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As I sit here in Pennsylvania after another busy day on site for a special project I’m thinking about what happened last week. I’ve had a bit of a whirlwind Spring so far, and May 6th – 12th was the culmination of a lot of it.

On Monday Pete, Dekalb, Blascovich and I launched Red Clay Tees. Off the success of our Teespring campaign we decided to use the little bit of profit we came away with to print – and hopefully sell – 350 shirts (150 of the El Oso Blanco shirt, 50 El Oso Blanco Women’s Shirts, and 150 of a new Game Over design).

Go check the site out and buy a couple! If you’ve got any more ideas you’d like to see, come find us on Facebook or Twitter and let’s talk.

A few days later on Thursday I finished up my 3rd CCT Atlanta project in as many years by presenting our findings and recommendations to the board of Go. Eat. Give. They’re a brand new non-profit focusing on cross-cultural exchange and international volunteer trips, and are setting themselves up to do some great things.

Their next (local) event is Destination: Cuba on June 20th and will undoubtedly feature some great food and interesting learning.

To cap the week, I spent Saturday morning with Natalie volunteering at Historic Oakland Cemetery. I had actually done volunteer work here years ago while in undergrad at Georgia Tech but somehow hadn’t been back even to walk around since. Pretty embarrassing considering this is one of the coolest places in the city of Atlanta and I live less than a mile away.

We worked in the South Public Grounds section of the cemetery, spreading compost and planting new bushes/trees as they ready that section for full renovation. That is the oldest part of a cemetery that sold out all 48 acres worth of lots way back in 1884, so it’s an amazing experience to take it all in.

Tomorrow I finish up in Philly, hop on a plane, and head back to ATL for hopefully another weekend of activity like that.

Has your team ever gotten 3,000+ fans together to show up and support a team of 8 and 9 year olds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation? Because the Portland Timbers just did.

Atticus Lane-Dupre is an 8 year old who missed his team’s last game because of treatment for cancer. But he wanted to play another game, and really wanted to play it with his hometown team the Portland Timbers. So the team said they’d scrimmage against The Green Machine.

And they wouldn’t do it at the practice facility, they’d do it at JELD-WEN Field where the kids could get their own lockers.

And they wouldn’t do it behind closed doors, they’d open it up to fans and get the Timbers Army to show up.

And they’d print commemorative scarves to give away.

And this is what happened.

Fans starting to show up at the gate. Lots of fans. (via Instagram user @gunnarsimonsen)

The Green Machine in the locker room (via Twitter user @PTStandTogether)

Thousands of fans in the stands. Before the game starts. For a friendly. Against 9 year olds. (via Twitter user @PTStandTogether)

The fans cheering as The Green Machine makes its way on to the field

Some half time adjustments from Timbers head coach Caleb Porter

Not every Timber played. But those who didn’t sat field level to watch the action

And yes, there’s a highlight package that includes Atticus knocking in the game winner.

Kane Hsieh wrote a great article earlier this month about the potential for innovation in eBooks. Go check it out and report back in 5 minutes.

…

Ok, good. For those of you who were too lazy to click through, here are some of the money quotes:

Ebooks will never replace paper books. But they don’t have to.

The problem with ebooks as they exist now is the lack of user experience innovation. Like the first television shows that only played grainy recordings of theater shows, the ebook is a new medium that has yet to see any true innovation, and resorts to imitating an old medium.

There are endless possibilities for ebooks to make reading more accessible and immersvie than ever, but as long as ebooks try to be paper books, they will remain stuck in an uncanny valley of disappointment.

So ebooks, stop trying to be paper books; break free of the page and the book paradigms and realize your potential as a fully digital medium. As for me, and readers like me, you will never replace our beloved paper books – but if done correctly, I will be proud to own a library of ebooks. Until then, I only use you to avoid carrying books like IQ84 in my backpack.

I’ve had a little experience with selling books in my day, both print and digital, so I’d like to expand on three related wrinkles that have always stuck in my mind.

