http://theleanstartup.com/sxsw/

On Twitter: #leanstartup

Today is about the 5 minute montage period of movies about Startup.

Startup = Experiment

Goal of startup: Stop Wasting People’s Time.

Most Startups Fail (e.g., Web 2.0 logo slide)

Anything can be built with software, but the question is should it be built.

Unit of progress: Validated Learning.

Customer Development, Steve Blank.

Hypotheses, Experiments, Insights.

His startup had thousands of lines of code, thrown out because they couldn’t get anyone to download it.  Perhaps alternative approach, create 1 page with photo shop version of app with “download” button. If no one clicked, you learned just as much.

Our experiements get more productive based on validated learning.

Ideas, build, code, measure, data, learn (repeat) …

Minimize TOTAL time through the loop … (not build faster)

(All this info is online, like cool circle visual of this with a few elements listed on the side)

Innovation Accounting (Not talked about today, you’re gonna have to read his forth coming book to hear more on that ….  Pre-order here: http://theleanstartup.com/

* Opening Talk Ends *

Panel of 3 folks:

Case Studies on LEAN BUILDING:

• Pascal Louis-Perez, Wealthfront
• Ash Maurya, USERcycle
• Parker Thompson, Pivotal Labs

Wealth Front

• Ship to Product 30+/Day

USERcycle

1. Backlog
2. Mockup
3. Demo
4. CODE
5. Partial Rollout
6. Validate Qualitatively (user interviews)
7. Full Rollout
8. Verify Quantitatively

Goal: Acheive 60% activiation rate.

A feature only gets to live if in a short time it can prove to support the macro goal. If not, we remove it from the application. Its important to go fast, but it has to be limited by how fast you can learn.

Pivotal Labs

Started out talking about how he tested out his presentation and will skip the parts that people said sucked.

The Visionary (covered this) … narratives often created retrospectively.  Usually does an entrepreneur a disservice.

Story about  a company with a huge vision of changing education, everyone has something to teach … etc … 6 months of dev, pushed out the door, found what they built didn’t make sense to their users.

*END PRESO’S*

Panel Questions:

Telling an entrepreneur that their vision is wrong doesn’t help.  I’m sure you are right, let’s find an empirical question to prove it.

How know what to test?

Its easy to get lost in the data. Try not to have more than 3-5 things you are testing.  Pre its mostly qualitatively. Post its quantitatively like user activation, return users, etc.

(Eric says Running Lean book is a good source about this, I think Ash is the author)

Find metrics that are really relevant to your particular business. Like for a job site, measure the number of people that return back to your job site.

(Eric: “Vanity Metrics” is what you put in your Press Release, but when it comes to making decisions, etc. Don’t get caught drinking your own coolade. We all have our own private realities of what’s working.)

Actionable metrics that tell you things about your customers…

Metrics often go up and down based on the markets, who tweets on it … but other metrics can be less volatile (e.g., activation rates) … though there are some differences.

WHen does your startup end being a startup?

Eric. Some believe your company goes through phases. But in the future that is not what will happen. Fast followers are just getting faster and better.  Managers of the future will have to manage a portfolio of innovation and disruptive innovation (didn’t catch exactly what he said).

Parker. Some of our customers are actually large companies (intraprenuers) and have done some really impressive things with this.

Other guy. You need to understand of who loves and hates your product. Then get out of the building and talk to them. Understand why.  Answer the empirical questions.

Eric. You got to ask yourself what customers actually do in reality. Its not about solving lack of traction on the whiteboard.

Other guy. Our demo’s are screenshots.

*END PANEL*

The Lean Startup: King of the Apps Showdown

Who will win the King of the Apps Showdown? YOU DECIDE! Play judge alongside Robert Scoble, Eric Ries, Dave McClure, Bill Boebel, and Stacey Higginbotham for a startup showdown. The winner gets $10,000 in cash &prizes, provided by the awesome folks at Rackspace.

Moderator:

• Dave McClure, 500 Startups

Panelists:

• Robert Scoble, Rackspace
• Eric Ries, The Lean Startup
• Bill Boebel, Rackspace Hosting
• Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOM

SnapAppointments Quick Case Study

• Started, stopped, restarted a few years later
• Simple CRM, etc.
• Pays for itself even if you are just able to remind one person that makes their appointment when they otherwise wouldn’t have
• Attorneys, salons and spas, Dentists, etc..

