NutshellMail on the homepage of Forbes.com

We are very excited to announce that NutshellMail has been featured on Forbes.com. In this short video interview, I discuss the common problem many employees face when they can not access third party messaging sites while at work and how NutshellMail.com address this issue in a compliant way.

Check out the video here.

A Check List: Considering Leaving Your Day Job?

If you are considering leaving your day job to start your own business, there are some serious questions you must ask yourself. I did not erratically jump ship when I got bit by the entrepreneur bug. Before leaving my 9-5 (or rather my 8am-1am finance gig), I made sure that I assessed the risks and weighed the benefits.

If you think coming up with the idea is the hard part, you are mistaken. Certainly good ideas don’t come along everyday, but I can promise you that conceiving the idea is actually the easiest part. The process for determining if you should go off on your own is long, hard, and involves some serious introspective examination.

In general, investors look at three types of risks: 1) Market Risk, 2) Technology Risk, and 3) Execution Risk. When determining if you should go into business for yourself, you should weigh the same questions.

The first two are obvious. To quantify market risk, you need to ask “Is my concept/idea/product marketable?” “Does it solve a real problem?” “Will people pay for it or can I find a way to monetize it?” Most importantly, “Is this something that I need?” , “Will I use it?” To address the technology risk considerations you need to ask “Can this be done?” “Can I build it or find people to build it?” Both require extensive due diligence, and I personally spent a long time researching and writing everything down into a draft business plan before even considering leaving my job. Writing a business plan is a painful but critical step. (More on that to come later)

However, the third type of risk: Execution Risk can not be quantified by typical research. It involves serious self examination, understanding your personal limitations, financial situation and relationships with family and friends. To help you determine if you are ready to go off on your own, I have created a check list of questions I asked myself before submitting my letter of resignation:

1) Do I have an entrepreneur’s personality?

An entrepreneur is a person who thrives under pressure, enjoys challenges and is self-motivated. You must be a high-energy person who is not afraid of hard work and long hours. Passion is a must. If you are not passionate about your business, you will find it hard to wake up every morning.

2) Am I willing to make sacrifices?

Becoming an entrepreneur can flip your life upside down and usually involves sacrificing customary ways of life and creature comforts. It is about more than cutting back on luxuries and discretionary expenses. For some, it even means moving in with Mom and Dad. The strain can affect relationships; girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, and best friends can be lost. When you become committed to realizing your dream, you may find yourself alienated from those who are central to your life. Balancing work and life becomes much more difficult and you have to be prepared to accept that.

3) Do I have the proper support system?

Not every entrepreneur is fortunate enough to have a strong family, supportive spouse, or rich aunt. But every entrepreneur must be aware of the role the people in their lives will play and how their startup will affect those individuals. You must consider your family and loved ones when starting your own business as it will most certainly affect their lives as well.

4) Do I have the financial resources to quit my job?

Many experts say you must have a least one year of salary saved up before even considering going off on your own. If you have significant financial obligations, dependents, or responsibilities you can not give up, you better make sure you can meet those commitments in the absence of steady income.

5) Do I interact well with others?

An entrepreneur is someone who can find answers to difficult answers. To find those answers you must be able to interact well with others, convince them to help you, and if you are good, make them want to help you. This is also crucial for building your team, attracting investors, and most importantly acquiring and retaining customers.

6) Can I trust others?

An entrepreneur must wear many hats, but you can not do everything. Those who try, typically fail. Those who are able to find the right people and delegate task have a much better chance to succeed. To be successful you must not only delegate but also inspire. This often means letting go of the reins, trusting in others, and making sure everyone’s mission and interests are aligned.

7) Am I confident in my abilities?

There is a fine line between confidence and cockiness; and, optimism and stupidity. You will experience ups and downs, successes and failures. To succeed, however, you must be resilient and, in general, positive. You can learn many things on the fly, a key trait of most successful business people. But you must also have a core skill set that you can use as a base. Experience in the industry you enter, is not a must, but it is a huge positive. The most important aspect, however, is trusting in your abilities, knowing when to ask for help, and believing that you can actually do it.

There are tons of online resources that can help you make this very important decision. However, two of my favorite reads include Founders At Work: Stories of Startup’s Early Days - a compilation of interviews from successful entrepreneurs in the tech and Web2.0 world (a must-read for any internetrepreneur) and Change the Way You See Everything: Through Asset-Based Thinking - one of my favorite inspirational books.

I am Getting Sued and Laughing all the Way to the Bakery.

So we haven’t even launched and NutshellMail is already getting sued! I know you can’t hear me laughing, unless you are a member of the FBI surveillance team parked outside my building, but I can’t stop. Why you ask? I am being sued by one of my new favorite people-the beautiful, venerable, and zany Jenny Lawson (aka: The Bloggess and co-author of Good Mom/Bad Mom). Below is an excerpt from her email to me:

Hi nutshell guy!

So this weekend I was telling my husband that someone should invent something that would let me consolidate all my email accounts together and was all “God, I’m brilliant” and then I find this and it turns out you’ve already invented my idea. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m suing you for copywrite infringement of an idea I never copywrited (copywrote?) and came up with after you did it already. Also, I’m thinking a new version of your nutshell stuff needs to come out and be like faster or prettier or something, so just remember whose idea that was in case you ever think of doing a version 2.0. Mine, baby.

