To Be Fair...

So I have been complaining about this proof of concept code but I think it is only fair to state that what it is doing is actually very cool. Mr DT wrote the first ever (as far as I know) Mobile Virtual Processor and the system runs FAST. I wish it were simpler but that might just be ignorance shining.

I spent the past few hours looking for a way to rearchitect things and I really just cannot see how things could be less complex. Who would have known - the Complexinator was actually needed after all...maybe I should patent the Complexinator - I would LOVE to have that conversation with the PTO...

"So you are patenting the ability to make things complex"

"Jes"

"Ummm...is this for a government project?"

"Could be"

"Done!"

Seriously - hats off to Mr. DT - he rocks but this program is COMPLEX!!!

The Complexinator

Back when I worked at the Department of State, I created an imaginary machine called The Complexinator. This machine could take in anything - a problem, a program, an idea, etc... - as long and whatever was being passed in was simple and understandable. The Complexinator would then churn and chug...typically emitting clouds of noxious smoke...and then return to you an extremely complex morass of indecipherable results - thus your input was Complexinated using the process of Complexination.

The purpose, of course, was to teach more novice developers and business analysts the value of keeping things simple...

Little did I know that Mr. DT got a hold of my Complexinator behind my back, increased the Complexination process by a magnitude of absurdity, and used it on our proof of concept.

Never have I seen such a pit of intertwined, over-engineered, simply frustrating code as I see when I look at what was built. I will admit that I am a hack - I typically only write code sufficient to complete a given task and I never try to write "reusable code" or code frameworks. To me they are simply wastes of time as everything changes too much to make those approaches worth the effort.

Mr. DT somehow started to created a framework several times, stopped, started on another framework, etc... And then he left them all in the solution and is using bits and pieces from each.

When I write code and there is a bug, I immediately know where that issue originates - I might not know how to fix the problem but it usually does not take very long. This project? It can take DAYS just to figure out where an issue originates and fixing one issue typically results in a series of systemic bugs that can take weeks to resolve. Case in point, we have been trying to get images to paint on a screen for 3 weeks. Most of the issues have been resolved now - total UI bug count - 4. Total systemic issues from those 4 fixes - endless.

If I had been Really Smart, I would have also developer the Decomplexinator to decomplexinate this mess...oh well...time to dive back down the rabbit hole...

Exploratory Development

So the problem with building something new it that is it...well...new. Last Monday we thought we were easily going to make our deadline as all we had left to do was to debug our UI and then write some code to connect our recording to our mobile engine.

As of today, we are STILL debugging the UI and have yet to even touch, much less debug, the connection code. The part of this proof-of-concept that we touted as inventive has long since been completed. However, in order to run things, we also had a to build a generic processor emulator - that runs on a mobile device. Turns out nobody has ever done that before and it turns out that it is an incredibly complex morass to work through.

So Mr. ST (Sure Thing - our main investor) has told us to show him a working demo and then he will set up a meeting. Probably fair given that I have NO IDEA when we will be finished. Of course, accordingly to Mr. DT (Deep Technologist - the main developer), we will definitely be ready tomorrow. Of course he has been saying that every day since last Monday...

This is painful...

Slow Burn

So today was supposed to be The Day - we were going to walk into our meeting against the "experts" and show them who is really in charge in this town...

Of course my trusty developer - Mr. DT - let me know at the last second that LO AND BEHOLD there was more work to be done...a LOT more work. In fact we are STILL looking at weeks of work today - forget about being ready for any meeting.

Thus, even though I am a deep .NET guy, I have been programming furiously in J2ME since Wednesday, pulling all-nighters and generally trying to salvage this mission. Ever heard of "crash-and-burn" - well this burning is taking its time and really letting me feel the pain.

Of course we are close to getting something out today and if that happens then our investor, Mr. ST, will stick around for another week before running away for good. Pretty impressive if you think about it - this guy barely knows me, due to Mr. DT all I have ever delivered is vaporware and a LOT of Spin Talk and yet he is STILL sticking it out...at least for now.

Burn baby, burn...

The Inevitable Delay

So Mr. DT (Deep Techologist) informed me Monday that everything would be done in time for our trip to the Big Demo...

On Tuesday Mr. DT told me that he was experiencing some delays...

By Wednesday I demanded the project and did my own review...and saw that there was at least 80 hours of programming to be completed - and that was prior to fixing any unforeseen bugs

So, on THursday, I cancelled the Big Demo and tried to push it off for two weeks...so far Mr. ST (the main investor) appears to be onbaord but WHO KNOWS. We are still trying to produce something by Monday to prove we are not total liars but right now we are seriously skating on thin ice...is that ice???looks Very Thin and somewhat Brown...

So Stressed

So we have our Big Demo on Monday (actually Sunday with a couple of people) and the stress is definitely mounting:

• We still do not have a fully functional prototype
• Our main investor (Mr. ST) keeps inviting people to the demo despite our requests not to
• We are all but out of money
  

So obviously #1 is by far and away the biggest stressor and there is nothing I can do about it. I have been working with the main developer (Mr. DT) for YEARS and I know how he operates. So when he told me that he would be done by Nov. 1st, I automatically added almost a full month - to a 2 month project - and he still might not finish on time. I have started coding his part of the solution, he is now working 23 hours a day, and still NOTHING WORKS

At the same time, Mr. ST apparently would rather we show our invention to the world than try to maintain any confidentiality. He keeps inviting more and more technical people - people that can (and probably will) steal our technology. When I ask him how these people help us, he has no answer - he just wants to invite them. Nothing that anybody says is deterring him and I have No Idea how to control this issue...and I will NOT give away our system to the world!!!

