Jameson Detweiler

I’ve recently been researching how to write better headlines. I was going to put this into action with this post, but honestly, just saying what I’m doing is enough.

Now, to the point. Way back in July, I raised money for First Descents on Blake Jennelle‘s new venture MyDunkTank. People voted with money to make me do something crazy. The winning dare is certainly crazy:

Jameson will run the Rocky steps wearing only sneakers, a diaper and boxing gloves for a full hour on a Saturday afternoon.

I had meant to do this earlier, but a foot injury and a lot traveling got in the way, so now I get to do it in cold Fall weather!

In order to get this over with I’m taking the liberty of changing it from a Saturday to lunch time on Friday. (I think it still fulfills the spirit of the dare.)

So bring your lunch, your camera, a seat and some beer (for me) and watch me make a complete fool out of myself. Hopefully, I won’t pass out at the top of the stairs, just the bottom.

• What: Jameson Runs the Art Museum Stairs in a Diaper with Boxing Gloves on for an Hour
• When: Friday, October 29, 2010 at Noon
• Where: The Philadelphia Museum of Art (in the front)

For over a year now, I have been talking with people about creating an event to show off all of the amazing products in Philadelphia. Sure, we have Ignite Philly, but it’s not really a place to show off products.

We needed a place to demo. Fast forward to last Wednesday (October 6, 2010), and this event became a reality.

Above you can watch the first ever Switch Philly. Watch as five Philly area companies get seven minutes to demo their product:

• Packlate is a marketplace for great deals on last minute vacation rentals
• Myna Music (Orpheus Media Research) uses music to find music.
• Apostrophe (P’unk Ave) is making content management cool again.
• CommonSpace (Azavea) makes it easy to plan a night on the town based on how far you, and your friends, are willing to go.
• Zecozi is a new generation of social, sustainable commerce.

Thanks to everyone that helped put this together. Thanks to Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi at IndyHall. Thanks to Blake Jennelle and the rest of the Philly Startup Leaders team. Thanks to all of the amazing companies that demoed their products, and thanks to the amazing sponsors that helped make this happen. Thanks to Neil Kleinman and University of the Arts for being very generous with their space. Thanks to the entire community for filling up those seats. Oh ya, and thanks to the guys from Baltimore who made their way out here on a Wedensday night!

Most importantly, thanks to Brian Kirk, Chris Wink and, especially, Sean Blanda from Technically Philly. If you guys had not taken ownership of this event, it would have never happened.

We had over 150 people during a Phillies playoff game. We were really happy with this turnout, and it has encouraged us to make Switch a regular event. We want Switch to be “our community’s pep rally.” It’s a place for every member of our little community in Philadelphia to show off.

P.S., I learned a bit of a lesson myself. Don’t try to set up live-streaming for the first time on the day of the event. If you noticed that I seem a bit unprepared or unenthusiastic at the beginning and end, it is because I was setting up the live-streaming up until about 10 minutes before we were supposed to start. I’ll be much more excited, and prepared, next time.

I haven’t been writing consistently here in a while. I started this blog as a place to write about whatever I felt like. That has included my thoughts on entrepreneurship, sustainability, Philadelphia and more. I even share the occasional dance tune. Honestly, it’s all been kind of random.

Recently, I realized that I wanted to write more and write regularly, but I needed a specific topic to build on.

If you know me at all, you probably know that I’m a productivity geek. I’m always on the lookout for new software or better processes to make myself more effective. My goal is to work less while doing more. It just so happened that a friend of mine, Ari Meisel, is just as big a productivity geek as me.

Long story short, we started Less Doing.

We differentiate ourselves from other productivity blogs by walking you through the methods and software we use, making it quick and easy to integrate them into your workflow. We already have a few posts up. You can find some great software, some productivity tips and more. Our goal is to someday turn the site into book.

Don’t unsubscribe from here yet though, I’ll still be writing here about non-productivity related topics.

A few weeks ago, Brad Ludden, a fellow Summit Series guy, emailed me about First Descents. I had learned a little bit about First Descents at the Summit Series, and became even more intrigued after talking about it with some other Summiters.

First Descents connects young adults with cancer to each other through whitewater kayaking and other challenging adventure sports.

How awesome is that?

I’m a big believer in the transformative power of physical activity. Since making a personal commitment to regular physical activity 18 months ago, I’ve discovered that physical activity and the outdoors are the best drugs ever created. I firmly believe in their healing power, both mentally and physically.

Brad was also responsible for setting up the amazing white water kayaking trip I took at the Summit Series. How could I not help out?

It just so happens that around this same time my good friend Blake Jennelle was launching his new startup, MyDunkTank. “MyDunkTank helps you raise money by asking your supporters to create dares for you and vote with their donations.”

Long story short, I’m getting dunked for First Descents, and you have a chance to dare me to “do one extreme physical challenge” while supporting an amazing organization.

