http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html
Startup in 13 Steps
Two that caught my attention - ‘Focus’ and ‘Let it evolve’
http://www.ebri.org/pdf/march%205,%202009%20update%20full%20universe%20since%20jan%201,%2020092.pdf
A close friend of mine sent me this link. We both have a common Indian and Singapore upbringing and used to be puzzled about the consumer economy of US.
After more than a decade now, we are right in the middle of it! We enjoyed the bountiful days of the market and now sitting like a duck and watching the vapor ware investment disappear as well.
Like most Americans, we strongly believe in the entrepreneurial spirits here and how a mix of good policy and freedom and security of small business makes the economy rebound.
Good luck • Hard work • Honesty - Let us work together to lead us out of this disturbing economy!
http://paulgraham.com/convergence.html
Live show, against audience interest?
What the article implies
My take
Big business fails because…
Good observation. Typical reason why established companies fail – they fail to change with the market demand!
Most business go through a slow death, where they try to force users to still use their service or change too slow.
Technology driven companies fall in this trap more often than marketing driven companies. Market driven companies have a favorable mind set to acquire new startups to change their direction.
Regarding ‘broadcast business’…
The article suggests that TV Networks are falling in the same trap as newspaper where they are assuming a common interest across a big demographic!
Comparing it with restaurant industry will make it easy – imagine there are only 3 restaurant chain in the US which has 10 entrées each – that is a total of 30 types of food for 300M people!
People will be desperate for more choices!
However, the article seems to ignore the fact that there are 1000s of channels for the consumer to select from (and they are indirectly owned by TV Networks) – it is not one signal to everyone – it is 6 broadcast signals to everyone who doesn’t want to pay for selective signal through cable!
Yes, yet another way to spend that extra 2hr you have in your day :-)
Actually, this is cool. You start a topic to get some feedback on, invite folks interested in it (through links in your twitter, blog etc) and after a few days, collect all the feedback and hopefully do something useful with that!
Here is my tinychat - chat about email marketing for SMBs
Two interesting thoughts from this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/business/15ping.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
* “Perfection closes off the process,” Mr. Jarvis said. “It makes you deaf. Google purposefully puts out imperfect and unfinished products and says: ‘Help us finish them. What do you think of them?’ ”
* “If you’re a product manager, you have to recruit people and their ‘20 percent time,’ ” Mr. Crowley said.
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It is rare for a product manager in established software companies to think othemselves as recruiting engineers in their free time to work for their business. Dev teams are either too far (outsourced) removed from them or they tend to treat them as another resource in their budget.
It is easy to say that Product Managers should treat themselves as startup entrepreneurs and still maximize the benefits of large corporate infrastructure.
There are some interesting directions for product managers here. Work on the angle, depending on the company structure, to justify releasing your product/vision out to the public without worry about 'commercial launch'.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/13/ivps-chaffee-why-i-invested-in-twitter/
“From a business perspective, it is a media property that is growing very quickly”
Never thought of it this way. I felt twitter is a new communication media, like telephone, email but not a information media like TV, radio, Internet!
So, they are owning this retail space and when people want to build shops, display billboards, they plan to make money selling space.
Hopefully, there is no real estate down-turn for them!
http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-41413-113.html
In general, announcements like this showcase the difference between a technology driven company and one that is marketing driven. A technology company wants the credit for the accomplishment as soon as possible while the marketing driven company wants to drive the highest sales wave that can be achieved. That's why Apple, which is marketing driven, waits (the first iPhone being the exception) until something is ready before they announce it; they want buyers in stores buying and not waiting for a future event.
Tech companies have started to be more customer focused (at least want to).
Companies like Apple seem to innovate by anticipating the convergence of technology and consumer habit and figure out what can be marketed.They don't seem to be asking the users what will they spend money on next year nor ask them how should the button look like. They seem to think that it is their job to lead the consumers for greater satisfaction by identifying technology, trends, business and political policies etc. If they are there to listen and do what the consumer wants, they will be a evolutionary company not a revolutionary one.
They take a huge gamble, but also huge reward by being innovative.
But, most tech companies tend to play it safe and depend on their customers to tell them what they want the company to develop. Having spent considerable time in software line, I know that it is harder than it looks to 'listen to customers'. Play it safe, provide incremental benefit, don't disrupt existing process, maximize existing investment and the list goes on and on. Basically, keep your creativity and knowledge of future trends at office when talking to customers.
The rift between the above two approaches is more so when you compare consumer products vs. enterprise products.
Customer focused - you educate them of the trends, but stick to what they can grasp and don't bet on overselling future feature.
Market focused - anticipate and gamble, better be really good at articulating why some one needs your new gadget.
And, don't try to be both unless you made millions in Los Vegas :-)