1. Added features
When I was at Flat World Knowledge we were working to integrate related multimedia into the open-sourced textbooks. There were animated GIFs, and embedded movies to help explain certain concepts. We also talked about integrated javascript applets that allowed people to work through math/science problems, or do little games or tests related to the material.

And honestly that was just scratching the surface of ways to make the experience more immersive. Imagine an eBook that was more like a webpage: links to and from related parts of the book, pop-up definitions if you click on a word, actual color and layout choices rather than a single size of font and grayscale.

2. Annotations
This is almost certainly going to be more of a personal preference than a mass market complaint. That said, I constantly make notes when reading. I actually use an index card as my bookmark and take notes directly on that. At this point I have a whole stack of index cards I can refer back to at any time to see what I took from each book and which page to go back to if I want to read that part again.

And that’s another reason I don’t like eBooks. Highlighting/annotating is very difficult in eReader interfaces, when it even exists. It’s nearly impossible to note where important points in the book are to refer back to later (good luck telling someone to “go to page 214″ on a Kindle). And if it’s a reference book and you’re trying to flip back and forth between a few different parts you’ll drive yourself mad.

3. The impact of the move to tablets
The third point doesn’t so much apply to the eBooks themselves as the hardware choices; people are moving away from eReaders. This isn’t a total shock, people like multi-use devices over single-use devices in almost every scenario and a tablet has approximately 11 billion total possible uses.

So not only is a tablet a better choice for the end user, tablets finally allow for some of the stuff above to actually happen. Hopefully that means the next iteration in eBooks comes soon and involves somes of these ideas.

But until then, I too am sticking with my paper books.

I happened to be thinking about sports statistics over the weekend and came up with a couple I’d love to see.

1) Baseball – called strike percentage on pitches where the batter didn’t swing, broken down by pitcher

I’m reasonably sure this exists somewhere. I couldn’t find it on the free Baseball Prospectus pages, but baseball lovers have stats for just about everything and this piece from Beyond the Box Score all but assures me that the data is somewhere. The value here could potentially be the ability to identify pitchers who have the ability to confuse hitters.

My combined hypothesis (based on absolutely no hard data, so please correct me if I’m wrong) would be that pitchers who can keep hitters off balance age better than pitchers who rely on throwing hard.

2) Basketball – frequency that a player follows a missed shot or a turnover with a foul (“Double whammy”)

Josh Smith is the poster child here. For all of his freakish athleticism and ability to occasionally take over a game, he also has possibly the worst games of any borderline all-star. He had one of those game a couple weeks ago when the Knicks came to town.

I’m sure anybody would’ve been frustrated guarding Carmelo that night because he was just stupid (40 points on 63% shooting, most with good-to-great defense). But he had the most “Josh” run I’ve ever seen when he chucked up a terrible jump shot, then gambled on a steal leaving Melo for an open three, then tossed a bounce pass right to a Knick who he immediately fouled on the fast break.

The idea here is identifying immaturity in players or, more specifically, possibly as a leading indicator that the player is growing into a more steady, mature player as the ratio of Double Whammies after a bad play goes down.

Do either of these exist already and I’m just missing them?

My friend Dave is a huge soccer fan. He played all through high school for school teams and youth clubs that spit out national teamer Ricardo Clark. After college he lived in Europe for about 9 months, including a 6 month stint where he led a sales office in Newcastle and, obviously, became a huge Newcastle United fan.

Dave is the top end of American soccer fans. But like many fans, his love for the European game and US National Team hadn’t spun off into a lot of MLS watching. He knew all the teams, knew of the better players, but wasn’t watching very much or aware of the storylines.

Last week he decided he was going to start following MLS and asked me to give him a rundown of what team he should start rooting for. Here is what I ended up putting together for him listing out all the teams, their major accomplishments, best players, best young American players (because it’s always more fun to see someone you’ve cheered for end up on the national team), and a comparison to a team in the big 3 professional American sports.