Right now, “Jameson should run the Rocky steps wearing only sneakers, a diaper and boxing gloves for a full hour on a Saturday afternoon” is in the lead, and I hope it stays that way. Some of the other dares might just be the end of the little dignity I still have.

Dunk me at http://mydunktank.com/jameson.

Thanks Brad Feld for sharing this video.

Wow, I’m still recovering from the most insane and amazing four days of my life. (I’m still wiped out. I almost dropped 110 pounds on my head at the gym last night.)

I spent last Thursday through Sunday in Washington, D.C. at the Summit Series DC10. The website describes it as “an an invitation-only event that connects top young minds and inspires a new generation of leaders to succeed in business and in life.” To be honest, I was a little bit skeptical. The concept sounded a bit too out there, but thankfully, my friends and Jeff Rosenthal from the Summit Series managed to convince me it was worth my time. They were right.

Amazing things happen when you put 750 ridiculous overachievers from the fields of entertainment, technology, politics, business, and philanthropy. No one sleeps. No one wants to because everyone is constantly meeting new and fascinating people and engaging them in deep, long conversations. I think I slept 12 hours the entire four days.

This is what happens:

• You stay out until 3 in the morning, then wake up at 8 the next morning, get on a bus and go white water kayaking with a four-time world champion kayaker on the Potomac, one  of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen. (Thanks Eric for the amazing experience. You’ve inspired me to get back on the water after my shoulder stop peeling.)
  • By the way, everyone was so Type A that not a single person in the group hesitated to go over a 10 foot waterfall within the first hour of being in the kayak.
• You witness an intimate interview with Ted Turner where he confirms something you’ve always suspected—the restaurant business is the worst business in the world.
• You meet and listen to people like Tim Ferris and the entire Summit Series team who have done more than just escape the 9-5 grind and have created truly surreal lifestyles.
• You meet people with amazing missions in life, like 21-year old Tyler “Dogood” Kellog who spent last summer traveling and living out of his car in order to hand out random acts of kindness to people.
• You find people like the founders of Method who like you believe that creating a sustainable world will only happen if we provide people with sustainable choices that are better than everything else regardless of how green they are.
• You participate in a spontaneous 700 person, 30 second dance party. (Thanks Taryn!)
• You connect with people who you know you’ll be friends with for the rest of your life.

I also made plenty of business connections, but that wasn’t really the point. No matter what path these people have chosen, every single one of them is causing change in the world. By surrounding yourself with these people, you cannot help but be inspired.

DC10 has made me think about my life. Lately, I’ve realized that I am being dragged down by far too much. I love the company I’m currently building, and I love the people I work with. More importantly, I love that we’re on a mission to make green building easier and to get rid of products that harm our health.

The experience of building the business is rewarding every single day, but other things in life have been weighing on me. Even before DC10, I knew that a lot of this stress was related to the life I have been living, too tied to physical things and being dragged down by negative experiences and negative people.

There was line that I picked up that stuck with me, “Money isn’t the only currency.” I’ve taken this to heart and have decided to look at life a bit differently, to define success as the experiences I have, the people I surround myself with and the change I help create. Money is great, and it can help with all of these things but no one should be pursuing money for the sake of money. That will just lead to misery.

The result of this is that I’m going to be focusing on a personal project I’ve been contemplating for a while now. I’ll be engineering my life to allow me to focus on the things and people I love and forget about the things I don’t. Ultimately, this should give me more time to focus on my business, relationships and have more unforgettable experiences. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until next time, when we all refuse to go to bed after the closing party and talk until the sun goes up.

And no, that’s not me in the picture, but it is the Potomac.

In Spring of 2009, we applied to the TechStars Summer program as well as several other startup incubators. We were non-selected, and for good reason. We didn’t have much to show at that point, and we lacked direction. It would take a few months for us to solidify exactly what it was we were doing and how we were going to make money.

Fast forward about 9 months, to last month where again, we found ourselves applying TechStars. This time, we were applying to the Boston program which they had moved to the Spring. At first, we applied with a crazy side project that I’d dreamt up over the holidays. Shawn Broderick encouraged us to apply again with GreenKonnect which we thought they would have no interest in. I was also feeling a little down on GreenKonnect. It’s been a long year, and we took a lot of wrong turns (each of which taught us something). Shawn was apparently interested in what we were doing, so reapplying was a no brainer for us.

It changed everything. All of a sudden, we had to focus again. We had to show progress, basically every day, if we wanted to make it into to TechStars. Stuff that had been pushed off for months got done. We had to seriously evaluate a few key parts of our business in order to prove its viability.

I was excited again. Excited in a way that I hadn’t been in a long time. Part of it was the potential of being a TechStars company, but really, we found ourselves moving forward which we hadn’t done in a long time. I was forced to forget about the unimportant stuff and only work on what mattered. We’ve had weeks and even months like this before (typically when we had deadlines), but it had been a while since we had. All of a sudden, we knew where we were going again. It was awesome.

