Chris has just started blogging and he has a great post up on his blog about the importance of taking smaller bites when starting a company.
…one big takeaway was a collective resolve to build our next business by “taking smaller bites”, working toward a vision by executing more thoroughly around discrete building blocks of the idea.
I completely agree with this perspective. Even if you’ve got a grand vision, you have to execute like crazy in one small area. Once you matter a lot to a group of people, it becomes easier to reach out to more. Trying to matter to everyone at once is a tough game.
Great post Chris and welcome to blogging. I’m looking forward to reading more.
Andy has a post up on his blog about the decision to scale back operations at Judy’s Book.
Today was a tough day. For the second time in my life I had to tell a great team of people that the idea they’d worked so hard on was going away. After 3+ years, our management team and board of directors has decided to scale back our operations at Judy’s Book and seek a strategic acquiror.
As a CEO, I know this is the right thing to do for our investors. But as an entrepreneur it’s disappointing to stop chasing an idea just when it’s beginning to take root in the popular consciousness.
It’s been a crazy day but Andy’s done an amazing job helping the company deal with a difficult situation.
Dick Costolo has another great post up on his blog called Too Many Chiefs or Too Many Indians. The post is about hiring at early stage startups and whether to hire experience or youthful enthusiasm first. Dick favors experience initially and has some good arguments backing it up.
First of all, in the first year to eighteen months of the business, everybody is generally heads down and go, go, go. By bringing in experienced people who understand the industry, their roles, and what needs to get done, you as entrepreneur are less likely to have to play grown-up and deal with the management issues that can frequently pop-up among a largely junior staff. It’s critical in the first 12-18 months to run as fast as possible, and by bringing in experienced players that can hit the ground running, you give yourself an opportunity to get a lot accomplished quickly. Secondly, as the organization grows from 4 to 20, if your first few people are senior, you can be confident that the future leaders of your organization are do-ers, people who rolled up their sleeves in the early life of the business and know how things operate ‘under the hood’.
Ask the Wizard should be in your subscriptions list if it isn’t already.
There’s a great interview of Jeff Bezos in the October 2007 issue of HBR. I think Amazon is making some great moves lately with their web services initiatives, their foray into movies and music and after reading this article I came away even more impressed than I was before.
It helps to base your strategy on things that won’t change. When I’m talking with people outside the company, there’s a question that comes up very commonly: “What’s going to change in the next five to ten years?” But I very rarely get asked “What’s not going to change in the next five to ten years?” At Amazon we’re always trying to figure that out, because you can really spin up flywheels around those things. All the energy you invest in them today will still be paying you dividends ten years from now…
…For our business, most of them turn out to be customer insights. Look at what’s important to the customers in our consumer-facing business. They want selection, low prices, and fast delivery. This can be different from business to business: There are companies serving other customers who wouldn’t put price, for example, in that set. But having found out what those things are for our customers, I can’t imagine that ten years from now they are going to say, “I love Amazon, but if only they could deliver my products a little more slowly.” And they’re not going to, ten years from now, say, “I really love Amazon, but I wish their prices were a little higher.”
It’s a great piece and while it’s long, it’s well worth it.
As I’ve written before, Facebook holds all the good cards in the game it’s playing with app developers for the platform. Valleywag has a great post up about their letter to application developers applying for Facebook grants - We Reserve the Right to Rip Off Your Idea
During this process, however, it has become clear that we will receive proposals which contain similar or even identical ideas. As a result, and in order to protect other developers and us from claims that we or anyone else copied material without the creator’s permission, unless we agree otherwise in writing, we can’t promise that any materials or information you submit here will be kept confidential, or specifically that we or others might not develop similar or identical products or services. Accordingly, we ask that you not submit any materials or information you consider to be confidential or proprietary to this e-mail address.
This said, if you would like us to delete any materials you have just sent us, please send us an e-mail within 48 hours instructing us to do so with an email subject “DELETE”, and we will delete those materials without review by anyone here. If we do not receive instructions to delete your materials within 48 hours, we will rely on that fact as indicating that you wish us to review your materials, with the understanding that we accept no obligations (whether of confidentiality, payment or otherwise) with respect to any materials, information or ideas included in your submission.
Jason Calacanis sums it up best:
However, give Facebook two missed quarters as a public company and they might not have no choice but to squeeze every ounce of revenue out of Facebook. That squeeze might include competing with the current crop of Facebook developers. You know what you can do if they have to squeeze? Nothing….
…Building inside closed ecosystems is very, very dangerous…. be careful.
If you’re building a business, you need to control your own destiny as much as possible. There are enough risks already.