What do you think of these comparisons? Did I miss out on any key players?

CD Chivas USA
Joined MLS: 2005
Silverware: No major trophies
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Los Angeles Clippers
Best Players: Dan Kennedy (G), Juan Agudelo (F)
Good Young Americans: Juan Agudelo (F), Carlos Alvarez (M), Tristan Bowen (F)
Too easy to chose the Clippers? Maybe. But they’re the little brother team playing in the same stadium as the one everyone wants to see, have no record of winning anything, and there’s a slight tinge of racism in the ownership group

Chicago Fire
Joined MLS: 1998
Silverware: 1 Supporters’ Shield, 1 MLS Cup, 4 US Open Cups
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Arizona Diamondbacks
Best Players: Sean Johnson (G), Chris Rolfe (F), Austin Berry (D)
Good Young Americans: Sean Johnson (G), Austin Berry (D), Dilly Duka (M)
They peaked early, winning the double in their first season of existence, but have run in to trouble thanks to some poor coaching and front office management. I contemplated comparing them to the Carolina Panthers or Jacksonville Jaguars, but that seemed too mean and at least the D-Backs got a ring.

Colorado Rapids
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 1 MLS Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Florida Marlins
Best Players: Jamie Castrillon (M), Drew Moor(D), Matt Pickens (G)
Good Young Americans: Dillon Serna (M), Dillon Powers (M), Shane O’Neill (M)
The Rapids have never finished higher than 3rd in their conference. Their lone title came when they were the last team to qualify for the playoffs. They are also currently in the process of blowing up the team to be remodeled under new manager Oscar Pareja. I had to stretch a little bit here to get some good young Americans. None of them are super promising but all 3 have been capped for the youth teams in recent years.

Columbus Crew
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 3 Supporters’ Shields, 1 MLS Cup, 1 US Open Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Pittsburgh Steelers
Best Players: Federico Higuain (F), Jairo Arrieta (F), Andy Gruenebaum (G)
Good Young Americans: Ryan Finley (F)
They’ve got a workmanlike attitude and a strong history of success. They historically do a very good job finding the one or two difference makers and surrounding them with complementary talent. And yes, that is Gonzalo Higuain’s little brother. Also, did you know Eddie Gaven is only 26?

DC United
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 4 Supporters’ Shields, 4 MLS Cups, 2 US Open Cups, 1 CONCACAF Champions Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Boston Celtics
Best Players: Bill Hamid (G), Dwayne De Rosario (M), Chris Pontius (M)
Good Young Americans: Bill Hamid (G), Chris Pontius (M), Perry Kitchen (M)
DC was absolutely dominant in the early years of the league, and they are building themselves back into a force. Over their history, when they get in to a finals they rarely lose (7-3 across all competitions). They’re not afraid to invest in their team and can also develop some great talent. They just sold homegrown Andy Najar to Anderlecht for $3M an Bill Hamid is going to fetch a pretty penny from a top 4 league soon.

FC Dallas
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 1 US Open Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Atlanta Braves
Best Players: David Ferreira (M), Blas Perez (F), Jackson Goncalves (D)
Good Young Americans: Jonathan Top (F), Kellyn Acosta (F), Walker Zimmerman (D)
This comparison kinda hurts. Really good at drafting/developing local players, surprisingly mediocre fanbase, often quite good but rarely ever able to win when it matters. The good young American list is a little barren, but what FC Dallas is really good at is developing young Mexican goalkeepers, those assholes. In fact, I’d wager they have two of the top-5 young Mexican keepers in Richard Sanchez and Jesse Gonzalez. Good for them and the league that they signed them, but F Mexico and all that.

