Triangulating the trifecta

From A to Y, and innovation through Intrepreneurship

2010-09-28T16:18:00.006-04:00

Recently, the tech blogs and forums have been abuzz with what has been dubbed "Angelgate". Mike Arrington of TechCrunch set it off with a post ("A blogger walks into a bar") where he reported that several leading angel investors in the Silicon Valley startup scene had been meeting informally over dinner to compare notes (and perhaps other things too). It was suggested that one of the things covered at these meetings was the "growing power" of Y Combinator, arguably the most successful incubator Silicon Valley. Since then there's been a spate of public exchanges and leaked emails, and - going by the tech press - lots of soul-searching within the Angel community. Mike Arrington has undoubtedly opened a can of worms, and time will tell (or perhaps, the FBI will) if there was anything illegal in the meetings.

All that aside, in the light of the controversy, its interesting to hear how YC works to get startups off the ground - in a timely piece, Paul Graham has written a fascinating article about how it operates:

Since YC has been shaped by the needs of hundreds of early stage startups, this should be interesting not just to potential applicants but to anyone curious about startups, because a portrait of YC is in some ways the complement of a portrait of the average startup.

Y Combinator runs two three-month funding cycles a year, one from January through March and one from June through August. We ask the founders of each startup we fund to move to the Bay Area for the duration of their cycle, during which we work intensively with them to get the company into the best shape possible. Each cycle culminates in an event called Demo Day, at which the startups present to an audience that now includes most of the world's top startup investors.

Its clear that what YC brings to the table is not so much money itself (their initial investment is sometimes as small as $20K, apparently), but rather a combination of:

(1) a pressure-cooker environment and timeline for getting a startup off the ground; and

(2) connections with others in the ecosystem (other founders/startups, mentors, lawyers, VCs) that can catalyze bootstrapped startups and help them "catch fire".

Whats even more interesting is that I've seen a similar sort of model actually applied within the enterprise: at IBM, the Extreme Blue and its sister program BizTech. Both are structured programs which run in cycles with multiple projects, investors/sponsors, mentors, and a showcase to close out and demo results - and both programs have been quite successful. (I would not be surprised if there are other companies which have similar programs.)

In other words, there are core elements of the incubation model that can be very easily adapted in larger businesses too. Done properly, these can be used to investigate upcoming technologies, manage business risk and even identify and nurture a talent pool within an enterprise. The approach builds on the notion of "intrapreneurship", by providing a structure and acceleration to what would otherwise simple be an emergent phenomenon - much like Y Combinator does.

Full article by Paul Graham at ycombinator.com

Related articles

Corporate Venturing (bain.com)
Michael Osofsky on Intrepreneurship vs Entrepreneurship
Subrata Majumdar on Experiences in Intrepreneurship
The secret rulers of Silicon Valley (business.financialpost.com)
WSJ on YC: Incubator Coaxes Start-Ups Out of Their Shells (online.wsj.com)
Paul Graham of Y Combinator Pulls Back the Curtain on What Goes On At His Start-Up Factory (observer.com)
A must-read for the curious: What Happens At Y Combinator (alexisohanian.com)

Photo credit: flickr user pareeerica

The Apple Buzz Machine

2010-01-27T13:12:00.003-05:00

Apple, Inc. has had a storied life with larger-than-life personalities that have shaped it during the last twenty-five years. Even more iconic have been its products, as the company has pushed into new markets with well-designed products. The core of Apple's success has (in my opinion) been its ability to delivere on the promise and vision it lays out. Don't get me wrong - I dont mean that Apple makes perfect products - its just that they focus very maniacally on delivering something good (from a customer perspective), even if its at the cost of dropping some features. Case in point: absense of a basic feature like "cut and paste" from the first two versions of the iPhone.

But I digress. Apple is known for an almost manic desire for secrecy, punishing employees who violate its rules and suing outsiders who seek out "leaks" and news about its products and plans. From a marketing perspective, there's no rocket science here: Apple wants to be in control of the timing and content of its messages to consumers. The part where Apple stands out, though, is in how effective Apple has been in controlling the buzz: the secretive approach is complemented by a steady build up of news prior to a major product release, something they appear to have tuned into a fine art.

Consider the launch of the iPhone: after denying the existence of any plan to create a cellphone for many years, Apple unveiled their iPhone in their own version of "shock and awe" in January 2007. But the announcement itself was preceded by a steady buildup of speculation over the previous few months: look at what a timeline view of Google search results for "Apple iPhone" shows us:

As is evident, the "chatter" about the iPhone had already reached a fever pitch by the time Apple announced the product in Jan 2007. One might attribute that to luck - but Apple has repeated that at will. Fast-forward three years to today, and Apple appears to have done it again, this time with a rumored "tablet computing device". The pattern has been repeated all over again - Apple (and Steve Jobs himself, again) denied making any kind of tablet device steadfastly, for the last couple of years. But a steady stream of leaks over the last few months in 2009 tell a different story:
As is obvious, the amount of speculation has reached a fever pitch again - will Apple deliver on the promise of a tablet computer? We'll know by the time you read this.

