How many Christmas Presents Could you give Away?

Over the past couple of months, I've become an even more huge fan of startups, if that's possible. But something else has happened: I've decided to do startups completely backwards.

Instead of planning and suffering and laboring to bring forth the ultimate app, I'm not going to play that game any more. I am going to take 2-week blocks and ask myself, "what's the most useful thing I can do for people with this time?"

So this last cycle has been a blast. I learned MySql. I learned Ubuntu. I learned Apache. I learned Mono, and CGI.

By "learn" I don't mean being an expert. I just mean getting from point A to point B.

I think that's one of the things that I love so much about small teams and startups: you get so that doing the impossible is routine. Have to move that mountain? Well gee, it's going to be really cool to see how we do that.

Since this is a Christmastime app, and since I probably suck so bad, I decided that the best thing to do was just to give it away. I would make a little application called receiving.it, and it would be the easiest and fastest way to enter and share lists on the internet.

Hey, I've got a cool slogan and 2 weeks. Going to be really cool to see how I do this.

My 2 weeks this time ended up taking 3 weeks, but I figure losing 1 week when I had to pick up all this new tech wasn't such a bad trade. But now that it's done and I'm reveling in the post-release glow, I have to ask myself, "who cares?"

I don't mean that in a bad way, just that most of the things we do in life nobody cares about. Even if you were a crazed killer, you could grab a gun and go shoot a bunch of people (not something I recommend, by the way) and --- nobody would care. Yep, you might make the nightly news, but even that's hard for a crazed lunatic to do.

So I'm giving away a free app that lets you scan and enter lists from your iPhone or whatever. Who cares?

It's a strange question. Sure, I'm used to answering that question when the subject is some kind of startup plan "So you'd like to track circus elephants in real-time using GPS and RFID. Who cares?"

It makes kind of sense in a business setting. You're making something of value, you'd like to help folks, and you'd like them to pay you. So who is going to do that? Who cares?

But it's really weird when you're making a free app. After all, it's a gift. People should respect the fact that it's free!

So, just after launching this morning, I made the rounds, posting on HackerNews and a few other sites. I also took the time to personally message all of my friends on Facebook and ask them to share the site. After all, it's a gift, right? It's like giving away a Christmas present. You should be able to give out as many of them as you have.

I mean, really, how many Christmas presents could you give away? An infinite number, right?

The number, of course, is not infinite. Even if I were giving out hundred-dollar bills, there is a limit to the number of people I could contact and make an offer to. And there is a limit to the number of people who would believe me. And there is a limit to the number of times they will share that information -- especially if they think there's not enough for everybody.

So yes, if I were Google or Facebook I could probably give out billions of free dollars, but I'm not. As an average person, there is a finite number of people that I could possibly do something nice for. Everybody probably has a different number. Some rare folks would have a huge number. Some hermit-type people would probably have a smaller number.

It's like a social muscle. Very interesting to measure. Because no matter how good your offer is -- even ludicrously generous (which mine was not) only so many people are going to accept it.

And that's really strange to think about. That no matter what your product, what your cost, what your benefits -- there is a finite number people who are going to care about it. If I grabbed a big 'old Santa Claus bag of hundred-dollar bills and left the house, giving them out one at a time, odds are that I return with the sack still mostly full.

Next year I'm buying you guys a card.