Feb 15

What the paintballing industry could learn from skydiving

Arizona, Entrepreneur, Sport & Health 1 Comment »

I went paintballing with a group of 11 guys this past weekend in the desert north of Phoenix. It was the third time I had ever been and we all had a blast. It was surprising how many people were up there – probably close to 100 when I was expecting about 10… Anyways, while the experience was killer, there’s a simple tweak they could make to take it to the next level.
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This particular operation (or any other savvy paintballing outfit) should add a premium feature to their game play. They should learn from skydiving and offer helmet cams and then sell the footage back to the players. I don’t know what the exact economics would need to be but quick googling shows there are sub-$100 waterproof cameras that could easily be mounted on the players masks. Take it a step further and put a close-circuit TV in the deadman box (place where people accumulate after getting shot) , have the helmet cams transmit wirelessly in real-time and broadcast gameplay live from multiple angles. Affix helmet cams on all referees and make it truly cinematic with the ability to see the final firefight showdown after you’ve been shot.

Once you’re knocked out it’s still fun to come back and debrief with other folks in that area but you know you’re missing a crazy final battle that’s happening out of sight. It would incredibly badass for them to add this real-time window into that action without too much cost or extra effort required. The other benefit is that they’s then capture all that footage to a hard drive daily and have the ability to burn you a DVD at the end for $20 ($50?, $100?).

This paintball place doesn’t need more players – it needs a way of extracting more money from their existing player base and making the game more memorable to drive repeat business.

There is an absolute opportunity here to offer something extra that makes the experience more engaging while simultaneously giving the paintball company a high-margin new product to sell for essentially no cost. And the byproduct is footage they can not only sell on-site, impulse-purchase to the players but also to build up a knowledgebase or have fodder for educational DVD’s, to acquire highlight reel film for their promo collateral or best yet: post it to FB on players’ behalf and offload all their marketing costs to them. All of that drives more repeat business and higher-margin business. We used Groupons for this outing but if this place builds up their organic crowd they can cease the Groupons and keep the full price for themselves…

Anyways below is some point-of-view footage I took from my iPhone on one of the rounds we played if you want a flavor of what it’s like. In 3min I managed to run into a cactus, jam my gun, cap some guy in the head and then take a barrage of cross-fire myself. Good times.


POV of Paintballing in the AZ Desert from Sean Tierney on Vimeo.

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Feb 08

Results and observations from one month on the Paleo diet

Sport & Health 29 Comments »

It’s been exactly one month to the day since I started the Paleo diet and I wanted to share some factual results as well as some completely subjective observations. If you’ve not heard of the Paleo diet, this is all the rage right now amongst the startup community. It’s very similar to the Atkins diet only as best I can tell it’s more of an overarching philosophy that we should attempt to live more like cavemen. It’s seemingly based on the idea that our bodies evolved over a million years to process the food we’ve had access to in the wild. Since we’ve only gained access to farming, grains, dairy, processed foods, refined sugars, etc in the last 330 generations or so, we’re not evolutionarily equipped to handle those foods. So the gist is we should eat how our bodies are currently evolved to eat.

The Results

So first objective results: I’ve hovered around 210-220lbs since I was in college. On January 9th my weight was on the low side of that continuum at 212lbs. I did a bodyfat measurement that same day at my gym using a handheld Bioelectrical Impedance Method scanner and got a reading of 15.1%. This morning (for the first time since high schoo) I weighed in sub-200 at 197lbs on the same scale I used before. I registered 17.4% bodyfat measured on the same BMI device (at roughly the same time in the morning to equate for variables like water weight, food intake, etc). Those measurements are perplexing because I seemingly gained 2lbs of fat and lost a bunch of lean muscle mass.

Here’s the before and after photos taken on Jan 15th and Feb 8th respectively:

I can hear it already: “you’re just sucking it in on the after pic.” Trust me I’m not – a 15lb weight differential remember… so let me say that again for emphasis:

I’ve lost 15lbs in 30 days with only one visit to the gym and by maintaining my regular running schedule of 3-4x per wk.

