It's been an exhilarating first day here in Washington DC for the Geeks on a Plane tour. We met a number of policy makers from the White House and State Department, and had a solid Startup2Startup all about government policy and entrepreneurship. After a full day of talking, debating, thinking, and strategizing, we feel about read to take some good old-fashioned action. Will you join us?

In a previous post, I asked readers for suggested topics that the US government needs to know about startups and entrepreneurs, and got some really interesting responses. I've done my best to represent those perspectives in the meetings I've had here over the past two weeks. In my presentation this morning, I emphasized three key areas: reducing the personal cost of failure for entrepreneurs, innovation-friendly legal reforms, and access to the digital means of production (slides from my White House presentation are available at the end of this post).

However, there's one additional issue that has come up throughout the day today. We have a serious structural barrier to entrepreneurship: a glitch in US immigration policy. We can remedy it by creating a special visa for startup founders. The idea is to enable up to 10,000 people per year to enter the United States if they are here to found a company that will employ US citizens. I think the benefits are a no-brainer. Let me quote from Paul Graham's original essay:

The biggest constraint on the number of new startups that get created in the US is not tax policy or employment law or even Sarbanes-Oxley. It's that we won't let the people who want to start them into the country.

Letting just 10,000 startup founders into the country each year could have a visible effect on the economy. If we assume 4 people per startup, which is probably an overestimate, that's 2500 new companies. Each year. They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2500 some would come close.

By definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't work for existing companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact they'd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies they started would hire more employees as they grew.

Brad Feld is working on promoting this idea inside the halls of Congress. Today at Startup2Startup, some additional pieces fell into place. First of all, Dave McClure introduced the idea of modifying an existing immigration program. The EB-5 visa is designed for foreign investors to get a green card if they are willing to bring capital to the US and create at least ten full-time jobs. Unfortunately, this program applies to the investor who holds the capital, and not the entrepreneur who discovers how to put that capital to use. A small change in the law could have a big impact on entrepreneurship in this country, and that's what he proposed. When Dave presented this to the White House and State Department audience, he got a favorable reaction. That's when the second piece clicked, a few hours later. At Startup2Startup, we decided to generate some grassroots momentum to help out. It's actually part of a lean startup story.

David Binetti is an entrepreneur with some credibility in this area, having worked to create the original USA.gov. Recently, he's been engaged in a customer validation exercise around a new concept for a political action-oriented social network. When that concept didn't pan out, he decided to pivot. His latest effort, called 2gov.org, makes it easy to contact your local, state and federal governments with just a tweet. For more on his lean startup journey, you can take a look at this slide presentation. 2gov.org automatically routes your tweet (aggregating it with everyone else who's expressed a similar point of view) to the right legislator or agency. Because it checks your registration against voting rolls, members of congress know that the contacts being received are from actual voters, not just astro-turf. In other words, the service transforms tweets into professional reports that are sent by snail mail, fax, and email - the channels that actually have attention paid to them.

He was at today's event, and the Geeks on a Plane had a brainstorm. Let's use 2gov.org to raise awareness of the Startup Founders Visa movement in congress. To that end, we're tweeting about it, and would like to ask you to join us. If you are a US citizen, tweet your thoughts on the Startup Founders Visa, using the #StartupVisa hashtag and including @2gov. 2gov.org will take care of the rest. In order to have your tweet included in the printed packet that your representative will receive, you'll need to register at 2gov.org (it really only takes a minute).

The Geeks are doing their part. Will you lend us a hand (or at least a tweet)?

2009 09 18 The Lean Startup Geeks On A Plane Edition

View more presentations from Eric Ries.

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The recent and overwhelming influx of comments on The cardinal sin of community management. Has prompted me to investigate upgrading the comments system on this blog. I reached out to the twitter to gather suggestions, and the clear first choice seems to be Disqus. So I've attempted to install Disqus such that this post should be the very first one it's enabled for. Want to come give it a try? Just drop a comment on this post.

Your help testing is much appreciated! I especially would like your feedback. Should I keep Disqus? Go to another comment system? Or go back to the way it was?

Thanks!
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Monday morning began the way it usually does:

• I get up at 4 am, feed Anna
  
• Sitting in a corner at Starbucks, working and drinking decaf by 5 am
  
• Walk back home at 7:50 am
• Kiss husband goodbye as he leaves for work, brace for three year old's full-on jump/dive into me
  
• Three year old asks, "What do you want to do now, Mommy?"
• I tell her she needs to eat breakfast, go potty, then we'll play til Anna wakes up
  
• There's a bit of protest, but that's what we do, in that order
  
• Anna wakes at 9 am. I feed her
• We go to the park. I run 6 miles with the girls (figure that's about 60 pounds to push); I'm a glutton for punishment, that's all there is to it, really
  
• Then we head over to the playground
  

On this particular morning, the playground is wet, which means Ava's shorts (and a little bit of her underwear) are wet, too. I take off her shorts before we get into the car to head home.

We're heading home when I remember that we need diapers. And sunscreen for vacation. Pete needs V8 juice. Fifty dollars, gone like that, in the amount of time it takes a traffic light to turn from green to yellow--about three seconds.

I decide I better get gas before I get anything else (there goes $3o more). With a full tank, we head to Target.

I get the girls out of the car. The parking lot, surprisingly, doesn't feel like the county fair on derby day. It's actually...calm. The sun is hot and bright and everything shiny is sucking it up and spitting it back out. We're squinting from all sides.

Ava's hand is in my hand, other hand is occupied with Anna's increasingly heavy carrier, and we three make our way across the pavement. We get to the automatic doors at Target when this little voice at my side says, "Mommy. It's okay that I'm in my underwear." Just like that--a statement, an affirmation, nothing remotely like a question.

"Well, look at you. You are in your underwear, aren't you?" Elmo and rainbows were everywhere.

We don't know what else to do except laugh, so that's exactly what we do. We laugh and laugh and laugh all the way back to the car, into her wet shorts, and back into Target. Again.

I should've just let the kid stay in her underpants for crying out loud. But this is what happens: I go into scare-tactic mode and imagine that every grown person in Target is some twisted pedophile who will find out where we live all on account that Sesame Street is currently advertised across my daughter's hiney.

So, I scold myself the entire time we're in Target for being so ridiculous. I forget the V8 juice but pick up body soap (which, it turns out, we don't need), tell Ava that, no, she cannot have another fishing pole, I don't care if it's Spiderman, that goes for chocolate milk, too, and don't you dare rip off the straw so that I have to buy it, and anyway, that does not mean you'll be able to drink it. I quickly reclaim my gentleness and gently remind her that we're going on vacation in a couple of weeks and if we always bought what we wanted, we probably wouldn't be able to afford a vacation and a whole lot of other things, like squishy bars or ice cream. This satisfies her and we check out.

Skip Skip Skip to my Lou, Skip Skip Skip to my Lou, Skip Skip Skip to my Lou all on a Monday mornin'.
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I had an incredible time at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington DC last week. I've never seen such a mixed crowd of entrepreneurs, vendors, and policy makers all in one place. There was quite an exchange of ideas. I was thrilled to be included.

I promised to post the slides for my highly abbreviated version of the lean startup presentation, so here they are. As usual, I'll include some of the real-time comments and some of my thoughts below.

2009 09 08 The Lean Startup Gov 2.0 Summit Edition

View more presentations from Eric Ries.

Given the time constraints, I organized my presentation around two simple ideas:

STARTUP = EXPERIMENT

FASTER STARTUPS = MORE EXPERIMENTS PER DOLLAR

I tried to make clear my usual definition of a startup, one that has nothing to do with size of company or sector of the economy. But judging from the twitter comments, it's not clear if I was able to make that case. It may be that it will prove a lot harder to make this point in DC than elsewhere:

aptuscollab: Too bad all you #g2s folks got up and left when Eric Ries took the stage. Dude is smart, his lessons apply to internal projects as well.

