Five Years in Review

The winds are changing; that much is clear.

Five years ago when I jumped with both feet into entrepreneurship, I couldn’t have imagined what I was getting myself into. With a two year lifeline of saved earnings, I founded my first of three technology businesses with the simple intent of creating a home for my nerdy kinfolk. I never dreamed of changing this community, yet change is here. We still haven’t caught up to Fresno, but we’re hot on their heels.  

Bakersfield meeting spaces are now available to host technical and entrepreneurship meetups, educational programs for tech are open up for enrollment, venture capital lending for Bakersfield startups is here, downtown’s “Eastchester” district is developing, and we are now at a point where Bakersfield is overproducing technical talent relative to the demand from local businesses. If it weren’t for the accelerating downturn in the petroleum and agriculture industries, I think this city would be downright booming.

2017 was a challenging year for me. Turnover has been a steady problem for me in running a software consultancy, for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, I have a strong preference for hiring green local talent fresh out of CSUB and BC and giving them those first critical years of work experience, but once they have that experience, they have found much more stability in companies like Amazon and Microsoft. Secondly, Bakersfield is "a great place to be from,” but not too many rank Bakersfield as their top choice in place to live. Efforts are already at play by the KEDC and some of the Chamber/BYP constituency to bring young professionals “Back to Bakersfield,” but ultimately career stability is a large determinant in such a decision, and our economy is facing uncertainty in the coming decades.

Most significant last year was my unfortunate encounter in getting screwed by a fraudulent prospective client early in the year. In a service business with no recurring income stream, time is money. This challenge cost me time, it cost me cashflow, it cost my team morale, and ultimately it cost me the team itself. It was a painful lesson, but clearly one I needed to learn: do not allow those whom you trust to attempt to convey their credibility onto others. The people you choose to do business with must earn their credibility on their own merits. Only then can you know with certainty they are worthy of trust.

I spent many months reflecting on how the situation played out, and ultimately decided that I was taken advantage of in business because I smelled of desperation. This prospect had approached me offering cashflow for the entire year in exchange for exclusivity. Had my company been in a stronger position, I wouldn’t have dared consider the deal (at the expense of my other customers). But they were sharks, and I smelt of tuna. By fall 2017 I decided that if I wanted to continue swimming in shark-infested waters, I’d better damn well look and smell like a shark. And thus, Kevin Mershon the Bakersfield Venture Capitalist was born.

Thus far, my capitalistic adventures have only been conceptual in nature. I’ve met with a handful of teams seeking seed capital or angel investment, neither of which I’m interested in nor positioned for. But over time, the hope is that the local image of me as “the software guy” will fade as “the tech business money guy” blossoms. I have my investors already on the line, and now it’s just a waiting game until the right talent emerges. Until then I am gradually reducing my consulting offerings in anticipation of VC activities keeping me busy.

Over the past few weeks, I have felt complacent about the recent changes in my life. Bored, even. But, I am hoping this feeling will be replaced with excitement as this year unfolds. Find me at MESH if you dare to dream with me. 

Don't forget your C-Max Energi

I'm not a car buff. I haven't learned how they work, how to repair them, or why car enthusiasts prefer one over another. I haven't owned many cars, but the ones at have owned have each been a different brand, and all have required more maintenance and repair than I felt was reasonable. I was one of the earliest adopters of Ford's recent addition to their line-up, the C-Max Energi. And I have to say, I couldn't be prouder.

Living in an oil town, my car gets some strange looks. Many people have seen the commercials, but hybrids aren't very popular in Bakersfield, and plug-ins or pure electrics doubly so. I get a lot of questions about the viability of my C-Max in day to day living. If it's electric, how do I get out of town? Don't the batteries fail and burn the car to a crisp? Is it completely gutless? Can it climb the Grapevine? Is it comfortable?

Of course, when my responses to these questions all paint my car and it's cousins in a positive light, I'm still met with skepticism. Despite the rave reviews and decent market penetration of hybrids into the automotive industry, there are a lot of doubters who simply cannot be convinced that these cars are worth the investment.

Well, this weekend, I made some believers.

I'm currently writing this blog while camping outside of Pismo with a group of friends. This campground in particular happens to lack service hook-ups, and quiet hours are in effect at 8 pm. That means no gas generators, and for some people that can be a real problem.

One of my friends on this campout has a bad case of sleep apnea like you've never seen. He has a cpap machine to keep him alive at night, but it plugs into a conventional 110v outlet, and needs continuous power to run. After being informed last night about the above mentioned information, he wouldn't have joined us on this camping trip. But, he was already here, and options were slim. So last night, I took a gamble.

