Today I pushed people to work on our product up until christmas and manufacturing begins right after. I feel like scrooge. I need to build up some good karma to make up for this.

Here it is Sunday evening and the beginning of another great week at Phone Halo…hopefully. Last week was tough on me to say the least. The week started out with manufacturing delays, engineering delays, and once again…our product release date being pushed back. Another failure to keep my word on promises gets old for me quickly.

I like to refer to myself as someone who does what they say their going to do. When I say, I will do (insert one of my insane ideas here), I will do it and it will be successful. Having our product release date pushed back again is seeming like more and more like a personal failure rather than the blasphemous hands of our suppliers and partners.

But the product release push back hit us and especially me hard last week. After a few days and some more bad news, I felt totally out of whack. Slipping away down the slippery slope to failure and skepticism on what I was doing. But alas, I realized that entrepreneurs love adversity. Entrepreneurs take challenge and turn it into gold. Entrepreneurs strive when the world says no and they are the only ones who say yes I can (thanks Obama).

With a new breath of enthusiasm, I was able to make some key connects and phone calls and now we have the ball rolling in the positive direction again. We’ll keep on pushing to make Phone Halo successful or we’ll die trying. That’s a promise I know I can keep.

bad days happen. Worst days happen more. Drives the meek to hide and the strong to shine. I’m gonna keep on pressing.

Here’s my talk at the Student Entrepreneur Association @ UCSB.  Very last minute speech but fun.

SEA Presentation p1 from chris herbert on Vimeo.

SEA Presentation p2 from chris herbert on Vimeo.

Everyone knows its true.  And everyone knows everyone is right.  But my argument is that if everyone knows something to be true, the likelihood of falsehood increases.  Everyone knew that time went on constantly.  Everyone knew average people don’t need computers.  Everyone knew the US was years ahead of China.  And everyone knows there is no surf in Japan.

Things feel like everything is coming together and speeding up.  But with the increase in speed and action, I have a sense that I’m speeding towards disaster.  There’s so much right and so much wrong with the company.  So much good yet so much bad.  It could be all good with a little bit more work and I’m very happy about the guidance we’ve been getting.  It’s been really great having Jacques on the team and the connections that he brings as well.

I feel that we need to graduate to a higher level where were thinking higher level.  Its strange because the basics of creating a great business from 10,000 feet up are simple but when your in the trenches, its difficult to know where you are and what direction to head in.  There’s alot of doors open and lots of opportunities.  Alot of doors lead to success and its a matter of choosing one and sticking with it.

Few things I’ve learned lately:

1. You cannot conceive the ups and downs of a start up until you do a start up
2. Predict how much everything will cost and multiply that by 2 to get an actual projection
3. Everything goes wrong
4. Apple has more rules than the old testament
5. You have to age Lithium Batteries like wine

Loving start up life

So there’s alot of apps and alot of surf apps on the market.  I’ve checked out alot and I’ve compiled a short list of the best ones.  They’re all free too!  (Surf bums don’t have much cash)  Here we go:

1. CDIP – This is a great app that takes the data straight from cdip.  Your able to see the current swell model as well as see the buoys.  A great little addition is the ability to add in your favorite bouys for easy viewing.  Now I can easily check the surf at Rincon at any meeting!
2. Shralp Tide – This app gives you the local tides for where ever you may be.  It uses GPS to automatically detect your location and displays what the tide is doing in an easy to read format.  Its free, its easy, its a must have.
3. Wind Alert – This app is mainly used by kite surfers but all the surf forecasting/reporting apps just don’t give accurate wind.  This gives you accurate wind reports and forecasts at all your local spots.  It uses your current gps location to give you all the local wind graphs on one page and lets you mark favorites as well.  Well thought out and put together app!
4. Surf Report – This app uses the data from surfline to give you data from all three of the previous apps in one location!  It’s a little bit inaccurate for Santa Barbara but for most of Southern California, it’s accurate and reliable.  One of the first surf apps and still one of the best.
5. MSW Surf Forecast – This app gives you access to Magic Seaweed’s forecasting data in an easy to read manner.  I found it very useful whenever the discussion is “I wonder what the surf is doing tomorrow?”

There you go!  Enjoy!

We just put out an app from our services department: The CDIP app. It’s an app for surfers (of course). It was really fun to make and we’re already getting some attention for it. Check it out!