. But how many of those same people have built a comprehensive search acquisition strategy for their companies?
When should startups start thinking about SEO?

Startups should start thinking about SEO right at the beginning, not because they need to start implementing tactics immediately, but because search data is so valuable for understanding potential audiences and what product you should build. I talk a lot in the book about how search data can be useful for market research, understanding customers, and prioritizing features.


What is the biggest myth about SEO for startups?

Unfortunately, a lot of misconceptions exist about SEO. I think the biggest myth people have is that SEO is all about tactics that are tied to search engine algorithms to increase rankings. I get asked a lot of questions like, how many times should I repeat a word on my page, how many outgoing links should a page have? Forget all of that stuff. SEO isn't about ranking. It's about connecting with the right customers who will convert. 


Are there some common mistakes startup companies make regarding SEO and what are the fixes?

I think the most common mistake is not starting with a search strategy. What is your business goal? It's not to get a lot of traffic. It's to get qualified visitors who will do something specific. Focus on that and then from there, determine what that audience is really looking for. How can you provide that for them? And what will then motivate that audience to convert?
Do you see some startups that are doing a great job and why?

Definitely there are a lot of startups doing a great job. Startups can often have the advantage of being nimble and quickly reacting to what the data is telling them. The key is knowing what data is useful and actionable.
Seattle 2.0 is excited to give away a copy of Vanessa's new book, "Marketing in the Age of Google" to two lucky winners.  We will randomly draw the names of two people who register to attend Deploy today.  We will announce the winners here tomorrow!

Today’s installation in my Tech Startups 101 series is about instrumentation. (Previous installations in the series can be found here, here, here, and most recently, here).

What’s instrumentation?  It’s the ability for you and your team to get useful data about what’s going on with your software.  A classic example is Google Analytics: it’s a tool that tells you, quickly and accurately, how many people visit your website (among many other things).  Useful information for sure.  An entire industry grew up in the late ‘90s and through the ‘00s around analysis of site traffic numbers, and many companies have been acquired mostly or solely based on their visitor counts and/or trends.

I’d like to make a distinction between external instrumentation and internal instrumentation.  External instrumentation can be leveraged after the fact: Google Analytics, site-uptime services, e-mail newsletter delivery tracking, PayPal reports, and others.  You don’t have to modify your software too much, if at all, to take advantage of these instrumentation services.  For example, Google Analytics just requires you to add a simple bit of JavaScript to your web pages.

Internal instrumentation, on the other hand, is baked in to your software and typically provides a deeper, more technical, and more detailed look at what’s going on.  Some examples:

Automatic exception notifications.  You can include handlers that automatically e-mail the team when an unhandled exception occurs.

Method logging.  You can flip a switch and start writing out very detailed log files that show what methods in your software get called, and with what parameters.

Performance auditing.  You can write in hooks that tell you in near-real-time how long certain key portions of your code take to execute.

Special event notifications.  Do you have a business-specific rule in place? You can alert yourself when the rule is triggered.  An example might be “more than one account created from the same IP address in the same hour.”

Customized dashboards.  Your company has special reporting needs.  A custom dashboard might be very useful.  If you’re an online retailer, an example might be “show me how many people each day clicked on our upsell call to action, and, of those, how many people ended up purchasing the higher-priced product.”

Potential downsides to instrumentation?

Time and cost.  It can take time and money to add instrumentation to your software, or pay someone else to use their 3rd-party services.

Information overload. Did you know that the term “information at your fingertips” was coined by none other than Bill Gates of Microsoft, 20 years ago? (I didn’t, until now).  The key hypothesis is this: the more information you have, and the easier it is to get it, the better.  There’s a definite controversy here: the term “information overload” sums up the competing argument nicely.  But it’s not a black-and-white, either-or decision: “All infomation” vs. “No information”.  There are certain key things about your business that you want or need to know, and you can draw the line wherever you want.

Measuring the wrong things.  This isn’t a fault of instrumentation per se, but if you’re measuring something, you are more likely to act on it.  What if the thing you’re measuring is an ineffective measure of your business?  There’s a lot of thought – offline thought – that needs to be done before you start throwing in instrumentation.  Think of instrumentation as arthroscopic surgery, not open-heart surgery.  Think “selective” and “targeted” – and rethink your choice of measurements often.

Used in the right way, instrumentation can add a lot of value to your startup.  But instrumentation is not a panacea, and more is not always better.  What are your experiences with instrumentation?  Share it in the comments!

By the way, did you know I'll be speaking at Deploy 2010 on June 24th?  Click the link below to register!

Upcoming Events for Startups and Entrepreneurs in Seattle:

			Recurring
SUN	May 23
MON	May 24	Revenue Modeling (Seattle)
TUE	May 25	Amdocs Open Innovation Event (Seattle) Think Tank: Brand Strategy in The Digital Age (Seattle)	Seattle Startups Open Coffee (Seattle)
WED	May 26	FounderDating (TBD)	Seattle Lean Coffee (Seattle) Eastside Startups Open Coffee (Redmond)
THU	May 27	MITEF NW Presents Jeff Taylor: Visionary, Innovator and Founder of Monster.com (Bellevue )	Hops & Chops Happy Hour (Seattle)
FRI	May 28
SAT	May 29
SUN	May 30
MON	May 31
TUE	June 1
WED	June 2		TechFoam: Eastside Startup Meetup (Bellevue)
THU	June 3
FRI	June 4
SAT	June 5

More Startup Events in Seattle...

Follow Friday (known as #FollowFriday) is a Twitter meme where a Twitter user recommends other Twitter users for his friends to follow. The Seattle 2.0 automatically generates suggestions from our Twitter Directory every Friday based on the number of entrepreneurs and startup people following that person.

