Evan Rudowski: Web Transplant

Congratulations Magic Whiteboard

Once in a while you see a product that is so perfect and so excellent that you can't help but admire it.

We recently found this at SubHub when we ordered Magic Whiteboard. And entrepreneurs ourselves, we were very pleased for the founders, husband and wife Neil and Laura Westwood, when they successfully secured £100,000 in funding in last night's episode of BBC's Dragons Den.

Magic Whiteboard is a statically-charged sheet of polypropylene that sticks to walls using static electricity. It can be written on with a whiteboard marker and erased as easily as an ordinary whiteboard. Papers stick to it without adhesive, also due to the static charge.

We have papered all of the walls of our office with this stuff. It has made our recently-introduced agile development process (more on that in a future post) a breeze. All of our ideas, user stories, development tasks and other activities are now on the walls. Everyone can see, and contribute to, what everyone else is doing. No more silos of information hidden in folders or on hard drives -- it's all on the wall.

Magic Whiteboard makes it possible. We would have figured something else out, using Blu-Tack or whatever, but boy does Magic Whiteboard make it a whole lot easier.

Maybe that's why four of the five Dragons competed to fund the company. Buy a roll or two and see for yourself.

Free Trials and Tribulations

We launched our free trial today at SubHub -- it's at www.subhub.com for those inclined to take a look.

Anyone can now come to our website, set up a trial, and if they like it convert to a paid site and be live to the world immediately.

We are really cookin' with gas -- as my friends used to say on the sandlot back in Queens, New York when I was growing up. In the past month we've launched this free trial; we've introduced a simpler, more elegant user interface; we've incorporated in-line tool tips, video tutorials and an extensive online help center; we've cut our prices in half -- and we've made the whole thing self-provisioning so that anyone can come along and have a website without even talking to us if they don't want to.

Not that they wouldn't want to -- lovely bunch that we are. Sitting in our office by the bay in Cardiff, Wales, our rag-tag band of crack developers, ace product and support people, and expert sales and marketing -- all eight of them, along with two moderately useful founders -- have managed to build the first content publishing platform that is easy enough for a novice to use and is revenue-ready -- with built-in monetization via subscription, advertising and e-commerce.

We've been flying under many radar screens so far but a blip is starting to appear. Hundreds of websites are using SubHub already. Watch as we gain altitude.

Hello, Indali

I had the pleasure tonight of attending a preview party for the new restaurant being opened by my friend Tej Lalvani and his father, Kartar, at 50 Baker Street in London.

Indali Lounge will serve healthy Indian food, made with the finest ingredients and with a minimum of the butter, oil and other artery-clogging elements that glop up so much of the food found at your average Indian restaurant. Tej's father exuded great confidence and enthusiasm as he boasted of their approach -- their version of Butter Chicken, for example, will be made without butter and will taste much better for it, he said assuredly.

Based on what my friends and I tasted, this approach is likely to work. The flavors of the foods we sampled were delicately balanced; the spices clear to taste but subtle and never excessive. And this is no surprise coming from the family that built Vitabiotics (Wellman, Wellwoman, Pregnacare and more) on the same philosophy of the highest-grade, healthiest components.

Given London's large Indian community and the love of almost any Brit for a good Indian meal, when Indali Lounge opens in a few weeks' time I'm sure it will be a great hit. And I'll be calling Tej to see if I can get a good table whenever I'm in London.

Obama's Capital Gains Bombshell

Barack Obama said in last night's debate that he would consider raising the U.S. capital gains tax rate from its current 15 percent to as high as 28 percent, as reported in this New York Times article. Hillary Clinton stated that she would not raise it higher than 20 percent.

Given that he is willing to nearly double the capital gains tax rate, I wonder why Obama seems to be the darling of much of the Silicon Valley set?

When a VC is Untrustworthy

What happens when a VC turns out to be untrustworthy?

My start-up recently held extended discussions with a reputable VC firm. Although we did not proceed with an investment, we felt we liked the VC and we agreed that we'd remain in touch.

As part of the process we of course introduced the VC to our team. The lead partner was particularly impressed with one role we had created and the person in the role. The VC partner told me he had encouraged another of his portfolio companies to create a similar role.

So guess what? About two weeks after the conversation ended, our team member received an email from the private address of the founder of one of the VC's portfolio companies. The same VC partner is on their board. The founder did not name his company, but said he had heard of this team member through "the grapevine," and said they were looking for someone like this person to fill a similar role at his "well-funded start-up."

It did not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out this person's company, or his connection to the VC. Since our team member does not circulate much in the sector, nor in the geographic area where this company is located, it seems pretty clear that the lead came from the VC himself.

Maybe I'm naive, but I thought we could assume some level of integrity from the VCs with whom we speak -- or is all fair in love and business? Obviously it would not be helpful to the VC firm's deal flow if they were to be seen as likely to poach from companies in which they do not invest (presumably this is why they clumsily decided to cover their tracks with an email from the founder's personal address rather than the company itself).

You can bet we won't be talking to this VC again in the future -- or do they all behave this way? Is this surprisingly underhanded? Or commonplace?

Having a Company Voice

Dick Costolo in his "Ask the Wizard" blog has an excellent post today about company voice.

Dick argues that it's a competitive advantage for a company to have a voice and a personality that is visible to its customers. Too many companies work to remove evidence of personality in favor of a blandness that seems less risky. But people enjoy dealing with other people, Dick says, and companies with personality remind customers that there really are real people at the other end of the line.

To me this is also about having company values, values that really say something about how a company intends to behave and how it will treat its customers (and employees). It is easy for a company to have a statement of values to which everyone pays lip service, which are non-controversial and yet somehow seem positive. It is harder for a company to have real values that it lives by even if it seems to cost more or be less efficient as a result. But those kinds of values are the ones people buy into sincerely and which build loyalty and buzz.

What is most difficult for a company, I think, is having those values and applying them consistently across the business and its many activities. If you do a good job of conveying your values, or personality, to customers but then fall short of applying them, the disappointment customers feel is even greater than if you had not articulated the values at all. You have set them up, and then let them down.

In those cases honesty and sincerity are always best -- we meant well, we messed up, we're sorry, we'll try to do better. And then really try -- and let the customer know how you're getting on. Companies, like people, won't always get it right, but customers will forgive a lot if they know you're trying.