The Top Commandment

Don’t be afraid to fail. It is ok to fail. It is actually good that you fail. Failure is an option. Failure is also commonly known as fear, and “We have more to fear than fear itself”, as best quipped by FDR in 1933.

Fear and the thought of Failure, comes from the expectations set upon us by our society by the one who took second placed. And nobody remembers who lost any Super Bowl. Nobody remembers who came in second. There are no awards for second place. Everyone remembers a winner.

It is in our nature to be winners, to come in first place. First place is best captured by George Patton, the General of WWII during a speech he said to the 6th Armored division: “America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in Hell for a man who lost and laughed.” Another famous person who captures the essence of winning, is none other than Vince Lombardi. He took the Packers to five Super Bowls, winning two, and forever his name will be associated with the definition of a “Winner”.

Vince Lombardi said in an speech, “There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is first place.” And am sure we are surrounded by more quotes than I can put in a blog. Even our former governor, former Mr. Universe, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has his Six Secrets to Success. And he put the fear of fear in his competitors.

So why, in a few words, go from great quotes from amazing individuals on Winning and being Number 1, to embracing failure?

Because entrepreneurship is all about the constant living with this fear of failure, which paralyzes us, which demotivates us, makes us un-safe, which makes us retreat and makes us weak and which keeps us doing the same onerous task day in and day out. But when you peel all the layers of fear, it is not failure we are afraid of, it is the fear of the unknown. That unknown is what we are afraid of and it is our subconscious mind acting up which makes us believe it is failure what we are afraid of.

But let me just say that, that unknown, that uncharted territory, that “black closet”, “dark alley”, is what makes entrepreneurship the essence of the American Dream. Not knowing what is going to happen, how, when, and where, are things that we are faced with and challenged each day of our entrepreneur life. Running a business is complex. There is no school on how to run a business (Facebook 101) and no classes on how to react to situations that may arise out of Murphy’s law. (iPadGate).

And why do I say not to be afraid of failure? and that failure is an option? Well, at least for me, when I reach 80 years of age, I rather be resting on a hammock over looking the ocean with a smile on my face because I will forever know that “I tried it” instead of asking myself “what if….”. And I hope that you can learn, that the best gift you can give yourself is the gift of going after your dream instead of living someone else’s’ dream. Just like the late Jobs said in his Stanford speech “Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”

It is after all, the will, the perseverance, the determination, the chutzpa, the constant challenge, and of those who are not afraid fail, which makes a great entrepreneur.

So stop being afraid of failure. Go start something. You never know. You may like it, and it will forever put a smile in your face.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?

Carlos.

Teens joining race to develop the next chart-topping apps

Making the Smart(er)phone.

Not long ago, during the Bubble Ball apex, I was asked about teens and programming for mobile. Here is the resulting interview in Miami Montage.

All thanks to the exposure we received as a company from then 14-year old Robert Nay, and his Bubble Ball hit which became the number one app on the Appstore. He got all the media attention, we got all the attention as the technology behind the #1 hit. (Bubble Ball).

I wish when I was that age, I had access to the wealth of information that is available today via the web, etc. Instead, my “Google” back them were the bookstores and in the mid 80’s, and back then, books on programming were scant. And if my memory serves me right, the only available magazines that I had subscribed to back there were Apple Cider, Dr. Dobbs and BYTE. And back them, those were hardcore magazines.

Carlos.

Innovation Paralysis and The Shiny Object Syndrome

Innovation Paralysis

It shouldn’t be a surprise to all of us here what has been happening in our industry in regards to innovation and the paralysis wrought into itself.

Why this innovation paralysis? For starters, companies get too big and complacent. Companies reach number one and then, it is a matter of holding on and milking the cash-cow to the last drop. Getting too big is not the problem actually, as I have seen this in smaller companies as well; holding on to the cash cow it until you suck the life of it, and even continue to maintain it after it has had its heyday, on life support. 😉

The most blatant and recent example of this paralysis, and I have seen plenty, is that of Nokia. Finland’s mighty mobile company, which at one point was producing 1 million phones every three days. MBA Schools had “case studies” on how Nokia’s assembly line and production lines were to be studied in order to build successful and profitable assembly lines. And today, we find ourselves pondering the future state of this one and formidable mobile handset maker Nokia. Am not saying that they are doomed and will fold in a few days, but it is the paradox of holding on to the cash-cow which produces innovation paralysis, near slightness and my favorite, the Emperor with No clothes Syndrome.

