One of Jack Dorsey’s key points, paraphrased:
Draw out your ideas, share it immediately, and get instant feedback on what works and what don’t. If it’s not working, then shelve it. Some elements of it might pop up later. How do you quickly move from idea –> drawing –> prototype –> to a position where you can say, “this is what I want to spend my life doing”. Or “something I want to put away for now so that I can draw out the next idea.”
Just 16 mins!
Note: This is another gem of a post from Evan Williams; dated, but still pertinent even as of today. I’m “re-blogging” it here, for safekeeping!
I’ve been thinking about a number of new product ideas lately. In doing so, I’ve been trying to come up with a more structured way of evaluating them. Here’s a first attempt at defining that. It’s not as clear as I’d like it to be. But perhaps you’ll find it useful.
Question: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?
Blogger was highly tractable. Twitter was tractable, but sightly less-so because of the SMS component. Google web search had quite low tractability when they launched it. Vista?: About as low as you can get.
Tractability is partially about technical difficulty and much about timing and competition—i.e., How advanced are the other solutions? Building a new blogging tool today is less-tractable, because the bar is higher. Building the very first web search engine was probably pretty easy. Conversely, building the very first airplane was difficult, even though there wasn’t any competition.
In general, if you’re tiny and have few resources, tractability is key, because it means you can build momentum quickly—and momentum is everything for a startup. However, tractability often goes hand and hand with being early in a market, which has its own drawbacks (e.g., obviousness, as we’ll discuss below).
If you’re big and/or have a lot of resources—or not very good at spotting new opportunities, but great at executing—a less-tractable idea may be for you. It may take longer to launch something worthwhile, but once you crack the nut, you have something clearly valuable.
(more…)
So you’ve heard about Web 2.0 and you’re probably at least dabbling in it, but do you know why you’re doing it? If you’re a business owner, do you know why your customers/prospects participate in it? Do you know why you should also participate?If you’re in the midst of building a “social” strategy for your company, or trying to develop a social web application, you’ll find this useful.
I’m currently reading Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. I highly recommend this book. Here’s their web site on the topic.
Why do people participate in the social web? There could be many reasons and it’s different for everybody, but here are the big buckets that Charlene and Josh suggests, and I certainly fit a few of these.
* Keeping up friendships. I’m on Facebook and I love it. I see it as a way to “scale” relationships in a way, because it’s so difficult to keep up with everybody, given your busy schedule or geographical distance.
* Making new friends. Dating sites are an obvious example, but there are plenty of other examples of people getting to know each other (in real life) without first getting introduced face-to-face. This definitely resonates with me. I first met my first online buddy Andy from Germany (while I was in Malaysia) over IRC – yeah, back in .. 1996 (+/- 2), and we’ve been real good friends ever since.
* Succumbing to social pressure from existing friends. This is largely true for the late majority and laggards – maybe the early majority. See technology adoption lifecycle. That’s right, if you’re laggard – that means you’re sloooow. Also see Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore.
* Paying it forward. Having seeing and believing that a site is genuinely valuable/useful yourself first hand, you may be compelled to help out and contribute, however little, maybe it just that 1 click to pick 3.5 stars out of 5 stars on a review.
* The altruistic impulse. People do good in the offline world, surely this can be extended to the social web. We have microfinance to help people get out of poverty (See Wokai, Kiva), people writing software and giving them away for free (open source), and free advice online from everything ranging from motorcycle problems, to legal and medical advice.
* The prurient impulse. What Charlene and Josh describes as an endless parade of exhibitionism from people online that are fascinating, sexy, entertaining, and stupid. Kind of like picking up the TV remote and flipping the channels.
* The creative impulse. Not everyone is a professional programmer, writer, photographer, but the Web is a place for anybody to showcase their portfolio and get feedback, a form of payment for the creative mind.
* The validation impulse. People feel validated of their expertise when they help others online for free. Validation is a powerful driver for social networks; people put themselves out there and the community reassures them about their place in the world.
* The affinity impulse. Maybe your hockey league has a Facebook fan page, your favorite NHL team has a social network where all the fans unite, maybe the motorcycle gang you just joined organize events online; surely there’s a group of people who share a common interest with you that are actively engaging the group online. However odd, rare, niche an interest is, is not a problem. The long tail of the web almost guarantees you will find someone in the world who shares it with you. And it’s better t be alienated together as a group than individually as a person, but I digress.
I highly recommend it if you’re looking to leverage social Web 2.0 to help your business in some way. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
It’s Labor Day, I’m still groggy from just waking up .. but this is a good piece worth sharing here if you’re looking for opportunities, and focused on mobile and cloud computing. Google’s China chief Kai-Fu Lee just left Google (some of us recall this as it was a controversial high profile hire because Lee was poached from Microsoft). Here’s what he is up to next, and his words from an interview with peHUB.
“There is a confluence of several things happening in China, and we’re at an inflection point of mobile Internet, cloud computing and ecommerce. It’s really now or never.
There is an abundance of companies here and VCs have lots of money, but there is a lack of angel funding and experienced entrepreneurs. It’s a compete imbalance. Whatever you might think of Y Combinator or Idealab in the U.S., the China market is different. China needs this type of business-building platform to hire and train people and provide angel funding, which is scarce.
There also is a worldwide economic crisis, which means that there is a bunch of strong talent out there that we want to hire, in order to start a lot of exicting businesses.“
On why it’s “now or never”, he says,
“Ecommerce in China has gone from 7% adoption to 25% adoption. Payment capabilities are just happening. Really, it’s a lot like the late 90s in the U.S. Remember how quickly Amazon and eBay and even Google search took off? You have to imagine the current Chinese Internet as news and games and blogging, but a big shift is inevitable. The average Chinese Internet user is just 25, compared to 42 in the U.S. That means they are getting older, getting more money, getting married, having kids… A rising ecommerce will lift all boats.
In terms of mobile, there are 650 million cell phones in China and mobile Internet usage is growing like crazy. It’s not just knowledge workers, but it’s also growing rapidly for groups like migrant workers and people making just a few dollars a day. They view it as the only way to access information, and with usage and volume a lot of things will grow.
There also is 3G, which is the one thing the Chinese government is going after and developing this year. In China, when the government wants to do something it happens.
For cloud computing: China has never really developed a software market, and what’s happening is like what’s happening in the U.S. – moving from packaged software to online or the cloud. In that process new businesses and models are starting to happen. If you look at the success of the Amazon platform or Google apps in the U.S., it will also be true in China because there are millions or people who want easy ways to build websites.
There is incredible opportunity right now.“
Via peHUB.
We hear people whining about stress but rarely do we hear someone extolling it. And that’s why I’d like to make a distinction between stress and pressure. I understand that the two words are used interchangeably, and that there was a book about good stress, but the word is itself stressful. Stress is when you’re contemplating failure, when you’re threatened, in danger, being pushed. Ah, but pressure can be when you’re hopeful, when you’re contemplating victory, when opportunity is winking at you, pulling you onward.
“Deadlines are your friends,” has been my companion for many years. Deadlines mean you get to finish, to let go. And, for many of us, deadlines mean you get to start. After all, if there’s no hurry, it’s never going to see the upper half of your to-do list. A deadline is GAME ON!
| Big fat juicy icon. You know you want to click me |
