June 2010
“To have profitable growth in such a huge market, you find a segment in which you...”
– Reed Hastings, CEO Netflix, slide 11 of Netflix Business Opportunity
What companies have reinvented themselves?
fascinated:
Large record labels get a bad rap for refusing to change, embrace the new revenue contraints of recorded music, the Internet, etc.
Over coffee with Erik, we remarked that they are not alone - few companies in any industry have been able to reorganize and reinvent themselves in the face of a gradual but certain decline. In this context, everything is much less dramatic.
Do you know...
Tumblr should have...
giantrobotlasers:
Tumblr should have something equivalent to an @reply. It should go in the “messages” area in the dashboard. A question should be highlight-able and an @reply assigned so as to send just a part of a post to a friend, with context available.
Another benefit of an @reply is the ability to do a type-ahead like facebook. This would make me associate a tumblog with an identity...
May 2010
Ballmer just opened the Second Envelope | Monday... →
(via datainsightsideas)
“As for those who suggest that the heterosexual pair bond is part of our...”
– Is Marriage Necessary? (via azspot)
52 Weeks of UX: Teach Your Users Well →
In the Usage Lifecycle, the transition between First Time Use and Ongoing/Passionate Use can often be narrowed down to one crucial element: education.
Here is a familiar scenario that all of us have experienced to some degree or another:
…
How do we minimize those moments for our…
Summary of Robert Cialdini's must-read book... →
Here’s the first of six - reciprocity:
The opportunity to exploit this tactic is due to three characteristics of the Rule of Reciprocity:
The rule is extremely powerful, often overwhelming the influence of other factors that normally determine compliance with a request.
The rule applies even to uninvited first favors, which reduces our ability to decide whom we wish to owe and putting the...
What Customers Want from Your Products →
This 2006 article from Clayton Christensen is another way of describing Jeff Bezos’ #1 tenet - Start with the customer and work backwards.
“A baseball manager recognizes a nonphysical talent, hustle, as an essential gift...”
– Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month (via anoemi)
First, major props to you for reading this book. 30 years later, it’s still a must-read for software dev managers / project managers.
Second, you might also want to read Tracy Kidder’s excellent (and Pulitzer Prize winning) Soul of a New...
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“Apple is building the Disney computer network. All the streets are clean, and...”
– Dave Winer (via azspot)
I just published my second email newsletter - the... →
This one is about the “Starving Startup” and how, with all the talk of “Lean” vs. “Fat” startups, too many entrepreneurs are taking too little money. Click the link above to sign up for future posts.
Results of the 2010 Entrepreneurship survey
These are the high level results of a survey sent to entrepreneurs living in NYC, Boston, and Palo Alto.
Public Funding
Ø Just 13% of respondents sought public financing; 42% sought private financing
Ø The median public raise was $2 Million, while the median private raise was $275,000.
Ø 69% of companies that applied for public funding received some
Ø Only 30% of companies...
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Inspired by @msg and @heyamberrae, I’m offering a private email newsletter that will be an opportunity for me to write longer, more thoughtful posts in tech and startups (and occasionally food). Copying Michael, it costs $4/month and I’ll give you your money back if you’re not finding it worth at least as much as a grande peppermint mocha from Starbucks.
Thanks, everyone.
“The second thing that has to happen is that product and engineering resources...”
– A VC
Sounds a lot like the 2-pizza teams we had at Amazon.
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I know I'm late to this party but I love my new...
Don’t tell my parents! J and I split it… does that make it ok?
“Open is for losers.”
– Investor Dave McClure: ‘Open is for losers’ | VentureBeat
I wasn’t there so I may be speaking with limited context but I agree with Dave (but don’t judge me until the end). I think most of the discussion about open vs. closed assumes that building a platform is easy and we can simply choose. The...
Fred Wilson on Product and Engineering →
alexismichelle:
Thought this was a very helpful and interesting post. This was one of my favorite parts:
“If you have a super strong engineering team but a weak or understaffed product team, you will struggle. If you have built a functioning organization in engineering but not in product, you will struggle. If you have a team where one of your two team leads is weak, it will struggle.
If...
The Worm →
heyitsnoah:
The Atlantic has a great story on the Conficker worm which I had heard about, but not paid a ton of attention to. Apparently the thing is pretty damn sophisticated and some of the smartest computer security folks in the world are trying to fight it (mostly to no avail). I especially enjoyed the game theory of the whole thing as both sides try to guess what the other is thinking the...
tag me with a spoon: This. →
mcdavis:
…
I’m just kind of astounded by the ridiculousness of what you see below by mcdavis and caterpillarcowboy. The most ridiculous statement of all is the blanket one by mcdavis: “The internet is not private.” Of course parts of the Internet are private. My gmail, I certainly hope, my…
When I’m back in NYC, we should grab drinks and have a friendly chat about this.
I...
Watchdavid-noel:
Watch Marc Andreessen of Andreessen & Horowitz answer open questions in this Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner video.
It’s always worthwhile to put time aside and listen to smart people, if only to better understand how they think and how they see macro trends. Having two $1+ Billion companies puts you in that category.
This.
peterfeld:
sarahchristine:
“The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly… Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” —Mark Zuckerberg via Tomorrow Museum (via somethingchanged)
What bullshit, Zuckerberg. It’s called privacy, it’s called having a personal...
“The only other teams to win a series after trailing 3-0 were the 1942 Toronto...”
– Philadelphia Flyers vs. Boston Bruins - Recap - May 14, 2010 - ESPN
However the New York Yankees are the ONLY TEAM IN THE 100+ YEAR HISTORY OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TO BLOW A 3-0 PLAYOFF SERIES LEAD.
Just FYI.
(via shorterexcerpts)
This is why I hate Red Sox fans. Always gotta bring it up.
I...
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Hanging out a CoLoft
These guys are being so hospitable! Check ‘em out at coloft.com