Eric Wilson's Blog

You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure

Eric Wilson — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:06:59 +0000

I spent quite a bit of time these past few years talking to various companies in all manners of business verticals about their data. I was presented with this unique kind of opportunity because I was offering a service which lived, breathed and optimized data. The interesting commonality between each of these companies that was revealed to me is that in the great majority of instances most organizations don't really know their data.

I would ask them questions about what their goal was for introducing a recommendation engine into their tech stack and invariably I was told; "we want to increase sales".

There are many drivers behind a rise in sales; from presenting a more personalized product browsing experience, increasing dwell time or converting free players to paid. Yet it took some vigorous dialog for us all to reach consensus.

That experience got me to thinking about businesses in general.

Are businesses paying attention to the right metrics in order for them to know the health of their company as well as drive the bottom line.

KPIs are interesting measures in business unit isolation but the real power happens when the symphony of data that can be captured across the enterprise (big or small) comes together in a meaningful fashion: The KPI dashboard.

image source: mirror42.com

When DevOps can see the impact outages have on the retention of customers - awesome. The unified data in the dashboard delivers insights such that each group can visualize their role in the success of the company and gives those team members measurable numbers to strive for.

Take the blinders off.

Know your data. Share your data. Succeed.

You: The Most Interesting Big Data

Eric Wilson — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 02:00:34 +0000

I like data. It is one of the keys to unlocking success at whatever you want to master. What if the thing you want to master is your health? Seems like you'd want to have as much data on you as possible. Right?

Cool Data Products

Armed with timely, relevant information you should be able make the adjustments in your habits to achieve that winning formula. I've been using a few products for the past year and have found them to be simple, unobtrusive and convenient enough to use on a regular basis.

Jawbone UP

Jawbone UP application

I was looking for a way to capture the as many data elements as possible from one platform when I found the Jawbone UP. The UP has an app for viewing and entering data as well as a wristband that you almost never remove (except for data downloads and charging) which captures data as you go about your day. Sleep, daily activity and food consumption are all managed via the UP.

The only thing missing that I would like to see is heart rate monitoring. I see this as invaluable data that should be captured all day long. I am aware of a wristwatch called Basis that monitors daily heart rate but I only have so much real estate on my person for such things. Perhaps when that product sees a few more development cycles I'll give it a try.

Withings

Next on my list was the collection of data about weight, lean mass and fat mass. I wanted a device that was Wi-Fi connected so I could have data automatically sent to an app / online service. The Wi-Fi Body Scale fit the bill and also nicely integrates with many partner fitness applications and web sites.

Happily Withings also makes a blood pressure monitor which sends its data to the same web site and mobile app.

Data and You

Its a fascinating study to witness how fine tuning various elements from diet, exercise and sleep can have such a positive and profound effect on your daily performance. That tuning can't take place without data - and what data could be more interesting than your own?

Will You Work for Equity in Lieu of Cash

Eric Wilson — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 21:58:31 +0000

I've been speaking with a healthy number of startups who are looking for engineering talent of some sort but who also have the shared condition of cash constraints. As you can probably guess, cash is the lifeblood of any early stage (read: prerevenue) venture and the conservation of that precious element is always at the forefront of founders minds.

Risk vs. Reward

What to do?

"Well we have equity - let's use that"

Great, except for the fact that most startups fail. This is no longer a closely held secret - it's out there in popular literature. It means that trading time for stock isn't as attractive as it once was. That and it's an engineers market today as there just aren't enough of them to go around.

Engineers are also getting a whole lot smarter on the business side of things. While free pizza and beer are certainly good things, they don't pay the rent. Lately I've been hearing the more savvy engineers ask questions of the ilk:

tell me about the structure of the cap table
what sort of valuation do you have and how was it arrived at
what do the liquidation preferences look like

While it's refreshing to see the non MBA types grok the stock scene, it certainly doesn't make the only non-cash incentive a startup has behave like a superconducting magnet for engineers (TM).

