We are hosting a pretty kickass conference on June 14th in Seoul exploring technology, innovation and future trends. The lineup of speakers is awesome with Ray Ozzie, Richard Florida, Catherine Mohr and others. These slides provide details on this event that I've been working on.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Qik Founder’s Story: Taking Mobile Video Out Of The Garage And Putting It Into The Hands Of Skype
Finally getting to reposting my TechCrunch article here...
"Qik Founder’s Story: Taking Mobile Video Out Of The Garage And Putting It Into The Hands Of Skype"
"Qik Founder’s Story: Taking Mobile Video Out Of The Garage And Putting It Into The Hands Of Skype"
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Qwiki of the Day: Wright Brothers
Image by afagen via FlickrQwiki's storytelling approach to search on the Wright Brothers.Related articles
- A Day That Shook The World: Wright Brothers' first flight (independent.co.uk)
- Qwiki (thedenveregotist.com)
- 'Wright Brothers' Playground Planned In Harlem (harlemworldblog.wordpress.com)
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Are Q&A startups a threat to Google?
My tech op-ed article posted this morning at Venturebeat, "Are Q&A startups a threat to Google?", and was reposted at the NYTimes site here. [Update] Also Techmeme-ed here, which is cool since it's my favorite news aggregator.
Most of my interview transcript with Ro Choy, CEO of Peerpong, and Charlie Cheever, Co-founder of Quora, was edited out, so below are some of their additional insights:
When did the light bulb for Quora go off for you?
Charlie Cheever: Over the last few years, there have been a bunch of services that have let people put more and more content onto the Internet -- Facebook and Flickr for photos, Twitter for link sharing, status updates, etc. -- but we didn't see any great way for people to share the knowledge that they accumulate over their lives, so we wanted to make a place for that. There were other things as well. For example, I like blogging but I didn't always know what people wanted me to write about. One thing we've tried to build Quora to provide is a good set of prompts from other people that you can respond to.
When you looked at this opportunity, what were the comparables? Yahoo! Answers, Google, or others?
Charlie Cheever: We thought about all those things but we’ve mostly been focused on making a product to fill a need we saw in the world. I do think there are a lot of things that people want to know that you can't find easily with a search engine because the information either isn't on the web yet, or isn't there in a form that you can easily consume. This is especially true with long tail content.
Ro Choy: Our focus and good corollary is Google. Google can effectively find content through use of pagerank. Can we do that for people? If you believe the vast amount of knowledge doesn’t exist online yet, then if you could ultimately categorize an index of content, publish it, and make it searchable…. If you could do this for 50 million, 100 million people, or half a billion people -- that was the Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
Most of my interview transcript with Ro Choy, CEO of Peerpong, and Charlie Cheever, Co-founder of Quora, was edited out, so below are some of their additional insights:
When did the light bulb for Quora go off for you?
Charlie Cheever: Over the last few years, there have been a bunch of services that have let people put more and more content onto the Internet -- Facebook and Flickr for photos, Twitter for link sharing, status updates, etc. -- but we didn't see any great way for people to share the knowledge that they accumulate over their lives, so we wanted to make a place for that. There were other things as well. For example, I like blogging but I didn't always know what people wanted me to write about. One thing we've tried to build Quora to provide is a good set of prompts from other people that you can respond to.
When you looked at this opportunity, what were the comparables? Yahoo! Answers, Google, or others?
Charlie Cheever: We thought about all those things but we’ve mostly been focused on making a product to fill a need we saw in the world. I do think there are a lot of things that people want to know that you can't find easily with a search engine because the information either isn't on the web yet, or isn't there in a form that you can easily consume. This is especially true with long tail content.
Ro Choy: Our focus and good corollary is Google. Google can effectively find content through use of pagerank. Can we do that for people? If you believe the vast amount of knowledge doesn’t exist online yet, then if you could ultimately categorize an index of content, publish it, and make it searchable…. If you could do this for 50 million, 100 million people, or half a billion people -- that was the Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Mainstream Users Confused ReadWriteWeb with Facebook
HatTip To Sam N. This is pretty funny. Thousands of people came to the tech blog, ReadWriteWeb, thinking it was a new Facebook interface:
"The phenomenon came about as mainstream audiences were directed to our story via Google search for 'Facebook login'. While RWW's regular tech readers found the mistake amusing, it perhaps speaks to the fact that there are huge variables in user interaction."
"Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login" ReadWriteWeb
"We're Still Not Facebook: Lessons from Late Adopters" ReadWriteWeb
"The phenomenon came about as mainstream audiences were directed to our story via Google search for 'Facebook login'. While RWW's regular tech readers found the mistake amusing, it perhaps speaks to the fact that there are huge variables in user interaction."
"Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login" ReadWriteWeb
"We're Still Not Facebook: Lessons from Late Adopters" ReadWriteWeb
Monday, December 28, 2009
Tech Trends for 2010 — A Netscape Moment Coming Up
My third annual technology trends piece is up at VentureBeat...
Tech trends for 2010 — a Netscape moment coming up
When I made my tech trend predictions for 2009, we were in the middle of an economic meltdown. This year, I’m less focused on the recession and — thanks to my one-year old twin girls — am wading my way through a flood of information on baby products, toys and books. My mind has wandered between thoughts of Bugaboos and Ooyalas, Leapfrog and Playfish, or Seuss and Seesmic. Still, here are my tech trends for 2010.
Online Shopping Clubs Will Mature
Online shopping clubs aren’t anything new, but these post-bubble incarnations are. Leaders in this segment tend to hold “flash” sales (limited-time sales) and restrict sales to members only. Luxury goods lead this space with France’s Vente-Privee hitting $966 million in revenues this year and U.S’s Gilt Groupe earning almost $150 million in revenues in 2009. By 2010, within four years since launching in the U.S., the companies in this space will have achieved over $2 billion in worldwide sales. Talk about hockey stick growth!
