Meeting People and Ohours

Recently I haven't had the time to write any new quick posts and am sorry for that, but have been working on a longer piece to coincide with the launch of this project I've been working on called YumOrder, which should be ready this week. Last night I had the pleasure of hosting my very first Ohours, which is a site that lets anyone schedule time to talk or to meet with anyone else on the site. Right now, there's a great group of interesting people on the Ohours that I'm looking forward to talking to. One of the people I chatted with last night was Nathan Hurst, the founder of Hirelite, and the guy who acquired Ohours. He was an awesome and interesting guy to speak with, and I love what he is doing with Hirelite and Ohours. After we talked it got me thinking how it is important to be maintain the relationships you have built, as well as it is critical to meet new people in both the business world and personal world. Over the summer there was a period where I wasn't putting enough time into meeting and hanging out with both new people and people I already knew. Now that I've been placing more time into meeting and talking to a lot of new people, it's made me put more focus on developing and maintaining new relationships. My advice to anyone who wants to meet new people, get on Ohours or go to a local technology Meetup as soon as possible, and I think you'll find it to be pretty rewarding!

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

Acquisitions I Would Make as the Head of Google

Google is one of my favorite large companies, as I love their products and like the culture that is promoted by the management. Google is very strong in five markets, and has the potential to become stronger in two or three other markets as well. Right now, Google is dominant in search, email, advertising, mobile, and video. I think Google has the potential to become dominant in either cloud computing or social, and the potential to become a major player in payments both online and offline. Here are a few acquisitions that would make sense to me to defend Google's products and make advances with other products.

Square - Square makes sense for quickly breaking into the mobile payments market. They currently have over 800,000 merchants using the service according to Jack Dorsey. Plus, Google Wallet may not make sense for business owners. I like the idea of Google pushing the adoption of NFC stickers, but think that maybe near field communication technology will not be used by store owners as quickly as Google would like. Square is easy to use, and allows store owners and employees to accept payments anywhere. It would be a pricey buy as Square has a valuation of more than 2 billion dollars, but having a presence in most storefronts throughout the country does sound lucrative.

Either FeeFighters or Stripe (or maybe both) - PayPal has a pretty good product, but I think both of these companies have payment products that Google could use to become a leader in the space. Right now, Google does have an online payment product called Google Checkout, which looks good but isn't used across the internet like PayPal. FeeFighters has a great product called Samurai for online payments and I have a guy working on a product using Samurai right now, and Stripe also looks good. I think acquisitions of either of these companies could help Google gain more momentum in helping people pay online.

This is a list I hope to grow over the coming days and weeks, but I figure it's a decent start even though it only focuses on payments!

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

It's Good to be Angry

Someone a week or two ago said to me how amazing it was to him that I never get angry. I appreciated him thinking that I'm usually cool-headed and collected. However, what I wanted to tell this person is that I do get angry, just like anyone else, but try to never act on my anger. Anger is a common emotion, and emotions need to be felt and experienced. It is healthy to feel anger, but it is not healthy to be destructive with the anger you feel. Politicians must feel a lot of anger when a newspaper or journalist attacks their policies and ideas. But, politicians do not act rashly from anger as if they did, they wouldn't be reelected. Emotions are good. Anger is good sometimes. Just don't let anger guide your actions.

Why Your Idea Doesn't Matter

One of the biggest misconceptions I had when I began dabbling in business and entrepreneurship a year ago was that ideas matter a lot. Ideas don't matter. The word "idea" isn't good to describe something that makes you think about ways to start a business. Problems are what lead to great businesses. Problems can be issues you have everyday, or issues the people around you have everyday. Before the iPod, people didn't really think that the way they listened to music had faults, but ten years later the iPod has changed the way that most people listen to music. Sometimes, people don't even know they have certain problems until someone comes along and provides a service or product that makes life easier. There are some problems I have that I know how to solve, while there are other problems that are much tougher for me to think about. For instance, I think someone in the world has to find a way to develop a pair of prescription eye glasses that only cost $1.50 to make. There are hundreds of millions of people in the world who would love to have better vision for $2.00. There's an enormous number of people in the world who have problems that are sometimes ignored. Problems are all around us. Don't think about ideas, think about problems, and you'll be successful.

Applied Semantics

Back in 2003, Google bought a company called Applied Semantics. If you were to ask ten people on the street today if they had ever heard of a company with that name, seven or eight of them would probably say they hadn't. However, if you were to ask that same group of people if they had ever heard of something called Google Adsense, I have a feeling five or six of them would say they had. Applied Semantics supplied the technology that was needed to create Google Adsense. Have you ever been on a site with ads? If so, they most likely were supplied by Google Adsense. It's an incredible product. Anyone can post one line of javascript code into their website, and they immediately start displaying ads that they can use to make money. The technology from Applied Semantics allowed Google to retrieve information from different websites to allow highly-targeted ads to be used on those sites. Adsense is now a billion dollar business for Google. Sometimes, there are small unknown stories about products we use everyday. Stay tuned for more about interesting technology startups that you may use already, or that may help you solve problems in your life!

