Bluetooth headsets in 2015

Long story short.  Finding an in-ear blue tooth headset in 2015 was hard.  I tried the plantronics M55, plantronics M165 and they both had poor sound quality and poor noise cancellation. 

I now have the jarbra stealth, and so far it works. Comfortable, good sound quality and solid noise cancellation.   

I don't know if there are better headsets (I was getting sick of trying to find them), but this one works as well as I'd expect. 

Cool Tools: View azure blob storage as a filesystem (Azure Explorer)

Azure blob storage is essentially a file system metaphor.   Azure explorer lets you interact with your storage account as if it was a drive on your local machine.  I use it all the time when I'm working with Azure storage.

Startupville: What's it like running a startup?

Running a startup is hard. Soul crushingly hard.  I suspect if you haven't done it before, you can't understand it, but I'll try to explain it with an analogy:



Imagine you decide to row across the Atlantic  alone. You don't get a GPS, you don't get a map, you don't even get a compass, all you can do is navigate by the stars.    Oh yeah, you do get a one way radio you can't turn off.



At first, as you leave your home filled with confidence. You know you're a strong rower,  you think you know where you're going, and you  you feel great!



But then it gets dark and cloudy,  you can't see the stars, you have no idea where you are, you have no idea if you're going in a circle or heading back to where yous started, and you're tired, rowing is hard work.  You become filled with fear and doubt.  Even if you wanted to go back to a place you thought was safe, you don't know how to get back. And did I mention rowing is hard work, and you've been rowing a long time, and you're tired, very very tired.



While you are it in your boat alone, in the dark, anxious, exhausted and demoralized, you still have the radio, the radio you can't turn off.   The radio is a stream of people give advice like:  "You're going the wrong way", "Turn Back", "Go Left, "Go Right",  "Turn around", "You're crazy to think this will work", "This is dumb", "you're doing it wrong".



But sometimes , the clouds lift, and you see the stars, and you realize you are making progress, you realize you are a stronger rower then you where when you left shore, and you fill with hope. You recharge your mental batteries  you remember why are on this journey,  and most of all you remember you can actually make it!



Happy rowing!

Startupville: Why is no one referring my project?

TL;DR - Your
customers don't provide referrals because it's a risk to their credibility.
Remove the credibility risk, and your referrals will follow.

As an entrepreneur I
imagined  my user count would grow by
leaps and bounds as soon as my happy customers started providing referrals.
However, when it came time to start providing referrals, my customers kept
saying they would, but didn't follow through.

At first, I assumed
my customers weren't providing referrals because they were lazy.  Thus I spent a bunch of time nagging my
customers. Guess what? No referrals.

Then I assumed the
problem was that my customers had no idea what to say for the referral.  So I spent a bunch of time creating a
referral message my customers could use. Guess what? Still no referrals.

Then I got wise and
asked one of my favorite customers why he wouldn't refer me -  and he told me the answer. "Igor, I
won't refer you because when I refer you it's my credibility on the line".

So there it is, the
three reasons your customers aren't referring you are:

1. The work of doing the
   referral


2. The message to give to the
   person to be referred


3. The risk to credibility to
   person providing the referral.

And in case you're
confused, the order to tackle these problems is C, B, A. Future posts will talk about how to minimize credibility risk

Smile! 

Cool Tools: World Time Buddy

Disclaimer:  I know the CEO, I know this sounds like spam, but it's still awesome.



Keeping multiple time zones strait is a pain.  Missing a meeting because you came 3 hours too late is worse.  World Time Buddy makes it easy to keep track of time zones. Check it out.


https://worldtimebuddy.com

Surface Pro 3: Reasonable priced charging

I love my surface pro 3, but one thing that really irks me is the 80$ chargers.  I just bought a 25$ charger off Amazon and it works like a champ - now you can get another charger for you bag at a reasonable price!