And then, we were non-selected. Again. Man, were we disappointed. We really want to be in Boston. I had expected that if we didn’t get accepted, I’d start to have serious doubts about our business, but I didn’t. I was reinvigorated. I saw this clear path and realized that there is still a huge opportunity for what we’re doing.

Shawn and TechStars are unbelievably kind when they let you know you didn’t make it. They go out of their way to make sure that you know that non-selection does not mean that you don’t have a good idea. It just means that there are at least 10 ideas/teams that they think are better than yours.

I still interpret this as, “You suck!“ It’s not what they mean at all, but I know that the chances of success in this crazy world of startups are astronomically slim. We should be good enough to get into TechStars. Besides, if I know that if I look at it this way, it’s only going to make me want to prove that statement wrong.

TechStars had two primary concerns:

1. Slow progress since applying last year.
2. That we might be late to the market.

That hit me hard because I knew they we were right. Although, I’m confident that we’re still not too late to the market to make it work. We’ve got some competition, but none of us have established any foothold in the market, and we’re doing everything we can to provide a better experience than the others (and based on feedback, we’re doing that).

Now that we’re here, I decided to do two things, figure out how we got to where we are and figure out how to suck less.

So how did we get here?

1. We chased money too early: Six months ago, we started looking to raise money. We thought we had it nailed. We had a source that was very interested. Everything we did was focused on them. We weren’t worrying about the product or gaining traction. Long story short, that source disappeared and we’d wasted months.
2. We talked too much: This problem was especially true of me. I started talking about partnerships and thinking about what we could do with our API. I was constantly trying to make new connections, hoping that an amazing opportunity would open up. We got tons of leads for amazing opportunities, but it had me out of the office or on the phone all the time which significantly slowed the development of our site. It’s hard to convert these leads without a full-featured product. No one is actually going to agree to anything until they can play with the product. Even then, it will probably take several months to make something happen.
3. We tried to do too much: We had this grand vision when we started over a year ago. We were going to revolutionize B2B marketplaces across every vertical. We were going to be VerticalNet 2.0. Ya, that wasn’t going to happen. Too bad it took us 6 months to realize that.

What are we doing to suck less?

1. Do more, faster: This is the TechStars motto, and I heard it over a year ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I really took it to heart. Personally, I often get caught up in details which aren’t particularly important. I’ve gotten better in the past year at prioritizing the important things. Today, I look at what needs to get done, and I think, “What can I do that accomplishes the most in the least amount of time?” Right now, this means focusing on our product, getting it to 1.0 while continually receiving feedback from users and refining it. I’ve stopped pursuing those potential partnerships that I was so preoccupied with. (I haven’t cut it out completely, keeping lines of communication open, but I don’t dedicate a lot of time and energy here.) It’s been unbelievably refreshing to put my head down and focus on the product. I forgot how much I love doing it, and we’ve seen amazing progression recently.
2. Be the best in the world at something: We have competition. We didn’t when we started (that we know about). We’d be in a much better position today if we’d focused on building an awesome product and launching it quickly, but we thought we needed money to accomplish this. We really didn’t. The great thing about much of our lost time over the last year, is that we’ve never stopped thinking about the problem we’re addressing. A lot of the research that we did for the potential investor is helping us avoid a number of potential problems. We now understand all the little details and the pain points of green building product research and selection. When you combine this knowledge with the amazing hacking skills of my business partner, you get something that is seriously epic. (You’ll see it soon enough.) Right now, it’s all about the product, making it as amazing as we possibly can.
3. Feedback, Fix, Repeat: I mentioned this above briefly, but we’ve made it a priority to get the people who need our product to give us feedback, regularly. We’re not even waiting until we have the site up. We have a great, small group of people that love and need what we’re building and will give us feedback on mockups. We’re not wasting time developing the wrong thing. It’s awesome.
4. Ignore everything that doesn’t fit 1-3: I work best when I’m able to focus. Me entire life is in Things. I know I’m overextended when I’m consistently not finishing everything I set out to do at the beginning of the day. By cutting out those things which don’t help us achieve 1-3, my to-do list is empty at the end of the day (well, mostly). Not only does this keep us on track, it feels great to get things done regularly.

We didn’t get into TechStars, but we’re acting like we did. These next three months are all about getting to the point where we have something to show that people really want to use. Will we succeed? Absolutely. (I have to believe that we will, otherwise, why am I doing this?)

And you know what? We’ll apply for the TechStars Summer program.

This is by far the best demo video for a web app that I have ever seen. It is a for TeuxDeux, “a simple, designy, browser-based to-do app.”

I won’t use the app because it does not fit in with the GTD methodology, but the demo video is something worth imitating. It’s simple and straight to the point, but it uses humor effectively to pull you in.

Thanks @bjennelle for sharing this at the PSL Open Hack Day.

By the way, I use Things for task management and love it.