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

"Every Little Thing is Going to be Alright"

Today I read an article on the Huffington Post, about Jamie Hubley, who committed suicide after being bullied for being gay. This was incredibly upsetting to me. Whenever someone takes his or her life, it makes me sit back and think about what could cause the need to do this. After reading Jamie's blog (after I read through it for a few minutes I was even more upset), it was clear that he was very depressed. It sounded like things had been going the wrong way for too long, and he couldn't catch a break. Maybe after a certain point, after enduring so much pain, people lose the desire to keep going. Life can be a struggle that lasts from the day we're born to the day we die. But, even in the roughest of times, there will always be someone to give you a hug or be there to talk. Whether it be a parent, a friend, a therapist, or some random person on the street, never think that you are alone. If you think suicide is the only way out, I urge you to sit back, call a friend or family member, and wait for that person to arrive to be with you. Now may not be so great, but remember that at some point, things will be better. Everyone around you, though you may not see it, is better off for having you in the world. As Bob Marley said in the song "Three Little Birds", "Every little thing, is going to be alright."

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

LinkedIn: It's Good For Teens

About eight months ago, my parents got an email from someone we both know saying they saw my name on LinkedIn, and that they were concerned about the fact that I was on it. After my parents brought it up with me, I explained that being on LinkedIn was a positive thing, as it allowed me to build up my connections after I met people at various events or conferences. The fact that this person had taken time out of their day to admonish me for being on a business networking site actually concerned me. I understood what this person's perspective was; that this person was probably thinking I might get hurt on LinkedIn or do something silly on the site. However, I also think being on LinkedIn is one of the most harmless things in the world. When did the days end that teenagers were given a little pat on the pack for joining a site like LinkedIn and trying to start a company? I don't think teens should be given a pat on the back for doing something as simple as joining LinkedIn, but I also find it ridiculous that there are some adults who believe that it is unsafe for teenagers to add people that they have met in person on a site that may help them out later in life. My advice to teenagers is to join LinkedIn. When you meet an adult and you ask him or her to add you on LinkedIn, that will show an unexpected sense of maturity. Don't listen to everything you are told, and join LinkedIn if you want to.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

A Day at the Doctor's Office

Yesterday I spent three hours at Yale Children's Hospital seeing a doctor and having some blood work done. Yale has some of the best doctors in the world, and also has a beautiful hospital for kids who are sick and going through a tough time. But, being there for me was a terrible experience. It's just a place that reminds me of memories from the past that are particularly unpleasant. But, I think this is part of the human experience. Almost everyone has been in some situation at some point during the course of life that has been painful, and seeing things or going to places that are reminders of the bad times in the past is tough. But, it can also be beneficial to go to these places and think about what you have become after the life-changing experiences they remind you of are no longer as prevalent in your mind. Don't be afraid to face the past. It's hard, but I think if you do it you will find thinking of the past and reflecting on it might be helpful in learning about yourself.

In one of my next couple of posts, I'll talk about the circumstances around my prior visits to Yale. You can follow me at @kaufman_jack.

Advertising Seems Broken

Whenever I see an advertisement on a billboard or in a newspaper or magazine, I die a little inside. This is because print advertising, and also television advertising is incredibly ineffective. I can not recall one time in my life that I saw a commercial on the television, or read an ad in a newspaper and actually visited the website or retail store for whatever was being advertised. Also, I feel as if though when watching a show, or reading the articles in a newspaper, many of the advertisements that business owners are spending money on are ones I don't even notice. If you were to ask ten people on the street if they pay any attention to ads on tv or the ads that distract them while reading the newspaper, I would bet that the majority of them would say they do not take notice of most advertisements. Companies and businesses who buy ads from the cable companies or newspapers, also make whoever has to read their ads do work to find their product. If I read a print ad, I have to turn on my computer, look up the website of the company that ran the ad, go through the company's website to see what they have to offer, and then think of buying something. My advice to business owners is do not do any advertising through print or television ads. To me, doing so is supporting an industry that doesn't provide a valuable return on investment.