That's the nice thing about Twitter. You get the straight scoop, no sugar-coating. Any public speaker that doesn't take advantage of it is really missing out.

On to what seems to have stuck:

kwooleyy: #g2s Showed startup OODA loop developed by USAF pilot John Boyd

I included two Boyd-inspired books in the recommended reading list on the right-hand side of this blog: Certain to Win and Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. With a number of military men and women in the audience, I couldn't resist a plug. Boyd's ideas have inspired a lot of the principles underlying my work.

whorunsgov: Eric Ries: Startups fail not because the technology works, but because no one wants the tech. once it launches. #g2s

The very abbreviated version of Customer Development (channeling Steve Blank).

nickvitalari: Lean startups mean more experiments for dollars and human capital invested #ngenera #g2s

I'm trying to keep hitting on the theme of the human capital waste when we invest our smartest and most creative people into a venture that builds something that nobody wants. Every bit as true for government as for enterprise - and even the two guys in a garage.

dhinchcliffe: Lean startups go faster. Do course correction called a "pivot". - @ericries "Most exciting time in history be an entrepreneur." #g2s

For more on the pivot, see Pivot, don't jump to a new vision. I don't see how it could more a more exiting time to be an entrepreneur, and certainly can't imagine another time when entrepreneurship was more important to our country's future economic prosperity.

marciamarcia: The L word (learning) onstage at #g2s from @ericries. Finally. Startup=Experiment. http://startuplessonslearned.com

Amen! It's natural at a gathering like this to focus on new technology and applications. A lot of conversation was about what "the federal government" should do. But it's all too easy to lose sight of the fact that any government, even one as large as the US, is made up entirely of people. And so the right questions to ask, when we're talking about fostering innovation in any human institution, are: how can we foster a culture of learning and discovery? And it's my hope that the lean startup can provide some guidance in that direction.

Thanks to everyone who made the summit such a great event!

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For my international readers: are you in Washington DC, Paris, Barcelona, London, Amsterdam, Malmo, or even Oulu, Finland? Then you'll have a chance to come discuss the lean startup live and in-person. (What's that you say? DC is actually not a separate country? Fascinating...)

The trip will happen in two separate trips. The first (DC, London for Seedcamp, Amsterdam for PICNIC) is first, with the Geeks on a Plane tour, September 18-25. Each event will feature a cool mix of Bay Area and local speakers (and me, too). Come join us if you can.

I then head back to the USA for a free and open-to-the-public lecture at Stanford University for their Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar on September 30.

Next up is a second swing through Europe. Exact dates for all events aren't yet pinned down, but here's what I'm working on so far: October 28 for a TBA event in Paris, November 2-7 for a series of events in Malmo, Sweden including Øredev, and ending with a workshop at the Martti Ahtisaari Institute of Global Business and Economics at the University of Oulu.

I'll keep you all posted as more details get added. As always, if you're a reader and can make it to one of these events, please come say hello. Continually love hearing your feedback!

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Salah seorang sahabat yang terkemuka dalam bidang ilmu dan amal. Ia hijrah bersama ayahnya, Umar bin Khattab, dalam usia sepuluh tahun. Ia juga ipar Rasulullah SAW karena saudari kandungnya yang bernama Hafsah binti Umar adalah istri Rasulullah SAW.

Ia tampil sebagai seorang terpelajar di Madinah ketika kota tersebut bersama Basra memainkan peranan yang sangat menonjol sebagai kota-kota pusat pemikiran dan intelektualisme Islam setelah masa Nabi SAW. Ia mempelajari dan mendalami segi-segi ajaran Islam, khususnya satu bidang yang selama ini belum memperoleh perhatian yang serius, yaitu tradisi atau hadis Rasulullah SAW. Madinah, sebagai tempat tinggalnya, memberinya inspirasi dan kecenderungan alami untukmendengarkan, mencatat, dan mempertimbangkan dengan sangat kritis semua cerita dan anekdot tentang Nabi SAW yang dituturkan oleh penduduk Madinah. Oleh karena itu, ia bersama seorang sahabat lainnya, Abdullah bin Abbas, menjadi perintis paling awal yang membuka bidang kajian baru, yaitu bidang hadis (tradisi) Nabi SAW, disamping menghafal Al-Qur'an secara sempurna.

Sesudah Abu Hurairah, dialah yang paling banyak meriwayatkan hadis, yaitu 2.630 hadis. Dia menerima hadis dari Nabi SAW sendiri dan para sahabat, misalnya Umar (ayahnya), Zaid (pamannya), Hafsah (saudarinya), Abu Bakar as-Siddiq, Usman bin Affan, Ali bin Abi Talib, Bilal bin Rabah, Ibnu Mas'ud, Abu Mas'ud, Abu Zar, dan Mu'az bin Jabal. Hadis-hadisnya diriwayatkan oleh para sahabat, misalnya Jabir, Ibnu Abbas, dan putra-putranya, dan oleh para tabiin, misalnya Nafi', Said bin Musayyab, Alqamah bin Waqqas al-Lais, Abdur Rahman bin Abi Laila, dan Urwah bin Zubair.

Selama 60 tahun setelah Nabi SAW wafat, ia memberi fatwa dan meriwayatkan hadis, menghafal semua yang didengarnya dari Nabi SAW dan bertanya kepada orang-orang yang menghadiri majelis Nabi SAW perihal tutur dan perbuatannya. Dengan begitu, ia dan Abdullah bin Abbas sering kali dipandang sebagai pemula bagi golongan yang kemudian disebut golongan Suni.

Ia termasuk salah seorang dari empat Ibadillah; tiga yang lainnya ialah Abdullah bin Abbas, Abdullah bin Amr bin As, dan Abdullah bin Zubair. Ia juga adalah salah seorang anggota dewan formatur "tanpa hak sura" dan "tanpa hak untuk dipilih", yang dibentuk oleh Khalifah Umar bin Khattab dan yang bertugas merundingkan dan menunjuk khalifah penggantinya. Pengalaman traumatiknya oleh berbagai fitnah di sekitar pergantian pucuk pimpinan kaum muslimin sejak masa al-Khulafa' ar-Rasyidun sampai masa yang dekat sesudahnya membentuknya memiliki sikap netral dalam politik, moderat, dan toleran. Ketika beberapa tokoh menunjukkan pembangkangannya terhadap Yazid, khalifah kedua Dinasti Umayyah setelah Mu'awiyah bin Abu Sufyan, Khalifah Yazid memerintahkan walinya di Madinah untuk memaksa Husein bin Ali, Abdullah bin Zubair, dan Abdullah bin Umar agar menyatakan kesetiaan kepadanya. Abdullah bin Umar bersedia mengikuti kemauan mayoritas umat Islam, berbeda dengan sikap dua orang yang disebut pertama yang tetap membangkang dan kemudian pindah ke Mekah demi keamanan.

Karena sikap politiknya tersebut, khalifah Bani Umayyah lainnya, yakini Khalifah Abdul Malik bin Marwan, menunjukkan respek terhadapnya dan menghargai kegiatan kajiankajiankeagamaannya selaku tokoh terpelajar dan disegani di Madinah. Orang-orang memang respek dan mengaguminya karena ia terkenal sebagai orang yang berusaha semaksimal mungkin meneladani segala gerak dan prilaku Nabi SAW.


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Ini adalah kisah tentang salah seorang sahabat Nabi SAW. Namanya Abdullah ibn Mas'ud - semoga ALLOH meridhoinya-. Ia memang bukan sahabat biasa. Ia juga seorang ulama. Tentangnya, Rasulullah pernah berkata : "Sesungguhnya kaki (ibnu Mas'ud) di timbangan Allah pada hari kiamat itu jauh lebih berat daripada gunung Uhud."

Bagaimanakah gerangan perilaku beliau sehingga mendapatkan karunia itu ? Inilah salah satu di antaranya.