Subjective Observations

Now here’s a brain dump of purely anecdotal and factually-unsupported observations:

  • General affect – I feel fantastic, noticeably more energetic and with more mental alertness than I can remember having felt in… well, forever. I’ve seen comments in various forums that remark on “a positive correlation between the paleo diet and douchebaggery” – lemme say this is not me being douchey. This is me relaying the subjective assessment of feeling more healthy than I’ve felt since high school.
  • Permanence – I had gone through Bill Phillip’s “Body for Life” program two years ago about this time and achieved decent results. That program however required fairly intense discipline and once finished I gravitated probably 60% back to my former eating & exercise habits. Having done only one month of Paleo I can attest this feels more like a permanent lifestyle change. Fresh foods and free-range meats are just more appealing now, which brings me to a weird observation…
  • Surreality of the average grocery store – The typical grocery store feels extremely false now. I only travel about 4 of the 30-some aisles when I visit, the rest of them seem… for lack of a better word, fake. Brightly colored boxes & cartons with obnoxious labels masking pseudo-food made mostly of corn products. It’s hard to describe but it’s similar to the foreign feeling I had when I stopped watching TV for a year and eventually came back to it.
  • Diminished need for sleep – This may not be entirely caused by the dietary change (this period happens to have coincided with an uptick in activity on two startups I’m involved with) but I now sleep about an average of six hours per night where before I required eight in order to feel rested. I have considerably more energy and sleep less.
  • Substantial weight loss despite no gym activity – The Body For Life program had me in the gym three days per week weight lifting, alternating the other three days running and taking one day off. I’ve continued the running this past year (barefoot style using vibram 5finger shoes – the ones that look like silly gloves for your feet) but gym-wise I only went once during this whole past month. I run approximately 3-4 times each week on avg of about 30min and 3mi each run. This has been a constant though over the past year leading me to draw the conclusion that the weight loss I experienced this past month is almost entirely driven by change in diet.

    • Concerns

    So as awesome as I feel right now, I also know I feel pretty awesome after drinking a bottle of champagne ;-) This isn’t all roses and my concerns are the following:

    • The average life expectancy of cavemen is estimated to have been around 35yrs. To my knowledge there’s been no longitudinal studies conducted that have tracked Paleo vs. control groups over time to compare the effect on life expectancy or prevalence of late-life diseases. Not having dairy was probably fine if you only ever lived to 35 and didn’t have to contend with later-in-life conditions like osteoporosis. I’m extremely interested if anyone has data on a study that speaks to the long-term health effects of this diet (even 5-10yr data for a related diet like Atkins). I’ve asked on Quora but no takers yet.
    • Riffing on that question: so how do Paleo folks get enough of key nutrients & minerals like calcium given the absence of dairy from the diet?
    • What is the typical impact on one’s cholesterol from being on Paleo? I would think consuming as much meat as this diet advocates would potentially become problematic cholesterol-wise for folks unless maybe the absolute amount is irrelevant given the right HDL/LDL ratio.
    • How and where are people finding the grass-fed meat advocated under this diet? I have yet to see it in any major grocery stores. I’m assuming there are butcher shops that specialize in this and that it will be pricy. My friend Bryan introduced me to a concept called “cow pooling” which sounds interesting.
    • Lastly, how are folks affording to eat under this program? Holy cow (pun intended) this is expensive livin’ – about twice of what I normally spend on food.

    At any rate, all in all it’s been a positive experience thus far and I’m glad my friends talked me into trying it. I have not yet read the Paleo Solution which I understand is sort of the seminal work on this diet. I did go off the rails last Friday for my friend’s birthday and have no less than 5lbs of pizza, some assorted cheeses, 2 slices of chocolate cake and a couple beers – all of which are not on the agenda for Paleo. And consequently I felt like ass the next morning as a result. I think having cheat days actually helps with diet compliance not just because it allows you to satisfy a craving but because it also negative reinforces the behavior you’re exterminating. I’ll share future thoughts as I get further down the road with this program.

    If anyone has some decent answers to the above concerns please do chime in and share.

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    Jan 25

    Here, have my PIN number

    Security 10 Comments »

    Wow so here comes a rant (and somebody call me on this if I’m way off) but I gotta throw a penalty flag on BofA. They just mailed my PIN number to the mailing address where my replacement debit card was sent. Does that seem hugely flawed to anyone else? They should perhaps consider changing their name because this security practice has more holes in it than a block of baby swiss. Let’s count them:

    1. I know what my PIN is, I’m the one who set it.
    2. The fact that they can even output my PIN number (which I don’t need because I already know) is not good. That means it exists in cleartext somewhere. Unless different password physics apply in the world of ATM’s and banking vs. web sites, it’s never a good idea to store a password in a form where it can be read by a human. You should only ever store a derivation and compare the hashes to one another.
    3. The fact they would then print this number (which they shouldn’t see and which I didn’t ask for) and put it in the postal mail seems pretty silly. They have no less than three alternate truly secure channels via which to send me this type sensitive info (voice, fax & inbox on the https site). You could argue they need a lowest common denominator means by which to reach everyone but in that case why not mail a note saying “stop by a branch store to set your PIN” instead?
    4. And here’s the final clincher: not only do they send a number they shouldn’t see and that I don’t need via a decidedly less-secure medium but they send it to the same destination where the asset that it unlocks is headed… really BofA That’s like mailing house keys to the street address of the house they unlock. What the heck are they thinking? I suppose they get a D- instead of a flat-out F for at least separating them into individual envelopes.

