2011 Jul 14

Cowboys and Architects

All technology companies have engineers, team leads and managers. Some have good QA, others have good product managers or even program managers. But not everyone has architects, and those who do are not necessarily strong. The question cash-contrained (and who isn't) company executives ask is, "why do I need to spend a *lot* of money to hire a technologist who is not actually writing code?" The answer is often either not to hire an architect, or to take a weaker person and "

2011 Jul 11

Come Take A Walk

The NY Times reported on Thu that when Mark Zuckerberg is ready to make an offer (or seduce someone, meant in the most positive way) to join Facebook, he takes them for a walk in the woods. Some actually find it strange - although given some of Mark's reported early antics, nothing should be strange at Facebook, again, meant in a positive way. I believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those that think they are crazy and those that don't know it yet; it is the latter who attack post offices or Wal-Marts (or airports).

2011 Jul 11

Use The Guillotine

I read a great post earlier this week, whose thesis can be summed up as "your startup isn't unique, and it doesn't matter." Adam Ludwin, of RRE Ventures, argued that the success of a startup is not determined by its unique technology or innovation, but rather by the mix of good timing (the market must be ready for it) and good people (solid execution). This is probably the most important post I have seen, for entrepreneurs, in a long time.

2011 Jul 8

Late-Early Stage Employees - What they say about you

I read an interesting article today about what Peter Thiel, one of the best-known early investors, asks any startup founder. He wants to know why employee number 20 will join your company. Employee number 1,000 is easy: company is stable (relatively speaking; ask Dick Fuld), money is relatively plentiful, lots of different career paths. Employee number 5 is also easy: lots of equity at a low valuation, which means huge upside if the company does well (which is the definition of risk).

2011 Jun 27

WebOS vs. iOS vs. Android: User Adoption vs. Developer Adoption

HP, intrepid acquirer of erstwhile darling of the mobile set Palm, has taken the little bit of value left in Palm, WebOS, and is building its new platform on it. It is important to remember that HP used to be the vendor to go to to get Windows Phones (or WinCE, or Windows Mobile, or whatever branding they stuck on it in an attempt to make it palatable). Windows Phone is basically dead in the water, and HP, which sees the beginning of a death spiral for Nokia, and an advanced one for Blackberry, wants to save its mobile business.

2011 Jun 26

Pack Your Bags... But Be Ready To Pay!

Mark Feldman, the CEO of Ziontours in Jerusalem, wrote an article in today's Jerusalem Post describing the many changes in baggage policies of airlines over the last several years. Since Mark is based in Israel, unsurprisingly he focuses on the policies of major carriers to/from Tel Aviv. Americans and Europeans who have gotten used to being squeezed on baggage charges over the last decade would probably be surprised to hear that most carriers - El Al and all the North American based ones - offer two free bags of up to 50lbs/23kg to Tel Aviv.

2011 Jun 21

Architecture Matters - Always

I have read many many articles that suggest startup developers should be conscious not to aim for perfection early on - they will get the perfect product that will be irrelevant by the time they finish it - but to pay close attention to architectural choices. What they do today may be one day in one direction or another, but can be millions and months or years of work to change down the road.

2011 Jun 15

Apple Loses its Retail Head

According to today's WSJ, Ron Johnson, the head of Apple retail, left to become President (slated to be CEO in a few months) of JCPenney. This is a big loss for Apple, and a gain for Penney. However, Apple is an upscale brand with strong brand equity. Penney, on the other hand, is a low discount retail chain. Before Apple, Johnson was a VP at Target, the mire upscale big box store.

2011 Jun 15

Regulatory Required vs Unpredictable Startups

When looking at starting a venture, most entrepreneurs and investors tend to categorize the type of industry and the requirements for success. Commonly used differentiators are retail vs corporate, direct vs indirect sales (eg the Facebook model where the actual users are different than the paying advertisers), capital intensive vs light (eg chip design vs web services), etc. Many investor groups explicitly focus on one or more differentiators, since they know the requirements for success.

2011 Jun 12

The Revenge of the Keywords?

Who remembers AOL Keywords? For that matter, who remembers when AOL actually mattered? I thought about them this morning. Steve Rubel, on his blog, referenced a googlesystem posting here, that Google is looking to replace URL's with names in search results. From AOL's, sorry, I meant Google's, perspective, that is not surprising. They (a) want their content to be more relevant to real humans, (b) look to optimize (as a commenter on that link indicated), and (c) prefer that the info you get from Google is not necessarily available elsewhere.