My personal experience with Nokia was that of hubris. They were Nokia, and you never asked how high, you just jumped.

That was a few years ago, circa 2005. We are half way through 2011 and seven “computer years” is not a lot considering the process of manufacturing new devices, etc, and look at Apple, reshaping the world of mobile, a company that was not and was not known to have become a mobile company. Apple, true innovators at heart, knowing, and knowing from experience, that you have to “sacrifice” ( a softer word than killing ) your first borne.

Apple killed the Apple ][ line in order to make way for the Macintosh. Lesson learned. Macintosh is cannibalizing its sales of its laptop, desktops with the iPad/iPhone. They learned their lesson early. They experienced it first hand. We all remember clearly when Apple was ready to go out of business. Can you imagine what this mobile world would look like if companies like Nokia, Microsoft, RIM would not have been shaken up. Android from Google was a competitor to RIM, what would this world look like. I can only imagine an OS like Windows 95 running on a Series 60 from Nokia and with the worst interface ever.

But what irks me the most is what his happening lately. Innovation paralysis is happening not just because the companies find a cash-cow and decide to milk it and CEOs walk around naked, but because of the pure and simplest form of stifling innovation due to of the patent wars. If I could draw who is suing who on a piece of paper, it would look like one giant doodle. Arrows pointing everywhere and no clear winner.

Patents are a mere form of innovation paralysis. Lodsys suing independent developers, Apple suing Google and Samsung, Microsoft suing HTC, Oracle suing Google and HP, HTC suing who?. Kodak suing Apple. Kodak up for sale. Buy Kodak so we can get the patents and lets sue the pants of everyone we can. Patent troll companies suing X, and Y and Z. Am not an expert on patents, nor do I want to be one, I am not allowed to read patents, or get near any piece of paper that describes a patent, but when there is this over abuse of power, it stifles innovation, and the ones who end up paying the price are the independent developers and users, aka your trusting loyal customers.

And honestly, I have not seen this blatant suing over patents in my history in the computer industry dating back to 1984. Some of the most “shocking” cases of yesteryear were those of when an executive jumped to a competing company and “took” trade secrets or employees with her. Nobody talks about monopolies anymore. Now days is not even “what’s in your patent portfolio? lets cross license” rather, “You are violating my patent. Pay up.”

The Shiny Object Syndrome

A few weeks back I introduced our Advanced Technologies Group inside of Ansca. See http://atg.anscamobile.com

I received a lot of feedback and big thumbs up for starting a new group focused entirely in researching advancements in the field of computer graphics, mobile, UI, programming principles and others. It is a group that can focus on new initiatives without disturbing the core of our Corona SDK team. It is, as I wrote “to be able to deliver forward thinking technologies that can ultimately either become products themselves or implement as features into our current or future products.”

So what does this have to do with the shiny object syndrome? A lot. Companies large or small think that being the best is by the number of features the product has vs the competition. Its true. I see our competitors trying to add features to their products because the marketing department thinks that winning is by having 10 more features than a competitor. The problem is, those ten so-called features are not essential to the success of its customers nor the success of the product. And worst, the features set is limited due in large part because the only thing against software development is time. Time is our only enemy. Getting there first is what matters says the marketing team. Really, how many search engines were there before Google?

I have seen products large and small suffer from “feature-ritis” and I know first hand what the syndrome can do to the product. It becomes a nightmare to maintain and to support. And when it comes to backwards compatibility, good luck. It can sink your product faster than the Titanic.

So what do features have to do with the shiny object syndrome? Exactly that. Two fold. One, this “shiny object syndrome” becomes the “must have” [insert your favorite new mobile/computer jargon] feature, completely disrupting the flow of the company’s product and engineering team, and two, the feature is half-ass implemented (crippled) because you only need enough of the feature (and not enough time) to be able to “check” it off on the feature list comparison matrix.

Strangely enough, we all suffer from feature-ritis, but there is a difference between the feature list of the MVF requested by the users, vs the MVF requested by marketing. (Most Valuable Features in case you didn’t recognize the TLA).

I come from a world of monolithic applications with 18 months cycles and with a code base over ten years old to mobile products where the lifecycle is in mere months. (Nokia was notorious for shipping new devices every so many months apart). In mobile, 18 months matters, companies have been bought (motorola) and companies throw away entire business units (Palm/webOS). And I have first hand experience on both sides of the fence (Illustrator/FlashLite).