But don't expect to see on sale the one thing that Apple has honed to perfection over the last few years: its ability to create "buzz". Some would say "hype", but to me that term also suggests a sense of unfulfilled promise, and as I said earlier, Apple has been quite successful living up to its expectations - three years on, the iPhone is still the phone to beat. That ability to create a cresendo at will, is unparalleled in the tech industry. Time will tell if the magic survives the eventual departure of Steve Jobs.

The future shifts from the computer to the TV

2010-01-08T16:45:00.004-05:00

This year's CES conference had its share of interesting gadgets and technologies. However, one thing that struck me is the apparent coalescing of home media and entertainment around the TV: we've always had broadcast and cable channels on your TV, the last few years saw the addition of satellite radio channels to the lineup (primarily by cable and satellite providers, too bad TVs dont include AM/FM tuners). Then in 2008-09 we began to see the addition of internet access to TVs, primarily as a way to access Youtube and Netflix - and at this year's CES, Skype announced partnerships that will bring the use of its service into TVs. Also getting a lot of attention at this year's CES was the spate of announcements about 3D HDTV sets and 3D HD channels (DirecTV) and programming (Discovery, ESPN).

What do that leave us with? An entertainment device with which you can watch (High definition and 3D) video+movies; play games; access the internet; rent movies anytime (through live streaming over the internet); and communicate with others, and so on. Once the integration becomes tighter (expect that at next year's CES) - so that all these are built into the TV and you dont need separate set top boxes - that one device will become the center of gravity for the living room.

This convergence is not surpising by itself - it has been happening for some time - but its fascinating to see that its coalescing around the TV, rather than the computer, which is where the initial promise and hype was at the start of the previous decade. Throw in the fact that PCs are turning even more into a commodity device, and its a done deal. And lastly - now combine these SuperTVs (or maybe I should say Super3DHDTVs ;-) with devices like those from SlingMedia (which allow you to watch your TV when you are not at home) and the picture starts to get interesting (pun intended).

(image courtesy of UCDavis Magazine)

What is YOUR definition of Social Software?

2009-05-26T14:15:00.007-04:00

Wikipedia, the modern day oracle, says about social software that

In computing, social software encompasses a range of software systems that allow users to interact and share data. This computer-mediated communication has become very popular with social sites like MySpace and Facebook, media sites like Flickr and YouTube, and commercial sites like Amazon.com and eBay. Many of these applications share characteristics like open APIs, service oriented design, and the ability to upload data and media.

Personally I think that the wikipedia definition does not go far enough - it describes the element of "connections" between users, but does not include the element of "discovery", which IMHO is the "so what" that delivers the kicker without which social software (and social networking) would not have much value.

I guess I would state my definition as follows:

Social software refers to types of computer software which contain features or functions that recognize connections between users of the software system, and facilitate discovery of new content or actions (relevant to the context of the software) by leveraging the knowledge or actions of users one is connected to. In some cases, the software may also manage the mechanisms by which users connect to each other. Many of these applications share characteristics like open APIs, service oriented design, and the ability to upload data and media.

What do you think? How would you define social software?

(credit for image to Adam Mulligan)

Winning not by doing what you did earlier - but by doing what you couldn't do earlier

2008-12-18T17:12:00.005-05:00

Back in 2003, a fairly unknown Democratic governor from Vermont became an early front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination for President: Howard Dean outshone the field in his use of the internet as a platform for reaching more voters and raising more money. In the end, Dean couldnt get enough support to win the nomination, but the genie had been let out of the bottle, and everyone was now aware of the internet and its potential.

Cut to the presidential election of 2008. Much has been written about the impact of the internet and the use of Youtube, Facebook, blogging and so on. Both McCain (R) and Obama (D) used the internet, and in many ways both ran textbook internet campaigns. But as the MIT Technology Review reveals about what insiders from the two campaigns said at a conference at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, they used different playbooks, and that made all the difference.

The McCain campaign, strapped as they were by cash, tried to learn from the lessons of 2004 and do their best at communicating their message using the internet.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, blessed by a surfeit of pure talent (such as Chris Hughes, one of the cofounders of Facebook), came up with innovative ways to connect with supporters using tools that hardly existed in 2004. Most importantly, they understood how to take advantage of social networking to enable their supporters to become part of a community, to connect and support each other - and to ensure that the campaign remained engaged in a conversation with this community. This translated into an army of committed grassroots volunteers and a huge fund-raising juggernaut -- aided in no small measure by the charisma and appeal of Barack Obama -- that in the end helped Barack Obama become the 44th president of the US.