This same model has transferred to other categories, with many luxury players launching travel offerings under their banners. There are also more narrowly focused sites launching, such as Totsy for moms and One Kings Lane for home décor. Woot in the U.S. and One A Day in Korea are flash sale sites that sell only one item everyday. One A Day hit $13 million this year and projects $28 million in sales for 2010 under this simplified model.
Much of this tremendous growth has been driven by the steep discounts all these sites have provided through access to excess inventory. There are concerns this category might see some trouble once the economy picks up and retailers begin rightsizing their inventory. But I believe it is here to stay because — similar to how Zynga and Playfish brought lazy interactivity to the online casual gaming space — these new e-tailers are pushing products and brand relationships to the lazy shopper. It won’t be just about discounted goods, since players like Gilt are already pushing exclusive, in-season goods. So I predict that 2010 will be a breakout year for this ecommerce category and it will move far beyond discounted luxury goods.
Gaming Will Advance Beyond PCs and Consoles
2009 was a great year for online gaming, with Zynga, Playfish, and others leading the charge and showing the power of Facebook and the social networking ecosystem’s distribution power. The next stage of online gaming will be led by more powerful gaming platforms and engines for mobile and the browser... (full article)
UPDATE: VentureBeat has a syndication partnership with the New York Times, so they select some articles everyday to republish in their Technology section and they picked my op-ed today.
Tech trends for 2010 — a Netscape moment coming up
When I made my tech trend predictions for 2009, we were in the middle of an economic meltdown. This year, I’m less focused on the recession and — thanks to my one-year old twin girls — am wading my way through a flood of information on baby products, toys and books. My mind has wandered between thoughts of Bugaboos and Ooyalas, Leapfrog and Playfish, or Seuss and Seesmic. Still, here are my tech trends for 2010.
Online Shopping Clubs Will Mature
Online shopping clubs aren’t anything new, but these post-bubble incarnations are. Leaders in this segment tend to hold “flash” sales (limited-time sales) and restrict sales to members only. Luxury goods lead this space with France’s Vente-Privee hitting $966 million in revenues this year and U.S’s Gilt Groupe earning almost $150 million in revenues in 2009. By 2010, within four years since launching in the U.S., the companies in this space will have achieved over $2 billion in worldwide sales. Talk about hockey stick growth!
This same model has transferred to other categories, with many luxury players launching travel offerings under their banners. There are also more narrowly focused sites launching, such as Totsy for moms and One Kings Lane for home décor. Woot in the U.S. and One A Day in Korea are flash sale sites that sell only one item everyday. One A Day hit $13 million this year and projects $28 million in sales for 2010 under this simplified model.
Much of this tremendous growth has been driven by the steep discounts all these sites have provided through access to excess inventory. There are concerns this category might see some trouble once the economy picks up and retailers begin rightsizing their inventory. But I believe it is here to stay because — similar to how Zynga and Playfish brought lazy interactivity to the online casual gaming space — these new e-tailers are pushing products and brand relationships to the lazy shopper. It won’t be just about discounted goods, since players like Gilt are already pushing exclusive, in-season goods. So I predict that 2010 will be a breakout year for this ecommerce category and it will move far beyond discounted luxury goods.
Gaming Will Advance Beyond PCs and Consoles
2009 was a great year for online gaming, with Zynga, Playfish, and others leading the charge and showing the power of Facebook and the social networking ecosystem’s distribution power. The next stage of online gaming will be led by more powerful gaming platforms and engines for mobile and the browser... (full article)
UPDATE: VentureBeat has a syndication partnership with the New York Times, so they select some articles everyday to republish in their Technology section and they picked my op-ed today.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Korea's Cyworld Shuts Down US Cyworld

I received this notice today from Cyworld:
"Thank you to all members with Cyworld.
Due to Cyworld shuts down US service, US Cyworld will no longer be able to service.
We sincerely apologize for shutting down the service with unavoidable reason.
Before US cyworld close the service, you will continue to access to US cyworld contents but not purchase items. Also, you will not use your acorns.
If you have unused acorns, you will be given a full refund for paid acorns only."
Obviously, they already let go of all U.S. staff since it's written in broken English along with poor spacing, but this also could be reflective of the overall problem of Cyworld's efforts in the U.S. market. They didn't localize their product. Cyworld assumed they could bring their team that was successful in Korea, target the same market and execute in the same manner. It didn't work out.
I'm focused on their early efforts, which I believe was a critical factor for their failure. Cyworld attempted to target the similar demographic in Korea, but for the U.S. market I thought their avatar-based social network was more suited for a younger demographic of junior high and high school students.
It seems that SK's other entities have made similar mistakes in trying to enter the U.S. market. A prime example is their MVNO effort with Earthlink, Helio, where they invested over $400 million. They tried to target Korean Americans by assuming ethnic affinity would drive consumer purchasing habits not quality of service, pricing, or phones. Hopefully, SK, which is one of Korea's largest conglomerates, will learn from these spectacular failures.
Labels:
cyworld,
helio,
korea,
silicon valley,
sk,
south korea,
technology
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Oakland Local Live!

Oakland Local went live yesterday (well, about 16 hours ago). It was founded by Susan Mernit, who was an early advisor to my startup and a prominent tech blogger. Susan made her mark in technology and media as an executive during the early years of Netscape and AOL, and her recent position as a Senior Director at Yahoo!.
