5 ms·

I’m starting an internet company and detailing the entire process

64 points by johnomarkid 9y ago

npguy 9y ago
There is an enterprise software company named powwow as well. You might run into issues with your name.
iamphilrae 9y ago
Great idea but you may want to rethink the name. PowWowNow is a well know (at least in the U.K.) conference call provider. May prove a big issue for you since you're in a similar field. Looking forward to the weekly updates.
- johnomarkid 9y ago
  Thanks, didn't know that. If the name becomes a problem I am completely open to changing it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- bflesch 9y ago
  I'm always baffled by the naivity of people when deciding on company names. The challenge is not to spend dollars on finding a new name that is as cool as possible, but the challenge is to find a name: - that is not used in that context anywhere else, therefore - free of potential legal liability towards other brands, and - for which you can build up a brand over time. How come otherwise competent engineers end up with these kinds of suboptimal startup/project names over and over again? For Powwow you have other companies, all domains are taken, and you will have to fight wikipedia to rank for this term in any top spot. Same with otto, the car company. Otto is popular first name, name of one of the largest European pre-amazon retailers, etc. Such a waste of money and time to start with a second-hand brand. (sorry if this comes across as snarky, I really like the project.)
  - johnomarkid 9y ago
    You used Otto as an example. It was acquired by Uber for $680M. Doesn't that mean company names might be less important than you think? I purchased powwowjs.com (js because it's a javascript embedded app) for $40 after spending 15 minutes thinking about a name I liked. I'd rather spend my time and money building a product that is not yet validated. If the name needs to change, that's totally fine and a lot less time consuming than my current task at hand.
    - bflesch 9y ago
      Otto is a huge corruption case right now, and I've read articles indicating that the whole otto vehicle was just set up to funnel IP out of Google into Uber. So the "exit" might've been constructed a bit. Not criticizing the content of your project, but I think you make it harder for yourself than you needed to. Several avenues are blocked right from the start depending on name choice, and rebranding is really expensive.
    - dokein 9y ago
      Otto is a bad comparison for anyone because it was more of an intellectual trust sold to larger companies than a true startup. I agree that plenty of companies change their names though.
    - wtvanhest 9y ago
      This is the right approach imo. You could call it jhgjgddsdghkkl. As long as the product is awesome, people will figure it out.
      - bflesch 9y ago
        I remember the first time reading about ifttt as a non-native speaker :)
doozler 9y ago
Looking forward to the updates! Will you provide any technical information about the tech stack used, servers, scaling etc?
- johnomarkid 9y ago
  Yup, for sure. In the week 1 update I actually briefly talk about the stack. But future updates will go more in depth with things like db query profiles. http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/ http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/
cbisnett 9y ago
You might have to fight John McAfee for the name ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowWow_(chat_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowWow_(chat_program)
jblok 9y ago
> We want to try new ways to motivate employees that don’t revolve around stock options with unknown value. How about salaries?
- johnomarkid 9y ago
  Industry level salaries are important. In addition to that, how do you create an environment that people want to work in for the next 10 years? I think remote work is a big incentive. Maybe capping work hours at 40/week. That makes people happy. Maybe profit sharing. There are incentives that are more tangible than stock options.
  - inetknght 9y ago
    Cap on personal income as a ratio of number of employees (so you don't end up with Wal-Mart-like policies where the bulk of your "employees" make minimum wage and require government assistance just to live, while people at the top make millions) would be great. Combine that being profitable (after base salaries) and fair profit sharing (eg, across all employees and contractors) and you will have people flocking to your company in droves.
    - pc86 9y ago
      Why would contractors get profit sharing? They're already paid higher rates after accounting for benefits, risks, and taxes. If you undervalue yourself as a software dev contractor and bill 25-30 hours a week you can make a quarter million dollars a year gross. I get where you're going with the WM example, and that's a fair one, but probably not comparable to a tech company like this. Nobody is going to be working for $10/hr or less unless it's fair for their standard of living. Likewise, industry level pay is important and if a good CFO commands $2 million a year but you can only offer $1.1 because you have a bunch of people making $50k, you're not going to get a good CFO, or your hiring pool is going to be artificially limited to those who don't need or care about the money.
      - inetknght 9y ago
EGreg 9y ago
"The contradiction is that growth isn’t the only thing we want. We want to build a company that promotes remote work. We want to try new ways to motivate employees that don’t revolve around stock options with unknown value. And we want the ability to not grow when circumstances call for it." Then use the model outlined in https://qbix.com/blog https://qbix.com/blog right now :) Perhaps thinking of people as employees is outdated. Let's face it, these days the typical company or corporation doesn't care about its employees nearly as much as the product they produce. That's why your grandfather was a company man who worked 40 years with one firm, and today people flit from place to place. It's also why people make less than they did then. Automation and outsourcing has reduced demand for human labor. Today (Real GDP / Population) is 10x more than in 1950s - so each person is 10x more productive on average - yet back then one regular man could pay for an entire household in the suburbs. Today both parents work, stick their kids in glorified daycare (public school) and still can barely make ends meet. Perhaps the compensation model should be more project based. Perhaps we should have single payer basic healthcare, food etc. unconditionally for everyone. People live lives. Companies build products.
nhumrich 9y ago
Am I the only one who thought this article was going to be about an ISP startup because of the title, and was disappointed when it wasn't?
- d--b 9y ago
  My thought process: Internet company? What is this? 1998? OH it must be an ISP! Nope. It's a chat for your website... Wait, isn't there a million of these already? * sigh *
  - stymaar 9y ago
    > Wait, isn't there a million of these already? If there is a million of them, there must be business here, and if an entrepreneur thinks he can do it better than his average competitor, he should definetly go ahead. A company doesn't need to be revolutionary to be a success-story. Distruptive ideas are exceptionally scarce and they represent a microscopic share of the economy as a whole.
    - d--b 9y ago
      Of course this is totally fine. I'm responding to the comment that it is disappointing that this wasn't an ISP. I thought: here's a guy who sees that there is an opportunity to create an ISP that will be privacy focused, and he's going to details all the steps along the way. That'd be quite exciting.
simonswords82 9y ago
Are you raising any money for this venture or bootstrapping?
- johnomarkid 9y ago
  Bootstrapping for now.
mintplant 9y ago
Would you mind detailing the process of actually starting the company, ie incorporation? What are the costs involved, recurring or otherwise? Did you hire a lawyer, or use a service like LegalZoom?
- johnomarkid 9y ago
  Yes. The week 1 update goes into that. http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/ http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/
pc86 9y ago
I'm not sure why a Slack group is a bad idea. I'm in a half dozen or so, and every time I open Slack I see the icons for all these services. I am much more likely to visit the website of one of my Slack groups than I am, say, one of the Facebook groups I'm in. I'm not even in Slack every day while I spend an embarrassing amount of time on Facebook.
swagv1 9y ago
Never before in the history of the Internetz
wwalser 9y ago
An alternative title for the post could be "I'm going to compete with two of the most dominant tech companies in the world and blog about it." I've heard that Slack isn't really interested in supporting paid Slack communities in a meaningful way (all of the money is in enterprise chat). So I could see a company that's truly focused winning that battle. Facebook on the other hand seems pretty invested in private groups. Naturally, I wish John the best of luck. Building a company is hard in and of itself, he's choosing to take on a particularly difficult version of that challenge. I hope he doesn't plan to bootstrap a community chat application.