My observation is that the startups who find themselves in such a cash strapped condition might also be a manifestation of the popularized Series A Crunch. If they can't raise money, they can't hire talent and won't survive.

Problem solved through attrition.

All ventures left standing better get their checkbooks out.

1, 0 and the Use of Precise Language

Eric Wilson — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:41:28 +0000

The other day I overheard the conversation a developer was having with a salesperson. It went something like this:

SP: Hey dev, are you all set for the meeting we're attending in 10 minutes

DEV: Yes, and the meeting starts in 26 minutes

SP: OK, whatever, see you there

That interaction reminded me of how differently engineers think, talk and, in general, communicate.

Engineers can be a persnickety lot. They prefer a certain exactness of expression. It's more than mean what you say, say what you mean. It's mean exactly what you say, say exactly what you mean. Not a very forgiving approach - especially in the foggy early morning hours, prior to imbibing your favorite pick-me-up.

Why is such preciseness celebrated by those who stare deeply into the Matrix during the majority of their waking hours?

I think one possible explanation is that the entity engineers speak most frequently to (their machines) behaves in the very same fashion. Day in and day out engineers converse in their language of choice (e.g. Python, Ruby, Java, Node, C) with their good friend the computer (hereafter known as Lappy Top). If during the course of that conversation with Lappy Top the engineer says the wrong thing or has bad logic, Lappy has no compunction, shows no attempt at understanding or interpreting what the engineer meant to say. If what the engineer said was wrong - well, it was wrong. It's a 1 or a 0 and there is no in between. Lappy lets you know that you are a simpleton.

It would be interesting to see the effects on engineers social skills if modern compilers / interpreters could make learned guesses at what an engineer was trying to say when the engineer misspoke and could be more forgiving. Perhaps Lappy's flexibility and understanding would influence the engineer's social behavior.

Until then - the meeting starts in 26 minutes...

Remote Working: Baby != Bath Water

Eric Wilson — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 23:59:05 +0000

Kara Swisher of AllThingsD posted the internal Yahoo! No-Work-From-Home Memo which effectively states that either you work from a Yahoo! office or you can quit - quit. Here's a snippet from the memo:

To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.

I can understand if the motivation was to cull the herd of certain unproductive individuals. Let's face it - not everyone is cut out for off campus work. Remote employees have to maintain rigorous self discipline and a bit of their own morale to keep pace with the tasks and people who have the benefit of all the hallway chatter. It can be tough on your own certainly. It has to be said, though, that some employees actually thrive working from home and removing this flexible option will cause those good folks to find other opportunities.

I have had remote employees for ten years now and have lived many of the challenges that can arise when you typically talk and work with someone via Skype. It can be at times MORE work not having someone down the hall. The condition demands from both sides an increased level of communication because it won't take place via happenstance. That said, not all managers are cut out to HAVE remote employees either.

The wonderful thing about our shrinking world is that as an employer you can choose to find talent anywhere - that's liberating. Enforcing a policy of move or die will certainly restrict the candidates available for a companies tasks and will place that entity in a challenging spot as their competitors snatch up the best people - wherever they may be.

Let's not make this a trend.

Kickstarter is a Marketing + Ecommerce Site

Eric Wilson — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:15:00 +0000

How do you go about the task of raising money for a new idea that you have? Typically the path has been to start with a friends and family round - basically asking the people who you know and who know you the best to take a leap of faith on your big idea.

Makes sense.

No complicated business plans to create. No flashy investors decks to build.

Shouldn't that be easy?

It should be easy in the fact that you already have a personal relationship with the investor.

Hello <insert relative/friend name>, I'd like some cash from you to do this really amazing thing. Thanks!

But you can't really just do that because you know - you KNOW - they probably will never, ever see this money coming back. For most people lost money is never a good thing. It also tends to strain personal relationships which is also never a good thing.

So now what?

Enter crowdfunding.

the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations

Now you can build an online campaign (complete with snazzy HD video) that speaks to the millions of people in the world who can't wait to part with some cash to help you realize your dream. This is great - just what you need. Lots of folks only have to pledge a little bit of money in order for you to achieve your funding goal.

