I am in a history book club, which I’ve talked about before on this blog. We met last night, and the topic was winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Everyone read about a different winner, all amazing people. But the most interesting thing to come out of the meeting was the story about Alfred Nobel and why he may have started the Nobel Prizes.

Apparently, Nobel and his brothers were the most famous inventors of their time. Most notably, Alfred Nobel is credited with the invention of dynamite. In 1888, Alfred’s brother Ludvig died when visiting in France, and a French newspaper incorrectly published an obituary for Alfred reporting, “the merchant of death is dead” and claimed that “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” (As an aside, there is an interesting list of other premature obituaries here.)

Many speculate that it was this bizarre and premature report of his death that led Nobel to (unexpectedly) leave the majority of his money in a trust to fund the Nobel Prizes.

Fast forward to today. One of the best things about being an entrepreneur is the ability to create new things. But the implications of inventing or building or creating something that didn’t exist before can be serious. I’m certain that the founder of Craigslist didn’t anticipate it being used for murder, that MySpace’s founder didn’t plan for it to lead to suicide and that the inventors of these top 10 inventions that went bad for mankind didn’t plan for them to be used the way that the ultimately were.

Nobel’s invention has been used in mining, quarrying and construction to great results. But it has also been used to kill, murder and maim. That was a legacy that he wasn’t comfortable in leaving - so he did something about it.

I am an entrepreneur, but more specifically, I like to build things that didn’t exist before. I get a lot of joy out of envisioning something new, and then bringing it to life. This story of Alfred Nobel, though, was a good reminder to consider the cost. I’m also thinking hard about what I can to leave a legacy of which I can be proud.

I’m a start-up founder just like many of you, and there are days when I wonder if I’m the only one who feels, acts and thinks the way I do. But there are others that have gone before, and you might be surprised to see which tech founder you are most like. Take our quiz and find out your answer to the question: What tech entrepreneur are you most like?

Click here to take the quiz

(UPDATE: I’m going to ask you for an email address at the end of the process. I wanted to warn you up front so that I don’t catch you off guard!)

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One of the things that we’re working on at Pure Incubation is launching a variety of software tools for publishers aimed at helping them solve their most crucial business issues. (If you want to know more about those publishing problem areas, read this post.) We’re doing this through our Sauce Technology business unit, and today I want to introduce you to a specific application - Quiz Sauce.

The quiz above was built using the application - give it a whirl and let me know what you think. Here’s the link to take the quiz in case you missed it above - What tech entrepreneur are you most like?

I spent the morning at a doctor’s appointment with my sister-in-law Michele and my niece Willow. Michele asked if I could tag along because the appointment was far from home in an unfamiliar location and my brother couldn’t make it to help navigate. I love that my job allows me the flexibility to do things like this. Things like spending time with Willow and watching her grow up; things like taking tennis lessons during the day, which I did two mornings a week this past summer.

Granted, it’s easy to have this type of flexible schedule when your job is at the company that you own. It’s even easier when you’re the only employee and there’s no one else around. But to me, it seems like offering flex-time - especially in a start-up environment (if the business model allows for it) - is no longer a nice-to-have benefit, but an absolute requirement. What do you think?

Photo by Ford Motor Company

I have been writing about the recession since March. Specifically, I’ve been writing about the benefits of starting a company during a recession. As this year has unfolded, and as I watch the loss of thousands of jobs taking a toll on people around the country, I can only feel more and more grateful for what I’m working on. I saw this Twitter post from Penelope Trunk today, and it made me want to clink glasses and toast to one year down.

By the way, you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mchang16.

The Fresno Bee, a newspaper in Fresno, Calif., recently featured this article about entrepreneurs in an economic downturn. The entrepreneurs interviewed were generally optimistic - one of the most important qualities of anyone who starts a company. I’m also interviewed in the article, so check it out if you have a minute.

Entreprenuers see upside in downturn: Many Valley small-business founders see the economic slump as opportunity knocking.

