a daring journey

Your #1 enemy: Accepted wisdom

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 06:17:20 -0400

You don’t have to have been in the business world for long to come across accepted wisdom in its many forms. It often takes the form of blanket statements that begin with “No one”

2011 Blogging Roadmap: “Zero to product/market fit”

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:39:43 -0400

2011 Blogging Roadmap: “Zero to product/market fit”:

I’m going to try to start blogging again!
It’s been a long time since I was in a good blogging rhythm, and I’m going to try to start doing it again In preparation for this, I put together an outline of an output-driven set of milestones around product, that takes you from zero to a P/M fit product thats ready to scale on marketing/tech/etc.

As far as I can tell, this is all standard fare for companies in Silicon Valley. My desire to write these posts is ultimately about documenting what’s working for people and spreading the knowledge beyond Palo Alto, CA All of these topics are ultimately derived by both my own projects as well as my advisory roles at venture-backed startups. (Some of these are listedhere)

If you like the outline and want to stay up to date, just subscribe and follow me on Twitter.

Without further ado, here’s the outline- I hope to write at least a post or two per week:

After the Techcrunch bump: Life in the “Trough of Sorrow”

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:39:20 -0400

After the Techcrunch bump: Life in the “Trough of Sorrow”:

The life of a startup
A few years back at a YCombinator dinner, Paul Graham and the other partners drew a great diagram depicting the life of a new product. The main discussion is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=173261. It captures a viscerally truthful thing about the life of a new company- first you’re excited, then you’re not, and if you stick with it, you just might make it work. It could take years. But you may fail too, you never know until you do it.

The Startup Curve

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:26:12 -0400

The Startup Curve:

an oldie, but a goodie:

Many people think startups are up and to the right all the time. But more services exhibit this “startup curve” than any other growth pattern. Of course, some never get past the trough of sorrow. But many do. Mostly by staying focused on the problem they are trying to solve and working diligently to get to the promised land.

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:22:00 -0400

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling:

These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coates, Pixar’s Story Artist. Number 9 on the list - When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next – is a great one and can apply to writers in all genres.

Hooked: The Psychology of How Products Engage Us by Nir Eyal

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 02:06:01 -0500

Hooked: The Psychology of How Products Engage Us by Nir Eyal

Ang Lee and the uncertainty of success

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:42:01 -0500

Ang Lee and the uncertainty of success:

In 1993 I interviewed film director Ang Lee before the US premiere of his second movie, “The Wedding Banquet,” at the Seattle International Film Festival (at the time I was editor of the International Examiner and we were one of their media sponsors). At the time, Lee was an unknown in the U.S., an anomaly as a Taiwan-born immigrant director in the United States, mostly notable for having been the NYU classmate of the more famous director Spike Lee.

What Hasn’t Changed: The Internet Keeps Getting Bigger.

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:40:00 -0500

What Hasn’t Changed: The Internet Keeps Getting Bigger.:

Recent articles by the WSJ, Fred Wilson, & others are noting a shift in investor interest to enterprise and away from consumer. If true, this is a huge error… at least for entrepreneurs, angels, and smaller funds. There is no better time than the present to build cheap & scalable software-based businesses that make money. And while there is lots of new potential for using consumer marketing techniques in the enterprise, let’s not be too hasty in digging an early grave for the Interwebs, shall we?

What Has Changed

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:39:42 -0500

What Has Changed:

As I read this post in the WSJ about the changing nature of VC funding of consumer web companies, I thought that we may be looking at the symptoms and not the disease. As the WSJ notes, VC funding of consumer web and mobile companies is down 42% in this first nine months of 2012 (vs the first nine months of 2011). And the big falloff is not in seed rounds, which are still getting done, but in follow-on rounds, which are not.

2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 11:56:40 -0500

2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update

What Happened To Yahoo

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 22:55:18 -0500

What Happened To Yahoo:

When I went to work for Yahoo after they bought our startup in 1998, it felt like the center of the world. It was supposed to be the next big thing. It was supposed to be what Google turned out to be.

What went wrong? The problems that hosed Yahoo go back a long time, practically to the beginning of the company. They were already very visible when I got there in 1998. Yahoo had two problems Google didn’t: easy money, and ambivalence about being a technology company.

Tenth Grade Tech Trends

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:44:36 -0500

Tenth Grade Tech Trends:

A few months ago, my fifteen-year-old sister told me that Snapchat was going to be the next Instagram. Many months before that she told me that Instagram was being used by her peers as much as Facebook. Both times I snickered.

Learning from past mistakes, I took some time over the holiday break to ask my sister many, many questions about how she and her friends are using technology. Below I’ve shared some of the more interesting observations about Instragram, Facebook, Instant Messaging, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, and FaceTime. I hope you’ll find them as informative, surprising, and humbling as I did.

