Official Blog

Soon we'll be able to open up the nektoon beta for public consumption. Stay tuned.

If you've been following my twitter feed you see that I've been doing a lot of infrastructure setup lately. We are now laying the groundwork to for some real work later. Some of the work we're doing at the moment is setting up puppet. The Goal: Automated and reproducable server configuration and setup right from the start. We're also figuring out the optimal configuration for Hudson to have properly tested builds. Plus we are spending time with Python - specifically Python Paste, Pylons and web.py, to find an architecture we're super-comfortable with. Oh and we're also fiddling with the way we do Scrum as we're all new to it.

All this takes time and keeps us from building our actual product. So why do we do it - especially as a startup?

I like to think of these technologies as multipliers. Each of them - Puppet, Hudson, Python/WSGI/Pylons/web.py and Scrum - will multiply our productivity. And it gets even better: Bind together enough of these innovations and you multiply the multplier. The result of these tight bonds? Raw speed.

Speed is of essence as startup. That's the one of the very few advantage we'll ever have against the big guys in the beginning.

Case in point: By spending some quality time digging through the Paste Deployment documentations and understanding setuptools, I was able to find a great configuration for a modular Pylons setup. Something I had to manually in Okapi with a few weeks of work and fiddling. Now it's done in a blink of an eye.

When founding a company in these dire times a lot of people unbeknownst to you congratulate you. They congratulate you on our audacity, on our defiance; they wish us all the best for our challenge and pot loads of money earned. Of the later all of the correspondents of course want a share. They offer services ranging from office products, to rubber stamps, to lunch checks, to insurance policies, to letterhead paper, to marking equipment, to “free” consulting, to… name it.

For instance we received four different offers from for different field offices from the same insurance company we took out insurance a few days earlier (Folks, you have a CRM issue here).

The worst, however, are all these non-official commercial registries. We received about a half dozen letters all posing as official register of some sorts with a pay-in slip attached reading at least CHF 593.50 [1, 2, 3]. It’s a total fake. There is just one official register in Switzerland for each canton. So these guys basically count on unsuspecting clerical employees to clear the bill and pay. Cost of producing the bill (including postage) they sent us: max CHF 1.10 (1)

So basically they need every 500th company to pay to produce a healthy profit. Same business model as those spammers. Just the delivery method differs: It’s snail mail.

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(Okay there is this one company that copied our entry in the official Swiss publication (SHAB) and glued it to the bill. Folks, you have an efficiency issue here.)

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As a sidekick to our current gig, we perform a bit of consulting. A fiddly way to preserve cash (What do I do at 8am? Work for my client thus creating a chargeable hour thus neglecting the actual reason of being of our company, or work full speed for the glory of our startup and burning cash. A wicked choice at times.)

The other day somebody contacted me to get a bit of advice for her new startup idea (anyone else interested in no-nonsense, hands on counsel, please contact us at “info at nektoon dot net”). It’s something about – ouch, I am not allowed to tell you. As a matter of fact she required me to sign a weird legal document lovingly referred to as Non-Disclosure Document (NDA) first.

The basic mechanism is easy: Before talking about your grandiose invention with somebody else, you let that party sign a document stating that all discussions and materials disclosed during those discussions remain confidential under the threat of heavy fines.

In principle a fine idea. In the context of a startup there are just a number of little snags.

For starters: Basically you want somebody to sign a NDA who you don’t completely trust. Well if you don’t trust somebody, then don’t do business with that somebody.

A NDA also rests on the assumption that the opposite party has droves of idling people hanging around and waiting for the moment that you disclose your brilliant idea to steal it and implement it on their own. Well that is not the case. The other company is either in an adjacent or tertiary business. They have other things to do and no company can afford hordes of clever people on the beach. And lastly: If you go straight to your competitor - your fault.

Plus, as a startup you anyway don’t have the means to enforce a NDA and pursue a breach of contract. You simply don’t want to invest the time and the money litigation would require.

Sure, large corporations fancy these NDAs but mostly for altogether other reasons: Some middle manager wants to cover his ass.

Clearly, there are instances where you should make your opposite party sign a NDA. In the moment you talk to any banker or lawyer. They are used to this paperwork and should you forfeit your chance of a bit of small talk over the signing of the NDA, you will miss out later. The others will definitely miss something and make you feel it.

Talking of banks: A couple of years ago we developed Website solutions for a number of large banks all sitting atop each other at a quite small place. Each made us sign such a NDA with lots of penalty clauses included if we ever talked to one of their competitors about that bank’s particular setting. Each of the banks asked us immediately after signing what we can tell them about internal matters at the other banks…

In the end, protective paranoia is not the answer. A reputation built on trust and hard work protects your idea better. Getting a successful product to market should give you all the profits you need to defend yourself via litigation if it should be necessary. If it won't, you are probably proceeding with the wrong product idea.

So, here we sit in an empty office, starting another company. Why do you found a company, you might wonder? Why not, we answer. How do you build a company? That response is longer than a mere sound bite.

The physical setup is quickly recounted. We sublet some space from our friends at liip. We’re grateful as this cuts through the laborious task of wiring a place, setting up Internet connectivity and getting a coffee machine. Thanks folks!

The toughest question is rather: On what kind of an intellectual, emotional and business footing do you want to ground your company? In our case we had the privilege to have worked together over at local.ch over the last four years. We wrote broadly on this over there.

You might question: What the fuzz? You are three guys in an office. Get your product done well and the rest you’ll see during the course of action! Well no, we beg to differ. Example: Two weeks ago we received a résumé. We were thrilled to see that at this early stage someone who we know only through the usual Internet watering holes often refered to a specific day of the week – “Web- {Day of the Week}” – wants to work for us at such early stages of our venture.

The trouble-free way is to look at this résumé, interview and if there's a fit, employ. A bit more laborious is to ask: What type of folks do you want to hire, what type of qualifications are you seeking, what is your people strategy? The first employees are of tremendous importance. If you mishandle the first appointments, you will seriously jeopardize your startup.

The first people in essence build the company together with you. In the moment your company steps into an accelerated growth path these folks are your essential leverage. The better they are, the better you will be able to sustain a high growth rate and create a sustainable longterm business.

We’re in for the long haul…

Welcome to the official Nektoon blog. We will soon launch our first version to the public. Until then: stay tuned.

This weblog is hosted by our generous friends from Liip using their Freeflux platform.