3by9

A Purpose Served

When I came up with the idea of 3by9 (yes for once I can honestly say that it was just me that came up with the idea…I know it’s a complicated idea that only brilliant minds like myself could think up) I knew that it wouldn’t have an extended period on the web. I was with two geniuses of the web and figured we all had something important to share with people. However, doing it over at the 9rules blog didn’t seem appropriate so I figured we could start another blog to share these ideas.

Since then over 200 entries have been published during the past 18 months and each of them showing how different our personalities are, but how similar our views of the world around us are. When I brought up the idea of 3by9 to Mike and Tyme I informed that every 3 months we would revisit the site to see if it was time to put it away. Well we did that the first 3 months and haven’t looked back since. However, we all agree that now is the time because we are moving in our own directions.

We are still very much a team when it comes to 9rules, but have started to diverge into our own projects and this has taken time away from the site. So instead of keeping a site dragging along it is time to put it to rest. It served its purpose and it was a relief knowing that we didn’t intend on making the world’s greatest blog, just a blog that was great to us.

If you are interested in what we are doing I suggest you subscribe to Flyosity and Tyme Said. Be sure to also follow us on Twitter: @scrivs, @tyme and @mike9r.

With all of that said thanks to everyone that reads the site and who has commented. It was a joy writing for a site with no restrictions, no concerns of traffic or worries about money. It was a blog that started the way blogging itself started, to share ideas and have our voices heard.

Working From Home Part I: Setting Your Own Hours

As I mentioned last week I am working on a new venture and in doing so I realized that this is the time of year that many of us begin to think of going out on their own with the new year coming up. Not to mention that you might have gotten laid off and are reading this and figure it is time to take matters into your own hands. Because of this I thought it would be good to offer some perspective on what it takes to be successful if you are going to work from home.

One of the main reasons I can think about why having a 9-5 is easier than working for yourself at home is that there is structure. You know when you have to go into work and you know when you get to leave (hopefully). While working you know you have 8 hours to get X job done, while when you work at home you figure you have all the time in the world.

If you don’t setup any structure when you work at home you will find that you start to get into a routine where you work all hours of the day, but never get anything done. You might wake up at 9am, but not finish with anything until 2am. Working from home you begin to develop the mentality that the job will get done when you get it done, not by 5pm.

What is the point of working from home though if you are just going to structure it as you would your normal day-to-day job? The good part is that you get to set your own hours, but again make sure there is some structure behind it. You could even get creative with the time and decide that you want to work from 9am-1pm and then start again at 6pm-10pm.

Don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of extending your hours either. If you stop to develop a structure around your work routine then you will find that the rest of your life starts to fall apart. You may start to complain about never having enough time without realizing that you have all the time in the world if you set it up that way. Yes it is important to get the job done, but usually it won’t get done any faster if you work 16 hour days versus 8 hour days so you might as well save that time for your life.

Also keep in mind that this is easier than it sounds. I have been job single (you like that new term?) for 6 years now and I still don’t have a proper routine. I seem to be a bit too flexible with my schedule but rest assured it is for the benefit of my own life!

Making money doing what you love…maybe

One of the popular pieces of advice when entering into business is: do what you love. I’ve said it a million times and it is advice I follow myself. I realize as an adult I have to do things I don’t like to do (I do them everyday) but when it comes to work, I’ve been there, done that and I promised myself if possible I would never do it again.

But what if you can’t monetize what you love? Seth Godin wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. There are pitfalls to doing what you love and he nailed two of them on the head:

1. In order to monetize your work, you’ll probably corrupt it, taking out the magic in search of dollars

and

2. Attention doesn’t always equal significant cash flow.

Doing what you love is as important as ever, but if you’re going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea. Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. Go find a job you can commit to, a career or a business you can fall in love with.

Do your art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.

(And the twist, because there is always a twist, is that as soon as you focus on your art and leave the money behind, you may just discover that this focus turns out to be the secret of actually breaking through and making money.)

When I had my first gaming site I started it for fun and my passion for gaming showed as I built the site. Then it became very profitable because I would do things (work) that didn’t feel like work to me. I wanted to talk to game developers. I wanted to spend the time in games thoroughly picking them apart.

With my second gaming site I’ve been slacking royally because I wasn’t having fun with the game. I was exploring areas I had not been to before but everyone else had so what was the point in writing about it? The character I really wanted to play wasn’t released yet. I was completely blah about the site. It didn’t help that it doesn’t cost me anything to have the site online. I had zero incentive and it showed when I attempted to write something.