But the key here is that the majority of these folks are looking to get some-thing back. A product. They aren't getting stock in your company - yet - until the JOBS Act gets put into action. And because the risk they are taking is helping you build that product, you are going to give them a discount on it when it becomes available. Right?

You have to give to get as it were. And if you want people to believe in you then you better have a cool prize at the end of the product rainbow.

But then this doesn't sound like fund raising. It sounds more like pre-selling - no?

In essence, a site like Kickstarter isn't really about raising funds for your company. It's a clever new marketing vehicle and a discount retailer. Even the originator of the category, Indiegogo, falls into the same camp.

Let's say for arguments sake that it really IS a fund raising platform. How do you attract interest in your dream and convince folks the world over to join up with your cause? The realities are that you will be compelled to get heavy into social media to publicize your campaign. You'll have to actively manage your Twitter and Facebook accounts daily, spread the word so people will get exposed to your produced HD video and hopefully make that video go viral.

At this point you don't even have a product yet! Who has time for all of this pre/post production of HD goodness and aggressive social outreach when you are just a few dreamers in a garage?

Answer? Folks that already have money. They will have the deep pockets necessary to manage all of these time intensive (and expensive) tasks whilst benefitting from the cool factor of being on Kickstarter.

Kickstarter on it's own site says it's not a store - but how can it not be?

Have product listings? Check.

Have discounted pricing to buy that product? Check.

Deliver product when it's ready? Check.

Let's look at it another way.

What happens if you don't have a product? What if it's service? Do campaigns that don't produce something tangible which can be worn, watched or listened to getting funded? How many services, B2B ideas or B2C ideas are flourishing?

Now think about what its ecosystem will look like when Kickstarter becomes wildly successful. Thousands of campaigns vying for funding all decrying their uniqueness and special appeal. How noisy will it be then? Won't your little campaign get lost in the masses of other campaigns? How will funders find you?

Wait - there is something like that already...

iTunes.

What's really disheartening is that after speaking to several industry insiders, I'm being told that a high percentage of the investors in successful campaigns getting funded are - wait for it - friends and family. <gasp>

That's right. Not globally connected, Kumbaya singing let's change things together strangers. Nope, your good old friends and family.

A paradox for sure but maybe that's the real value of these platforms. They help you ask the tough question to YOUR network and that is worth 5% of whatever you end up raising...

To Incubate or Not - That is the Question

Eric Wilson — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 04:58:54 +0000

I read a post last week by Pascal Finette on the merits (or potentially lack thereof) of joining an incubator program. I'm an alum of two incubators* (Idealab, eCompanies), one accelerator (MuckerLab) and based on my experiences I do agree with many of his points.

From a financial perspective, signing up with an incubator can be incredibly expensive in terms of how much of your venture you release in exchange for the services provided by the incubator. Pascal has this example:

Say you go through the incubator and pay your 7% club membership fee. You go on and raise a seed round which will dilute your company by 25%. You're awesome, work hard and get lucky - you raise a series A. Your stock goes down another 25%. And then you exit. Hooray - you sell the company for a neat little $10M. Let's see how much you paid for that help your incubator gave you, shall we?

Assuming simple dilution in each round your incubators 7% are diluted down to about 4% (3.9375% to be precise). That's $400,000 in hard cash for a little more than $13,000 they put into you. 30x their investment. Not bad for them. But is it really that good a deal for you?

Compelling to see when it's worked out this way. Your chosen incubator better deliver something that you couldn't otherwise get on your own. That is the point where I feel Pascal misses.

For the uninitiated, fund raising is really difficult. Sure you can secure a friends and family round, cobble together $100-$200K. But when it comes time to raise that serious first round of venture capital; where do you go? Who do you talk to?

VC have so many companies to vet each and every week that as a budding entrepreneur you can't just walk up to one and say "hey, check this out". Like many other industries, the venture community is one of connections and if you don't have them you have just multiplied your chances for failure.

