DONN FELKER

Lessons Learned From the Software Industry

Connect

The Single Best Thing You Can Do For Your Career

by 10 Comments

If you’re looking to break out in your industry and looking to take yourself to the next level there is one thing that can help propel you into opportunites you never imagined. What is it?

Public Speaking

It’s true. No doubt about it. I attest most of my success to a fateful day in 2008 (May 31st to be exact) when I spoke at Desert Code Camp in Phoenix. That was my first public speaking event in a professional setting, ever. The topic?

Intro to Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control
You can find the slides for that talk right here on slideshare.

I’m serious, that’s my first foraye into speaking. The slides are terrible and embarassing, but everyone loved the talk at the time. In fact, the people liked it so much that when I signed up to speak there I was able to see how many people were going to be at my talk in advance. The web app that code camp was using at the time had that feature (it was a different one than Desert Code Camp uses now, but similar). Long story short, my talk went from the “small classroom” to the medium room, to the large room to the auditorium at a tech college I was speaking at. Fun fact – the presentation was at UAT to be exact and thats actually where I went to college.  I was very familiar with the auditorium and knew how many people it could fit. At the time I went it was 172 people.

How many people were there when I presented? Well over 172, there was standing room only and it was one of the most popular talks of the day. This is not a humble brag, but I am actually saying this for the exact opposite reason. I’m saying this because when I got on stage, I was scared shitless. To this day I remember walking on stage and then walking off, going outside, calling my wife and telling her how I did, going home and falling asleep from the sheer exhaustion of stress and terror that I just experienced. I do not remember any of the talk whatsoever. Kind of crazy how the mind will do that to traumatizing events.

Terror? Stress? What? Why? You may ask. You had a popular talk. You might think. You’re right, I did. People loved it and I got a lot of professional attention because of it, and it helped my career. The important thing to note here is that this was my first professional talk, ever. The most people I’d ever spoken in front of prior to that event was maybe 10-12 people, and that was during a work lunch when you go around the table and talk about something (such as a team building event). 172+ people? ABSOLUTE TERROR, PANIC & FEAR.

The thing is, public speaking has often been rated in many publications as the one thing people fear far more than death itself. Thats a pretty bold statement. More than death itself? I don’t know about you, but I love life. Sure, its full of stressors and other things that are out of my hands at time, but I love being alive. I’d much rather get in front of people and talk than die. But … thats the reality of the situation – people are scared to get in front of crowds and speak. So scared that they’d rather die. Think about how many people you know that say “OMG, there is now way I could do that, I’d die”. Yeah. Exactly.

That one day led to many job offers eventually. Not just full time offers but consulting offers and offers to do bigger and better things. From speaking I ventured deeper into blogging and then into more writing in general. I kept speaking and eventually got noticed by some consutlingn firms. I worked for them for awhile and kept speaking as well. Companies usually love when you speak in public. You’re a public face of their company (in this case, part of the engineering deparment). Eventually I got enough offers for external contract jobs that I decided to jump and go work for myself as a consultant. I did that six years ago in 2009. I went full time independent consulting. How? All from speaking.

If I had never got in front of people and spoke about what I knew I’d never be in the situation I’m in now. I’m foreever grateful to those who gave me the opporutnity to speak, to hire me and to bring me on to help their team. Thank you.

Fast forward many years later from my initial speaking engagement and I’ve now spoken to crowds of 400-500 people at times with no fear. As with anything – the more you do it, the better you get at it and eventually you actually kind of get used to it.

I challenge you to go out and speak. Find a local user group, a code camp, a meet-up of some sort. Just go out and share your knowledge. Don’t be scared. Will you know everything? No. Will there be someone in the crowd who knows more than you? Yes. Regardless, you need to get out there and do it. You’ll be glad you did. It will open doors you never knew existed.

