Interview with Twitter's Chief Revenue Officer

A highly-engaging video for half an hour about monetization from Twitter. Will write more when I have time.

a question after Facebook's Zuckerberg

This article is not very special but it brings me back the question: Would startups be more successful if their founders have a plan of building the company own their own, having a long term plan or would they be more successful if the founders know what to do and one of the plans would be selling the company?

It is, however difficult to say you know what's going to happen with your company, especially if the startup is in the Internet environment. Things are changing faster than you expect, normally. I'm not sure if there are a lot of people out there can say that they know what's going to be in the next 5 years with new technology, on web or mobile,... So having a plan of selling the company within 5 years, 10 years is also difficult. Your plan might be to get the company bought by one of the big companies, but you don't know if within 10 years Yahoo!, Nokia will still be able to do some acquisitions. Yahoo! is even being pitched by the other players.

Reading Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or even with my own good intention, I do hope that founders of startups have a long-term plan for the company. Those are companies built to last. There are yet opportunists out there, and entrepreneurs who are successful building and selling companies. Who are more successful? What's the rate of failing among the opportunists and the long-term planners? I don't know what reality and statistics shows at the moment. Yes, I have to do some research on this.

Last thought: if the people in the industry don't know what is going to happen in the next 5 years, how do VCs and Private Equity firms set their expectation? If it's not the technology they know thoroughly, shouldn't it be the experience with seeing the people and the resource of the company to make the evaluation? VCs and PEs can be those who set trends, who can have the view of what will be  in the future, because they are the one who sponsor company for the existence of startups. However, hanging around in the Internet industry for a while, I don't think it's the case. It must be the ideas, vision and the execution of the people inside the industry that make things happen.

The answer to Microsoft and Nokia's problem

Again, this is the problem of suppliers and relationship with suppliers and complementors, who are in this case the app developers.

A part of a model using Value Net concept by Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1995) that we drew out last year.

I thought it's very obvious for other mobile software developers that there is a shortage of apps on their platforms. A lot of people, use iPhone or iPad because of the variety of apps that they offer. And the apps looks beautiful on the device. (I wanted to buy an iPad because I can flip thru pages on Flipboard.)
It's a very good job for Nokia to develop a new smartphone within a very short time frame. Elop has just been to the company for less than a year. So, it's amazing they can develop a good hardware in short time. But, why don't they think about the complementors before that? They could also work together with Microsoft to boost the popularity of Windows Phone among the app developers.

Now, Nokia and eBuddy has just announced a partnership. Although I work for the company and the guy who closed the deal with Nokia sitting in the same room with me, asking me candies or cookies every day he comes to the office, I don't have a lot of information as the public has. (I tend not to discuss work-related things with my friends as well so normally have no idea what they are working on). eBuddy has partnership with a lot of OEMs and carriers, to make the eBuddy apps more popular among the users of the devices (Archos, Nokia,...) or among the carriers (Vodafone, T-Mobile, Singtel,...). Getting more users is beneficial to eBuddy. It's always good to have more users.
So in this case, what do you think the deal between Nokia and eBuddy? Did eBuddy have to pay Nokia for being pre-installed on their device? Or does Nokia pay eBuddy for installing our apps on their devices?

It will be clearer if you go back to the first paragraph, understanding the importance of the Suppliers or Complementors. Microsoft and Nokia did not do something on time, compared with Apple and Google to get the interesting apps out there in the market, on the platform.

Mary Meeker's analysis 2011

An updated analysis for this year from Mary Meeker, again, and still very thorough.
KPCB Internet Trends (2011)

Tips from VC

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/16/ten-tips-on-how-to-work-with-your-board-of-directors/

There are some good recommendations to make use of.

The State of the Web - Mary Meeker

Came across this quite late, but still a very nice reference that worths being kept.

Which of today’s technology giants might still be standing tall a century after their founding?

A look at IBM, how they can keep up after a hundred years being in existence.
Nice post, nice view about the strategy and further, about the philosophy of companies like IBM, Apple, Amazon compared with Microsoft, Cisco,...
Short but nice read for a Strategy course.

Why Groupon is poised to collapse

Click on the link to read the review/ critic about Groupon.
Looks like they are carrying out a new way of financing, another type of mortgage lenders.

Another thought, if Groupon wants to stay there in the market for years to come, they might need good people in cash management, cash flow prediction, existing but a bit new type of job is there to do.

Apple WWMC 2011

From the time of my analysis (or or group project) of Apple in fall 2010, Apple has made a big leap with iPad2 and now with iCloud, iOS5 and all the things it has just announced last Monday, June 6th, 2011.