Oakland Local has a New Voices grant from J-Lab, funded by The Knight Foundation, as seed money. Her new venture is riding a trend of where the future of media is going: local and hyperlocal. The question is how will it be sustained and in what form? Oakland Local is taking the nonprofit route which is an avenue that some people believe is the only way for local news to survive. I'm not certain of this, but it will be great to watch Oakland Local develop and become a model for many to consider. More from their website and Susan:
Oakland Local is an independent, non-profit community news and information hub, connecting community and news. Our site combines original investigative and feature reporting with community news and information about Oakland non-profit organizations, community groups and engaged citizens.
"Oakland Local is launching in partnership with 35 local nonprofit, neighborhood & community organizations—we combine postings of their news and information with blogging and with reported stories from a top quality news team (Susan Mernit, Amy Gahran, Kamika Dunlap, Kwan Booth, Ryan Van Lenning and others). We are media partners & collaborators with Spot.us, Newsdesk.org, The Center for Investigative Reporting, New America Media, Endless Canvas, Youth Rising, Youth Radio and Youth Outlook as well. Our site offers forums, a directory of 320 local nonprofits and a blog directory of 180 active local bloggers as well."
Thursday, October 15, 2009
ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit
I'm at the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit in Mountain View, CA today. The event is held at the Computer History Museum, which is always a good facility.
It's the first conference I've attended by the ReadWriteWeb guys and looking forward to it.
It's the first conference I've attended by the ReadWriteWeb guys and looking forward to it.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Is your product a “must have” or “nice to have”?
My tech op-ed is up at VentureBeat. Check it out:
IS YOUR PRODUCT A "MUST HAVE" OR "NICE TO HAVE"?
I also posted the version that was unedited by VentureBeat's editors at NowPublic. This original piece is chopped into two articles at VentureBeat with the second being published next week. This one is longer and I don't think they appreciated my reference to "Something About Mary" :)
IS YOUR STARTUP A "NICE TO HAVE" OR "MUST HAVE"?
With the downturn in the economy, numerous people are talking about starting a new business or company. Whether it’s a technology startup or new restaurant idea, I’ve heard of more and more people meeting to brainstorm and working to bring their ideas to fruition.
Whether you’re in the idea generation stage or have already started to build your new thing, you should take a breath and reassess whether the concept still holds your initial level of enthusiasm. Can still envision 30 million visits during the first month? Are you still as enthusiastic as you were when you came up with it? Do you believe your product or service is a “must have” and not just a “nice to have”? If not, step back – being a successful entrepreneur requires high – some say insane – levels of dedication to your idea.
There’s a great scene in the movie “Something About Mary” where Ben Stiller’s character, Ted, picks up a hitchhiker who is a psychotic killer and budding entrepreneur:
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7. Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Comedy aside, how familiar does this pitch sound to all you entrepreneurs or intrepreneurs out there? The reality is that the hitchhiker’s idea was a “nice to have” and wouldn’t have threatened the well-marketed 8-minute Abs video even with his insane level of dedication. Of course, he’s not similar to your pitch about your product, but does it remind you of your friends’ new thing? They all hope to have the next awesome product that will change the world, or at least get crazy traffic on Facebook. The driver of sales or user adoption? It should be as obvious as a 7 minute workout being more attractive than an 8 minute workout, right?
Most entrepreneurs are too close to their topic to realize where they really are on the user adoption curve. As an entrepreneur, you’re hoping that the jump from what Geoffrey Moore describes as “innovators” and “early adopters” to the “early majority” is short, but unfortunately, in reality, sales and user adoption rates are about as easy to predict as blockbuster movies.
Must Have, Meh, or What Does It Do Again?
For entrepreneurs, one method to frame the product development process is whether your product is a “nice to have” or a “must have.” Here, “must have” is loosely defined and can be identified by answering questions like:
• Is it easy for people to recognize that your product will save them a significant amount of time?
• Or a significant amount of money?
• Do people quickly see how much better it plays their music?
• How much better it allows them to access data?
For example, back in 2005, when I was working on my startup GoingOn Networks, we identified a trend of blogging and social networking entering the corporate world. We built a private-label social media platform, thinking that companies would soon recognize this trend and purchase our software-as-service platform.
In hindsight, the first two years were painful. A long education process, working on quelling fears of “opening up” to customers, and another long sales cycle. We were hoping our market chasm would be the neighborhood creek, but we found out it was more like the Grand Canyon. Plus, by 2007, about thirty competitors were also targeting this market. I realized that our social media platform wasn’t a “must have” and maybe not even a “nice to have” during our early years because our target market first needed to be greatly educated on the benefits of social media. It felt as if more often than not, sales meetings went like this:
Me: “Open, two-way communication with your customers is more effective…”
Potential customer: “Like a walkie-talkie?”
Me: [Sigh]
For consumer plays where users don’t pay for the product, the “must have” bar might be set a bit lower than for paid products, but it’s still a significant hurdle for the early majority to spend their time (even if it doesn’t cost money) on something new of which the benefits aren’t obvious, easy, or quick to grasp.
So how do you figure out whether your insanely great idea is likely to find customers and become a “must have”? When you’re trying to identify “must haves” in the market, consider these techniques:
Trend Surfing. Extrapolate a current technology, trend, or “must have.” What is the next product in the evolution of an industry? Consider the evolution from the Walkman to MP3 players to the iPod. Or look at what emerging technologies will create new market opportunities. For example, Qualcomm and its CDMA technology. Or exercise trends that created a whole new market of Pilates videos and trainers. My personal favorite is the rise in popularity of specialty bacon, where I can also plug my “Ode to Bacon.”
