Tim Norton wrote this 2 days ago

Peter Griffin writes about High flying Ponoko Takes off over at his tech blog on the herald and points to a couple of key accomplishments they've made on their journey to the next stage.

Treehugger Founder now a Ponoko Adviser

The hugely popluar treehugger.com site has been built up over the last few years as a portal for new green technology ideas, environmental perspectives and the like, and I've popped over there at monthly intervals to checkout some new good stuff going on. Having the founder Graham Hill on your advisory board when you're in Ponoko's position is exactly the sort of step you want to be taking.

Sustainibility and Ponoko's online business model

I've always been excited by Dave and Derek's model for Ponoko where products are made as close to the purhaser as possible, reducing the otherwise energy and resource intensive global freight and using materials local to the purchaser. This is a realy smart use of hi-tech (both the online service and the laser cutting technolgy) to change the way we design, make and buy things. The beginnings of big things.

San Francisco Office and Laser Cutter

Dave and Derek have been darting back and forward to the US over the past 9 months with Ponoko, and have recently set-up their office and local partner which gives them a laster cutter in San Francisco to start making and shipping products in the US from the US, the first node of many to come. Love seeing these guys make it happen.

Checkout the new Ponoko Showroom for what sort of things they have in store made from designers all around the world.

Tim Norton wrote this 19 days ago

Sometimes you spend your money, sometimes you raise some off others, but in the end the aim is always be to build a profitable company.

Consulting and Side Product Development

My first business was profitable from day one, consulting. I saved plenty from this and in parallel quietly started self funding a product development, hired a couple of people part time and after a while of getting somewhere but seemlingly not far enough, put the consulting on hold and made a good go of it together full-time.

Back to Services 

When that didn't get profitable on the money I had (made mistakes, learning experiences...), instead of raising money from others, I went back into services mode, used some of the experience and talent I'd built up from this investment and built a web design business, didn't take too long to get this profitable.

Then back into product again

Then right at that point decided again to have a crack at a new product, except this time would keep the services company ticking away in the background to prevent the risk of hitting rock bottom on cash, which while fine is just hard and you don't want to do too many times. While just profitable again, with no cash reserves and a desire to both build a cool product and the rails and interaction design community around NZ, I had to raise some money. Almost 5 years on in business now, I've raised as much money from others as I've invested myself, which is around $300k from each side.

Profitable Product Company coming very soon... 

Through all this, the risk of trying to build a cool product, learning whats needed to get this right on the way, providing an environment where people can skill up and build experience, one aim for the busienss is always clear. You're not a start-up to stay a startup, you're a startup because you're on the road to being a profitable company.

I know what numbers this means for PlanHQ, and stay pretty focused on them and what makes them move. But while most do, and I have, not everyone has to go through failure to get there, and here's a great video from the Startup 08 gathering in San Fran David Heinemeier Hansson one of the 37signals guys who managed to get it right on the first hit. 

Tim Norton wrote this 20 days ago

Tonight at webstock mini (Book Now), in between wines and quality presentations, the code blacks will be taking on the Siliocn Welly Allstars in a halfbaked.com challenge where only one main course will be served... I think the gradients and shine speak for themselves... If the Allstars can't make it on substance, then surely our fast talking BS Confidence will pull through...

Conservative yet active investor interest 

Roomers in official email newsletters have suggested the investors have a healthy yet conservative view on the evening saying "Screw it, we've got more money than we know what to do with. Let's invest everything on the winning team at the halfbaked.com challenge!"

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

Have someone working on giving this site a facelift soon... a sign of things to come.. 

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

 We write beautiful Rails Code

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

If you've got something to do, somewhere to be, or someone to remember, just pick up your mobile and tell Aangel. 

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

Mike from Webstock tasked me with pulling together an AllStar Silicon Welly team for the halfbaked.com challenge as part of the upcoming webstock mini this April 22 (register here).

This is a super quick think on your feet and come up with something cool and present it like masters to Sam Morgan, Rod, and Rowan Simpson, up against the mighty code blacks if you're up to it let me know (tim at planhq dot com) , this will be fun and a good test of how on to it and real-time we are, here's how it works.

Halfbaked.com @ Webstock

So, what's a halfbaked.com challenge? The idea is taken from events held last year. It'll break down like this:

• Act 1: the audience will yell out ~50 random words
• Act 2: each team chooses 2 words + ".com"
• Act 3: each team has ~30 min to prep their BlankBlank.com biz plan - (biz plan = product idea, revenue model, marketing plan, logo, tagline)
• Act 4: each team does a 5 minute pitch on their product to a VC panel
• Act 5: the audience votes on who did the best job and we all celebrate the insanity

The competing teams will be the New Zealand CodeBlacks and a Silicon Welly All-Star team, members to be announced soon. Hard to know who'll be the favourite at this stage, but certainly the Silicon Welly team will need to bring their A-game against the battle-hardened CodeBlacks.

And the VC panel? The teams will have to impress Sam Morgan, Rowan Simpson and Rod Drury, all no doubt wearing their best VC t-shirts.

Eitehr way register up for April 22, as usual it will be a great event.

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

If you read this blog and haven't made the switch to online accounting software Xero for your accounting yet, then I assume it's probably becuase your accounting year end hasn't quite rolled around. If you're by chance still debating whether or not Xero is ready for your business yet, or are wondering if there might be a learning curve thats going to take too much of your time, then I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

Show me the money

I've run PlanHQ on Xero since we started as one of the first super early beta customers, and as someone who lives on information was pretty happy from day one that at least I finally had my last set of business information online and accessable from everywhere, which is the only place I want my business information as I travel the world, work from home. I appreciate I'm bleeding edge, but this was 18 months ago, and Xero has come forward in leaps and bounds and is a great platform for managing your accounts. Xero continues to power forward, something I'm pretty sure we can all accept doesn't happen with any competing package software products, and you can now import your chart of accounts from MYOB to help get you over the one-off switch. 

I can't believe that anyone actually likes the idea of having their accounting information sitting on a PC somewhere in the office where they have to goto to access, or getting an export of the file from their accounts person. Going online with your accounts is not rocket science, its just smart simple business. 

Money Life on Xero 

Bank data comes in automagically, our accounts person Komal codes them then since all of our customer billing and payments are automated through PlanHQ, we just feed Xero with monthly sales totals for International and NZ/GST customers, and thats it, accounts are up to date, Komal can to the leg work, and I can live my life around the P&L and watch us get closer to break-even. If you're serious about money, then managing your accounts online is the only way to go, you'll never look back, and there's alot more coming in the future.

This isn't about supporting a cool local company and group of people anymore, its just about managing your finances the best way you can to grow your business, so get amongst it!

See Also: The Herald 

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

 New Zealands Geek Community Online. If its technolgy related, its covered at Geekzone.

Tim Norton wrote this 1 month ago

GetStaffed is the contractor marketplace, where contractors give their recruitment agency the flick and go direct.