Week 1

There has been a lot of progress before I started this blog that I'll explain in a lump sum here.

1. Lots of studying about circuit design. In particular reading a book on Eagle and following along with the exercises. I had to install Windows XP on VMware to run Eagle.
2. Lots of studying of bitcoin protocol.
3. Building of Bitcoin code from scratch in C (and using the secp256k1 library).
4. Buying a bunch of miscellaneous soldering instruments.
5. Perform my first micro solder.
6. Starting but not finishing the circuit layout for the Bitcoin card. The design is actually really simple, so that's not likely where the pain point is going to be.
7. Attempting to port all the required libraries over to 8 bit C. This wasn't a practical goal and was abandoned.
8. Picking out a new chip that I think will have the right specs to perform Bitcoin transactions.
9. Talking to BitBill guys about card lamination.
10. Tons of Bitcoin events.
11. Talking to tons of people about the idea. <- This was a mistake, I keep getting the same bad advice.

For the next week these are my goals:

1. Confirming the chip(s) I will be getting.
2. Buy the damn chip(s).
3. Buy a programmer for the chip and weep slightly at the wasted monies on my last programmer.
4. Get needed libraries to compile for the target architecture.
5. Get programmer software up and running.
6. Wait for the chip(s) and programer to arrive in the mail.

Good Luck!

One of the positives of doing a startup with a team is the social accountability. I think this value is similar to having a gym buddy -- if you don't show up your friend knows about it. This creates a social pressure that often keeps you moving.

Working for another company gives a lot of social pressure that can make it easier to stay focused and moving. The fact that money will be spent on myself gives me motivation to do consistent good work. It is good short term motivation for pushing through hard tasks but very poor long term motivation.

Working on a startup is an ultimate long term motivation that lacks pressure to push through the day to day.

My plan for this blog is provide weekly checkins, just as I do for clients, summarizing what I've accomplished and what will be accomplished for the next week. Hopefully the social pressure of publicizing my progress keeps me going.

Wish me luck!