Panel Reviews

• Scoble. I get it. I use Tungle.me, issue is adding buggers. How are you getting user feedback, watching them? (Yes. My mom is a photographer who is computer illiterate. We have several people like that. We give it to business owners who are not very computer literate).
• Ries. I get it, get it pitched several times for various service providers. Its a clear problem I like. In terms of presentation, I’d love to hear what they’ve learned from customers. (30-60 seconds of questions: “we learned its fun to use. very simple. don’t want functionality. Dave: what problems did they tell you and what you did to solve it. One complaint, not on functionality today but features. Ask for things like buffer times, etc.  So we built in buffer times.  Booking multiple services at a time, like haircut and wash.)
• Eric. 2nd question: what’s one element of your vision that was wrong? (We thought the business would be more excited. We found that its the client getting excited about it and demanding it. This is the way we do business and manage our schedules.)
• Bill. Clear what it does. Has a few questions. Its hard to sell to people who are late on the adoption curve of things technical. (Usually been successful at this. But most of them I know. Even to people we don’t know have been good. After talking 5 minutes people willing to sign up and give it a whirl. Small town in Montana.) You guys are going to have a way to do that at school. You can’t walk down the road to do that to everyone. Focusing on one type of service provider might be better. Nail a vertical (We think this will be client driven, so don’t focus on just one vertical).

2nd Company to be reviewed by Panel:

Snap Web Manager

www.snapws.com

Allows you to manage your websites, back ‘em up to the cloud.

• Stacey. Something about this is like echosign meets time machine. Wished you started out with who you are trying to sell it to. Later it became clear but I had to figure it out.
• Boebel. Get a better more update interface. Spent a huge time on features. What is the most important thing to focus on. Perhaps a good UI guy could really help your product and pitch.
• Eric. You have the most features I’ve ever seen. Do your customers use all of them? …
• (Lots of questions and answers, I started downloading apps and got distracted wtih my new ipad2 … sorry … didn’t miss much though)

Lightening pitch, 3 minutes from guy from crowd … something about pulling in all your data and showing it on a map.  mapomatic.me (sign up for beta)

• Scoble. I’m interested, but I’m a location based whore. Like where will I go.
• Boebel. I love the idea of putting context on the map. But it is a separate app I have to run or is it on top of GoogleMaps.
• Eric. What do your customers think? You guys are my customers, its not launched yet. Just did a build. Eric. Can you launch it now. CHEERS FROM THE CROWD. Hesitation and then the 1 week approval issue of the apple store kicks in. (Fun moment).

2nd 3 minute pitch:

Planzai. Started out asking who has ever managed a project. Got married. Has kids. Etc.  Very cool accent and good start.  Pulls out site.

http://planzai.com

Judges ask questions.

Eric. So what does your customers think. “Um, they like it. Obviously.” (laughs, a judge, “wrong answer”).

Mccure. Next pitch, do you have customers and shipped product? Yes.

Icebreaker. A new way to meet people on Facebook and Twitter.

Its global, uk users …

Went to wrong url, corrected, Icebreaker without the “e”. (Right. Got it.)

icebreakcrapp.com

Ries. What do you do if you pull up the app and no one is around you? (we can pull in twitter people.) If Robert Scoble can’t find people …

DONE: then awarded $10k to SnapAppointments.

* LUNCH BREAK *

And We are back …

The Lean Startup: Pirate Metrics for Design & Distribution

Dave McClure debuts “Startup Metrics for Pirates: The Sequel” — it’s your chance to better understand design, distribution, and proper use of expletives. Following Dave’s talk, you’ll get to hear case studies from some of the most effective “Lean UX” designers and developers this side of the Mississippi.

Opening Speaker & Moderator:

• Dave McClure, 500 Startups

Dave McCure - Starts out with criticism of his own slides. Then flies into them …

Colorful fonts. Fast talking. “You can do these in any Fucking order …”

Started to have a lot of good quotes, lots of laughs … but I got distracted redeeming the free Lean Startup Bundle for SXSW courtesy of Microsoft BizSpark ($2,740 in value, sold for $99 special, got for free) because I “pitched” my app and how I’m using #leanstartup principles. Told her about my sxsw.inward.me iteration … Was fun …

Case Studies on LEAN UX:

• Laura Klein, Users Know
• Janice Fraser, LUXr
• Ian McFarland, Pivotal Labs
• Dan Martell, Flowtown

DAN MARTELL, FLOW TOWN

1:24 pm CST

Design metrics and distribution.

