Here's what I think about your marketing…
Ramblings
The Downside of CyanogenMod, The Wisdom of EA’s CEO
01 month ago
About a month ago, I attended an event at Electronic Arts. It was a Haas/Berkeley b-school alumni event (yeah, as a Tepper alum, it was painful, and I was the only one without a blue sportcoat and khakis) and featured EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, as the keynote, plus a presentation from the winning team of a recent Haas pitch competition.
EA's CEO shares his wisdom while I diligently capture every bit in an app that will soon be flashed into oblivion.
During the event, Riccitiello talked about “three things startup entrepreneurs need to consider,” or something like that. I can’t remember because, well, because if I don’t write something down I tend to forget it within 24 hours.
What I do remember is that his insights were amazing, that they really resonated with me, and that I couldn’t wait to write a post diving into each one.
The kicker here is that I did write it down, in the Miui notes app in my rooted/flashed Samsung Galaxy S2 phone. Yes, I sometimes revel in my phone modding awesomeness!
At this point, I’m sure you’re asking, “Well, wtf? If you took notes, why am I reading this blog full of excuses instead of hanging on every word of your usually compelling and intelligent insights?”
Yeah, me too.
Seems as though my awesomeness usually manifests itself as outright stupidity in the form of not fully thinking things through (or not thoroughly reading the full instructions) before embarking on a project. Recipes are a particular problem area. For example, I’ll have a hankering for a creative dinner, find a great recipe, buy the ingredients, then start the cooking process around 7pm. Then, about once a quarter, the clock nears 8pm and the next step in the recipe says something like, “simmer for three hours.” Here’s a good example. It’s happened enough that the wife now laughs it off…and then makes cream of wheat for herself while I solider on and have dinner at 10:30p.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the insightful comments from Riccitiello.
Did you know that the Cyanogen dude behind CyanogenMod is from the 'Burgh? Nice, n'at.
OK, so I took copious notes on my smartphone. I planned a great blog post, and even started thinking about ways to approach each of his different points. As usual, work and life got in the way and I put it off for a few weeks. But, I always remembered that I took great notes and would be able to whip out a post at any time.
Then, my daily news alert for the keywords “ICS+Galaxy+S2″ finally had a hit related to a working version of CyanogenMod 9 for my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, better known as the i777. So, always wanting to have the cutting edge phone OS, I flashed the rom, installed Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and was in heaven…until I wanted to write this post.
As I realized that I flashed my notes out of existence, like Dicaprio in Inception, my world crashed around me. Do you remember the days of MS Word crashing after you spent 90 minutes editing a doc? Well, regardless of how close this was to that experience, that’s how I felt. Yes, I like to blow things out of proportion.
So what did I do? Well, I wrote this amazingly entertaining post. Then, thanks to the ever-wonderful Google thingy, I was able to find a refresher on the event. Problem: solved!
Here’s a recap of Riccitiello’s main points:
- Understand who the customer is and who the product is designed to serve
- Have a clear value proposition to know what problem you’re trying to solve
- Have the right kind of talent in order to make the product a success
- Listen, listen again, adjust, then listen one more time
- Successful ventures are ones that change over time
Great points, all. I’ve talked to many wannabe entrepreneurs over the years who absolutely KNOW without a doubt what their customers want, but refuse to consider any feedback because, “well, you just do get it.” I’ve heard time and time again from those who think that all they need to do is throw up a website and the crowds will just magically appear without any marketing, not to mention a clear value prop. Talent? Well, most of the soon-to-be failures think that they themselves are the only talent that they’ll ever need.
The last two points are the ones that really separate the wannabes from the truly sharp entrepreneurs. When I started HulaCopter, I told anyone who would listen about my idea, business model, marketing plan, etc., and then I listened to their feedback. Some feedback was great, some not so good, but I still listened and took everyone’s feedback as another data point to consider.
Changing over time? Well, the pervasiveness of the buzzword “pivot” proves that most people now think that it’s best to ensure that you change your plan quickly, just so you can say that you pivoted. (Kind of like I started this post as a reflection on EA’s CEO’s comments and then pivoted it to be about me and my lack of a phone backup solution.)
Bottom Line
I’m not sure what the bottom line is for this post. On one hand, it’s that you shouldn’t trust anything digital to save your thoughts. On the other hand, it’s that you should listen to smart people and take their advice, even if they went to a sub-par b-school.
By the way, Riccitiello worked at The Clorox Company, PepsiCo, Häagen-Dazs, Wilson Sporting Goods, and Sara Lee Corporation, in addition to EA. That’s quite the resume!
SOPA: Wrong for Everyone!
14 months ago
Note: Today was “SOPA Blackout” day, where Google, Wikipedia, and thousands of other websites blocked access to protest SOPA. I’m vehemently anti-censorship, have contacted my local Senators and Congresspeople (several times), and wrote the following post, which originally appeared on Aloha Startups.
UPDATE: Both SOPA and PIPA were killed…but new threats loom…
SOPA: Wrong for Startups, Wrong for the Internet, Wrong for America
I really don’t want to get political, but the issue of censorship really tweaks my craw. When I was in high school, I learned about Freedom of Speech, due process, and how censorship was used to oppress people in other, “evil” countries. I had to read “Fahrenheit 451″ and was taught that the USSR was evil because, among other things, the government controlled the news. More recently, I’ve read stories about the “Arab Spring” being energized via social media, and that the US helped to keep those channels of communication open while their governments tried to censor them. Now, it appears that our own government is trying to make it easier to censor the internet in the US.
SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill introduced to the House of Representatives this fall to give law enforcement and copyright holders more power to fight internet piracy. According to Wikipedia…
Proponents of the bill say it protects the intellectual property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue, and is necessary to bolster enforcement of copyright laws especially against foreign websites.[5] Opponents say it is Internet censorship,[6] that it will cripple the Internet,[7] and will threaten whistleblowing and other free speech.[8]
While I’m obviously against online piracy, as everyone should be, SOPA gives rights holders the ability to shut down websites’ payment systems just by claiming copyright infringement. PCMag.com had this to say:
Among the more controversial provisions is a section that would allow rights holders to contact the financial institutions that do business with a particular Web site and ask them to shut down access because of infringing content. If you ran a Web site that used PayPal or accepted payment via MasterCard, for example, and someone thought your site contained pirated content, they could contact PayPal or MasterCard and have those companies cut off access to your site, effectively shutting down your business.
Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), who introduced the bill, said that the bill’s critics are “spreading lies” after some of the top internet companies printed an open letter saying that the bill (and the PROTECT IP Act) provides censorship “techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.”
SOPA is still in committee, but they are meeting today to vote on amendments to the bill. (I was going to link the word “committee” to the YouTube-posted version of “I’m Just a Bill,” but it was taken down due to copyright infringement. Irony?)
Democracy In Action
So what did I do? I contacted my representative, Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa, to express a constituent’s opposition to SOPA. (It’s made very easy at http://americancensorship.org/, where you just type in your phone number and zip code, they give you a few talking points, and then your phone rings, already connect with your representative’s office!)
While Rep. Hanabusa’s email response to an earlier anti-SOPA note I submitted via her website, pasted in its entirety below, assures me that she will “keep (my) thoughts in mind should this bill or any similar piece of legislation come to the floor,” it’s obvious to me that she supports SOPA. She does go into detail to clear up some potential confusion about the controversial portions of the bill, and uses the typical politician fear-mongering lines around “unsuspecting consumers,” “expose children to serious health risks,” and “identity theft,” but avoids the bigger points around due process and censorship as they relate to the rights holder’s (not the Attorney General’s) ability to impact suspect sites.
Read the email for yourself, educate yourself on SOPA, make your views known to your representative, and let us know what you think in the comments. Whether you’re for or against this legislation, let your voice be heard. While our rights may be starting to erode with this bill, at least the macro democratic process is still going strong…in theory.
 |
| December 14, 2011
Dear Rushin,
Thank you for your correspondence regarding H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. I appreciate your input on this important issue.
H.R. 3261, introduced by Representative Lamar Smith (TX), allows the Attorney General to seek an injunction that would block access to foreign websites dedicated to intellectual property infringement. Intellectual property is any product conceptualized by an individual that has commercial value. This includes among other things patents, trademarks and trade secrets. Common intellectual property infringement includes pirated software, illegal distribution of music or movies, or counterfeit merchandise.
Many of these foreign sites appear legitimate to unsuspecting consumers, who are tricked into purchasing shoddy products or downloading pirated content like music, movies or games. Some of these counterfeiters sell imitation
Under this bill, once the Attorney General formally seeks an injunction against a foreign website, the Justice Department must go to a federal judge and lay out the case against the site. If a federal judge agrees that the website in question is dedicated to illegal and infringing activity, then a court order can be issued directing companies to sever ties with the illegal website. Third-party intermediaries, like credit card companies and online ad providers, are only required to stop working with the site. They cannot be held liable for the illegal or infringing actions taken by the foreign website.
Under existing law, it is already illegal to operate domestic websites that infringe on intellectual property rights, just as it is illegal to operate a brick-and-mortar store selling pirated goods. H.R. 3261 simply extends those prohibitions to foreign infringing websites.
This legislation elicits vigorous debate on both sides of the issue and I appreciate all the input from constituents I have received on this bill. Unfortunately I believe there are several misconceptions of the bill that I would like to clear up.
First, H.R. 3261 does not restrict lawful free speech and is not a form of censorship. The fact is the bill establishes judicial review and requires judicial approval for a site to be shut down. Ultimately restricting sites from offering fake designer purses or selling copies of the latest Hollywood movie is not an unlawful restriction of an individual’s Constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Next, the bill would not require an entire site to be shut down if a single page is found to be infringing. H.R. 3261 allows a court to target only the portion of the site that is engaging in criminal activity or infringing, leaving access to or funding of the rest of the site alone.
Finally, the legislation does not require internet service providers to engage in any monitoring, supervising, or policing of their networks. It only requires them to take action at the direction of the Attorney General if a federal court rules that a foreign site is engaged in criminal activity for which seizure would apply if it were in the U.S. Just like 1998′s Digital Millennium Copyright Act, internet service providers are only required to take minimum steps, with no duty to monitor.
H.R. 3261 has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, where it awaits further consideration. Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind should this bill or any similar piece of legislation come to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote during the 112th Congress.
Again, thank you for expressing your views on this crucial issue. I hope you will continue to contact me on federal matters of concern to you. If you would like regular updates, please sign up for my e-newsletter athttp://hanabusa.house.gov.
Sincerely, Colleen Hanabusa |
Tech Product Names Suck
35 months ago
After nearly two years with my beloved HTC Nexus One phone (great name, eh?), I just upgraded to the new Samsung Galaxy S II 4G. But, since three of the four US carriers have a Samsung Galaxy S II 4G phone, mine is the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G for AT&T. Please don’t confuse my phone with the Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch (yes, with the comma), which is Sprint’s version, or the plain vanilla-sounding Samsung Galaxy S II, available at T-Mobile.
My phone, as its name implies, is a 4G version, same as the Sprint model. T-Mobile’s model doesn’t have 4G in its name, despite it also being a fully 4G phone. T-Mobile has other phones with 4G in the name, but not sure why they chose to skip it for the Galaxy S II.
The Samsung Galaxy S II Family: T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T, from left.
Oh, and even though only Sprint calls out the fact that their phone is a “Touch” (indicating a touch screen, I suppose), all of these Galaxy S II phones have a touch screen. Of course. Not sure why they didn’t all call that out, other than the fact that it’s pretty obvious to everyone these days that a “smartphone” is also a touch-screen phone.
Let me be clear that none of these phones are to be confused with AT&T’s Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket Android Smartphone. Yes, that’s its full name: Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket Android Smartphone.