I’d like a million dollars to drop the lawsuit. Or maybe a slice of pie. Apple, preferably. No ice cream though. I don’t even know why people put ice cream on pie. Seriously, if I see ice cream I’m walking.

Have a nice summer,
Jenny, Bloggess

After asking Jenny if I can post her email on our blog, she told me that she was getting all “blushy” and that I could certainly post her email for a cool million in cash or nothing at all, whichever I choose. Does anyone know of a bakery that sells a million dollar apple pie (ice cream on the side)?

The Greatest Upset of All Time: Business Lessons From a 61 Year-old Potato Farmer

The greatest upset in sporting history has been debated countless times, but in my opinion, the 1983 Sydney to Melbourne Foot Race marks one of the most remarkable astonishments of all time. The 544 mile super marathon from Sydney to Melbourne is one of the most difficult challenges of human athleticism and endurance. It’s no wonder that when 61 year old potato farmer, Cliff Young showed up for the race dressed in overalls and gumboots, spectators and competitors alike thought it was a big joke. When he submitted his racing dues, event organizers pleaded for him to opt-out; such a race could kill a man 30 years younger. The other racers represented some of the world’s finest athletes, fully sponsored, and supported by teams of professional trainers and coaches. In Cliff’s corner? His 81 year-old mother, who planned to follow him in a beat-up pickup truck.

When the race began, the professional runners took off quickly. However, Cliff Young took his time, making spectators giggle as he awkwardly shuffled his boots against the pavement. His running style was unconventional; he was old, haggard, and quickly becoming the race’s humorous sideshow. The well-trained runners, coached by their staff of professional trainers, knew that if they were to finish the race within 6 days they would have to run for 18 hours a day and sleep the rest. But no one told Cliff this. In true Forest Gump style, he kept running and running and running through day and night. After 5 days, 15 hours and 4 minutes, Cliff stunned the world by completing the race in first place–beating the record by 9 hours!

This ultimate Tortoise vs. the Hare story teaches us a valuable business lesson. Cliff’s inspiring tale represents an example of the little guy wining out over bigger, better funded, and longer established competitors. The professional runners, like many industry leading companies, believed they had figured out the best way to run the race. Cliff, with his lack of experience and limited support, did not seem to be a threat. Although everyone told Cliff that he had no chance to win, he chose not to listen. He ran his race his way; and despite the mocking and his unconventional strategy, Cliff finished in first place by many long miles.

When I first heard this story as told by productivity consultant CJ Coolidge of Administaff, I immediately thought of examples where small business were cautioned and warned that it was crazy to enter a race they could NEVER win. WordPress, a blogging platform co-founded by Matt Mullenweg in 2003, represents such a case. At the time of its launch, WordPress entered a market dominated by Google’s Blogger (originally created by Evan Williams of Pyra Labs in 1999), as well as other players like MovableType, GreyMatter, TypePad, and LiveJournal. But WordPress offered a solution and business model different from its better-funded and longer-established competitors. WordPress started off as an open-source solution free to any capable programmer willing to help build a better blogging platform. Before Mark Zuckerberg opened Facebook to outside developers, Matt and the WordPress team invested unprecedented time and energy to develop a solid community. WordPress Made Community Matter. The end result was a more intuitive and easy-to-use CMS solution and blogging platform. WordPress gave its users the ability to easily customize their blogs, create reusable categories, block spammy comments, and easily deploy blogs to external servers. Through the cultivation of a loyal community of outside developers and by providing a service that even non-technical bloggers could use, WordPress defied the odds and established itself as a major player in an already crowded industry. WordPress is now considered one of the top personal publishing platforms in the world, and in 2007, was awarded with the much-coveted TechCruch Most-Likely-To-Succeed Award.

The story of Cliff Young (and WordPress) teaches us that following the road most traveled doesn’t always make sense. Cliff represents the ultimate entrepreneur: innovative, unconventional, free-spirited. While it doesn’t always pay to march at your own beat, most successful entrepreneurs have succeeded by going against the grain. Cliff Young serves as an inspiration to all and provides living proof that the little guy can change how things are done. In the years following Cliff’s ultimate upset, the Sydney to Melbourne race changed forever. Professional runners abandoned their established strategies. Now many competitors run all day and all night, rarely stopping to rest. Many have gone as far as to adopt Cliff’s running style (dubbed the “Young Shuffle”) after experts concluded that it is, in fact, a more aerodynamic and energy efficient way to run long races.

We should all remember that sometimes the turtle can win. But we should never forget that the race is never easy and almost always requires innovative and stubborn resolve.

Thank you to Erica O’Grady and CJ Coolidge for their input into this post.

For more information on Cliff Young’s remarkable feat, check out the following: EliteFeet, My-Inspirational-Quotes, TheAge, Coolrunning, and AustraliaHistory.

