Published on November 17, 2009
in Ideas.
My good family friend just completed her 20 something year in the restaurant business. It’s been her best year ever. When she put everything she had into a small restaurant in Eureka California, she couldn’t afford to fail. She didn’t have more money, she didn’t have a good paying job to fall back on, she didn’t have any options to support her family if her restaurant failed. It wasn’t easy. For nearly seven years she struggled, but she kept on going. In her mind, she didn’t have any option but to succeed.
I think this mindset is critical for entrepreneurs. You only have one option. That’s to make your business successful.
Published on October 22, 2009
in Ideas.
I lost my Bank of America ATM card. Dang. If this happens to you it’s easy to take care of - It took me five minutes. I went to a local Bank of America branch and went to the new accounts department. I told them I lost my ATM card. They asked for ID. Then they cancelled my card. Next, they gave me a temporary ATM card. To activate it I had to use it at the ATM in the bank. Lastly, they are mailing me a permanent replacement card.
The bad news is I found my card when I got home last night, but at least I know how easy it is to get a replacement and the temporary card lasts for 30 days which is very nice while I wait for the new card to arrive.
Published on September 25, 2009
in Ideas.
On social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, I’m quick to reach out to people I know well or have worked with in the past. As soon as I see them as suggested people to add, I send a quick note requesting a connection. Now, there are a few people that are on the fringe. I may have met them briefly, or been loose friends with them in High School and the systems have identified us as likely connected (LinkedIn and Facebook do a great job of this). These are people I would accept if they reached out to me, but aren’t quite close enough for me to reach out to them.
On Facebook and Linked in, I’m seeing the same faces to connect with. I’ve seen them. I wonder if they are seeing me. Is this a game of invite chicken?
Published on September 23, 2009
in Ideas.
I had the Iphone, but it lacked calendar sync, contact sync, and email sync. So, I went back to the Blackberry Bold for essentially the ability to sync email, contacts, and calendar.
On the Blackberry, they now support push email for Google mail, but they don’t sync read emails between the blackberry and your email account and vice-versa. So, you are often looking at read emails on your device that you’ve read. This makes the native email on the Blackberry for following a string of emails difficult, but you can download a Google email app for the Blackberry that works. That’s what I use.
The Iphone now has the full repertoire of sync capabilities and push email. Email, calendar, and contacts will all stay synced up across your accounts. This is huge for me. I may be ready to switch back to the Iphone.
Published on August 28, 2009
in Ideas.
If you want an easy way to think about the difference between social networks, here is how. First, social networks are about three things. Following, sharing, and connecting.
- Facebook is the social network for friends and family
- LinkedIn is the social network for business contacts
- Twitter is the social network for people you don’t know, but want to follow you when you share a 140 characters.
Now to MySpace and Twitter. MySpace didn’t become irrelevant. It’s like saying MSN and AOL aren’t relevant. Perhaps they aren’t relevant to you, but to millions of people they’re important. Very important.
Products and companies are always looking to become better. To not ask how do we become better questions is irresponsible, just as it is to drive without hands. So what do companies do? They drive the car and discuss how to become better. When they believe they have something better, they turn.
Does Twitter have a business? I don’t know, but think they will. Has the company publicly put growth over monetization. Yes. Does the board of Twitter discuss the strategic direction? Absolutely - even though I’ve never attended a Twitter board meeting, I’m sure of this. Are Twitter and MySpace relevant? Yes. Most of us can only dream of being so irrelevant.
Published on August 26, 2009
in Ideas.
There is a great article in Wired about Craigslist.
Here are a few of my favorite things about Craigslist
- They have a leader that loves customer support
- They play to their strengths and repeat what works
- They have an undying belief in who they are and what they do
- They are contrarian in that less features is more
The 30 employees and $100 million in revenue is pretty impressive. I recently read that it took Oracle 10 years and Microsoft 8 years to get to $50 million in revenue. I didn’t adjust for the TVM, but did Craigslist beat them to the mark? Craigslist was founded in 1995, and became a for profit company in 1999. This year Craigslist will be 14 years old and $100 Million in revenues. Very nice.
Published on August 25, 2009
in Ideas.
I read the news about the new Blackberry Gmail plugin and was excited. I followed the instructions. Deleted my Gmail account from BIS. Re-added it. Installed the plugin. It works as advertised. Labels, archiving and one way sync to your Gmail.
It’s the one way sync that is so disappointing. Everything else works well, but then it falls short. Just short enough that I switched back to the Google Blackberry app. If it doesn’t sync both ways, then the Blackberry mail just gets too messy with emails that you already read in your Gmail web app, but are marked as new on the Blackberry.
As soon as two way sync works, I’ll be using it.
Published on August 6, 2009
in Ideas.
The Dr. told me I need to eat more fiber. Must be getting old. So I did a little research on high fiber foods. I was surprised to learn how much fiber there is in raspberries in particular. I through together a list of fiber facts using the new HubPages Quiz Capsule - very exciting!
List of High Fiber Foods - Fruits, Vegetables, and Cereals
Published on August 6, 2009
in Ideas.
Entrepreneurs created tools to make websites so easy and inexpensive to create that just about anyone can do it in a few minutes. If you think about this from a simple business perspective, the cost is so low to create a site, and distribute it, that the site only needs to make a very small CPM from advertising to support it (cover the cost of running it). And. If you have a really large site, that the incremental cost of serving a page is even less, so you can still make a positive gross margin and charge an even lower CPM.
I’ve made this point before. Technologist have done their job in the web publishing space. We’ve taken a market (content management/site creation) and totally disrupted it by making it so easy and inexpensive through content managment tools and hosted services. Now that we are paying less to create sites, we have to expect to make less from advertising to support them, because the competition has already done that. UGC sites at scale are supporting themselves under a .50 cent CPM. As a publisher, we have to compete at that price, or we will die over time.
There is still the cost of creating content and managing it. As these costs get greatly reduced, I think we can expect sites to charge advertisers even less. Our prediction is CPMs will continue to decrease as a function of supply increasing (time online), and as costs decrease across content management systems, creating content, and managing/programming of content.
In the end, it will be the most efficient publishers that survive.
Published on August 5, 2009
in Ideas.
Offering the right product to the right customer and then delivering on the performance. I had a call a few weeks ago that offered us advertising to reach our target market. I quickly said we would do a trial buy. Now all they have to do is deliver on the performance and we will buy advertising from them as long as it performs.
Either this salesmen did a great job prospecting. Or he just got lucky. But three things stood out for me. First, he was offering me something to help me grow my business that was performance based (CPC). Second, it required little work for me and third, the performance can easily be tracked by our reporting system (converted to a CPA).
When all of these things line up, we will do a test buy.