And this is where our ATG comes into play. A new group chartered with the freedom to explore the Shiny Objects of our industry without disturbing our core Corona SDK engineering team.

One thing that all of you must understand, innovation/ideas/exploration/disruption and challenge is encouraged in my company, so everyone is free to participate to introduce ideas, etc., not just ATG, so I don’t want you to think that only ATG is pegged with coming up with new ideas. We will switch people around if we can and time permits, but the impetus behind this new group is to foster innovation, break out of the paralysis, and avoid the trap of the shiny object syndrome.

It is, after all, what I always believe in, in the entrepreneurial spirit in us, which drives us and enables us to innovate and forge ahead into uncharted territories.

And we are not afraid to change, to adapt and to disrupt. And we will continue to out-innovate, out pace and displace our competitors.

Carlos

Podcasts

I was on an Aussie podcast not long ago. Tech Webcast – Australia’s leading technology show. Listen at

Techwebcast video ep142: Carlos Icaza from Ansca Mobile

I was also on reviewme.oz-apps.com, another great Australian technology and apps review site. Listen at

http://reviewme.oz-apps.com/2011/07/meet-developer-well-co-founder-in-this.html

reviewme.oz-apps.com is doing a series of podcasts interviews. I will post them as they get published.

Hello HP Touchpad. Welcome to the Game.

A few weeks ago, more like two months ago, Walter and I were invited to the HP/Palm campus for a private developer event where we got to meet and greet other developers and Palm folks. But the fun didn’t stop there. We all got an HP TouchPad to play with for a few hours and pick the HP devs brain for a few hours as well. It was two days of cramming with the HP/Palm folks and the TouchPads.

For two days, a select few of high profile developers and third party tool developers like ourselves were privy to the TouchPad. Our very own TouchPad for two days.

Here is my first hand experience with a still in work progress unit.

The TouchPad will be a “Formidable Foe” to the iPad. The entire experience, from developing to installing apps, to the way the TouchPad launches, shutdowns, to the overall UI experience is fantastic. It really feels like a unit that a lot of thought has been put into it. It is not clunky. At least, I didn’t feel it was clunky nor unwieldily like the Motorola XOOM. The overall user experience is unified and pleasant. It outshines any of the current crop of Android tablets out there and the RIMM PlayBook.

Unlike XOOM, where the XOOM UI feels like it was put together with duct tape, the TouchPad’s UI felt more coherent, robust and much more complete. It was clean and easy to navigate and not prone to figuring out what you did to figure out how yo got there, which I often find with Android devices. Uh what happened. None of that on the TouchPad.

From a developers perspective, the webOS and core SDK are a dream comparing it to the Android SDK/NDK and the RIMM SDK. Installing apps, no brainer, debugging, no brainer, the simulator, IDE, debugger, not brainers. It is one click process to install and no fetching different components, setting up crazy directories paths, etc. It is pretty much just like an XCode like experience. One click install. Again, how much can I emphasized cleanness. Try setting up the Eclipse IDE to work with the Android NDK/JDK. It is a nightmare. It makes the Android NKD/JDK feel like the old development days of NOKIA. Backwards. Yet HP webOS team did a fantastic job in creating a great development environment. Seriously, Google should take note.

Now, the bad. The units we had were still in development, and throughout our sessions we were reminded that a lot of the features going in the SDK had quite a number of limitations. Ranging from keyboard issues, to international keyboard support to other issues that would be too much to enumerate. You just have to download the SDK and find out. As for services, a lot of it still work in progress. And they understand that. And that constant reminder was good enough for me as well as for Walter. We had one to one chats with the people that matter and they were eager to listen. And listen indeed. They took notes, and followed up. Shocking isn’t it? Not quite when they are in it for the win. The kids from ShoreLine/Amphitheater Parkway should take notice. How many times had we been left in the dark or “just switch to 2.3” as if it was that easy.

Needless to say, I am impressed with the TouchPad and given that HP has 80% PC market penetration, and huge amount of shelf space in major retail stores, I think this unit will pose quite a challenge for the Android tablets which are still trying to figure out how to duke it out with each other. The XOOM has been a disaster, the RIMM, lets not even go there. But with HP even mulling bundling their laptops with webOS instead of Windows OS, I can only think of HP paying 1.2 billion for Palm so that they don’t have to pay Microsoft Windows licenses anymore, I think that HP/webOS/TouchPad could be positioned to be the number two tablet in this crazy world of tablet/smartphones we live in now. It will be time before it takes off and of course a lot of quirks will have to be figure out, but it was a pleasant unit and one that I would use on a daily basis. But remember, it is not always about the unit, it is also about the apps. Apps are currently lacking, but am sure a lot of them will be on their way soon.

