Andrew Laffoon’s Thoughts

I took a trip to Taiwan to visit our Mixbook team there in April, and had a blast when I was there! Check it out on Mixbook:

View this book full size or get a printed copy at Mixbook

I have to say, developing this embed widget has reawakened my love for Flash. I forgot how much I enjoy using a timeline and editing my applications more visually. Flex is beautiful because of the power of its framework, and when I’m building a Flex app, I tend to focus on making beautiful, modularized code. But when I’m in flash, I remember that I like my app to look pretty too.

And I forgot that you can choose exactly which characters to embed in a flash .swf. That’s a great feature! We’re at 108,902 bytes right now. I need to get this thing down to 50 KB!

This is a test of the Mixbook Embed Widget. Very nice, eh? (The buttons don’t do anything yet…)

Updated: Here is the new version. The only thing left is the email feature.

Update 2: We ousted the email feature - who needs it anyway? Just the spammers…

View this book full size or get a printed copy at Mixbook

Mixbook launched a couple of weeks ago with a new take on Web 2.0 and monetization: actually giving users a product. Mixbook is a rich internet application that lets you create a digital photoalbum using a series of templates and photos that you upload to the site.

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You don’t need an account to try Mixbook: Try it Now!

Here’s a sneak peak of our sample book:

My web site, Mixbook, has launched. Now you can Create Amazing Books with Your Friends online, for free! Try it now!

http://www.mixbook.com

Also, you can read more about Mixbook on the Mixbook blog: http://mixbook.wordpress.com.

I got me this shiny new blog, but I’m still learning how to use it. I love Wordpress.

The perfect word to test all the pages on your web site to make sure that they support long words. Excellent.

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu
An unremarkable hill (except for the name!) in New Zealand.

The name means “The brow [or summit] of the hill [or place], where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid [down], climbed [up] and swallowed mountains, [to travel the land], [who is] known as the land eater, played [on] his [nose] flute to his loved one.” (from Wikipedia)

You gotta love languages.

Raised Funding + Building Product = No Time for Blogging

Of course, the ironic thing is that I have learned SO much, so I actually have a lot to say now. One day I will have to write a post…

Last night I realized that I did not have enough money in my bank account to pay rent. Although I had left StartupCamp that day at lunch to transfer money from one bank account to another by hand, for some reason I was $2.18 short of the rent amount. The check I deposited on Monday had not cleared yet! I knew that rent was going to post sometime today, but there was no way to ensure that the rent would not post before other incoming transfers would clear.

“Do you have any cash?” I asked my wife. “I only have $2. We still need 18 cents to cover the rent.” She checked her purse, and she found $15. So at 11:55 PM we drove to Wells Fargo and deposited the money to make sure that our rent deposit would clear. The day was saved.

Now let me give you a little background:

For the past 5 months since I left my position with Active Reasoning, I have been without something that so many people depend on - a paycheck. My wife has been working at CityTeam, an incredible non-profit that my wife and I love, but her paycheck is not enough to cover all our expenses. So, like many entrepreneurs before me, I live off my savings account and investments in the stock market.

My wife and I live on a strict budget, and I use a very efficient system to manage my money between investments, savings and checking accounts (all with different institutions). Unfortunately, having two checking accounts, three savings accounts and one investment account (not counting retirement accounts) generates considerable complexity in transferring money. The fact that we basically have no money in any of these accounts only makes matters worse.

The irony of all this is that today, on the day that I almost failed to pay my rent, our corporate bank account for Mixbook.com was filled with cash from the first closing of our seed financing round. The salary that I will take from the company still puts me well below the federal poverty line (especially in Santa Clara County), but at least now my family no longer has a “burn rate.”
Updated.