May 19th, 2012 § Comments Off on putting instagram into perspective § permalink
it’s always wise to check and keep in mind data from the wider field, not just the outlier. everyone fascinated by instagram and facebook should know all these other acquisitions by heart before talking about ‘the bubble’:
Instagram’s billion-dollar sale to Facebook raised eyebrows yesterday, renewing cries of a new bubble. But relative to other major acquisitions of the past, how does it measure up? I crunched the numbers, pulling together data from a selection of 30 notable internet acquisitions over the last ten years, from Broadcast.
via: waxy.org
May 15th, 2012 § Comments Off on Why CFOs Hate CMOs § permalink
i love this attitude, so true. bottom line – some go to vegas, others go to jail đ
May 15th, 2012 § Comments Off on can entrepreneur really work ‘virtually’ ? § permalink
Indonesia (Photo credit: zsoolt)
this article suggests that it depends on the type of a business, which sounds like a safe bet.
In today’s business world, working in a location independent manner is possible – thanks to the enabling technologies, such as mobile technology, the Internet, and such. You are now enabled to, say, live in Bali, Indonesia while having your business operates in, say, Canberra, Australia;…
via: www.noobpreneur.com
… however, my experience is that you have to, you really must be close to your clients (or users). if being close means hanging out on their IRC channel then fine, but more often it means at least a local phone number and ability to take them out for lunch/coffee.
if you’re thinking about a startup, assume that you will have to relocate to where your clients are. period.
May 14th, 2012 § Comments Off on The dangers of relying on startup steroids § permalink
all the entrepreneurs and VCs are drinking the same cool aid most of the time, and some get away with it. most have to come back to earth sooner or later and actually build business that provide hard value.
I find this metaphor of startup steroids very telling:
Startup steroids: Pinterest feels the burn of Facebook‘s Open Graph By Ben Popper on May 3, 2012 09:30 am 23Comments A packed room of more than 200 founders, VCs and internet bankers took a moment to look up from their iPhones and listen in hushed reverence as one of Silicon Valley‘s top investors explained what he looks for when choosing the…
via: www.theverge.com
… another buzzword in the valley these days is ‘virality engineer‘. everyone want one, who will save the startup by providing the growth everyone wants to see.
it’s great that we are aware of the users and obsessed with them, but the hockey stick is the end goal. the goal of an entrepreneur should be to create a sustainably growing organization, mix of products, people and processes that ensure continuos creation of value, with or without the original entrepreneur.
May 12th, 2012 § § permalink
Information explosion (Photo credit: Emilie Ogez)
Sanebox, this is a startup i really like, because they make my inbox managable.  they are for email, what evernote is for notes. they just get it.
Calling email overload “a crisis in communication”, TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington issued a challenge back in 2008: “Someone needs to create a new technology that allows us to enjoy our life but not miss important messages.
via: techcrunch.com
basically, it’s just a ‘priority inbox’ that actually works – they classify less important emails correctly, and they send me a summary at the end of the day. it turns out, most of unimportant stuff is just spam, or automated reminders that I can just glance over and forget.
simple concept, that makes all of us a bit more productive – how much does the planet gain, if we all save 30 mins each day?
May 9th, 2012 § Comments Off on Entrepreneurship is about to become illegal § permalink
Image by Franck Vervial via Flickr
Considering some of the best articles about entrepreneurship these days are comparing us to the forbidden parts of society…
Recently, I did a talk at JFDI, a Y-combinator-quality incubator for South East Asia, where I shared how it is like to be an entrepreneur. A lot of people tend to think: Being entrepreneur is about having a $1B+ home
run in the first try. But it’s almost never the case. The best way to describe the life would be through an analogy of playing poker.
via: sgentrepreneurs.com
… this reminded me of my favorite startup advice article: Everything I need to know about startups, I learned from a crime boss
… and if we add the famous UK startups experiment: Techy-types strip for charity
… we are getting really close to the PPP đ
May 8th, 2012 § Comments Off on âI live by morals, I do… § permalink
âI live by morals, I donât live by laws, laws are something made by assholes.â
Read more
I find this quote incredibly telling of the revolution we are witnessing now. New generation of geeks is dumping everything the human race learned in the last 500 years and is going back to basics, figuring out new world order as we go.
