We're excited that you're interested in LessCruise 2010, April 8-11th. If you don't know anything about the cruise read more here and here.

$100 Deposits are Due by Dec 9th!

If you have any idea that you might want to go, put down a refundable $100 deposit. You'll have until Feb 15th to get the deposit refunded if you decide not to attend. On Feb 15th the remaining balance for the cruise is due.

Steps to be Awesome!

• Call 800-277-3770
• Tell them you're attending LessCruise.
• Give them billing information for the $100 deposit
• They'll send you brochures and other cruise materials.
• Buy a thong speedo and suntan lotion

We want you to come, but you must put down a deposit very soon, this ship will sail without you if you don't put down your $100 deposit quickly.

Kevin Hale of Wufoo.com speaks about "How to make users fall in love with your app".

My wife has a friend that sells MonaVie, it's a health juice. The company signs up independent distributors. In turn these distributors can setup other independent distributors "under" them, it's a bit of a pyramid scheme/multi-level marketing. These distributors will give you a "free" bottle of the juice, hoping you buy more, if you don't buy more juice they try to charge you for the "free" bottle ($40).

Does a good product really need a sales "scheme" behind it? Yes it does. If your product is just "good" you'll need some clever way to get the word out. However if your product is "great", you do not need a scheme. When was the last time you talked about how awesome Amway products are? Customer, users and clients talk about great experiences and bad experiences. Employ no scheme, just deliver a great product and experience they'll talk about.

Steve and I just got back from an 8 day trip to Boston, Philly and New York City. In case you missed it, here's the trip blog post. This blog post is a quick summary of pictures of things we did while we were on the road.

Yesterday Steve and I decided to put on LessCruise. It's not something we'll make money from, we just want to hang out with our new and old friends. Why not go on a long weekend vacation together? Our good friends Alex Hillman (@alexknowshtml) and the Storenvy crew will also be helping us put this on as well.

What exactly is LessCruise?

We don't really know. We're talking about having some group excursions, a couple cocktail hours, group dinners and generally just hanging out.

Are you interested?

Cruise Schedule

Date	Location	Arrival	Depart	Activity
Thursday April 08	Miami, Florida	-	9:00pm	Boarding
Friday April 09	Key West, Florida	11:00am	5:30pm	Docked
Saturday April 10	Cozumel, Mexico	3:30pm	-	Docked
Sunday April 11	At Sea	-	-	-
Monday April 12	Miami, Florida	11:00am	-	-

What might happen at the cruise

We're talking about having a small "Barcamp at Sea" the second to last day. I am sure everyone will be hanging out talking eating meals together. I hope we can plan a group island excursion too. If our group is large enough we'll have a couple private cocktail hours in the evenings.

Cost and Stuff

Now what?

We've reserved 24 rooms/48 people for the cruise, we can get more rooms, I'd guess we have 25 people committed already. We have to put down deposits in the next 30 days, so look soon for an announcement to sign-up. In the meantime let us know if you're interested.

Are you interested?

What is a cruise all about?

Cruises are pretty laid back. I personally have been on a handful of cruises, Celebrity Cruises is the nicest cruise line. Generally the boat will be traveling towards a destination at night and you'll be at port during the day. You can leave the boat and walk around, shop, go on an adventure, sit on the beach, eat, whatever you like really. You'll come back to the boat by a certain time. You'll have all your meals prepared for you and free room service. Everything on a cruise is included, except souvenirs, alcohol and gambling. Steve and I went on a cruise together a year ago for a company trip and it was a blast.

Are you interested?

Des Traynor and Eoghan McCabe of Contrast.ie speak about web conventions at LessConf 2009. Follow Des Traynor and Eoghan McCabe on Twitter.

We're ordering shirts, do you want one? Leave a comment today if you do.



You can also leave a comment on our flickr account. They won't be printed on white, that's a quick example.

Steve and I met Jesse Lamb in September at BarcampTampaBay and quickly fell in love with how genuine and kind Jesse is. We consider Jesse a good friend and we're excited to help announce his new podcast "Jesse Lamb is NOT my lawyer".

