A really fun part about San Francisco tech culture, especially for young people, are the competitions. There is the excitement of accomplishing a set goal in a certain amount of time, and no commitment to turning the demo into a company. Although it is great when people do want to see a product shipped, we are encourage to go forward with it. Since our early-stage startup was founded due to winning grand prize at a hackathon, we wanted to continue with competitions. We enjoy seeing which applications or contests to apply to. This was our experience with TechCrunch Battlefield.
Our first choice of competition, following winning Angel Hack was to start working on our actual MVP, then secondly we were going to attend another hackathon TvoT (TV of the Future), but ultimately decided to focus on the TechCrunch Battlefield demo as our best bet to get noticed and compete to win. This demo we would really have to crunch our time to create, so we skipped over TvoT and went right to work on the TechCrunch-ing. All we had to do was alter our new MVP, just enough to make a whole product based on what the application calls for.
So the three of us, Mark the CEO, Paul the CTO, and Kasey the CCO, went over the features and specificities that would be most useful for the type of demo required. Originally we focused on Java in Android, but realized that videos would not hold up too well on the current mobile devices, and we did have a bit of working material in Firebase on the web. But that was when we had another developer. So we had to rebuild the whole system for the web, plus our new ideas. Everything we wanted to show. While our original MVP was more open-ended to many kinds of presentations, we narrowed in on the suggested advice of the sales market for this challenge.
What I knew about Tech Crunch was that I followed their blogs on Facebook and Twitter. To me, their brand felt like the novelty news of current technology, running different articles on the same trending topics, such as during the “Flappy Bird” craze, or for 3D Printers. I enjoy seeing the latest “pop” in Tech. I also knew that Tech Crunch had more sophisticated presentations, but I did not realize that some of these presentations were for a competition. I was excited to find out that the teams who even got the large exposure in the competition averaged about 5 million in funding from various sources. I realized the potential for large exposure, and that is what we need, as we would love to move fast with our product. For this demo, we had to move even faster: two weeks.
Our CEO, Mark explained the last two weeks, “as a blur”. He contributed a lot to set up of the basic code, but then focused on the writing of the application and the demo, the parts that people will see. He did research from scholarly journals, from asking friends for advice, and from general business practice online. Our CTO, Paul wast the main hacker for the features, working tirelessly into the night, after his day-job and committing many house to inventing these completely new ideas. We had round-table discussions on decisions and user experience design. I found it funny how at one point, we all ended up creating our completely own version of the navigation bar, the code being overwritten by the next person, but this seemed to work out as we were composing an overall look. I as the CCO was in charge of images, CSS coding, editing scripts, sharing my knowledge on the sales market, researching on our target audience, and establishing bonds in the tech community as much as possible.
When we learned, three hours before the deadline to the competition, that we got a week-long extension, we were overjoyed at this sign. It may be that TechCrunch is looking for even more submissions or any number of reasons. We immediately stopped what we were doing, and asked, “Should we add more?” We brainstormed how to increase our platform, but then decided against most of the additions for the purpose of the short demo. We relaxed for a bit, and decided to record on Wednesday during the middle of the week.
I was going out of town, but able to link up on Skype to work with the company, to record the demo. I had two major obstacles that I had to tackle without my co-founders able to see my screen. They wanted me to record a screencast, except my Linux Ubuntu runs into a lot of software issues, because I often have to use a new freeware, or install or run Mac/Windows conversation softwares directly from the terminal. That’s how I learn, but trust me it is a much different process, trying to set up a workable screencast recording quickly, continuously debugging.