There's a lot to be learnt from both campaigns and the things they did well or didnt do well. I am struck by the fact that the Republicans ran a web campaign that was quite good -- by 2004 standards. The Democratic web strategy started not with what worked the last time, but with what was new that couldnt even be done last time - and then kicked it up several notches. Just listen to Hughes describe their strategy for improving their performance in swing states: "For example, Obama had three million supporters on Facebook. Hughes set things up so that these Obama Facebook supporters were told who, within their networks of friends, lived in a swing state, so they could exhort them to register, vote, and otherwise organize." This is something they did in this election in 2008! - I find this mind-blowing (mostly because I had not realized they were doing it - technically I can see it being feasible given the strength of the Facebook platform and its support for applications).

The contrast couldnt be more stark: the Republicans tried to communicate while the Democrats focused on conversations.

But thats not my point - my point is, I'm sure the internet and the tools we use will have evolved significantly by the time the next presidential election season rolls around in 2011. The winners then will not be those who simply repeat the successes of 2008 -- it will be those who understand whats changed between 2008 and 2011, and make the most of it. Therein lies a universal lesson for us.

[credit for photo shown of merged McCain-Obama logo, to MIT Technology Review]

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Will 2008 be the year Twitter died?

2008-06-28T09:36:00.001-04:00

Twitter's problems are no longer a surprise to anyone - the "fail whale" has become a symbol of its slow but certain demise. Some of its well-known users (Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, Michael Arrington - among others) have openly begun suggesting people follow them to friendfeed. I find this an interesting choice, since they didnt just choose to move to the other services that more closely (attempt to) mimic the twitter feature set: pownce, jaiku and the new-kid-on-the-block, plurk. By contrast, Friendfeed started out essentially as an aggregator but seems to have woken up to the potential opening caused by the problems on twitter. Its not clear to me if any of the other twitter wanna-bes (at least one of which, jaiku, is backed by the deep pockets of Google) is ready to aggressively "make a play" to challenge friendfeed and take over from twitter.

One of the most fascinating things around the twitter phenomenon has been the number of tertiary services that people have created around twitter, creating an entire ecosystem of *valuable* downstream services - providing search, trends and analysis. One needs no clearer indication that the successor to twitter (unless twitter manages to resuscitate itself in time) will be one that not only has the "crowd" but also provides open access to its data via apis.

Needless to say, this is going to be interesting to watch as it plays out.

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The Black Swan, uncertainty and the science of Pyschohistory

2008-01-16T15:14:00.001-05:00

One day last year, I was listening to NPR as I drove to work, and heard an interview with the author of a book called "The Black Swan". The subject sounded interesting, but I didnt think more about it until the end of the year, when I saw the book included in a list of "best books" for 2007 in the Economist. That certainly piqued my curiosity some more, and I made a note to borrow it from my local library.

I'm hoping to get the book in a couple of days, but the next interesting event was that as I looked through a list of books recently added to Books24x7 (registration required), I discovered the book had been added recently - or to be more precise, it's an Executive Summary/Review of the Black Swan. Even better is that there's also an audio version of the review available, so I promptly downloaded that: painless and quick.

I guess I'll have to read the book to get the full skinny, but on the surface I'm not that impressed: it appears to boil down to a single phrase (similar to what financial companies usually display when recommending stocks or funds based on historical performance), past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results. To put it slighly differently (and more in line with the crux of the book) we should not assume that something is not going to happen, simply because it hasnt happened before.

So far so good, and it sounds like a good reminder on the benefits of keeping an open mind. However, it appears the book goes much further - the author Nassim Taleb apparently extrapolates this to suggest we cannot (or should not even try to) predict future events. For me, this is where he seems to go off the rails... saying that one should remember to account for uncertainty and outliers while making predictions is one thing, but saying that any kind of projection about the future is meaningless seems to be somewhat extreme. Like I said, I should probably withhold final judgement until I read the book, so I'll pause. Hopefully I'll discover that there's more to it.

