For different groups to understand what is possible and what is not, a matrix of sorts is needed to quantify why things may or may not be possible.  Things like an overall Company vision and roadmap contribute to why and when things are happening, but scoring things can also bring some much needed transparency into the process.

At first glance this seems like an excuse as why not to get something done – simply blaming “its too computationally expensive” – but as you can see there are a myriad of reasons.

I am far enough away from the time when this was first discussed that I have started to think about the issues that came up in another way.  You can easily plot the overall Difficulty and Impact of a project by plotting them on a graph similar to the one below.

Each dot represents a potential project or feature

Scoring would work such that;

Green = justification for immediate completion
Yellow = decide based on subjective views
Red = justification to wait

You can see how almost any discussion between groups, such as BD and engineering, could be plotted on this graph.  Something that has extremely high impact but is technically very difficult (red) may not get the hours/work necessary in light of other projects.  However something that is high impact and low difficulty (green) could get prioritized right away.  Using this methodology brings in some objectivity that may otherwise be absent from a discussion.

There are many subjective reasons why something may end up in a specific area or color, but this at least lets you plot all projects accordingly.

As an organization grows, this allows you to weigh the ideas and complexities of partner requests with that of folks who have longer term (cross quarter) projects currently in motion.  Things like engineering hours, PM resources, and design may play a role in the score and color of a dot.  Previously running projects have probably the highest impact, but provide justification on a high impact low difficulty project being pushed off a month.

Everyone in the organization should understand how a suggestion or feature improvement could affect the overall goals and timeline of a Company.

I don’t think I will stop contributing grand ideas to the product and eng. teams here anytime soon though

As an aside I was reminded of this recently while watching @cooperb give his talk about our infrastructure stack on MongoDB.

I have noticed a common occurrence where someone sets up a meeting or call to go over something new or propose something interesting, but they only cover this within the last part of the meeting time. This sets you up to have very little time to present your request, while spending significant time setting up and getting ready for your big “ask”.

Commonly after introductions are made via email and calls or meetings have been setup, folks never dive into the crux of the issue until there is little time for healthy discussion. It can be daunting to go into a big request at the early stages of a conversation or relationship, but you should strike the right balance. Even setting someone up with a brief agenda early, including the “ask” within it can be helpful. This way both parties know that eventually you will bring up the request sooner or later. This can also help in letting them digest the request first, while you setup the story behind the rest of your discussion.

There are a few different types of meetings that happen and each can be handled differently. Sometimes in a sales meeting you need to set up the product or proposal the right way, or give proper background. Other times in a proposed partnership you need to go over some of the important details that pertain to your proposal. Other meetings are used to brainstorm something entirely new, but there are one or two key points that must be a part of the final product. In any of these cases it is always prudent to make sure there is plenty of time to discuss the price, requirements, or demands that you have.

The “big crescendo” at the end of a meeting can sometimes be a surprise to the audience and does not leave them with enough time to process the demand as well as ask questions.

I recommend bringing the “ask” as upfront as you can without harming the story you are there to tell.

Tonight I finished watching Homeland from Showtime – and tweeted about it (really great show by the way!)

To my surprise it set off a flurry of responses from friends and colleagues who were at various stages of being either interested in starting to watch it, in the middle of it, or interested in more.  This presents a “hello Homeland” situation for many of my friends who want to see the show from this tweet, heard about it elsewhere, or maybe just have an interest and want to sample it.  But right now they can’t do that.

Some friends even started watching it right away based on or tipped into watching it from my recommendation.

This is the part I find extremely fascinating (and no, I am not looking for a pat on the back).  Everyone is looking to cut their cable, and stop paying large cable co’s for service, or switch to an a la carte model.  The problem is that this does not mesh well with the behavior that we currently follow.  Its extremely hard to change peoples behavior, and although the complaints are real, the bills are high – the benefit of cable to solve this need/desire to consume things as they are broadcast is a real benefit.

This all got me thinking about Fred Wilson‘s #screwcable post in which he says:

I’ve long believed that piracy is largely a business model problem not a human behavior problem. If you give people a legal way to consume the content they want, they will pay for it.

So what business model supports the current behavior? Affiliate links and capturing attention.

Currently there are different models that could support this type of behavior.  The simplest is affiliate links.  More difficult is capturing attention.  If I could have linked out to two (or one if they were smart) types of content, I bet I could have generated direct sales, or possibly even subscription sales for Showtime via Homeland.  Afterwards, there is interest and intent around the show – just waiting to happen online.

