Followup to Advisor Post

Chris Seper, the CEO of MedCityNews, interviewed me at the Kauffman Life Sciences Venture Summit right after I came off stage - which was both exciting and a little weird.  While we talked about a number of things, one of the videos he made was about my current hot-button topic, which is "what makes a good advisor," and specifically, my hypothesis that you want "value-connectors" not "super-connectors" when it comes to introductions from your mentors.

My thoughts on this topic - which Chris summarized well in the post - are further articulated in the Do I need an Advisor post I made recently. As a startup, you want to know that when someone makes an introduction, they are taking it really seriously. Access to a "contacts list" shouldn't be based on money (at one extreme) or "sure, I'll do that for you," (at the other)  but really based on you, the startup, earning it.  You want someone who is focused, dedicated, and willing to say "no, you are not ready" when you are not ready. 

Honestly, this seems awkwardly self-promotional to me, but I really believe in this meta topic (the rise of an unqualified "Advisor class" in Silicon Valley) and it's micro topics, such as introductions.


The post is here and the you tube video is embedded below.  

Do I need an advisor for my startup?

This was originally posted on the Rock Health Blog, and I've included only an excerpt here - you can find the full post here

Advisors can play a very positive role in the development of a company when deployed effectively. Over the last few years, however, we have seen a rise of the “Advisor Class” where it appears everyone is either advising, or believes they are in need of advice. During this same period, more self-service resources have become available, from movements like the Lean Startup, to thoughtful Q&A discussion boards, such as Quora, which boasts nearly 75,000 people following questions on entrepreneurship.

So, does my startup need an advisor? An advisory board? How do you manage that relationship to get the most value from it while expending the least amount of effort? You know your effort needs to be on your company, your product, and your team. Anything else should be given rigorous consideration before adding it to your plate. So how do I take on advisors without being distracted?

If you read no further, remember that your investors value ‘team’ more than you know. Often, in fact, than your idea itself. They are placing a bet on you, your team, and your collective ability to make decisions and execute. If you can enhance your team with a small number of focused advisors to fill gaps, that’s a great win for the team. Just remember, never once has an investor said “I don’t believe in the team, but they have a great advisory board.” – team first, team always.

If you choose to read on, the following post provides hints for you to weigh when considering advisors, and most importantly, how to maximize advisor relationships. It’s a framework, but not an answer. And remember, only you can truly decide if you need advisors, because after all….YOU are the CEO!

Read the rest on the Rock Health Blog 

Runkeeper has made it!

It's official, RunKeeper has finally made it to the big leagues as a social network - I've got my first RK spam! Sadly, it was not a Nigerian Banker with my lost millions, but this is progress none-the-less.

(Of course, I love the Runkeeper guys. It's actually very impressive I've gone this long without getting any spam. A little tongue-and-cheek never hurt anyone. Well, except Monicagod40@yahoo.com)

Nike FuelBand and Ice Hockey

My own little Quantified Self project is to review the Nike FuelBand and it's use during Ice Hockey games.  I have two specific questions I'm chasing, although I expect fully to get some new insights in how to improve my hockey performance, or at least my fitness level, by challenging some assumptions. And, I freaking love data, healthcare gadgets (actually any gadgets) and Ice Hockey, so this is pretty much the definition of "in my wheelhouse."

Specifically, I have two hypothesis I'm testing.

I want to see if playing center is, in fact, the hardest position on the ice - or as Wikipedia puts it centers "are expected to cover more ice surface than any other player". Does this hold true for me? Could I even map it to team performance? I believe it to be true, at least, if you are playing center the right way (a huge caveat in this experiment, of course), but I'd like to see if I can actually show it in my play. I love playing defense (and the whole idea of hitting, rather than being hit, is appealing as well), but I'm focused on really understanding if I'm working as hard as I should at center. It's arguable that I should also be playing harder on defense, too. At least, so says my goalie.

I'm also starting to wonder if I'm not ending hockey days with the best workout - or even, surprisingly, an average workout. Specifically, I think I'm sandbagging it during the day of Ice Hockey games. I think I'm actually using hockey as an excuse to not get more steps, travel more distance, and use more "fuel" because "I'll make it up at hockey" - or, when I'm feeling particularly good "I need to save myself for the game" - although I'm starting to doubt either of those are facts. First, I don't think I actually make it up or hit my fitness goals, and second, I don't think going into the game with any more steps or exercise really adversely effects my play. I think it's an excuse.

