VentureBeat is doing a new experiment, linking from their site to VC firm reviews on The Funded.
I’m fascinated by The Funded and the fact that it even exists. Has venture capital become such as commodity (e.g. in terms of the large number of VC professionals, amount of money available, etc.) that it can support a full-time review site? Yikes!
I started reading Sketching User Experiences (thanks Amazon Prime!), and I’ve already found a quote that’s really resonated:
In terms of stifling innovation, good ideas are far more dangerous than bad ones. They take hold, assume momentum, and therefore result in inertia. Consequently, they are hard to displace, even when they are well past their prime.
Bill Buxton put his finger on a theme that’s been bugging me recently: some designs that have been “good enough” have stuck with us for a long time, with little follow-on innovation.
First, the iPhone has showed us innovation was still possible with phones and mobile devices. We were stuck in a design box, and Apple has showed one way to get out of it (e.g. make the screen as large as you can, dispense with buttons, have rich gesture interaction with the screen itself, etc.)
Second, what about Outlook and email readers in general? Outlook has been good enough for he past decade or so, and nothing has really changed with the way we read email. Isn’t there a fundamentally better way for me to deal with 100-200 messages/day?
Finally, if you’re a software designer, you should read the Story of Improv, about the team at Lotus (led by Pito Salas) that was designing beyond the standard cell-based spreadsheet model. It’s a reminder to keep innovating — don’t accept the status quo.
One way to discover new blogs is to read shared links from other bloggers. When you find an article you like, go visit the blog.
For example, I find a lot of new blogs from Scoble’s shared links feed.
I use BlogBridge as my blog reader.
If you need to cover a lot of blogs, it’s the way to go. It’s free, open source, and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Platform APIs (e.g. Facebook, force.com, Google, etc.) are a great way to “let a thousand flowers bloom” and get the market to do the hard work of researching and market-testing new features. It’s an absolutely brilliant strategy. We’ll see the platforms acquiring their leading apps. We’ll also see (I bet) some nasty dust-ups where the platform copies features and competes directly with third-party apps.
However, developers beware — the fine print of many API agreements (such as Google’s) require you to indemnify the platform and/or agree not to sue for IP claims (e.g. patent infringement) relating to your work. This can make it hard to defend your ideas if the platform rips off your app, which in turn will make it hard to negotiate a good price if the platform wants to acquire you or license your app. Consult your attorney.
If you’re not reading Ted Dintersmith’s blog about his family’s 10-month trip around the world, you should. It’s a great story and Ted’s a great writer.
I wonder if the airline loyalty programs have gotten so loyal, they’re hurting the overall business.
I just flew from Boston to the valley on American, which I haven’t flown in a while. Even with a relatively expensive fare ($800), I was surprised how hard it was to get out of a coach center seat to an aisle. Apparently, blocks of aisle/window seats are reserved for the most loyal customers, then gradually released as departure time approaches. I did get an aisle, but I had to wait my turn.
My friends lament that loyalty programs aren’t worth much any more, because there’s always someone “more loyal” in front of you on the upgrade list. I try to fly JetBlue I can; I am part of their TrueBlue program, but they appear to let anyone buy any available seat.
I know the airlines make money by taking care of their best customers, but I wonder if over-caring for your best customers is offset by losing regular customers?
I think Microsoft’s dominance has peaked.
They’re struggling on many fronts: Vista an uninspired product with more technology & features for copyright holders (e.g. DRM) than for users. Microsoft’s had to provide more life for Windows XP, and to offer downgrade options from Vista. They haven’t been able to translate desktop dominance into any Internet dominance. Adobe’s Flash is the platform of choice for rich Web apps.
The flat stock price is making it harder to buy and retain top talent. Mature, high-quality, low-cost, open source stacks are winning in the server room. Viable alternatives to the Office cash cow are becoming available. The hardware market can’t tolerate Microsoft’s OEM bundling prices, when systems cost 80% less than they did a decade ago.
Apple is coming on strong, and inspiring customers with new products and new ideas — when was the last time Microsoft did that?
But, I don’t think Microsoft will disappear. They’ll join the IBM club (or worse, the Sun club), as a once-dominant company that’s no longer a leader.
One of the costs of raising venture capital is overhead: it takes a lot of energy to navigate the complexity of term sheets, to manage investors, and to navigate follow-on rounds of funding. It gets even worse if you’re dealing with “unique” investor personalities, immaturity, lack of experience, or intra- and inter-firm politics. One CEO friend recently bemoaned that 25% of his time went to “investor stuff” — that’s a typical number.
Venture investing is not a simple business, and investors are adept at adding terms and structures that protect increasingly narrow outcome cases. If getting a home equity loan were like raising venture capital using a FHA loan application, the kick off meeting has 4 people coming to your house and would take all day.
Investors argue this is the cost of doing business: no capital, no company. True, but the overhead has become a real issue in certain sectors (e.g. Internet projects) where the capital requirements are dropping. If you have an idea that needs $500k, and you raise money the “classic” way, you’ll spend 10% of your capital on the legal bill alone. (Remember, the company is paying both sides of the legal bill).
There’s got to be a way to fund capital-efficient ideas with lower overhead (and more time going into creating value in the company). I don’t know what the answer is, but I did think Dave McClure’s rant on the general subject was dead on.
Hello World!
I’m starting a blog, as if the world needs a new blogger, and contrary to my previous notes on why wikis are better than blogs (for some types of content). I’ve since figured out (I’m slow) that blogs are as much about distribution as they are about content.