Starbucks is loud... Barnes and Noble has free wifi?

This is more of a "Twitter" post, but since I don't have Twitter I'll borrow the blog:

Sitting at Starbucks doing some SEEFADing. Starbucks is really loud, with the blenders and the loud soul music that's blaring. Where else could one SEEFAD... I remember reading Barnes and Noble offering up free wifi now. I'll hafta check it out...

DOH I think I went over the character limit. And there goes the !#@!@! blender again, the employees must need earplugs to be under OSHA compliance...

Starbucks is loud... Barnes and Noble has free wifi?

I've hit "The Dip"

So as you've probably noticed, I haven't been blogging as much lately. I think I've hit "The Dip"(the concept described by the Seth Godin book). The lack of blogging correlates to the lack of stuff getting done in general on my entrepreneurial pursuits:

Notthebookstore.com - I hired a programmer to revamp the site and add some nice features to it. The guy did an awesome job. I trust him so much that I paid him in full before I launched the site, trusting that he'll be there if I had issues. But now I'm stuck in The Dip, with the old site still up and the new site still to go. I know I want to tweak the new site, put up some content to feature the new stuff. But every time I've thought about it, I've found something else to do.

New project - I took the first baby step on a new product idea I had (it's not new or ingenious by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm afraid to talk about it because I don't wanna jinx it! It does have something to do with cars, so Adam I might be contacting you for advice since you have a lot of experience with Detailed Image). I contacted a supplier, and the person has responded and has asked me for my contact info so we can talk about it. I've procrastinated giving him that info, even though it would be a great next step to keep the chain moving.

So today, instead of procrastinating some more or thinking up excuses not to do something, I've decided I would blog with reckless abandon and not think about perfection or if this post makes sense or not. This is one of those cases where it's better to do something and have it be not quite perfect than to not do anything at all. So here it is! I'm sitting at Panera Bread drinking below average ice tea (hmm, maybe that's a subject of a future blog... how I would design the perfect place to SEEFAD). My goal is to take the next step in the two things I listed above (I've already taken the next step for this blog by posting this!)

I've hit "The Dip"

Places to SEEFAD

So where's a good place to do a SEEFAD? We've tried a number of places, and here are some of our favorites:

Panera Bread - Free wi-fi, plenty of tables and booths available, nice touch with fireplaces and high backs on seats to give a little privacy. Decent number of plugs. It's large enough to not be crowded, and has a nice ambience. In all but one of the Panera's I've gone to, I've felt welcome to hang out for a while.* Avoid the lunch rush, but other than that a great place to go.

Starbucks - I don't even drink coffee, but when Starbucks offered free Wi-fi when you use a Starbucks gift card, I was hooked. The nice thing about Starbucks is there are so many of them around, and so far about 80% of the ones I went to had the free Wi-fi. It feels a little more crowded than Panera, but they have better selection of drinks. I usually get an iced tea or a hot chocolate (their hot chocolate is actually really good).

Caribou Coffee - All the ones I've been to have free Wi-fi, some with purchase some without. A nice alternative to Starbucks, I'm still trying to find a good non-coffee drink. The ones I've gone to were a little more crowded, but not a bad place to hang out.

Bruegger's Bagels - I know one I went to has free wi-fi for sure, the other one I believe has it too. I don't go too often because there aren't that many, and bagels don't do it for me. But they have a decent ambience and I like a smoked salmon bagel.

I always thought some place should have free wi-fi, charge a few bucks and give you all you can drink and all you can eat snacks during non-lunch hours. I mean how much can you eat between 1:30 and 5 anyway? Maybe charge $3-5, which would be more than the drink I ordered here at Starbucks (albeit not much more).

Any good places you've tried out? Feel free to comment!





*There was one Panera in West Chester, OH where the manager was being really obvious that he didn't want our type there... he was overly fakey cheerful in nudging us out, eventually the wifi turned off because it was near lunchtime. So on the way out I confronted him, and he said it was a "business decision" and wouldn't budge when I brought up that the restaurant was like 40% full and we had bought a few drinks... even told him I was a shareholder and therefore really interested in them making money, but he kept his fake smile and even said have a nice day in an exaggerated tone of voice on the way out. I hope he realizes how much incremental profit he lost by me never going there again.

Places to SEEFAD

Someone else tries a SEEFAD...

So regular follower Brad Allmendinger gave SEEFAD a try for himself... had some really good insights! Check out his post about it here...

Someone else tries a SEEFAD...