In addition to its USB ports, the Ford C-Max Energi has three 12v sockets which provide continuous power when the vehicle is off, and an inverter powering a 110v conventional outlet on the back of the center console facing the back seats which is powered only when the vehicle is on. These sockets are quite useful on road trips and such, but camping is where these things really matter. My only option to help my friend last night was to run an extension cord to the 110v plug. In a traditional vehicle this would be concerning, because it meant the vehicle needed to run overnight. Noxious emissions aside, the real concerns one has in doing this is the immense waste of fuel, the noise, and the need to leave the keys in an unoccupied car. But the C-Max Energi eliminates all of these concerns.

The solution last night was actually quite simple. I turned off the air and the headlights, dimmed the dome lights, and push button started my C-Max. I walked away, key in hand, and locked the doors. With only the warning double honk to notify me that my car was still actually "on", we settled in for the night. With my friend's cpap machine plugged in and running, my car happily kept him breathing all night, silently running almost the entire time off the 8.5kwh lithium ion battery. With the energy draw so minimal, about every 20-30 minutes my car purred to life using a sip of my remaining 375 miles range of gasoline to charge the hybrid battery to a satisfactory level, and back to sleep it went. When I woke with the sun this morning, I found overnight my car had only used approximately 13 miles of gasoline range, to keep my friend breathing through the night.

There are a lot of excellent reasons to buy a hybrid, plug-in electric hybrid, or all electric vehicle today. My personal preference was the compromise of having access to multiple sources of fuel and a high range. And today, that decision was validated. Over breakfast, this story has been shared with everyone in our camp, and met with surprise and disbelief. But the fact is, my C-Max did something important that not a single other vehicle in this campground could do. Today, Ford has a lot of new believers in their ability to deliver excellence in their vehicles, and potentially save lives. And that is a story worth sharing.

Bridging the Gap

According to researchgate.com 57% of software engineers programmers are introverts as opposed to only 50.9% of the general population. 67% of programmers would rather appraise the facts of a situation than try to intuit their way through it. 81% prefer to think on a topic instead of introspect on their feelings about the matter. So what does this all mean?

If communication is difficult, communicating with programmers is at least doubly so. Traditional businesses who try to formulate a software division in order to meet their own needs tend to focus on the team initially, but soon treat them as mushrooms in a dark closet. This is typically A-OK individual developer, as programmers don't like noise. I don't mean noise like Nicky Minaj or Skrillex. I'm talking about mandatory meetings, team building exercises, group projects, and continuous interruption of their Flow. But managing programmers is an affront to this, because detailed information feedback is required all the time. The secret is that good programmers incorporate code versioning systems into their everyday workflow, and these systems provide everything one needs to effectively manage a team: the name of the developer working on a task, the changes which were made, the date of the changes, the motivation or reason behind the changes, and (if the project structure and social order are maintained well) the ID of the task itself. All this information is a figurative gold mine for project managers to utilize, but this information is largely discarded by non-programmer managers of programming teams because it's simply too much and in the wrong format for non-programmers to understand.

A good software team manager has to speak both "languages". He needs to know the requirements of the product owner to communicate to the programmers, and (arguably more importantly) he know the tools of a programmer well enough to interpret the information about a project and communicate it back to the product owner. That is the primary expertise we bring to the table with our clients: we can turn business needs into business solutions.

So, here's Mershon Enterprises, a Bakersfield software company built on modern principles of design. We all work remotely and we have practically zero overhead, but what our potential and existing clients need is a traditional business face that they know how to approach. Mershon Enterprises chiefly uses Slack for topic-oriented discussion, and we occasionally text message each other. But our clients understand email and phone calls. So, we host our own email system and phone system, and we're subscribed to Twilio for about a dollar a month to get a local phone number. We have a swath of programmers, yet clients deal with the same representative for the entire life of their project. We put forth the effort to bridge the gap between traditional business and the modern age so that you don't have to. This gives both parties the ability to focus on what we do best.

What is Mershon Enterprises?

I feel like I should start this blog out with some insightful quote or anecdote about how today I woke up to take on the world. The fact is, that sort of marketing buzz-wordy nonsense isn't me. I'm real me all the time. For instance, right now I'm holed up in Starbucks clutching my still almost-warm tall drip, I'm a little bit chilly, and I think my pants might be a bit too tight these days. So, try and take me at my word as I change subjects.