Jesse Lamb is a lawyer, but he's not YOUR lawyer. Jesse loves law and he loves helping people but didn't enjoy being a practicing lawyer. Because Jesse isn't your lawyer he's not giving you legal advice just legal information. His new site (notmylawyer.com) is soon to be packed full of legal information as it relates to the tech and creative industries in the form of a podcast. If you're a developer, designer, freelancer, entrepreneur, or all of the above, you need to bookmark this site.

Jesse's posted his first podcast (15 minutes long) is an clear overview of the main branches of Intellectual Property Law: copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. Our own Steve Bristol will be joining Jesse on the podcast.

Listen to his podcast

My friend Tim Chilcott just moved to New York City and yesterday morning lost his iPhone on the subway. So he tweeted that he lost it, as iPhone users and friends, we all felt his pain. Later that afternoon he tweeted...


...within a few hours his friends on Twitter had donated the money for a new iPhone.

As silly as it sounds, yesterday Tim started a movement; not everyone can start a movement but here's how he did it.

1. Feeling Connected: Possible supporters must feel the victim's pain to be emotionally moved to contribute. Anyone with a cell phone knows, or can imagine how crappy it feels to lose one. Everyone that donated money to Tim's movement feels like they know him, so he's not some stranger asking for money.
2. Make It Easy: You must arm your supporters with the proper tools so they can help. Tim linked us to his paypal account.
3. Empower Supporters: To join your movement people must feel they can directly make a difference. Tim's goal of a new iPhone was seemingly reachable, he wasn't asking for a new car and he doesn't ask for help very often.
4. Show Progress: For your supporters to evangelize to their peers they must feel their contribution is helping the movement reach the goal. Tim tweeted how much money he needed left after each donation. You could track the progress. No one wants a movement they've helped to die before succeeding.
5. Say Thank You: Your supporters are buying on emotion and need to feel appreciated. Tim tweeted a thank you to everyone that supported him.

Tim's movement was successful both because the goal was met, but also because last night I went to bed feeling good that I helped. A successful movement will make the supporters feel great after helping the cause. If you create the right movement your supporters will give you something and feel good about themselves for contributing.

You'd think a health club's best form of advertising would be thin, healthy members but they really don't care about their members' health. In reality if their whole member roster showed up, they wouldn't be able to fit everyone inside the building. Their business model is betting that you don't show up and utilize what you're paying for.

My Dad's friend owns an Outback steakhouse, in the months leading up to Christmas they make 10% of their annual gross revenue by selling gift cards. Even more surprising is that only 35% of these cards are ever used by the recipients. Obviously, the profit margin on gift card sales are huge.

Credit card companies sign you up for a $35.99 per year "credit/id fraud alert" plan and hope you forget about it. You might notice an odd charge on your statement, but you'll probably forget to call and cancel, so they charge you for another year.

These type of businesses get you signed up and then try to keep their billings under your radar. But why? Why can't a gym call if your attendance is lacking and invite you back? Maybe even offer a free trainer for a week. A restaurant should call the recipient of an unused gift card and offer them a free dessert if they use their gift. Why you ask? Showing your customers that they're appreciated and loved is long tail. Keeping them locked in a few more months is a fleeting way to make money.

I've needed a new office chair for a while.

Seating Requirements

Inexpensive, I am cheap. I didn't want to spend $1000 on a Herman Miller or some piece of plastic that my 6'4" 360 pound body would destroy in 2 months. So I looked at what I like to sit in. Living room style chairs that are firm.

The Problem

I need something with wheels for a hardwood floor so I can turn and move away from my desk to standup. These "man chairs" don't have wheels. hmmmmm

My Solution

I used a 2x4 from home depot and 4 casters. Casters are like the wheels you see on a shopping cart in the grocery store. I used some L-Brackets to reenforce some of the weak/cheap "wood" in the guts of the chair. The casters raise the chair about an inch. The legs don't actually touch the ground if you look closely.

I'm loving it!

