… nailing Unit Economics This post was first published on the Crunchbase blog. Every startup begins as an idea. And as a founder, your idea needs a powerful story that wins the support of two key audiences: The customer. The story to a potential customer is all about what product or service you offer them, why they should care, how and when you plan to deliver it, and at what price. The investor. The story to an investor is simply how the money they give you will grow into more value, how fast and how big. It is also why you
[read more]...This is my talk from the MENA – ICT event in Jordan. The event was great. Almost 1000 attendees from all over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) talking about Information and Communications Technology (ICT). [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sYJll54slY&w=560&h=315]
[read more]...This poem seem particularly pertinent to the current state of Silicon Valley. Incubators on ones side of the valley. Nothing in the Valley. Growth Capital on the other side. Most startups are dead as soon as they exit their 3 month stint. The exceptions are rare yet notable. WHAT HAPPENED TO VENTURE CAPITAL? The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six
[read more]...Google and Facebook can’t turn off the mobile deluge I just posted on TechCrunch. The article focuses on the Facebook S1 filing and in particular on the risks section that covers the growth of the mobile internet and its potential impact on the web business model. Facebook itself has been very clear that its advertising revenues are exclusively derived from its web site, and also that an increasing amount of its usage comes from mobile in general and smart phones in particular. Buried in the article is this point: Google’s present – and Facebook’s future – involves the painful fact that
[read more]...Fred Wilson has a response today to Eric Schmidt’s declaration in Edinburgh that Google+ is an “identity service”. He asks and answers his own question. “whom Google built this service for? You or them. And the answer to why you need to use your real name in the service is because they need you to.” Of course Facebook is also an identity service. Facebook Connect is the means of distributing it. And of course Facebook too is built using real names because “they need you to”. At this level FaceBook and Google have much in common, and both are vying
[read more]...I am re-posting this from the edgeio blog. Mainly because I think it has current relevance and will in future have historical value. I’m not certain the edgeio blog will continue to exist, so this is the new home for the post. Since it was originally written we have seen the rise of Adbrite, Glam, Sugar Publishing, Digg and other businesses based on understanding the proliferation of publishing, reading habits, and advertising away from the big portals. I also note that Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame commented on the post, something I failed to notice originally. So, here is
[read more]...Nicolas Popp – a leading advocate of Open Identity and data solutions – posted on his VeriSign blog today following the rather heated discussions that have ensued since Google announced its Friend Connect product recently. Nico’s employer – VeriSign – along with Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, AOL and others, is a member of the board of the OpenID foundation.Nico’s primary argument (emphasis mine) is that: Undoubtedly, data portability is the natural child of federated identity (more on that in a future post). Personal and social data are an important part of any consumer identity’. Like identifiers, credentials and profile attributes, social
[read more]...Over the long labor day weekend Google announced a serious change in the way Google News will relate to the various wire services and the newspaper industry. The change could have a dramatic impact on the traffic Google News sends to newspaper web sites. There have been several commentaries on the developments and Techmeme has been a great source tracking them. The New York Times, ironically carrying a Reuters syndicated article, said “Google is playing host to articles from four news agencies, including The Associated Press, the company said Friday, setting the stage for it to generate advertising revenue
[read more]...In response to the current discussion on Techmeme and TailRank hipmojo writes that the Pareto principle is in play on the internet and that no matter how much we want it to be otherwise 80% of online advertising will go to 20% of the web sites. When the dust settles, the top 20% of websites will get 80% of ad revenues. It’s that simple. Portals might change in shape, form or nature, but whatever they represent loosely will still get the bulk of revenues and traffic. With respect, that is nonsense. Since the advent of Google Adsense the shape of
[read more]...Last week Fred Wilson did a post on a phenomena he called de-portalization. I think he is right on the money. I just posted a piece on the edgeio blog that picks up on that theme and discusses the consequences of the trend. The top 10 consequences are: 1. The revenue growth that has characterized the Internet since 1994 will continue. But more and more of the revenue will be made in the foothills, not the mountains. 2. If the major destination sites want to participate in it they will need to find a way to be involved in the
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