The Skyrocket, as its name does not imply, is a 4G LTE phone (LTE is newer, faster technology, as opposed to the AT&T model’s older, slower HSPA+ technology, which AT&T has decided to market as 4G*).
Let’s review that last point: the phone utilizing slower, older 4G tech has “4G” in the name, but the phone utilizing the newer, faster LTE 4G tech does not have 4G in its name. Nor does it have LTE in its name. It does have “Skyrocket,” which, I guess, a focus group equated with super-fast mobile data speeds, so no need to be redundant. I’d love to know the reasoning behind that decision. Maybe all of AT&T’s LTE phones will be branded as Skyrockets?
Confused yet? You should be, although Samsung has made some confusing product naming decisions recently. In this case, however, I’m guessing that the carriers had more to do with it than Samsung.
(I had someone ask me the other day, “What’s the difference between an Android and a Droid?” I won’t even get in to the marketing behind that perplexing branding, or the fact that Verizon is marketing Droids as some sort of tech robot device…)
Apple is King, Right?
Not all tech companies have sucky product names. Apple, the master of marketing, has pretty straight-forward product names. The iPhone. The iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 4. And the new iPhone 4S. Simple. Same with their MacBook and MacBook Pro, and iPad and iPad 2. Not entirely consistent, but easy to follow. Although, when you get into their iPods, their naming becomes so simple that it’s confusing: every iPod is named simply “iPod <model>”, like iPod Touch or iPod Nano. But Apple changes the format or design or features every year, which sometimes renders past iPods incompatible with software updates or accessories or, more often, cases. Apple then resorts to the product’s generation, like, “Fits first and second generation iPod Shuffles.” Or, Apple forces accessory makers to resort to this type of crystal clear description: Fits 13-inch MacBook (aluminum unibody/black keyboard) & MacBook Pro 13-inch (incorporated SD Card Slot Version).
How do you know which generation iPod you have? And how does the average person know if their MacBook has a unibody?
HP Puts in Minimal Effort
In the past, I’ve marveled at HP’s confusing, long, cryptic product names. They’ve started to get better, but they still have a ways to go. Simply navigating to HP’s laptop products page you’ll see their Pavilion line in this order, sorted by price: dm1z, g6z, g6s, g4t, dv4t, g6x, g7t, dm4t, dv6t, dv6z, dm4x, dv7t, and dv6t (“select edition” and “quad edition”).
What the hell do those names mean? What’s the difference between the initial letters of d or g? Why are g’s mixed with dm’s and dv’s? And how do they expect the typical consumer to ever know what those names mean or which product they should purchase?
Let’s not even get into their printers…HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One Printer – B210a…
Sure, they have a massive product portfolio, but there’s no way for consumers to make heads or tails of their naming conventions.
Ask a Mac owner what laptop they have and they’ll say, “MacBook Air” or maybe even “13-inch MacBook Air” to be specific. But ask an HP laptop owner and I’m sure you’ll get, “Um, an HP.” Heck, I personally own an HP laptop and know that it’s some dv something or other, but have no clue of the full, proper name, or why it’s even named that way—and I’m a geek!
Bottom Line
Sure, there are a lot of available options, lightning-fast innovations, and frequent upgrades to tech products, but there needs to be more creativity and innovation on the naming side. Software companies have always made it easy with sequential version numbering or, more recently, annual releases tied to the year or season. Microsoft, who can’t seem to make up their minds, flip-flopped when they moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 then Windows 98, but then switched again to Windows XP, then Vista, and now Windows 7 and the upcoming Windows 8, but I digress…
What’s the solution? Give some marketing people access to these product naming decision meetings to provide a consumer’s point of view, rather than just the engineers’ point of view. I’m sure that there’s some very specific translation for all of these product names, but the average consumer will never spend the time to understand. Instead, they’ll just remain confused.
* The best line from PC Mag’s article on AT&T’s perversion of the term “4G” – “The International Telecommunications Union started out by defining 4G as a set of technologies that no U.S. carrier will have for several years. But as carriers defined 4G down, the ITU basically gave up.”
My Month with Miui
1I’ve had my beloved HTC Nexus One for about 18 months now. When it comes to tech hardware, for me, that’s about 12 months longer than usual. In fact, I was just reading about the new Kindle Fire and, as my gadget lust consumed me, I started to wonder if I have some sort of personality trait similar to drug addiction. I have a Windows 7 laptop, an Ubuntu laptop, two Android phones, an iPhone 3G, an iPod Touch, an iPod Mini, a Google Cr-48 chromebook, and an HP TouchPad – not to mention the wife’s Kindle and iPad – and I still want the Kindle Fire! What’s up with that?
Windshield wipers on an HTC Sense phone!
But I digress…
Back to the Nexus One. Over the past year and a half, I’ve gotten incredibly excited at every OS release, updating to Android 2.2 via OTA just to see how that worked, then manually updating to stock 2.3 to get the new UI. With each successive OS release, it’s the little things – whether with Android or iOS or Ubuntu or Windows – that get my curiosity going. More than the speed or power increases, I’m interested in the “look” and the new functionality. What’s going to change the look? Is the font different? How are the icons designed? What are the sounds? Can I change the color of the blinking trackball light to correspond to different types of alerts? How cool is that animation that flashes the display to sleep like an old TV set?
Yes, I am a geek.
However, since Gingerbread/2.3 dropped in December, 2010, and other than some minor releases, it’s been a long dry spell for Android (phone) updates. What’s a geek to do? Sure, I’ve installed apps and themes that give me the look of HTC’s Sense, but that’s just in a few areas – like the awesomely cool flip-style digital clock and killer weather animations (oh yeah, the raindrops and windshield wipers are my fav, for sure!). And, I changed my wallpaper pretty much weekly, going from Android’s cool “live wallpaper” to some of my own photos of local scenes to this awesome statue when I was on a bokeh kick. But those tweaks only satisfied me for so long.