Affiliate links

The first, and simplest method would be to allow someone to deeplink to content that only subscribers have access to.  Meaning a Showtime subscriber could link to an extended viewing of Homeland to their social network, attributing the longer viewing and following episode sale or subscription sale to their account.

The second, would be driving views to content (read: ratings) via my recommendation.  This attention could be monetized by ads, and because it comes from a trusted source (me) my friends and colleagues may sit through advertising supported video for their first viewing of the show.  Subsequent purchases and subscriptions would also be attributed to the original seeder (again me).

Capturing attention

This method has been tried for years by many startups.  I have personally seen many companies that have promised solutions, but never delivered.  A real time chat room or re-played chatroom next to video content isn’t what anyone is really looking for.  They want to share their thoughts about something when its over with their friends in real time.  This is today solved by Twitter and Facebook – usually in a hard to follow thread of comments.

The real time (somewhat solved by Twitter today) and post watch need for a watercooler is very prevalent.  Some friends even wanted to chat about it as soon as they were done watching.  Why can’t Showtime (or someone else for that matter) give us a place to have this conversation.  I am much less excited about this opportunity, but if it offsets the cost of all-you-can-eat cable and gets us to the a-la-carte model faster than so be it.

The problem with an immediate consumption based behavior means that only true a-la-carte cable pricing would suffice.  This would mean an ever growing firehose of video on demand, available at a clicks notice.  Since this is not going to happen anytime soon, this affiliate model would work quite well.

Based on the reactions of some of my various friends, its clear this would have resulted in views of Homeland from a single tweet, which in an affiliate model would have ultimately been good for the show, good for me, and great for Showtime.

In it, he details the current state of the union for big companies and small ones looking to build out portions of their expertise through acquiring entire companies, and adding/folding them into the larger entity and  concludes:

It’s not necessarily a new frontier we’re entering. The current environment is simply turning up the volume on what has been happening for some time. And it’s only going to get louder. So BigCos and scaling startups, with increasingly valuable equity, are enjoying a perfect storm for acqhires.

I commented on the post, and as Bryce invited me to write up my thoughts, I figured I would do so here.  This is paraphrased from that comment and explored further below.

I can buy the parts to build a car, or I can pay more and buy one that I know will perform.  This is a no brainer decision because of time, quality, safety, and ongoing maintenance.

In the world of web startups,  you can hire individuals and try to make the team hum, or you can buy an agile group that you know can perform.  The issue is the premium you will pay for a fully functioning web startup team, but it may be worth acquiring a fully operational team that you know is going to produce what you want.

I am sure someone could do a better calculation but this is just back of the napkin stuff;

Acquhire option

what are 8 people worth all at once  who can produce? lets call it $10MM

2 engineers
2 mobile client developers
2 designers
2 front end developers
2 BD folks (hey im biased and can’t leave us out )

Assuming $100K each thats $1MM in headcount instantly.

Cost? $10MM upfront to buy the startup and product.  Great small exit for the team.

Result:
Time ~ instant (or 90 days)
Hope they work at your co. for 5 years
You are paying $200K per person for an instahire situation.  (more if you count options, raises, more payments and “other” but trying to simplify)

Hiring Option

Hire 2 people per month ~ $100K/month/per person across 12 months is 24 people at a $2.4MM burn rate.  This obviously does not include ANYTHING else you need to be spending money on like office, computers, insurance, food, other so lets double it and call it $5MM

You get a stellar group that takes approx. 1 month per person to get up to speed (I think this is generous) so you are not running at full speed for 1.5-2 months per person.

Result:
Time ~ 10 months (but really longer in my opinion)
Have equal to or less than team in 5 months – hope they all can work well together – and get them up to speed on your product.

conclusion?:
Time is now an important ingredient to a startup trying to crank something and suddenly $200K per head for an “insta-team” situation makes a lot of sense.

I believe that you can buy a fully functioning machine, and pay a premium – or you can buy all the parts and assemble a machine yourself.  In the example of buying a car, buying the parts is most certainly not an option, and you are better off buying the finished product from a safe and stable Company.

A million things could go wrong with each scenario above – and I am sure I am leaving parts out, but I wanted to get my thoughts down after the request.