Welcome TouchPad.

Carlos

How can a simple call change our view of a competitor?

I was in a call today, getting ready to bolt out of the meeting to go catch a flight. During the call, a business as usual call, the conversation turned into the number of visitors of our site on a daily basis. It is our policy not to disclose this information for many reasons which I will not go into, but you would have an idea of what they are if you were in a similar position.

The calling party then had the gull to disclose a competitors number of visitors during a specific period of time. Now, I didn’t ask for this information, it was volunteered. It was at this moment when I realized how keeping mum on certain company information is worth more in silence than the price of an ounce of gold. That could have been our information being disclosed to a competitor of mine.

Here is where it gets interesting, I was pressured to disclose what I consider vital information for the success of our business. I continued to decline an answer to the point where the calling party thought I was nowhere near the amount of traffic this specific competitor had to our site. He was trying hard to make me cave in and disclose this information.

I knew inside of me that our number of visitors was higher. Much higher than the number the caller stated. I just didn’t know an exact figure. After the call, I was left with a bitter taste both from a business call perspective and sour business practices. Goading me at whatever cost, to get, what again I would consider sensitive data, was unprofessional.

Well, without sounding arrogant or like if am gloating, here it is. I did an analysis of our traffic and here is what I will share, it took me four tries to get my data to match anywhere near our competitors traffic. For half the period of time from our competitor, our traffic was in the 7 digits, then cutting down the period of time to half, the traffic was in the six digits, cutting down the time to a months worth of traffic, the data was still in the six digits, then my sarcasm kicked in and decided to cut down the time to a four day period, our traffic was still higher by 27,000 new visitors.

That data blew me away. In four days, we had as much, if not, more traffic than a certain competitor has had over a 12 month period. There is a lesson here somewhere, I just don’t know what it is. Had this caller not provided me with someone else’s data either public or private, I would have not known how we fared against them. At the same time, I wish I would have not learned of their data. I now know where we are in relationship to them, but that doesn’t mean we can sit on our laurels and not compete as aggressively and tenaciously as we always do. In business, one misstep and you can become a statistic and that of the dead pool. There is no way we are headed to the dead pool. Maybe our competitor is judging from their traffic. Certainly not us.

Now that’s the art of Entrepreneurship.

Carlos

ps: to the caller – see this is why I don’t divulge this type of data. It could be used against me.

Maybe Adobe is not killing Flash after all. But Google certainly is.

Google debuts Flash to HTML5 Converter. More from InformationWeek

And from Google, the tool can be found at “swiffy”

You can accuse me all you want for being biased about our Corona SDK – but be honest, the reality is that Adobe is being embattled from all sides. First Apple, now Google, a long time ‘friend’. Walter and I said it and keep saying it, Flash is not ready for mobile, never was, never is, never will be. Certainly now more than ever.

Carlos

Is Adobe Killing Flash?

Well, I certainly hope so. In light of the recent analyst call where there was no mention of Flash or any Flash related products contributing to their bottom line as well as showcasing a new Flash Like HTML web animation tool called Adobe Edge, one has to wonder what is going on inside of Adobe and its strategy for building on top of the once al mighty Flash platform.

I have received a number of inquires about Corona SDK from Flash programmers who are frustrated with Adobe’s roadmap and song and dance about Flash and how with its Open Screen Project and its AIR marketplace will eventually dominate the app and distribution channels to help foster the Flash/Air/Flex cause.

It has been over 5 years since Adobe purchased Macromedia and Flash has become a second class citizen inside of Adobe. With all its engineering power and deep pockets, Flash still has mediocre performance on Android and abysmal performance on iOS devices. Only for developers to sit and wait now for more than five years.

Is Adobe Edge a symbol of Adobe throwing in the white towel into the mobile ring and giving up after all these years of trying to unsuccessfully attaining the once dominant runtime engine from the web world into “non-pc devices” or is it another bet in its arsenal of the MBA suites covering their asses in case these other platforms succeed. The argument here could be that Adobe is a big company and as any other company with deep pockets can, and will, fiddle with “emerging technologies” and they could afford to foray into un-charted, unproven “technologies”. Adobe after all, is a industry leader and a company that sets the standards. I would agree, but those days are long gone. Long gone.

