Write something, anything…

It’s been a while since I published a post, but I need to stay in the practice of writing otherwise it gets harder to come up with anything relevant. Since we started Ballhype and this blog, I walk around with random tidbits in my head all day. Most of them don’t seem important enough to bother writing an entire post, so I accumulate them like loose change in a tip jar. I guess this is why bloggers have those posts once a week where they just link to a bunch of different stories that they find interesting. Here’s my take on the past week:

• It’s been two and a half weeks since we launched. We had the inevitable drop in traffic after we launched, plus there was Easter weekend. You can get pretty stressed out if you think about the numbers all day so we are trying to focus on what we need to do to build and sustain organic growth. Still, we do need to track stats to make sure we’re trending in the right direction and to document patterns. Weekends are slower both in terms of visitors and site activity, including blog posts that are tracked and found. Nice to know that people value their weekends for family and personal time away from the computer, although employers would probably prefer people not to be reading Ballhype on company time.
• After having our phone and therefore DSL connection go out for the third time in the last few weeks, we finally installed cable high-speed internet so that we have backup service. No more walking around outside trying to pick up a neighbor’s wireless signal. Fortunately, the neighbors on our street are all friendly retired folks who enjoy having us borrow anything from a network connection to power washers to poker tables.
• Two entrepreneurs, Kareem Mayan and Jon Bischke, are documenting the experiences of their startup at Education Revolution with incredible transparency. They’re sharing information that I’ve been hunting down myself - very useful and a great read.

Posted by Erin 19.Apr.07 Other Read more Comments (0)

Another reason to stay healthy

One consequence of quitting our jobs for Ballhype is that we’re on our own for health insurance. We’ve both always worked for companies that had generous health plans, which I’d never fully appreciated until now. Since COBRA is ridiculously expensive, I looked online to do some research and ended up on Health Insurance Plus. Shopping for insurance was very difficult despite the helpful services of Morgan, one of the sales reps. The definitions were not intuitive to me, and the only way I was able to figure out which plan would be best was to create an excel model with scenarios of different incidents that would land our kids in the hospital. Thinking about our children being sick was depressing, so I had to reassign the catastrophic illnesses to Jason and me, leaving the kids in the hypothetical situation of having incapacitated parents.

In the end, we chose an Aetna plan. Here’s our experience so far:

• The fact that our son has been treated in the past for eczema is going to cost us an additional $14 per month. I’m not opposed to insurance companies making a profit but it makes you wonder what they do to families where someone is really sick.
• Our cards haven’t come in the mail yet even though our coverage is effective April 1.
• Aetna sent a letter saying I could print temporary cards from their web site, but when I logged in, the links in the header were not visible, there was no search box, and no indication that you could even view your card on the site.
• The customer support phone line is only open 8-5pm EST.

And so, I’ve paid for two prescriptions out of pocket this week. At least they weren’t that expensive. The pharmacist told me if the cards arrive in the next week or so they can reimburse me at the store, otherwise if it’s later I’d have to go through Aetna. Looking forward to that one…

Posted by Erin 10.Apr.07 Other Read more Comments (4)

Someone did not get the memo

Last night I wrote a nice little entry about deciding to call the nanny agency to start looking for a part-time nanny. As I was getting ready to publish, I sent the link (as a courtesy preview — we don’t approve each other’s posts, although we do offer feedback sometimes, case in point) to Jason, who IM’d back: we’re getting a nanny?

I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. We both remember talking about it, but we came away with different conclusions. I would not have thought it possible that two people spending this much time together could miscommunicate about a fairly weighty matter. Anyway, quick clarification of points of view followed, and I agreed to hold off on both the nanny search and my blog post for now.

Posted by Erin 09.Apr.07 Relationship Read more Comments (0)

Now comes the hard part

I’m looking ahead to how we grow Ballhype into a viable business, and realizing that this next phase is going to make the launch seem easy. The hours might not be quite as intense — although at this point that doesn’t appear to be the case — but now we have to sustain the momentum if it’s ever going to make enough money to support one family, let alone someday hundreds or thousands.

