Over a year since my last post. I go back and read my earlier entries and wonder why I always stop. I guess because I don’t feel I have really anything important to say. I have decided though to pick it up again and use this as an outlet for me and me alone. If other folks stumble across it then so be it.
Well my two posts dealt with my decision to stop using Apple products and leaving Pelago for PopCap Games. On the former I am still 100% Apple-free On the later I am still at PopCap Games though now they are owned by EA.
The only thing I miss from Apple is OmniGraffle. There is no program that comes close to it. When I got rid of my iPhone I went to Android. I started with a Samsung Captivate then a Motorola Atrix then a HTC Titan (Windows Phone) and currently I am using the HTC One X (white one). Through it all I have stayed with AT&T. I was a pretty big supporter of the Windows phone until Microsoft announced WP8 and made every currently shipping Windows phone obsolete.
Regarding Pelago. I left because I didn’t want to work for GroupOn. I thought back then that they were a slimey company and I still think so. I don’t understand why Jeff Holden wanted to go there. Now they didn’t want me so it didn’t matter but I made my decision to leave before I knew they didn’t want me. Jeff could have easily let me go without another word but he gave me a huge chunk of money for my four years of time there and I was ever so happy. My wife got to go to Europe for five weeks because of it. I miss working for Jeff and Jeff (Ayars my old boss).
Pelago was great and I sometimes really miss it. PopCap is the best job I have ever had however. I get all the technical freedom I had at Pelago with none of the crazy hours.
I would like to talk about three of the biggest mistakes I made at Pelago which cost the company money which it could have used later on.
The first mistake was listening to initial projections on growth and buying equipment upfront for 10 million users. That was just so stupid. Lesson learned: Launch lean. Wait till the site falls over before spending money. Cost to Pelago: $500,000.
The second mistake was buying a pair of BigIP 6400s. Seriously we could have gotten by with 1500 LTMs. Again I was convinced that those 10 million users were right around the corner. Cost to Pelago: $80,000 to $120,000.
The third mistake was not putting my foot down when I got there and getting us off of Microsoft Exchange. We spent money on hardware and software for an upgrade that never came nor could have because of initial decisions to put us on the Microsoft Small business platform. Instead of biting the bullet and just killing it early on it just festered over three years until finally I moved the company to Google Apps for Domains. There is just no reason to run Microsoft Exchange at a company with less than 100 people. Don’t do it. Cost to Pelago: $25,000.
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