There are numerous examples, but the reality is that it’s difficult to predict and ride such trends. I learned this from GoingOn, and my prior startup, HeyAnita, when voice recognition technology was hot. With competitors such as Tellme and BeVocal, our space raised over $300 million in 2000, but quickly faded a few years later when users didn’t widely adopt a voice-controlled interface.
Twitter seems to have hit the right wave on the trend from blogging to micro-blogging. Initially, it was just an echo chamber of Silicon Valley people tweeting to each other, but now even major media outlets such as CNN, ABC, and ESPN see communicating in 140 characters as a “must have.” Like Twitter, if you do catch a trend wave, it swells, and you execute well, then you could be golden, with a profitable tech company or the best-selling line of Pilates videos on your hands.
Identifying a Market Gap. Where in the market is there an underserved need? Is there a place in the market that a taste is not being met? Chipotle filled a desire for fast casual Mexican food. Netflix let people easily rent obscure movies and keep them as long as they wanted without late fees. Meebo met the demand for a single, unified IM platform. What element is missing in a market – one that you know and are passionate about – that you believe you can fill as an entrepreneur?
For instance, back in the old days before the majority of malware came from websites and links to them, there was an opportunity for different kinds of anti-malware products. Brian Kellner, now Newsgator’s VP of Products, gave me some interesting insights into his days at anti-spyware company Webroot in the 1990s: “Webroot was one of the first two companies to release an enterprise anti-spyware product at a time when Internet Explorer had a lot of vulnerabilities and anti-virus companies didn’t catch spyware. The product was tremendously successful because it really hit the pain avoidance and laziness needs.”
But as much as Webroot tried to make deployment and management of the solution easy, when both anti-virus offerings and browser security got better, the cost of owning and running a dedicated anti-spyware solution became unattractive. “The pain level dropped significantly as anti-virus companies added adequate anti-spyware protection and it was much easier to just run the anti-virus software alone,” says Kellner.
So, for a while, Webroot was a “must have.” But when other, possibly bigger, companies start tapping into the Market Gap you found and have been filling, you need to find other ways to remain a “must have.” For example, by trying to extrapolate to the next logical “must have” in your market (Trend Surfing), or by making sure your product keeps something attractively unique about it, or is just clearly the best of its kind.
Building a Better Mousetrap. What product category is doing well, but could be done even better? Do you have an idea for something that will clearly be the best of its kind? IKEA did it for the budget-conscious furniture retail market. Zappos.com turned shoe shopping into a very convenient, easy, low-pressure experience. What features are missing that could be implemented and allow a new player to change the market? Friendster to MySpace and Facebook. MySpace and Facebook provided more value that simply connecting with friends through music and then third-party applications.
In speaking with Brian Rakowski, former lead product manager for Google’s Gmail product and current Product Management Director for its Chrome browser, he explained how he led the launches for these two products and how to make them better than any of the competitive products already out there: “Both Google Chrome and Gmail were new entrants in existing spaces so we spent a lot of time getting to know the market-leading products in their categories and identifying the biggest user pain points. For webmail, it was small storage quotas and clunky, inefficient interfaces. For browsers, it was general instability and unresponsiveness, especially on advanced webpages.” Google succeeded nicely with both of these, with Gmail surpassing Youtube earlier this year as the second-most-visited Google property and Chrome gaining just under 3% marketshare after one year. Rakowski concludes, “In the end, the best way to test whether you have a “must have” product is to threaten to take the prototype away from your early users. If they don’t riot, start again.”
Brian has a great insight here. Would users of Microsoft’s Vista have rioted if it had been taken away? No, there probably would have been celebrations throughout office buildings all over the world. What about Segway after all its hype? Maybe only mall cops would have grumbled.
Like the story of Webroot and anti-spyware becoming part of anti-virus solutions, the Building A Better Mousetrap category also brings up the importance of sustainability. How do you maintain being a “must have” in your market? During the 1990s, my favorite search engine was Alta Vista, but it didn’t maintain its “must have” status and gave way to Inktomi, which eventually gave way to Google. Google has been maintaining its “must have” status by not only staying on top of the search algorithm game, but also by offering superior or extremely competitive complementary products and services to its users: Adsense and Adwords for advertising, and nicely integrated apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs that make it easy to make Google your default online place to get things done. (Yet even Google has had its share of failures or incompletes such as Google Lively, Froogle, Checkout, and Spreadsheets.)
Finally, with all three of these techniques for identifying a potential “must have” opportunity – Trend Surfing, Identifying a Market Gap, and Building a Better Mousetrap – keep regularly asking yourself “is mine a “must have” product?” questions like the ones listed earlier. And of course make sure you’re still insanely excited about your own idea most days of the week – because if you’re not excited, it’ll be hard to make others think of your product as a can’t-live-without-it “must have.” But hopefully, these techniques and examples are giving you some extra inspiration on how to get to the next step in your new great idea.
IS YOUR PRODUCT A "MUST HAVE" OR "NICE TO HAVE"?
I also posted the version that was unedited by VentureBeat's editors at NowPublic. This original piece is chopped into two articles at VentureBeat with the second being published next week. This one is longer and I don't think they appreciated my reference to "Something About Mary" :)
IS YOUR STARTUP A "NICE TO HAVE" OR "MUST HAVE"?
With the downturn in the economy, numerous people are talking about starting a new business or company. Whether it’s a technology startup or new restaurant idea, I’ve heard of more and more people meeting to brainstorm and working to bring their ideas to fruition.
Whether you’re in the idea generation stage or have already started to build your new thing, you should take a breath and reassess whether the concept still holds your initial level of enthusiasm. Can still envision 30 million visits during the first month? Are you still as enthusiastic as you were when you came up with it? Do you believe your product or service is a “must have” and not just a “nice to have”? If not, step back – being a successful entrepreneur requires high – some say insane – levels of dedication to your idea.