I'm playing on three teams this season, so we should have ample data, although my FuelBand arrived after the season started, and the Memorial Day holiday in May is throwing a wrench in my first month collections, as all the schedules are a little disorganized heading into the weekend. A version of the spreadsheet is here, but a live-updating version can also be found in the next section.

So far there are only two games to show, but there is a difference (about 100 FuelPoints) between center and defense (with same number of lines), and interestingly, my 2nd best day and my worst day - both hockey days. Let's see what the data will reveal!

The Data:


 

On Incubators and Rock Health

Yesterday I posed a rather long rant/entry on the Rock Health blog. It was in reaction to a really ignorant piece that ran in MedCityNews, where the interviewee literally just ran his (uninformed) mouth on and on, with no facts, and no data. He compared Incubators such as Rock Health to puppy mills, a garden of broken dreams, the valley of death, and finally, accused people inside incubators are just gambling with people's dreams. Yes, these incubators include YC and Techstars, if you can believe that.

Meanwhile, you'll be glad to know, he works for a saintly profession. He's a VC. He's been one for a whole six months, according to his LinkedIn profile. So clearly, he's got it all figured out.

Anyway, it was a horrible piece and it drove me to reply. It took a few drafts to get all the f-bombs out. You can read the whole entry on the Rock Health Blog

Startups, Patents, and Me

This morning, Mobihealth news reported that Bosch Healthcare has sued three companies on alleged infringements of the Health Hero patent portfolio. Although I don't know the details of the lawsuit beyond what is reported, my former role as COO/CTO and author of several patents for Health Hero resulted in me waking to numerous emails asking me what I thought. There was even one that asked me if I felt like I had "blood on my hands." I searched around the bed for a horse head.

Of course, I had three options.

1. Keep my mouth shut
2. Reply "no comment"
3. Blog about my opinion

A smart person would have chosen one of the first two options.

The Caveat
Before I get to my biggest issue, let me be clear that I'm not against patents, only their abuse. Our patent portfolio saved us many times, and was, as a defensive mechanism, a brilliant device. It gave some people confidence to choose us in a competitive situation, for example, with Panasonic. It lead to a license with Philips Electronics and others, who were going to run over the top of us without it. It made us better partners to McKesson, and certainly enhanced our valuation. Most of the credit for the depth and size of the patent portfolio goes to Steve Brown, who started patenting many of these core ideas long before there was a Health Hero Network. If you look closely, priority dates go back to 1992. That's amazing foresight, and also why some of the claims which look "obvious" today are actually shockingly predictive. 

On Startups and Healthcare
My disappointment is predictable and obvious. Bosch is litigating MedApps, Waldo, and Express MD Solutions. These are hardly brand name companies. You only need to look at my dedication to Rock Health or view AngelList page to know I believe Healthcare and Technology (in general) are both best served by supporting entrepreneurs and startups.  Most will fail. Some will change the world. But there is nothing more motivating, exciting, and encouraging than seeing experts of all kinds coming together to solve real problems that scare other people away.

There is a sign that hangs at the doorway to Rock Health, paraphrasing something I wrote in response to a different topic, but it sums up the point of view.

(Credit to Ryan Panchadsaram for the layout and design)

Every "big" company has to decide how to work within its ecosystem. Most simply ignore it, outside large conferences and events. There are some who focus supporting the ecosystem, through the availability of APIs, Hackathons, incubation sponsorships, and other vehicles. There are, of course, also those that choose not to ignore it, and not to support it, but consciously attack. Nothing wrong with that either, but who you choose to pick on matters. I'm uneasy not so much with patent litigation, but with the targeted companies.  I hope the community does not quickly forget this action next time someone offers a conference sponsorship or speaking engagement.

Lawsuits like these have, much to the determent of true progress, become the new normal. With a sigh, I read through the quotes from Bosch defending the process:

"We feel it is important to demonstrate that IP is important, and not just to our company"

Does anyone - and I'm serious, is there a single person - who feels that this demonstrated IP was necessary for other companies? Did you read the article and think "thank you for clarifying that for me, I had no idea IP was important."