64 points by johnomarkid 9y ago

There is an enterprise software company named powwow as well. You might run into issues with your name.

Great idea but you may want to rethink the name. PowWowNow is a well know (at least in the U.K.) conference call provider. May prove a big issue for you since you're in a similar field. Looking forward to the weekly updates.

johnomarkid 9y ago
Thanks, didn't know that. If the name becomes a problem I am completely open to changing it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bflesch 9y ago
I'm always baffled by the naivity of people when deciding on company names. The challenge is not to spend dollars on finding a new name that is as cool as possible, but the challenge is to find a name: - that is not used in that context anywhere else, therefore - free of potential legal liability towards other brands, and - for which you can build up a brand over time. How come otherwise competent engineers end up with these kinds of suboptimal startup/project names over and over again? For Powwow you have other companies, all domains are taken, and you will have to fight wikipedia to rank for this term in any top spot. Same with otto, the car company. Otto is popular first name, name of one of the largest European pre-amazon retailers, etc. Such a waste of money and time to start with a second-hand brand. (sorry if this comes across as snarky, I really like the project.)
- johnomarkid 9y ago
  You used Otto as an example. It was acquired by Uber for $680M. Doesn't that mean company names might be less important than you think? I purchased powwowjs.com (js because it's a javascript embedded app) for $40 after spending 15 minutes thinking about a name I liked. I'd rather spend my time and money building a product that is not yet validated. If the name needs to change, that's totally fine and a lot less time consuming than my current task at hand.
  - bflesch 9y ago
    Otto is a huge corruption case right now, and I've read articles indicating that the whole otto vehicle was just set up to funnel IP out of Google into Uber. So the "exit" might've been constructed a bit. Not criticizing the content of your project, but I think you make it harder for yourself than you needed to. Several avenues are blocked right from the start depending on name choice, and rebranding is really expensive.
  - dokein 9y ago
    Otto is a bad comparison for anyone because it was more of an intellectual trust sold to larger companies than a true startup. I agree that plenty of companies change their names though.
  - wtvanhest 9y ago
    This is the right approach imo. You could call it jhgjgddsdghkkl. As long as the product is awesome, people will figure it out.
    - bflesch 9y ago
      I remember the first time reading about ifttt as a non-native speaker :)

doozler 9y ago

Looking forward to the updates! Will you provide any technical information about the tech stack used, servers, scaling etc?