Who wants to learn not to fail? Who wants to learn that now? Alright, you are in the right place …

DESIGN: wireframe

DASHBOARD: look at metrics internally (weekly retention, you’ll adjust as often as you track, so track weekly)

Try doing an activity stream. Color code based on what they are doing. Then drill down into specific ones to see where they had troule.

Experiments

Feature X -> Metric Y.

“FEature X will improve Metric Y.”

Is this feature that is just something cool, or is it something that will move the needle.

DISTRIBUTION: Invite Flow.

Figure out how you can get something to your users that they can share. Collaboration software inherently has this.  Figure it out for your product. Could be a report you can share with people. Turns every user into 6. Helps you avoid paid acquisition of users.

* Laura Klein *

Use Case: Food On the Table.

Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative.  What and Why.

Read the blog to find out what the problem was.

*Janice *

Starts are like bunnies. Who has a startup. Its like this. Then there is this guy, Eric Ries, makes you want to make it look like this.

Case Study: Taskrabbit.

Had a home page conversion problem.

Redesigned. Everyone loved the new design. Wanted to do an A/B test on it. UI guy wanted to do is design for all pages. He was terrified. Speaks to the cultural issues that must be addressed. Why expect designers to get it right the first time.

* Ian *

Our best Waterfall Project Ever … and why it sucked.

Huge PRD. Did with a great design firm, solved the brief.

Lots of rework re: nav bar.

Bad design decision … time elapses … discovery of design decision.  Everything in between is mostly Wasted Effort.

Waterfall is a great system if you knew EXACTLY what you are going to build. And even if you do, change happens.

Tested it, things went down. Did small change, then it doubled. So, test if directoinally going right, then double down. Saves money not just in wasted development but also the lost business of 5% vs. 10% conversoin.

* Panel *

Fraser. You can’t A/B test your vision. The key to MVP is testing your empathy (when not building specifically for yourself). Its about how well you listened and understand the lives of the people you are building for.

More good commets, but I got sucked into a few links …

DONE.

30 minute break before …

Moderator:

• Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

The Lean Startup: Your Startup Sucks. Pivot to Win.

The difference between success and failure is your ability to pivot — fast. Learn how to more quickly recognize the signs of a pivot point, and how to pull the trigger when it counts.

Case Studies on PIVOTS:

• David Binetti, Votizen
• David Cancel, Performable
• Sean Ellis, FREEjit
• Manuel Rosso, Food on the Table

David Binetti

State busines model assumptiosn and iterate (good slide, didn’t get it)

Pivot is not synonymous with “change”. Its about your business model.

Uses CDM and AARRR (wrong accredmin)

3 pivots, 4 versions.

CDM / Hypothesis

Product / (try get his slides)

Problem

CHannel

Demand

Market

Competitive

Metric / Description

Acquistion

Activation

Referrals

Retention

REview

Improve results with A&A.

Metric / Version

Huge bump in conversation, especially in activation.

Improve R&R

Didn’t get the improvements wanted. So did a Pivot.  Involved customers, made it easy for them to get involved.  Then took that info and brought the produt forward.

Product: “Simple involvement tool.” Restated assumptions. People could use Twitter to contact senators.

Version I vs. II was not a pivot.

When made changes based on the “vision”, not metrics. Vision is a requirement. Not going to build a public company a/b testing.

Huge jumps.  Still no revenue. That’s next. But heading in the right directoin.

Improve Revenue.

Dontation model, wasn’t working.

Pivoted again Version III.  Market: Campaign Management.

Nobody bought. Nobody paid. WORSE, they told me they wanted it. That they loved it.   Complete Fail. Spent a lot of money.

At the end of the day, “I’m just not that sure about this twitter thing. A little afraid of social media.” No contract, no sale. You want to believe. But show yourself the money. There is nothing more concrete that you can do to prove that you have something that people are willing to pay for. Your enthusiasm can kill you.   False positives is when you throw your money and life away on things that you could have learned about a lot earlier.

Pivot. Freemium.  Special delivery on a per message basis. Only pay for adde value. Initial sale: $200 first day. Much smaller but wille xpand.

0% to 11% revenue jump.

