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ATTENTION READERS: This blog has moved! To continue reading Sutha Kamal's 90 Days in the Life of a Start-up blog, please click here .

Who: Sutha Kamal, founder and CEO of AmbientVector
What: a wireless software start-up that makes it easy to create, share and view pictures and videos on your cell phone
Where: Toronto
When: Founded in 2005
Photo gallery: 90 days in the life of AmbientVector

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Friday, July 21

Why culture matters

Cindy Gordon commented recently (thanks Cindy!) asking about keeping the team motivated, and said, "The leadership of the company is a huge component to the success of the employees in the business."

I agree with her: leadership here is important, but I think there's something even bigger: culture.

We're all excited to be building Nakama. We think it'll change the world. We've been "infected" and are driving towards near-term ship-dates and longer-term milestones. Salaries aren't as high as other places, the risks are high, but building something we're all excited about, with a few specific ship-dates we're driving towards. There's a lot of day-to-day tracking on the project side: filing bugs, checking up on milestones, status updates, etc. We also spend some time thinking about the big picture stuff: how does what we build change people's lives? Why are they going to use it and why our solution instead of someone else's? But what we don't do is spend a lot of time actively *trying* to get the team revved up... We already are :-)

David and I had breakfast with Cal Henderson , the architect behind Flickr , yesterday. He's a smart guy that gets excited about the problems he gets to solve, and the people he works with... a lot like our guys. Then we had lunch with a fantastically talented person in the wireless space, talking about our Europe/Asia strategy. Just a few minutes into lunch and she had us excited at the opportunity and the strategy to get there...

The more people we meet, the more clear this becomes: Working with great people on problems that interest you, creating solutions that have the potential to have an impact on people ... that's what's gets people motivated, and excited.

We're looking for great people. People who provoke us. People who see the opportunity, the value, the dream, who push us further and are truly self-starters ... that's our culture... it's what reinforces our culture ... it's why David was up at 2:30 last night working on something, and why Dan's routinely *still* up at 9 a.m. debugging one thing or another.

So maybe the most important part of leadership is setting the right culture and hiring the right people. It's the reason Jack Welch talked about "differentiating" your team, and picking the right people, and why Google and Microsoft fly hundreds (thousands?) of bright young grads out each and every year to meet dozens of people internally ... only to hire the brightest few that stand out.

P.S. the Globe's told me that RSS is coming really soon! :-)

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Updated Friday, July 21 at 12:09 p.m.

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Tuesday, July 18

Thoughts for a talk...

This afternoon I'm heading up to my alma mater, U of T, to give a talk about building a start-up and raising money. It's to a group of computer science and engineering students that are looking to learn a bit more about business, do something entrepreneurial, or figured "The Business of Software" sounded easier than "Advanced compiler design for highly-scalable heterogenous memory and computational subsystems" (I didn't actually make that up). Maybe they're onto something :)

So anyway, what am I going to talk about? People... they're the most important part of a start-up, and one of the most important parts of raising money, so we might as well talk about them, right? We're recruiting for a few key roles, and we're looking for some awesome people to fill them. Hiring's one of those things that can take so much time...but in the end tends to be a worthwhile investment (getting it wrong is a whole lot more costly than spending the time to get it right in the first place).

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What do you look for in a new employee?
Leave a comment for Sutha here.

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So what have we been trying? Well, yesterday we brought in a candidate that we like a whole lot and had him spend the day with us ... starting right in the morning and going straight through to a late-night drink.

Before all this, we also did a whole bunch of digging ... meaning we've met this person a few times, like him a whole lot and thought, "Let's go and talk to some other folks about him." So off to LinkedIn we went, found a few other people that looked like they might've worked with him in the past, and started calling. What'd we hear? Good stuff ... lots of good stuff. Excellent.

Culture's also really important. We're a start-up, everyone spends a lot of time working pretty closely together, and we decided that we'd have him in for the day, just as much for him to get a feel for us as the other way around.