With last weeks announcement, the “game change” that happened is that previously Facebook had websites including “Like” buttons all over the web.  In a move that I commend as extremely smart, they have people “liking” content both on Facebook.com and offsite, which in turn puts more content into the Facebook news feed, then making the content seen by more people, hoping for more “likes”.  It is/was a Möbius strip of activity that resulted in more activity and attention.

Now, they have included a “always on” setting which takes your actions from apps, sites, and services and automatically ports it into your news feed. Although its not the same main news feed, its now a smaller, faster, news feed inside your main feed on the right hand side (yo dawg!)

The actions though are now well beyond “like” and include basically anything you can think of.

You will now be able to “watch” content, “read” a magazine, “listen” to some music, etc..

But the catch is, everything now goes into the mini feed that is a firehose of activity.

As RWW said (emphasis theirs)

Be forewarned though, with these apps you’re automatically sending anything you read into your Facebook news feed. No “read” button. No clicking a “like” or “recommend” button. As soon as you click through to an article you are deemed to have “read” it and all of your Facebook friends and subscribers will hear about it.

I did this myself with Rdio + Facebook and you can see the following results

Interestingly this activity came from my Android (using Rdio) while I was at the gym.  Embarrassing or not, the world of activity streaming is now here.

The firehose feed is interesting because if you interact with content streaming by, Facebook sees this as intent and automatically upgrades how important it thinks this content is.  I see the firehose as actually “training” the main Facebook feed, which is also interesting because you will be seeing content that is more relevant to you as well.  What is interesting here is that users are training the feed with firehose intent, and marketers will now be able to target towards this new streaming activity.

I see a ton of Spotify and Rdio activity right now in my firehose facebook feed, but as developers dig in, I expect to see much more content from third party apps, and expect to get bombarded with the initial requests to “stream” from apps I use.

From their email to AdSense customers

We previously launched the +1 button on Google search and for publisher sites to make it easier for people to share and discover content across the web. Soon, your users will be able to endorse specific ads and make the ads more likely to appear to their social connections. We believe that these recommendations could help your readers notice ads on your site more, leading to higher returns for you over time.

This is what the ads will look like – very similar to the Facebook “face pile” you see on sites where you have friends that have OAuthed

Its definitely an interesting move to increase engagement within advertising. There have been a ton of startups that have tried to tackle this problem and increase relevancy to readers and users by requesting implicit and explicit feedback from users, but none with the sheer scale of Google.  AdSense ads obviously litter the web and are a core source of revenue for many sites so the immediate impact here will be known.  It remains to be seen if there is an increase efficacy of the ad for either relevance, click through rate, or even recall but I will be following this closely to see the results.

I was recently thinking about the sheer number of services I have signed up for, certainly increasing in the past 5 years, and thinking back on some of the old services I don’t use anymore.  I would ventures to say that my time on the VC side of things yielded probably 10 signups a week on the low side and 100 per week on the high side.

What prompted this post however was this congratulatory email from eBay celebrating 12 YEARS using the service.  This is certainly a milestone for me because I am not sure if there is another example of a service that I use anymore.  I still have an @aol.com account, but never use it.  I still have a domain from 1998 that I bought (multiplayergames.com) but thats not the same.

eBay is a service (As well as paypal) that I use at least yearly, if not quarterly.  Its certainly had its share of startups that have tried to disrupt its throne – but the sheer volume and breadth have kept it the market leader.  Its a rare site that stays in the top spot so long, and I wonder how much longer the reign can continue.  I don’t doubt the power and utility of the service (I just used it last month) but I wonder if they can sustain it forever.
I always wondered why companies didn’t take the opportunity to give something amazing to their old customers, but I guess it will always be about getting new customers to signup.

Here is to another 12 years eBay!

]]> http://www.ericgfriedman.com/2011/09/21/12-years-of-ebay/feed/ 2 http://www.ericgfriedman.com/2011/08/15/bankless/ http://www.ericgfriedman.com/2011/08/15/bankless/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:16:35 +0000 Eric Friedman http://www.marketing.fm/?p=6943 I don’t have a bank anymore.  Well thats not exactly true, but I don’t have a physical bank I can go into anymore.  I now bank with Ally (Formerly GMAC) and have been happily with them for the past year.  They don’t have any locations or branches that I can physically walk into.  I do all my banking online, via mobile, or through the mail now.  This is a big departure from how I started out and I thought it was worth writing about here.

