February 3, 2010

Chris Dixon interviewed, startup life and business models

StockTwits.tv: Interview with Chris Dixon of Hunch. Good video interview with one of the best Internet biz/startup bloggers out there.

The Monster In Your Head: Disappearing into the Fire. "How many of us create companies, create products where our blood and bone fuse with the glaze to create something so exquisite as to never have existed before? How romantically seductive is the image of giving one’s all to the fire? After all, as Whyte says:

"Work is the very fire where we are baked to perfection, and like the master of the fire itself, we add the essential ingredient and fulfillment when we walk into the flames ourselves and fuel the transformation of ordinary, everyday forms into the exquisite and the rare."

I have to understand this viscerally if I'm going to be of service to my clients. But I have to be mindful, too, of the cost. In disappearing into the kiln, the potter created the most meaningful thing possible. But in the end, he ceased to exist."

There are both good and bad days in the world of startups.

Master of 500 Hats: Subscriptions are the New BLACK. (+ why Facebook, Google, & Apple will own your wallet by 2015). "We have largely WASTED an entire web decade of time, energy & venture capital on extremely inefficient revenue models. There have been a few interesting examples of startups acquired in the 00's for large amounts due to amazing growth (eGroups, MySpace, Skype, YouTube) or advertising potential (aQuantive, DoubleClick, AdMob, RightMedia). However, mostly the decade has been an uninterrupted string of uninspiring business models and small-time acquisitions of Web 2.0 startups filled with rainbows & unicorns, rather than those based on simple, transactional revenue models."

Read the entire post for perspective, but I'm pretty bullish on branded advertising for the next 5-10 years. Especially video advertising. For sites that are not traditional media sites (games, services etc) I see user paid growing as it makes more sense than remnant ads.

Chris Dixon: Institutional failure. "The TV show The Wire is an incredibly instructive lesson on how the modern world works (besides being a great work of art). The recurring theme is how individuals with good intentions are stymied by large institutions."

The Wire is an excellent series (watch it if you haven't already), read how some lessons can be applied to startups and big companies.

2 comments:

John Sjölander said...

This isn't good. My favourite links this past week are the exact same. I'm getting predictable. :-)

Henrik Torstensson said...

Or you have good taste. :)