There’s a great scene in the movie “Something About Mary” where Ben Stiller’s character, Ted, picks up a hitchhiker who is a psychotic killer and budding entrepreneur:
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7. Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Comedy aside, how familiar does this pitch sound to all you entrepreneurs or intrepreneurs out there? The reality is that the hitchhiker’s idea was a “nice to have” and wouldn’t have threatened the well-marketed 8-minute Abs video even with his insane level of dedication. Of course, he’s not similar to your pitch about your product, but does it remind you of your friends’ new thing? They all hope to have the next awesome product that will change the world, or at least get crazy traffic on Facebook. The driver of sales or user adoption? It should be as obvious as a 7 minute workout being more attractive than an 8 minute workout, right?
Most entrepreneurs are too close to their topic to realize where they really are on the user adoption curve. As an entrepreneur, you’re hoping that the jump from what Geoffrey Moore describes as “innovators” and “early adopters” to the “early majority” is short, but unfortunately, in reality, sales and user adoption rates are about as easy to predict as blockbuster movies.
Must Have, Meh, or What Does It Do Again?
For entrepreneurs, one method to frame the product development process is whether your product is a “nice to have” or a “must have.” Here, “must have” is loosely defined and can be identified by answering questions like:
• Is it easy for people to recognize that your product will save them a significant amount of time?
• Or a significant amount of money?
• Do people quickly see how much better it plays their music?
• How much better it allows them to access data?
For example, back in 2005, when I was working on my startup GoingOn Networks, we identified a trend of blogging and social networking entering the corporate world. We built a private-label social media platform, thinking that companies would soon recognize this trend and purchase our software-as-service platform.
In hindsight, the first two years were painful. A long education process, working on quelling fears of “opening up” to customers, and another long sales cycle. We were hoping our market chasm would be the neighborhood creek, but we found out it was more like the Grand Canyon. Plus, by 2007, about thirty competitors were also targeting this market. I realized that our social media platform wasn’t a “must have” and maybe not even a “nice to have” during our early years because our target market first needed to be greatly educated on the benefits of social media. It felt as if more often than not, sales meetings went like this:
Me: “Open, two-way communication with your customers is more effective…”
Potential customer: “Like a walkie-talkie?”
Me: [Sigh]
For consumer plays where users don’t pay for the product, the “must have” bar might be set a bit lower than for paid products, but it’s still a significant hurdle for the early majority to spend their time (even if it doesn’t cost money) on something new of which the benefits aren’t obvious, easy, or quick to grasp.
So how do you figure out whether your insanely great idea is likely to find customers and become a “must have”? When you’re trying to identify “must haves” in the market, consider these techniques:
Trend Surfing. Extrapolate a current technology, trend, or “must have.” What is the next product in the evolution of an industry? Consider the evolution from the Walkman to MP3 players to the iPod. Or look at what emerging technologies will create new market opportunities. For example, Qualcomm and its CDMA technology. Or exercise trends that created a whole new market of Pilates videos and trainers. My personal favorite is the rise in popularity of specialty bacon, where I can also plug my “Ode to Bacon.”
There are numerous examples, but the reality is that it’s difficult to predict and ride such trends. I learned this from GoingOn, and my prior startup, HeyAnita, when voice recognition technology was hot. With competitors such as Tellme and BeVocal, our space raised over $300 million in 2000, but quickly faded a few years later when users didn’t widely adopt a voice-controlled interface.
Twitter seems to have hit the right wave on the trend from blogging to micro-blogging. Initially, it was just an echo chamber of Silicon Valley people tweeting to each other, but now even major media outlets such as CNN, ABC, and ESPN see communicating in 140 characters as a “must have.” Like Twitter, if you do catch a trend wave, it swells, and you execute well, then you could be golden, with a profitable tech company or the best-selling line of Pilates videos on your hands.
Identifying a Market Gap. Where in the market is there an underserved need? Is there a place in the market that a taste is not being met? Chipotle filled a desire for fast casual Mexican food. Netflix let people easily rent obscure movies and keep them as long as they wanted without late fees. Meebo met the demand for a single, unified IM platform. What element is missing in a market – one that you know and are passionate about – that you believe you can fill as an entrepreneur?
For instance, back in the old days before the majority of malware came from websites and links to them, there was an opportunity for different kinds of anti-malware products. Brian Kellner, now Newsgator’s VP of Products, gave me some interesting insights into his days at anti-spyware company Webroot in the 1990s: “Webroot was one of the first two companies to release an enterprise anti-spyware product at a time when Internet Explorer had a lot of vulnerabilities and anti-virus companies didn’t catch spyware. The product was tremendously successful because it really hit the pain avoidance and laziness needs.”
But as much as Webroot tried to make deployment and management of the solution easy, when both anti-virus offerings and browser security got better, the cost of owning and running a dedicated anti-spyware solution became unattractive. “The pain level dropped significantly as anti-virus companies added adequate anti-spyware protection and it was much easier to just run the anti-virus software alone,” says Kellner.
So, for a while, Webroot was a “must have.” But when other, possibly bigger, companies start tapping into the Market Gap you found and have been filling, you need to find other ways to remain a “must have.” For example, by trying to extrapolate to the next logical “must have” in your market (Trend Surfing), or by making sure your product keeps something attractively unique about it, or is just clearly the best of its kind.