My main reason for switching away from my previous brick and mortar bank was ATM fees.  With Ally you can withdraw money from ANY ATM, regardless of the fee, for free.  This includes fees from a different bank, large chain bank, small boutique bank, and shady deli ATM machine.  They simply credit you back at the end of each month.  Interest rates were another factor, but the convenience of having no fees made up a large difference.  Let me be clear here – I actually went through the switch to be able to pull cash from anywhere and get the ATM charges back at the end of the month.

I now understand the idea of “switching costs” much more.  Switching costs are the incalculable costs associated with changing providers, brands, or your current choice with a new option.  It took me a while to decouple all my automatic bill payments, direct deposits, and bill payees into a new bank – but it was worth the switch.

So how do I bank now without a bank?

Deposits

I deposit checks INSTANTLY with payapl on my android phone.  This is much like the Chase iPhone app, but does not require you to have a Chase account.  I now understand that Charles Schwab does something similar.  Check reading and depositing into Paypal happens as quickly as you can take two photos of your check and enter the amount.  Its not so instant if you need the money quickly as it takes a few business days to show up in my paypal account.  I then have to transfer the money (withdraw) from paypal to my checking account.  This was my biggest apprehension thinking it would be a pain and too slow.  After doing this process a few times I cannot imagine going back.

I fire up the app via my phone – snap photos of the checks and wait for the deposits.

I also sometimes, but rarely, can mail in a check in a prepaid envelope.  The option above is faster for me and much safer as I have all the old checks.  Once deposited I shred the old checks.

Withdrawals

As described above I can take out money from any ATM, and not pay the fee.  I have been in airports, restaurants, and other areas where there is a $2.00-$4.00 ATM fee and never blinked as I know I will get the money back from Ally.  The savings add up as you can see the monthly amount every 30 days – last month I saved about $30.00 in fees.  This also saves time as you can pull money from anywhere making life a little easier on a busy day.

Service

I don’t miss a branch at all.  I never really used a branch for anything – and am not sure I would ever go back.  I understand the apprehension people have, but 12 months later I don’t feel that I am missing out.  I have been following the payments space for awhile and there have been some great innovations in the past few years.  Its clear there is much room for disruption in the banking space.  Companies like Square and BankSimple are doing very interesting things.

I don’t mind operating on the bleeding edge of banking as I know in the future everyone will be transacting via their phone, depositing via photos, and transacting via mobile.

First ask yourself if you really want to work at a startup?

Many are exposed to the success stories but never see the tough times tech blogs, magazines, and interviews don’t share. Its a grind – no matter what. I try to convey the differences between a “normal job” and a startup.  There are a lot of peaks and valleys, and not everyone is suited for the sometimes unstable nature of the roles.  Next I ask them to pinpoint down further beyond “working at a startup” as their goal. What topics are they interested in? What categories do they want to work in? What problems do they want to help solve? These are the things I ask these questions to get a persons world view and hear how they express interest in a sector or company.

When I hear a company or sector from their answers,  I will focus in on it with specific questions on that company or category. For example if someone mentions a certain company by name, I will ask them to explain what that business does to further understand their world view.  Many people can identify a company they want to work at, but for no other reason then for its success or buzz factor.  Seldom to they name the 2-3 companies in the space that are all trying to tackle the same problems.

You need to show that you have a passion for a specific category, and understanding of a particular problem, and an overall obsession with building and being part of a solution.

Once you narrow it down you should figure out a plan of what you will actually be doing.  What’s your 100-day operational roadmap for yourself at the company? What will you be doing, when will you be doing it, and who will you need to help you? (Correct answer to the last question: as few people as possible.)

Outreach 

Getting in touch can be one of the things that can differentiate you from the crowd.  Most if not all startups will have a formal job board or application process.  I can’t stress this highly enough, but you should definitely apply through that process.  All other avenues into the company through personal referrals, friends, blog posts, or other means will eventually have you submit a formal application which may include a cover letter and resume and having it already on file within the job system the company uses is extremely helpful.

Reaching out to a Company can be intimidating.  You may think that they do not want to hear from you, or that you don’t have anything intelligent to say or offer.  The truth is that most small startups are dealing with a series of problems and trying to answer a series of questions – if you can be helpful in tackling either, then you are someone they want to be in contact with.

The coffee equation

One path a lot of folks try is to write the hiring manager, or even the CEO about going to “grab coffee to chat”.  I have recommended against this approach as it does not show enough information on your part.