Suatu hari, beliau pergi ke pasar dengan membawa beberapa keping dirham untuk membeli sedikit makanan. Tanpa diduga, ada seorang pencuri yang mencuri dirham itu diam-diam.

Orang-orang yang mengenal Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud lalu mendoakan kesialan bagi pencuri itu. Namun beliau justru mengatakan : "Kalian jangan mendoakan kesialan untuknya. Akulah pemilik dirham-dirham itu, aku akan berdoa untuknya, dan harap kalian mau mengaminkan doaku".

Beliau kemudian mengangkat tangannya lalu berdoa :" Ya Allah ! Bila Engkau mengetahui bahwa orang yang mencuri dirhamku adalah orang yang berhajat padanya, maka berkahilah ia dengan dirham itu, dan bila Engkau mengetahui bahwa ia sebenarnya tidak berhajat padanya, maka Ya Allah jadikanlah ini sebagai kemaksiatan terakhir yang ia lakukan dalam hidupnya". (Wa'akhlish Al-'Amal, hal 91)

Demikianlah tutur kata dari sebuah hati yang bersih. Dan itulah sumber dari segala ketenangan jiwa.

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(Dipaksa Mencium Kepala Kaisar, Asalkan Tawanan Kaum Muslimin Bebas )

"Sudah sepatutnya setiap Muslim mencium kepala Abdullah bin Hudzafah as-Sahmiy dan saya adalah orang pertama yang melakukannya" (Umar bin al-Kaththab)

Pemeran cerita kita kali ini adalah salah seorang sahabat yang bernama Abdullah bin Hudzafah as-Sahmiy. Boleh saja sejarah tidak mengangkat pembicaraan tentang tokoh ini sebagaimana telah berjuta-juta orang arab sebelumnya yang tidak pernah diangkat. Akan tetapi Islam yang agung telah menakdirkan Abdullah bin Hudzafah as-Sahmiy bertemu dengan para pembesar dunia pada zaman itu; Kisra Persia dan Kaisar Romawi. Kisah ini kemudian diabadikan oleh sejarah sepanjang zaman.

Kisahnya bersama Kisra raja persia terjadi pada tahun ke-enam Hijriyyah ketika Nabi Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam berkeinginan mengirimkan sekelompok para sahabatnya untuk mengantarkan surat kepada raja-raja 'Ajam (non Arab). Surat tersebut berisi ajakan beliau kepada mereka untuk memeluk Islam. Dan Rasul Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam sangat menyadari bahwa tugas ini amat berbahaya.

Para utusan itu akan pergi ke negeri nun jauh yang belum pernah menjalin perjanjian sebelumnya. Mereka tidak mengerti bahasanya dan tidak mengetahui tabi'at-tabi'at rajanya. Kemudian mereka akan mengajak raja-raja itu untuk meninggalkan agamanya dan berpisah dengan kebesaran dan kerajaannya serta memeluk agama suatu kaum yang beberapa di antara mereka adalah penduduk wilayah yang tunduk terhadap kekuasaan mereka.

Ini adalah perjalanan yang berbahaya. Yang pergi dalam perjalanan itu akan dianggap hilang dan yang bisa kembali pulang seolah-olah dilahirkan kembali. Untuk itu Rasulullah mengumpulkan para sahabatnya dan berpidato di hadapan mereka. Setelah memuji dan menyanjung Allah, bersyahadat lalu berkata:

(Amma ba'du, Sesungguhnya aku ingin mengutus sebagian kamu kepada raja-raja 'Ajam, maka janganlah kamu membantah kepadaku sebagaimana bani Israil membantah kepada Isa bin Maryam).

Maka para sahabat Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam berkata, "Wahai Rasulullah, kami siap melaksanakan apa yang engkau kehendaki, maka utuslah kami dengan sesuka hati engkau."

Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam memilih enam orang sahabatnya untuk menyampaikan surat-suratnya kepada raja-raja Arab dan 'Ajam, dan di antara ke-enam orang tersebut adalah 'Abdullah bin Hudzafah as-Sahmiy, ia dipilih untuk menyampaikan surat Nabi Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam kepada Kisra Persia.

'Abdullah bin Hudzafah menyiapkan kendaraannya dan berpamitan dengan istri dan anaknya, lalu bergerak melaksanakan tugasnya dengan turun dan naik gunung, sendirian tidak ada yang menemaninya kecuali Allah, hingga ia sampai ke negeri Persia, kemudian ia meminta izin masuk untuk menemui sang kisra dan menyerahkan surat kepadanya.

Sang kisrapun memerintahkan agar istananya dihiasi dan memanggil pembesar-pembesar Persia untuk hadir di kerajaannya, Kemudian 'Abdullah bin Hudzafah dipersilahkan masuk. Abdullah bin Hudzafah menemui penguasa Persia itu dengan pakaian tipis yang membalut tubuhnya yang dirangkap jubahnya yang kasar, tampak padanya kesederhanaan orang Arab. Namun ia sangat percaya diri, berdiri tegap, nampak pada penampilannya kewibawaan Islam dan bercokol dalam hatinya kebesaran Iman.

Ketika Kisra melihatnya sedang menghadapnya, ia menunjuk salah seorang ajudannya untuk mengambil surat dari tangannya, maka Abdullah berkata, "Tidak!, Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam menyuruhku supaya aku menyerahkan surat ini langsung ke tanganmu dan aku tidak akan mengingkari perintah Rasulullah." Lalu Kisra berkata, "Biarkan ia mendekat kepadaku." dan setelah ia mendekat kepadanya, Kisra mengambil surat dari tangannya.

Kemudian Kisra memanggil juru tulis arab dari negeri penduduk Hirah dan menyuruhnya supaya membuka surat dan membacanya di hadapannya. Dan ternyata di dalamnya,

"Dengan nama Allah Yang Maha Pengasih lagi Maha Penyayang, dari Muhammad utusan Allah kepada Kisra pembesar Persia, kesejahteraanlah bagi orang yang mengikuti petunjuk..."

Ketika Kisra mendengar sepotong surat ini, maka menyalalah kemarahan di dadanya, mukanya merah dan otot lehernya melembung besar, karena Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam memulai dengan menyebutkan…?, lalu ia menarik surat dari tangan juru tulisnya dan merobek-robeknya tanpa mengetahui apa yang tertulis dalam surat itu, lalu ia berteriak: Apakah ia menulis surat kepadaku dengan seperti ini, sedangkan ia adalah hambaku!!"

Lalu ia menyuruh supaya Abdullah bin Hudzafah dikeluarkan dari singgasananya, lalu ia dikeluarkan. Abdullah bin Hudzafah keluar dari kerajaan Kisra, dan ia tidak tahu apa yang akan ditakdirkan oleh Allah kepadanya...dibunuh atau dibiarkan pergi?. Akan tetapi ia masih bisa berkata, "Demi Allah aku tidak perduli terhadap keadaanku setelah aku menyampaikan surat Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam ." dan ia menaiki kendaraannya dan pergi.

Dan ketika Kisra telah reda dari marah, ia menyuruh supaya Abdullah dipanggil masuk kembali kepadanya, namun Abdullah tidak ditemukan... lalu mereka mencarinya akan tetapi mereka tidak menemukan jejaknya... Hingga mereka mencari di jalan yang menuju ke negeri arab dan mereka menemukannya namun ia telah jauh.

Dan ketika Abdullah menemui Nabi Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam ia menceritakan apa yang terjadi tentang Kisra dan surat yang dirobek olehnya, Rasul langsung berkata, "Mudah-mudahan Allah merobek-robek kerajaan-nya."