The Unlock
I’ve always considered unlocking my phone, but never really wanted to devote the time to figure it out. The main driver was to try CyanogenMod, which is essentially a custom version of Android developed purely out of joy by a ‘Burgh dude, Cyanogen, and his community of developers. But I was always afraid of breaking something, bricking my phone, losing all of my data, or somehow making a mistake. Then, in a fit of boredom about a month ago, I took the plunge and, after about 20 minutes, had an unlocked Nexus One! It was an incredibly simple process and I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner.
Miui's refreshingly fresh look
With the phone unlocked, I now had the opportunity to “flash a custom ROM” onto the phone. CyanogenMod was the obvious choice, but I had been reading more and more about a Chinese company, Xiaomi, and their custom Android ROM, Miui. CyanogenMod looks very similar to stock Android and the team puts most of their effort into features and power, but Miui has taken a different approach and reskinned the entire UI. There’s very little in common with Android or even Sense. Sure, it’s the same 4×4 icon layout with a top notification bar and bottom button tray (same as every smartphone), but the “look” is entirely unique. All of the system-type apps, like the music player and text messaging, are new. Even better, Miui has fantastic support for themes, and better yet, you can cherry pick only the parts of themes that you like to create your own, totally custom theme. How cool is that?
The Flash
If the unlocking process was easy, the installation of Miui was just as painless. It took a few minutes and a couple of restarts and that was it. In my hands I held what was essentially an entirely new phone! Awesome! Of course, the downside was that, in my hands, I held an entirely new phone. I had to re-install all of my apps and reconnect with all of my social media services, but the process was pretty simple. In just 90 minutes or so, I was downright giddy! Over the next few days, I’m sure the wife became sick of watching me constantly play with my phone and, every few minutes, blurt out something like, “Oh cool! You gotta check this out!” She’s a good sport.
Some of the best improvements over stock Android are the capabilities of the Nexus One that Miui engages but that Android inexplicably ignores. It’s confusing especially since the “Nexus” phones are supposed to showcase all that Android can do. The FM radio is one example; it’s not accessible via Android at all. Multitouch is another. Why Google wouldn’t enable these features is beyond me, unless it has something to do with IP and lawsuits?
The Verdict
I’ll make it simple: Miui is awesome! I could go on for days on some of the best features, but here are a few of the key things that make it better than Android (and I won’t even compare it to iOS, which barely allows any user customizations at this level). It’s incredible to think of the amount of development that went into Miui, and that it’s FREE!
- Unlock Screen: Miui allows you to unlock directly into the dialer or messaging. The developers looked at the typically static unlock screen and asked themselves, “Why do people usually open their phones?” Obviously, it’s when they get an alert or they want to make a call. The unlock screen has three icons, a phone, lock, and message balloon. If you swipe on the phone icon, the phone unlocks into the dialer. It gets better by putting a number indicator to tell you how many unread texts or missed calls you have. Even better, if you press and hold on the message icon, it pops up the last few unread messages with no need to even unlock your phone! That’s amazingly helpful! If you’re listening to music, the unlock screen adds fwd/back and play/pause buttons so that you can quickly manage music without diving into your phone. This is invaluable when I’m running and listening to music on my phone.
Miui's unlock screen, showing the music controls (and graphics) plus the direct-to-app phone and message icons
- Camera: Miui speeds up the camera app’s opening so that you can take photos almost instantly. Then, they add dozens of new settings that Android ignores, like burst mode, effects, anti-shake, metering modes, and many more. You can even focus on specific areas of the image just by tapping that area. It also adds 720p video recording, for your high-def, memory-eating delight.
- Toggles: Stock Android offers a neat widget to toggle wifi, gps, sync, and brightness. Miui, again, goes much farther by putting 12 toggles into the swipe-down notification menu, making it accessible from any screen (unlike a widget, which lives on an individual screen). The “reboot” is an interesting toggle, and they even give you options for the type of reboot you wish to perform. Geeky, and I’ve never had to reboot my phone, but neat nonetheless.
- Guest Mode: An awesome feature that hides calls and texts and prevents apps from being deleted. Sure, it’s useful if you’re going to let someone else use your phone, but it’s killer for parents who want to let their kids play with their phones.
- Themes: I mentioned them earlier, but Miui themes are incredibly comprehensive and powerful, changing everything from fonts and sounds to icons and icon shapes, the look of the messaging interface, and the number of apps in the app tray. It’s incredible how they’ve implemented this to the point of essentially allowing anyone to create a theme and almost call it their own ROM. It’s that powerful.
- Torch: The Torch has to be the coolest app on Miui. I’m not sure if something similar is available elsewhere or in a downloadable app, but it’s brilliant! What does it do? From the lock screen, if you hold down the home key, your camera flash illuminates as a flashlight! It’s awesome for walking up dark stairs, finding your keys (or the keyhole), or not tripping and killing yourself in the dark.
- Additional Fluff: Pinching on any screen pops up a thumbnail of all screens, allowing you to quickly navigate to the desired screen or add new screens. App folders can create collections of apps within one button (yes, iOS has had this feature for a while…). There are eight screen transition options (when you’re swiping between screens), from 3D cube to rotate to page. You can add apps on up to 11 (maybe more?) screens, while Android limits it to 5. FTP, which allows you to copy files to/from your phone over wifi. The dialer shows a keypad plus the past four calls to quickly dial a recent caller. The battery icon can be made to show the exact percentage remaining, not just a simple, partially-empty icon. You can control, app by app, which can transfer data over wireless, wifi, or both, letting you specify, for example, that email can sync on wifi and wireless, but Netflix can only use wifi to save yourself from using all of your monthly data.
Bottom Line
I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but I think you get the drift. If you have an Android phone and want more control and a fresh UI, definitely give Miui a look. You’ll unlock your phone’s full potential and give yourself the chance to truly customize every aspect of your phone and make it your own. Honestly, it’s saved me a few hundred bucks from upgrading to an entirely new device. Sure, I’d love to have a bigger screen, and the N1′s “champagne” color is really cramping my style, but even in today’s lightning fast mobile phone world, my 18-month-old device is holding its own!
