Tomorrow, I will be attending VC Connect ACT 2007 on behalf of Rate the PLATE.

There are some big names speaking at the event so it should be a great chance to network and learn from others. I will try to do a write-up of the key learnings from the event.
Whoever said that Canberra was a boring place purely consisting of Government departments? Things are changing and the Australian economy is thriving.

A link to Paul Graham’s Essays was emailed to me by a friend a couple of days ago. I can’t remember the last time that I was so hooked on reading something. I spent all of last night reading about 15 of the essays - they are truly magic stuff.

If you are passionate about the internet, efficiency and starting a company, then these essays are a must read. There is some really fundamental meat and potatoes stuff in there. Just about everything I read slotted perfectly inline with my own thinking and feelings. It was really great to have the thoughts that are buzzing around my head pretty much all day every day totally reinforced by someone who has made it doing the hard yards and doing something he loves.

Paul suggests to select the more difficult choice whenever you come to a decision point in life. Your next difficult decision may well be “Should I read 15 of Paul Graham’s essays or should I just watch TV?”.

Definitely read the essays.

I was reading over some old links and remembered one of my favourite posts relating to internet startups.

I 100% agree with Mark’s logic. I have lots of ideas which I think would work, but it always depends on if you have the minimum of 3-12 months solid commitment and time required to turn an idea into reality. Almost everyone has some pretty good ideas. But hardly anyone says “I will be the person to invest 6 months slogging my bum off to actually make it happen”. Its all about effort and commitment. A great idea is nothing without hard work (or money to pay others to do that hard work for you). If you go to your full time job every day and call that a day’s work and come home and watch TV, you’re not going to ever get away from that. To make progress you need to be doing extra, work to get your money, but work again at night to put the system in place for your future no-full-time-job plan. Once you’ve done one, you’ll have some money, then with future ideas you have the choice of being able to pay people to implement them for you - just as long as the design doesn’t flog out because you’re essentially buying it rather than writing it yourself with your own passion and knowledge..

Once you have something up there, it gets easier. Collect feedback and ideas -> inject into existing product and refine. Nurture it, baby it for a year or two, walk your users through step by step, ring them up and offer first-hand support, get the thing up there working well with an army of ever-loyal and satisfied users who can’t get enough of it.

Away you go.