Adapun Kisra, ia telah menulis surat kepada Badzan wakilnya yang ditugaskan di Yaman, "Utuslah dua orang prajuritmu yang kuat-kuat kepada orang yang muncul di Hijaz ini, dan perintahkanlah keduanya agar membawanya kepadaku...", maka Badzan mengutus dua orang terbaiknya kepada Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam, ia juga membekali surat untuk diberikan kepadanya, di dalam surat itu ia menyuruhnya supaya beliau berangkat bersama kedua orang itu untuk menemui Kisra dengan segera...Dan ia meminta dari kedua orang itu untuk mendengar khabar Nabi Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam dan memata-matainya, dan menyampaikan berita yang diperolehnya kepadanya.

Kedua orang itu segera berangkat sehingga mereka sampai ke Thaif dan menjumpai para pedagang Quraisy, lalu keduanya bertanya kepada mereka tentang Muhammad Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam, maka mereka menjawab, "Ia berada di Yatsrib!."

Kemudian para pedagang itu bergegas menuju ke Mekkah dengan riang untuk menyampaikan khabar gembira, mereka mengucapkan selamat bagi orang-orang Quraisy sambil berkata, "Bersenang-senanglah kalian, karena Kisra telah menangani Muhammad dan kalian bakal aman dari kejahatannya."

Adapun kedua orang tadi, mereka telah pergi menuju kota Madinah dan bertemu Nabi Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam, dan memberikan surat Badzan kepadanya, dan keduanya berkata kepada beliau, Sesungguhnya raja diraja Kisra telah menulis surat kepada raja kami Badzan supaya ia mengutus orang kepadamu, orang itu akan membawamu kepadanya... Dan kami telah mendatangimu supaya kamu pergi bersama kami kepadanya, jika kamu menuruti kami, kami akan memberi tahu Kisra tentang sesuatu yang berguna bagi kamu dan ia akan menahan siksaannya darimu, dan jika kamu tidak mau, maka ia adalah orang yang kamu telah tahu keganasannya, kekerasannya dan kemampuannya untuk membinasakanmu dan kaummu. Maka Rasul Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam tersenyum dan berkata kepada keduanya, "Hari ini, kembalilah kamu berdua ke tempat tendamu dan datanglah kamu berdua besok ke sini."

Dan keesokan harinya keduanya datang kepada Nabi Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam dan mereka berkata kepadanya, "Apakah kamu telah siap untuk berangkat bersama kami kepada Kisra?" Beliau berkata kepada mereka berdua, "Kamu berdua tidak akan menemukan Kisra setelah hari ini... Allah telah membinasakannya, anaknya (Syirwaih) telah membunuhnya pada malam ini... di bulan ini..." Maka keduanya mencermati wajah Nabi dan mulai nampaklah keheranan di wajah mereka, dan keduanya berkata, "Apakah anda sadar apa yang anda katakan? bolehkah kami menulis hal itu kepada Badzan? Beliau menjawab, "Ya, dan katakan kepadanya Bahwa agamaku akan sampai ke seluruh kekuasaan Kisra, dan jika kamu masuk Islam aku akan memberikan apa yang kamu kuasai, dan aku jadikan kamu raja atas kaummu."

Kedua orang itu keluar dari Rasulullah Shallallâhu 'alaihi Wa Sallam dan pulang menemui Badzan dan menyampaikan khabar; maka Badzan berkata, "Jika apa yang dikatakan Muhammad benar, maka ia adalah seorang nabi, dan jika tidak benar, maka kita akan pikirkan lagi nanti."

Tidak lama kemudian datanglah surat Syirwaih kepada Badzan, ia berkata dalam surat itu, "Amma ba'du, aku telah membunuh Kisra, dan aku tidak membunuhnya kecuali karena balas dendam untuk kaumku, ia telah banyak membunuh pembesar-pembesar mereka, memboyong perempuan-perempuan mereka dan menjarah harta mereka, jika suratku ini telah datang kepadamu, maka jadilah kamu dan kaummu orang-orang yang taat kepadaku."

Ketika Badzan membaca surat Syirwaih, ia tidak melanjutkan bacaannya, akan tetapi ia melemparkannya ke sampingnya dan ia menyatakan masuk Islam, dan begitu pula orang-orangnya dari Persia yang ada di Yaman semua masuk Islam.

Ini adalah kisah pertemuan Abdullah bin Hudzafah dan Kisra raja Persia.

Lalu bagaimana pertemuannya dengan Kaisar pembesar Romawi?

Pertemuannya dengan Kaisar adalah terjadi pada zaman khalifah Umar bin al-Khaththab radliyallâhu 'anhu pada saat itu ia mempunyai kisah yang sangat indah...

Pada tahun kesembilan hijriyah Umar bin al-Khaththab mengutus pasukan untuk memerangi Romawi, dan diantaranya Abdullah bin Hudzafah as-Sahmiy. Kaisar pembesar Romawi sendiri telah mendengar khabar tentang pasukan-pasukan kaum muslimin yang mempunyai kebenaran iman, kekokohan aqidah dan keteguhan jiwa dalam menegakkan jalan Allah dan Rasul-Nya.

Maka Kaisar menyuruh pasukannya bahwa jika mereka mendapatkan tawanan dari kaum muslimin, supaya mereka tidak membunuhnya dan membawa kepadanya dalam keadaan hidup... Dan Allah memang telah berkehendak bahwa Abdullah bin Hudzafah as-Sahmiy jatuh tertawan oleh pasukan Romawi, lalu mereka membawanya kepada rajanya, dan mereka berkata, "Dia termasuk sahabat Muhammad yang lebih dahulu memeluk agamanya, dan ia telah menjadi tawanan kami, lalu kami hadirkan ia kepada engkau." Raja Romawi menatap Abdullah bin Hudzafah agak lama dan berkata, "Aku akan menawari kamu sesuatu!"

Ia berkata, "Apa itu?"

Maka ia berkata, "Aku tawari kamu untuk masuk Nasrani...jika kamu menerima aku akan membebaskan kamu, dan aku beri kamu kedudukan. Maka tawanan itu berkata dengan lantang dan yakin, Tidak!...Kematian adalah seribu kali lebih aku cintai daripada apa yang kamu tawarkan kepadaku itu!"

Maka Kaisar berkata, "Sungguh aku melihatmu sebagai orang pemberani...Jika kamu menerima tawaranku, aku beri kamu jabatan dan aku bagi kerajaanku kepadamu.

Maka tawanan yang terikat itu tersenyum dan berkata, "Demi Allah jika kamu memberiku semua apa yang kamu miliki dan semua apa yang dimiliki orang-orang arab supaya aku meninggalkan agama Muhammad dalam sekejap mata, aku tidak akan melakukannya!"

Ia berkata, "Kalau begitu aku akan membunuhmu."

Ia berkata, "Terserah kamu." Kemudian ia menyalibnya, dan ia berkata kepada para ahli panahnya dengan bahasa romawi "Panahlah dekat tangannya, sambil ia menawarinya untuk masuk nasrani, dan Abdullah menolaknya. Lalu ia berkata, "Panahlah dekat kakinya." Dan ia menawarkan kepadanya supaya ia meninggalkan agama Muhammad, tetapi ia menolak.

Setelah itu Kaisar menyuruh supaya mereka berhenti menyakitinya, dan supaya menurunkannya dari kayu salib, kemudian ia meminta supaya didatangkannya panci besar, lalu panci itu diisi dengan minyak dan diletakkan di atas api sehingga minyak itu mendidih, lalu kaisar meminta supaya didatangkan dua orang tawanan dari kaum muslimin, lalu ia menyuruh supaya salah seorang dari keduanya diceburkan di dalamnya, maka bertebaranlah dagingnya dan tulangnya nampak menganga.

Lalu Kaisar menengok ke arah Abdullah bin Hudzafah dan mengajaknya untuk memeluk agama Nasrani, akan tetapi tawaran itu ditolaknya dengan amat keras, bahkan lebih keras dari sebelumnya. Dan setelah Kaisar telah putus asa, ia menyuruh supaya Abdullah diceburkan di panci yang dipakai untuk menceburkan kedua sahabatnya. Dan ketika ia telah didekatkan dengan panci itu, keluarlah air matanya, maka berkatalah orang-orang Kaisar kepada rajanya, "Ia menangis!"