Mershon Enterprises is a Bakersfield, California software startup. It was founded as a reaction to the business culture in the San Joaquin Valley. When I say that, I'm not just talking about my previous employer; it's hearsay, but I have friends who worked at many other firms and they all share the same stories. Businesses here tend to survive with a persistent mindset of anti-competitive lock-in, fire-fighting as a way of life, and (what I'll kindly coin) "legacy business methodologies" which drive the creative minds to the nearest competitor in a hurry. The engineering firms in particular are have a lot of employee swapping back-and-forth, the technical servicing firms are all struggling to keep up with the ever-changing demands of the larger corporations (Aera, Chevron, Grimmway, and Paramount Farms).

Technology (particularly software) is built on rules of efficiency, order, and transparency. Agile and Scrum are all-the-rage in the tech world, and create great conflict when placed in direct conflict with these "legacy business methodologies". Core concepts like "sprint" become a verb, as in "just sprint through this task so we can handle this other thing that just came up this morning." The role of the Scrum Master gets contested, then slowly eroded away until the Product Owner subsumes the role, and turns the holy trifecta of the daily standup ("What did you do yesterday / What are you doing today / Are you blocked by anything") into a twice-daily hour long pep-talk on the merits of just make it through today and we'll start planning tomorrow how things will be better. The people behind Mershon Enterprises are ready to move on forward from legacy business, and I'm willing to show you how we plan to do that, through this blog (and probably the next).

Mershon Enterprises is not a service company (at least, not in a traditional sense). Service companies traditionally aim to integrate and entangle themselves into your business, and get you comfortable with the idea that you need them but they will always be there to support you. It's a successful business strategy short-term for certain, but the caveat to this approach is it makes their business fully susceptible to the rules of your business. Given time, they are made to follow an amalgamation of all the policies of the larger companies which feed them (yours and your competitor's), until their business model closely resembles a Frankenstein's Monster of all their clients combined. This isn't sustainable beyond a few years, which may explain why some of the business owners of companies like this tend to sell or re-incorporate every 5-10 years.

So how are we different? Mershon Enterprises doesn't want to be entangled with your business; we want to write great, maintainable software, and then get out of your way. True, we chiefly do custom software development in Bakersfield (and surrounding areas) right now. We're doing this to learn the needs of our market first, so we can eventually pivot into building software products. We employ skilled software professionals who understand that the future of business is automation, consolidation, downsizing, and solving the technological problems while leaving the social ones firmly in the hands of capable individuals.

What I'm up to

So it's been another 3 years since I blogged anything worth sharing. Since then, my son was born and has grown into a brilliant little toddler, we built and moved into another home (and I became a landlord to the old one), I took some calculated risks that should've paid off sooner based upon excellent market data but for our corrupt politicians and lobbyists interfering, and some less calculated but logically sound investment strategies, I left my previous employer of 6.5 years, I revived my personal life, and most recently I have co-founded a Bakersfield Software Company, Mershon Enterprises.

Being a parent is difficult just about any day of the week. For instance, right now my son has a cold and he's feverish. Any parent will tell you that by itself, that's nerve-racking beyond compare. BUT, pair it up with the added responsibility of keeping a minimum number of billable hours per week (and oh-by-the-way I don't have a boss to remind me how hard I need to be working), and life can get pretty stressful. Luckily, I'd planned for this. Before quitting my old job I saved about 6 months worth of living costs on top of my brokerage account, so money hasn't exactly been tight but it's still of daily consideration. So I cheerfully advise that if you want to start a business, set money aside and diversify the hell out of it.

A solace I've found with my new routine of 7-noonish weekdays at the Starbucks down the street is I have a lot more time to get a little lost in my head and think about what it is that I've done and am doing with my life. My old job was ostensibly safe and stable, but I wouldn't have quit unless there were more things I disliked than I liked. Paychecks are great, but if you have to face having your ideas continuously rejected by your managers, being forced to keep all time third-party billable but not having a marketing team to back you up, being locked into a vertical market where you can't compete and not being allowed to spread horizontally, and being forced to adopt anti-competitive business strategies in the attempt to lock-in repeat business, and you can maybe see what I left. Things with my company currently are (and I hope will remain) substantially different and better for me. I work when and where I want, I can freely approach potential clients and employees I want to work with, and if I want to enjoy the better part of my day sporting a mohawk and pink spandex, nobody's going to send me home.

Fact is, I'm already a lot happier and things are only just beginning to go my way.

A Bedtime Story for Lucas: The Story of Minnie

Part II - Humans Must Find Homes, Too

Minnie came to live with the boy and girl, in what they considered to be a very small apartment. But Minnie was a little cat, and to her every place in the world was exciting and huge! There was only one teensy-weensy little problem with this new home, and his name was "Big Meats". Big Meats was a huge brown cat who was not at all happy to see Minnie come into HIS home.