There should be an inverse amount of energy and time put into a potential coffee meeting.

Let me explain with the following diagram

This may seem unfair, but putting in 4-5 times (or more!) the effort of the person you want to speak with does make some sense.  A CEO is dealing with a number of different issues at the same time trying to keep his or her startup afloat.  Things like employees, investors, a business model, the product, feedback, etc… all take up their attention.  When you reach out to spend precious time with them – even 20 minutes – you are asking them to put all the other things aside in favor of your meeting.  This is why I recommend to folks that they spend time craft an email that outlines at least 3 solutions to at least 3 issues you think a CEO is dealing with.  I can promise you that if you touch on even 1 correctly, you are someone they want to spend more time with.  This conversation may not result in a job offer, but it sure is a great way to get the attention of someone that is busy with a million other issues at the same time.

By spending time and energy on crafting a unique and thoughtful outreach request you will be differentiated from others.  It seems obvious, but this small amount of hard work is usually disregarded, and you will therefore standout.  Its an extra 20-30 minutes of work that will at least result in someone reading your note and hopefully responding.

Be reachable!

Along with submitting your information through the official means, you want to make sure you are reachable.  I always recommend to people that they should have a contact form, their email address, or some other means of getting in contact fast.  If you can get a hiring manager, CEO, or investors attention by some means – you want to make the gateway to getting in personal contact very easy.  I know of a ton of great blog posts that do not have an about page, contact page, or any way to get in touch with the author.  Don’t assume that a comments box is enough as its probably too high of a barrier for one of the people mentioned above.

In conclusion

Finally, like most investments in this space, its about the person.  People look for great team members that can work on hard problems and answer tough questions.  Background, experience, and education all play a role – but in the end it about the right fit.  There are a number of resources, top 10 lists, and other actions you can take all listed below.  I think ultimately its about how you approach a sector, and how you participate.  In a sea of sameness, standing out from the crowd can be tough.  My best advice is to participate in the space, get your thoughts down publicly, and start a dialogue with as many folks as you can.

Some resources:

[Updating this area - please leave your resource in the comments and I will add it here.]

I asked this question on Quora and invite you to participate as well: What is the best way to get hired by a startup in NYC?
CrunchBase is a great directory of Companies both large and small
Alex Taub – Tumblr
Jake Furst – Foursquare
Bijan Sabet: http://bijansabet.com/post/335646309/how-to-join-a-startup
Charlie O’Donnell: http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2011/4/1/how-to-get-an-exciting-job-at-an-awesome-startup-in-less-tha.html
Mark Suster part two: http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/17/whom-to-hire-at-a-startup-attitude-over-aptitude/
Eric Stromberg: http://estromberg.com/post/4778188872/how-to-get-a-job-at-a-startup-if-you-arent-a-developer
Jason Shen: http://www.jasonshen.com/2010/get-a-startup-job-out-of-college/

We hosted the event at the new Union Square Ventures office as part of an ad-hoc Internet Week event in NYC.  All the proceeds went to HackNY.

We invited folks to the event with a simple description and had a great conversation.

The term “social graph” was coined originally to describe the network of connections we already knew we had such as friends on Facebook or professional contacts on LinkedIn.

More recently, graphs that are inferred as a result of other primary activities – e.g. taking a photo in a bar (Color), commenting on a website (Disqus), expressing a taste preference (Hunch), sharing a new website (StumbleUpon), etc. – have emerged in a big way, particularly in advancing discovery and recommendations. Even platforms for which explicit connections are core – e.g. Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare and others – are realizing the value in the implicit relationships that form over time.

From this intro we assembled about 40 people for about 2 hours of solid discussion.  There were many more questions than answers and we were able to dig into many of the issues surrounding both implicit and explicit social graphs.

I got a ton of great feedback on site and even online.  Theres probably too much to go into in one post but its a topic I definitely want to dive into more.  Hearing the opinions of the group and from the companies mentioned above, we were able to tackle some of the larger questions that arise.  There are a ton of nuances when dealing with implicit actions in a web service, and even more when it comes to deciding what to do with the data.  We think about this a lot at foursquare and it was good to step back for a awhile and talk some of these issues through with a large group.

One of the big takeaways was the need to continue the conversation – we setup a google group to do just that: http://groups.google.com/group/implicit-and-explicit-graphs

If you are interested in talking about implicit or explicit social graphs or other actions, come join us.