Maka Kaisar menyangka bahwa ia telah jera dan berkata, Kembalikan ia kepadaku." Ketika ia telah sampai di depannya, Kaisar menawarinya untuk memeluk agama Nasrani dan ia menolak, maka Kaisar berkata, "Sialan kamu, lalu apa yang membuatmu menangis?"

Ia menjawab, "Yang membuatku menangis adalah bahwa aku berkata kepada diriku, 'Kamu diceburkan di panci ini sekarang lalu jiwamu melayang, dan sesunggungnya aku menginginkan kalau aku mempunyai nyawa sejumlah rambutku lalu diceburkan semuanya di panci ini di dalam jalan Allah.'"

Maka berkatalah Kaisar durjana itu, "Maukah kamu mencium kepalaku dan aku membebaskanmu?"

Maka Abdullah berkata, beserta semua tawanan muslim juga?"

Kaisar berkata, "Dan semua tawanan muslim juga." Abdullah berkata, Aku bergumam dalam hati, Aku mencium kepala salah satu dari musuh Allah lalu ia membebaskanku dan tawanan muslim semuanya, tidak masalah bagiku."

Lalu ia mendekatinya dan mencium kepalanya, maka raja Romawi itu menyuruh supaya tawanan-tawanan muslim dikumpulkan dan diserahkannya kepadanya, maka diserahkanlah mereka kepadanya.

Abdullah bin Hudzafah datang kepada Umar bin al-Khaththab radliyallâhu 'anhu dan menceritakan kisahnya, maka sangat bergembiralah al-Faruq, dan ketika beliau melihat tawanan-tawanan, beliau berkata, "Setiap orang islam selayaknya mencium kepala Abdullah bin Hudzafah... dan aku orang pertama yang melakukannya!" Lalu beliau berdiri dan mencium kepalanya....*

* Untuk bahan tambahan tentang biografi Abdullah bin Hudzafah, silah baca:
1. al-Ishabah fi tamyizi ash-shahabah oleh Ibnu Hajar, 2:287-288
2. as-sirah an-nabawiyyah oleh Ibnu Hisyam, tahqiq as-saqa
3. Hayatus al-Shahabah oleh Muhammad Yusuf al-Kandahlawiy, jilid 4
4. Tahdzibu at-Tahdzib, 5:185
5. Imta'ul asma', 1:308,444
6. Husnu ash-Sahabah, Hal.503
7. Muhbar, Hal.77
8. Tarikh Islam oleh adz-Dzahabiy, 2:88

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Abbad bin Bisyir termasuk golongan Anshar. Ia masuk Islam di hadapan Mushab bin Umair, sahabat yang diutus Rasulullah saw. untuk berdakwah di Madinah.

Peristiwa yang menonjol tentang sahabat mulia ini adalah pada perang Dzatur Riqa' dan perang Yamamah.

Setelah perang Yamamah selesai, kaum muslimin bermalam di suatu tempat. Lalu terpilihlah Ammar bin Yasir dan Abbad bin Basyir sebagai petugas ronda. Abbad melihat Ammar bin Yasir dalam kelelahan, karena itu ia menawarkan kepadanya untuk beristirahat, sementara dirinya bertugas jaga terlebih dahulu.

Ketika ia mendapati lingkungan sekelilingnya dalam keadaan aman, ia kemudian memutuskan untuk mengisi waktunya dengan mengerjakan salat, sehingga pahala yang diperoleh menjadi berlipat.

Mulailah Abbad menunaikan salat, tapi saat ia membaca sebuah surat, tiba-tiba sebuah anak panah melesat dan mengenai pangkal lengannya. ia mencabut anak panah itu dan melanjutkan salatnya.

Tak lama kemudian menyusul anak panah berikutnya dan mengenai badannya, Ia pun mencabut anak panah itu dan melanjutkan kembali salatnya.

Dalam kegelapan malam yang gulita itu, sebuah anak panah melesat kembali dan mengenai tubuhnya. Abbad menarik anak panah dan mengakhiri bacaan suratnya. Lalu ketika ia sujud sementara kondisinya lemah karena sakit dan lelah, ia pun menjulurkan tangannya membangunkan orang yang ada di sekitarnya. Lalu ia bangkit dari sujudnya, membaca tasyahud dan menyelesaikan salatnya.

Ammar terbangun dengan suara kawannya yang terputus–putus menahan sakit, "Gantikan aku karena aku telah kena." Ammar segera bangkit dari tidurnya hingga menimbulkan kegaduhan dan berkata, "Subhanallah, mengapa engkau tidak membangunkanku ketika engkau terkena anak panah pertama?"

Abbad menjawab, ketika aku sedang salat tadi, aku membaca beberapa ayat Alquran yang amat mengharukan hatiku, hingga akupun tak ingin untuk memutusnya. Demi Allah, kalaulah tidak akan menyia-nyiakan pos penjagaan yang ditugaskan Rasululalh kepada kita, sungguh aku lebih suka mati daripada memutuskan bacaan ayat-ayat itu.

Suatu saat Rasulullah saw. bersabda kepada orang-orang Anshar, "Wahai golongan Anshar, kalian adalah inti, sedangkan golongan lain adalah bagai kulit ari. Maka tak mungkin aku diciderai kalian."

semenjak itu yakni semenjak Abbad bin Bisyir mendengar ucapan ini dari Rasulullah, ia pun rela menyerahkan harta dan nyawanya di jalan Allah. Maka kita temui, di arena pengurbanan, ia adalah orang pertama. Tapi di arena pembagian harta rampasan, ia sulit ditemukan.

Di samping itu ia adalah seorang ahli ibadah yang tekun, seorang pahlawan yang gigih dalam berjuang, seorang dermawan yang rela berkurban, dan seorang mukmin sejati yang telah membaktikan hidupnya untuk keimanan ini.

Keimanannya telah dikenal luas di kalangan sahabat. Aisyah ra. pernah berkata, ada tiga orang Anshar yang keutamaannya tak dapat diatasi oleh seorangpun juga, yaitu Saab bin Muadz, Useid bin Hudlair dan Abbad bin Bisyir.

Orang-orang Islam angkatan pertama mengetahui bahwa Abbad bin Bisyir mendapat karunia cahaya dari Allah. Penglihatannya yang jelas dan mendapat penerangan, dapat mengetahui tempat-tempat yang baik dan meyakinkan tanpa mencarinya dengan susah payah. Bahkan kepercayaan sahabat tentang hal ini sudah sampai pada tingkatan bahwa Abbad adalah benda yang dapat dilihat. Mereka sepakat, bila Abbad berjalan di waktu malam, muncullah berkas-berkas cahaya dari dirinya yang akan menerangi jalan yang akan ditempuhnya.

Dalam peperangan untuk memerangi kaum murtad di bawah pimpinan Musailamah Al-Kadzab, Abbad bin Bisyir mendapat amanah untuk menjadi komandan pasukan. Dalam peperangan ini, ia harus berhadapan dengan tentara Musailamah yang kejam berpengalaman.

Sehari sebelum perang Yamamah dimulai, Abbad bermimpi yang takwil mimpinya ia ketahui tak lama setelah mimpinya itu.

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri berkata, "Abbad bin Bisyir berkata kepadaku, wahai Abu Said, tadi malam saya bermimpi, saya melihat langit terbuka untukku, kemudian tertutup lagi." Saya meyakini, takwil mimpi itu adalah saya akan mengalami syahid. Abu Said berkata, sungguh itu adalah mimpi yang baik.

Lalu meletuslah perang Yamamah. Ketika ia melihat kemenangan seakan di tangan musuh, ia teringat oleh sabda Rasulullah kepaa golongan Anshar, "Kalian adalah inti, tak mungkin aku diciderai kalian."