Connections then, are incredibly valuable. Whether it is to a design firm who wouldn't normally work with your pre-revenue company or to an insider whose Erdős number is 1 with your target VC.

It would seem that quality incubators are more than just "a bit of money, and a desk in a co-working space". Yes it's true that they can be an expensive proposition - but if you are never able to raise your follow on round, how much money did you end up saving by not signing up with one?

*I did have good outcomes as both incubated ventures were able to successfully IPO.

Elephant Hunter

Eric Wilson — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:25:19 +0000

How do you convince a hunter that the elephant he sees in front of him isn't a beast that he should try to kill? Speaking metaphorically of course.

I read a great blog post by Mark Suster a number of years ago which described the scenario of elephants, deer and rabbits. The analogy was to describe what kind of customer do you as a small startup try to tackle and the pitfalls you will inevitably fall into if you choose the wrong option.

Briefly...

The realities are that you have limited amounts of - well - everything.

Cash.

Time.

People.

The huge customer will in the end make you an indentured servant to their goals and needs.

There is really no way around it.

Avoid elephants. Deer rule.

The Real Cost of Interrupting an Engineer

Eric Wilson — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 01:56:52 +0000

Ingeniarius Intermissis

On many occasions I have found myself having to explain to those outside of the engineering world why unplanned interruptions are so, well, disruptive. I describe the mode of being in the zone, so completely deep in the understanding and comprehension of a task that a phone call, a question or just the need to say 'hello' to us is like pulling out the wrong block during an intense game of Jenga - everything falls down.

To be crystal clear - it is an extremely fragile period of enlightenment.

Arg.

Much to my delight a new study has been released that categorically supports the notion I've been describing for so many years, albeit more eloquently and accompanied with much more scientific rigor.

Chris Parnin over at ninlabs research released a study based on

the analysis of 10,000 programming sessions recorded from 86 programmers using Eclipse and Visual Studio and a survey of 414 programmers...

Some top level data points that I can relate to:

A programmer takes between 10-15 minutes to start editing code after resuming work from an interruption.

When interrupted during an edit of a method, only 10% of times did a programmer resume work in less than a minute.

A programmer is likely to get just one uninterrupted 2-hour session in a day.

Brutal.

When is the worst time to interrupt an engineer?

Research shows that the worst time to interrupt anyone is when they have the highest memory load. Using neural correlates for memory load, such as pupillometry, studies have shown that interruptions during peak loads cause the biggest disruption

I called it 'being in the zone' - Chris calls it 'highest memory load'.

Fascinating stuff. It's a great read and I highly recommend it to those who find engineers to be the grumpy sort. It may just change your opinion.

Google it or Bing it

Eric Wilson — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 02:20:43 +0000

I've been using the two services pretty extensively lately and all the while doing my own non-scientific analysis of why and when I choose to use them.

Google, I find, gives me far better results when I am looking for science or engineering related searches. More often then not if I have a technology question I'll get good results from Google.

Bing feels like it's more geared toward business, people and images. I don't know if this is what Microsoft was aiming for but that's when I decide to Bing it.

Apparently now I'll also have to consider when I Facebook it - but that can wait.

It's all about the execution

Eric Wilson — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 05:04:46 +0000

A commonly known expression - this execution bit - but it's one that never can be said enough. The challenge is that not everyone really hears the message.

What do I mean?

An entrepreneur has this great idea - it's a game changer. They guard their idea with a veil of secrecy until they can find the right cast of characters that they can trust to help them materialize all that's been in their head. They go about the business of finding the right team and then it's time to get down to business - make shit happen.

A this point, it's all about the execution. And it is precisely at this point when the new venture can begin to fail. It can happen that fast.

By now we all know:

Be laser focused.

Talk to your customer.

Get feedback.

Adjust your plan.

Rinse and repeat.

BUT - Along the way there have to be communication channels built within this tiny group of doers such that everyone is in the know. Everyone needs to feel plugged in.

Engineering needs to know what the customers are looking for.

Sales needs to know when features are going to be complete.

Business development needs to know the markets to approach.