Building a Better Mousetrap. What product category is doing well, but could be done even better? Do you have an idea for something that will clearly be the best of its kind? IKEA did it for the budget-conscious furniture retail market. Zappos.com turned shoe shopping into a very convenient, easy, low-pressure experience. What features are missing that could be implemented and allow a new player to change the market? Friendster to MySpace and Facebook. MySpace and Facebook provided more value that simply connecting with friends through music and then third-party applications.
In speaking with Brian Rakowski, former lead product manager for Google’s Gmail product and current Product Management Director for its Chrome browser, he explained how he led the launches for these two products and how to make them better than any of the competitive products already out there: “Both Google Chrome and Gmail were new entrants in existing spaces so we spent a lot of time getting to know the market-leading products in their categories and identifying the biggest user pain points. For webmail, it was small storage quotas and clunky, inefficient interfaces. For browsers, it was general instability and unresponsiveness, especially on advanced webpages.” Google succeeded nicely with both of these, with Gmail surpassing Youtube earlier this year as the second-most-visited Google property and Chrome gaining just under 3% marketshare after one year. Rakowski concludes, “In the end, the best way to test whether you have a “must have” product is to threaten to take the prototype away from your early users. If they don’t riot, start again.”
Brian has a great insight here. Would users of Microsoft’s Vista have rioted if it had been taken away? No, there probably would have been celebrations throughout office buildings all over the world. What about Segway after all its hype? Maybe only mall cops would have grumbled.
Like the story of Webroot and anti-spyware becoming part of anti-virus solutions, the Building A Better Mousetrap category also brings up the importance of sustainability. How do you maintain being a “must have” in your market? During the 1990s, my favorite search engine was Alta Vista, but it didn’t maintain its “must have” status and gave way to Inktomi, which eventually gave way to Google. Google has been maintaining its “must have” status by not only staying on top of the search algorithm game, but also by offering superior or extremely competitive complementary products and services to its users: Adsense and Adwords for advertising, and nicely integrated apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs that make it easy to make Google your default online place to get things done. (Yet even Google has had its share of failures or incompletes such as Google Lively, Froogle, Checkout, and Spreadsheets.)
Finally, with all three of these techniques for identifying a potential “must have” opportunity – Trend Surfing, Identifying a Market Gap, and Building a Better Mousetrap – keep regularly asking yourself “is mine a “must have” product?” questions like the ones listed earlier. And of course make sure you’re still insanely excited about your own idea most days of the week – because if you’re not excited, it’ll be hard to make others think of your product as a can’t-live-without-it “must have.” But hopefully, these techniques and examples are giving you some extra inspiration on how to get to the next step in your new great idea.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Did You Know 4.0
HatTip to Dan W. Updated video on how "a surge of new technologies and social media innovations is altering the media landscape." It's also amazing to think that a majority of this driven by a small area in our world called Silicon Valley.
Love the prior version...
Love the prior version...
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
"Lessons from Asia for Tech Sector" by Benjamin Joffe
HatTip to Patrick P. Didn't know that Benjamin Joffe, who co-organizes the Open Web Asia Conference with me, put up these slides. Pretty cool, Benjamin.
Lessons from Asia for Tech Sector -
Mark Suster, who blogs at Both Sides of the Table, has his take aways here:
1. Wacky, weird and low cost: Before diving into what I learned in the deck I want to share something crazy. Motorola gave us in the US the RAZR (before they stopped innovating). But China literally gave us the Cell Razor. Benjamin brought in a cell phone where the bottom pulls out and you have an electric razor. No joke.
2. Film innovation – If Benjamin’s analysis is right – even many of our most successful films have been adaptations from Asian films. I knew some were but the scope was surprising. Especially Star Wars & The Matrix.
3. Internet users in US – 225 million, mobile 260MM. China Internet: 340MM, Mobile a staggering 650MM. Don’t bet that China won’t innovate in mobile. (slide 29)
4. 70% of Korean population has Internet speeds > 5mbps (and avg = 15 mbps) – don’t bet that the Koreans won’t innovate on online content (slide 30). Larger online game market ($1 billion) than Japan despite 1/3 population and 1/2 GDP per capital (slide 99). Way ahead of the US on mobile gifting.
5. More than 90% of Japanese mobile subscribers are on 3G networks (vs. 20% in the US) (slide 30), More than 50% have mobile TV & NFC chipsets (slide 87). Mobile ARPU = a staggering $110 / month for content and commerce alone (slide 88). Massive fall-off in ringtone and massive uptick in full songs (slide 89) —> still think we shouldn’t be watching what’s happening in Asia? Sales of avatars in social games nearly 50% of total revenue eclipsing revenue from affiliate transaction, ads or paid games (slide 97). Mobile game content revenue > PC game revenue (slide 98)
6. China’s leading social network (Tencent, who’s product is QQ) already does more than $1 billion in revenue. That’s 2x Facebook estimates. Tencent market cap on public market is $21 billion, Facebook’s is a theoretical $3-15bn (slide 52). China is innovating in many of the categories that the US is trying to solve now including mobile couponing, vertical social networks, Internet TV, etc.
7. Free-to-play gaming with micro transactions has become huge in Asia with very nice profit margins. EA and others in the US are copying this success (slide 71)
Lessons from Asia for Tech Sector -
Mark Suster, who blogs at Both Sides of the Table, has his take aways here:
1. Wacky, weird and low cost: Before diving into what I learned in the deck I want to share something crazy. Motorola gave us in the US the RAZR (before they stopped innovating). But China literally gave us the Cell Razor. Benjamin brought in a cell phone where the bottom pulls out and you have an electric razor. No joke.
2. Film innovation – If Benjamin’s analysis is right – even many of our most successful films have been adaptations from Asian films. I knew some were but the scope was surprising. Especially Star Wars & The Matrix.