One final comment on that conjecture about predictions and their accuracy: one of the best science books/series I've ever read has been the "Foundation" series by the late Isaac Asimov. An underlying premise (and fundamental plot element) that Asimov creates and uses in the books, is the science of pyschohistory (somewhat misnamed because Asimov describes it as a science that predicts the future based on the actions of large groups of people, rather than a history per se' as the name might suggest) invented by a character called Hari Seldon. Whats fascinating is that this fictional science accounts for errors by attributing them to infrequent mutations that might occur - and in fact, these mutations are quite analogous to the "Black Swan" that Nassim lays out as the core philosophy of the book ("Black Swans ... are unpredictable events with a significant impact on the future course of events"). Notice that Asimov/Seldon doesnt conclude that predicting the future is impossible, but rather that you need to allow for uncertainty. This is where I think Nassim errs (if I go strictly by what I gathered from the exec summary).

p.s. I don't know if Asimov's pyschohistory would fly in the real world, but the amateur scientist in me does hope that someday it will be a real - and working - science.

p.p.s credit for the photo to "BB Photoworks" via Flickr

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One ring to stalk them all

2007-12-26T15:28:00.001-05:00

Recently I've suddenly noticed a few services that offer slightly different angles on staying in touch with your friends: Spock and Spokeo (not to confused with Spoke). Both are based on the premise that you'd want to follow all your friends activities (facebook, myspace, linkedin, twitter, flickr, youtube, blogs, whatever else) in one place, and provide that one place. Noble intention perhaps, but somehow this seems to be going a bit too far (maybe I should refer to it as "Stalk 2.0" in keeping with the "2.0" meme thats popular these days) - I mean, does one really need to follow every single thing that everyone in one's social network is doing? I thought one of the lessons from the facebook beacon fiasco was that there was such a thing as too much. Ahh, well.

What I'd prefer is something like a feature I see in Google Reader, which allows you to mark some of the things you read for sharing with others. In other words, a place for me to assemble the various things (i.e. feeds from my facebook, flickr, twitter accounts, etc) I'd like to share, encompassing the different things that comprise my digital (and non-digital) identity. This should be an extension of a user's OpenID. Perhaps something like this exists already, and I've just missed it somehow?

Do social networks have an optimal size?

2007-11-24T07:45:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back, The Economist carried a somewhat sceptical article about Facebook and its valuation (Social graph-iti: There's less to Facebook and other social networks than meets the eye) - which by itself was not too much of a surprise since it reflected some of my own skepticism. However, buried in the article was a comment that caught my eye:

But unlike other networks, social networks lose value once they go beyond a certain size. “The value of a social network is defined not only by who's on it, but by who's excluded,” says Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster.

I'd always assumed that the network effect applied to social networks as well, so this took me by surprise. I'm still not sure what to make of it: the first part of the comment attributed to Paul Saffo makes sense (value defined by who's on it) - but I don't know that I agree with the second part because it adds a connotation of elitism, and because I think larger networks should actually be more valuable than small networks.

So lets think about that for a second... is there an optimal size, somewhere between a network of one, and a network containing the whole known universe (everyone on the planet)? I guess a network of one (just me) isnt very useful, and as we factor in more people into our network it gets more useful. But how big is good, or best?

When I blogged on this train of thought on my internal blog at work, a couple of people responded with interesting comments: JM pointed out that research he'd seen indicated that its possible to have a strong relationship with a network of about 15 people, and extrapolating it out to two degrees of separation suggested a size of about 150 people; AM responded that he tended to focus on quality (of relationship/trust/reputation) rather than quantity for his network, which meant that he preferred to keep his network small - a point also made over at café salemba.

I tended to agree with both of them to some degree... but felt that while for a first approximation the "strong and small personal network size" was a good estimate, it didnt take into account the ability of technology and social networking tools to leverage a much larger network without a corresponding increase in difficulty in terms of managing those relationships.

However, a big part of the value of social networking is not just that it reflects a set of relationships, but also the element of *discovery*, so I would argue that looking at networks in terms of only size or quality of the network itself is a mistake - the ease and quality of relationships that can discovered and added, is more important than a simple metric of size or membership. So going back to Paul Saffo's comment, I would instead argue that better filtering and search mechanisms are more important than the principle of exclusion, i.e. assuming you have a way to filter out what you dont need, the bigger the network the better it is. How big? Well, I tend to think you'd actually want your network to include *all* the relationships and people that you know, even if you don't need them right now, so that you can remember to reach out to them when you need them. To say that yet another way, your social network is an asset - a social asset - whose value you should grow always, and be able to mine when needed. To be precise, I'm thinking that there's no lower bound for an optimal size - the optimal network size would be as big as possible (with the caveat that these are people you actually do know, of course).

Rewriting history is fun

2007-11-20T16:10:00.000-05:00

Having created this blog some years ago but having only posted mostly insignificant mumblings at a sporadic rate, I've decided to make a fresh start.

The nice thing is, all I have to do is delete the earlier posts, and I can begin with a fresh slate. So here goes: lets see if I can post more regularly, with topics of substance. At least once a week would be good, but hopefully more often than that.

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