And all this doesn't just happen. There needs to be a plan. Ad hoc can suit some situations but get organized and make certain that you don't build silos of information at the onset of your new venture's formation. These walls of impedance are too difficult to navigate and break down whilst concomitantly creating a culture of protectionism and suspicion. This is bad. Very bad.

Whatever tools you choose to implement your teams communication - be it online, email, meetings, whatever - make that effort stick. You'll be better for it.

MacPorts port selfupdate fail

Eric Wilson — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 22:32:34 +0000

Maybe I’m late to the party but when attempting to update my MacPorts installation recently I got an unusual error message:

--->  Updating MacPorts base sources using rsync
MacPorts base version 2.1.1 installed,
MacPorts base version 2.1.2 downloaded.
--->  Updating the ports tree
--->  MacPorts base is outdated, installing new version 2.1.2
Installing new MacPorts release in /opt/local as root:admin; permissions 0755; Tcl-Package in /Library/Tcl

Error:/opt/local/bin/port: port selfupdate failed:Error installing new MacPorts base: command execution failed

MacPorts has been pretty rock solid for me so I knew it must be related to my OS upgrade or perhaps my Xcode 4.4 upgrade. After a little digging I found that it was indeed related to Xcode and it turns out that the command line tools are not installed by default. Perhaps Apple is conserving space here but it’s only 115 MB so …

A quick trip to the Xcode Preferences pane and then the Downloads tab will reveal that indeed the command line tools need to be installed.

After completing the installation MacPorts successfully upgraded itself. Brilliant!

--->  Updating MacPorts base sources using rsync
MacPorts base version 2.1.1 installed,
MacPorts base version 2.1.2 downloaded.
--->  Updating the ports tree
--->  MacPorts base is outdated, installing new version 2.1.2
Installing new MacPorts release in /opt/local as root:admin; permissions 0755; Tcl-Package in /Library/Tcl


The ports tree has been updated.

QR Codes: Now More Beautiful

Eric Wilson — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:44:09 +0000

I wrote a few posts back in 2010 about QR codes and why I thought they had the opportunity to deliver a big impact and shift in consumer behavior. One of the challenges with the QR code back then - it was so, well, not pretty.

Recently as I was doing some research around implementing QR codes for a client, I came across a company called Visuallead. They appear to be a startup with some IP around the blending of images with QR technology. I created the image below using their website – the QR code is a link to my website.

That’s pretty cool stuff.

I wasn’t able to find any kind of API on their site unfortunately. Providing an API would allow for mass creation of branded images with QR. I would expect that this kind of functionality is probably on the Visuallead roadmap as it could really crank up the volume and usage of their product.

I’m glad that a company was formed around this idea of beautification as I think it will help drive adoption and consumer acceptance of the technology. It certainly gives QR more strength to compete with MS Tags and delivers more attractive options to those of us who want to use QR for business.

Do We Need New Programming Languages

Eric Wilson — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 05:46:11 +0000

It’s an interesting thought I had as I was discussing the merits of the programming language called Go with a colleague of mine. We were waxing poetic about the strengths of this language or that language and found that each had some niceties, which made certain tasks easier. That seemed to be the goal of each target language.

Google has subscribed to the idea that there must be a better way. Having the Creator of Python in house seemingly didn’t satisfy Google as they needed to add Yet Another Programming Language to the stable of things to learn for engineers.

Maybe it’s a generational thing as in “I don’t want to use my fathers programming language” because it’s just not cool.

Maybe it’s a desire to get more people into the field of software development and if the coding becomes easy enough then job well done – right?

To illustrate how many language choices are available, let’s have a look at what engineers and corporations wanting to begin new software projects have to decide between:

Chart from Tiobe Software

The tried and true C programming language is still in the top 5. Amazing to see really, as the creation of new languages has not slowed over the last 40 years. Mind you this list represents only the top 20 languages – there are over 100 that are being tracked by Tiobe.

The bigger message for me here though is developer fragmentation. We hear about this concept of fragmentation with respect to platforms (Android now in particular) but think about it from a developer perspective. There is only so much time one can devote to becoming competent in a language. As well, how many languages can one really master and concomitantly be a strong contributing member of a development team. 3? 4?