Get on it! I waited way too long, and now I’m looking forward to the day that I get tired of Miui (a few months, probably) and can give CyanogenMod a try. I’m sure the wife is excited for that as well…
Screw the VCs, I Know JQuery!
01 year ago
When I first set out to start my own app business, I figured it would require a few basic things: a business plan, developers, an alpha version, and then lots of angel and/or VC money to make it all come together. But, this week has really made me realize that I was very wrong. Let’s take a look the “why” for each area.
- Biz plan: In my years in the Bay Area, I’ve come to be highly suspect of any business plan, especially the revenue projections. Moving to Hawaii and working with some non-Bay Area companies has only reinforced my belief that business plans are akin to resumes for businesses: slightly inflated at best, outright lies and fabrications at worst. Business plan financials are notoriously inflated, because unless they show a billion-dollar market opportunity, they are worthless to VCs. So, every business plan creator then fabricates that billion-dollar opportunity out of thin air (and Gartner reports). It’s one of the many dirty little secrets of startups: everyone knows that it’s a lie, but everyone just goes along with it. (In place of a biz plan, I created a simple, three-page “concept document” to pass around for feedback.)
Swimming In The iPool (cc JD Hancock)
- Developers: I wish that I could code. I wish that I could create some whiz-bang app that used your GPS coordinates to tell you the optimal inflation for your mountain bike tires, or could use a photo from my phone to tell me if that slice of bread is bad before I make toast with it. I wish that I could take all of my ideas for the next killer app and make it a reality that same evening. Sadly, I’m limited to Google’s App Inventor (yes, I’ve already created my very own “whack-a-mole” app), WordPress (you’re looking at it right now – and you’ll see a different version if you visit this page with your mobile phone), and have just been introduced to Jquery Mobile. What does that mean? Well, the combination of these three (plus others, like Mobile Roadie and this list), make it easy for anyone with some basic knowledge of code to create at least a nice alpha version of any mobile app and at best a fully functional product.
- Alpha Version: Ah, the all-important alpha version: creationism. Sure, it might not actually process credit card payments or use the stars for navigation, but it will give you the ability to give a great demo and introduce your app concept to friends, partners, and potential users/customers. Using Jquery, it took me about one day to create my first mobile web app – mostly functional! I made a “Call Now” button fire off the phone’s dialer. I used coordinates to create a “Map It” button that opens Google Maps’ navigation tool. And, it all looks pretty darn nice, if I must say. That’s amazing, and significantly delayed my need to pay real money to real developers. Sure, I’ll need great developers very soon, but it’s amazing what can be accomplished easily and free these days.
- VC mondy: How much have I spent so far? Well, not counting my own time and Starbucks purchases, I’ve pretty much spent zero dollars and have a “real” version of my concept app that I can show to everyone. It doesn’t cover the full breadth of my concept, but it gets the point across and does it much better than me saying, over and over, “Imagine if you had this on your mobile phone…” Now, I can show them what I mean, and get exponentially more valuable feedback, ideas, and direction.
So, why do I even need VC money? Last fall, I watched this video by Jason Fried. One of his points that resonated with me was around taking outside investment: once you take that money, you’re focused on spending it, not on actually making money. It was a great point, and I’ve seen that happen countless times in Bay Area startups. Get $X million, spend it like you’re already making millions in revenue, then scramble for your next round of funding when you realize that you aren’t pulling in the revenue for which you set expectations in your business plan (see #1 above). I also recently met with a friend who has had success in numerous startups, large and small. When I mentioned looking for some angel funding, he was almost offended. Why would I want that false sense of security, he asked. Why would I plow money into development, or marketing, that wouldn’t be sustainable after the money ran out? Why would I take seed money at a fictitious valuation, which then requires a valuation increase for Series A, which then requires an inflated valuation for Series B, and so on? Why would I want to dilute my potential? (Of course, I can see many reasons to actually take outside investment, like the expertise provided by the advisors, to enter new markets, or to expand a proven model.)
Bottom Line
In the few short weeks that I’ve been at this, I’ve talked with a bunch of developers (CA, HI, Mexico, and India), a few VCs, and a ton of friends and colleagues. While 100% of the feedback has been valuable, only about half of it has been positive. In most cases, I tend to agree when they point out flaws, challenges, and competing products. It helps me to hone my pitch and focus my concept. It makes me better at what I’m doing, gives me a thousand more ideas, and helps me to really figure out how to make this work.
Yeah, I’ll probably need VC money to make this work. But, I’ll never get tired of reading the stories about successful entrepreneurs recounting the dozens and dozens of people who told them, “That’ll never work.” On the VC side, I just hope I don’t have to plow through 298 more rejections before I reach the level of Pandora…
Channeling the Positive…
01 year ago
So often, I tend to get very negative when it comes to marketing or business ideas. I’m sure my DW can attest to my most-used comment (“outburst” is probably a better word…) while reading VentureBeat is, “Oh my god! Listen to this stupid idea that just got millions in VC funding!” I’m not sure if it’s age, cynicism, or just being around a critical mass of coworkers over my lifetime to really, finally be able to quickly separate the smart from the, well, not so smart.
Example: While reading about Bump.com, the license-plate social media startup that links people via their car’s license plate numbers and has just raised $1M, I jumped to the conclusion that it was, yet again, another reason that the Silicon Valley bubble was about to burst. Instead, I should have focused on the positives:
By cswtwo (via Flickr, Creative Commons)
- VC and angel money is fairly easy to get.
- A startup’s focus is usually very different after a year.
- Getting an early jump on connecting your car to your social graph is an ingenious idea.
- This is a great experiment to test the bounds of social media.
- I now have an outlet beyond my middle finger and my horn for the jerk-store in front of me who jammed on his breaks and didn’t use his turn signal.