Houston Dynamo
Joined MLS: 2006
Silverware: 2 MLS Cups
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Baltimore Ravens
Best Players: Oscar Boniek Garcia (M), Brad Davis (M), Ricardo Clark (M)
Good Young Americans: Will Bruin (F), Kofi Sarkodie (D)
In following the league’s example, I’m going to ignore their success as San Jose Earthquakes 1.0 since the entire franchise moved to Houston in 2006. Consitently strong, it doesn’t matter if they top the league in the regular season, they’re a team of veterans who aren’t going to be afraid to play anyone in the postseason.

Los Angeles Galaxy
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 4 Supporters’ Shields, 4 MLS Cups, 2 US Open Cups, 1 CONCACAF Champions Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: New York Yankees
Best Players: Robbie Keane (F), Landon Donovan (M), Omar Gonzalez (D)
Good Young Americans: Jose Villareal (M/F), Jack McBean (F), Gyasi Zardes (F)
Tied with DC on total trophies, I’d give LA the tie breaker for best franchise in league history by having more runner ups across all competitions. They seem to play by different salary rules, attract all the best talent, and are the jewel of the league. And their academy is stacked so it’s not changing any time soon. Villareal, McBean or Zardes would’ve each been the #1 pick of the MLS draft this year if they didn’t sign contracts out of LA’s academy.

Montreal Impact
Joined MLS: 2012
Silverware: 1 Canadian Championship
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Denver Nuggets
Best Players: Alessandro Nesta (D), Marco Di Vaio (F), Patrice Bernier (M)
Good Young Americans: Andrew Wenger (F), Zarek Valentin (D)
They play a different style than every other team in MLS. Celebrating Montreal’s lifelong wish to be in Europe rather than Canada, they have fully adopted the classic Italian style of play that sees them surrendering some non-threatening possession, locking down on defense, and using brilliant distribution to get out on the counter.

New England Revolution
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 1 US Open Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Utah Jazz
Best Players: Jerry Bengston (F), Andrew Farrell (D), Lee Nguyen (M)
Good Young Americans: Andrew Farrell (D), Kelyn Rowe (M)
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. New England lost the MLS Cup match 4 times during the Taylor Twellman/Steve Ralston/Stevie Nicol era, including 3 years in a row from 2005-2007. Also, they have Bilal Duckett who is a few years younger than us from McIntosh.

New York Red Bulls
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: No major trophies
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Chicago Cubs
Best Players: Thierry Henry (F), Fabian Espindola (F), Jamison Olave (D)
Good Young Americans: Connor Lade (D), Ryan Meara (G)
What a trainwreck the history of NYRB is. They have all the resources in the world, but just can’t seem to ever win. They’ve produced players like Tim Howard, Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, Juan Agudelo, Ricardo Clark and Tim Ream but still no success in the league. They don’t really have that going now though, because Lade’s not International caliber and Meara’s probably going to play for Ireland given our logjam at keeper.

Philadelphia Union
Joined MLS: 2010
Silverware: No major trophies
Big-3 Doppelgänger: New Orlean Hornets
Best Players: Sebastien Le Toux (F), Michael Farfan (M), Zac MacMath (G)
Good Young Americans: Jack McInerney (F), Michael Farfan (M), Sheanon Williams (D)
They’re a young team who love offense and whose best player just wanted out. If you want to root for future USMNTers, this might be the team for you. Jack Mack, Farfan and Williams are complemented by Zac MacMath, Amobi Okugo and Zach Pfeffer as U-23 national team prospects. Unfortunately they had a little bit of coaching upheaval lately after Nowak went crazy and then Freddy Adu had a falling out with new coach John Hackworth.

Portland Timbers
Joined MLS: 2011
Silverware: No major trophies
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Washington Redskins
Best Players: Diego Valeri (M), Darlington Nagbe (M),
Good Young Americans: Mobi Fehr (D), Andrew Jean-Baptiste (D)
They’ve got a owner who’s not afraid to spend money (poorly on occasion), likes to speak out, and makes wholesale changes at the first sign of trouble. They’ve also got a tremendous group of supporters who will show up for every game, and really hate that city a few hours up the road. Not looking too strong on the young American front though, but they just got Akron’s coach who has turned out a number of prospects.

