Conflict

Everyone has conflict in his or her life. For me, I usually have conflicting feelings towards other people, and sometimes I have inner-conflict. There was a time in my life when I thought having no conflict with other people was the best thing in the world, so I tried to mitigate conflict whenever possible. Over time though, I've learned that conflict can strengthen and build relationships with the people around me. Having conflict with people you like or love is kind of like doing weightlifting, initially your muscles and relationships get broken down a bit, but after good recovery and reconciliation, they both come back stronger for it. Being in conflict with others close to you is okay, as long as you sit back and let those people know what they mean to you.

Inner-conflict is a different beast. A lot of the time when I'm questioning a decision or thinking hard about an issue, I don't know what the best stance to take is. Usually, I after I prioritize something, or promote or demote certain ideas or values, I wonder if I made the right choice. It's tough to focus on every choice you make as a person, or everything that's going on in the world. Sometimes the inner-conflict is because of insecurities I have. The best way I deal with thoughts from inside my mind about different things in my life is by reflecting on them, tucking them away, and pulling out what I've learned from my experiences when it suits me best. Life is full of conflict, which can be good if you handle it the right way.

Difficulty Communicating

Something I've noticed over the years, is that I'm not very good at talking with people I don't know, or people who I have just met. A lot of times, I'm out and about, or doing something, and think it would be great to strike up a conversation with someone. Usually though, I don't know what to say at first, or run out of things to say. For example, tonight I was at an event at school, and there was a girl I was really interested in talking to. But, when I thought about it, I honestly had no idea what I was going to say. Well I knew I was going to say "hey", and ask a question about school. But, after that I wasn't sure. Sometimes, I run out of things to say to people I know really well. If anyone has any thoughts on being better at talking to new people or better at talking, let me know and I'd love to have that person write a guest post. You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

To Improve or Not to Improve

I'm a junior in high school, and this is my third year running cross country. My goal for this year has been the same as my goal in my prior two years of running, which is to improve my time for the 5K race. This involves doing a lot of speed work, which helps make me faster, but also is unpleasant. For example, this past week I had a workout where I did a ladder going from 0.25 miles to 0.50 miles to 0.75 miles to 1 mile of very fast running, and then went back down the ladder. This was very difficult, but I worked really hard because I knew I wanted to improve. By the end of the workout, I was very tired, but was felt confident that my time would drop at least 30 seconds because of the hard work I put in. To me, lots of things in life are hard and/or painful. If you really want to accomplish something, then the only way to make it happen is to put good work into what you are doing.

Startup Ideas I Would Fund

A couple of years ago, Y Combinator had a list of startup ideas they would like to fund. I thought it might be fun to come up with a list of interesting ideas for interesting problems I would fund! Here it is:

Problem: Teachers, especially in public school, sometimes aren't as motivated to teach and inspire their kids after they have been tenured. To me, teachers who aren't doing a really good job are having a very negative impact on the future of our society.
Idea: Some way to hold teachers accountable to doing a great job after they have been tenured or incentivize teachers to do a better job.

Problem: Kids who aren't motivated to do their best in school. A lot of times I've seen kids with a lot of ability not do well in school. For me, that's very tough.
Idea: Some way not involving money to motivate kids to do well in school. This could be as simple as a blog, tailored to kids, helping them realize their potential. Kind of like a TechCrunch for success.

Problem: A number of high schools and middle schools do not have programming or computer science courses. I think schools should be required to teach programming starting in sixth grade. One problem with this is that hiring computer science teachers or full-time web developers to teach kids how to code is expensive.
Idea: Some sort of site that school districts can pay for so their students can complete computer science exercises, become interested in coding, and learn how to make their own web apps or software applications. I think Codecademy has a chance to do this. Right now, their courses are simple. But, if they develop a set of courses that allow kids to become good at coding in javascript, and then create a set of courses that allow kids to learn Rails really well in a fun way, I know I would pay a $100 fee for the service if they had those courses.

Problem: I want to know where my twitter followers are coming from, and receive analytics about how my followers are engaging me. I know I would pay $5 to $10 a month for something like this.
Idea: Personal social media analytics, focused on twitter. A way to see how your followers found you (from a website, a post with a hashtag, a retweet, or on someone's twitter page). This would help me increase my followers and focus on areas where I could be getting more followers.

Problem: Many professionals and consultants do not have professional looking websites. I've noticed through research that a large number of consultants, and professionals such as therapists do not have websites, or the websites they do have don't look too professional.
Idea: A way for professionals who schedule appointments, speaking times, and consulting time to make professional one page websites with Google Calendar integration so people who come to these sites can schedule appointments.

If I had money to invest as an angel in startups, I would definitely invest in companies solving the problems on this list. Hopefully, in a few years I will be able to invest in tech companies that help people and businesses solve real problems. Right now, I'm working on helping businesses turn new customers and non-frequent customers into repeat customers who come often. You can follow my business @YumOrder.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

Tips For Relieving Stress

Even though most of the time, there's no need to be stressed if you really think about it (Why not to be stressed), sometimes life gets the better of all of us. If you're ever feeling any sort of stress, here are my tips for relaxing and feeling better.

Tip number one - Take deep breaths with your stomach, not your chest. This is a technique that many people recommend, and one that I've called on in the past. Simply breathe deeply in a way where your stomach expands and contracts, and this should help you calm down.

Tip number two - Go talk to a friend or close family member. For some reason, talking to a good friend or a close family member takes my mind off of the things that are going poorly. It's nice to talk with someone who will help you work through what ever is bothering you.