It seems then if push comes to shove the developer is going to HAVE to choose and master at least three languages from the list above in order to be highly desirable for employers. That means weekend projects will be relegated for the ‘hobby’ language.

Employers have a similar challenge in that they need to find talent and staff a team. The chart above highlights Java and C as two languages that they are most likely to find developers for. Are you seeing the cycle here?

So I say then what can’t you do in C? Why have universities moved away from C as the language du jour? Is managing a pointer such a bad thing?

// insert flame war here

Avoid The Kardashian / Bieber Noise

Eric Wilson — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:43:00 +0000

It seems that the idea of one entity controlling the real time social feed to the world is going to be challenged by a – wait for it – subscription based model. App.net is poised to introduce the idea, as their bid for $500K USD seems to have been realized.

App.net is a potential boon for those folks who see the Twitter ad train bearing down on them and are looking for a better experience.

I imagine it also send chills down the spines of the ad networks. Imagine if the power users who create 90% of the valuable content on its service switch to App.net? What will Twitter be left with?

Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber.

That may be enough content to keep the service interesting for some but I for one will drop off Twitter if App.net can gain the kind of traction that it looks to be already developing.

I do have a concern about supporting the Open Protocols however. From Dalton Caldwell’s blog:

Activitystrea.ms Atom & JSON feeds, as well as RSS feeds, of public posts for individual users, hashtags, etc. (Note that this is different from making them the foundation of our read/write API, which we have decided not to do)

Pubsubhubbub (PuSH) support (as a publisher, initially)

Exposing user identities with Webfinger

Commitment to coordinate between internal and external parties to create and support open-source “lightweight” clients in as many flavors as we can, ala Stripe

Commit to enabling and supporting users in building inbound and outbound syndication to and from App.net

I am a fan of Open but this is could be a lot. A lot of dependency on others, their development cycles and what others deem to be important features or design decisions, external to App.net.

I hope that this policy doesn’t spell frustration for the progress that App.net wants to make. Design by committee is usually lowest common denominator at best and more often doesn’t iterate fast enough for those that want to use the end product. I must admit that I am a fan of the benevolent dictator when it comes to platform development. This is how Microsoft won back in the COM versus CORBA battle. Apple iPhone versus, well, pretty much everyone else.

You get the point.

Fingers crossed though as I have already paid my first years subscription!

Predicting The London Olympics Medal Count

Eric Wilson — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 03:16:00 +0000

I found this to be a very interesting article on data mining and prediction. From the web site:

Will the United States retain its position as the top medal-winning nation at this year's Olympic Games in London, or will up-and-coming China capture the crown? Is it possible to predict how many medals each nation will win? Why do some countries take home a bundle of medals while others take home none at all? And what is it about a nation that allows it to produce Olympic medal-winning athletes?

Check out the rest of the analysis here.

I Am Not A Data Luddite

Eric Wilson — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:59:00 +0000

I feel like I need to say this on occasion when speaking with folks about how much data I'm looking for in order to power recommendation services. More data isn't always better; sometimes it's just more.

It comes back to the notion of trying to boil the ocean - thinking that the more broadly you know about a persons habits the better you'll perform when predicting their behaviors.

It simply isn't so.

There is a bad signal to noise ratio when trying to tie too many user events together. I have found that having discreet areas from which to pull event data leads to the most accurate results.

It is helpful when beginning a new project to gather data as broadly as possible, however. Just know that in time your giant data set will be winnowed down to only the tasty bits that are statistically significant.

Retargeting Needs To Get Smarter

Eric Wilson — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:42:57 +0000

I feel like I’m being stalked by a single-minded salesperson who is desperately trying to close out the fiscal quarter.

Let me explain.

I was on a site a couple of months ago looking at a cool new thermostat called Nest. I liked the idea of it so much that I bought the product.

The problem is that the retargeting platforms don’t understand that I have other interests. So now when I visit sites I am seeing the Nest ad.