Real Salt Lake
Joined MLS: 2005
Silverware: 1 MLS Cup
Big-3 Doppelgänger: San Antonio Spurs
Best Players: Alvaro Saborio (F), Javi Morales (M), Kyle Beckerman (M)
Good Young Americans: Luis Gil (M)
A contender year in and year out, they’re masters of the under-appreciated player. They can find value in the draft, from affordable foreign players, and have a great head coach leading the way. When it’s time for someone to move on for salary or retirement reasons, they always have a new piece to plug in. But yeah they have a pretty stupid name.

San Jose Earthquakes
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 2 Supporters’ Shields, 2 MLS Cups
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Chicago Bulls
Best Players: Chris Wondolowski (F), Victor Bernardez (D), Marvin Chavez (M)
Good Young Americans: Adam Jahn (F)
Yeah, let’s go with this. They’re a really good team now with a top player, but their best days to date are from a few years ago when they had the greatest player in American history. On the coaching side, Frank Yallop came up as an assistant under the well-respected Thomas Rongen and quickly proved himself an excellent teacher and evaluater of talent.

Seattle Sounders
Joined MLS: 2009
Silverware: 3 US Open Cups
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Denver Broncos
Best Players: Michael Gspurning (G), Eddie Johnson (F), Steve Zakuani (M)
Good Young Americans: DeAndre Yedlin (D)
Specifically the mid 90′s Broncos who were really good teams that had some great players and a top notch coach but still hadn’t quite gotten over the hump yet. That’s about where the Sounders are right now, complete with the overpowering home-field advantage.

Sporting Kansas City
Joined MLS: 1996
Silverware: 1 Supporters’ Shield, 1 MLS Cup, 2 US Open Cups
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Detroit Pistons
Best Players: Graham Zusi (M), Matt Besler (D), Claudio Bieler (F)
Good Young Americans: Teal Bunbury (F), Soony Saad (F), Dom Dwyer (F)
If you like forwards, this is the team for you! In spite of that apparent wealth of riches, much of SKC’s success comes from their rock solid defense and high-pressing style that tends to lead to a strong possesion advantage. They have enjoyed a few different runs of success over the life of the league and are looking to stay on top after the loss of a few key pieces.

Toronto FC
Joined MLS: 2007
Silverware: 4 Canadian Championships
Big-3 Doppelgänger: New Jersey Nets
Best Players: Stefan Frei (G), Danny Koevermans (F), Luis Silva (M)
Good Young Americans: Gale Agbossoumonde (D)
They win a lot of things that don’t matter a whole bunch (like the early 2000′s Eastern Conference) and are more than willing to throw money at people who are overpaid (Joe Johnson, meet Mista). Despite all that, their fans still try to find a way to root for a scrappy team that hasn’t yet lived up to expectations and will probably never be the premier attraction in town.

Vancouver Whitecaps
Joined MLS: 2011
Silverware: No major trophies
Big-3 Doppelgänger: Philadelphia Eagles
Best Players: Daigo Kobayashi (D), Nigel Reo-Coker (M), Young-Pyo Lee (D)
Good Young Americans: Omar Salgado (F)
I’m not gonna lie, it’s hard to tag every new club with a similar team in football, basketball or baseball. This one comes down to their coach. Martin Rennie has had immense success at every professional level of American soccer. At 37 years old he’s already won titles in PDL, USL-2, and USL-1. Now just over a year into his MLS career he looks to be building something special in Vancouver.

Marcus Wohlsen at Wired has a great article about how Walmart is trying to use technology to counteract the “Amazon Experience,” not just online but also in retail stores. There isn’t much public information out there currently about the eCommerce platform they are building (what little there is lets us know the project is called Pangaea) but Walmart is investing heavily in its success. I know of two very good developers poached from a growing eCommerce company who are now working on that project at Walmart Labs.