No PR. Period. It distorts what you need to learn. Especially if you start to believe your own stuff. We are pushing away New York Times, Life, etc.

Iterations loops got smaller, faster, fewer. Learning per dollar spent (repeated it like Alec Baldwin and his ABC speech, nice touch).

You are building a business, not a product.

Eric Ries. If you build to see what happens. You succeed. You see what happens.

* David Cancel *

Combine insights with actions …

High converting landing pages made easy.

First iteration: no markertor gave a crap about automatic optimization. Marketers want to customize. WYSIWYG experience not gratifying.

Iterated. Made it form base rather than WYSIWYG. Made it so simple.

Pivot 1: lowered price. Simple. Learning SMB pain to deal with. Supporting customization was hard. Landing pages were “nice-to-have”.

Pivot 2: Started to focus on Metrics-Driven Marketers.

Appreciated our platform. Willing to pay up front. Heavy daily users. We are pat landing pages, part metics and part automation.

Rants:

Customers = Paid

Solve Customer Problems

The Real Competitor is Indifference NOT Startup (someone not willing to pay you, thats a competitor, not some other startup, I don’t give a shit about techcrunch).

* Sean *

Pivots to IPO. (He didn’t mention company, but I believe its Logmein).

< missed some notes, giving peopel next to me my alpha url sxsw.inward.me >

Problem:

Unintended use case of personal remote access.

Customers overwhelming customer support

Solutions:

Formed new company to address the consumer opportunity.

Make easy to use and no need support.

Pivot 2:

Problem:

Competitor pivoted into this and got bought by Citrix. They started spending $100M’s in marketing.

This was a business model pivot. How do we come in with the freemium model. e.g., eFax, AVG. New it was viable. Self funded and boot strapped we had no way to compete head to head. Required tech breakthrough on costs.

Year 1: US vs. Them in google searches … went from 1/2 to 2x in searches despite their budgets. Continued to do well. 4 years grew, Citris flat lined. IPO filing 4th year.

* Manuel Rosso *

FoodOnTheTable

Why Concierge MVP?

If you can’t get them to adopt your idea high touch, face to face, you can’t do it online or cold …

Q: how can we support a small number of people without any code?

Once we figured that out, then we started to automate based on the initial learning.

We used a form that kind of looked like a website.  We went to a starbucks, things on sale at the grocery store across the streeet. Asked them lots of things and how they did this process. We learned we were wrong about a lot of it.

e.g., how much you spend a week on groceries. Most moms didn’t know, didn’t care or didn’t want to share.

On the right, we had a Weekly Meal Planner. One would be talking, the other would be filling out the meal plan for this mom. Then print it out when she is talking.

e.g., learned that you don’t put Monday, Tues, Wed, etc. it was stressful. However, if you put numbers rather than days, it reduced stressed.

We’d then call them on the phone the next week. Would do the same, but remotely. Testing what it was like when you were remote and not infront of them. At end, would say wait 5 minutes as we put it together and email it to you. The next week when we tried to make it more automated, we made google docs. We then used the collaboration features that would allow us to cut and paste things that they’d then see. They’d say, wait, no, not that one, we’d remove and then add it elsewhere.

We started to arrive at what a remote user experience would be that ugided our development.

GET OVER YOUR VISION AND THINK SIMPLE.

Content Category        //       Vision      //       Starting Point

Groceries store                     35k+                             1

Sale items per store          150-300                      5-10

Recipes                                   50k+                  3 per sale items

CODE IS YOUR ENEMY. FUTURE CUSTOMERS ARE YOUR FRIENDS. THE MORE YOU CAN PROTOTYPE WITH PAPER THE MORE YOU’LL LEARN. TRULY THING WHAT IS THE MINIMUM YOU CAN DO.

END.

* Ries *

One good way to work on MVP and landing pages is just putting up the benefits. The “magic” product. If you can’t get people to buy your magical product, then don’t build it. (paraphrased).

Q: how apply this to network effect companies?

A: (panel) apply to small network to get critical mass (e.g., Twitter at sxsw or Facebook at Harvard). You’ll probably have to raise more money.

STEVE BLANK IS NEXT!

————–

The Lean Startup: Steve Blank on NextGen Entrepreneurs

Steve Blank is one of the world’s leading experts on entrepreneurship — nab a seat if you’re lucky and get the inside track on what it takes to be a NextGen Entrepreneur, how company-building is changing, and how you need to increase your competitive edge. Following Steve, you’ll hear case studies on customer development from the venerable KISSmetrics and Meetup.