Is Google IO Worth It?

by 2 Comments

Update 2017-04-04: I’m revisiting this because I’m once again at an inflection point – do I go this year or not? I found myself running the numbers again (as I do in the post below) and what I came to the conclusion is: I don’t think its worth it. Why the flip-flop? Well, simply put … last year was a disaster from what I hear. Also, I’m looking at the schedule and I’m not convinced its that I’ll learn a ton. What about the social aspects and networking? No doubt that it is a huge thing. Networking and such is the primary draw IMO. Hang with me for a second though … Unfortunately, with my new estimates I’m seeing the costs, for an indy developer like me, to be around $4,500. The cost is lower than the calculation below because this new calculation cuts off Friday (I’d be leaving a day early and flying in late the night before the conf). At this point I ask myself … “If someone told me Google IO would cost me $4,500, would I say ‘HELL YEAH!’ or would I say ‘No.’?” To me, that’s an instant “No” (please read this post by Sivers on “HELL YEAH” decision making). Lets recap …. $4,500 for a conference? I’m also cutting it a day short? Meh, no thanks. For that level of money the conference had better be something that I can ONLY get while in person, and preferably something life changing (you can go on amazing vacations for this same amount). Maybe thats what you’re doing (treating this like a vacation and you’ve never been to CA/GOOG/etc. In that case, cool. However, I’ve been to the valley before, there is no allure there anymore. On the flip side of the coin though … if I were a full time employee and I only had to pay 1/6 of this amount it would be a HELL YEAH, unfortunately thats not the case.

Update 2015-09-01: After getting more and more involved with the Android community over the last year+ I’ve found that Google IO is worth it. You just have to know where and what you’re doing it. In the end, it’s about networking and learning and exposure. Getting out there and being with like minded folks. The post below outlines how it feels when your expectations of the event mimic the advertisement of the event. I do feel like it’s mis-represented and the content could have been more on topic with developers and the tracks could have been clearer. 🙂

 

This is the question I asked myself last year before I went to Google I/O 2014. I’m an independent consultant who has to foot the bill for all of these types of trips. So not only does the ticket price get you in the wallet but so does the flight, hotel, meals and time off of client work. After weighing the options, I spoke to previous attendees and figured out what they got out of the conf and I figured it was a no-brainer. Totally worth it based upon their personal feedback.

I still decided to calculate the costs. When all said and done, this conference can easily cost any consulting firm around $7,500 per person.

You might be shocked, but let’s break it down.

  • Google I/O Ticket: $900
  • Flight: ~$300
  • Hotel in SF near Conf: ~$1200 (if you’re lucky)
  • Meals/Etc: $300
  • Lost Billing Time: $4800

Billing time is calculated at a very common rate of $150/hr for most consulting shops that perform quality work. Again this is a rough estimate.

With these numbers, you can ask yourself “Is going to Google I/O worth $7,500? It’s ultimately up to you to decide, but here’s what I determined …

I Came, I Saw, I Left Depressed

I know that may sound harsh, but it was exactly how I felt when I left Google I/O 2014. You may be wondering “its nearly 8 months since the conference happened, why is he bringing this up?”. Simply put – I was not sure what the network effect would be of Google I/O. The network effect does not happen overnight, it takes some time and that’s what I wanted to give it – more time.

I’ve probably written this post a few times now, each time I’ve deleted it. Yup, typed it into the editor, reviewed it, edited it, then deleted it. Today, it feels right, so I’m writing it and posting it.

On my way to Google I/O I was pumped. The only other conference I’ve been to of this magnitude was TechEd in Orlando in 2008 (I think /build is the new big one in place of TechEd, I think). When I went to TechEd I was blown away. Seeing that Google was the new hotness in the industry, I figured this con would blow TechEd out of the water. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I showed up with some teammates from MyFitnessPal  and we walked to the Moscone center where the conference was. I was dumbfounded. There was a line wrapped one and half times around the building. This was the line to get into the Keynote. INTO THE KEYNOTE. It was 4-6 people wide and looked like a gigantic snake of people around the building. We got in line and waited. If it’s this popular, it’s got to be good, right?

After about 35-40 minutes of truffle shuffling around the building we got in. There were barely any seats left and the line still went around the building. Crazy. Seat nabbed, time for action to begin.

The keynote was nothing spectacular. A new OS which looked cool, Android Auto, Android TV, and Android Wear all came out of their shell in a big way, but I’ve been skeptical of all of these technologies for a bit. Not because I don’t believe in them, but because I don’t think they’ll work right now. I feel that these technologies that we have (wear, auto, tv) are all stepping stones to something bigger and better. We have to go through this phase of technology to get to the better stuff. People hate vendor lock-in and that’s exactly what Wear, Auto and TV are: Android Vendor lock-in. Don’t get me wrong, I love Android – I can’t stand using iPhones. What the developer side of me saw was cool new tech, but the realistic business side of me saw vendor lock-in and a fight for a portion of the market. I saw three new products that needed to have some major push behind them to work and I didn’t feel any of them were going to get the public relations and developer relations attention they need to succeed. In my eyes, I was looking at something that was not a huge starter for me. The one exception to that was Android TV with the ADT-1. Mixed with Chromecast I think there are a lot of opportunities to take existing tech to the next level (in some areas).