With less than two weeks focused on my own startup, I’ve quickly realized that there is as much negative energy in the business world as there is positive. And, being pretty much a solo operation, it’s up to me alone (and maybe Buddha) to ease my suffering. My negative energy hasn’t been because these other startup ideas have been that bad (OK, some have been that bad…), it’s been due to my jealousy and anger at myself for not having the confidence and positivity to launch something on my own.
Bottom Line
Now, when my startup launches, I can’t wait for all of the other people to say, “Yeesh, what a stupid idea!” It’s already happening, and, after a momentary, “oh no, they might be right,” I quickly plow forward, knowing that this is a great idea! And, to all of those other companies getting seed or VC funding, I say, “Good for you! (But leave some for me!)”
Why Do Marketers Make it So Difficult to Unsubscribe?
01 year ago
Over the last few months, part of my daily work routine has been deleting the dozens of spam and marketing emails that I receive every night. And, without fail, I always think, “Gee, maybe someday I should just unsubscribe from all of these lists!” I’ll skip over the ironic, hypocritical nature of that statement being uttered by a marketer…
By johnscotthaydon via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons.
Nevertheless, I chose yesterday as the beginning of the end of my overloaded inbox! As I started, I took both a marketer’s view and a recipient’s view of the unsubscribe process. Given that I ran a recent campaign designed to get people to proactively unsubscribe, where we almost begged them to remove themselves from our list, I started to laugh at the methods at which recognizable and established publications and companies use to make the process so confusing.
Click Here to Select Your Unsubscribe Process
At the highest level, there seems to be four general methods that marketers subscribe to (hee hee) for their unsubscribe process, from easiest to most absurd:
- The one-click method: A link labeled “unsubscribe” that opens a webpage stating that, “You’ve been unsubscribed.” Done!
- The “You figure it out” method: A link labeled “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” or, the clearly designed to confuse “change your email preferences,” which then takes you to a webpage with multiple choices and unclear directions.
- The attempt to confuse people into giving up method: A confusing link that drives you to a webpage where you need to reenter your email address, de-select the name of the newsletter you just clicked through, and select from a confusing set of action buttons with double-negative descriptions. Oh yeah, and then click “submit.”
- The “no method at all” method: The favorite of the “grey market” list brokers and cheapo sales and marketing people who blast out thousands of messages that look like personal emails, hoping that someone will bite.
Having been in the software space for over a decade, an area of confusion for me is the time until the unsubscribe takes effect. Across 30 or so unsubscribes in the past few days, I’ve seen everything from the instantaneous “you are now unsubscribed” to the ludicrous “please allow up to four weeks for this change to take effect.” Really? A whole month? I can see where maybe some ’90s vintage, homegrown email system requires a manual upload of an unsubscribe list from one system to another, but a whole month? If it takes longer than 24 hours for your unsubscribes to merge with your email marketing system, you either need to start calling the ExactTargets and Eloquas of the world, or you need to open your employer-provided MS Word ’95 and start cranking out a new resume.
Examples
Let’s take a look at a few of the unsubscribe procedures I went through over the past few days.
The Good
- LeadSloth, using Vertical Response and the “one-click” method. In fact, Vertical Response goes so far as to include this fine print on their unsubscribe page: iBuilder users are strictly prohibited from using UCE (spam) in their marketing efforts, and are subject to immediate termination if they do so. Wow! (BTW, I added the link to “UCE.”)
A surprisingly friendly email from Apple.
- While most unsubscribe pages were bland, flat, text-only affairs with little or no branding, Adobe/Omniture provided the prettiest unsubscribe page and actually put some thought into their branding during this seemingly negative activity. With a focus on marketing and the customer, they are doing this the right way.
The Bad
- TechTarget not only adds a bit of confusion, but questions my judgement by requiring a double answer. Their unsub page asks, “Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from this mailing from the sender?” and forces a yes or no radio button choice, plus requires you to click “Confirm” to make it so. Why not just have yes and no buttons? They add a slight bit of confusion with a footer that says, “To opt out of all future mailings from this sender click here.” This then takes you to a second page titled “opt out” that asks the same question with respect to opting out, not unsubscribing: Are you sure you want to opt-out of all future mailings from the sender? Now I know that the difference is opting out of one list vs. all of their lists, but not sure if the average person would get this at first glance.
- I’m not sure if this method is easier or more difficult than visiting a webpage, but a few of the emailers, like Toolbox.com, resorted to the old school method: If you do not wish to receive updates from Toolbox.com, please reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of your reply. Simple, but requires typing… ;-)
- The Association of Strategic Marketing alerts you to a potential delay, but is nice enough to give you the reason: Email is prescheduled, so it may take up to one week before you stop receiving email. They also make it crystal clear what you need to do to unsubscribe: Be sure to click on the unsubscribe link to successfully unsubscribe. Thanks for that…
- One of the other ways pubs put the pressure on the user to unsubscribe is by making you do the work and enter your own email address on the unsub page (rather than having it pre-populate). Windows IT Pro was nice enough to give me a warning, however: To STOP receiving promotional e-mails from Windows IT Pro, please click here to opt-out. (Requires you to enter your own email address)
- Finally, TRUSTe offered this very un-trustable unsub link in their email: One-Click Unsubscribe. I clicked that link with glee, knowing in my heart that such a trustingly-named company would never lie, and that this would truly be the nirvana of unsub processes. But then I was required to commit to a several-click process to complete their one-click unsubscribe:
- Please enter your email address and indicate your preferences – required field, not prepopulated
- I’d like to unsubscribe from the following (check all that apply) – required, and with four potential choices and nothing pre-populated, leaving me to wonder which one brought me here
- I’d like to unsubscribe from ALL email communications, with a yes/no radio button but not marked as required
- The “confirm” button
By my count, that one-click unsubscribe required a minimum of five clicks… Based on that, no, I do not trust you, TRUSTe.