Not spending money on any print or television advertising raises the question of what small businesses' ad budgets should be spent on. My advice, would be to invest in online advertising, whether it be through a service such as Google Adwords or Facebook ads. Imagine a world in which you could target specific people with specific interests or tendencies or target specific search queries related to your product. Also, with online advertising, everyone who clicks on your ad doesn't have to do any work as it takes them directly to your website or web presence. If I'm already on the computer, and see an image or some text to something that might help me, I'll actually notice it and probably click on it too. Doesn't that sound appealing? To me, it is very appealing, and is why you should at least try Adwords and Facebook ads. I'll be on the lookout for other platforms on the internet that are helpful.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

We Are All Just Data

Recently for English, we had to write a quick paragraph using a bunch of vocabulary words we had learned while reading American literature. I chose to write about a potential conversation that I would love to have with Larry Page. Here it is:

"I sat down in the theater for what would become an arduous, yet interesting conversation with Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. I started off by asking him if the new social network Google had been working on was received with much approbation. He said it was doing great, with tens of millions of users and active engagement with everyone on the site, though Facebook’s new Timeline feature and Open Graph would require Google’s vigilance to come up  with new innovations in the social space. My next question led to a change in his disposition, as I asked him whether “free” products such as the ones from Facebook and Google were artifices to gather immense amounts of data to give marketers super-focused ad placement. He then said that the usurpations I was alleging were incredibly false, that I was an insidious person, and that he was going to leave."

To Facebook and Google, we are a lot of data, and some people do not appreciate being tracked for the purpose of profit. I however, am perfectly okay in exchanging my interests and search queries for two products that help me out everyday and for two companies I hold in very high regard. In addition, I think that most people who complain about being tracked on Facebook or Google do not realize how helpful the highly-targeted ads that they provide to business owners can be. Though I've never run a Facebook ad campaign or a Google Adwords campaign, seeing how ads through both platforms can be targeted to very specific groups of people or very specific search queries is incredible. As soon as I launch my first business, YumOrder, I plan on experimenting with both services to see how they can help my business in particular. We might provide a lot of data to these companies and some may argue that our privacy is violated beyond an acceptable level when we use them, but think of how this data helps businesses increase sales and drive the economy forward, whether it be from more jobs at Google or more jobs at your favorite local small business. Data can be very valuable to any business that harnesses its power, and I think the simplest way to not have your "privacy" violated is to not use Google or Facebook at all.

For a good alternative to Google if you do not want to be tracked, I suggest taking a look at DuckDuckGo.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

Young Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Raise Money

When I first began to think about starting a business a year ago, I didn't know anything. I didn't know what General Assembly was, and didn't know much about hiring programmers or learning how to code. What I thought I did know was that the only way I was going to launch a business or product was by raising some money, whether it be from family members or angel investors. This was a thought I held in my mind even after I attended Startup Weekend back in June, as the team I was working with was having trouble launching a product. Then the thought donned on me, I don't need to raise any money since I'm a teenager. I have a place to live, don't have to provide for myself, and can invest my own money in getting a product together and paying for hosting. This was compounded when I met Charlie O'Donnell, who is a venture capitalist at First Round Capital and a great guy overall, and had a telephone conversation with him where he stressed as a teen, at least initially I should be focusing on building a profitable business, and then I once I make something that is producing money, I can focus on raising money to grow things faster. It makes so much sense too. If I build something that becomes profitable, then I have a business with a proven model. Once I have a business with a proven model and some traction, raising money shouldn't be too hard. After someone raises money, then super fast growth can come. Teens shouldn't focus on selling a part of their company right away when they don't have a profitable business, they should focus on creating a profitable business, that can then see the benefits of venture capital or angel money. Over the next week I'll write about how teen entrepreneurs can launch a product for no more than $1,000.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

Problems Need to Be Solved

It's been a long time since my last post, and I apologize for that. I'm hoping to be much more active on this blog over the next few weeks! It's no excuse for not writing, but some days I just don't know what to write about. I thought today I would talk about Dropbox. A week ago, I signed up for Dropbox, and have to admit it is great. It's super fast, and I love how when I upload a file to it at school, I come home and my folder is already synced. The guys at Dropbox solved my problem of not wanting to email all my files to myself that can't be uploaded to google docs, and the service is wonderful. Right now, I don't need to pay for Dropbox Pro as all of my files are pretty small, but I could see in the future using it exclusively to back up everything on my computer.

My point about Dropbox is that it solves a real problem. I feel like too many startups today aren't focusing on problems people actually have. I think a great startup right now would be one that focused on getting jobs for the people in the U.S., and that focused on keeping jobs from going oversees. The United States economy is a mess right now, and there are no clear ends to the problems we are facing in sight. Even something as simple as where companies could pay people who signed up in the U.S. $15 an hour to provide telephone support to customers might help out. The business I'm working on right now, YumOrder, will hopefully help create jobs if it ends up becoming a technology company. Not only through the employees I hire, but the students and people that will sign up to manage small businesses' social media accounts. A startup that helps people get jobs, even ones that are pretty low-paying is so critical right now. There, I just gave whoever ends up reading this a real problem that needs to be solved. Go out right now, stop watching football for an hour, and do something to change the world!

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.