We started the day talking a bit about how we're gearing up to launch our product to the market, and even got engaged in a whole team meeting, talking about a particularly large/important feature that required some thought. The rest of the day was filled talking about tactics, like, "OK, so here's what you're responsible for. What do you think your most important deliverables are in the next 90 days?"

Now there's a long (and important) discussion.

"In vino veritas," the saying goes ... And so afterwards we went out for dinner and drinks. Even our VC joined us for a pint, which we thought was fantastic, and we had a great discussion that ranged from strategy to building the best board to help grow the company.

In the end, it was a great experience, and we're all keen on working together ... So we'll see how that works out. :)

Oh and on a personal note, I'm going to run from the office to U of T ... I figure it'll let me get a second run in for the day (which I desperately need). Nice to see today's looking a little cooler than the last few. See you soon.

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Updated Tuesday, July 18 at 2:10 p.m.

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Wednesday, July 12

Proof you rely on your CrackBerry

I've got one of the BlackBerry 8700s...and I love it—as anyone around the office will quickly attest. The battery life on mine hasn't been as stellar as some of the other folks I know, and a friend at RIM asked if he might have it for a day, just to see what could be wrong. (Very cool that RIM takes such an active role in things like this... That's another lesson for us all: Learn from your customers, and when things aren't working at 100% for them, find out why!)

Anyway, about an hour ago, a healthy chunk of Toronto (given what Rogers tech support told me) lost BlackBerry coverage. It still works fine as a phone, but e-mail hasn't been working for a bit. The fact that their call centre was flooded by a bunch of people wondering just what was going on is proof of one thing: We really *do* rely on these things. Anyone else going through CrackBerry withdrawal? :)

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Got a BlackBerry addiction you need to talk about?
Leave a comment for Sutha here.

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So here's another lesson : What do we do to make the service *we* provide as important to people as e-mail?

It's also another question from us to you: Think about how you use your mobile phone, and how you take pictures and maybe even videos with it. What do you do with them now? What would you want to do with them that would be indispensable? What do you do on the Web today with pictures and videos that you'd love your phone to let you do?

Leave a comment on the blog... Let's start a discussion.

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Updated Wednesday, July 12 at 12:10 p.m.

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Wednesday, July 12

Reader Lesley Denyes responds to Sutha's call for an outsourced accounting service: Check out www.ca4it.com—chartered accountants for IT professionals.

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Monday, July 10

Some tips on helping you focus on the important things

I got an email from Alan McMillan, the CEO at Avokia , this morning, with a few tips on how to keep things focused in a start-up. Alan's suggestions?

- Outsource your e-mail and BlackBerry server

- Outsource your payroll to ADP. (It keeps things confidential, along with saving the hassle of figuring out taxes, etc.)

- Outsource your CRM to Salesforce.com

Alan said, "We did the above, and it allowed us to grow our staff without taking up internal resources. It also lowered our capital costs."

Great tips for all of us.

While we're at it, does anyone know of a good outsourced accounting service?

Check out my personal blog here .

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Updated Monday, July 10 at 3:17 p.m.

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Thursday, July 6

Dreaming about the future...

It's past 9 p.m., and the day's not nearly done. Start-up hours :-) It's a lot easier to handle, though, when you've got a great team. David, Ann and I spent a couple of hours this morning working on a few parts of our strategy. Imagine three driven, analytical dreamers (such people exist? :-), hanging around a whiteboard thinking about what a combined $10- to $50-billion industry is going to look like in the next 1, 2 and 5 years.

It's hard enough to project what's going to happen in the next 6 months, but 12 to 60? Your guess is as good as mine. What are some of the things we get to assume? Well, think about the world where your phone is about as powerful as your laptop is today, and when it's as fast as the broadband connection you've got at home. The cameras in there are already getting to be good enough (there's a good plug for Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" here) for most people, so just imagine what that means a few years out. It's pretty likely that your phone's going to be the only camera you use. Snapping those pictures and sharing them with your friends will also be quick and simple. Oh, and let's not forget about movies.

Leave a comment for Sutha here .