The keynote being a bust wasn’t really a concern of mine. To me, keynotes are usually huge marketing webinars, but with $1000 ticket price to watch in person. Honestly, think about that next time you’re in a big keynote (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc) … Does this feel like a webinar? Probably. You’ll be surprised. Next up was the sessions.

I went to numerous sessions throughout the days. Covering Wear, Material Design, Async Design Patterns and so forth. All from Google employees. If I had to rate them, most of them would be 4-5 stars out of 10. Not because the presenter stunk (though there were a few of those) but because the content was so shallow that I felt like I was being shown the magic and nothing behind the curtain. I felt like some of them were mini-keynotes for niche areas of Googles product teams.

All Is Not Lost

While the sessions were a big let down I did find some amazing other areas of the conference. Usually these were on the floor. I wouldn’t call these sessions but more watch and learn labs where the presenter is talking to 10-30 people around an open podium. I got to witness how to use Dart and some advanced features of Android. How to write Go and so forth.

Another area that myself and a couple employees from MyFitnessPal took advantage of were the hands-on labs. You could pull up a chair and try out some code. I was able to learn polymer quite quickly and then if I remember correctly I did a bunch of AngularJS because it was something I had already been playing with and wanted to dive into more. The Android topics were all very shallow and didn’t go too crazy. It was all stuff that I had done before. I think those courses would have been great for a beginner though.

The most interesting area of the conference to me was the open discussion/presentations that were around entrepreneurship. Two of the best talks I heard were very short, but packed with insightful tips for those interested in building apps/companies. These two talks were my sanity savers at Google I/O. Those two talks were by Aaron Harris of YCombinator and Adora Cheung of Homejoy. These talks should have been much longer and more open. Both were packed.

Google Goodies

As with every Google I/O goodies were to be had. I was able to make it out with the following:

I was also lucky enough to speak to one of the Google TV folks and asked him if I might be able to get my hands on an ADT-1. He said they were all gone but he’d take my info just in case, but he re-assurred me that I would most likely never get one. 3-4 months later a magic box shows up at my door – it’s an ADT-1. I don’t remember your name good sir, but thank you very much. I’ve been playing/testing/etc for a bit. 🙂 From my research online it looks like ADT-1’s are being sold for around $350 through various channels (EBay, Craigslist, etc).

Extraciricular Events

Though the Google I/O sessions were lack luster one great thing was the Google I/O party. They had great food, great drinks (lots of micro brews) and great entertainment. It was good to be with friends, meet new ones and have a good time.

The other events that made this trip better were the other parties going on in the area. Twitter’s being the first one. This was a great place to go. Lots of great people and such a cool vibe. Bit thanks to Hemal for getting us in there. We also went to the first Big Android BBQ in SF. Met some cool folks there and I’m still rocking the Phandroid pint glass that I got there to this day. There were many parties, too many to get to. That’s where it seemed like the real networking came into play.

Was It Worth $7500?

No. Not really. You can take all my goodies away and I’d still stay the same thing and I would not be upset. I feel that this conference at one time may have been a great event. Unfortunately in 2014 Google I/O turned into a marketing conference and the content was rather shallow. I hope that changes, because I love Google’s products and I like the Android platform alot. However due to what I experienced in 2014 I have no interest in attending in 2015.  I look at it objectively – do I feel that am I going to get $7,500 in value out of it? Combine the learning, the networking, the goodies and the mental vacation from being away from the office and I have a quotient for me that says: Nope, doesnt work. Again, this may not be the case for you, but this is the case for me.

 

Inspiration is Perishable

by Leave a Comment

I just got done with my mastermind meeting that takes place every other week and I was reminded of a key concept that I had forgotten in the recent years.

Inspiration is Perishable.