"Go home!" he'd hiss, and whump his tail back-and-forth ferociously. "B-b-but this IS my home now...I thought?" Minnie would stammer. Like before, Minnie didn't really like this other cat. But, the humans had brought her home to be with him, so she thought "I will do what I can to be friends with Big Meats. After all, I don't want to bother the humans or they'll send me away."

Very shortly after Minnie came to live with the humans, the girl fell ill. "Oh no!" Minnie cried, "Was it something I did?" Big Meats didn't seem to care about the girl's illness, so Minnie felt it was her duty to make sure the girl was okay. She'd rest by her all day and all night, with a watchful eye.



Big Meats saw Minnie's dedication to the girl, and even though he couldn't be bothered to watch over the girl himself, he thought better of Minnie and began to like her more each day. Before long, things started to change. Soon, Big Meats and Minnie became the best of friends. The girl got better, and grew into a woman, and the boy grew into a man.

One day, the humans decided it was time for a great big change. They packed away all of their things, and more people showed up to help them. Minnie and Big Meats were both very scared, so they huddled together and watched the frenzy. "What's going on?" Minnie asked.
"I've seen this before, but only once," Big Meats replied, "It's called moving. We're going somewhere new. I wonder if the next place will be bigger like last time!"
Minnie thought to herself, "I sure hope they don't forget about us!" But of course they wouldn't forget. The man and the woman loved Minnie and Big Meats, and together they were a family.



Big Meats was right, and in a big way. This new home was HUGE and BEAUTIFUL. It had all the space they could ever want to run and play, and lovely things to admire outside. Minnie recalled the long trip to the new home. "Do you think we'll ever move again, Big Meats?"
"No" he said, "This time was different. I think this is our forever home."

A Bedtime Story for Lucas: The Story of Minnie

Let me tell you a little story. This story is about a little cat. This cat was named Minnie, and unlike most cats that you hear about, Minnie didn't have nine lives. In fact, she only had one life. But what an amazing life she had.

Part I - Finding Home

Minnie was born a stray on the streets of San Jose, in the year 2004. She lived her life studying birds and people, and loved shiny things. She especially loved lights. Every night, she would look up at the stars and wonder how they twinkled so very brightly. Every day, she would bask in the sunlight next to a bus stop bench when people weren't around. Minnie liked people, but had never met one before, up close. So she was afraid, and she stayed away.

Minnie occasionally saw other cats, but didn't like them very much. The other cats were mean and dirty, but not Minnie. Minnie was a dainty lady cat. Instead of eating the food she found right off the ground, Minnie would copy the people she watched, and eat with her hands. One day, Minnie was eating with her hands, when another cat saw her and got mad at her. "Hey you! Stop that! Cats don't eat with their hands!" "I do", she said defiantly. The other cat got mad and pounced on her. But Minnie had never been in a fight, so she didn't know what to do. Instead, she just cried out for help, and the bigger mean cat got scared and ran away.

After the other cat attacked her, she never quite felt the same. She was moodier and hungrier, and needed more rest. One cold February night, it started raining. Minnie had never seen rain before, and didn't know what to do. So, she found a cardboard box to take cover in. Minnie hid and cried, but she was so very tired. But, just as she started to nod off, she heard human voices! "Oh no!" she thought, and tried to scramble out of the box. But, she was so very tired, and couldn't get away. The humans put her back in the box, and carried the box to their car.

Minnie wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it sure must have been a long time. As it turned out, she had been so tired and hungry because she was pregnant with kittens! She gave birth to those kittens, and nursed them for many weeks. Eventually, the kittens were ready to go off on their own, as kitty cats do, and the humans helped the kittens find homes with other humans. Minnie liked the humans who took care of her, but they acted very hurried and worried, and this made Minnie nervous. Minnie got sick for awhile, and then got better. Many humans came by to see her, and that made her happy. But, none of the humans ever wanted to take her to see their home. "That's okay," Minnie thought to herself, "I'd just get in the way, and I don't want to bother them."

One day, a young pair of humans, one boy and one girl, came to visit her together. Minnie saw them, and thought "They sure look nice!" The boy and girl both took notice of Minnie, and the girl even said, "Aww, she's perfect!" But, like everyone else, they soon walked away to look at the other cats. Minnie laid back down, asking herself why she thought this time would be any different. But it was! It was different this time, because no sooner had Minnie laid down did the boy and girl came back, and this time they said, "She's the one. We want her!" One of the humans that took care of Minnie opened the door and picked her up, but Minnie was so excited to jump into the arms of the girl that she accidentally scratched the human holding her. "Oh no!" she thought, "They'll change their mind for sure!" But they didn't, because Minnie WAS the one for them, and they the ones for her.