My latest article is up on The Industry Standard - Five warning signs a tech start-up is in trouble. In the article, I highlight five symptoms that are sometimes indicative of a start-up that’s about to fail.

Of course, there aren’t always warning signs that a company is in trouble. This is probably stating the obvious at a time when Wall St. is considering a $700 billion bailout of some household names - AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. These are companies that were so big that they seemed infallible, but yet here we are, and those companies are struggling so badly that they might not recover.

It’s not very fun to focus on the negative. I would much prefer to tell the stories of start-ups that succeeded, made millions and helped save the world. But hopefully by looking out for some of these warning signs, you’ll be able to head them off before they happen to your company.

Photo by adselwood

I am a firm believer that it’s important to celebrate milestones. Anniversaries, birthdays, project launches - in my opinion, they all need to be marked and noted, with proper gift giving, eating & drinking, and celebratory toasts.

Today is the first birthday of Pure Incubation. To celebrate, I’ll have a glass of wine with dinner. But perhaps the most fitting tribute was that today was also my first full-time employee’s first day of work. Today I spent four hours out of the office in meetings, but even so, we got more done today together than I get done in most days of working alone, even when I put in 12+ hours.

The timing was coincidental, but it turns out that a new employee was probably the best gift that I could have given Pure Incubation on its first birthday. Here’s to many more (birthdays AND employees)!

My cousin Jay (hi Jay!) is in the process of building and launching his own online business, and he sent me a note this week (OK, he sent it two weeks ago, I’ve been busy!!) asking me about online advertising and how it works. I ended up writing him a fairly long-winded email in response, but I thought that there were enough nuggets in the message to make it worth re-posting.

Here is a (somewhat edited) version of the email that I sent him. Please forgive me for the rough format.

Mothers have a way of making truthful statements that bug the heck out of their kids. My mom was no exception. When I was growing up, one of her favorite things to tell me was “patience is a virtue.” Even writing the words today almost make me growl with disgust and slam the door. That’s the teenager inside of me, of course.

I have fought a life-long battle with patience. I know that this story is not unique - very few people like to wait. But I’m writing about this now because I have enduring a trial that is requiring patience that I never thought I could muster - the patience needed to start a company.

I had heard rumors of this before. My old boss Barry, a serial entrepreneur who was the CEO of Connexus Media, the start-up company that I worked for that was sold to Ziff Davis in 2004, has told me stories of his need for patience when we started Connexus. He used to drive to work in the mornings, and instead of turning into the parking lot, he would force himself to stay on the road and go to a diner, or golfing, or to run errands, or to do anything other than going into work. He did this because he knew that he could do nothing to move things along any quicker, and he feared that being in the office would only hurt progress instead of helping it.

I have been working on Pure Incubation for almost a year. In that time, we’ve built a bunch of sites. But until this week, I had yet to launch any of the Web applications that we have been working on building for the past year. These delays rarely had to do with anything that I was working on personally. In most instances, I was just waiting for other people - application developers, designers, researchers - and they needed time to finish the work that they were doing. I should also mention that they weren’t taking a long time - they were taking a reasonable amount of time. I just had a hard time waiting when I was so eager to get going.

Over the course of the past year, I have developed a series of strategies to help myself be more patient. These are just band aids. Honestly, most of them are just distraction techniques - they aren’t solving the root of the patience problem. But these strategies have really helped me stay steadier in the midst of waiting. And my hope (and fear, if I’m being honest) is that waiting will one day teach me patience for good.

Here are some of my strategies:

Get a hobby. This summer, I started taking tennis lessons. The lessons were two times per week, 10:30am-noon. This chunk of time out of the middle of the day didn’t really take away from the amount of time that I worked - I just put in the hours later into the night - but getting away from the office helped to readjust my attitude. I was able to remind myself that if things were moving faster I wouldn’t have been able to take tennis lessons in the middle of the day. And since I enjoyed the experience, it made the waiting more tolerable, as well. Not to mention that it helped my tennis game.