Laws used to be codification of morals, then they were hijacked by assholes who can’t use the internet to control us anymore, which gives us a temproray upper hand.
It’s necessary, and it’s dangerous.Â
May 8th, 2012 § Comments Off on Union Square Ventures adds technology ‘advocate’ to its payroll – how about other experts? § permalink
“WE ARE SAVING THROUGH PAYROLL SAVINGS” – NARA – 516067 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Great and important move, that USV probably decided to do because it has to be done right and there is nobody else who would take it on themselves.
It’s an established fact that technology and politics are increasingly finding themselves at loggerheads with one another, as issues of privacy, piracy, and copyright, not to mention net neutrality and media consolidation cut a larger profile on the national stage.
via: thenextweb.com
I was actually thinking recently that a different kind of activity would make sense for early stage VC – provide experts in residence for their startups, for instance: cutting edge virality ninjas, scalability/big data experts, startups finance expert… these guys should be seasoned, amazing, unaffordable by a normal startup, but if shared amongst a portfolio, they could really make a huge difference.
May 2nd, 2012 § Comments Off on not gonna fly: hyperink, ebooks from everyone § permalink
i like books, i like blogs, i like long tail models, but i don’t think this will work:
With the âBlog To Booksâ program, Hyperink assigns a staff editor to curate a bloggerâs posts, structure them into a narrative format, and then create a book in PDF, epub, and mobi formats.
from: Techcrunch
it’s not the amount of work really, but the available supply and demand – there is not much of either:
- i’d guess there is less than 20k blogs that will ever want to create a sellable ebook
- i’d guess that each of them will sell 50 ebooks, mainly as gifts for their friends
it saddens me when investors and media pump up the expectations of otherwise interesting startup teams. sure you can argue that if the team is right, they will pivot from this idea anyway. but in b3c marketplace businesses like this, it usually takes a lot of energy to get enough disproof that you can actually decide to pivot.
meh.
April 14th, 2012 § § permalink
Pop singer Michael Jackson at the White House ceremony to launch the campaign against drunk driving. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
networking is not about dressing up, mingling with famous people, drinking cocktails or beer or anything else, it’s not about increasing your visibility or clout, or about checking in with other people etcâŚ
networking is working, and that’s working on a very specific set of activities, which is completely different from the ones listed before.
- unless it’s a really huge party (1000 people, several floors etc.), introduce yourself to the host. it’s the only way you can make sure you’ll be invited next time.
- do your homework! who will be there? what’s their background? do you have any thoughts for them? how are your worlds connected? why would they want to talk to you? or why should they talk to you? these questions you should know answers to before you show up, for everyone in the room if possible! every time! you have no right to come up to the guest of honor and asking “so what does your company do?” you’re wasting time for everyone else in the room! and don’t you dare ask that question at the public session, because the other person has no gracious way to get out of it without wasting everybody’s time.
- don’t small talk! or do so only in the first 10 seconds of each conversation, to break the ice and show your language skills are sufficient. nobody goes to networking events to hear more about the weather, food, drinks, politics or your personal life. don’t waste the time and energy i’m trying to spend in your favor by talking to you!
- you don’t have to talk to everyone in the room, but try sticking around long enough, to talk to at least one person. you have to buy the ticket to win the lottery. and after you do, follow up!
- don’t read these points and nod your head and think ‘what assholes some people are’ – I so know you are doing the same on every event you go to. it’s human condition to be egoistic and we all have to work to overcome it all the time. fuck you, be humble.
- Fascinated By People Who… (allisonnazarian.com)
- Fuck you (teremity.wordpress.com)