Further, to make matters Just Peachy, we are all but out of money (of which I have yet to receive a dime) and, even if things go well on Monday, we will have no funds with which to move forward. Isn't this GREAT?!?

Oh, wait, I forgot...the Bestest Part. The "experts" I do know are coming have literally staked their reputations on the fact that we cannot do what we did, they have ulterior motives that work against us succeeding (they want any money Mr. ST might give us) and they have already strongly stated that we must have cheated and they will do "everything possible to figure out how".

Does life get any better than this???

Control Issues

So our main investor - who I will call Mr. Potential - appears to be heading towards a huge confrontation with the rest of the team and I am not sure what is going to happen next.

Mr. Potential was originally going to give us all of the first round funding within a month and $50K immediately to bridge us over. We had agreed that we could have the full invention built and ready for sale by December of this year.

It took 2 months to get the $50K and we have yet to see any other money. Rather than keep things close to the vest as originally planned, Mr. Potential has forced us to show our inner workings to a series of external "experts". We are also now finishing up another proof-of-concept (we had one prior to Mr. Potential) instead of working on the main invention - all to get Mr. Potential on board.

The proof-of-concept was originally going to be sufficient by itself, then Mr. Potential wanted us to show our code to one expert to obtain "independent verification". Now Mr. Potential wants us to show the invention to at least 5 "experts" and several other investors...

Of course none of this makes sense as we are trying to sell what we have and neither the "experts" nor the investors help in that regard. Is this all just to get Mr. Potential back on board? When is it too much?!?

The original mistake was not shopping this opportunity around and by jumping on the first viable option, we really put ourselves in a corner. Further, we have never pushed back on Mr. Potential because of all of his...err...potential. Outside of the bridge loan, he has never delivered on anything he has promised and is constantly throwing up more obstacles to overcome.

So we are on the verge - on the verge of pushing back, cutting him out of any future deals, finding other sources, etc... In the end, how much is it worth to have control over the strategy and when do you honestly push back?!? There are no books or guidelines and any expertise really...

Thus we are grasping in the dark and hopefully we can find the best path out...even if we have to leave Mr. Potential behind...

The Balancing Act

So we had a bunch of "experts" tell us a few months ago that our invention was garbage and could not be done. We are now about 85% complete with a proof-of-concept that proves we are the experts and those guys are not so much.

The problem with tight development time lines, however, is the anxiety derived when you push-push-push and you run up onto the deadline. In our case the deadline is in 2 weeks and we think things will be done...but we just do not know. The main investor (who is presenting us to his peeps) is asking how things are going and we are stuck.

Do we tell him the brutal truth that we think things are going well but that, as nobody has built anything like this before, who knows what is going to happen. Do we lie and say we are 100% on target and so overly-confident that we will make the deadline that we are offended he would question us? Where is the balance here?

I tried to go down an intermediate road in telling him that things so far were progressing as expected and that the inventive work is over. We have more typical development to complete and we should be fine unless something completely unexpected occurs.

So was that the right message?!? I guess time will tell...

Back to the Startup

Now that my computers are all upgraded to Windows 7 (and the upgrade from Vista to 7 was a joke it was so easy and painless), it is now time to revert back to the startup efforts.

The original IP has now spawned 4 different companies that we hope to build out over the next 2 years. We are now trying to figure out our best path forward and I have been introduced to the concept of bootstrapping.

So the first company - whose prototype should be completed in a couple of weeks - would probably sell in 7 months for between $50M and $75M given all of the inputs I have received up to this point. That stated, the only different between the solution at the end of the proof-of-concept phase and the full version is a bunch of grunt work that, while significant, has been done before for other projects. In fact this work is not even cutting edge - just monotonous and detailed.

Given this latter fact, the main investor right now wants to essentially sacrifice the potential value of this first company in order to get money in the door without sacrificing ownership - hence bootstrapping. He strongly feels that companies will easily purchase the proof-of-concept (and it is actually already quite a system...) for between $15M and $20M and that we can take $3M of that and used it for the building out of the other, more valuable, commercialization options.

He calls this a necessary sacrifice for a long term gain but let's be honest - his "sacrifice" would make me a millionaire...SACRIFICE AWAY:)!!!

Graphics and Projects

So first the Great News - I have about 150+ software projects in .NET and I was very concerned that moving them from the My Documents XP system to the Users folder system in Windows 7 would cause huge file reference issues. Instead there were no issues at all! I did rename the Documents Library in Windows 7 to My Documents and that was enough for Windows 7 to figure out how to change all of the file references - go Windows for finally supporting file system upgrades!!!

On the not-so-good side, there are two annoying things that I have not been able to overcome:

1. Desktop Icons - So if you perform any updates that process AFTER a reboot, all of your desktop icons disappear. Man that scared the you-know-what out of me the first time but all you need to do is to right-click on the desktop and go to View => Show Icons. Of course this happens EVERY TIME - very annoying.
2. Background Image - I specifically use a background image that is supposed to span two screens - but Windows 7 repeats it separately for each screen. I have tried every option, upgrade, patch, etc... but it appears that I am stuck in split screen land...