Posted by Erin 06.Apr.07 Business Read more Comments (3)

Wow, that was cool.

About 28 hours ago, we did the non-nuclear equivalent of turning both keys at the same time: we each put a finger on the enter key and pressed it to launch the public version of Ballhype. Immediately we scrambled to get announcement emails ready to send to users and friends and bloggers. And then waited for the first review to get posted… and finally, yes!

Happily, Mr. Arrington liked the site and better yet, predicted that other sports fans would too. Over the next few hours, we got more great coverage which made all of this work worthwhile. We wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the pace picked up even more to the point where Jason and I were talking back and forth and IMing and emailing links and site stats sometimes all at the same time. When we figured the east coast wasn’t up yet and reasonable people on the west coast had finally called it a night, we took a short break for sleep. I slept, Jason got up again after an hour.

Today was more of the same - adrenaline rushes kept us going. I had been worried that our babysitter being out of town would make dealing with launch impossible, but actually I think it was good to be forced to take breaks and sing songs, build lego towers, and read 5 variations on truck books.

It’s very fun to see more people on Ballhype and hear from them. The automated welcome message comes from my account so I generally get a lot of messages from users, which is great. So far we’ve gotten a couple of offers of help, a request for a Ballhype tshirt (we don’t have any), links of new blogs to add, and a lot of great feedback that will shape the roadmap.

Thanks to everyone who helped spread the word today. We know that we now have to live up to your expectations and those of our users - and we will.

Posted by Erin 03.Apr.07 Milestones, Publicity Read more Comments (0)

Big Night - We Launched!

Tonight at about 8:30pm, we launched the public version of Ballhype. The pace of the last few weeks has been frenetic. There was so much we wanted to get done, and although my jaws hurt from the teeth grinding that is now occurring at all hours, the real weight of this release has been borne almost completely by Jason.

The two biggies that have kept us up at night (in addition to the ever-growing launch task list):

1. Will they come? We believe in Ballhype - in fact, our toddler has taken to yelling “Here we go Ballhype, here we go Ballhype!” at random moments. But we’re on the edge of our seat with nervous anticipation about this launch and how it will be received by fans, as well as by sports and tech bloggers and journalists.
2. Will the site hold up if they do? We moved to new servers and did extensive load testing, but there’s always that nagging worry…

Working around the clock takes its toll physically and emotionally, of course, and Jason has been fighting a cold for a while now, but we’re so stinkin’ excited that nothing seems to bother us these days.

One big reason why despite being a two-person company sharing office space the size of a walk-in closet (literally - this office was originally a walk-in closet), we don’t feel like we’re working in a vacuum, is that we have an amazing group of people on our advisory board. They are incredibly generous with their time and expertise, and in the past few weeks they have come through in an impressive way: suggesting great ideas for Ballhype features, submitting some of the best (and funniest) stories on Ballhype, and getting the word out to influencers in their networks. If nothing else comes from this whole Ballhype thing, we will feel privileged to know and work with this group of sports guys and gal.

Posted by Erin 01.Apr.07 Milestones Read more Comments (10)

Division of Labor

For me one of the hard parts about deciding to stay home after having a baby was knowing that I would be reinforcing traditional gender roles. This is coming from a person who normally doesn’t mind cooking or cleaning and certainly loves being the primary caregiver for our two small children. Don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t change a thing and am grateful that we have the choice in the first place. And now with Ballhype, I don’t have to worry about that part of my brain going soft or dealing with a gap in my resume.

