Alistar Croll has a really insightful post on GigaOm in which he talks about the benefits of being a small start-up, and features two of my favorite online service providers: Wufoo and Freshbooks.

Small is a theme that has come up often during conversations at mesh and meshU this week. I’ve run into a lot of entrepreneurs happily doing business with just a handful of employees. Among them was Ryan Carson, whose meshU presentation included advice on creating a business where creativity is an important element in keeping employees happy and productive.

Alistar describes small startups as “lifestyle companies”, which is a pretty good way of talking about companies where how you work is as important as where you work and what you do.

I’m not sure whether this is a trend or perhaps something within the high-tech community but as much as people want to work hard and be successful, many people want a healthy balance between work, family and play, or perhaps the flexibility to spend time on work, family and play when and where they want.

The ability make “lifestyle companies” happen and live the kind of life that you want is easier than ever as development, distribution and marketing costs plummet. An online service that would have cost $100,000 to develop in 2000 can now be done for a fraction of the cost by a couple crackerjack developers.

And it’s okay to be small and stay small. It’s alright to build a business with 10 employees that generates $1-million/year and profits of $100,000 to $200,000. If that lets you enjoy life, spend quality and quantity time with your family and friends, and run a business that’s challenging, stimulating and fun, you’ve won the lottery.

Of course, small sometimes becomes big – really big.

A good example is Club Penguin, which went from a project start to meet the needs of the founders’ children, to a large business with more than 12 million registered years within three years. But as Lane Merrifield, one of CP’s co-founders, said during his terrific keynote at mesh, the goal wasn’t build an online behemoth. Instead, they built it as parents with a passion for creating a great children’s product. Club Penguin focused on being great rather than being big, and look what happened.

If getting big happens, it’s a bonus but if it never happens and you stay small, that’s okay. In fact, that’s better than okay.

Technorati Tags: mesh, meshU

The amazing thing about Twitter is that despite its ongoing and frustrating technical problems, people keep on using it. You know you’re red-hot when most of your users continue to love what you do even when you screw them around.

Still, you have to wonder if there will be a point in time when Twitter’s technical troubles start to make people think twice about not only using it but may get them to consider alternatives such as Pownce and Jaiku. The Twitter franchise can’t be so impenetrable that it can continue to roll along as a useful but much-troubled, service.

I’d really like to use Pownce because it has a richer set of features, including things such as the ability to share files. And while Twitter become the dominant player, Pownce continues to quietly make it ways as the second-place player that tries harder.

The biggest challenge facing Pownce is there’s a raging party happening in Twitter’s backyard, and no one wants to leave a rockin’ party for a party with fewer people – even if the Twitter party gets out of hand from time to time.

Anyway, I’m going to log into Pownce today. Partly because it’s time to take another look at what’s going on, partly because Twitter’s ongoing technical issues, and partly because Daniel Burka, one of Pownce’s founders and a fellow Canadian, did such a great job yesterday at meshU.

Update: According to GigaOm, Twitter has raised $15-million. Hopefully, it will use some of the money to improve the service to five nines reliability. Loren Feldman has some thoughts on why people tolerate Twitter and all its technical troubles.

Technorati Tags: Pownce, Twitter

Well, the initial meshU is almost over.

Each of the workshops was terrific with some great insight and a lot of furious note-taking on my part. What stood out personally were the design sessions featuring Digg’s Daniel Burka and Wufoo’s Kevin Hale.

As an enthusiastic consumer of online applications as opposed someone who develops them, I’ve fascinated by usability, flow and intuitiveness. On Web sites that are well-designed, you don’t even think about how you use it, you just use it. Simple, elegant, beautiful.

Not to downgrade the importance of development and beautiful and clean code, but it won’t matter much without great design. Two important points that Hale made were that the small details are really important, and that good design needs to extend to every place that interacts with the user – from registration to the FAQ. Hale, by the way, won the prize for being the most dapperly-dressed person at meshU with an ensemble that featured a tie and vest.

Burka, who packed the house, talked about how simplicity is important, and that it’s okay to think about removing under-used or unloved features as you launch new ones. It was interesting to look at how Digg’s comment system has been overhauled over the past two years with small design changes having a big impact.

Another issue where was healthy discussion – some of it instigated by me – was how text plays such an important role in great design. It’s wonderful to have beautiful graphics and color but words are also really important – something that I can appreciate as a writer and journalist.

One last quote from Burka:

“I like making pretty things but the biggest part of my job and the thing I’m most excited about is making things that are easy to use.”

Technorati Tags: Digg, meshU, Wufoo

A new wrinkle to the mesh conference this year is meshU, a one-day event featuring 12 hands-on workshops divided into three streams: development, design and management.

As someone who can do a pretty good job talking the [tech] talk as opposed walking the walk, meshU is going to be a huge education for me. Among the sessions that I’m particularly excited about are:

- Wufoo’s Kevin Hale talking about “How to Design for Love”. I’m a big-time Wufoo fan. Heck, I even have two Wufoo accounts for which I pay a monthly fee! If you’ve ever used Wufoo, you can appreciate that a clean, simple interface is an amazing thing. Even Wufoo’s Help section is a thing of beauty!

- Reg Braithwaite talking about “Building and Managing Great Software Teams”. Aside from the fact I used to play Ultimate with Reg, and it will be great to catch up, it will be insightful to hear about how teams are created and run well. Is it just a matter of giving developers enough junk food and pop?

- Ryan Carson on “How to Start Your Own Start-up”. I’ve got a few ideas percolating in my head so any help to turn them in reality one day can only be a good thing.

- “How to Demo Like a Demon” featuring Leila Boujnane and David Crow. This should be good!

Technorati Tags: meshU

I don’t want to join Boxbe, Spock or Diigo or, for that matter, any of the social network/knowledge-sharing/e-mail services that people have been nice enough to extend invitations recently.

It’s good to be asked but there’s already enough social stuff on my plate what with blogging, Twitter, Friendfeed and, from time to time, Facebook. The last thing I want or need is yet another service to seize my attention.

I realize everyone has good intentions because there are a lot of cool services that they want other people to be involved with, but time is becoming a scarcity for anyone who spends a healthy portion of their time online.

If there was a way to post a “no vacancy” sign on my digital front yard, it would have been up long ago. There is no more room at the inn; I’m absolutely full and can’t eat another byte of whatever digital service you’re serving up, etc.

In other words, thanks but no thanks.