Screen size still matters, and while you're not likely to watch a feature film on your phone, it's probably how you'll see your niece's first steps. Think about how that changes your life if you commute... What will you do on the GO Train? What about those daily moments of boredom/downtime? Which of those things happen to interest you? How do you think that next-generation mobile technology is going to work it's way into your life? What things will change and what things will remain exactly the same? Leave a comment on the blog—we're dying to hear your thoughts.

By the way, our session ended with: "We've got a lot of things right (we think), and we've got some things to think through. Let's let it simmer in the background and come back to it tomorrow." I can't wait.

Check out my personal blog here .

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Updated Thursday, July 6 at 10:01 a.m.

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Wednesday, July 5

The Geox effect

I bought a pair of Geox shoes today. They're cool shoes, but why write about 'em? Well, the reason I bought 'em is an important lesson for Ambient...or any other start-up, for that matter.

First, the product's remarkable. Both times I've met someone wearing a pair, I've ended up complimenting them on the shoes. They look cool and get your attention. Design matters. Simple as that.

What else? Ask any Geox wearer about their shoes and they'll tell you about their shoes. The product excites people. They aren't necessarily an employee or shareholder of the company. The shoes are rewarding enough that they compel their wearers to talk about them.

The reason for all of this chatter is the hook, the innovation. Geox has created a ventilation system that (seemingly magically) keeps the wearers' feet cool. You mean no more sweaty feet? With 30+-degree days right around now, that solves a problem (or fixes an irritation) for most of us.

The shoes get attention, creates loyal customers who want to tell you about the benefits, and has a cool hook that gets you wanting to give 'em a test drive. Keep in mind that testing out a pair of shoes means shelling out a hundred bucks, that's not so bad...(vs. web software, where the hurdle's quite a bit lower).

I just learned something at the mall. Cool.

Check out my personal blog here .

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Updated Wednesday, July 5 at 12:35 p.m.

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Sunday, July 2

Ikea, a start-up's friend

Hope everyone's having a great long weekend. Just here at Ikea today picking up a few odds and ends for the office. Gotta love any store that's got cheap, colourful plastic versions of just about everything you need around the office. (The fact that cell phones never really work well in an Ikea is a bit irritating, though. :-)

If anyone's got a favourite spot for good, cheap office chairs, though, let me know :-)

After this it's back to the office for a couple of hours—need to get some marketing strategy work done. It's a lot of fun to work on a product you love (and use), especially when we keep hearing positive feedback on what we're building. That said, now we're getting ready to tell the world about it, and it's just a little more work than we might've initially thought.

That said, it's not all work today... Going to spend a few hours cooking and relaxing with some friends this eve. With all the travelling and eating out these days, I'm really looking forward to it.

Check out my personal blog here .

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Updated Monday, July 03 at 1:46 p.m.

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Friday, June 30

Why big companies have IT departments

It's the second installment, and already my first gripe begins... :-)

We've only recently moved into the new office (which is great, by the way), and have been borrowing (with permission, of course) WiFi from the folks downstairs. Bell's coming in next week to set us up, but until then the signal's been flaky, and David figured he'd try to fix it.

David puts on his IT hat

What do we mean by "fix"? It turns out that there's an "easy" way to make one WiFi box repeat the signal of another. Well, we've got an office filled with engineers and David still managed to spend half the day wrestling with 3 routers, some firmware, and a DSL modem. (Our 'net connection's wicked-fast now, though, so all in all it worked out.)

So what's the big idea here? Distractions. There're lots of things a company's got to do that aren't core to the business: setting up email, servers, Internet, phone, printers, lease agreements, banking ... it's just not what we do. We build software. It's an interesting question: how do you figure out what's really important and what's not? There are lots of things we find to take up to take up time, some are important (email needs to work), some aren't (getting a fax working is not).

Geoffrey Moore , author of my favourite technology marketing book Crossing the Chasm, describes this as figuring out what's important, and what differentiates you. Whatever gives you competitive advantage is core. Everything else is context. But it doesn't give you an advantage: Nobody gets an award for keeping your servers running all the time... but if they go down you'll hear about it pretty quickly.