I was talking to a friend about this and we were saying that with our upcoming new things the beauty of it was that we didn’t have to worry about monetizing it. We could focus on finding our groove and building up the content on our perspective projects. I realize one day the site will be monetized but I will have found my voice, the perspective I want to take with the site and it will be “strong”, instead of building something TO make money - which might take it completely away from what I really want to do.

Which is exactly what I felt myself doing and why I was slacking. I was thinking four or five steps ahead and thinking “this would be best since I’m monetizing it” instead of digging deep on what I want to do, which is not the norm for a gaming site. As the ideas first started to form into my mind I immediately rejected it because it “might be” tough to monetize it. My displeasure showed itself in my lack of enthusiasm for the game. If I had not figured it out even with the new expansion I still would not have fun in the game because playing the game I can’t help but think about the site.

Gaming is my source of entertainment. When I’m done with “work” I’ll play a game. There is a delicate balance turning entertainment into work. That is the main reason why, although I love clubs and my parents used to own a club, I don’t want one myself. I thought I did at first. I thought it would be a good fit but I realized when I go to the club for fun, the last thing I want to do is work. The “fun” is going there, having a good time, and not having any responsibilities.

I’ve seen many times people corrupt their work to pay the bills. I understand this completely but many times people don’t realize it is happening. Once you drop to rock bottom prices to compete it will be incredibly hard to raise them. If you cut corners on quality the end product suffers, opening the door for competition. Throwing up articles just to get them up doesn’t fool anyone if they don’t compare to the previous ones. Having millions of pageviews no longer means guaranteed ability to sell ads on the inventory.

Look at what you’re doing and more important why you are doing it. You might learn something.

I’m not in the mood….

I don’t feel like writing an article. An article about Web 2.0 or technology? I have zero interest and I haven’t even been keeping up with it lately. Politics? Each and every politician can kiss my ass because I’m tired of them spewing shit they expect me to fall for. Life? Thanks but Mother Nature decided to mess up thousands of lives with Ike and after enduring no power for a couple of days (kids with no power is not a pretty thing) I need a break from life. Business? Enough depressing news about businesses failing and needing to be bailed out this week to last anyone a life time (if you have stocks, good luck with that). If I were writing about World of Warcraft I’d have a bunch to say and I might spin this somehow into WoW…..

So here I am writing an article I don’t feel like writing and I don’t like the ones I pre-wrote. On my own site I publish when I feel like it. Here? I refuse to miss a day. Then I realized what I’m doing right now is what we all do to some extent.

• Isn’t that what people do when they get in their cars and drive to the job they can’t stand?
• Isn’t that what people do when they roll over from having sex with the spouse they fell out of love with a long time ago?
• Isn’t that what people do when they go to the bowling league they somehow got pressured into joining but don’t want to cause drama by canceling?
• When you contain yourself when you smile at your co-worker/boss/insert-person-here when you really want to tell them off?
• When you wash those windows do you like doing it?

We all do things we don’t want to do everyday. Some people do it all day everyday. I can’t recall the last time I was enthusiastic about cooking. Or yard work. I can’t dance when I do those two things (without looking like an idiot).

What I don’t understand is why people continue to do things they don’t like without trying to improve the situation? Get a better job. Get a divorce or rediscover the love. Kill the league and join another. Learn how to tell people off without them realizing you did (that’s fun). Put on some music while you wash the windows and dance.

People do things out of habit. My Mom will do things on auto-pilot and she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. It used to drive me nuts because I would put something down for a moment and she’d auto-pilot (move it). Although auto-pilot comes in handy if she happened to have gone to the store, picked something up she thought I’d like and ends up auto-piloting (cooking) me a meal…anyway, that was her way of getting through chores she didn’t like doing.

In the situations I described above many times people fall into habit, a routine. Sex MWF, same club with the same people on the same days, same meals on the same days, get brand new clothes and they look just like the old clothes.

When you went to college even if you had a blast, did you want to stay there? You love your job, do you want to hold the same position five years from now? Do you really want your kids to remain kids? See the difference?

Habit does not equal fun. Or enjoyment. Or progression. Or growth. Habit means stuck in a rut.

To advance in life sometimes you have to kill the habits.

To reward myself for writing the article I’m not in the mood to write, I’m going to do something completely spontaneous - breaking a habit of what I’d normally do on a weekend.

Have a good one!

