McKay Thomas | Blog

I love apples. I prefer the tart green ones to the sweet red ones, but if it's an apple I'll devour it. On a given day I'll eat three of four of them. They are meaty enough to be a really filling snack or complement to a light lunch, yet light enough to keep your energy high afterward. Between all the grocery delivery services, and my wife being so wonderful, I don't visit the grocery store very often. However, on Monday I made a run to buy some more fruit as we'd run out. Trader Joes was busy, but I found the apples right away and began selecting. However, the moment I began picking them up to evaluate them I realized how exposed they all were. How many people had picked up this apple? Had anyone sneezed near it? Which ones had fallen to the ground accidentally? How did they even get here? In a box? Was the box covered? I instantly thought of all the quick apples I had grabbed from my fruit bowl at home. I often washed my apples, but not every time. I then finished selecting, I got nine, and purchased them. The experience of selecting and buying my apples will change the way I appreciate and consume my apples. Buy your own apples. Fred Wilson recently advised (http://avc.com/2015/01/diy-vs-delegate): "...when you start a company, you (and your cofounders) have to do everything yourself. There is nobody to delegate things to. And hiring a bunch of people to do things like schedule your meetings, answer the phones, keep the books, review contracts, interview candidates, etc is a bad idea because it uses up money which is always in short supply at the early stage of a startup." Although delegating can burn cash, there is a more deadly and often overlooked danger to delegating too early within a startup. Just as I learned from selecting my own apples, there are valuable lessons to be learned doing things yourself, as a co-founder, before you pass them off to someone else. A startup is a sedimentary process. It is impossible to have the insight to make correct decisions next year, if you haven't built up the necessary layers of learning and wisdom that only come from doing, testing, mistaking, building this year. Buy your own apples. This also is a common failure of still-un-launched startups and would-be entrepreneurs. Doing things is hard. Taking an idea from your cubicle to a team building something, maybe with funding, and having users and customers and revenue takes doing a lot of not-so-flattering work. I've spoken with many people who feel the entrepreneur life could be theirs if they could only find a co-founder. Mythical co-founders are often a scapegoat for those who don't want to buy their own apples. They are willing to forego the irreplaceable wisdom and learning that comes from the grunt work in the early days because it can be annoying, time consuming, slightly outside their current skill set, or any number of reasons. Most founders get stuck in this process several times before finding their way out again. I have. When First Opinion was still in idea-mode, I really wanted to find someone who could just provide doctors for the service. I spent so many days looking up and talking to potential people and solutions who could solve this problem for me. Slowly but surely I came to the realization that I needed to solve this problem for myself. I needed to find my own doctors who aligned with what I wanted the service to accomplish. I had to learn to buy my own apples again when it came to training the doctors I had recruited. I wasted time trying to find someone or something that could train my doctors for me. Turns out, I had to put together the first version of it myself before I would have the insight I would need to find the right solution for scalable doctor training. When a clear path forward is not presented, instinctually founders, CEOs, humans, want to buy, hire or delegate their way out of the problem. But the layers of sedimentary learning that come from solving problems and creating paths forward ourselves is what will enable insightful decision making and leadership throughout the next phase of the business. The idea is not to simply finish a set of tasks, but to prepare ourselves and the business to exist deep in to the future.

I don't know when season 2 will come out, but I'm ready. I'm nervous and excited and completely captured. And ready.

