December 23, 2009
1000 people can change the world
Seth Godin: First, organize 1,000. "What's difficult? What's difficult is changing your attitude. Instead of speed dating your way to interruption, instead of yelling at strangers all day trying to make a living, coordinating a tribe of 1,000 requires patience, consistency and a focus on long-term relationships and life time value. You don't find customers for your products. You find products for your customers."
December 15, 2009
Feature vs product
Venture Hacks: Sometimes the feature is the product. "How can you tell if a feature is really a product? You can wait for customers to start adopting it, see if they love it, and then try to jump in as an investor or an employee."
Redeye VC: Let's just add in a little virality. "The most disappointing answer is when they say "Oh, we'll just make it viral." As if virality is something you can choose to add in after the product is baked - like a spell checker. Let's imagine the conversation at the marketing department of the wireless phone companies. "Let's see. Should we spend $4 Billion on advertising this year... or should we just make it viral?"" [via: Good Old Think]
Wingify: Only three metrics matter for your online business. "1. Monthly growth in number of paid users. 2. Retention rate of existing paid users. 3. Monthly Revenue."
A VC: The Herd Instinct. "I think there are two approaches that work in the venture business. One is the contrarian approach. When everyone wants to be a consumer web investor, do software as a service/enterprise. Go where the money isn't.
Or you can just be earlier than everyone and anticipate where the herd is going to be next. That is really hard, maybe too hard to do well over a sustained period of time.
But I do believe that both of those approaches will get you top tier returns if you execute them well."
Redeye VC: Let's just add in a little virality. "The most disappointing answer is when they say "Oh, we'll just make it viral." As if virality is something you can choose to add in after the product is baked - like a spell checker. Let's imagine the conversation at the marketing department of the wireless phone companies. "Let's see. Should we spend $4 Billion on advertising this year... or should we just make it viral?"" [via: Good Old Think]
Wingify: Only three metrics matter for your online business. "1. Monthly growth in number of paid users. 2. Retention rate of existing paid users. 3. Monthly Revenue."
A VC: The Herd Instinct. "I think there are two approaches that work in the venture business. One is the contrarian approach. When everyone wants to be a consumer web investor, do software as a service/enterprise. Go where the money isn't.
Or you can just be earlier than everyone and anticipate where the herd is going to be next. That is really hard, maybe too hard to do well over a sustained period of time.
But I do believe that both of those approaches will get you top tier returns if you execute them well."
December 6, 2009
Sunday links
dshen: Talking People Out of Being Entrepreneurs. "It's sexy being an entrepreneur. The rewards are great. The upsides are what everyone sees, and nobody sees the downsides. Dealing with the downsides is where the rubber meets the road and where you'll be tested sorely on whether or not you are a great entrepreneur. But if you're not entrepreneur material, you're not and that's that, whether it's your personality, life stage, or otherwise. You're not a bad person; it's just not for you and we should all just realize this, and not fool ourselves into thinking otherwise."
Financial Times: The rise and fall of MySpace. Good read on the corporate side of MySpace post-acquisition.
New York Times: Swan Songs?. ""A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs."
Seth Godin: If Craigslist cost $1. "Money creates a sort of friction. In the digital economy, magical things can happen when there is no friction. You can scale to infinity. On the other hand, sometimes you want friction.
If you lead a group that allows anyone to join, for free, your group might be large, but it's not tight, it's not organized to make important change. Commitment slows things down in the short run, but ultimately aligns interests."
Financial Times: The rise and fall of MySpace. Good read on the corporate side of MySpace post-acquisition.
New York Times: Swan Songs?. ""A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs."
Seth Godin: If Craigslist cost $1. "Money creates a sort of friction. In the digital economy, magical things can happen when there is no friction. You can scale to infinity. On the other hand, sometimes you want friction.
If you lead a group that allows anyone to join, for free, your group might be large, but it's not tight, it's not organized to make important change. Commitment slows things down in the short run, but ultimately aligns interests."
December 3, 2009
The future of CPM advertising, Google's secret sauce and Facebook's future
A few weeks ago Christian Rudolf did a video interview with me about CPM advertising, Google's system to get its customers to spend more on Adwords and Facebook's ad model. Head over to Disruptive for the six minute interview (in Swedish). Please leave feedback in the comments section at Disruptive.
The interview inspired Christian to do an in-depth video on Google's business system and what entrepreneurs can learn from it (also in Swedish). So if you find the subject interesting, you can dig deeper.
The interview inspired Christian to do an in-depth video on Google's business system and what entrepreneurs can learn from it (also in Swedish). So if you find the subject interesting, you can dig deeper.
December 1, 2009
Videoplaza hiring - 10 open positions
Video ad serving company Videoplaza is looking for ten people (a mix of developers, sales and admin). Please take a look at the openings and apply if you like any of them or tell your friends about the openings.
Please consider helping these organizations make the world a little bit better
If 2009 has been good to you, please consider joining me in contributing to the following organizations that try and make the world a slightly better place.
* charity: water - charity: water is a non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. I haven't contributed previously, but as both Shak and Daniel have repeatedly tweeted about the organization and its cause I've made a contribution.
* Creative Commons - Copyright law needs to adapt to a networked world and Creative Commons is an example of how works can be copyrighted in a way that facilitates remixing and creative use. I think a good example, like Creative Commons, will play an important role in changing legislation over time.
* Kiva - Kiva aggregates microlending organizations and lets you lend directly. Kiva works with local partners who find entrepreneurs seeking loans and manage the contact with the entrepreneurs. As a lender one chooses which entrepreneurs to lend to. Read more about Kiva and the concept of microlending in the blog post I wrote when I made my first loan in 2008. (If you sign-up as a Kiva member as a result of this blog post, feel free to add my e-mail henrik@torstensson.com in the Referred by a friend? field on the sign-up page.)
* Médecins Sans Frontières / Läkare Utan Gränser - Médecins Sans Frontières is a medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters. MSF helps people in very bad situations in some of the worst places on earth. Please donate.
* Wikimedia Foundation - Wikimedia is the foundation that runs Wikipedia. Wikipedia, even with its issues, is an amazing thing that deserves support.
* charity: water - charity: water is a non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. I haven't contributed previously, but as both Shak and Daniel have repeatedly tweeted about the organization and its cause I've made a contribution.
* Creative Commons - Copyright law needs to adapt to a networked world and Creative Commons is an example of how works can be copyrighted in a way that facilitates remixing and creative use. I think a good example, like Creative Commons, will play an important role in changing legislation over time.
* Kiva - Kiva aggregates microlending organizations and lets you lend directly. Kiva works with local partners who find entrepreneurs seeking loans and manage the contact with the entrepreneurs. As a lender one chooses which entrepreneurs to lend to. Read more about Kiva and the concept of microlending in the blog post I wrote when I made my first loan in 2008. (If you sign-up as a Kiva member as a result of this blog post, feel free to add my e-mail henrik@torstensson.com in the Referred by a friend? field on the sign-up page.)
* Médecins Sans Frontières / Läkare Utan Gränser - Médecins Sans Frontières is a medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters. MSF helps people in very bad situations in some of the worst places on earth. Please donate.
* Wikimedia Foundation - Wikimedia is the foundation that runs Wikipedia. Wikipedia, even with its issues, is an amazing thing that deserves support.
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