Battle Between Book Startups Shelfari & LibraryThing

Shelfari is a book sharing startup with a gorgeous look-and-feel, innovative features and it was acquired today by Amazon who was also an early investor in the company.

LibraryThing is a similar book community that lacks the design and deep social features of Shelfari, caters to an older audience, and also has Amazon as an investor. They vehemently despise Shelfari and like to let everyone know it. From a post by LibraryThing responding to the Shelfari acquisition:

I have respect for LibraryThing’s 40+ competitors, but withhold it for Shelfari. They were rather famously called out by me and by others in a series of blog posts exposing a program of spamming and of “astroturfing” (paid employees posing as excited users in blog comments). The apologized on both occasions, but I have, quite frankly, the greatest contempt for them, and for what book-based social networking will become if they beat out LibraryThing.

Ouch.

I don’t really care what Shelfari has done in the past but publishing this type of entry right as Shelfari gets acquired absolutely sounds like sour grapes. Shelfari is newer, prettier, flashier, and caters to a younger audience, whereas LibraryThing does the opposite, and look who got acquired. Design matters. Features matter. Making your site look like it was produced in the 21st century matters.

Shelfari was acquired because of its innovative user interface and that is one of the things that LibraryThing absolutely does not have going for it. LibraryThing is plain looking and you just can’t avoid that. LibraryThing catalogs more books, has more features, and lets users control data more accurately, but it doesn’t have the pizzazz that Shelfari has, and in the end that’s what ended up mattering to Amazon.

What can someone learn from this?

If you have a competitive advantage but it’s buried in the details, then you might as well not have an advantage at all.

Shelfari’s competitive advantage was plain as day (quality design and polish) and that’s what Amazon wanted, so they bought ‘em. I’d say “better luck next time” to LibraryThing but who knows if there really is a “next time” since Amazon already made its move.

Launches - not the most important thing

This is a topic I’ve been meaning to discuss for a long time and it applies since we are experiencing something similar with the new sites. Launches are important to the owner because it marks a milestone of a level of completion. Many companies, particularly online ones, make the mistake of putting too much into The Launch.

I was reading Seth Godin’s article called Not so grand and I agree with his point:

The best time to promote something is after it has raving fans, after you’ve discovered that it works, after it has a groundswell of support. And more important, the best way to promote something is consistently and persistently and for a long time. Save the bunting for Flag Day.

How many times have we seen companies throw the elaborate launch parties to fade into the shadows? Honestly, how many people can remember the companies spotlighted by TechCrunch’s conferences and those that won - do you use it?

The “big” companies that are successful weren’t successes at launch. Twitter began in March 2006, Twitter launched in July of 2006 but didn’t get their big break until SXSW 2007. Unfortunately, they were unprepared for the massive amounts of usage they receive and failed to properly define their company. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, did a presentation about Twitter and there is a definite divide with how a large portion of their users use Twitter and how they envisioned the service to be used. Twitter was not built to handle the amount of use it receives today and the challenge to upgrade and keep the service live is a challenging one. The focus for Twitter was scaling (not monetizing). A better idea? Focus on building the architecture so when the people are there, scaling would not be so challenging.

See, that’s the mistake most companies make - the rush to get the people before the cement of the foundation is dry. Easy to do but usually has detrimental repercussions. While Twitter has irked many people it gave competition the opportunity to enter the space or worse, piggy back on their services. Twitter will probably come out of it okay because they have a ton of money being thrown at them that puts them in a better position to fix the issues.

Most companies do not have that luxury - millions after millions being given to them.

Let’s look at another example, Digg. It was launched in 2004 but really didn’t begin to gain traction until 2006, exploding in 2007. They scaled with traffic but then encountered a problem, a problem that could have been sorted out earlier. The company wants to take Digg more mainstream; their users prefer it stay focused on technology. Again, a divide between how the users want to use the site and what the owners envision for the site.

Launch is great but it’s just the beginning of (hopefully) a long journey to success that has to be achieved and more importantly maintained. Taking the time to make the right decisions, ensuring the foundation is strong and the challenge is easier to win and the road to success a smoother journey. Focus on the wrong points and watch your company slip through your fingers into a deadpool.

How 9rules Almost Ended

With my last entry I gave some vague details about how we went from 2.5 years of moving down one path only to change it all up in 6 months. How and what made us make that kind of change? These and other questions were asked by Tyme’s readers so I figured I would tell the story of how we almost walked away from 9rules to go our separate ways.