    I would try calling and offering this input to their IT security folks but but frankly after navigating their hamstermaze of an IVR tree to cancel the stolen card, it takes less time for me to write this blog post and will probably reach that person faster.

    BofA- not that I had a great deal of confidence in you before today but this practice is asinine. If you were an important web publishing company like Gizmodo with access to sensitive info like say… emails, you’d be no doubt skewered publicly over this. But alas you’re merely one of the largest financial institutions securing trillions of dollars of people’s money so this level of security is acceptable. Jeesh.

    Can someone with a better security background chime in and critique this practice? Is it as flawed as it seems or am I overreacting here?

    Dec 07

    Thoughts on Wikileaks

    Activism 4 Comments »

    We’re witnessing right now one of the most significant wrestling matches of our lifetime from a “what will be in history books someday” perspective. If you haven’t been following the developments with Wikileaks you really should, if for no other reason than failing to do so is like sitting court-side at the NCAA championship with your eyes closed. Take a moment and read about it (and preferably seek out multiple angles via non-mainstream channels). The short of it is this:

  • Guy gets pissed about quiet abuses of power from governments and multi-nationals but instead of talking about it he architects a plan to dismantle the problem.
  • Guy creates the ultimate equalizer: an anonymous, objective collection bucket that enables whistleblowers to safely leak incriminating evidence and expose it for public scrutiny.
  • Guy starts systematically airing out the nasty laundry.
  • Guy becomes understandably hated by the entrenched interests whose behavior and existence has been predicated on the ability to operate in the dark.

    • That’s an oversimplification but it’s the gist of what’s happened so far. There’s been a ton written on what’s happening (this is the most thoughtful analysis I’ve seen so far) so I won’t rehash things that have already been said. But here’s some food for thought:

    • To the people in positions of power who historically have used the argument “if you’re doing nothing wrong then you shouldn’t be concerned about privacy:” how quickly you change your tune now that your privacy has been compromised.
    • Sarah Palin has called for Julian Assange to be hunted down like Osama, reaaally The guy who has broken no laws so far and instead created the ultimate check & balance device for the betterment of humanity? A device that enables people with a conscience to act without threat of persecution when they discover an atrocity in progress so they can help thwart it… If Wikileaks had existed when the Bush administration was fabricating the WMD story and instigating not one but two unjust wars, one has to think this whole f’d up situation might have been averted. Would massive scandals like Enron ever have been allowed to fester to that catastrophic level if a device like Wikileaks had existed? Why are we persecuting the people who bring accountability to government and corporations? This guy should get a Nobel Prize if anything for risking his life fighting global bullies and for exposing injustices from every corner of the world. Sorry Ms. Palin but Bush and Cheney are the ones that should be tried for warcrimes. Julian Assange represents the American spirit far more than those two cowards.
    • Amazon caves to Lieberman and they kick Wikileaks off their servers. Paypal, Mastercard and Visa then all follow suit. Wikileak’s Swiss bank caves. Then the authorities trump up these red herring sex charges against him because he broke a condom while having consensual sex and that’s enough to put him on Interpol’s most wanted list And he’s now being held without bail… unbelievable. He’s done nothing but make an anonymous wikipedia for whistleblowers. Take a breath and assess the real situation given all the facts: the guy is a fricking visionary whose worst crime is having rough sex.

    It must be unnerving indeed to be an entity with a history of dark secrets and a conscientious workforce who might now expose them thanks to this new tool. This site is the journalistic executioner that is doing what no other entity has been capable of: enforcing accountability upon powers which have been untouchable and mucking up the gears of the ones that insist on continuing their nefarious practices. That’s obviously going to suck from their perspective but it’s unassailable transparency (or the threat of it) that makes the world a better place. If you know whistleblowers have a refuge you’ll think twice next time before conducting shady activities. That or you’ll be forced to restructure and clamp down your operation so securely that it cripples you to inoperability. And either way it’s a net win for humanity.

    Sadly we can expect Wikileaks to soon be added to the SDN list. At that point in the US it will be a criminal offense to donate to their cause (if it isn’t already). The powers that be have already used defamation & character assassination, strangulation of financial resources, DDOS attacks and will likely resort to whatever means necessary to squelch this thing. Julian seems to be a smart guy so I’m sure he’s architected a dead man’s switch as insurance but I wouldn’t be surprised to soon read that he “slipped” and died from a skullfracture in his cell.

