big teddy
  • Mar
    09
    Today I quit my job
    by mike at 9:52am

    The Shivers

    Oh dear effing jebus what have i done?

    That’s the question rolling around in my head like the ball on a roulette wheel.  I just quit a great, highly paid job at one of the largest companies in the US, in likely the worst economy of my life in order to start an application development company.  How did I get here?

    This whole plan was likely hatched about 5 years ago when I, like everyone else there, got laid off by TechTV when it got purchased by Comcast and glommed into G4.  At that point I was the Lead Engineer of the Interactive Television Group.   At TechTV the ITV Group’s job was to support affiliate sales by creating apps to support cable companies new interactive and on-demand initiatives.   We were a small group and when we got let go we had plans to start an Interactive Television start-up, but time passed, we never got traction and  Interactive Television never really took off so I took a job with a company called Metatv – which was shortly bought by Comcast and Cox and turned into TVWorks (The whole Comcast thing is a bit hinky – I’m not sure I’m ever going to escape them completely).

    The move to MetaTV/TVWorks/Comcast was likely a very fortuitous event.  At TVWorks we were building the infrastructure to support the ETV/EBIF spec (which started life as a Metatv spec) for Comcast and Cox.  There I led the Client Applications group building the first two generations of ETV applications for Comcast.  Here I became and expert at this platform and a believer in its abilities, I liked my job but about a year and a half ago I wasn’t quite loving it.  As Comcast’s corporate infrastructure began to work its way into TVWorks processes I started to get a bit of an itch that I wasn’t meant to be working directly for such a huge corporate entity.  As long as I was at TVWorks I’ve been doing an evening M.B.A at SF State. The impetus for this was that since my time at TechTV I thought I would be heading more towards a managerial/entrepreneurial career path, I figured an engineer with an M.B.A is a pretty good swiss army knife of an entrepenuer.   I mean here I was in the cradle of the internet civilization and had yet to work at a true startup.   I got completely hooked meanwhile on Hacker News and the Y combinator funding model and even submitted a couple of startup plans to their funding cycles. The thing with these plans weren’t that they were impossible – but I’m not sure I was committed to them.

    So what to do?

    Leap and the net will appear

    So at some point mid-last year I figured I should go back to what I know best and that’s interactive television. So what exactly do I do?  The space is starting to settle technically, on EBIF and tru2way as the dominant technologies on the set-top.   There are still a few holes in the ETV technology chain that could be filled with the proper product offering so the first thought I had was to create a product company.  The upside of creating a product company in this space is that generally your “exit” can be bigger and its easier and generally these types of companies generally have revenue projections that are more attractive to venture capital investors.  There are a few problems however, first I don’t really want to be in infrastructure development, its not my domain experience and passion.  If I’m going to do this then I damn well was going to do something that I’m good at and love doing.  Its not just a passion and experience issue.  Second, developing and selling a product means building a significant business structure in order to support it.  You need some form of venture capital, time and committed partners in order to get this type of business running.   All three of these resources are hard to come by in the current economy and/or with a full time job.   Finally you lose a large chunk of equity and control.  The equity I’m okay with, the control not so much.  Its not that I’m a megalomaniac micromanager, in fact quite the opposite,  the issue I have with taking large chunks of venture capital is that you are now creating an organization that must be very significantly focused on creating value for the shareholders.

    Not that that’s a bad thing.

    But I’m not sure that’s the kind of corporate culture I want to create.  Maybe the business should focus on creating value for the people that work there?  I’d prefer something more intimate, a small dedicated team – with a heavy emphasis on their craft.

    Maybe I’m wearing rose colored glasses.

    So lets see I want to stay in interactive TV, I don’t want to do an infrastructure product and I’m hesitant to try to go after venture capital. This leaves two choices. The first would be an interactive TV application, or an application development services company.

    A services company has its downsides. Its a permanent hustle for new work, you can’t escape having people out there constantly selling and drumming up new work. It also tends to place more pressure on the services team when there is always an 800 pound gorilla of a client who wants everything better, faster and cheaper. But there are several upsides for starting an ITV development company right now.

    First as bad as the economy is, this year interactive television is becoming a reality.  The technology is being deployed on a bunch of cable operators.  EBIF in particular is a large driving force behind this, and it just so happens (wait… I’m trying to pat myself on the back here) I’m one of the foremost experts in developing apps for this platform.

    Second in down economies some companies are more apt to outsource development services – especially in an area where they are not going to have in house experience.

    Third is that this still leaves the door wide open to developing products in the future.  If you take the history of the web, many large application companies spun out of web properties creating tools that they needed and then productizing these tools for others.  Because the ITV field is so nascent I think there is going be a similar arc.

    I guess there it is.  A ITV application development company and service provider that will (hopefully) spin off some products.

    Introducing

    A Different Engine

    So this is the reason I left my job today.  A Different Engine aims to be an interactive television development company.   In the short term we will focus on consulting and EBIF application development. Longer term is really hard to map out right now.  The whole television landscape is going through a huge seachange right now in how television content is delivered and monetized.  I’m not sure how its going to shake out entirely but I can pretty much guarantee you this – there will be interactivity involved and we’ll be there to make it happen.

    Behind every great (or halfway decent) man…..

    One of the biggest reasons I can do this now is because I have the support of my wife and family.  April I couldn’t do this without you, you’re my rudder.  Thank you sweetie – I love you!

    • Hi Mike-

      You are not alone. My business and I went to Johnny Cupcakes lecture the other week, and one of the points that arose was “if you’re not putting 110% into your work, then you’ll never see 110% return.” Three days later, my business partner let me know that he’s leaving his pretty dang cushy job at an freaking awesome company so that he can dedicate 110% to our project.

      Needless to say, I was the one saying “Oh dear effing jebus what has HE done?” But he is confident in his approach. Maybe we have a sort of social experiment going here – what happens when an incredibly talented person leaves their job to start their own gig? I will be sure to follow your progress.

      Congratulation on making the leap, and I wish you the best.

      Kristiana March 9th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    Leave a Reply