When reading this story keep in mind that we live in three different states so there isn’t always the ability to see each other’s faces or reaction to get the gist of what they are saying. Also remember…wait for this one…Mike and I have never met Tyme in person before. I mean EVER. It’s not that we have been avoiding it it’s just time is never right so maybe one day we will just get stupid and sponataneous and make it happen. However, after waiting so long it will probably be more nerve-racking than if we had gotten it out the way earlier.

When it comes to how we run things I am the leader. This doesn’t mean that every final decision is made by me, but I steer the ship. This also means if Mike and Tyme are having a disagreement I can get caught in the middle and last year this happened a lot. Both of them are good people and if we were all in the same room we would have nothing but parties going on however we don’t have that luxury. We are all strong, emotional people so if we interpret something wrong we have no problem going after the other person. Because of this none of us are going to stand down.

I argue with Tyme. I argue with Mike. They argue with each other. There was a point though last year where they argued a lot more than usual. It could have been personal issues, but a lot of it had to do with the state of 9rules.

9rules has always been a great site with a great community. Why did we decide to add more stuff to it like Notes and Clips instead of creating a different site for those? Because we wanted to get more people to 9rules before branching out into anything else. I have a business theory about this one that I will write over at Expert Idiot, but for now let’s say that I learned that there is a limit to how much something can grow and when you can accept that you can move on. Because there was so much going on at 9rules it was almost impossible to make it grow.

This is where tensions start to rise and fingers start to get pointed. You look around to see if everyone is pulling their weight. You try a million things and if something doesn’t work then it must be because someone isn’t doing what they need to do. This is poisonous thinking. I think it happens in all organizations, but having it happen in a three person organization is deadly. This also showed another weakness that we had and that was not really understanding what was expected out of one another. Something that was totally my fault.

As the middle man you get to hear both sides and because I was the leader I could see where I had failed in so many ways that I became frustrated to the point of wanting to quit. I love Mike and Tyme as people, but there was a point where I hated them as business partners. I didn’t want to talk business with them. I didn’t want to move forward with anything for fear that there would just be more arguing. It sucked. You might remember us saying we took the month of December off and this was the reason why. We were online talking, but we did nothing related to work.

This was the greatest decision that I probably have made in the history of this company. Although it was probably always apparent what needed to be done with 9rules that doesn’t mean it was easy to accept. However, I was still uncertain as to whether or not I wanted to move forward with Mike and Tyme, but then I realized I was taking the easy way out only to try and make myself happy. I didn’t want to go out like that so I tossed out the idea of splitting 9rules into two sites to them and they liked it and in January we moved forward. Yes we had other talks to resolve our issues and really it all came down to the expectations we held for each other. If there was something deeper like personality mismatches we would be screwed.

One of the hardest elements that exists in this dynamic is that Mike and I have known each other longer than we have known Tyme so that can be hard on her. However, Tyme and I did a show together so that can be hard on Mike. You can’t ignore the human aspect and think that at times one person isn’t going to look for a partner to fight on their side to gang up on the other person. You don’t see 1 v 1 v 1, it’s usually 1 v 2 and that is never fair. At the end of last year it became 1 v 1 v me saying peace the fuck out.

I only share this story because you don’t hear about these things in this Web 2.0 era and people like to pretend that people only disagree at their jobs. I also know that the world thinks we are perfect, which we are, but there were a ton of rough spots we had to overcome to get here. I can’t explain how much better life is now than 7 months ago. We have new sites, a new start and an understanding of what we all bring to the table.

Not to look back and think fate had a plan, but I don’t think we could’ve moved forward with these new sites until realizing that we had a really fucked up dynamic going on within. We still argue because that’s how decisions get made at times and there are still misunderstandings (one happened 2 weeks ago between Mike and myself) so we are still growing together. I’m glad I didn’t pull the plug on 9rules or anything else that we do and I can honestly believe that now.

That’s my story. If Mike and Tyme disagree with it, don’t listen to them. They are stupid people.

Kleiner Goes For The Same Old Same Old

Kleiner Perkins iFund was announced a few months ago with the goal of producing “market-changing ideas and products” funded with KPCB’s cash. Today, BusinessWeek breaks the news that the first iFunded company is yet another answer to the mystifying problem of not being able to find things to do around where you live.

For those not entrenched in the industry, creating a hyperlocal product or directory is almost as cliché as starting your own ad network. Everybody and their brother is in the space, and it’s crowded like Free Beer Night™ at Fenway.