Just say it - you have a patent, the system allows you to protect it, and clearly there is some competitive threat from the market you feel the need to defend yourself. Okay, that's fine and within your rights. But when you start to talk about making a demonstration of someone, here's what I read: "We're going to take someone out behind the shed to make a point. We picked someone we know can't fight us with dollars or time, and we're sending a message to the rest of the market." When it's three startups with barely any traction, it's hard to read it any other way.

Now, I have no idea if there's a misquote in there or not, but read this one (emphasis added):

"Bosch is open to working with those companies that are interested in securing this technology through a licensing agreement."

I've got a better idea. Build something people want, and technology licensing won't require a shotgun. Again, I don't know the details, but if this is really about forcing severely outdated technology down the throats of others, that's an even more horrible state. I hope that's misquoted and pure patent license is on the table, if nothing else.

Bosch and Health Hero are better than this. There was a time when we built great, patient-centered solutions to real problems, and there are still so many high-quality people there who are, in the end, only motivated to fix a broken healthcare system. But this can't go without comment – the very companies being litigated against could be the next Health Hero, and the market, the healthcare system, and our patients deserve better. I want Bosch and HealthHero to be great, and I'm sure they can again rise to that greatness, but this is not the path.

While this "demonstration" may be Bosch's right, that doesn't make it right.

Paper vs. Plastic, eBooks revisited

I love my Kindle. Despite it's usability issues, Android operating system (Que Horror!), and all the other bits people complain about, I enjoy carrying around the Kindle Fire much more than I would have lugging around the Steve Jobs Biography or any other number of books. It's the right size, and much easier to read on than my iPad. It works for me(1) That said, there is one small problem with eBooks, be they on the Kindle, Nook, or reader of your choice.

Bits don't stick.

I'm hardly nostalgic, but the physical manifestation of a book is a powerful mnemonic. Like a greeting card from your past to future self, the good ones mean something to you. This can take several forms.

Today, I decided to re-read Alan Cooper's classic "The Inmates are Running the Asylum." I pulled the dead-tree-version from the shelf, dusted it off, and flipped it open.  On the second page of Inmates,  I found lovely note from the person who gave it to me. I had remembered it was a gift, but seeing the inscription there, in the person's handwriting, was a lovely experience.

The person who gave it to me was a prior VP of Operating Systems at Apple, and later the co-inventor of WebOS. Yet none of those make his inscription valuable to me, what was valuable was that he took the time to do it at all. This was not a book signing, he's a friend who wrote something memorable and meaninful.

Thankfully, when Inmates was published he couldn't "gift it" too me on Amazon

When I left Health Hero/Bosch last year, I gave everyone on my team books I felt were fitting for that person and their current career path or professional interest (2), but looking back, I wish I spent time writing in the books, rather than cards, as a more permanent reminder and thank you.

I dug around my shelf and noticed that almost every book I've kept was either personally signed, like Inmates, or stretched my mind at the time that it had signficant impact on how I've worked, led, and behaved (3). Clearly, these books made it through a lot of years of purging, donating, and generally clearing-house, yet here they are, and I'm unable to part with them.

So I wonder, emotionally, mentally, when there are no physical constraints on my ability to posses these books as bits, and no emotional tie, with they be as valuable to me? Will I be as connected to the words and ideas? How will consuming e-Books change the ways future generations attach value to the long-form written word? As an early adopter, technologist, and human (mostly), I'm fascinated by this topic, and it's potential cognitive effects.



(1) well, except for the horrible spiral-round-about-selection-UI that's so terrible, I can't even come up with a phrase to describe it.

(2) Rework was one I gave to a lot of people who were part of the acqusition. I think you can do the math.

(3) Some quick, but non-exhaustive examples:  Inmates and Rework, Don Norman's "The Invisible Computer" and "Things That Make Us Smart", Neil Gershenfeld's "When Things Start to Think" (the cover with the shoe, not the new horrible cover), Gary Vaynerchuck's  "Crush It!" and  David Beckham's autobiography. Okay, that's a joke, just wanted to see if you really read the footnotes.

There is no joy in (Android) appville

TechCrunch posted the-first-of-many "Top 30 Android apps of 2011" article earlier this week, which is always must-read fodder for me. As an Android owner and hacker, I'm always interested in what people think are great applications. For fun, read the article and try to figure out if the author really thought these were 30 great apps, or the editor said "Find 30 apps!" Somewhere around 17 the author just started swearing under their breath.