johnomarkid 9y ago
Yup, for sure. In the week 1 update I actually briefly talk about the stack. But future updates will go more in depth with things like db query profiles. http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/ http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/

cbisnett 9y ago

You might have to fight John McAfee for the name ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowWow_(chat_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowWow_(chat_program)

jblok 9y ago

> We want to try new ways to motivate employees that don’t revolve around stock options with unknown value. How about salaries?

johnomarkid 9y ago
Industry level salaries are important. In addition to that, how do you create an environment that people want to work in for the next 10 years? I think remote work is a big incentive. Maybe capping work hours at 40/week. That makes people happy. Maybe profit sharing. There are incentives that are more tangible than stock options.
- inetknght 9y ago
  Cap on personal income as a ratio of number of employees (so you don't end up with Wal-Mart-like policies where the bulk of your "employees" make minimum wage and require government assistance just to live, while people at the top make millions) would be great. Combine that being profitable (after base salaries) and fair profit sharing (eg, across all employees and contractors) and you will have people flocking to your company in droves.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Why would contractors get profit sharing? They're already paid higher rates after accounting for benefits, risks, and taxes. If you undervalue yourself as a software dev contractor and bill 25-30 hours a week you can make a quarter million dollars a year gross. I get where you're going with the WM example, and that's a fair one, but probably not comparable to a tech company like this. Nobody is going to be working for $10/hr or less unless it's fair for their standard of living. Likewise, industry level pay is important and if a good CFO commands $2 million a year but you can only offer $1.1 because you have a bunch of people making $50k, you're not going to get a good CFO, or your hiring pool is going to be artificially limited to those who don't need or care about the money.
    - inetknght 9y ago

EGreg 9y ago

"The contradiction is that growth isn’t the only thing we want. We want to build a company that promotes remote work. We want to try new ways to motivate employees that don’t revolve around stock options with unknown value. And we want the ability to not grow when circumstances call for it." Then use the model outlined in https://qbix.com/blog https://qbix.com/blog right now :) Perhaps thinking of people as employees is outdated. Let's face it, these days the typical company or corporation doesn't care about its employees nearly as much as the product they produce. That's why your grandfather was a company man who worked 40 years with one firm, and today people flit from place to place. It's also why people make less than they did then. Automation and outsourcing has reduced demand for human labor. Today (Real GDP / Population) is 10x more than in 1950s - so each person is 10x more productive on average - yet back then one regular man could pay for an entire household in the suburbs. Today both parents work, stick their kids in glorified daycare (public school) and still can barely make ends meet. Perhaps the compensation model should be more project based. Perhaps we should have single payer basic healthcare, food etc. unconditionally for everyone. People live lives. Companies build products.

nhumrich 9y ago

Am I the only one who thought this article was going to be about an ISP startup because of the title, and was disappointed when it wasn't?

d--b 9y ago
My thought process: Internet company? What is this? 1998? OH it must be an ISP! Nope. It's a chat for your website... Wait, isn't there a million of these already? * sigh *
- stymaar 9y ago
  > Wait, isn't there a million of these already? If there is a million of them, there must be business here, and if an entrepreneur thinks he can do it better than his average competitor, he should definetly go ahead. A company doesn't need to be revolutionary to be a success-story. Distruptive ideas are exceptionally scarce and they represent a microscopic share of the economy as a whole.
  - d--b 9y ago
    Of course this is totally fine. I'm responding to the comment that it is disappointing that this wasn't an ISP. I thought: here's a guy who sees that there is an opportunity to create an ISP that will be privacy focused, and he's going to details all the steps along the way. That'd be quite exciting.

simonswords82 9y ago

Are you raising any money for this venture or bootstrapping?

johnomarkid 9y ago
Bootstrapping for now.

mintplant 9y ago

Would you mind detailing the process of actually starting the company, ie incorporation? What are the costs involved, recurring or otherwise? Did you hire a lawyer, or use a service like LegalZoom?

johnomarkid 9y ago
Yes. The week 1 update goes into that. http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/ http://johnomar.com/powwow-progress-week-1/

pc86 9y ago

I'm not sure why a Slack group is a bad idea. I'm in a half dozen or so, and every time I open Slack I see the icons for all these services. I am much more likely to visit the website of one of my Slack groups than I am, say, one of the Facebook groups I'm in. I'm not even in Slack every day while I spend an embarrassing amount of time on Facebook.

swagv1 9y ago

Never before in the history of the Internetz

wwalser 9y ago

An alternative title for the post could be "I'm going to compete with two of the most dominant tech companies in the world and blog about it." I've heard that Slack isn't really interested in supporting paid Slack communities in a meaningful way (all of the money is in enterprise chat). So I could see a company that's truly focused winning that battle. Facebook on the other hand seems pretty invested in private groups. Naturally, I wish John the best of luck. Building a company is hard in and of itself, he's choosing to take on a particularly difficult version of that challenge. I hope he doesn't plan to bootstrap a community chat application.