The company working on the software is pelago and their app is called Whrrl. It’s been around for awhile and has been in use on other mobile phones, but with the new influx of cash they’re doing a native iPhone version.

First off, I’m not saying that the application is lame, I’m just saying it’s boring with regards to the all-encompassing, world-changing, hyphen-phrased launch of the iFund. iFunded companies will cure cancer. iFund money could create a dozen Googles. The iFund will save children in Africa. Instead, we get a native iPhone version of an application that’s been out for awhile. It’s not a new product, it’s not a new idea, it’s an iPhone port of an existing app. Not all that world-changing in my opinion.

The first thing that someone tied to Whrrl will probably say when they read this entry is that I have no idea how much time and effort it takes to build an iPhone app and that learning Objective-C is hard when you’ve never used it before. Well guess what, I never knew ObjC before the iPhone SDK came out and I’m doing just fine with it. Hell I never even learned C before I learned ObjC so I had to learn that as well, and I did. I produced a prototype of the iPhone project I’m working on in 3 days. One guy, no money, in my spare time.

To be fair to pelago, I think it’d be useful to produce a list of iPhone applications I think would actually be amazing and that would grab my respect. I don’t know if any of these are already out there or in development, but here we go:

• Use your iPhone’s built-in camera to scan barcodes of items, any item, and the application looks out on the web in real-time and figures out competitor’s prices and reviews.
• A golf game that used the built-in accelerometer and touchscreen to control the action. I’d pay anything this. Okay, up to $15.
• Language processor and translator. The software listens to the outside world via the microphone and figures out what language is being spoken and a rough idea of what has just been said. Speech-to-text-to-translation.

I don’t have any iFund money so I can’t come up with any more great ideas at the moment, but I’ll be sure to ideate it later once I’m swimming with cash.

And to pelago: is this the best you can do? Tracking things that you and your friends have been doing, on a map? Share your location with friends on the go? Reminds me of dodgeball but 2 years after the fact.

Honesty about strengths and weaknesses

My brother and I were close. We used to talk quite often about everything under the sun. He was a very meticulous person, very neat, organized and orderly. It used to puzzle me, with his level of efficiency, that he never had his own business. I used to bug him about it, even offered to help him do it. He never would. One day I couldn’t stand it anymore and I “made” him tell me why. I was very surprised at his answer.

I’m not good at managing my time. Nothing would get done.

I thought my brother lost his mind because he was Mr. Efficient. When he had deadlines at work he always had things done before hand. He always found the most efficient way to get things done. This flowed in everything he did, for example, taking a trip. His plans would be minutely planned so the idea of him not managing things efficiently and effectively as a business owner did not compute. I thought perhaps he had fear of the “unknown”, perhaps did not want to risk something stable for something unstable (a new business).

He explained that he “needed” someone to account to otherwise he would blow off whatever it was he scheduled to do. He enjoyed what he did and the “fun” would disappear if he was the boss. He didn’t like management positions either. He knew himself well enough to know that if he started a business, even if it was something he enjoyed doing, his personality type was not complimentary to it. He wasn’t disciplined enough.

Knowing Yourself

Everyday I encounter people who want to start businesses, a blog, create video, etc. and they have these big plans about their success. Not only do they not have a plan about how they are going to get there often they are not realistic about their personality and if their personality meshes with their goals.

An example, how often do you see sites that boast “daily content” but are not updated daily? Or are updated daily but the content sucks? These people are probably good people but obviously not suited for daily updates. The amount of time it takes to write quality content on a daily basis is considerable. The reality is the person who does this isn’t business minded due to the multitude of the mistakes made.

Reality Isn’t Always Pretty

My brother understood his limitations and focused on his strengths. Instead of starting a business knowing he was lacking traits that were needed, he was the best employee he could be. He enjoyed his work and was often recognized for his performance.

Being a business owner or even a good blogger requires the person to be able to consistently, over a long period of time, do what is needed for success. For example, I get up early every morning and check on our sites, delete spam, glance at email, etc. Not a couple of times a week, every other day, sometimes at 7 or sometimes at 12…every morning (unless I say otherwise) the sites are checked early. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like getting up early but I had to because of the kids (I don’t anymore). There are times when I get up, check the sites and lay back down but my job is done. Every day. After about 11am, my schedule goes out the door. I make sure the kids eat around the same general time but as far as work I wing it every day based on what needs to be done and I love that because I don’t really care for routines too much.