Ucapan itu memenuhi rongga dada dan hatinya, hingga seolah-olah sekarang ini Rasulullah masih berdiri dan mengulang-ulang perkataannya. Abbad merasa bahwa tanggung jawab itu terpikul hanya di atas bahu orang-orang Anshar saja, atau di atas bahu mereka sebelum golongan lain. Ia kemudian naik ke atas bukit dan berseru, "Hai golongan Anshar, pecahkanlah sarung pedangmu dan tunjukkanlah kemampuan kalian."

Dan ketika seruannya ini dijawab oleh 400 orang pejuang, Abbad bersama Abu Dujanah dan Barra' bin Malik membawa mereka hingga taman maut, sebuah taman yang dijadian Musailamah sebagai benteng pertahanan. Pahlawan besar itupun berjuang layaknya seorang laki-laki, mukmin dan warga Anshar.

Pada hari yang mulia ini, pergilah Abbad menjumpai syahidnya. Dan benarlah mimpi yang dialaminya semalam, pintu langit terbuka untuk dirinya kemudian tertutup kembali. Selamat jalan sahabat mulia…

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Once you have a product launched, you will the face the joys – and the despair – of a community that grows up around it. I won’t sugar-coat this: it is one of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of building a company online.

There are many articles by many experts (myself included) extolling the virtues of listening to customers. In fact, there are so many of these propaganda pieces that this question might naturally cross your mind: if listening to customers is so great, why do we need so much propaganda? I’ll tell you the honest truth: listening to customers is gruesome, uncomfortable, and painful work. Sure it has its moments, but then so does getting stranded on a desert island.

Yet few products these days can succeed without their online community, and the insight you can gain from interacting with that community is unparalleled, despite the pain. But to take advantage of that learning, you have to avoid the absolutely one and only cardinal sin of community management: not listening.

This probably sounds illogical. Communities care about lots of things, like how good your product is, how much information you give them, how you defend them from trolls, right? And when you’re being pilloried by community members over the latest mistake your company made, it can doubly confusing. After all, people rarely say they are mad because they are not being heard. But just because they don’t say it doesn’t mean that it’s not true.

Let me give an especially painful example. At a certain point in IMVU’s development, we faced a difficult choice. Some of our most passionate early adopters were using IMVU’s user-generated content capabilities to create illicit content. As you can imagine, this was a lucrative customer segment. But it became clear that if IMVU was ever going to become a mainstream business, we had to effectively fire these early customers. The reasons were many and complex, so I won’t rehash them all here. Suffice to say that our partners, vendors, and most importantly regular mainstream customers all found the idea disturbing. So we had to start enforcing new content policies that restricted what kinds of virtual goods could be bought and sold on IMVU.

We did not take this step lightly. We did a lot of analysis to make sure that we were minimizing the number of customers affected. For example, we spent some time researching the usage of virtual goods that would be disallowed under the new policy and were relieved to discover that they accounted for less than 0.1% of all usage. So we felt confident that removing them wouldn’t have too big an impact. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

This single decision wound up costing the company significant revenue and over the course of several months sent its customer growth into decline. We were totally unprepared for the magnitude of what happened. In the end, we managed to repair the damage, but only after losing a lot of time and at significant opportunity cost. This was one of those catastrophes that shouldn’t have happened. We carefully rolled out the change in stages. We did our best to actively communicate why we were making the change, and we tried to put in place policies that treated affected customers fairly.

Yet none of that mattered, because we violated the cardinal rule. We didn’t listen. More accurately, we made our customers feel like we weren’t listening. And until we could make that right, we kept on hemorrhaging business.

The problem was that although very few customers were affected by the changes in policy, many more were anxious about those changes. We tried to be low-key about the roll-out of these changes, so as not to call attention to it, but our silence on the subject simply served to make room for conspiracy theories about what was really going on. And, because the people complaining were yelling and screaming, we thought the right response was to ignore them and wait for them to leave. After all, someone who is writing ten-page posts about how they are going to abandon your product is presumably going to go away, right? That’s why one of the most important maxims in online communities is “don’t feed the trolls.” People who thrive on creating controversy through volume, repetition and hyperbole don’t really want to be heard. They just want attention, and giving it to them just encourages more reckless behavior.

But silence was the worst possible strategy. For months, we made constant product and policy changes, trying to end the controversy without simply undoing our original decision and abandoning the mainstream market. Nothing worked, until we finally had one of our community managers start talking to real customers on the phone. Then the reality of our problem hit us.

Most normal customers – even among early adopters - do not pay attention to the trolls. They don’t participate heavily in the forums, and they don’t send email when they are dissatisfied. They are largely invisible in the normal channels where customer service and community management pays attention. But that doesn’t mean they are not aware of what’s going on, or that they don’t care deeply about it. It turned out that our customers had gotten a clear message, one that we had never intended to send: that IMVU was becoming a teen-only site. We were totally shocked. Adults, even those that aren’t at all interested in racy content, were our best customers. We had built numerous features specifically for them, and often had to contend with charges from teenagers that we were too adult-friendly (these two segments don’t really like hanging out with each other as a rule).

When we actually started listening, things changed fast. First of all, we discovered what was really upsetting our customers. They had come to rely on the fact that IMVU was one of the very few online communications platforms where verified adults could meet one another. This was an unintended side-effect of our earlier content policies, that required age verification before you could buy unrated content from our catalog. It turns out many of our best customers were becoming age verified and then not buying any “adult” content. They enjoyed being treated like adults and having a way to chat online with other adults. Again, this was not about prurient content. Avatars make it possible to meet other people as they would like to be perceived. Mostly, that’s a good thing – many people believe their avatar is a more authentic representation of their true self than their physical appearance. But it also has some drawbacks. In the middle of a serious conversation on the joys of motherhood or the stress of a career you might realize that the person you’re talking to is only 15. That can be a jarring juxtaposition of physical reality that breaks the suspension of disbelief.

It took me a long time to understand that benefit of our product. Most customers couldn’t articulate it; they just knew they were angry that we had ruined it. Except that, from a literal point of view, we hadn’t ruined it. All of the features that enabled that experience were still there. What we had done to ruin it was make our customers feel like they were not welcome anymore. We kept denying that we had done anything wrong, that the features still worked as advertised, and justifying our decisions instead of apologizing. When we finally understood the problem, fixing it was relatively easy. We made a series of very public declarations that IMVU would always support adults, that we appreciated their unique contribution, and that we would always protect the key features that meant the most to them. The fact that pornography was not one of these key features was besides the point. We had summarily turned off one of their features without consulting them and without remorse. Who knew what feature might be next?

So real listening can head off a crisis in progress. But it also has other powers. For example, consider a common case of a minimum viable product. Since this product is necessarily missing a lot of features, those of us who ship them often want to duck the feedback. After all, it’s likely to be something we already know. In fact, I used to have the urge to argue with customers who gave feedback like “hey, idiot, you’re missing feature X.” I used to respond with something like, “I know, but it’s on our road map and we’re already working on it and we don’t really want feedback about that right now and so please get off my back.” You can imagine the field day the trolls had with that.

Eventually, we learned a better way. Feedback that tells you something you already know is still quite valuable. It gives you a hint that you are on the right track, but it also tells you quite a lot about the person giving you the feedback – that they believe in the path that you are on. For an early adopter, having this insight acknowledged and validated is a powerful experience. So we learned to take the time to say “thank you for your suggestion. Thanks to you, we’re going to prioritize feature X.” Then, when feature X finally did come out, every early adopter who suggested it feels an earned sense of ownership over it. Here’s the best part. They will also defend you against future attackers and trolls.

