Joel Spolsky's Secret to Start-up Success? Careful Morale Management
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090301/how-hard-could-it-be-start-up-static.html?partner=fogcreek

The problem is that trying to copy one company's model is a fool's errand. It's hard to figure out which part of the Starbucks formula made the business a smash hit while so many of its rivals failed. Starbucks's success is the product of a combination of factors that came together in precisely the right way at precisely the right time. It's nearly impossible to isolate which one was the most important. You would probably have to look at the hundreds of small coffee chains that didn't make it big before you stood a chance of seeing what really distinguished Starbucks.

probably

A start-up requires patience: As in tuning a shortwave radio, you have to make a number of adjustments to get it just right.

The number one mistake most companies make is having the manager of the programmers writing the specs and designing the product. This is a mistake because the design does not get a fair trial, and is not born out of conflict and debate, so it’s not as good as it could be.

Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.

Jamie Zawinski is what I would call a duct-tape programmer. And I say that with a great deal of respect. He is the kind of programmer who is hard at work building the future, and making useful things so that people can do stuff. He is the guy you want on your team building go-carts, because he has two favorite tools: duct tape and WD-40. And he will wield them elegantly even as your go-cart is careening down the hill at a mile a minute.

It's a particularly insidious problem for fast-growing start-ups. When you're really small and you're just starting out, you don't have that many people, so keeping everyone in the loop on everything doesn't really take that much time. But as you get bigger, the number of people who might potentially get involved in any particular discussion increases, and the amount of stuff you're doing as a company increases, and the amount of time you can waste overcommunicating becomes a serious problem.

"Have you ever invited employees to a meeting just so they wouldn't feel left out? If so, you may be an overcommunicator."

Inc: How Hard Could It Be? By Joel Spolsky

Good article on using blogs for marketing

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inc.com%2Fmagazine%2F20100301%2Flets-take-this-offline.html

Joel on Software explains what makes a good blog (and why he's quitting)

누구 블로그

Monday, September 15, 2008 You know what drives me crazy? Programmer Q&A websites. You know what I’m talking about. You type a very specific programming question into Google and you get back: A bunch of links to discussion forums where very unknowledgeable people are struggling with the same problem and getting nowhere, A link to a Q&A site that purports to have the answer, but when you get there, the answer is all encrypted, and you’re being asked to sign up for a paid subscription plan, An old Usenet post with the exact right answer—for Windows 3.1—but it just doesn’t work anymore, And something in Japanese.

You know what drives me crazy? Programmer Q&A websites. (…) You type a very specific programming question into Google and you get back: A bunch of links to discussion forums where very unknowledgeable people are struggling with the same problem and getting nowhere, A link to a Q&A site that purports to have the answer, but when you get there, the answer is all encrypted, and you’re being asked to sign up for a paid subscription plan, An old Usenet post with the exact right answer—for Windows 3.1—but it just doesn’t work anymore, And something in Japanese. The hardest thing about making a new Q&A site is not the programming—it’s the community. You need a large audience of great developers so you have the critical mass it takes to get started. Without critical mass, questions go unanswered and the site becomes a ghost town. I thought the combination of my audience and Jeff’s would bring enough great developers into the site to reach critical mass on day 1

>You know what drives me crazy? Programmer Q&A websites. You know what I’m talking about. You type a very specific programming question into Google and you get back: …

design of the discussion system on Stack Overflow (programming Q&A)

worried

On Excessive Unit Testing and excessive design

From Podcast 38 - Joel on Software Wanted: Business Analyst (Agile) at redbox (Oakbrook Terrace, IL). See this and other great job listings on the jobs page. Here’s a brief conversation between Jeff and I which I transcribed from... はてなブックマーク - From Podcast 38 - Joel on Software はてなブックマークに追加 dann dann testing, good

Joel Spolsky blog

Don't bother me, because I'm in the middle of my most important task as CEO -- hanging window blinds.

Our company was built on the idea of hiring smart and productive people and then clearing the decks.