Opening Speaker:

• Steve Blank, Stanford University

A mentor and investor of Eric’s from IMVU. Great book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany.

* NEW RULES FOR THE NEW BUBBLE *

www.steveblank.com

Only a few of you out there will make 100M’s. A few others a few million. You are crazy because all of you are looking around feeling sorry for the people sitting next to you. (paraphrased).

1970-1995

Building a Business (acted like startups were small versions of big companies)

Building a Startup th eHard Way.

Playbook was a business pan.  Product introduction model.

Two implicit Assumptions:

1. Customer problem: Known
2. Product Features: Known

There is no such thing as a 10 year startup. You have a two year startup attached to 8 years of failure.

More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development.

1995-200: Flipping A Business (The Dot.com Bubble)

Nestscape showed market for immature companies going public.

$10’s millions to sart, long roduct dev cycle, millions customers, liquidity/ipo, repeatable  methodology …

It was great for some people, you make millions, retire and then get up on stage as a professor and look brilliant.

Playbook was the S1.

2001 - 201

Why startups are not small version of a large company.

Build with less than 1/5M to start (open source, commodity hardware),

SHort product dev cycles (agile development)

100’s millions Customers (social networks, consumer)

Liquidity - M&A (revenue and network of users)

Repeatable methodology (agile + cust dev)

What’s a Startup?

SEARCH (scalable startup)     to EXECUTE (Large company)

• Startups: A temp org to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.
• Large Companies: Execute found business models.

AND THERE IS A BOX IN THE MIDDLE.

“Transition” — build.

You’d think the day you put up a slide that says, “I think we’ve found a repeatable model” … you think they’d give you a pin. Actually, on the way to the car they are calling a recruiter.

World class entrepreneurs are great at search. The same people who would fly here, two days, go back, etc.  The same people who would hate to do the same thing over and over again.

Founders. Survivors of dysfunctional families are great at shutting out noise and deal with chaos. Its the first time its a benefit to them. It all falls apart though, when you get to repeatable model. They then throw grenades at own people.

How can you teach this? We are teaching artists. We can teach art, but we can’t teach them to be michleangelo …

Metrics Vs. Accounting.

• Customer …

Tall VP of Sales from large companies melt down. Cause you are searching for a business model. Its different.

2001 - 2010 (The lean startup)

Were still using same business plans …

No business plan survives first contact with customers ….

4 step process:

customer discovery, customer validation, customer creation, company building.

Get out of the building, stop selling and stop listening. You can’t hand this to someone else. Its done by founders.

Test all hypothesis.

MVP and the customer is the first two of the 9 of your business model to nail.

This “pivot” is the heart of customer development. It simply means you are wrong, and its a normal part of the learning and discovery process.

Stanford Lean LaunchPad Class …

What students did in 8 weeks …

Hypothesis , fake emails, interviews, updated things what they learned….

8 weeks Business Canvas (pretty cool) … and you can see all their learning.

(all stanford slide decks of the students will be on Steve’s blog)

2011 - 2014

New Bubble (Hypotheses)

• We’re in one
• Rules are different in 2011 then 2006Exits will be IPO and M&A (real ipo’s, qulaity will diminish, acquires will targe)?)

Rules for The New Bubble

Founders/VC’s can engineer financial transactions (talking too fast …)

2011-2014 (Order of Battle)

Lists the limited number of people looking to fill holes via M&.

Wide adoption, monitize later, visibility, look larger than life, (new rule: if we are in a bubble, you might want to play this game: conferences, blogs, pr, etc may be your best friend again).

You can ignore this. I’m not suggesting you have to follow the new rules. I’m just suggesting. If I am right, you might want to consider.

Case Studies on LEARNING:

• Hiten Shah, KISSmetrics
• Andres Glusman, Meetup

Hiten (KISSinsights)

Lean startups are build to…learn.

Get outside and talk to people.

Start with a hypothesis. These types of people are having a problem doing …

Talk about their problems, not your solutions.

Find the severe pain. The deep problem. Its really important. When you talk to people. To understand. To get to the point of this is the hardest part of my day. Etc.

Test your riskiest assumptions first.

(e.g., people wanted templates of what to ask of their customers).