When I was first designing and building at PoolTables.com in 2006, 1 in 100 websites I actually used impressed me. In fact, I had a bookmark list back then of websites that really blew me away and that list was very, very short. I designed on the side as well during that period and back then good design on the web was so rare that nearly every client of mine could scarcely believe what I had created for them when I would walk them through a pitch. And, deep inside, I knew I barely even compared to the web's and the world's greats. But that just goes to show how far we've come. Now I'm rarely not impressed by most sites I visit. Pages are basically well laid out. Content is written for humans, for the most part. Photos are clear and hi-res and most are edited fairly well. Menus are standardized and orderly. Lists are easy to follow, videos easy to play, and everything is easy to share (really) anywhere! All this was not true in 2006. Really any of it. In fact the opposite was universally true with rare, rare exceptions. By 2010, and this is anecdotal, but feels about right, we were to the point where 1 in 15 websites were getting there. At this point, though, the web was going through a weird mobile-morphization. Things started to take a few steps back. In the old days where only a few great designers knew how to execute a web strategy, now most designers had some web experience and could help put together a fairly thoughtful strategy. But mobile crippled it. Roadmaps couldn't adjust in time and designers once again were experimenting with things that they had no exposure in. Now flash forward to today and things have begun to settle down again for the web, and (now) mobile, world. Today as I go through my phone's apps and navigate the 100 or so websites that cross my way each week, I'm struck by how easy and fast and beautiful everything is again. Almost everything is designed for retina displays and PC widths and mobile widths. Menus are standardized, videos are easy to play and everything is easy to share and save. Tonight, to actually draw a point to this collection of personal observations, I'm wondering where we, as a human race, and more specifically as a clan of design thinkers and creators, apply our problem solving spirits to next. Where do we go from here? Of course there is always a new website or app or experience, but we have precedent now. A lot of it. And there will always be an envelope to push, but is there a medium we have left to explore? A place we can go next that will let us unleash our design thinking in new and unexplored ways? Maybe the next great frontier for our great band of revolutionaries should be business. If you are glazing your eyes over, may that be a sign to you of an under-explored world of design thinking. Distribution, partnerships, business models and product married together in well sized markets and populations are the untamed jungles of our economy. As a designer turned entrepreneur (of several years now) let me give you my personal witness of the vast and exciting opportunities that await the truly brave and creative that venture below the pixel to the business itself. Listen to it next time it calls for you. Because, indeed, it is calling.

Twenty Thirteen was a university of the possible for me. It wrapped up the way you wrap up lunch with an old friend. Awkwardly. You both loved it, but neither knows how to say goodbye. Twenty Twelve delivered me, cold and wet, on to the streets of San Francisco. The ensuing hours and days took my brightest dreams and darkest fears and smacked me in the face with them. I started a company from an idea and raised a couple million dollars to build it. I recruited a top flight team, built an app, and now have thousands of people using it every week. I traveled to seven different countries this year. I meditated with Hindus in India. I snake-charmed with thieves in Morocco. I rowed through the canals in Amsterdam. I ate Jewish desserts till I was silly in Melbourne and cuddled as the sun set in Baja. I found a new home in San Francisco from São Paulo this year. Making California my home for the second time after 26 long years. I found myself here in the way I needed to, but wasn't sure I could. I think many people come to SF looking for something, but never find their feet and I was fortunate enough to find mine. My son started walking. My daughter started school. My wife and I lost a combined 43 pounds. We fell in love all over again as we continue to define what makes a successful marriage. My kids were kidnapped. The car was stolen with them inside and I called 911, where they asked me to describe my son and my daughter to them, creating a new low in my life. They were found 40 minutes later and returned to us within two hours. Short. But terrifying. Three employees of my company quit this year. They all left for reasons, but most days I don't want to confront those reasons. The company and the team today works well and I'm glad things turned out the way they did. But it hurts watching someone walk away. Soaring highs. Plunging depths. It's the human experience. Deciding in a leaping moment that no one else will decide your fate. You might get fired. Your kids might get taken. Your team may abandon you. But the whole earth is still yours for the taking. It may all burn to the ground tomorrow, but today you have a world to change, because you can. You really can. And 2014 will be my year for doing just that.

The city breathes. It inhales with hissing busses, dripping coffee, and the foreign tongues of conference attendees. It exhales with the crisp, cool air blocked by coat collars and scarves. You feel it in the vibrations of the stairs you climb at the MUNI station on Market. Your feet scratching like sand paper on every step, while your messenger bag waves and taps on your back in perfect rhythm. It breathes in chatter and rumor. In free wifi, found hope and shattered dreams. It breathes. Many try to find meaning it all of it. Between the bankers on 2nd, the shoppers on 4th and the dope dealers on 6th, there seems to be a kind of direction to it all. A free-mindedness that seems to unite everyone in a common chorus that things could be better. And if not better, different. It shows itself in every coffee house and Michelin-star lunch spot. You sit down with an old friend and within seconds the table is set with words like, "I had an idea," and, "wouldn't things work better if..." Throughout the 60 minutes a grand design is laid bare. Golden forks and four spoons. Crystal and china. Watches are glanced at and as fast as it was built, busboys come and remove the dreams to the sound of clinking glass and metal. Ready for the next lunch-hour dreamer. You catch your breath, but the city exhales without you. Another path for another day. The sound of soles on the sidewalk are barely audible through the sound of the city. Trolly bells ring a few blocks down. A street performer has turned barrels in to drums. The office is just around the corner, when the fog breaks and the sun warms your face. Why not me? Why not today? The city seems to grab at you. Pulling you. Throwing you against the bricks as it has for thousands of others before. The words written and spoken by others echo down the alleys of the surrounding streets. The streets you know well and walk often. Failure. Doubt. Fear. Bills. Husbands. Kids. Failure. It's too much. You force another breath and decide to move on. But what if you knew that everyone in the city was right along with you. What if the voices of dissent were voices of envy. What if every aspiring sneaker that ever touched down from SFO grabbed your shoulder and whispered in the breathless voice that accompanies every would-be entrepreneur, "We're right behind you!" What if you knew the nights wouldn't be as long as you thought, nor the debt as heavy as you anticipated. If you listen to the city close enough you can hear those voices now. Both the risen and the fallen are with you in spirit and though you may not win the day, you will have been in the arena. And the heart that feels as if it will leap right out of your chest and the breath you can not catch are all signs that you are alive! And today, more than every day before it, is for living.