By Josh Liba vis Flickr. Used under Creative Commons.
As Bruce Banner Says: “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
OK, so I’ll admit that this is a picky rant post (as are most of my posts). But really, do marketers need to make it so difficult for people to unsubscribe from their lists? You’ve already pissed them off to the point where they are taking time out of their busy day to proactively tell you to stop bothering them! It is taking 10x – or more – time and effort to unsubscribe than to just delete your email or add you to their blocked/spam filter.
But, even knowing that they are miffed, you go the extra mile to frustrate them even more, hurting your brand, equating your logo with frustration, and alienating one more person. Worse yet, you try to confuse them into staying on your list, make them work for it, and rarely give them to option to opt out of all future emails. If I’m pissed off enough to unsubscribe, and then I get another, slightly different email from you tomorrow, what response and reaction do you think that is going to elicit?
Bottom Line
Make it easy, easy, easy for people to get off of your marketing list and out of your way. You’ll be eliminating their frustration, eliminating wasted time by your sales reps even thinking about calling them, and reducing the chances of your domain being flagged as spam.
But that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Leave me a comment and share your view.
“WFH” is Not a Bad Word: Five Tips for Better At-Home Workers
01 year ago
OK, so WFH isn’t even a word (it’s three: working from home), let alone a bad word. So why do so many employers, managers, and coworkers treat it as such? In today’s constantly-on, mobile-enabled, Skype video-connected world, there are very few reasons why an office employee needs to actually be in the office to be productive. Sure, there are people who need to be away from home to work due to personality, logistical, or other issues – such as those with young children at home and no space for an office. However, it’s confusing to me that so many people think that, just because someone is working from home, they are slacking off and otherwise unproductive.
Pres. Obama in the Oval Office of the White House (Photo: Getty)
A recent manager told me that working from home wasn’t allowed under his management because “work happens in the office.” Really? In just a few weeks at that job, I saw that work didn’t really happen all that often in the office. In a typical workday, the open floor plan encouraged plenty of random conversations that ranged from work to television to lunch destinations. Add in the walk to the cafe in the lobby, a drive to a local lunch spot, and a half-dozen non-work-related conversations every day and that eight-hour workday drops down to about five, maybe less.
Contrast that with working from home, where you’re alone (ideally) and totally free from the distractions of coworkers. A place where you can choose to engage in an email, phone, or IM conversation immediately or later, when you have time and focus. A place where you’re free to work in total silence, or with the heavy metal music turned up to 11. A place where you have the freedom to structure your office, your day, and your view. You get the point.
Going further, the eight-hour workday (or 10-12 in the start-up world) is actually extended by an hour or more on each end. Given a typical commute of 30-60 minutes, breakfast, getting dressed, etc., you’re looking at an additional few hours per day that are totally unproductive with respect to your employer’s point of view, but which and employee considers part of the work day.
Again, contrast that with working from home where the average commute is 15-30 seconds, breakfast is often multi-tasked with checking email and attending a conference call, snacks and lunch are just a few feet away (and close to free), and showering is, unfortunately for spouses, optional.
In fact, I’m a firm believer that those who work from home actually put in MORE hours than those who go into the office. Once you subtract the lunches, coffee stops, mindless office chit-chat, etc., from the work day, the typical office worker is probably putting in about a 60% workday. When working from home, your line between home and work becomes blurred. You end up working later than you expect because you don’t have the end-of-day cues of the office emptying out. You aren’t pressed to immediately shower, groom, and dress, so tend to get wrapped up in email or early tasks before you do anything else. You tend to work through lunch, and work longer knowing that your commute home is instantaneous.
Now, I can hear you saying, “What about those WFH-ers who go to the dry cleaners at 2pm or dial into a conference call from the mall? Really? You’re going to forget about the 70-minute lunch you took last week – while at work – because you had to get your oil changed and grab paper towels from Target?
"alone" by Giorgio Montersino (Flickr CC)
Notice that, in this entire rant, I never mentioned that laptops are portable, smart phones allow access to email, IM, and documents and attachments from virtually anywhere. I’ve worked effectively the past 10+ workdays from a new apartment with no internet access, surviving by tethering to my mobile phone to grab email, make calls, and even conduct a web meeting which shared my screen for a product demo of a browser-based product and used VoIP for the voice portion! (Thank you, GoToMeeting and my Nexus One phone on AT&T!) There is absolutely no reason why I needed to go into an office to do any of this.
Now, don’t get me wrong, a productive brainstorming session in front of a white board can be more illuminating and effective that 20 conference calls, but they don’t happen every day and they aren’t necessary every day. In fact, the occasional video chat can alleviate that sense of alienation and increase the sense of team. And, as the guys at 37Signals put so well, time apart actually increases the effectiveness of occasional in-person meetings. Absence makes the brainstorming grow fonder, or something like that…
So, after all of that rant, here are my five tips for making the work-from-home experience better for your employees:
- Don’t just support WFH, encourage it! Set the example by working from home and proving your productivity. Encourage communication and be responsive. Pick up the phone when an email response requires more than a paragraph. What not to do? I had a manager at Siebel Systems who frequently worked from home on Fridays. On those days, we either never heard from him, or when we did, he was obviously out shopping or running errands and was just calling to “check in.” If a question was asked that needed research, he always promised to get back to us later that day, but never did. That manager set the example that WFH was a vacation day and our team resented it.
- Support the necessary tools without breaking the bank. And, forget about where your employees work, but make it easy for them to do so. Give all employees a laptop (not a desktop), a web meeting account (Yugma and Skype are both free, and Skype includes nearly ubiquitous audio/video chat, IM, and screen sharing), and access to a collaboration or project workspace like Basecamp or Google Docs. Reimburse $75 or $100 for mobile phone service so that your team isn’t worried about exceeding minutes or using the data plan. Every tool required is available, and most can be found for free or nearly free.