But back to the retail side, one focus of Wohlsen’s article is Walmart’s new “Scan & Go” option on their iPhone app. This allows customers to scan UPCs as they go through a store and then check out at a small kiosk using a QR code that is generated based on the items in a cart.

At first glance this may not seem like a groundbreaking innovation; it basically replaces the self-scan registers with an app you use as you shop. But the real opportunity here is having the customer engaged with your app while they are shopping.

In the future, Walmart can use their app to push certain purchasing behavior by recommending complementary products to the customer or offering a discount if they purchase another item in that group. Self checkout lanes do this kind of thing now by printing off coupons based on your purchase history, but this app would allow Walmart to target consumers in that sweet-spot when they are actually trying to make purchasing decisions rather than immediately after they have paid (which may actually be the worst possible time for something like that).

Also, the app could allow customers to check inventory levels so they know if the store is really out of a product or if they just can’t find it. They can even direct the customer to the correct aisle and shelf location. These type of things make the entire shopping experience better for the customer.

I strongly disagree with the idea that retail stores are dead. But, there are great benefits to the eCommerce realm and the key will be how brick and mortar stores figure out how to offer a similar experience while also being able to physically showcase products. The stuff Walmart is starting to do is one of the first baby steps down that path.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of redesigning this blog for a few months now. I like the minimalism of it, but want something a little different.

Definitely a wider page. Probably a little cleaner layout for linking to pages and categories. But this isn’t just for me, so let me know if you have any favorites out there.

I’ll almost certainly be taking an existing WordPress theme and then modifying from there so don’t just go searching on Theme Forest for something awesome.

Yesterday was my 4th time attending Startup Riot. As always there were some good companies, some not so good, some great pitches, some that could’ve used a little more practice, and a whole bunch of fun people passionate about startups.

I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of who every company was. David Cummings put together a fantastic post on exactly that which outshines anything I could hope to have written. If that’s not enough, Jacqui Chew did a great recap of the day, and there’s also a Patch story focusing a bit more on the winners.

With all that out of the way, here are my thoughts.

Sanjay puts on a great show. He and his team have done this enough times now that the event runs so smoothly everyone is able to sit back and enjoy the presentations (which, really, is why we’re all there in the first place). I thought T.A. McCann‘s keynote was the best that I’ve ever seen, at any conference. I really enjoyed Andrew Warner and Noah Kagan in previous years, but T.A. had an great story with an incredible way of telling it and you should probably do whatever you have to in order for him to design your deck.

There were more college-aged founders presenting today than I remember seeing before, which led to a lot of passion but a few hard questions from the judges’ that they may not have been as prepared to answer. I should note that T.A., Hiten Shah, and Adam Rich all did a masterful job asking tough questions of the presenters but not in a way that makes it feel like you’re trying to embarrass a 21 year old in front of 500 people. Those kids proved they were WAY braver than I was just by being up there pitching.

Two answers in particular that irked me though:

1) If you’re stumbling over an answer and your time runs out, don’t just say “sorry, my time’s out” and leave. There was an audible gasp from the crowd when one presenter actual did that as it really seemed like the guy was trying to weasel out of answering.

2) “Are you passionate about your product?” is an example of what I like to refer to as “The Ghostbuster Corollary.”

You say “YES!” No one’s going to pitch your product for you so make me care about it.

If you were there let me know how you thought the event was, and, if you weren’t, come on down to Atlanta next year and spend a day with some really smart people and great entrepreneurs.

First, let me say that if you ever want to read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series you should go ahead and skip this post. And if you’re on the fence you really need to read them. It’s an 8,000 page epic of good versus evil across multiple universes that ties about a half dozen other King novels into it.

Now, with that said, let’s focus on Book 6: Song of Susannah. Specifically the part where Roland and Eddie go visit actual Stephen King back in the late 1970′s.