The reason this all comes up today is I just weighed myself in this morning at 197.6. That's still much higher than it should be, but it's also where I was before I started Baby.com.br. My Baby weight. So much about Baby was right, and that is sticking with me. But those things that were wrong are slowly falling off. It feels good. Startups are hard, but there is a way through it.

Press check for @firstopinion's handmade letterpress thank you card for our earliest beta users. Thanks everyone! It's been the most rewarding journey with you. (at Dependable Letterpress)

Stay tuned...

Go get 'em, crazy pirates. Hedge no bets and change this world for the better.

What is business? I think it could be classically defined as the exchange of value. In the movies when the top secret weapon is exchanged for someone's beloved pet, the classic line, "pleasure doing business with you," is typically exchanged. Business. It has become the pursuit of my generation. Maybe all generations before mine, as well, but it feels as if there has been a shift. A shift from pursuit, possibly, to obsession. On the coattails of scientists like Niccola Tesla, inventors like Steve Jobs, and engineers like Mark Zuckerberg, my generation has slipped the generational bonds of mere employment for the game of business. We left college for it. We left home for it. We left our moms and our dads for it. We left jobs and the life we were promised for it. We have paid a high price for it and now treat it as a kind of religion. And what have we received in return? What was the exchange of value? And is it what we feel we were promised? Business, to me, has been a taker. It has taken my childhood, or what was left of it, and bashed me over the head with it. It has taken family from me. It has taken more days and nights than I can count along with much of my peace of mind. I fear that in the pursuit, the obsession, of business, my generation will lose what we took this journey to secure: a better life. It doesn't have to be this bleak. And maybe it really isn't. It's been a hard day today. A hard day in business. Truly hard days take something that is hard to get back, but that's what the English language is for. That's what family is for. That what's sunny days and green grass are for. That's what a cool breeze and rushing water is for. What prayer is for. To get us through all the hell that business throws our way. My generation may lose personally more than it may gain collectively, but at least we'll be a part of something. A movement. And as long as there are bad days, at least there will always be parks and wives and kids and movies and a good day of tech news to get us through it.

So, guys, girls, entrepreneurs, would-be world-changers, I think I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait to see what is coming next! Knowing you, it'll blow us all away.

The more I think about it and the more I see it and experience it, the mote I'm convinced that mobile devices are converging around one device. Laptops are becoming more like tablets, and at the same time tablets are becoming more like phones. Phones are getting larger, but I'm feeling more and more that the phone will be the device that will see the most activity long term. (at Caltrain)

Google is shutting Google Reader down. I'm going to miss it so much. I've starred nearly 1000 articles as favorites that I'll never be able to really have now. Hurts. In fact I just saved another one this morning. Old habit I guess. (at Startup Graveyard)

Over the last couple years we have seen lots of people weigh in on whether tablets should be counted as PCs. However, we've seen a slow shift towards research firms adding tablets together to demonstrate PC marketshare. What was one 10" tablet, the iPad, became lots of tablets of many sizes from many manufacturers. Flash forward to the last few weeks and we've been hearing rumors of a larger iPhone. Although Samsung has had lots of larger phones, Apple introducing a product in the category would be very legitimizing for the form factor, which leaves me asking: what is a tablet? And what should we count for marketshare? Is a tablet defined by a diagonal screen measurement? That is about the only think I can find different between the iPad and the iPhone. A larger iPhone may only not count towards PC marketshare only because Apple will call it an iPhone Something rather than an iPad Something.

Parabéns meus amigos! Parabéns.