- Don’t force video calls. While the iPhone’s new FaceTime video chat is all the rage, not everyone is comfortable showing their home office (or their WFH fashion) to the entire team. Even for those on the road, most wouldn’t choose to do a video conference from their hotel room. Audio-only phone calls have worked just fine for the past 50 years.
- Allow flexibility with schedules and meetings. In an office, you don’t expect people to be at their desk every second of the day, so WFH should be no different. I frequently run into the issue that everyone expects me to be attached to my phone and laptop 100% of the time. They assume that I don’t go out to lunch, don’t have other calls, and don’t even go to the bathroom. My guess is that people in the office immediately assume that WFHers are not working if they don’t answer the phone on the first ring or respond to an IM within seconds. Remember that breaks are needed regardless of work location, and that other calls or meetings or tasks pop up. More importantly, having the luxury to ignore the constant interruptions is one of the key benefits of WFH.
- Treat the remote colleague as you would anyone else. Expect the same output as those in the office, but give the same respect. One of my pet peeves is when a colleague (or worse, a manager) begins a conference call with something like, “So Bob, must be nice working from home today…” You wouldn’t begin a call with a customer or prospect that way; it’s insulting to the WFHer and counter-productive for those in the office.
Bottom Line: Working from home may not be a personal preference for everyone, but for many it’s a highly-rewarding productivity and morale booster with a huge ROI. Encourage it, support it, and quell the dissent from the non-believers. In the tech start-up world, the typical workday has always been 10-12 hours long, with most people answering emails and putting in a few hours in the evenings and over the weekend. If you’re willing to accept that “extra” work, there’s no reason to deny your team a few days per week for WFH.
Let me know what you think.
UPDATE: GigaOm’s WebWorkerDaily just had an interesting piece on the productivity gains from working at home. The most striking stat is that 45% of at-home workers put in 2-3 more hours per day, and 25% put in 4 more hours per day! Adding 20-50% more hours is an incredible benefit for any company.
Enterprise Software is Dead
01 year ago
OK, “dead” may be a bit premature, but it is surely in decline. And, unless you are Oracle, SAP, HP, or similar, you’re not a software company, you’re just a feature awaiting a lingering death or a future acquisition.
The Investopedia defines the final stage of the “industry lifecycle,” decline, as: “revenues declining; the industry as a whole may be supplanted by a new one.” While Oracle’s revenues are definitely not declining, it’s becoming increasingly rare to hear of an enterprise-focused software firm that is doing well. Sure, there are the SuccessFactors and QlikViews of the world, but it seems that Silicon Valley is bursting with enterprise software companies (SaaS and non-SaaS) that are doomed to limp along as the VCs continue to pump more money into the dream of next year’s hockey stick revenue chart (which is why the traditional VC model is dead, too).
There is a nice paper by a group at MIT’s Sloan School of Business that covers this industry’s decline in great detail, and shows how software companies have grown more and more dependent on services revenue for growth while license sales (as a % of total revenue) have steadily declined since the late ’90s.
The Feature as a Business Model
While the software world is stampeding towards an app-based economy on the consumer side (more on that in a future post), today’s enterprise software start-ups can succeed in only one way – by building their business on a killer feature missing from the entrenched leaders’ solutions (read: Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Google, etc.), then hope that they are acquired by one of those leaders. If a start-up’s key functionality or value prop is matched or trumped by a market leader, that start-up is done.
There are dozens (if not hundreds) of these doomed start-ups in Silicon Valley, scrounging up a few million (<50) dollars in annual revenue (with cash-flow positive always just three quarters away), churning through employees and executives every few years, and living on VC money until, around year six or seven, they either put themselves up for sale at a fraction of the invested capital or they simply close their doors. Hell, I’ve worked for a few of those, and most of my friends in Silicon Valley have been jumping between similar companies for most of their tech careers as well.
On one hand, we should thank the Googles and the Siebels and the rest of the successful Valley companies for creating the wealth to fund the traditional VCs, who then make the Silicon Valley economy possible at all. Since there is so much money available for investment, there are thousands of jobs created just to spend that money, even with incredibly flimsy business models to back them up (OH: “$3M revenue this year, $12M next? That’s impossible and insane, but it’s what the VCs want to hear…”). But I don’t want this to turn into a rant any more than it already has.
Bottom Line
The enterprise software industry is dead. The big guys own the market and are essentially the software equivalent of General Motors and Ford. The start-up pitch of “we’re going to disrupt/be the next gen/be version 2.0 of <insert successful software here>” or “we’re going after the $50 billion enterprise <insert solution here> market” is nearly impossible to achieve.
For those of us who work at enterprise-focused start-ups, it makes the effort of the entire team that much more important. There is zero room for slackers or 9-to5ers. The term “start-up” needs to return to it’s meaning as the description of a lifestyle, not it’s current meaning of a small company that provides snacks and foosball to employees.
All it Takes is One Bad Googler to Spoil the Online Privacy Barrel
01 year ago
by Jason Rushin
in Ramblings
OK, well this morning’s post was a bit ill-timed. As news spreads of the Google engineer who accessed users’ Google Voice call logs, chat transcripts and contact lists, it seems as though this is just one more reason for consumers to worry about their online privacy. But, while this may seem like the the perfect reason to unplug your life and delete every online profile, the phrase, “one rotten apple…” pops into my head.
I’m sure that someone at Wells Fargo can access my transactions or someone at AT&T can view my call logs or text messages – and they could have done it 20 years ago. So while I’m still a huge advocate of embracing online, location, mobile, and other services – and this is an extremely isolated incident – I do see this as a perfect opportunity for every company with users’ personal information to put some processes in place to prevent these types of improper privacy violations.
CNET’s Buzz Out Loud – my fav podcast – had some interesting solutions to this issue: oversight, hashing personal data, working in teams, etc. While these are great options, it still only takes one employee with an axe to grind, or worse, to make any company look evil.
Bottom line: It wasn’t the technology that exploited this data, it was a person. To me, it’s an HR/management issue, not a technology issue.
