Ideation on social media, venture capital and startups 
Leveraging Ideas
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Social Media
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07.14.08The Price Is Right but the Process is Wrong
Social MediaI have been thinking a lot about the role of price points in web 2.0. Much of the ‘bubble’ we hear about stems from the reluctance of those utilizing products to pay for them. It’s not even that there is a reluctance to pay something – there is a reluctance to pay anything at all. Wired Magazine recently featured a cover story anointing this the free economy. However I believe that the reluctance of consumers to pay for online applications points to much deeper concerns than simply price alone. Intuitively it makes no sense to me that someone wouldn’t pay ...
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07.09.08Techcrunch Forums Hit DeadPool
Social MediaAlthough largely unnoticed by the blogosphere, Techcrunch has killed CrunchForums. The initial idea according to Michael was “[to provide] a good place to pitch your new startup or product if it hasn’t been featured yet on TechCrunch (or even if it has), share tips with the community, spread rumors, or endlessly debate the definition (or existence) of Web 2.0.” Unfortunately, two mistakes were made: Pitching of startups was unregulated The chosen forum software did not allow for community policing In conjunction with pulling down the old forum system, TechCrunch has offered a new and more regulated approach to pitching of startups: “elevator pitches.” While the ...
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07.01.08Takeaways from Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good
Social MediaMax Levchin and many other famous entrepreneurs failed numerous times before hitting it big Reid Hoffman(LinkedIn), Peter Thiel (Paypal/Clarium) and Sean Parker (Facebook/Napster) were all advisors to Friendster Ability to be successful on the web is highly correlated to amount of capital you have access to A bunch of the Internet greats went to the University of Illinois (Andreessen, Levchin). Seem random? It’s not. The internet is a lot less about being a ‘pure genius’ and a lot more about being in the right place, at the right time (oh and having a ton of connections helps too) Surprise! Lots of famous Internet founders ...
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06.27.08Could Anything Disrupt Google?
Social MediaGoogle seems to be on a tear. The 100 pound gorilla in the technology space. Unstoppable. But… Storage space is increasingly a commodity as evidenced by Google's Gmail. What happens when a user can download the entire Internet? Searches could then be conducted instantaneously. Advertisements would be unnecessary. Thoughts?
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06.26.08What’s This Blog All About?
Social MediaI started this blog back in 2006 with the intention of educating young people on technology and finance as well as to highlight the trends and experiences I was witnessing personally as an entrepreneur. Over the last two years, I've realized that I'm more interested in focusing on the environment of early-stage companies. To clarify, an early-stage company may or may not be a startup. Likewise, startups do not only need refer to technology-focused companies. Even the definition of early stage is disputed. What;'s considered early stage in Boston is likely very different from what's considered early stage in the Valley. So ...
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06.19.08Social Media Deal Flow Continues
Social Media, Venture CapitalPaidContent has released its second installment of the Social Media Deals Report. The team analyzed deal flow a 15-month period starting in January 2007. Some highlights... Venture Investment in Social Media: Total number of investments: 400 Total number of disclosed investments: 341 valued at $2,763,715,000 Average investment size: $8,104,736 Best estimated value of overall investment in the space (disclosed and undisclosed): $3,074,215,000 total invested Acquisitions in the Social Media Space: Total number of acquisitions: 131 Total number of disclosed acquisitions: 41 disclosed valued at $13,422,310,000 Average acquisition size: $327,313,415 Click here to download a free executive summary
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06.13.08Twitter Looks to Outsourced (Re)Development Experts
Social MediaBack in May I wrote a post suggesting that we were going to see a rise in startups and VC's outsourcing to software product development firms as a method for quickly assembling a team and in helping to minimize technology risk. Twitter must have been listening... Via VentureBeat: Twitter, the messaging service that many of us love — and love to complain about when it experiences downtime — has hired a premier software development firm to help it rebuild its infrastructure, we’ve heard and confirmed with the company. The name of the firm is Pivotal Labs, a quiet but impressive group of big-gun, ...
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06.09.08Free: The Business Model of Paul Coelho and the Grateful Dead
Social MediaA reader from Sydney, Ian van Niekerk, sent me a great article featured in February’s Fortune Magazine. The article discusses how Brazilian author Paulo Coelho has been an apostle of the economics of free Internet distribution for years. In 1999, best-selling author Paulo Coelho, who wrote "The Alchemist," was failing in Russia. That year he sold only about 1,000 books, and his Russian publisher dropped him. But after he found another, Coelho took a radical step. On his own Web site, launched in 1996, he posted a digital Russian copy of "The Alchemist." With no additional promotion, print sales picked up ...
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06.05.08Startup Marketing: Metrics and Strategy
Social MediaAt Workstreamer I’m in charge of marketing and strategy. As I have begun developing our marketing, I have become deeply bothered by the lack of resources available to marketing strategists of early early-stage companies. Aside from the awesome work and insights of Dave McClure and Andrew Chen there seems to be a real lack of resources. Distribution of a new company is maybe more important than the product itself. Yet, everywhere you look online, all you find are blogs about web-design, venture capital and branding. Yes, there are generic marketing blogs, but how you market a new web service is a ...
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06.02.08Anything Can Be Hacked. Everything Should Be Hacked.
Brands and Marketing, Social MediaUmair Haque has a great post on how to hack the industrial economy. Umair’s main point is that hacking should be encouraged and applied to the world’s big problems. Why is everything hackable today? Because in the edgeconomy, the universe of the economically possible has exploded: resources are more and more accessible. And if you can get your hands on it, you can hack it. The point is simple: nothing is impossible when you’re hacking. In the comments the idea of a shared wiki for hacker collaboration is shared. I believe that Workstreamer will immediately be able to make an impact in ...
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recent posts
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- Teaching Dad About the Internet Circa 1994
- The Turning Girl IQ Test
- The Long Tail and Mimetic Desire
- The Price Is Right but the Process is Wrong
- Can You Afford Not to Be Funny?
- Techcrunch Forums Hit DeadPool
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