    This is an epic collision of good ole boy network opaqueness meeting accountability & transparency. Fortnately at least for the time being there are 500 mirrors for the Wikileaks site keeping the information available while the powers in control are hard at work to suffocate it. Here’s a parting thought though: rather than shutting down Wikileaks how about instead Zynga bakes into their Farmville game the ability for players to earn virtual currency by vetting documents submitted to Wikileaks? Let’s harness some of those kajillion hours of human cognition that are currently frittered away growing virtual tomatoes and put those mental cycles towards a crowd-sourced effort to ensure global accountability? Now that would be a game worth playing and a currency worth earning.

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    Nov 12

    Typinator is a gem for customer support

    Nerd, Productivity 2 Comments »

    Anyone who responds to a bunch of customer emails will be repeatedly typing the same blocks of text. You get to a point where you wish phrases and entire paragraphs of text could be treated as a single word. Well I discovered an app for Mac that lets you do just that and it’s wonderful.

    Previously I had a page in our Trac instance with a bunch of boilerplate text blocks as responses to common questions. I would cut/paste those into email and adapt them as necessary based on the situation. This was a shortcut over typing the entire message from scratch. But I’ve been using an app called Typinator for the past few weeks and this allows me alias sequences of keystrokes that auto-expand into blocks of text. So for instance, rather than end each email by typing “Let me know if you have any other questions” I can just type “lmk” and it turns into that sentence. This works for any amount of text and can even do rich text and embedded images.

    While it may only shave seconds off the old method, the culmination of many reputations adds up. But more than anything this is just one of those small tools that helps you conquer tediousness and feel more efficient. And you can’t underestimate the gratification of that. These guys are a small Austrian company and they make other productivity products. Check ’em out.

    Oct 27

    Where we’re going we don’t need… roads

    Entrepreneur, Nerd, Ponderings 2 Comments »

    The title is a reference to the final scene of one of the radest 80’s movies ever: “Back to the Future.” I remember walking out of that theater as a kid hopped up on red vines, Huey Lewis, the prospect of time travel, and all the possibility that a flying delorean represented. It seemed like anything was possible.

    I have a similar optimism today with this swirling curling storm of a revolution that’s promising to change how products will be test marketed, built and delivered. I predict this fundamental change is going to do for product development and business model generation what test-driven development did for software dev. And it’s pretty freakin’ exciting to be swimming in this stew of startup activity while this storm is developing. To explain the essence of this mentality let me first tell a story that will reveal a double entendre in this post’s title:

    I don’t have the original source on this anecdote but supposedly at a California college (Cal Poly?) they were redesigning the campus and trying to figure out where to build the new sidewalks. It was a complex arrangement of buildings and there were a bunch of conflicting opinions about where the sidewalks belonged. Someone had the ingenious idea that rather than speculating, they should instead run an experiment and let the market speak. So they planted grass the first year and waited. At the end of the year they took an aerial photo and the tread-worn ground became the blueprint for the optimal sidewalk routes as chosen perfectly and implicitly by the student body.

    So what does this have to do with startups?

    I believe we’re on the cusp of seeing some major changes in how products are brought to market. If you follow the Lean Startup, Four Steps to the Epiphany, Customer Development movements then you have the core philosophy already. But what’s interesting is the emergence of tools that allow you to apply these concepts very rapidly on a large and targeted scale via online experiments. We in the tech industry no longer have to build and tear up sidewalks – we can just plant grass first. Rather than explain the techniques for “virtual grass planting,” I figure it will be easier to simply publish the data and methods for experiments I’m conducting now with a local Phoenix startup that I advise. Here’s the gist of it though:

    You can think of this mentality like test-driven development for business.

    Test-driven development (TDD) is a methodology for creating software where you seemingly put the cart before the horse and write the tests up front. You then go back and do the necessary coding to satisfy the tests. Once the code meets the test, then (and only then) do you go back and fine-tune, refactor and optimize things. Having been a confessed “cowboy coder” back in the day this style of development sounded completely absurd until I saw it in practice at the San Diego Java User Group. Writing the tests first forces you to think differently by getting consensus on the destination and then worrying about the implementation details of how you get there after the fact. In the same way it’s now possible with all these tools to front-load much of the learning about product-market fit, price elasticity & messaging before you ever actually do an ounce of engineering. It’s all about systematically removing uncertainty and converting unknowns to knowns before charging ahead with the concrete.

    Anyways, I don’t mean to leave anyone with startup blue balls but we’re not quite ready at this point to open source our experiments. This is an exciting time to be in this space though. To get a good flavor for this type of thinking check out Kent Beck’s talk from the Startup Lessons Learned conference on the logical extension of Agile development to business. And if you’re new here sub the RSS of this feed or this Twitter account to follow along on how we’re validating and iterating at 88mph and 1.21 gigawatts.

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