Our son’s view of the normal state of the Gurney household is that Daddy works (now upstairs) and that Mommy takes care of him and his sister. Never mind that Jason makes considerable effort to spend quality time with the kids or that I work on Ballhype when they’re asleep. Our children have no idea that I do anything other than take care of them. That’s fine — they’re 2.5 years old and 10 months old, after all. Tonight, however, I was trying to wash our son’s face as he looked at a book and he twisted away and said, “Mommy … [pause while he tried to think of something to distract me] clean kitchen!” I laughed, but it made me realize that after things settle down a bit after launch, we really do need to mix up more of the jobs around here.

Posted by Erin 29.Mar.07 Parenting, Relationship Read more Comments (0)

Overheard

If I were at a “real” office, I wouldn’t be able to work and listen to my son on the monitor at the same time. He went down for his nap almost 2 hours ago, but he’s been talking and singing non-stop. Partial transcript: My mommy. No, MY mommy! My mommy. No, MY mommy! … Yellow, baby (quote from Cars). Amarillo, yellow. Amarillo, yellow. Verde green. Verde green. Azul blue, azul blue. Rojo red. Rojo red. Anaranjado. Anaranjado! … Adam, Corolla… Adam, Corolla…

Tonight’s going to be fun…

Posted by Erin 26.Mar.07 Parenting Read more Comments (0)

The Daily Grind

For the past couple of weeks, whenever anyone has asked about how things are going with the new venture, the word that immediately pops out is, “busy!” We have just over a week until public launch, and the list of things that need to be done beforehand is still pretty daunting.

On the other hand, we are getting quite a bit of work done. On days when I’m not still contracting at Biz360, I’ve settled into a regular routine which is actually pretty simple:

7:00am: wake up, eat breakfast, get our son to school
9:00am: work
12:00pm: lunch
12:30pm: back to work!
5:30pm: family time - get the kids fed, bathed, put to bed
8:00pm: more work
3:00am: hit the sack

When you add it up, there’s roughly 15 hours of working time, 5 hours of family/meal time, and 4 hours of sleep. I’d like to be able to spend more time with the kids, and the lack of regular workouts is starting to take its toll, but we keep telling ourselves that it’s a temporary push. Things will lighten up a *little* once we get past the launch milestone … right?

And of course, the great thing about the work is that it’s not a grind at all. We’re working out of our home, building a fun application, and collecting feedback and ideas from an active group of users. The fact that it’s all about sports is icing on the cake–I just hope I can get back to watching an occasional game at some point.

Posted by Jason 23.Mar.07 Working Read more Comments (3)

Who’s the Boss?

For the second time in as many days, the question of who’s in charge has come up. The first time, my friend asked which one of us is the boss; and today, one of Jason’s former employees asked what it was like to work for him (note that he did not ask what it was like to manage Jason). This will sound odd, but it’s true: we haven’t talked about it, at least not seriously. When it comes up, Jason usually jokes that it’s clear that he works for me.

On the incorporation documents, which by law require you to fill specific offices, like one Chairman/President/Ceo and one Secretary/Treasurer, I put Jason down as President and myself as Secretary. These titles do not need to correspond to how you actually structure the organization, and I obviously wouldn’t put that title on my business card. When we were at the Wells Fargo branch to open our bank account, however, the young man asked for our titles and I said mine was Secretary since he had our Articles of Incorporation right there in front of him. I’m pretty sure he thought this meant that I pick up Jason’s dry cleaning and sort the mail. For the record, I do the laundry but Jason handles the mail.

Regardless (or as Paulie Walnuts likes to say, irregardless) of titles, we’ve been working collaboratively. It’s been obvious who drives a decision or we talk it through until we get consensus, which doesn’t take as long as you might think since there are only two of us and we’re both aware we don’t have time to sit around and debate all night.

I think that if, no, let’s be realistic… when we arrive at a true impasse, as long as I feel that Jason’s listening and respecting my input, I should be able to disagree and commit, as we used to say at Intel. Besides, if I concede the occasional Ballhype disagreement, he’ll probably feel compelled to give in on questions of where we spend the holidays.

Posted by Erin 21.Mar.07 Relationship Read more Comments (2)