Life in School and Startup

For as long as I can remember, I have paid (or my parents have paid) for cable TV. I’ve lived through the rise of HD programming, the rise of TVs larger than a person, the rise of DVR, competition with satellite, etc. Things have come a long way in my lifetime, but only the most recent developments have given me reason to wake up tomorrow and finally stick it to the man. This man is named Time Warner Cable.

Tomorrow, everything I will be watching will be on ABC.com, NBC.com, Apple TV, and Hulu.  We’re going from ~300 channels to 4.  Also, we’re picking up Clear wireless internet (4G WiMax, yay for technology). It’s all free with internet. The $120/month bill is going to be $25/month for the same programming. We may miss mythbusters and dog whisperer, but almost everything else is online. Let me repeat…almost everything else is online. Couple that with a supposed AppleTV deal with the major networks and we’re in business for under 1/2 of what we’re paying right now.

A giant is falling due to the rise of technology. Good for hulu and boxee and netflix and everyone else who collectively make up a damn good alternative. As an entrepreneur, it’s nice to see the conventional wisdom beginning to bow to people who saw what a difference they could make, and executed well enough to cause people to make a lifestyle change. That speaks volumes, it really does.

Also, it’s going to force us to find alternatives for our time. We won’t be able to just say “hey, i need to kill some time, what’s on tv”. Admittedly, this may lead to more time playing Nintendo 64, but I would submit that that is a far more social and relationship-building event than sitting idle on the couch watching TV. My hope is that it will force us to talk more, work on the company more, go out to public places to watch sporting events. Watching TV now consists of watching things once through with limited commercials and then going back to our lives. Awesome.

I’m happy.  It may be rough to start out with, but I’m ready to see how we react.  Have you given up anything recently that you’ve had your whole life?  I’d love to hear about it.

As I sit in Dunkin Donuts reading CEO blogs and “the long tail theory” I’m trying to figure out how I can refocus my time thinking about a startup venture.  Until now, It’s been nothing but going through raw options of “what service can I offer” – this has not been fruitful for the past four weeks.  I’m starting to believe that this path may not lead me to the pot of gold, and that a major shift in thought process may be necessary to bring this “think tank time” to fruition.  To illustrate where I feel I need to be heading, let me tell of a story that offers great analogy to life and learning.

One day, while rock climbing, the person in charge of making sure I didn’t splat against the ground was talking me through a particularly tough face of the wall.  He had been up it many times and was overall a more experienced climber than myself.  I was new and was particularly stuck at a certain junction – trying incessantly to make the “jump” and grab a prayer of a ledge to keep up the wall.  Just in passing, he mentioned to me the following – “hey dude, head sideways, can’t always think about heading straight up the whole time”.  I followed suit, and completed the climb relatively easy after a tiny sideways scoot.

All poetic sap aside, the concept of positioning frequently comes up in my infant entrepreneurial efforts, and it seems that repositioning my thought process is going to be necessary to ideate in the proper direction.  Time to start thinking sideways.  Better yet, time to figure out how to think sideways in the first place.  I’m taking anyone’s two cents for thoughts in this area, and your whole bank account is certainly welcome.

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