As I write this, I find myself having to create this entire post “right now” and not later because, well, I’m inspired to write about it at this moment. Currently, right now, I’m realizing that my inspiration to write this post is perishable. The concept and idea of inspiration is perishable was solidified from the writings in the book ReWork by Jason Friend and DHH. Its a great read, check it out.

Peak Inspiration has a Short Shelf Life

The concept of “inspiration is perishable” is simple and very easy to understand. Just as fruit in the basket on your kitchen counter has a shelf life, so does your inspiration. Unfortunately inspiration for a developer, designer, writer, engineer, entrepreneur, musician, videographer or anyone creative is very brief compared to even the short shelf life of a banana. You have to take advantage of inspiration when it hits and just ride the flow that it provides. Once its gone, its gone – it rarely (if ever) comes back in the same form. Right now, is right now and it will never happen again – take advantage of it.

Inspiration sometimes peaks for an hour. Sometimes it peaks and holds at that level of intensity for 4 hours. But it rarely lasts a full day. Exploding an utilizing that peak inspiration can be exhausting and draining but the results of what you can create during that peak inspiratory time block are usually spectacular. The best things I’ve ever created have been during peak inspiration. This includes my best selling Android Development book, my top blog posts and some of the best product features and code I’ve created or designed. All created during peak inspiration.

Its important to note that I’m not talking about the evergreen inspiration that some of us possess to become a successful or to complete a marathon project that has a lofty goal. Examples of lofty long term evergreen inspiring goals would include:

  • Launching a new SAAS product
  • Creating a new full length audio album
  • Training for a 26 mile marathon race
  • Producing a hit indie movie

The type of inspiration I’m referring to is the inspiration to create a portion of content in a short of amount of time when that inspiration is at its peak. The content could be a one of the following:

  • A blog post
  • A new feature for your product
  • A design for your app/client/etc
  • A new cool design in Photoshop
  • A new track for a new song (think guitar track or drum beat, etc)

Usually you’ll find these these bursts of inspiration are very short.

So how do you know when this type of inspiration is going to hit?

You don’t.

Peaks of inspiration do not come with a warning or any precursors – they just hit you like an avalanche of emotion that overwhelms all of your available thought processes. You’ll know when it hits. Its the feeling you get when you feel so passionate about something that you immediately feel the need to create something because of it. This happens a lot in many creative types such as musicians, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists, designers, etc.

If you’re a musician, you’ve had it hit at random times. You hear a tune, you get off the phone with someone, you see something in person that affects you – feel a certain way – then it hits … and it hits hard. You get inspired. You pick up the keyboard or guitar (or whatever you play) and you just start magically making something phenomenal with minimal effort. This, is the inspiration I’m talking about.

If you’re a tech/engineering/design type of person you’ve had this happen when you’ve realized you know how to solve a problem and you feel the overwhelming feel to drop everything you’re doing to go implement what you’re thinking about. You cant get it out of your head, it makes sense, its “flowing” and the thought consumes you. You’re excited about it beyond comprehension. This, is the inspiration I’m talking about.

Sure, you can escape and deflect your peak inspiration if you want – but you shouldn’t. Peak inspiration is where the magic can (and usually does) happen. Don’t ignore it. Your inspiration will perish. Don’t say “Wow, this is a great idea/etc, I’ll do this later”. Chances are, you wont. At that point you’ve let your inspiration perish. Take advantage of it and ride the wave of inspiration, you’ll be surprised at what you create and share with the world.

Remember, inspiration is perishable – take advantage of it while you can.

 

 

A side note about inspiration and “The Madness” …
“The Madness”
Understanding the idea of peak inspiration is easy, but relating it can be hard at times. Thankfully Jason Roberts and Justin Vincent coined the term “The Madness” on their podcast, TechZing. “The Madness” is a form peak inspiration. Its when you’re so inspired that you can’t get the thought out of your head and you have to work on it. You become consumed and work at a blistering pace and produce amazing things in fractions of time that it would normally take you. This is called “The Madness”. You become overly consumed with your work through your inspiration and it consumes you. If you’ve fallen into this realm of peak inspiration and you’ve taken advantage of it and come out the other side amazed at the items you’ve created then you’ve had a case of “The Madness”.