< great presentation, but missed some in my notes because I was listening … and my head is about to explode

Andres Glusman

Beyound 2 guys in a garage. VP at Meetup.

Does customer development, but doesn’t call it that. 7 years at Meetup.

“What not to do with Steve’s book…”

< another good one, notes are slim …>

Watching a user go through the beta (to get inline for it)

“I’m trying to …”

“That was humbling” - A developer after the session.

“watching people use the stuff you build, is the best way to comfort the malconovich problem”

Doing 600-700 use tests a year now.  Start with projecting a user’s screen on the wall.

Test 2-3 days a week (t,w,th).

Set up tests prior to knowing what will be tested.

Shorten the window of “I wonder how a customer would respond to this” with slotting them into testing …

Goal is to have as many of these sessions as possible. We use go to meeting and other stuff to track.

No reports or big concepts sent up. We discuss it.

1. give team access to customers (directly)
2. Look for boulders in the road (doesn’t have to be super scientific(
3. Substitute frequency for precision
4. Strip out all costs wherever possible … but be willing to pay
5. Have discussions
6. Launch and learn
7. Do as much as you can in low tech way, then scale

Q&A

Included:

Don’t ask someone like me to be a mentor. Its not a job. Its a relationship. I mentor those that I learn from in the first 10 minutes. etc.

My gracious host gave me a quick tour that included breakfast taco’s at The Tacodeli (buy two “Otto’s” and thank me later), made progress on a few projects I’m working on and I was able to release a new version of my alpha app at sxsw.inward.me all before heading off to the SXSW grounds for a night of wandering and wonderment.

I’ll be updating this post throughout the day as I have time to catch up. For now, I’m jotting down a few bullets to mind me of things to expand on.

• Pit Bulls (Raised right and they are sweet hearts, but if you are a stranger, they still can be scary till you pass the sniff test with the owners onlooking approval, ie, don’t arrive early)
• Email from Mom, “We’re ok” (in Hawaii, took shifts staying awake to run to the hills if necessary)
• Tacodeli (”Otto”)
• Hitching Hiking (Look scarier then them, be ready to jump, don’t act surprised when they are really cool and on your path of where you are really, truly, going)
• Entrustet.com founders (Madison WI, Chile, Techcrunch, Estate Planning, TED, Interns, The Brain, Great Feedback, etc.)
• mmmpanda’s and Free Grouponada’s Truck (Mechanical Engineer turned mobile empanada king, fun to hear about one’s path and the “aha, wake up, how did I get here and how do I get out of here moments)
• Lean Startup Event and Bundle (attending the event, thinking about buying the bundle and entering the contest)
• Thoughts on meeting VC’s at events (share but not pitch, if you are ready you know where to find them, and if you are really, really ready, they’ll know where to find you)
• Met a New Yorker Bryan Thatcher (on the Jones Soda mobile party, just hopped on with no direction home, had a few drinks, great conversation and an epic bike ride, pics to come)
• More notes …

We learn about the history between Francisco and Dagny (why, that little
tart!)  We learn that Francisco was a man of superlative intelligence, and
that he valued achievement as much or more than Dagny.

We see that at some point in his past, he was suddenly turned around,
and apparently discarded all those values that he used to hold highly.
Dagny witnesses the turning point, but doesn’t understand it.

Here’s the key scene:

‘Without transition or warning, he asked, his voice oddly unstressed,
“Dagny, what would you say if I asked you to leave Taggart Trans-
Continental and let it go to hell, as it will when your brother takes over?”

‘”What would I say if you asked me to consider the idea of committing
suicide?” she answer angrily.

then later…

“I can’t give it up! I can’t” (Francisco)

“What?” she whispered.

“You.”

“Why should–”

“And everything.”

“Why should you give it up?”

“Dagny!  Help me to remain.  To refuse.  Even though
he’s right!”

and later, after he’s finished suffering and he’s saying goodbye
to Dagny:

“Don’t wait for me, Dagny.  Next time we meet, you will not
want to see me.  I will have a reason for the things I’ll do.  But
I can’t tell you the reason and you will be right to damn me.”

The “things” he’s referring to  turn out to be abandoning his
business, letting his mines go to hell, becoming a playboy,
and wasting his family fortune.   We don’t know his motive,
but we do know that it’s a complete contradiction of his character.

Was this chapter confusing?  Or did it just increase your curiosity about the plot?