22 Startup Lessons Learned in the First 12 Months

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:20:06 -0500

22 Startup Lessons Learned in the First 12 Months:

The first 12 months of your business can determine the success or failure of it. The National Venture Capital Association estimates that 25% to 30% of venture-backed businesses fail. According to recent research by Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, if failure is defined as failing to see the projected return on investment—say, a specific revenue growth rate or date to break even on cash flow—then more than 95% of start-ups fail, based on Mr. Ghosh’s research.

How "Social Discovery" Is The Next Big Thing In New Media

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:51:17 -0500

How "Social Discovery" Is The Next Big Thing In New Media:

The concept of social discovery is nothing new. In fact, it was at the heart of the beginnings of social media as dating sites latched onto the idea of meeting new people as the core of their operations and services. Today, online dating is just as big as it’s ever been but social, but people are looking more towards social media to find new things that go beyond love.

Risks, Rewards, Stress: Early Employees & Founders

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 03:14:24 -0500

Risks, Rewards, Stress: Early Employees & Founders:

People who have not started a company often do not realize how hard and painful the very early, raw days, of a startup can be.
Early MSFT team; Looks like photo taken with InstagramThis has lead to one of the fallacies I frequently hear - early employees ”take on as much risk and work just as hard as a company’s founders, but don’t get the same rewards”. While there may be some instances where this is true (e.g. if the early employee is basically joining the startup when there is no product, no money raised, and no vision for where things are heading and then works his or her butt off), in most cases the risk undertaken and work ethos of the founder and their early employees differ dramatically.

How Pinterest Will Transform the Web in 2012: Social Content Curation As The Next Big Thing

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 03:13:42 -0500

How Pinterest Will Transform the Web in 2012: Social Content Curation As The Next Big Thing:

The most interesting wave hitting the social web in 2012 is social curation. This was kicked off in 2011 as Pinterest’s growth was noticed by Silicon Valley and a number of companies quickly followed suit - Snip.It launched as a social information curation platform, Quora adopted boards for a similar purpose, and Fab.com launched a structured social commerce feed.

In this blog post I will discuss the evolution of social media from long-form to push-button, the emergence of social curation on sites such as Twitter and Tumblr, and the move to structured sets of curated content on Pinterest and its brethren.

Marissa Mayer's Plan to Make Yahoo Part of Your Daily Mobile Routine

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:01:07 -0500

Marissa Mayer's Plan to Make Yahoo Part of Your Daily Mobile Routine:

Marissa Mayer wants Yahoo to be a part of your everyday life, and she’s pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to achieve it. In a half-hour interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker in Davos, Mayer spoke about the need to work Yahoo into people’s daily activities — checking the weather and the news, playing games — through mobile, personalization and partnerships.

Battle of the internet giants - Survival of the biggest

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 04:20:44 -0500

Battle of the internet giants - Survival of the biggest :

THE four giants of the internet age—Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon—are extraordinary creatures. Never before has the world seen firms grow so fast or spread their tentacles so widely. Apple has become a colossus of capitalism, accounting for 4.3% of the value of the S&P 500 and 1.1% of the global equity market. Some 425m people now use its iTunes online store, whose virtual shelves are packed to the gills with music and other digital content. Google, meanwhile, is the undisputed global leader in search and online advertising. Its Android software powers three-quarters of the smartphones being shipped. Amazon dominates the online-retail and e-book markets in many countries; less well known is its behind-the-scenes power in cloud computing. As for Facebook, if the social network’s one billion users were a country, it would be the world’s third largest.

How Does Google Make Money with Android?

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 04:17:42 -0500

How Does Google Make Money with Android? :

When Google announced they were buying what eventually became the Android operating system — an operating system intended for cell phones — everyone immediately thought that Google was getting into the cell phone business, maybe even the cellular carrier business. Rumors of a “Google Phone” began to circulate. It was to be free, and you’d never have to pay another cell phone bill again.

At least that’s what the rumors hinted at.

We all know that didn’t happen. Google doesn’t make hardware. They don’t even have their own handsets any more (long live the Nexus One!). Google doesn’t even “own” Android. Google released Android as Open Source, basically giving it away for free to anyone that wants to use it.

How can you make money when you’re giving it away for free?

In a nutshell, Google doesn’t make any money from Android — not from the OS. With all the hours they spend contributing to the Android Open Source Project, Android actually costs Google money — a lot of money.

Last time I checked Google isn’t running a charity. How can their shareholders be happy with them throwing money hand-over-fist at Android? I’m glad you asked. Shareholders did to. Google asked them to trust them for the time being. I think the shareholders are happy with Google’s progress with Android. But to see why, let’s dig a little deeper.

Snapchat and our never-ending quest for impermanence

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:04:01 -0500

Snapchat and our never-ending quest for impermanence:

The growth of apps like Snapchat, which allow users to set a time limit after which photos self-destruct, is seen by many as driven by “sexting.” But some users may simply be attracted by the idea of sharing content in a way that isn’t completely permanent.