Android From The Trenches

by 5 Comments

I recently was slated to present at Philly Emerging Tech last week. Unfortunately a few things came up and I was not able to make it at the last minute. However, I did record my talk and send it to the Philly Emerging Tech team to distribute to their attendees. They have since uploaded the talk to their Vimeo page for everyone to view. Below is that talk. The talk covers my experience in having two apps in the top 100 free category in Google Play. Enjoy.

ETE 2014 – Donn Felker – Android From The Trenches from Chariot Solutions on Vimeo.

AARRR Metrics Apply To All Businesses

by Leave a Comment

I recently dealt with a company that had an odd requirement that I come to their office to sign a contract so that they can remodel part of my house. Note, this is the second job I’ve had them do. This never happened before and I thought it was an odd occurrence seeing how the previous transaction went off without a hitch. Their office is about one hour from my house (Phoenix metro is a huge urban sprawl). Knowing the pain of traveling this distance and the related traffic I asked if they could email me the contract, I’d then sign it (using HelloSign or a related service), send it back and then call them up to make the down payment over the phone/etc

They refused. 

They insisted I come to their office to sign the contract make the payment and then they’d schedule a time to come out and start the work. This is where the problem is situated – the majority of common traditional blue collar businesses (landscaping, pool service, house remodelers, electricians, plumbers, etc) have not advanced into the digital age. I realized this and decided to help them by guiding them into a services that would work for their company. All of contract and payment process can be done virtually without a face to face meeting. With many people being professionals these days, its hard to find the time to drive across town to sign a piece of paper and give them a credit card in between work, clients, wife, children family, etc. I found this interesting because this simple little request that they are insisting upon causes me some grief. I then realized, AARRR Metrics apply to all businesses. But by denying a customer request based upon the simple requirement of a signature and check is ludicrous. In fact … 

This is how you lose a customer and lose referral business.

This is the Referral part of the AARRR metrics by Dave McClure. The lesson to learn here is: convenience the customer do not burden them if a solution is there. Go above and beyond for them. You never know when this person will refer the next million dollar deal for your company. Do the customer wrong and you will have probably lost a customer and any additional referrals they can provide. 

Startup Metrics – AARRR Model Applied

This world is connected in many ways and each interaction you make has a lasting impact on the person and your referrals. If you follow Dave McClures AARRR metrics (slides, video) you’ll notice this company failed the second R. Yes, I know this is not a startup I’m talking about but the same rules apply for almost all businesses. The AARRR metrics are: 

  • Acquisition – users come to the site (or business) from various channels (we found them through yelp)
  • Activation – users enjoy 1st visit. “happy user experience”. 
  • Retention – users come back, visit site multiple times
  • Referral – users like product enough to refer to others
  • Revenue – users conduct some type of monetization behavior
Heres the diagram that goes with it: 
 
Aarrr

How They Failed and How They Could Improve

Unfortunately the company I dealt with failed the referral section. As you can see it sits tangental to the acquisition/activation/revenue stream but its still a very important aspect of business. Referrals are huge. My business has been very successful because of this. Fail the referral step often enough and you probably won’t be collecting any additional revenue. The company I speak of above had already acquired me, activated me (I used them to remodel my bathroom and didn’t have this issue) and I had retained me (I came back and had more work for them) and they were retaining me (emailing and calling me about a quote I got). They made revenue, but they really failed the referral route because I probably won’t use them in the future if this is the standard procedure. Strong arming a customer into a position that they are uncomfortable about is unnecessary and should be avoided at all costs. Improving this is simple. They can simply use HelloSign and a either key the transaction themselves over the phone or they can use another payment processor to handle the payment. If the company does not want to pay the transaction fee they can roll that into their cost of goods sold so that it does not affect their bottom line. This way, customers are given a convenient way to interact and the business has the opportunity to bloom through referrals and time savings. 

The bottom line is … if you own a business and someone says over the phone “I like your product – here’s my money, take it” and you say “No I don’t want your money like this. I want this money hand delivered to me, tomorrow” don’t be surprised if you don’t land them as a customer.  

If you remember the simple AARRR acronym you’ll be surprised how your actions are redefined so that they help your business. In turn your bottom line will hopefully continue to  follow an ‘up and to the right’ trajectory. 

 

As a final note, I was able to gently guide the company I was dealing with into agreeing that a digital (or more convenient alternative) was best as they would still land the deal and the customer (me) would still remain happy. I’m continuing to educate them on the various digital options that are available to help their business which in turn will help their customers.