I was going to write about how despite it's openness and Java-based development, Android is still suffering from a lack of really great applications and developers. Don't get me wrong, some of these applications (Path, Any.do) are brilliant, but there are still damning details in the article.

Of the list of 30 applications, the only developers with more than one application on the list are people who also host their own App Store, and combined they have 7 of the 30 applications. (Five are from Google, and two are from Amazon). 

On the surface, you can discount this by saying "they are the most motivated to have great applications" or "they have the best developers because they have the biggest investment", but neither one of those really, in the end, make sense for what Android is, which is a platform. After this many years of Android, it should be hard to build a great list because you'd feel like you're leaving things out. And shouldn't be dominated by Google and Amazon.

This speaks loudly to the state of developers and development on Android. It's very easy to get started. It's easy to get distribution. It's really, really, really hard to achieve greatness.  That's not all bad - that should sound eerily like Windows development of the 1990's, or Web Development of the 2000's. We've seen these cycles before, but they are not pretty, and they all were forced to change.

The day before the "30 best apps" article, TechCrunch also had an piece on the challenges of native applications and the opportunity of HTML5. You know, the one we get every few months about the impending greatness of HTML5. Despite editors feel this article must be (re)written at least once a quarter, I'll admit it's an important topic, and a long-term trend to watch. (Sidenote: despite all the departures, there are still plenty of good contributors to TechCrunch. It's no longer must-read, but it's not dead either. I prefer pieces that take an opinion, and the latest contributors are doing that.)

The article was decent, and I liked it's presentation.  But even more important was the comment by Harry Tomey, where he summed up some of the "hidden" challenges of Android Development. Fragmentation is an oft-cited downside of Android, but I think Harry put it more concretely, especially for startups. The cost of QA and support for multiple OS versions, patches, UI overlays, and hardware form factors - all major realities in Android - have tipped into the prohibitive. 

These two TechCrunch pieces intersected quite violently - of the three "best of" applications I tried to install, all three of them worked on my phone (Droid X), only one ONE of then even installed on my Android tablet (Galaxy Tab 10.1) and well, I'll have to go to another app store to see if they work on my Kindle. Yet these are all Android devices.

At that point, I was motivated to see if they had an iPad version. That would only take one step, rather than three.  (Go ahead and make the point I'm not an average user because I have all these gadgets - the problem is only worse for the person who only has a Galaxy Tab or a Kindle and can't figure out why their "Android" apps won't work).

Reading nearly any App Store, er Market (you know what I mean. For Android. Wait, I mean, the Google one, not the Amazon Appstore on Android. URGH...) review has at least one "This piece of crap app doesn't work on my Galaxy IV-R27 Turbo!" - this got so serious, reviews in the Market now includes the model and version of the reviewer. Want to be really scared as a developer? Just scroll through a few pages like this:

At this point, I switched my opinion. This is not a problem for developers anymore. It's a consumer problem; because developers, frankly, gave up.

The problem of Android fragmentation is not a problem for most developers. I'd argue that today the majority of Android developers (remembering that the majority is still the small shop/individual, not a major corporation) don't even care anymore, and are not really trying to solve the problem. It's beyond their ability do manage, profitably.

Don't believe me? Don't believe the statement about "most are still small shop/individuals")? Okay, we'll do this your way. Download Google+ or any of the "30 great" Google apps for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Six month later, and with the exception of GMail, they are still all simply scaled up versions of their phone versions, not taking advantage of any Android-Honeycomb futures, not attempting to deal with even the most basic fragmentation. And this is Google. Most apps from other publishers won't even install.

If this is true of the top applications for 2011, it's scary to think how many people opened an Android-based Christmas gift yesterday, and are now wondering why they can't install an app, or why a certain service doesn't work for them but works on their friend's devices. How do you even start to explain that to a consumer? 

This is a consumer problem, which will, over time, harm Android distribution, and in turn, harm developer brands. Eventually, that will lead to developers leaving the platform, unless it's addressed, quickly. Putting this genie back in the bottle is going to be the biggest challenges Google has faced, if not the biggest.

