launch lounge

After driving around at 7:30am this Friday and seeing hundred’s of people standing in front of At&t stores I decided to wait and see if it gets any better later. I also checked the opening time of the Apple company store and biked to it at 10am. But had to learn that they don’t sell 3g phones at the company store (tooo bad ;)).

At 2pm I couldn’t wait any longer and drove to the Apple store at the Valley Fair shopping center in San Jose. The line was going around the mall and they where even standing outside! While walking around I realized that I passed an At&t store while driving to the mall that didn’t have any line any more.
Quick decision and I drove back to the At&t store… All people gone, what’s wrong here? Hmm, after a quick chat with the store manager I got the information that all At&t stores in the Bay Area are sold out! Great!

So I drove back to the Apple store and put my self in the line. Apple store employees handed out water and where really helpful in regards to provide information about the plans and all other details (They must have been sick after 2 hours of telling everyone the same story!)

After some time and some people watching (see below), I then finally ended in the last turn and was heading in the direction of the Apple store entrance. My friend then joined me as well and after 2 hours and 30 minutes we where able to finally buy the phone. I was even able to transfer the phone number from T-Mobile without a problem.

A white 16GB 3g iPhone! wuuuhaaa…

Currently I am updateing iTunes and downloading the new SDK …

Stay tuned for more

The picture below was taken at the Apple Store in Palo Alto on July 10th …

The BarCamp is comming back to Palo Alto or more precisely back to the birth place. This time it will not only be hosted by Socialtext but will be held on the whole block including neighbors like IDEO, Edgeio and so on.

And here some impressions from Michael Arrington on the first BarCamp Party held in Palo Alto.

Add yourself to the participant list and start with the pre-networking social network on Crowdvine.

BarCampBlock details:
When: August 18-19th, 2007, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM.
Where: 655 High Street (and surrounding blocks), Palo Alto, California (37° 26′ 34 N, 122° 9′ 40 W)

One of the first steps probably way befor going life will be the branding of your startup. Especially in the Web2.0 world branding is a major point in getting a voice in the market. You can’t just sit there and wait till some one drops in your shop, unless your name is google this will likely not happen (else tell me how you did it :).

When thinking of branding one of the first steps will be the name game. You may find a very good Post of Paul Graham about naming your startup and I think he is right, finding an excellent name in the world where many names are taken by domain squatters is not an easy task and the name will clearly show how creative you are. If you had enough brain to find a sexy name your imagination will probably lead you to build a meaningful startup.

Startup Names

Another part of branding is how you can distinguish yourself from the competition. How can you spread the word beyond your family and friends. Branding and PR are methods to generate traffic on your web site. I can recommend this blog post on the aviva directory which shows you 99 cheap branding tips for your startup. Use them and especially use them frequently!

Little Known Ways to Brand on the Cheap: 99 Tips for Poor Web Startups

Branding and PR are one of the top things to keep in mind when starting. This is how you distribute your service!

I belive that receipes for startups do not exist, but there are some statements that could be used as guidance when starting a company:

Trevor Blackwell
Watch people who have money to spend, see what they’re wasting their time on, cook up a solution, and try selling it to them. It’s surprising how small a problem can be and still provide a profitable market for a solution.

Paul Graham on 37signals: Programming At Warp Speed
The Lesson: Create a simple product as fast as you can, then get feedback from customers and make it better.

Just a quick link to a very good coverage of Paul Grahams speach on April 11th at the Stanford University about handling investors, enjoy:

Paul Graham: Handling Investors

by  Matt Jaynes of http://blog.nanobeepers.com