The decision to release a new feature or say that you support a new geography is ultimately driven by the answer to one question. “Can I deliver a good user experience if I do this?”
You have to be honest with yourself when you answer this question. If the answer is yes, then expose the feature to users or add the location. If the answer is no, wait. By waiting, you’ll ensure that people either have a good experience, or they have no experience at all. This is far better than some people having a good experience and others coming away saying “well, neat idea but they didn’t really have anything there I cared about.”
It may feel like you’re moving too slowly or not addressing a large enough segment, but exceeding expectations for a few is by far the better path to go down. Also, if you’re smart, you’ll find a way to get permission to email users who came but weren’t supported and invite them back when you’re ready.
Seth’s post on follow through and caring about the last inch is a must-read if you haven’t read it already.
Obsessing about the last inch of follow through ensures that the important parts of what you do get just as much (if not more) commitment.
You can’t afford to stop caring about the little things. The equivalent argument when it comes to web sites is: “Well, so few people see that page, we can leave it looking crappy.”
This is incredibly dangerous thinking. The truth is that sometimes you have to cut corners to get something released, but you can’t accept leaving things in a shitty state and you better make sure you come back around and fix it. (By the way, the reverse, obsessing about the little things, is often how great products get built.)
If something isn’t worth doing right, don’t do it, or kill the feature. Otherwise, if it’s up and viewable to your users, then make sure it’s your best work.
Scott Sherman Automotive recently caught my attention with a really well executed referral marketing program. Dave had recently gotten some work done there and a few days later got a postcard in the mail. The postcard said “Give this to someone who isn’t a customer and we’ll give them a free oil change. Also, if the person you send comes in, we’ll give you a free oil change too.”
Now this is cool on many levels. First, they’re following rule #1 - ask customers for referrals. Second, they’re making Dave look good because he gets to give me a free oil change. Third, Dave gets a free oil change too so he has a really strong incentive to get me to go in. I’m a big fan of symmetric referral bonuses - basically, if you send me someone, we’ll give you both something cool. This rocks because you’re no longer selling your friends out to get a free bobblehead - you both benefit.
I did go in for my oil change and they rocked - no attempts at gratuitous upsells. And, sure enough, I received a referral postcard in the mail 2 days later. They delivered a quality experience, a friend and I will get a free oil change, you can bet I’ll spread the word.
If there was any doubt remaining in your mind about who’s calling the shots, here’s an excerpt from a post at VentureBeat that I found via Valleywag.
Facebook completely removed the Audio music-sharing application from its platform last night, saying it violated music copyrights.
Audio was developed by a third party using Facebook’s platform for developers, and Facebook says Audio violates its newly updated developer terms of service.
Audio allowed users to upload audio files in the mp3 format, share them with each other and listen to them within Facebook. By the end of last week, it had nearly 750,000 users.
Now granted, this seems like a legitimate step because of well-founded music copyright concerns. However, the fact remains that Facebook pulled the plug on an app with three quarters of a million users just like that.
This isn’t a judgement about Facebook. They’ve created something amazing and there’s no question in my mind that for the right applications, Facebook is a tremendous opportunity for distribution. However, I’d feel a lot better if I had a user base in my own right as well. Being dependent on someone else who’s not dependent on you is not good business.
Related Posts: Impressions from Seattle Facebook Developer Garage
I just got back from the Facebook Developer Garage in Seattle. These are local events started by a local sponsor for people interested in Facebook apps. There were a handful of people from Facebook including the Senior Platform Manager who spoke.
Overall, a really interesting event. Some of my impressions:
- Facebook is an incredible phenomenon - 33 million users, adding 100,000+ every day.
- The platform is real - 2000 apps in 2 months. 75% of active users have at least one app installed
- The talk is “open platform” but Facebook is in charge. They throttle things like invites and the number of notifications apps can put in the mini-feed (1 per user per day.) Like any other application built on a free api - you have no rights. You get what you pay for.
- Lots of Ruby developers in attendance. Probably the single largest group which is sort of crazy in Microsoft country.
- Virtual currency and Ad Networks are interesting right now. However, money is changing hands across Facebook apps. They’re encouraging more app developers to seek to get outside ad dollars into Facebook.
- Top app is seeing $20 CPM; $5-10 is more reasonable.
- Engagement is the key metric. Pageviews/user, repeat visits, time on site. People are more focused on raw numbers right now.
I think the talk about engagement is critical. Anyone will try your app once. The key is how often they come back and actually use your product. This is something we’re very focused on at Judy’s Book. Unless people are choosing to opt in to the experience you’re creating after their initial trial, you’re nowhere.