What happened with respect to Rand’s philosophy:

This was more an “action” chapter than one in which Rand gets into philosophical
discussions, but there are some tidbits here (and in every chapter of the book.)

In a discussion between Jim Taggart and Francisco:

“In his lifetime, every one of my ancestors raised the production of d’Anconia
copper by about ten per cent.  I intend to raise it by one hundred”

“What for?” Jim asked

“When I die, I hope to go to heaven — whatever the hell that is — and I want
to be able to afford the price of admission.”

“Virtue is the price of admission,” Jim said haughtily.

“That’s what I mean, James.  So I want to be prepared to claim the
greatest virtue of all — that I was a man who made money.”

That exchange shows both Rand’s disrespect of the idea of heaven, and her
linking of virtue to the making of money, a link that you won’t find too often
in religious doctrines.

Later, when Dagny visits him following the nationalization of San Sebastian,
this exchange occurs:

“Your brother James and his friends knew nothing about the copper-mining
industry.  They knew nothing about making money.  They did not think it was
necessary to learn.  They considered knowledge superfluous and judgment
inessential.”

So here Rand links knowledge and judgment to wealth, and lack of knowledge
but relying on others blindly, to getting fleeced (like Jim did in the San Sebastian
stock.)

That’s a key message throughout the book, though it seems odd here to have
Francisco as the messenger.

Okay, your turn.  Share your thoughts about the story development and the
philosophical points with the group!

Next chapter:  I-VI The Non-Commercial

We are in the 5th week or so of our Ad Hoc Atlas Shrugged book club.  Just as it started on a whim, it is evolving, whim by whim.  Below are two whims that I think will improve upon the current system.

Atlas Shrugged Menu

I’ll be updating each post on the menu so you can navigate them easily. It’ll link to old posts as well as highlight what we are reading in the current week.  Since we are going slow, the hope is that people can start at anytime and catch up. This will be an easy way to “climb the ladder” without having to search through unrelated posts.

Guest Posts

Starting with Bruce, I’ll be recruiting guest authors to make posts on a chapter.  Hopefully this will encourage more interactions and will increase the diversity of perspectives represented.  If you are interested in being a guest author, please make a comment on this blog and I’ll get you an account.

Suggestions?

As I mentioned, this is a whim by whim evolution … and I hope that it includes whims from multiple people. I asked Bruce for suggestions, here is what he said:

“My one suggestion, to encourage more posts, thoughts about the book is to start each blog for a new section by just bullet listing very briefly what happened, then ask all readers to comment and give their thoughts.  After that, you can add your own thoughts or create another blog entry with your perspective after reading others. That way, people are responding to the book instead of to Wally’s thoughts about the book.

I love it! We’ll go with that as the new standard template and see how people like it.  I’m thinking the author of the post their thoughts as the first comment of the blog to prime the pump!

Post any suggestions below and we’ll give it a shot …

I’m enjoying the newsletter Just One Thing. Today’s passage starts out “We evolved to be afraid”.

I loved it.  I almost updated my status with the title of this blog, but then thought it might make a better twitter sized blog post. Yes, the title is the blog post (and the body is just the background).

Would love to hear what type of thoughts or feelings the title of this blog brings up to you.

For me its calming and grips me deeply without really any explanation. Just a deep feeling that perhaps my deepest fears are nothing but just fantums in my head.

…

We continue to have new members joins us.

In last week’s chapter (THE IMMOVABLE MOVERS) it seems we began to get a glimpse of Ayn’s sense of what true capitalism looks like, at least its potential, as Dagny and Hank discuss business:

“I’ve been thinking of building a plant there in a few years. To save them your transportation charges.” He glanced at her.  ”You’ll lose an awful lot of steel freight, if I do.”

“Go ahead. I’ll be satisfied with carrying your supplies, and the groceries for your workders, and the freight of the factories that will follow you there — and perhaps I won’t have time to notice that I’ve lost your stel. . . . What are you laughing at?”

“It’s wonderful.”

“What?”

“The way you don’t react as everybody else does nowadays.”

“Still, I must admit that for the time being your’e the most important single shipper of Taggart Transcontinental.” (page 85)

This week’s reading (we skipped a week) is roughly 42 pages depending on what edition you are reading, mine is page 89 to page 126.