Whatever it is, and however you see it or Adobe sees it, I will contend that this is a significant blow and a major black eye for Adobe for having spent $3.1 billion on Macromedia for Flash. Only to have Adobe fail to deliver and failed to capitalize on their strength on making Flash the de-facto mobile framework engine.

At the All Things Digital D9 conference, Shantanu failed to answer Mossberg critique of Flash having poor performance on Android devices, even on such devices as the Motorola Xoom. And how about the fracas on the RIMM Playbook using AIR as a core development tool on top of QNX. It is a joke. Not only that, but Shantanu played the “business model” card vs performance card when questioned about Jobs banning Flash from iOS devices. (See: Wired, April 30th, 2010 article)

Well for all of you Flash developers out there caught in the middle of the cross fire, unkept promises and a cloudy future, there is an answer for you, it is called Corona SDK, and now with SpriteLoq, you can take almost all of your Flash assets and convert them to Corona. Unlike Adobe, we are committed to deliver the overall best framework for mobile, we are focused, small, lean and we can adapt to change faster than the loud growling, chest beating, all noise but no action 800 pound gorilla.

We have had the number one game on the iTunes App store, we have the top games across all three major Android app stores, those of Amazon, Google and Barnes and Noble. We continue to have top apps across the board, and we have had a number of apps break past the one millionth download mark. A few days ago, around June 20th, Yobonja, makers of Blast Monkeys, notified us that their game blew past the 2 million download mark. They are currently tracking as the number four game overall on Android market place and number 2 right after Angry Birds in the Action games category.

Proven technology from the guys who brought you Flash-Lite.

We may not have the Adobe name but we have the un-relentless commitment on making our Corona SDK the number one framework for mobile game and app development across all major platforms, with significan focus and drive to make it happen.

Go ahead and download our Corona SDK. Try it for free. You won’t be disappointed. And don’t forget to vote for the features you most like to see implemented in Corona over at our roadmap page.

Visit our “Flash Developers You Will [Heart] Corona” page to learn about Corona vs Flash and how easy it is to get started and porting your Flash games to Corona.

Lastly, don’t get me wrong. There is the “business” of Adobe and there is the “people” of Adobe. I worked with some of the best people in there, I hold high regards for them, smart, fun, witty, brilliant, extraordinarily brilliant. It has been said that if you want to get smart, hang around smart people. And Adobe has a bunch of them and I learned a lot from them. This is not about them. This is about the “business” of Adobe and their inability to deliver. Some of them are just caught in the quagmire of big business politics where the bottom line and cost saving measures is their modus operandi.

The “oh-so-ever-loose cannon”

Carlos

[now in seclusion. whereabouts unknown] And for those who want to burn me in effigy, I will be more than happy to provide you with the gasoline and matches 😉

“…Lua is proving itself as a great language for mobile development….”

But don’t just take my word.

More and more, Lua is proving itself as a great language for mobile development, and Corona SDK by Ansca Mobile has been a key ingredient in this movement.

Roberto Ierusalimschy.
Creator of the Lua Language.

I met Roberto a few years back when we first launched Ansca, thanks to Kore Technologies for putting the lunch meeting together. The entire Ansca staff was at lunch and I remember bringing my Lua book to have Roberto sign it. A year later, vacationing in Rio de Janeiro I met Roberto for dinner. By this time, I had a few screen fulls of Corona based games running on my iPhone and I showed him what our developers were creating with Corona and of course with the Lua programming language. He was happy to see how far you guys push both Lua and Corona to do some amazing games.

Lately, as Lua has broken into the top ten languages in the TIBOE Programming Index, the chatter box around Lua has increased both over at Amazon and other venues.

One surprising factor, to me, was that over at Amazon.com, when you search for Lua, the results show a related searches section and “corona sdk” shows up.

So yes, I would agree with Roberto. Corona SDK has proven itself not only as a great tool for mobile development, but it is also pushing Lua as the lingua franca for mobile development as well.

Carlos.

It started in 2003..

I came across these set of images while doing a clean up of one of my folders and thought it would be interesting to share.

These are a set of images of my first foray into mobile. The images were done for a prototype bar tending application I was working on using an HP Pocket-PC (iPaq) running Microsoft Windows Mobile circa 2003.

Yikes! Glad am not known as a designer. But the constraints of yesteryears devices was also limited.

Carlos