Collectively, an online community has an unlimited amount of time to spend. Even if you and your community managers are a hundred times smarter and more productive than the members of your community, there is absolutely no way that you can keep up with its sheer volume of energy. So you can’t fight an online community and hope to win the argument. The only way to have your point of view prevail is to have members of the community invest their unlimited time and energy in evangelizing it. And that’s what really, truly, actively listening does. It sends a signal to passionate customers that you care, that you want them on your side, and that they are part owners of your vision. In fact, I am convinced that if you could find some of IMVU’s earliest adopters, they would say something like this: “sure, those guys at IMVU HQ were helpful in writing code and stuff, but in the end they were just the hired help. It was really the community who built that product.” Imagine what happens when a troll shows up and starts bad-mouthing you. Those earlyvangelists (to borrow Steve Blank’s phrase) will defend you.

I have seen this dynamic time and again. As a creator of products (and now an author, too), it’s one of the things that keeps me going. When your customers become your allies, there’s almost nothing you can’t accomplish together.

There’s only one catch. You can’t stop listening. If you do, as IMVU found out to our peril, you break the implicit bargain that made you allies in the first place. And when your defenders join forces with your trolls, there’s no way to have your message heard.

That’s why not listening is the cardinal sin of community management. Any other mistake can be overcome: shipping bad product, removing key features, erroneously banning community members, even kicking out a whole segment of customers. And when those allies feel unheard, you simply can’t do anything right. Every little thing becomes a crisis. Choose wisely.

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When Pete and I were planning our wedding, we contemplated a videographer. Well, I did. Prompted by a recent viewing of an old friends' wedding (one that I wasn't able to make) on DVD.

We had a photographer lined up, but didn't we need a videographer, too? Afterall, our children would want to watch it someday, wouldn't they? I came up with other reasons, too. Won't video catch things that I'll be sure to miss on such a busy day? And it'll capture other things that I don't ever want to forget! And then there's the thinking that you need something just because it's available, or because other people decided they needed it so you must need it to.

We were driving somewhere, Pete and I, as I agonized over the cost, the benefit, the logistics. He tolerated it for a while, but then very calmly and simply turned to me and said, "We don't need a videographer. Some things should be remembered exactly as you remember them when they happened. Some things are just better stored in our memory than on a disc."

In a second, I knew he was right. He was absolutely right. I did not want to remember that day through the lens of anything or anyone other than my own memory. And as for our children and what they'll miss because of it? Well, we have some fantastic photos--and every now and then, little love will crawl up onto my lap and ask me to tell her about the day we got married. So we look through the photos and I tell her my stories and then she tells me some of her own. I wonder what we both would have lost if I left it up to technology to tell the story of our wedding.

I was reminded of this whole experience yesterday when I took her to her first day of 3 year old preschool. I walked into the doors and there were all the moms, clicking away as their baby moved from center to center to touch and feel and smell everything that was new and
right-sized, and primary colored. Some were crying (screaming), some were laughing, some were quietly taking it all in. And there I was, mom in her blue jeans, infant in her arm, and her 3 year old by her side. No camera.

For a second I felt that grip of failure. It's my daughter's first day of preschool and I didn't bring a camera to capture it? What was I thinking? How did I not prepare for this?

Then, I remembered what Pete said to me, now six years ago. I caught my breath, I turned to my little one and I took in everything about her. How she smelled, where she stood, what she wore; how her eyes glanced from station to station but how she stood, so still, at my side. Five little fingers gripped tightly around mine. A bit of worry, a bit of excitement reflected in her big blue eyes.

I kissed the top of her head and she asked me not to go. I told her I'd be back, that I'd always be back and got her started on a puzzle. I watched her at that little table for a second and I'll never forget, ever, those moments. And if I'd had a camera, I might've captured the setting and the colors but I'd have missed every one of the details that mattered.
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It's official: Startup Lessons Learned has passed the one-year mark. 130 posts (and dozens more that mercifully never saw the light of day), tons of comments, and, of course - you, the awesomest subscribers on the internet. Thank you.

When I first started writing this blog, I made a promise to myself that I would spend more time on the content of the essays than on layout and fancy widgets. I've managed to go a whole year in keeping that promise, even though I get the the occasional teasing about my lame default Blogger theme. Still, it's probably time to start growing up. Today I'm taking the first step, and finally setting the blog up on its own real domain: StartupLessonsLearned.com. I know, it's not a new layout full of Web 2.0 goodness, but it's a start, right?

Back to the content, passing an anniversary is a great time to look back. Luckily, blogs come with an archive, which means you can take your own trip down memory lane. Want to see my very first post? It's a pretty weak homage to Paul Graham. Or how about the first of about a zillion times I used the term lean startup? Read the very first comment (thanks tfitz!) or relive my very first subscriber survey - when there were a grand total of five. Or, for something more substantive, how about the top five-most-read posts:

1. Why PHP won
2. Don't launch
3. Five Whys
4. Work in small batches
5. The engineering manager's lament

But wait, there's more! First OODA reference: Ideas. Code. Data. Implement. Measure. Learn. You can also witness the start of my speaking marathon in Built to learn, or leave a comment on my (still-draft) A new version of the Joel Test (draft).

If all that archive-browsing leaves you hungry for more, you will soon be able to get Startup Lessons Learned in book form. I've been experimenting with a simple compilation format. I've given copies to attendees at some recent workshops. The response has been positive, and I'm getting ready for a more general release. If you'd like more info, or want to order one of the beta-test copies, I'd love your feedback. Feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment.

Most of all, thank you so much for your continuing support. It's been a real blast getting to know so many of you - in person, comments, and at events. Please keep the feedback coming. And, if you're feeling really generous, tell a friend to subscribe. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Oh, and one last thought. It's true, not every comment has been so supportive or constructive. That's the internet for you. So, for the trolls: I've heard you loud and clear. Let me summarize. Actually, I'll let MC Frontalot take it...



Thanks for stopping by!
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Hello Friends! We are David & Sheri Burns operating our family honey bee business in Central Illinois where summer seems to be giving way to fall. We've had a few cool nights in the mid to upper 40s so it seems like fall.
NEWS FROM AROUND OUR FARM
Sheri's chickens are laying about 5 eggs a day, not quite enough to keep up with our family's need, but they are just now 20 weeks old. Every day we all race out to the chicken coop to gather up the eggs. I didn't realize until I read up on it that fresh eggs are much better for you than older eggs. Speaking about what's good for us...we all know that honey is good for us. And in today's lesson I want to give you some information explaining why honey is so good for us. Before I start today's lesson, let me continue to bring you up to date on what we've been doing.
I bought an old farm tractor,  a 1958 Case 800 with a front end loader. We are always plowing, digging and hauling things around, so this will be a big help for us. I bought it on Ebay and hauled it up out of southern Illinois last Saturday. It's two years older than me!
Two weekends ago we had a wonderful group at our beekeeping and queen rearing courses we offered at our honey bee farm. We had people here from Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and California. The students were very enthused about keeping bees and raising queens. The weather was great so we were able to spend some time in the hives as well.

Our honey crop was good and we were able to bottle up a good amount of beautiful tasting honey and our customers have lined up to buy it before we run out as they do every year. Our customer's appetite for honey is greater than our bee's ability to keep up with demand.
This will be our last month to produce queens. It becomes much more difficult to produce late queens but this is when so many people want to requeen, in September. Once again we gained so much knowledge and skill in our queen rearing operation. Can't wait until next year!! Where we really need to improve is in overall production of our queens. We have the quality where we want it, but now we must increase quantity. We had to turn away so many request.
on including the location and directions: http://www.easternmobeekeepers.com/meetings.htm
And for those of you who are Studio Bee Live addicts, we are producing more finally! These are broadcast that we produce here on our farm and place on the Internet. These broadcasts are located at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/studiobeelive.html Check it out!
LESSON 64: Why Is Honey So Good For Us?
Nutritional Value
What's in honey? The actual chemical make up of honey can be slightly different based on the local nectar sources. Typically, honey consists of simple sugars known as glucose (dextrose) and fructose (levulose).
Bees do not gather honey from flowers. They gather nectar which is a sugary substance from plants which is very high in moisture. The bees carry the nectar to the hive and then hand it over to carriers in the hive. These carriers work the nectar droplet. Invertase is added by the bee who works the nectar to help evaporate the moisture from the nectar. This goes on for nearly several minutes and then the nectar is placed in the comb where it dries even more. Bees fan the open cells of nectar to cure it by evaporating the moisture level down to around 18%. Then it becomes honey and is sealed over with a wax cap.
Honey is made up of Moisture (17-18%), Fructose (around 40%) Glucose (around 30%) and other sugars, vitamins, minerals, and complex carbohydrates.
Honey is fat free, sodium free and cholesterol free! Honey does have vitamins like B6 and thiamin, niacin, and riboflavin. Honey contains minerals that are good for us like calcium, copper, iron magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.
Antioxidants are also found in honey, such as chrysin, pinobanksin, vitamin C, catalase and one antioxidant that is only found in honey, pinocebrin.

