Category Archives: Blog
I write this on the eve of the much awaited and hyped Facebook IPO to time-capsule my thoughts before the big bang. After all, we are talking about a once-in-a-decade phenomenon of a company with 900M+ addicted users around the world.
It is not fair to say that Facebook is single-handedly responsible for the current startup bubble cycle, but it is certainly the 10,000 lb gorilla of social media. The company that won the arms race for the social graph in the process decimated companies like MySpace who not long ago seemed invincible.
No business can survive without customers. As the business grows however, how you interact with them will be the difference between an unmanageable mess and profitability. The tactical approach here can vary wildly based on the business model. Most notably, a service versus product company.
After having various offices in San Francisco’s coveted South Park area for over 5 years, I made a tough decision to make the move out of the city in December. As much as I’ve grown to love San Francisco, there are several things I definitely won’t miss. If you are bringing your startup to the Bay Area, I hope this helps:
5. Filth/Crime
San Francisco, despite its relatively small population, is a big city. Big cities tend to have big city problems like: homelessness, busy (and therefore dirty) streets, and higher crime. The popular South Park area is also the host for Giants baseball games and a number of large scale events throughout the year. Not only does this bring thousands of “bridge and tunnel” people that couldn’t care less about the neighborhoods but it exacerbates, to the extreme, most of the other pains listed below.
With much anticipation, Monday brought the now annual ritual of iPhone day. The tech blog coverage was predictably deafening yet little has so far been said about the rabid stomping elephant in the room. I’m talking about the passive aggressive counter-attack Apple launched against Google.
It was not that long ago when a company founder being put in charge of partnerships was seen as a snub. A largely undefined and unmeasurable role which signaled that the person was being put out to pasture and retained only a maskot importance to the organization. Today this is one of the most important roles both for marketing and product development.
In 2010 successful brands are sensitive to the fact that reputation can be one of the most powerful marketing tools. Effective partnerships create associations with an established brand and align outsiders’ interests to contribute. At a time when winners take most; these collaborations often build effective teams to collectively gobble up mind share (and ultimately the available market).
I was originally intending to post this at the beginning of the year but I’m glad I waited, or rather procrastinated – there have been some noteworthy developments on the topic. I purposefully left out the multitude of outside references in this article – as it would stretch this lengthy post into a book. If you are interested in digging deeper on any of the topics, I welcome your emails and comments below. For the insiders, I would expect, the points made are not mind-blowing but I think you will find the connected dots interesting. For everyone else, it is important to know where your personal data and the industry as a whole are going. So without further ado, below is my thesis…
For the last decade I’ve been a project and product mercenary. I’ve ran an agency, where our job was to cut through the noise, identify the customers’ marketing and/or technology goals and plot courses for solutions. I’ve also been involved with a number of start-ups looking for answers on macro and micro levels. On the macro level in defining a set of goals, in the form of problems, to (re)solve and build a business around. On the micro level, making a multitude of daily design and intent decisions. The quality of those decisions driving execution and bridging the gap between talking about it and doing it.
A lot of business “thought leaders” and a lot of well respected business schools teach entrepreneurs to not be afraid of failure. They say: “fail early, fail often”. The premise makes a lot of sense – if you are terrified of failure you won’t take the needed risks to succeed. After all if you don’t play you can’t win. But this concept is flawed on a couple of dimensions.
Microsoft has been in battle for second in the digital media player (DMP) market for 3 years now with Apple having lapped the competition more than once. But is the race and the season drawing to a close on this one? (pardon the moto euphemism, after all we are in the middle of the F1 and MotoGP seasons.)
I’ve been eyeing the Amazon Kindle