Today we recommend:

	Arianna O'Dell (@arianna) www.ariannaodell.com i'd rather know you IRL
	Alex Algard (@algard) www.algard.com Founder of WhitePages.com and CarDomain
	thinkmaya (@thinkmaya) www.thinkmaya.com/about-maya Founder @memetales, Geek. Entrepreneur exploring social media at www.geekdance.com Analyzing life at www.thinkmaya.com Education Director - SMCSeattle

Find more Entrepreneurs, CEOs and Investors of Technology Startups on our Twitter Directory.

From the site: 

• Any group can participate.
• Any event can participate.
• Any venue can participate.
• Any person can participate.

Upcoming Events for Startups and Entrepreneurs in Seattle:

• 5/21/2010 - Seattle
  5th Annual Small and Minority Business Conference
  
  
• 5/24/2010 - Seattle
  Revenue Modeling
  
  
• 5/25/2010 - Seattle
  Seattle Startups Open Coffee
  
  
• 5/25/2010 - Seattle
  Amdocs Open Innovation Event
  
  
• 5/25/2010 - Seattle
  Think Tank: Brand Strategy in The Digital Age
  
  
• 5/26/2010 - Seattle
  Seattle Lean Coffee
  
  
• 5/26/2010 - Redmond
  Eastside Startups Open Coffee
  
  
• 5/26/2010 - TBD
  FounderDating
  
  
• 5/27/2010 - Bellevue
  MITEF NW Presents Jeff Taylor: Visionary, Innovator and Founder of Monster.com
  
  
• 5/27/2010 - Seattle
  Hops & Chops Happy Hour
  
  

More Startup Events in Seattle...

List of interesting blog posts from the Seattle Startup community on the last week:

It was another very successful event last night, with about 400 people attending the second annual Seattle 2.0 Awards. The day started early with a Poker Tournament (what’s up with entrepreneurs and Poker?) organized by Bob Crimmins of Startup Poker 2.0. Then the official event began, where the top investors, entrepreneurs, bloggers and service providers from the Seattle tech startup scene came to celebrate their accomplishments.

After Jennifer Cabala kicked off the event and I gave short speech, Jonathan Sposato gave the keynote speech, telling his personal story and giving folks lots of good advice, finishing with “Have fun! We are not here for a long time.” We’ll publish his video soon.

We already have some pictures available on Facebook– go ahead, tag the people you know and add some lively captions. You can also see pictures and read a few reviews of the event on TechFlash blog post, TechFlash Podcast and Xconomy.

The finalists and winners for each category were:

• Best Startup: Apptio, Blue Kai, BuddyTV, Cheezburger Network and Redfin (Winner)
• Best Boot-strapped Startup: BigOven, Biznik, Bonanzle (Winner), HasOffers and Survey Analytics
• Best Nonprofit Startup: Jolkona, One Bus Away, Startup Weekend, TisBest (Winner) and Vittana
• Best Startup CEO: Rich Barton (Zillow) (Winner), Sunny Gupta (Apptio), Glenn Kelman (Redfin), Andy Liu (BuddyTV) and Dave Schappell (TeachStreet)
• Best Startup Technologist: Damon Cortesi (Untitled Startup), Joe Heitzeberg (WhitePages), Darrin Massena (Picnik/Google), Daryn Nakhuda (TeachStreet) and Scott Porad (Cheezburger Network) (Winner)
• Best Startup Designer: Alex Berg (ex-Wetpaint), Greg Bowers (TeachStreet), Aviel Ginzburg (Untitled Startup), Jenny Lam (Jackson Fish Market) (Winner) and Matt Lerner (Front Seat)
• Best Venture Capitalist: Geoff Entress (Voyager Capital), Michelle Goldberg (Ignition Partners), Greg Gottesman (Madrona Venture Group) (Winner), Nick Hanauer (Second Avenue Partners) and Andy Sack (Founder’s Co-Op)
• Best Angel Investor: Bill Bryant, Clark Kokich, Andy Liu (Winner), Dan Rosen and Kelly Smith
• Best Service Provider to Startups: Pearl Chan (CFO Selections), Geir Hansen (SVB), Eric Koester (Cooley) (Winner), Craig Sherman (WSGR) and Joe Wallin (DWT).
• Best Entrepreneur Blog: Inspired Startup by Andy Liu, Quick Sprout by Neil Patel, Redfin Blog by Glenn Kelman (Winner), Startup Front End by Tony Wright and Untitled Startup Blog by Damon Cortesi & Aviel Ginzburg.
• Best Event for Startups: Hops & Chops, STS Meetings, TechFlash Live, Ignite Seattle (Winner), and Seattle Open Coffee.

Here are a few additional bloggers who wrote about this event: Glenn Kelman (Redfin), John Chow (w/ pictures), Nicole Donnelly, and we’ll keep adding more as more people send us their link.

We have a long list of folks to thank, including all of the attendees, finalists, winners, and the folks demo-ing their startup. But a few names we have to mention are: Danielle Morrill, Brian Westbrook and Shauna Causey for doing a great job on live broadcasting this event, doing interviews and doing a great job of keeping the energy level high, Marcelo Albuquerque, Forrest Corbett and Randy Stewart for taking pictures, Bryan Zug for the video recording, Lynn Edwards for managing the event and everyone who watched the event.

We also would like to thank our sponsors: Fenwick West, Amazon Web Services, Garvey Schubert Barer, McNaul Ebel Nawrot & Helgren, WTIA, Summit Law Group, Design Commission, SharedBusinessSpace.com.  We also had great Media Partners, Mashable, nPost, Startup Weekend, Lunch 2.0 and TechFlash.