This nutritional information was obtained from the National Honey Board's website.
Honey is the only unprocessed food that never spoils. Sometimes honey will become hard or solid. This natural process is known as granulation or crystallization. For the most part all honey will eventually crystallize over time, but some takes much longer than others. The deciding factor is the type of nectar or floral source from which the nectar was gathered which determines the sugar content.
What causes honey to crystallize or granulate? Since honey is composed of glucose and fructose, this high concentration of the sugar begins to separate out and can then form crystals. Remember that honey is 70% sugar and 20% or less of water. Any small particle such as pollen specs, or even air bubbles will provide a seed for these sugar crystals to begin to grow. We count on this process in making our cream honey. We just grind the seed crystals to be extremely small so it makes the honey feel creamy.
Granulated honey is not spoiled. It can be warmed and most of the crystals can be re-liquefied. Remember, all honey will eventually granulate unless it has been heated to 140-160 degrees and highly filtered to remove all particles. Of course, heating honey damages it by removing or killing valuable enzymes.
Something that often does follow granulation is fermentation because water is forced out of the sugar in the granulation process. This extra water causes the honey to ferment. Natural yeast within the honey will begin the process of turning your honey into mead or alcohol when the moisture level is above 18%.
Honey absorbs water? It will absorb it from the room you process it in. That's why I keep my processing room around 30-35% humidity and dry my supers 3 days before I process the honey. I've never had a fermentation issue.
What is the shelf life of honey? A long time! Do not put it in the refrigerator. It is fine left at room temperature.
Many people including myself use honey on skin injuries. I recently spoke with a hand surgeon and he explained to me that honey can keep a wound very moist to aid in healing yet kill bacteria. Honey kills bacteria because it is hygroscopic. This means that honey absorbs moisture from bacteria that tries to grow.  This is why honey is such a safe food to eat no matter how long it has sat out, maybe centuries!
Thanks for joining me today, and I really enjoy preparing these lessons each week.
I want to remind you that we manufacture our own hives, built to our own specifications because we are beekeepers. Please check out our website at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com for all the honey bee products we carry including hives!
I always welcome you comments or suggestions on future lessons and I also appreciate it when you pass these lessons on to others.  You can encourage your friends to sign up to receive these directly via Email.
We now have 911 subscribers receiving these lessons directly to their email. In fact, there is a link at the bottom of this post (sent via Email) and I'll include a link here:
http://www.feedblitz.com/f?Sub&publisher=5477260
It's fast and easy to sign up and FREE. Plus you can bail out any time.
Here's our contact information:
PHONE: 217-427-2678
EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com
WEB: www.honeybeesonline.com
Until next time Bee-have yourself!

David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020 East Road
Fairmount, IL 61841
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I'm writing this post from an airplane headed to Washington DC, where I'll be presenting at the Government 2.0 Summit. It's an honor to be invited, and I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of people with a background very different from my usual crowd. I'm especially curious to gauge the reaction of the civilian and military representatives of our government. Beyond just those who will be hearing about the lean startup for the first time, I'm expecting to shake a lot of hands and have a lot of interesting side conversations.

As a result, sitting here on this plane, I've been pondering what message I want to deliver on behalf of startups and entrepreneurs. Thanks to on-board wifi, you can join me in that thought process, if you'd like. So here's my simple question:

What do folks in Washington need to know about the global community of entrepreneurs?

I've been in a few government-themed meetings recently, so I know some of the standard answers. One school of thought is something like: leave startups alone! They are so fragile, the heavy hand of government policy could easily snuff them out while trying to help them. And there's some truth to that, although I think the metaphor is a little misleading. Much of what makes the USA, and Silicon Valley in particular, such a great place to start a company is the result of good government policy. I think a more nuanced view is that we should be encouraging the government to think about the impact on entrepreneurs, and try to foster policies that reduce burdens on companies in their earliest stages. Some of those policies actually require more, not less, government action, because startups risk being crushed by entrenched corporate interests as well.

A second standard theme focuses on each of our financial interest. If the government raises taxes or adds regulation to my sector of the economy, watch out: innovation is doomed. I understand that there is a reason to employ lobbyists to protect established interests, but I'm not really interested in that job. I'd like to see if we can come up with policy suggestions, concerns, or questions that might promote entrepreneurship generally - and globally. It's my fervent belief that will lead to overall economic growth.

So what are good entrepreneur-friendly policies? What is good in the current system that should be preserved? And what hurdles could be eliminated? My short list, off the top of my head (hey, I am in an airplane, after all):

• Patent reform (so startups don't have to waste time amassing a deterrent warchest of dubious patents)
  
• Health insurance reform (so more people can take the risk of becoming an entrepreneur)
• Stage-appropriate regulation (many regulations kick in only after companies achieve a certain size, which promotes more risk-taking)
• Open data and platforms (the major theme of the Gov 2.0 movement - give startups open access to the raw materials so they can create economic growth)
• Open spectrum and wireless competition (with obvious benefits, I hope)

What would you add? And beyond just policy suggestions, what facts on the ground do policy-makers need to know about startups? Please leave a comment and let's discuss!

(It's impossible to resist the urge to plug Virgin America as much as possible. Here I am, tens of thousands of feet above the ground, and I have power and broadband. Of course, the real thanks should go to a startup - Gogo Inflight Internet - that I was lucky enough to meet at a recent workshop. Thanks guys!)
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I have a new post up today on O'Reilly Radar, called "Is your product an Ice Cream Glove or a Snuggie?" It is based on two videos I normally use in workshops - each of which contains an important entrepreneurship lesson for all of us. Here's an excerpt:

For those that haven’t watched it, I’ll give a brief recap. Ali G meets with business leaders and investors on Wall Street to learn how to create a new company around a new product idea. After some general lessons, he then proposes his first product idea, complete with flip charts, business plan, and marketing plan. His idea? The Ice Cream Glove, a special glove you can carry around with you so that, if you happen to eat ice cream, you can prevent your hands from getting sticky. After failing to persuade most of the investors to back him in that venture, he then tries to sell a second idea: a Hoverboard, “like from Back to the Future.” After all, they must have made at least one of them for the movie, right?

Both of these ideas for companies are terrible, and the show is funny because he manages to keep on selling them with a straight face. But there are also important lessons baked into the humor. Take the example of the Hoverboard. If you look at the typical startup, you will see the vast majority of their energy and time invested in building new technology. We act as if the biggest risk to startup success is that the technology won’t work. But in reality, most products fail because they are the Ice Cream Glove, that is, because there are no customers who will buy them.

Read the rest (and be sure to watch the videos)...

These videos make an important point: that almost all product ideas sound bad. At the whiteboard, you can make any idea seem brilliant or ridiculous. It's only by actually moving through the fundamental startup feedback loop, which involves facts, that we can find out which have a kernel of truth baked within them.

Let me also say a brief thank you to those who replied to my previous ask for feedback about cross-posting. So far, all the feedback has been in favor of doing it whenever I have a guest post elsewhere. If you have further thoughts, please leave them as a comment. Thanks!

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