There's not a lot of things to talk about iPad2 for an 'Innovator' group. Yet, there are more and more people who own Apple's product. With iMessages and a lot of features that will be launched in fall this year, there will be a big group of people joining the club. Especially, when iMessage is free, there is no fee anymore to operators. People will just use it because their friends use it. iMessage is default when you send an sms. How much space will be left for eBuddy XMS and WhatsApp? Just space for people to send messages across platform (iOS to Android or Blackberry). It would be interesting to see the effect of iMessage in increasing iPhone users. Probably that is why Apple plans to separate the launch of iOS5 with the expected iPhone 5.

The analysis that we wrote about focus a big part on relationship between Apple and operators. However, once they have become big, it's the other way around; operators need them to attract more customers. The other relationship that Apple has is with third-party developers. A lot of people use iPhone because of nice, cool apps that are designed for iPhone. Now, Apple knows what are interesting to offer to its customers and take a big hit to the developers. iCloud will be there to replace Dropbox, iMessage to replace WhatsApp and the new successful eBuddy's product, eBuddy XMS, Instapper, Camera+ will lose its stand as well. The real threat that these companies should foresee is its dependence on Apple's platform (or any kind) to gain users and revenues, consequently.

Apple's stock price is way there to increase. Thus, for a time horizon of 1-3 years, I would buy its stocks. However, for a pension fund, I am not sure. For that time horizon, probably people will again dump Apple's products, becoming anti-Apple or like what they did before with Apple I and II. Apple now offers a lot of value to its customers. The chance is just that it will be dominant in the technology consumer market. Once, when people only owns iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, using iTunes, iCloud, it will have all the right to set the price to the market and control its relationship with all types of suppliers.

I am just here in one of the exciting time and have a little knowledge to think it will be interesting to see what will be going on in till the time I retire.

A Conversation on Leadership

Along the way, Burns learned a few things, such as not looking for a promotion until “you’ve figured out a way to transform the current work,” and the importance of “loving change, and thinking hard before turning down a job, especially from someone senior to you.” She also figured out, “If you think you have to trade off who you are to make it, then you are going to fail.” At Xerox, she was valuable to the organization precisely because of her differences, she says. “It’s interesting how uniqueness is more of a significant advantage; it got me seen.”

To be an effective leader, she advises, you must determine “your space” in the firm; develop real listening abilities; have a clear vision and take risks. Burns is a big believer in setting objectives and standards for performance. She worries that these days “we’re in the mode of making everyone feel better, loving each other, to the detriment of people focusing, trying hard and differentiating the great from not so good.” One last thing, she counsels: Don’t get distracted by how much money a position might make. “The measure of money is least important over the long term. There is a point where there is too much, and you’ll know when you are there. Unfortunately, if you get to that point, you may have lost too much of the fun, joy and wonder enjoying the situation you’re in, trying to have people around you be better, in pursuit of making more money.”

(Founder Stories) How Mike Walrath Built Right Media And Sold It For $850 Million

In 2009, when my company worked with Right Media exchange, it was already bought by Yahoo. Even at that time, an exchange was still a new idea to publishers.
The idea, still is to build a platform where advertisers and publishers; supply and demand can meet together to do business.

Thinking further, the business model is said to be a profitable one, from strategic point of view for online advertising. The valuation worths.

Is this all Google's intention of its Android and the view over the future of mobile?

Strata 2011: Scott Yara, "Your Data Rules the World"

We are living in a unique point of time.

24.2.2011 - ABS trivial notes

- What Google is trying to do with their Android and mobile phone? Are they going to be a new Microsoft with their large market share on phone as Microsoft did with their Windows before? Are they only getting money from search or from something else that they are developing but not offering or exploiting yet?

- Again, if Apple loses its popularity, will the fate of its iPhone be like the fate of Apple I and II?

- Will Microsoft become obsolete in 10 years time? What can they do with a large market share getting from Nokia but whose users possess basic phones?

- What are revenues from Google, Facebook? Taken into account that more than 90% of their revenues are from advertising, how large is the yearly global advertising budget? For small companies, what are their shares in the market? Where does the advertising budget come from? Manufacturing companies like Unilever, entertainment (movies, music) or services. Without companies which produce goods for the society, how much the advertising budget will decrease? 

- How about energy? What can people with energy in 10 years? What if plants can be grown in the ocean, if energy from waves can be used much better (how much energy from the sea can we use. Surely, a very little part of it is being used now), and if there is technology to desalt water from the sea to provide clean water for the world?

Somehow, the world has been changing too fast. There are lots of technology developed for the fun and cool of its, not for the necessity. And in some part of the world, people are richer than what they expect, yet in another part, there is still poverty, hunger and no education for children...

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 10

The last part when Steve Jobs talked about how lucky they are on the planet is envious but yet worth keeping in mind, to live and to work.

on Facebook $500bln value

Good video from Bloomberg. Very good insight of Gene Munster, in which he mentioned Google's market cap (closed to $200bln). To a certain extent, it's striking to think how Internet have been changing people's consumption and buying decisions, which are sourced for the growth of Google or FB.