Maybe you call this "ghetto", I call it crafty and comfortable!

Steve and I are traveling a bit next week. Nov 11th-19th we'll be in Boston, Philly and New York City. We'd love to meet up with you and drink a beer or cup of coffee. Below are times we're available.

Boston

Wednesday, Nov 11th (Afternoon)

Philly

Sunday, Nov 15th (All day until 5pm)

New York City

In case you're wondering what we're doing on our trip, here's the events we'll be attending.

Reach Steve and Allan

I'm the co-founder of an unknown software company. I don't have aspirations of being some widely known madman genius that develops massively popular products. I don't dream of Ferrari, jets and hookers. I want to know my users, I want them to know me and feel like they can email me with questions anytime.

I want to work with Steven Bristol until the internet goes away and it's replaced with microchips in your brain. Then Steve and I will find some other business to build. I want to stay inspired and continue to work with amazing people. I want our company to invest in people, artists, craftsmen, people with passion.

I want to ride my bike with my kids to school in the mornings and coach their sport teams in the afternoon. My goal is to embarrass them because I'm awkward and weird. I want to take more vacations, buy an RV and nomad around the US. I want work when I feel like it, not because I have to.

I don't want to build a company that has no flavor, no passion and is a lifeless machine. I want a company that people either love or love a lot. I am the co-founder of an unknown software company, I work too much, I am stressed and I can't imagine doing anything else.

Recently I started talking about purchasing a 1963 Lincoln Continental. The people around me warned me and generally were a bit skeptical. This only fueled my interest. Why? Because everyone thinks I’m crazy for doing it.

Seth Godin talks about how the safe choice is often the risky choice and the risky choice is the safe one. I’ve made a life few decisions that made no sense to the people around me. It turns out those were some of the best decisions I ever made.

Here’s some example from my life

1. Took art classes in high school instead of working out with the football team. I design for a living now.
2. Left a full football scholarship to play at a bigger school, which led me to meeting my wife.
3. Took a job offer and quit school right after 9/11. I made 40k as a junior designer and that company was my first freelance client.
4. Left said job to go freelancing, which led me to Steve.
5. Put in every dime I owned into Less Everything so Steve and I could change our piece of the internet.
6. Released LovdbyLess our open social network, free code = good for business? Yes it’s helped bring in over 1.5mil in consulting work in the past 2 years.
7. Launched WeAllHateQuickbooks.com much to the disagreeing marketing consultant that insisted we’d be sued.
8. Poured time and money into ideas like LessAccounting, LessTimeSpent, LessProjects, now these side projects represent 40% of our income.
9. LessConf, who throws a conference in 7 weeks? We did, solid turnout, amazing love and a great time was had.

Most people are sheep and they don’t realize it. Follow their beaten path and face the cliff after them.

It's been a week since LessConf, I've been thinking about the personal exchanges I had with attendees and speakers. Let me start by saying the outpouring of love was amazing, thank you to everyone that supported our little conference. I'll write about the attendees later this week, this blog post is about the speakers and how they personally affected me.

A few of the speakers we met in person for the first time when we picked them up at airport. We greeted them with a handshake and small talk and by Sunday, when they departed, we gave them goodbye hugs. HUGS? I don't hug my uncles. So why was I compelled to hug these new friends?

These are people I admire and hold highly on a pedestal of awesomeness. So it was interesting to see how normal these people are. They were all so humble and giving of their time. In the past years I've thought many times on how to make a user fall in love with your app but put little thought on "how to be likable as hell." How much of success is a product of being extremely likable?

I'm not saying the speakers have a hidden agenda, I think it's just how they truly are. They connect with everyone, they're born with this gene that makes them genuine, kind and humble. They look you in the eye, as if you're the only person in the room. They make you feel like you're special. Maybe that's it, they make you feel special. I don't think you can fake this quality, the insincerity will show through. You must truly care about people, look them in the eye, shake their hand and be truly interested in the exchange.

LessConf was probably one of the most fun weekends of my life. I can't wait for LessConf 2010 so I can meet more cool people and connect with my old friends again.