What we’ve read to date:

• Part I-I   THE THEME (page 3 - 26)
• Part I-II   THE CHAIN (page 27 - 43)
• Part I-III  THE TOP AND BOTTOM (pages 44 - 63)
• Part I-IV THE IMMOVABLE MOVERS (pages 64-89)

Although we still remain lite on comments, Matt Camp has been a great “fire starter” commenting on Part I-Iand Part I-II.  Matt comments on how the book arrived via Amazon the same week I announced the Atlas Shrugged Ad Hock Book Club, and how it sealed the deal … the book found him.  He also expressed how engaging the dialog was, especially as it gets to Dagny and James. For Part I-II he likes getting to know Rearden, but raises the issue of Work/Life balance and questioned if Rearden’s approach is admirable, “at what cost?”.

There are no comments for Part I-III THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM but I thought this cartoon below re: Lobbyists (didn’t mean to make too much about McCain, could have been any politician) was fitting.  We learned that Rearden’s “Washington man” was Wesley Mouch and got a glance at how deals are being done at the time.

What we’ve read to date:

• Part I-I   THE THEME (page 3 - 26)
• Part I-II   THE CHAIN (page 27 - 43)
• Part I-III  THE TOP AND BOTTOM (pages 44 - 63)

This week’s reading is roughly 20 pages depending on what edition you are reading, mine is page 64 to page 88.

Although we’ve been lite on comments for this blog, I have been overwhelmed by the number of people that want to join in on reading or rereading Atlas Shrugged.  Just tonight I mentioned over a drink and the three people with me said they’d start and catch up with us!

For those justing joining us, we’ve spent a week with each chapter (should be easy to catch up):

• Part I-I   THE THEME (page 3 - 26)
• Part I-II   THE CHAIN (page 27 - 43)

The next section (Part I, Section III) is titled “The Top and the Bottom” and is about 20 pages (Page 44-63 in my edition).

One of them even suggested we should meet up in person for the local folks reading it in Palo Alto.  I bet there will be a simliar group for those reading it in Hawaii … perhaps we’ll go global on this!

Since Part I - I started and ended with this question, I thought why not do the same with this blog post. The question has clearly made it into our culture’s fabric (modern day proof, see Google suggested search to the right).

Looking over the table of contents, I’m thinking we’ll revise the reading schedule from 25ish pages per week to one section a week.

I’ll be writing a new blog post for each week’s section, so if you find yourself behind or are starting late, no worries. Just read and comment on the blog posts as you make your way to the corresponding sections (pictured right: my brother sends me a photo from an inter-island jet as proof he’s begun the journey … one chapter a week, we all can find the time my friends!).

I’d like to thank Matt Camp for being the first commentator to the Ad Hoc Atlas Shrugged Book Club. For everyone else, looking forward to your chiming in, or at least “liking” the links to each blog when I post them to Facebook.

Some of the folks who have signed on, showed interest or who are trying to decide to embark or not with us on our jounrey, include:

• John Roth
• Matt Camp
• Walter Roth
• Matt Nelson
• Randy Roth
• Susie Roth
• Tom Roth
• Cassie Roth
• Lennie
• …more but unlisted

If I’ve missed your name, comment below or let me know on Facebook.  If you want to invite others, please do and have them catch up!

I’ll write more later. Until then …

“Who is John Galt?”

Somehow my brother has been chosen by Atlas Shrugged - finally.  ”Hey, can you get my Atlas Shrugged for my birthday? I think I’m going to ready it  now”. I wasted no time, I went out and bought it for him that moment.

On the way there he suggested we do a book club on it, as he’s heard the 1,168 pages can be daunting.  Having read the book and been immensely effected by the book, I quickly agreed. I think we may get my father and other brother (Tom) to also join in even though they’ve read it before too.

We’ll be using this blog to chart out the pages to be read and by when. We’ll also post some of the discussions that follow.

If you’d like to join, please comment below.  We are going to start slow to allow others to catch up. We’ll find a good pace once we get into the book further.

SO — today is 10/11/10.  John and I agreed to read pages 1-25.  Since different editions have different page numbers, I’ll add some insight below.  Essentially, the week starting at Mid night is Chapter I.

First sentence: “Who is John Galt?” (Page 3)

Last sentence: “”Who is John Galt?” (Page 26)

If you don’t own the book, here is a link to buy it from Amazon. Its the size that is closest to the version John and I have.

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