Start a blog. Quick disclaimer: I didn’t start this blog to help myself be more patient. But this blog has helped with the waiting, and has also turned into a powerful tool for my business. Taking the time to think of posts and write them out has been instructive, and having the time to dedicate to my blog reminds me again that moving slowly isn’t such a bad thing. My blogging productivity seems to wane and wax depending on how busy I am, but developing the discipline of blogging has been a way to stave off impatience - while benefiting my business at the same time. 

Do consulting. If you pick the right projects - the kind that teach you something new while paying you to learn - consulting will help you be more patient about the rest of your business. Consulting will give you more work to do (filling some of the hours of waiting), and will also fill the bank account with some cash. For me, part of the difficulty with waiting was the delay in making money, so having something to do that also gave me some much-needed capital was a double win. Even though consulting can be difficult at times, it has helped me have more patience in waiting for my core business to become profitable.

Travel. It’s difficult to take a week away from the office when your business is busy and things are moving quickly. So taking the opportunity to travel - even if it’s a trip in which you’re working from wherever it is that you travel to - and get a change of scenery and have some fun. 

Remember that you’re part of a team. Because I work alone, and have part-time people, consultants and contractors working with me, it’s easy to begin to feel like I’m the only one that cares - which leads to a great deal of impatience. When this happens, I have to remind myself that I’m not alone, that my team is in this with me. I usually give one of them a call (preferably a team member that is supportive and will understand the up’s and down’s I’m going through). This not only helps me reconnect with my team, but it also reminds me that the people I’m waiting for are human, too. This helps increase my patience as I wait for them to get their work done.

Connect with friends, and talk over your issues with them. This is my favorite solution to impatience. I am lucky enough to have some great friends who are always willing to listen and talk through any issues that I’m having - including issues related to starting a company. And last week, when I was at my lowest, feeling the most frustrated, I got this awesome email from my friend (thanks, Moe!):

“I was feeling the need to tell you not to give up five minutes before a miracle. Once on the Today Show this woman lost her huge diamond ring in the hospital trash (she had been in the ER). A nice worker went through huge piles of garbage looking for it. It took forever, but he found it. When they asked him about it taking so long to find he said “you don’t give up five minutes before a miracle.” Cara mentioned that you’re at a very stressful time with your website. You’ll get the website up and running and it’s going to be awesome! Maybe some problems will even lead to better ideas.” (Here is a link to the story, and here is a link to the video. As a side note, at the end of the video the older woman says “they’re really nice” about her family, and reminds me of my grandma, who always used to say the same thing.)

At the end of the day, entrepreneurs need to remain dedicated to their vision and plans through all the ups and downs and changes that take place. And having a little bit of patience - OK, a lot of patience - is really important in reaching the final goal.

Photo by Geekgirly

Usually when a start-up goes under, the story of the successes and failures along the way dies with the company. By that point, the founders are exhausted by the experience, mentally and physically burned out. Too beat up to write about everything that went wrong.

But this time, we got lucky.

Roger Ehrenberg, co-founder of Monitor110, has written this excellent Post Mortem about everything that went wrong with the founding of the company. He boils it all down to “Seven deadly sins.” If you are an entrepreneur, read this article. It will help you avoid some mistakes that can be incredibly costly.

For me, I’m trying to take to heart point #5 - specifically, I need to launch my product as quickly as possible to get input and feedback from my potential customers. Otherwise, I’m developing in a vacuum.

I worked with two other companies in the past that used this post mortem approach regularly. At Let’s Go, where the staff turned over every year (only Harvard students are allowed to work at the company, and usually the managers are seniors), part of our salary was contingent on writing up a report at the end of the summer, after the books shipped to the printers, to tell the people who would have our jobs the following year what we did and why. These reports were my training manual for the job, and were incredibly valuable. At Network World, one editor would be responsible to review every issue of the magazine that came out - they would mark it up with comments and input, and would pass around the issue to every person on staff. Those reviews were always a bit painful (seeing the mistakes that we made - in print - wasn’t a whole lot of fun) but they made us better.

Good luck Roger! And thank you.

Photo by CristinaJucan