if you haven’t heard of chatroulette, then i give it mere days before it has giant buzz. although coverage in the new york times about its 17 year old creator from moscow (pictured on bike), has already spiked its traffic over the last week. as the name implies, you sit at your computer and press the play button, and the game of chance takes over as you are matched with a stranger from anywhere in the world for a real live video chat. you can keep shuffling through people or engage via IM and microphone. there is  no need to register, log in or be invited. one simple click and you are live, which makes it dangerous for kids, since it has no screening whatsoever, and i will say that it can be a creepy experience.

when the pints gave it a whirl, we were hard pressed to find many women on it and there seemed to be a lot of teens in sunglasses and anonymous garb on the service. however, i couldn’t help but be fascinated since it appealed to my short attention span and i could shuffle through people without feeling rude or guilty. i can’t seem to do that as well at a cocktail party. today, i met an engineer from zurich, switzerland, a fashionable sunglasses lover in paris and a “pirate” from budapest who was on it “to steal everyone’s loot”. reminiscent of the age of chatrooms, folks can create their own interesting personas, but now they have a video camera in their face. it also makes geography less and less of an obstacle in terms of connections, not one person i connected with on chatroulette was in the USA.

while there is some advertising potential for this service to exist as a viable commercial business the anonymity, randomness and stranger interaction, while giving chatroulette its excitement, can also mean inappropriate behavior and huge parental fears. its young entrepreneur will have to address these issues, as well as the investment in scale, as more and more people start joining the chat gambling game. i predict his bandwidth and server needs will quickly outweigh his adsense revenue. however, kudos to the youngster whose project at its core, illustrates that humans are motivated by social connections and such simple technologies make it possible.

today i ran across Inc Magazine’s slideshow, How To Run a Business from Home. it was fun and insightful from some of the peeps doing it right; and it made me think of another recent article i read, “The Way I Work”. both of these pieces talk about different habits and methods for entrepreneurs working at home, and how to do so successfully. well this got me started thinking about the blupint team and some of my own personal work at home habits… and of course, i then wanted to share.

ladies and gents, without further adieu, i present just a few of blupint’s work-at-home secrets to success for entrepreneurs…. (all rights reserved)…

(fyi, this is not our home office… wishful thinking)

1. it’s okay to be late. this might seem like an odd way to start a “secrets to success” article, but take a moment and stick with me. if you work from an office, when you arrive at 8:30, do you immediately snap into efficiency mode and start cranking through your to-do list? if you said yes, you are a liar. when you walk through the doors at the j-o-b you get some coffee, talk fantasy sports or what you did for dinner, post a tweet, read a funny forward, etc.. in fact, if you are reading this at work right now, then you know exactly what i’m talking about it doesn’t mean you are a bad employee, it means you are human and for whatever reasons we all have days where it just takes us an extra minute. well we’re the same way. working at home doesn’t mean you MUST be working bank hours, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should beat yourself up if you don’t. everyone’s got a life to balance, and everyone’s got a to-do list. our people know that if you sleep in an extra 20 minutes, or it takes a second cup of coffee to get going.. you don’t need to punish yourself with guilt. you just might be working a bit longer, or a bit harder in the near future. there’s nothing wrong with that.

2. eating lunch at home sucks. at least eating lunch at home every single day does. yes, it’s great to save money, you eat healthier blah blah blah. but eating a home made turkey sandwich and a banana, with a glass of ice water on the side every single day gets old… in fact, it gets old really really quick. go out to lunch at least once a week. meet a client, meet a friend, eat alone. regardless of who or where, just get out. it’s too easy to get started on your day, eat your sandwich at your computer, then look at the clock and realize its 7 at night and you completely missed the sun outside. it gets really bad, when you haven’t just missed one day of sun, you’ve missed five!

(if you make sandwiches that look like this, you actually should eat at home everyday.. then call me and invite me over)

3. set office habits… maybe even write them down as “rules” (i hate using that word bc everyone should strive to break rules, not set them). limit yourself to checking email a few times a day, try to limit your personal catch-up calls (“hhheeeeyyy, man! how are you, haven’t talked to you in months.. yea, i’ve got some time”.. prob not good on a tuesday afternoon), limit your itunes time… whatever it is, put a system in place so you don’t do it. i find it easier to avoid certain distractions if i’ve made it a “rule” or a habit of nature. if you ever think something might be a distraction, then i guarantee at some point it IS. so set habits, and stick to them.

4. know your available resources. quiet coffee shops ARE the new meeting rooms. and when the internet craps out at home, head to a local co-working space. we’re into sandbox suites, sf cube and numerous local cafe’s… but know what’s around you, what they can provide, and take advantage.

(we’d love to hear some of your personal habits or thoughts? what works, what doesn’t… )