The negative impact on brands will cause publishers enough pain that they will need to figure out some path to avoid bad reviews, upset customers, and frustrated development teams. This cannot be solved with volume alone, because the volume numbers do not accuratley represent the market opportunity for a developer. They simply do not account for the overhead of fragmentation. The emperor has no clothes, and it's painfully obvious.

The only upside I see? There is a huge startup opportunity here: if you can build a Selenium-like product for developers, and a process for managing fragmentation issues, you can translate those market numbers to profitable releases across multiple versions. All of a sudden those market graphs really translate to dollars. Might be the best Android app yet.

My Steve Jobs Story

(Originally posted on G+, here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104945599561982033177/posts/Ggi4Ev1XVxL)


Working at Apple was my dream job - I wanted to work there, and specifically for Steve Jobs, since I could remember. Some kids want to be firemen. I wanted to be a programmer at Apple. I pretended to be sick so I could stay home from elementary school to write code. My ][e was my prized possession, and later an early Mac. 

By a stroke of hard work and a little luck, I got recruited out of college all the way from east coast to come work for Apple, joining the MacApp team. Even though Steve had long been gone, it was still my dream job. To be very, very specific, I wanted to go work on the Knowledge Navigator. Since that job didn't exist (yet! Siri, way to go!) I took the MacApp job, as it allowed me to work on nearly everything that was coming out, new OS features and hardware, and mold them into something great for developers. 

MacApp was a C++ framework that was used by developers to create applications, making the Macintosh Toolbox more accessable. It was a small team, and many of the brightest minds of Apple had worked on the project at some time. It was an incredible honor. I even got stage time at WWDC ('96) co-presenting an entire session on the latest MacApp version. I was far too young to realize how amazing this all was. 

As MacApp grew long in the tooth, and the team changed (including the departure of +Greg Friedman to Microsoft, who was an amazing mentor and friend). I looked for a new opportunity, and transferred to the OpenDoc team. It was particularly nice because it was filled with great engineers, and, it was just the other side of the same building. I didn't even have to change where I park, just turn around after getting off the elevator at IL3 (the Apple building looking out on 280), rather than going straight to the frameworks team. 

A few months later, the rumors started - we were going to be buying either Be or NeXT, although everyone seemed to think it was Be. I think we couldn't fathom, as a bunch of fanboys, that Steve might be coming home. Either way, an Apple icon was coming back (Jean-Louis Gasse is no Steve Jobs, but he had a "Apple Reputation", and it was particularly interesting, since Scully hand-picked Gasse so it was Jobs/Scully/Gasse Part Duex. People forget that little bit of drama.) Rumors also swirled that we were going to be bought by Sun, so it was hard to make sense of it all. 

Without droning on about my personal history, Steve Jobs did come back. And, fairly quickly, killed off OpenDoc. I believe about 5000 people were laid off as projects that didn't fit the vision were shut down, and I was one of the unlucky. During WWDC '97, shutting down so many developer-related projects got a lot of attention, and he took some shots (and gave some out) about killing OpenDoc (see the videos below). 

People who know how important being part of Apple was to me ask if I was bitter or angry. Long before Steve passed away, I've always maintained that I was neither of those things. I was sad, and worst of all, I felt like I let down my hero. I realize how cult-like and insane that sounds, but that really his how I felt, and still feel in a weird way. Again, I was far too young to really grasp what it means to get laid off; I didn't have a mortgage or family or anything to worry about, but I bled the Apple colors, and was so disappointed in myself for not delivering something so insanely great that Steve would consider Apple worthy. But, this changed me in a good way. 

I'd probably still be an Apple employee if it wasn't for that moment. That's not good or bad, it's just fact. I learned so much in that time period - mostly from "doing it wrong" - about focus, product design, eating your own dogfood, and many more lessons, that it made me who I am, and made me a much better entrepreneur. 

It turns out, I wasn't supposed to be at Apple, I was supposed to be an entrepreneur, I was supposed to change healthcare (who knew?!) and how chronic care is delivered. I was supposed to create,build, foster, and sell a great company.

If you look at what we built for health care - insanely focused on the patient experience (even stealing fonts from Apple! Sssh) and on a big vision of changing an impossibly failed system - I got to live my Apple dream, just, elsewhere. 