It’s hard not to be skeptical of this plot turn, but King actually does a great job handling it in my opinion. It’s not so much the deus ex machina I expected it to be as King going back and reflecting on his mindset as a young writer struggling with recent success but still haunted by the book he couldn’t finish. He couldn’t forget about no matter how hard he tried.

A lot of people in the startup world feel the same way all too often. But let’s allow a truly gifted writer to explain the feeling better than we ever can. Just substitute building a startup for writing a story. The bold emphasis is mine.

    There was a little pause while they all thought that over. Then King said, “You started to scare me, so I stopped writing about you. Boxed you up and put you in a drawer and went on to a series of short stories I sold to various men’s magazines.” He considered, then nodded. “Things changed for me after I put you away, my friend, and for the better. I started to sell my stuff. Asked Tabby to marry me. Not long after that I started a book called Carrie. It wasn’t my first noel, but it was the first one I sold, and it put me over the top. All that after saying goodbye Roland, so long, happy trails to you. THen what happens? I come around the corner of my house one day six of seven years later and see you standing in my fucking driveway, big as Billy-be-damned, as my mother used to say. All I can say now is that thinking you’re a hallucination brought on by overwork is the most optimistic conclusion I can draw. And I don’t believe it. How can i?” King’s voice was rising, becoming reedy. Eddie didn’t mistake it for fear; this was outrage. “How can I believe it when I see the shadows you cast, the blood on your leg-” He pointed to Eddie. “And the dust on your face?” This time to Roland. “You’ve taken away my goddam options, and I can feel my mind…I don’t know…tipping? Is that the word? I think it is. Tipping.”
“You didn’t just stop,” Roland said, ignoring this last completely for the self-indulgent nonsense it probably was.
“No?”
“I think telling stories is like pushing something. Pushing against uncreation itself, maybe. And one day while you were doing that, you felt something pushing back.”
King considered this for what seemed to Eddie like a very long time. Then he nodded. “You could be right. It was more than the usual going-dry feeling, for sure. I’m used to that, although it doesn’t happen as often as it used to. It’s … I don’t know, one day you just start having less fun while you’re sitting there, tapping the keys. Seeing less clearly. Getting less of a buzz from telling yourself the story. And then, to make things worse, you get a new idea, one that’s all bright and shiny, fresh off the showroom floor, not a scratch on her. Completely unfucked-up by you, at least as of yet.“

Recently someone was talking me through their thought process around choosing an accelerator program. They were comparing the average fundraising and valuations of their alumni as well as 2-year survival performance. While I admire that kind of self-confidence that you can get in to more than one of the best accelerators and appreciate the level of research they were putting in to their decision, I told them that I didn’t believe they were looking at it correctly.

I think there’s a problem with comparing means for this decision and I told the person as much. They’re probably better off looking at medians if you want to do a simple statistical measure.

For an example of why, here’s something completely unrelated to startups.

In the last 2 games, Falcon’s running back Michael Turner has run for 97 yards on 19 carries. That’s a yards-per-carry average of 5.1, which is pretty damn good! And yet no Falcon fan would tell you that they’re excited when Turner gets the ball on 3rd and 4. Why? Here are those 19 runs from lowest to highest:

-2
0
0
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
5
5
5
6
12
12
35

So with a 5.1 ypc average, he actually ran for more than 5 yards only 4 times (21%). His median yards per carry is 3 yards, and 12 times (63%) he got 3 or fewer yards. When you need to average 3.4 yards on each play to get a first down, that’s a TERRIBLE number.

How does this relate to startups? Average performance of accelerator alumni means nothing to you as an entrepreneur. If the average valuation is $125M because of a $10B company, that’s going to skew your actual chances of success. If 60% of the companies never raise money and are dead in 6 months, that’s a super important data point.

Investors like averages, and that makes sense. They don’t care how each company performs so long as the portfolio does well.

You’re not an investor. Don’t use their metrics.