3. Internet users in US – 225 million, mobile 260MM. China Internet: 340MM, Mobile a staggering 650MM. Don’t bet that China won’t innovate in mobile. (slide 29)
4. 70% of Korean population has Internet speeds > 5mbps (and avg = 15 mbps) – don’t bet that the Koreans won’t innovate on online content (slide 30). Larger online game market ($1 billion) than Japan despite 1/3 population and 1/2 GDP per capital (slide 99). Way ahead of the US on mobile gifting.
5. More than 90% of Japanese mobile subscribers are on 3G networks (vs. 20% in the US) (slide 30), More than 50% have mobile TV & NFC chipsets (slide 87). Mobile ARPU = a staggering $110 / month for content and commerce alone (slide 88). Massive fall-off in ringtone and massive uptick in full songs (slide 89) —> still think we shouldn’t be watching what’s happening in Asia? Sales of avatars in social games nearly 50% of total revenue eclipsing revenue from affiliate transaction, ads or paid games (slide 97). Mobile game content revenue > PC game revenue (slide 98)
6. China’s leading social network (Tencent, who’s product is QQ) already does more than $1 billion in revenue. That’s 2x Facebook estimates. Tencent market cap on public market is $21 billion, Facebook’s is a theoretical $3-15bn (slide 52). China is innovating in many of the categories that the US is trying to solve now including mobile couponing, vertical social networks, Internet TV, etc.
7. Free-to-play gaming with micro transactions has become huge in Asia with very nice profit margins. EA and others in the US are copying this success (slide 71)
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Asia's Very Smart Cities: Songdo, Korea and Meixi Lake, China
This month's Forbes magazine has an article entitled "Asia's Smart Metropolis: South Korea's Songdo and China's Meixi Lake are spending billions on intelligent networks with an eco-vibe" where companies such as Cisco and 3M are highlighted.
What's missing in this discussion is smaller technology company I'm an advisor to called Innotive. It's led by my two close friends, Jimmy and Peter, who I did my first two startups with. Innotive is an integrated platform that allows for the convergence of rich media content through an interactive, zooming interface. It powers interactive displays at retail stores, such as BMW and Nike, and provides a control room solution to manage CCTV camera monitoring efficiently through one workstation. The latter product is called InnoWatch which will be integrated into the Songdo City project with over 1,000 touch-screen displays installed.

Songdo is a huge development project that spans over 1,500 acres, 150 buildings and will cost over $35 billion. It is not only a "smart" city but a green city that will be the largest private LEED development in the world since the whole city will be based on LEED building standards.
Below is an example of Innotive's InnoWatch solution:
A longer, detailed version of the Forbes' article was published online, "Very Smart Cities," which you can read here.
What's missing in this discussion is smaller technology company I'm an advisor to called Innotive. It's led by my two close friends, Jimmy and Peter, who I did my first two startups with. Innotive is an integrated platform that allows for the convergence of rich media content through an interactive, zooming interface. It powers interactive displays at retail stores, such as BMW and Nike, and provides a control room solution to manage CCTV camera monitoring efficiently through one workstation. The latter product is called InnoWatch which will be integrated into the Songdo City project with over 1,000 touch-screen displays installed.

Songdo is a huge development project that spans over 1,500 acres, 150 buildings and will cost over $35 billion. It is not only a "smart" city but a green city that will be the largest private LEED development in the world since the whole city will be based on LEED building standards.
Below is an example of Innotive's InnoWatch solution:
A longer, detailed version of the Forbes' article was published online, "Very Smart Cities," which you can read here.
Labels:
asia,
china,
cisco,
eco-city,
forbes,
green,
innotive,
leed,
south korea,
technology,
zooming
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Wired Seoul, The World's Most Networked City
Time magazine has a good piece on Seoul, the world's most wired city. I lived in Seoul from 2000 to 2004 where I really learned that most behaviors related to technology usage are not culturally bound but dependent on the availability and ubiquity of technology. Some of my thoughts are in an old piece, "Where Technology Is Ubiquitous, Opportunity Abounds."
"Seoul: World's Most Wired Megacity Gets More So" TIME
"Wired Seoul" (photo essay)

The systems ensure that the city's 20 million residents live within one giant hot spot, where wireless access is available from almost anywhere for a small fee.
"Seoul: World's Most Wired Megacity Gets More So" TIME
"Wired Seoul" (photo essay)

The systems ensure that the city's 20 million residents live within one giant hot spot, where wireless access is available from almost anywhere for a small fee.
Friday, July 31, 2009
International Space Station Comes Together
HatTip to Dad. Cool flash animation of how the International Space Station has grown over the years since 1998. They didn't provide an embed code, so you have to click here to see it.

From NASA and produced by Robert W. Ahrens and Julia Schmalz from USA Today.

From NASA and produced by Robert W. Ahrens and Julia Schmalz from USA Today.
Monday, July 27, 2009
MiLi Pro: iPhone, iPod Video Projector
Very cool iPhone accessory launching in September 2009:
Announcing the PhoneSuit MiLi Pro...
The MiLi Pro is a breakthrough in iPhone and iPod accessory technology. It's an iPhone / iPod compatible, rechargeable, micro video projector. The power of the PhoneSuit MiLi Battery has been coupled with the convenience of a portable video projector and speaker system. Watch all of your movies, video clips, podcasts and more with ease! Now you can carry your own personal movie theater with you, anywhere you travel.
Innovative Micro Projector Technology
The MiLi Pro incorporates the latest in technology, an LCOS, LED driven micro projector. This ultra-compact projector fits in the palm of your hand. It has the capability to display 640x480 high resolution images on most any viewing surface. Use the focus wheel to fine tune your image quality. Scale your iPhone's video up to a 40 inch for screen for eye strain free, relaxed viewing.