The last few days were sad for me, because it brought back that feeling of never getting closure with those Apple years, that weird, almost parent/child desire to do something that would make my idol proud. 

Like so many people I wish I could have said thank you. I've decided the best way to do that is to keep trying to change the world in the ways I think are best, that I'm insanely passionate about, to give back to others in the startup space and help them find that inner insanity, and carry just a little bit of that Apple-ness and Jobs-ness into everything I do. 

It won't be about wearing a turtleneck or copying a catch phrase, but about the passion, desire, and willingness to do what I believe in, even when everyone else thinks it might be wrong.

Even though he's literally talking about something that caused great change for me personally, I find the two speeches below perfectly motivating. 


(Update 10/8/2011: I just read Sam Altman's blog post on Steve's passing, and he has a sentence that summed up my feelings exactly: "I had disappointed one of the few people I cared about not disappointing" - that may be the trick to Steve's leadership style, to personally set a standard for those who simple want to be the best. Simple, obvious, effective)

The end of my FitBit love affair

Today marked the end of a relationship. My fitbit and I are breaking up. I loved my fitbit. I told everyone I knew they had to get a fitbit. As someone who has been in the healthcare space for a while, I lauded the ease of use, data integration, and behavior change it could empower. I really believed in the device and the service.

I was not rewarded for that loyalty.

From a "let's learn a lesson here we can apply to start ups" angle (which, by the way, is the most annoying of all angles. Lessons, learning? Meh. Being angry would be easier. But I digress) , they broke two really important rules.

First, they have a very low quality device that sells for $99. For $99, the device should work, all the time.

You want to know my experience? I'm on my 7th device. That's right, SEVEN. That's how much I believed in them. To be fair, one I broke wearing in a ice hockey game, and one I lost. So I've had five that did not work. That's five hundred dollars worth of pedometers. For reference, that's a 16 GB WiFi iPad2 + shipping via a gold-plated Ferrari (not exactly sure about the details of that shipping option).

Before you start to think I'm the only one, the forums and poor Amazon reviews have many, many people all with the same issues and same phrases, over and over: broken, good support, low quality, great when it works. It appears I'm neither the most loyal, or the most frustrated, of their customers. There are a lot of good Amazon reviews as well, but the overwhelming feeling is the product violates most important rule: "just work."

Now, to be fair, Fitbit replaced the last two free of charge. They are making up for quality issues with great customer support; for me, the support team has been top notch. They've told me that this happens a lot, and they are quick to set replacements without a lot of questions, and they are always nice - even when I got a little impatient the last few times. Why was I impatient you ask? When I got my most recent  free replacement in the mail, it promptly broke within 24 hours. That's right - within 24 hours, the screen was no longer displaying data, and within 48 hours, it was no longer syncing. Again. After waiting a week for a replacement to come.

Which brings me to lesson number two. Don't make me feel stupid for buying your product.

I know, that sounds simple, right? Well, somewhere around Fitbit number four, friends starting saying "you bought another one of those things? What did you expect?" Remember that relationship analogy? Well, it sticks. You know when your friends say "Really, you're still with (or going back to) him/her? What did you expect?" - and then, when the same thing that always happens, happens again, you feel like a moron. Well, today, I feel like a moron. Maybe I thought number seven would be lucky. I can't explain it.

The good news is, there are many new startups on the horizon, with products like the Basis Watch and the Jawbone Up looking like worthy competitors, or at least something else to try to offset my disappointment. Even different failure would be easier to take than the same thing, over and over. Maybe they will work, maybe they won't - but my fierce loyalty to Fitbit has eroded to the point that it's time to look elsewhere. If they actually send me a replacement that works for more than a month, I'll post an update to this entry. I really do want them to succeed.

Today, ironically, they launched an upgraded device, the FitBit ultra. It  not only brings you choices of color (blue! plum!), but improved sensing. TechCrunch wrote a not-so-glowing review today, but for me, it's simple. You know what would be Ultra? One that worked.

Update 10/4/2011: - Fitbit offered to return my money, or provide me a new Ultra device, if I send back the  broken devices to their support team. Given I've been through this process with them for a while, this seems like a proactive and very fair response, and I was a little shocked at the offer of a financial return. Like I've said, the support team has been great, but that doesn't make up for all the issues. That said, it does make it hard to leave.