Doing Your Own Thing IS Work

I’m not a programmer. I’m not a designer. Yet I have websites that have code and designs. If I want to accomplish something and I don’t know how to do it I will research on how to do it. If I want to understand search engine optimization I will research it. If I need to go to school and gain some knowledge I will do that (and I did - I have a master’s in Business Management). In other words, doing your own thing requires more dedication than most realize - consistently.

If you want to write daily articles on your commercial blog (or update on a set schedule) think about all that is required. The topic. Do you need links? Can you back up and prove your point? Do you need confirmation from a source for the article? Is your data accurate? Consider the time it takes to write and proof the article. If it is a commercial blog what about the time to market, network, and manage the blog? If your blog traffic isn’t increasing why isn’t it and how do you plan to resolve that issue?

Honesty is the Best Policy

My brother was honest with himself about his personality traits and how they applied to his career. When I decided to start my business I did the same thing. Going through blogs as I do everyday (some of them personal, some of them commercial) I wonder if they were honest with themselves when they started their venture.

Your turn.

Critical Thinking, hard yet necessary

There were a couple of lists floating around, rules for startups. On the whole, the lists weren’t bad, but like all lists, they can tend to fall short. There isn’t a formula to have a successful startup, if only it were that easy. I must say of the lists I read, I enjoyed Mark Cuban’s the most.

Enjoy = it makes the most sense

For example, point #1: Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. This makes sense. Startups are like children, they need dedication, love, patience, and hard work. If the startup is not something the individuals are extremely dedicated to, the end result will not be enough to compete with companies putting their all behind their product or service, leading to point #2: If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.

Why do most startups fail? Same reason why many commercial bloggers do not have the success they would like. Unrealistic expectations. Everyone isn’t meant to have their own business just like everyone isn’t mean to be a doctor, lawyer, police officer, etc. A startling number of people enter into the commercial arena with zero business experience, and without the inclination to take some classes (gain some knowledge) to help them excel.

To complete my degrees I had to finish a series of classes called Critical Thinking. I hated those classes (I cannot put into words how much I hated those classes). I understood the point of them but I hated them. The classes forced students to consider all the issues in a situation and prompted the student to be creative in their thought process.

A lot of students failed those classes.

Seriously, they were tough. We received questions like this:

Lab technician Jim collects a culture from a patient on which the doctor previously operated. Jim carefully collects pus from a wound on the leg of the patient using a toothpick and then, seeing another wound on the face of the patient, washes the face wound with iodine and, using the same toothpick, collects serum from that wound. Jim drops the toothpick into a tube of nutrient broth, puts the name of the doctor on the broth culture tube, and takes it to the lab on the way home from work. List the mistakes Jim made.

Or:

Two airports A and B are 400 miles apart, and B is due east of airport A. A plane flew from A to B in 2 hours and then returned to airport A in 2 1/2 hours. If the wind blew from due west with a constant velocity during the entire trip, find the speed of the the plane in still air and the speed of the wind.

And let’s not forget:

Although 95% of the crust of the Earth is composed of either igneous or metamorphic rock, 75% of the exposed surface of the continental crust is sedimentary rock. This is because

a. erosion of surface soil and rocks has produced a veneer of sediments over most of the Earth, and lithification of these sediments has produced sedimentary rock strata
b. the temperature of the Earth increases downward, leading to the creation of vast amounts of igneous and metamorphic rocks
c. oceanic crust, which covers about 70% of the Earth’s surface, is largely composed of igneous rocks, such as basalt, which forms at oceanic ridges
d. constitute such a small percentage of the surface of the Earth that they contribute much less material to the surface than do physical and chemical precipitation of sediment

Each class the questions were harder but the point was to make the student “think” about the situation and not pick what might appear to be the obvious answer, to avoid skipping steps in the thought process and to do the work necessary to achieve the right answer (because there is only one right answer). Eventually the questions moved to business related situations which again, had one optimal answer. Knowing the answer (exit plan) doesn’t mean the pieces can be put together to form the question (product or service that will gain the exit expectation).

This is why people who have an exit strategy in their mind tend to fail before they get the company strong enough to be considered a realistic option for sale. The person has the end goal (exit) on their mind and most likely will do everything possible to quickly achieve that goal, working backwards to form the product or service.

Making the product or service meet their exit plans instead focusing on making their product or service a strong competitor in the market, justifying their exit projection.