Secondly, I was having a major issue with my browsers launching our javascripts and .mp4 video files to play. The videos would work in Firefox, but not the graphs. The graphs would work in Chrome, but not the videos. So I worked to download a couple more browsers, Safari and Opera. These proved problematic as well. I figured the fastest solution would be to stick with troubleshooting on Google Chrome, that to make the videos play would be much easier. I researched and found out that Chrome stopped supporting certain .mp4 files about two weeks ago, and there were solutions that “sometimes work” to add lines of code to our javascript files to trick Chrome into thinking it is an .mpeg4 file instead. Then Paul said, hey, why not just convert it directly? So we converted .mp4 to .mov in a free online converter system. Not sure why this wasn’t my first thought. It worked great. I also had to borrow my sister’s Mac to shorten the file length, so we could maintain the free status of the online converter. “Why not simply use my sister’s Mac for the whole thing?” you may ask. Well, all my root work on Ruby on Rails is running locally on the Ubuntu, and to set all that up again on her very buggy slow computer would take ages. The three words that often pop into my head in these moments are quality, priority, and speed.
I mention these stories on process, to show how we are constantly working on small issues to create the large picture. So we solved the running videos and graphs issue, and moved onto the screenshare. There was one reliable screencast freeware available for Linux that shows up in the Software Centers, called recordMyDesktop. Except, it gave glitchy results, so I changed the screen resolution by 6 pixels and this solved the problem. However it would not record audio. So I downloaded another program that included audio, except my audio mic has not been working for any program. I still have not tackled that issue to this day. I decided what I would do, would be I record the local host screen and read over in my own voice to match the timing. I then sent this file over to my sister’s Mac and used imovie to do a dub track. The thing crashed on me 3 times, because like I said, her computer is old. I tried to close all programs, record and edit it all under five minutes time before it would crash. This worked. I uploaded it to the team. It was not perfect. For some reason the mouse was “off” and did not appear to be clicking the buttons, and my voice could have used a little bit of work. I chose the closest to natural “clicking” version, and enhanced the audio to eliminate static sounds and some awkward gaps, but could not catch everything. They seemed to enjoy it however and wanted to be finished. We spent a few last hours editing the written application and transferring it into the TechCrunch website.
There was a last minute decision by Mark if we also wanted to apply to the London competition to double our chances, needing to pay the plane tickets ourselves, but it was the same week as our Angel Hack demo. I said no way we can miss that, after contributing our time to the HACKcerator program. We would lose loyalty of the people of San Francisco that are looking to invest. Also I felt we would have a better chance to get into San Francisco by showing our exclusivity, meaning I feared the judges saying, “Look, they can go to either one. Let’s stick them in London.” I said a very strong “no” with these reasons, so that we could possibly attend Both the Angel Hack demo and the TechCrunch Battlefield demo. If we do not get in, I’m sure others could be filled with a big case of the “what ifs”, but I really feel like it is the best decision to see matters through in the programs we start.
I really should say more about the great work of Paul. Paul is this silent and deadly force of technological wizardry. Actually I should not say silent, because he is the bare logic behind how everything works and talks it out with such precision. He is aligned with the computer in completing tasks, building things, and functions, in the way that I am aligned in design with feelings, colors, and sensations. Some design choices or artwork may be seen as wizardry to someone on a more developer side, so it is all quite interesting being on such a collaborative team. Mark seems to have a great knack for both sides, in terms of details on design and development, as well as the larger picture.
We are very excited about our sales product, as we feel that the computer would be able to create closeness. People are more willing to share behind the screen, otherwise they may be hesistent to do anything at all, or not have the training resources available to their small or medium size business, like larger companies can do. We bring the training and the practice to you, and all you have to do is participate. At this point, your company decides together how much you want to do, how to do it, when, and then who responds to you. It puts training into their hands in terms of matching the company culture. Freedom and welcoming ease of use come attached with the Peppermint brand. We are enabling you to practice for developing your own charisma out in the real world. Charisma is a very important energy that one may learn from many open-ended tools or mentors in our life that bounce ideas back off of us. If we are willing and open to training to sharing, and listening in this way, while still maintaining our autonomy and individual style, then our charisma can increase dramatically.
So we brought all this together, and turned it in a day before the real deadline. If you would like to see our demo video, or request a personal demonstration of the product to use for your company, please sign up at www.Peppermint.Guru! Thanks!
Peppermint: Sales Training 2.0 - Blog 