The Road to SxSW

For any internet startup, the South by Southwest (SxSW) Interactive Conference in Austin, TX is one of the most important events of the year. At least that is what we have been told. David and I are both SxSW virgins and therefore don’t really no what to expect. However, we can not ignore the buzz around the March 7^th event. Everyone and anyone from the Valley to Mumbai who is involved with the Web will be in Austin, TX to participate in the enormous conference. Last year’s conference was attended by more than 125,000 attendees (including the Music portion of the event); and, the Interactive portion of the event is expected to draw in more than 7,000 participants.

Given the huge amount of potential exposure, NutshellMail.com can receive from the event, we have decided to update our website to let you find out more about our service. Although, we are not yet ready to grant access to the service, we have spent the past several weeks preparing for the Conference. In fact, tonight marks our 5^th night in a row working past 3 AM.

In addition, to preparing the website for the SxSW conference, we have printed t-shirts, lap-top stickers and moo cards, all standards for internet startups looking to get some exposure at the conference. At least that is what we are told.

It is now, 3:32 a.m., on the eve of the Conference, we are still working on the site and we both need to pack before leaving from Houston to Austin in less than 6 hours. Hopefully, we can get some sleep. But, hey, this is what we signed up for when we decided to quite our day jobs and do this “internet thang.”

The NutshellMail T-Shirt (Back)

 

The NutshellMail T-Shirt (Front)

From Corporate To Startup

I am often asked about the difference between working for a large corporation and working for myself. The mix of inquisitors is interesting: some are future entrepreneurs strapped down by the fear of not having a stable job, some are very happy with their corporate employment and simply can’t understand why I would give up an interesting job to go on my own, some have already ventured on their own and simply want to share experiences, some are family members who fear for my future…I don’t blame them, they are the first people I will go to if I need a loan. But my answer is always the same: There exist pros and cons for both, but in general I am extremely happy with my decision to walk away from Corporate America to realize my vision and attempt to launch a business of my own.

In short working for a Fortune 100 Corporation was a great learning experience. I enjoyed the stability of a regular income, well-defined tasks, and regular faces. What I did not enjoy was the stability of known-but-capped income, doing the same thing every day, and dealing with office politics. The greatest benefits include gaining real-world knowledge, developing real skill sets, and learning how a large business operates. But the main draw back was feeling under-challenged and perhaps under-appreciated. Quite simply, at some point my learning curve began to plateau.

To describe what it is like to work for myself, I can not simply state the inverse of the pros and cons for working for a corporation. That would be too obvious. For starters, I made some very serious sacrifices, not only monetary but personal sacrifices. I lost friends, I lost a girl friend, and at times, I lost confidence. The challenges and pressures were and continue to be intense. Going off on your own is a big deal; very few people do it and so everyone is interested in watching your progress…Don’t let them get to you. The fear of not knowing how you are going to pay your bills is intimidating, building a strong team of co-founders and employees is challenging, and selling your vision to investors or even your friends and family is daunting. But these pressures and fears are what I love most about the startup life.

I love that in a single day, I have to wear multiple hats as a marketer, engineer, financial analyst, human resource manager, accountant, lawyer, copy-writer, researcher and overall problem-solver. I love that every day is different, complete with new challenges, successes and even failures. I love the learning process, the introspective examination, and the personal growth. Even though everyday is two steps forward and one step backward, nothing is more satisfying than looking up from your desk and seeing your team working hard to realize your vision.

If you are like me and enjoy taking risks, tackling challenges and solving different problems every day, then perhaps going out on your own is a good idea. However, I implore you not take this decision lightly. Ideas come and go all the time; the idea is the easy part. Before you go off on your own you must ask yourself, “Am I ready?” “Do I have the personality of entrepreneur?” “Have I weighed the benefits and assessed the risks?” “Am I ready to sacrifice much of what I have spent my life to build?”

I never regret my decision to go off on my own, but only because when I did, I knew I was ready. In my next post, I will discuss the check list I went through before submitting my letter of resignation.

Our Story

This is our story.

It is an account of two best friends who have set out to solve real problems for real people. Specifically we have taken on the charge to make the ways we all communicate online easier to manage and more accessible. After extensive research, we came up with NutshellMail.com, a free web-based service that enables you to better access and manage all your email and social networking accounts through any inbox you already use.

This blog will not only chronicle the experiences and challenges we face in trying to launch an internet startup, but it also addresses the very issues our solution was designed to resolve, namely:

• How can we better manage all our messaging accounts?
• How can we access personal messages at work without violating company policy?
• How can we keep our children safe online?
• How can we be more productive with online communication?

This journal will provide useful advice, statistics, news, and our personal thoughts on both business and the Web. Hopefully with your feedback, it will facilitate discussions and educate readers (as well as ourselves) about the Web, online communication, social media and how these forces continue to change our lives. We are particularly interested in how the Web affects the way we connect, communicate and collaborate, both, in our personal lives and in the workplace.

We believe the Web is a big, continuous conversation. We hope you find our posts to be informative and entertaining. We pledge to you, our readers, to always be honest, to speak straight, and to listen to your feedback. We encourage you to post comments, introduce new subjects and invite your friends to join the conversation.

Sincerely,

Mark and David

The Nuts at NutshellMail.com