Announcing the PhoneSuit MiLi Pro...
The MiLi Pro is a breakthrough in iPhone and iPod accessory technology. It's an iPhone / iPod compatible, rechargeable, micro video projector. The power of the PhoneSuit MiLi Battery has been coupled with the convenience of a portable video projector and speaker system. Watch all of your movies, video clips, podcasts and more with ease! Now you can carry your own personal movie theater with you, anywhere you travel.
Innovative Micro Projector Technology
The MiLi Pro incorporates the latest in technology, an LCOS, LED driven micro projector. This ultra-compact projector fits in the palm of your hand. It has the capability to display 640x480 high resolution images on most any viewing surface. Use the focus wheel to fine tune your image quality. Scale your iPhone's video up to a 40 inch for screen for eye strain free, relaxed viewing.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Conference Hopping Today: TechCrunch's Real-Time Stream & Guy Kawasaki's Revenue Bootcamp
I'm conference hopping today before I take off for Chicago today to meet Christine and our girls. I'm at Guy Kawasaki's Revenue Bootcamp this morning and headed to TechCrunch's Real-Time Stream event later today.
Slice of Revenue Bootcamp
Keynote
Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, Wired magazine
Author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price
11:00am - 12:00pm
Is the Advertising Model Dead?
1:30pm - 2:30pm
This panel answers questions like: Can you build a real business around advertising revenues? What does it take to optimize ad revenue? Are new ad techniques energizing?
Samir Arora - Chairman and CEO, Glam Media
Neil Chase - Vice President for Author Services, Federated Media
Xavier Zang - Publisher Partner Management, Microsoft
Tim Kendall - Director of Monetization, Facebook
David Kopp - Senior Director, N. American Ads, Yahoo!
Bill Reichert - Moderator. Garage Technology Ventures
Slice of Real-Time Search
9:00 - 9:45 am
The Real Time Opportunity
Q&A with leading angel investors John Borthwick and Ron Conway, moderated by Michael Arrington and Steve Gillmor.
9:45 - 10:30 am
The Real Time Moment
* Jack Dorsey, Twitter
* Chris Cox, Facebook
* Bret Taylor, Friendfeed
* Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch (moderator)
Slice of Revenue Bootcamp
Keynote
Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, Wired magazine
Author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price
11:00am - 12:00pm
Is the Advertising Model Dead?
1:30pm - 2:30pm
This panel answers questions like: Can you build a real business around advertising revenues? What does it take to optimize ad revenue? Are new ad techniques energizing?
Samir Arora - Chairman and CEO, Glam Media
Neil Chase - Vice President for Author Services, Federated Media
Xavier Zang - Publisher Partner Management, Microsoft
Tim Kendall - Director of Monetization, Facebook
David Kopp - Senior Director, N. American Ads, Yahoo!
Bill Reichert - Moderator. Garage Technology Ventures
Slice of Real-Time Search
9:00 - 9:45 am
The Real Time Opportunity
Q&A with leading angel investors John Borthwick and Ron Conway, moderated by Michael Arrington and Steve Gillmor.
9:45 - 10:30 am
The Real Time Moment
* Jack Dorsey, Twitter
* Chris Cox, Facebook
* Bret Taylor, Friendfeed
* Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch (moderator)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Startup Fundraising 101
My article at VentureBeat's Entrepreneur Corner is up:
"Startup Fundraising 101"
The slides in the article and below are actually from an older version, but the newest one was on my laptop that got stolen this past weekend. Not sure if I'm up for recreating this document since I can't remember all the minor tweaks (e.g. slide 12 mentioning Reed Hastings and Judy Estrin instead of Marc Andreessen) I did :(
"Startup Fundraising 101"
The slides in the article and below are actually from an older version, but the newest one was on my laptop that got stolen this past weekend. Not sure if I'm up for recreating this document since I can't remember all the minor tweaks (e.g. slide 12 mentioning Reed Hastings and Judy Estrin instead of Marc Andreessen) I did :(
Startup Fundraising 101
View more presentations from Bernard Moon.
Friday, June 19, 2009
"Lines That Divide" Documentary Preview Clips
Some great clips from the "Lines That Divide" documentary.
Chuck Colson, Founder of Prison Fellowship:
"Lines that Divide is a much needed tool for equipping concerned citizens with a comprehensive view of the science and ethics shaping the stem-cell debate today. The film spotlights the breakthroughs being made by adult stem-cell therapy — breakthroughs which are not receiving equal funding or equal media coverage. All of us who believe in supporting life should see this film and recommend it to others."
Leading experts, William Hurlbut (Stanford University), Philip Schwartz, Wesley J. Smith, and Samuel Wood on the use of human embryos for research.
Christopher Reeve on Charlie Rose discussing human cloning. William Hurlbut on arguments made from suffering and the "greatest good for the greatest number".
Chuck Colson, Founder of Prison Fellowship:
"Lines that Divide is a much needed tool for equipping concerned citizens with a comprehensive view of the science and ethics shaping the stem-cell debate today. The film spotlights the breakthroughs being made by adult stem-cell therapy — breakthroughs which are not receiving equal funding or equal media coverage. All of us who believe in supporting life should see this film and recommend it to others."
Leading experts, William Hurlbut (Stanford University), Philip Schwartz, Wesley J. Smith, and Samuel Wood on the use of human embryos for research.
Christopher Reeve on Charlie Rose discussing human cloning. William Hurlbut on arguments made from suffering and the "greatest good for the greatest number".
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