The point is to figure out what you're really good at, and focus your time there. For all those other things, find other people or companies who're good at them, and let them take care of it. In a bigger company that sort of stuff gets given to IT, HR or maybe outsourced. At Ambient, for the time being it's David's job... or Mike's, or Dan's or ... you get the point. We're small, we're running on bleeding edge technology, and we don't always have option of outsourcing or throwing responsibility over the wall to someone else.

So I'm curious: what have you done to split things up in your own companies/departments/teams? How have you balanced all those basic things that have to be there, with the things that you *need* to get done?

Incidentally I was out last night with some of the folks from Sun Microsystems Canada . I had the pleasure to chat with the president, Andy Canham , and ask about some of the cool new things Sun's been working on. It turns out they've been thinking about a lot of things that are all about removing complexity for IT groups... which is definitely a good thing. Also, they've promised to ship us a free (great price for a startup) server to play around with ... we can't wait. :-)

Oh, and have a fantastic Canada Day long weekend everyone!

Check out my personal blog here .

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Updated Friday, June 30 at 3:39 p.m.

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Tuesday, June 27—Day 1

So you decided to check out the Ambient blog here at the Globe? Thanks.

Who are we?

We're a wireless software start-up based in Toronto. We're a small team—six and growing—and we're fortunate to be backed by some terrific advisors, angel investors, and a terrific venture capitalist, Celtic House Venture Partners .

I'm Sutha, the CEO and founder. My background's pretty straightforward: I'm a (somewhat) reformed geek. I studied computer science and ended up discovering that I really liked building things people want to use.

Most importantly, I'm fortunate enough to work with an amazing group of people—Mike, Minaz, Dan, David, Ann—and I'm looking forward to telling you a lot more about these folks over the next couple of days and weeks.

The Ambient team (left to right): CEO Sutha Kamal; software developers Mike Lawlor, Minaz Abdulla and Dan Calvert; director of product management David Crow. Missing: director of product marketing Ann Karon. Photo: Tibor Kolley/The Globe and Mail

What does Ambient do?

Great question. Got a cell phone? Does it take pictures? How about videos? Ever tried to get that stuff off your phone and onto the Web…to your blog, or a photo gallery? Ever noticed that it wasn't as easy as you hoped?

Have you ever been bored on a train and wanted to see what your friends were doing?

Ambient makes it easy to create, share and view all those moments that are important to you—from your phone or the Web. Pictures, videos, whatever's important to you, whenever you want to share something with the people you care about, or whenever you want to tune in to see what's going on in their lives.

OK, I'm getting a little preachy…I'm the CEO, what can I say? I love this stuff.

So why are we writing a blog?

Well for starters, it's The Globe and Mail, and they asked :-)

We thought a blog at the Globe was a great opportunity to share our story and to hear yours. Working for a start-up is fantastic. We work long hours, and most people think we're a little nuts, but it's a tonne of fun, we get to work with super-smart people whom we respect, we're a team, we're friends. We get to build something that we think is going to have a real (positive) impact on people's lives. And we get to share it with you.

This is going to be a great ride, and we hope that you'll come along with us. So let me ask, how do you use your phone? How do you share pictures or videos with your friends and family? What works for you? What doesn't? What have you always wished your phone could do? Sky's the limit.

One of the reasons we've worked so hard at Ambient to have great advisors around us is that we realize the value of getting smart people to help us figure things out as we move forward… and I'd like to invite you to participate in this conversation with us.

Oh, and since we're a bunch of engineers, we haven't yet named our product…so let me know if you come up with anything :-) At the moment, the codename for the product internally is Nakama (well, they're both Nakama and Project Boris). Anyone care to guess what either name means?

This is new for us. We're just coming out of stealth (ninja?) mode now, and your feedback's really valuable to us, so please feel free to leave a comment on the blog or e-mail me directly at suthakamal@ambientvector.com.

Talk to you soon.

—Sutha

Check out my personal blog here .

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