Tip number three (my favorite tip) - Go close your eyes. If you're at work, go sit in the stall for five minutes and close your eyes. If you're at school, go sit somewhere where you can close your eyes for five minutes and not notice anything going on around you. The most ideal thing that I would do, and this is the most difficult thing to do, is take a quick nap. You may be tired when you wake up, but I find that this helps me clear my mind. Whether you close your eyes or take a nap, you will be resting, which from personal experience should help decrease your stress levels.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

Don't Be Stressed

For a long time in my life, I was stressed about a lot of things. It was a terrible way to go through living day to day. Now, it's nice to be able to say that I don't worry about anything. If I have a test, I don't fret. If I have a lot going on, all of the activities don't make me worried. No one should have to be worried about what is coming in a week, in ten weeks, or in a year. In the end, as long as you are working hard, but not too hard, you will be okay. If you are a worrier, remember you are doing your best, and know that tomorrow things will most likely be easier. As Bob Marley said, "Don't worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright." Don't worry, be happy, and remember tomorrow will be okay.

You can follow me @kaufman_jack.

Life

I've found in the short time I've been in the world, life has many ups and downs. One day, I feel like I'm on the top of the world, and other days I feel awful. Lots of things can influence whether or not I have a positive or negative mood. Did I go jogging today, what was school like, did I feel stressed? Even on bad days, I try really hard to not let that affect my interactions with others. Even if you feel like the world is crumbling on top of you, remember tomorrow is most likely going to be better. Be on the lookout for what I think helps when someone is feeling down.

You can follow me on twitter @kaufman_jack.

Learning to Program

One of the most important skills I think a person can have, and one that I've been trying to learn for a while is the ability to program. It's been very frustrating to start Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial, and then be four chapters in when other things in life have to become priorities. My goal this summer was to learn enough Rails to be able to build web applications for some of the ideas I have. Though I was working a job during the day, and trying to find market-fit for my ideas at night, I could have devoted more time learning how to code. Now, I feel like I have to wait until Thanksgiving Break or Winter Break with school and sports before I can have a real shot at making my own web apps. Maybe I can learn web development practicing thirty minutes a night. One of my biggest regrets in life has been not learning how to code when I was younger, so my advice to any teenager or adult reading this is to devote as much time as you can to becoming a developer; you won't see the benefits right away, but when you don't need to hire someone to build a prototype for your startup or you actually get hired to do freelance work, you'll see it's well worth it.

Writing a Book

Recently, between school and focusing on my business and friends, I've had the inkling to write a book. My motivation for doing so came when I discovered Createspace through reading James Altucher's blog post on Self-Publishing a Book. It's amazing to me how easy it is to write a book, and then have it published and printed through a web app. I'm not sure what I would write about. There's a good story I think I could tell, that I'll talk about sometime while writing on this blog. I might talk about fear, or about success and failure. Startups interest me, as do larger tech companies like Google and Amazon. I might write about money in our society and in our lives. I have no special training in writing or journalism, but that's the beauty of the Internet. I can blog and I can publish a book, and real people might read about what I have to say. As a young person, I think that is amazing.

You can follow me on twitter @kaufman_jack.

Google Can Be the Winner in Social Without a Network

Google and its Android operating system has come under fire recently from all directions due to a lack of patent protection. Google acquired Motorola Mobility in part because of the 17,000 mobile patents it holds. Though it is very powerful, Google is a relatively young company with fewer patents than Microsoft or Apple. Mobile search and browsing is a daily part of millions of lives, and that means new revenue streams for Google. The other thing Google realizes is that social media and being social on the web has huge potential for increased revenue. Google has its own social network with Google +. The only problem is the biggest player in social, Facebook,  has over 750 million users.

What is Google to do? In my mind, Google should sue Facebook citing infringement on as many patents as possible, just like Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle are doing to Google right now. Facebook, according to ZDNet, has twelve patents. From an intellectual property standpoint, Facebook is vulnerable. Google shouldn't beat Facebook with a new social network; Google should win the social war with Facebook paying licensing fees. Will Google do this, I don't know. I guess time will tell.

Learning From Others

I'm very big on getting feedback from different markets for different ideas I have. For example, if I have an idea that will target restaurants, I go send emails to restaurants. If I have an idea that will be focused on consumers or on writers, I go talk to writers and get feedback through surveys. Talking to different businesses usually lets me know right away whether or not I'm solving a problem for them, or am just thinking about something that won't help anyone out.

Recently I sent an email with a survey to about 400 restaurants. In the past, I had sent a few emails with different surveys to approximately 200 of these restaurants. While I know this isn't a great way for getting very detailed responses to the problems I am trying to solve, it is a way for me to hopefully get a lot of data very quickly.

The responses I sent out in my last survey were particularly negative. This was very good for me, because I scratched off the idea I had right away. What was interesting was one of the restaurant owners responded to my email and told me to "go fuck myself." I didn't respond to his email, but was happy he sent it. It made me realize that I had to go through my idea validation process differently, and treat the people I was talking to better in the process. Business owners and restaurant owners probably don't want to get a survey every other week because they are trying to run their businesses, so I won't try this way of getting feedback in the future.  The email also motivated me to work harder to try to solve real problems. Sometimes in life, people make mistakes, and then more people make more mistakes because of the previous errors. For a long time I didn't realize the value of mistakes or being wrong, but have learned failure can be more valuable than success.

You can follow me on twitter @kaufman_jack.