Everywhere.

Mind you I am very happy with the Nest product but the effectiveness of the retargeting solution for many of the sites I’ve visited is just too basic. It appears to be some kind of FIFO queue that has no perceivable analytics or machine learning behind it.

I want retargeting to get smarter.

Better yet, I want to be able to influence how it works and what it thinks of me. It would be great if I had a universal profile, used by ad engines, and an interface that would allow me to edit and maintain my persona.

I could then tell the ad world that I already own the Nest and don’t need to be reminded how cool it is. I could also edit the kinds of products that the ad world thought I had an interest in so that they could actually target me better.

I know that sounds a little masochistic but I wouldn’t mind the intrusiveness if a) I had some control over it and b) I could have some small impact on what was being sent my way.

This kind of solution would go a long way with consumers. Maybe it could even aid Facebook with its mobile ad woes.

I suppose that today’s fresh $100B USD will certainly give Facebook the firepower to solve this issue if they decide to take up the charge.

Or, maybe there is a little start-up waiting to happen…

Is Check-in A Dead Business

Eric Wilson — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:52:05 +0000

I have been using Foursquare for about two years now. I was intrigued by the idea of location announcement and the value checking-in might proffer to me and my network of friends.

What I have found is that the very network of folks that I wanted to engage with is leaving Foursquare. I don’t mean that they are forgetting to check-in; they are with conscious intent removing the app from their mobiles.

Why?

I have heard folks (myself included) say the following:

It’s too much work to keep your status current
It’s stressful - especially after I leave a place and have forgotten to check-in
I don’t get any meaningful value from the exercise
I am not “discovering” anything new
The offers do not reliably work across venues (e.g. the staff in many cases knows nothing about the “free parking” offer)

My Foursquare network is not the only service suffering from this abandonment, however.

Yelp is an echo chamber.

Viggle is a dead zone.

Perhaps this speaks more to the virtues of over simplified gamification. It seems the desire to earn a digital prize for performing a task has waned - at least within my network.

Earning points are no different.

Recently, Foursquare announced that they have passed the 20 million user mark. I have to wonder if this is an all-time metric or MAU.

Given the behavior that I am seeing in my dwindling network, these kinds of services need to introduce real value and do it quickly. Creating a new feature that allows people to search for nearby businesses on their mobile phones (or worse yet, on the web) is not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Citysearch pioneered this kind of service back in the 90’s.

I am curious to hear from users of [your_flavor_of_check-in service] to see if they are experiencing this same phenomenon.

Editors Note: I did verify in Real Life to make sure that my network of friends was still intact. It is. Whew.

What To Start Up?

Eric Wilson — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 01:37:10 +0000

As an entrepreneur deciding how to spend a few intense years of my life building a new company I’m struck by a vexing decision:

Follow the trends of companies that are getting easily funded and have seemingly quick exits

Enter a new category and try to solve some hard problems

It seems that trend spotting is the path that the broader investment / acquisition community is rewarding these days - just look at Viddy’s announcement today that their Series A round is valued at some $300MM. This is a company who describes themselves by saying; “Yeah, we’re like these other guys that just got bought for a billion BUT we do video”.

Here is an eye opening statement from Michael Carney:

The company’s $1.5 million seed round closed around April 2011 and, according to my sources, was priced at $16 million. That’s a 20-times multiple in just twelve months for a company that has not monetized to any significant degree.

Amazing stuff.

I recently attended a Fast Pitch Competition here in Los Angeles given by the Tech Coast Angels. Out of 170+ company ideas, eleven were chosen to present their concepts to a panel of savvy investors and entrepreneurs. The panel then voted on a scale of 1-10 who they thought was most fundable.

The winner?

A dating site.

Humph.

Let me say that I’m very happy the investment community is making an effort in SoCal. We have plenty of talent here and it should have local access to mentors and capital.

I was just underwhelmed that out of all the 170+ applicants the best, most innovative idea was a small pivot in an already tapped market.

Don’t hate the player – hate the game is perhaps the mantra of the day.