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Posts Tagged ‘Next Level’

EC Roundup: F is for founder… and focus… and forgetting about competitive analysis

Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner:

Ask the attorney: What the heck is Class F stock? – You know what Class A stock is, but what is Class F stock and what benefits does it have for founders? Attorney Scott Edward Walker fills in the details – and explains why it might be good for you, but could scare away investors.

Just getting started? Focus on this to get to the next level – While you might be focused on your revenue and profitability growth cycle, the real secret to success lies in your people and strategy, says Pamela Springer,CEO of Manta, in this primer for new entrepreneurs.

Death by competitive analysis – Competitive analysis tables are a standard of any presentation to potential investors – but serial entrepreneur Steve Blank says they’re also often responsible for screwing up more start-ups before they have a chance to get going.

In favor of software patents – With Apple and HTC battling it out these days, software patents aren’t real popular to a lot of entrepreneurs. But Alain Ranaud, founder of FairSoftware, says they’re legitimate tools, though they’re definitely in need of some fixes.

Entrepreneurism: The age gap – Running a start-up in your 20s can put you at a disadvantage, since so many people assume younger entrepreneurs don’t have the experience to know what you’re doing. A who’s who of young entrepreneurs discusses the issue in this podcast from Stanford University’s Thought Leader Lecture series.

Tags: entrepreneur corner

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Just getting started? Focus on this to get to the next level

(Editor’s note: Pamela Springer is CEO of Manta, which provides information on small companies. She submitted this story to VentureBeat.)

As strange as it might sound, the key to success in startups is not always knowing where you are in your revenue and profitability growth cycle. Instead, it’s much more important to keep track of people, strategy and capital – and in that order.

Understanding the strengths of your team – and your leaders in particular – allows you to build the details of your strategy that you can proactively manage.   Aligning your strategy with your team’s strengths increases your chances of staying focused on sustainability.

On-the-job training is expensive, so check resumes and gauge how prospects for key roles have performed in previous jobs. If you have strong generalists, recognize you might need to evolve them into specialists. And keep an eye on balance: Having too many people on the team who have never experienced the start-up life (and the duties and responsibilities that go with it) can be dangerous.  Ideally, you’ve got committed, passionate and experienced leaders who can help navigate the inevitable bumps.

Having said this: Skills aren’t everything. The team needs to work well together. Many people are hired on skills, but fired due to their traits.

It’s very easy for a business to stray from its core mission. A clear focus on your company’s strategic goals is the key to staying on course  - or knowing when it’s time to modify things. Focus initially on “adoption” or revenue – confirming you have a product or service the market wants to buy.  Use the first few sales to gather feedback on missing features and what your customers like. Your next batch of customers will typically be more profitable (since you’ve made improvements and streamlined processes based on initial feedback).

As you start to establish a foothold in the marketplace, you’ll need to determine if your product has the capability to scale and bring a critical mass of customers and revenue to your company (depending, of course, on the market size and opportunity).  If not, think of adjacent markets to leverage or where you can re-package your existing product. (Note, though, that it is foolhardy to expand into a new segment before your initial product is well established.

It goes without saying that it’s important to have appropriate financial resources.  Bootstrapping an early stage company is typically the best option, as it allows you to validate the market and get initial feedback from customers. Once you’ve got a better sense of the market (and have secured a few customers), then it’s safe to begin thinking about outside investment.

Assuming you can find a willing venture capitalist or angel investor, deciding whether to accept a cash infusion ultimately depends on how fast you want to grow your company – and what you have planned for your exit strategy. Keep in mind that it’s best to secure capital when you don’t need it, as trying to raise or find money when you do need it is tough.

Understanding where you are in the maturity curve of each of these three categories will help you position your business better for the future. Cash is obviously important – but if you don’t have the right team and strategy, you’ll never see the capital.

Tags: employees, how-to, strategy

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Publishing different: What the tablet brings to the table
Like newspapers before them, traditional book publishers are facing the reality of the new digital world. With Apple’s much anticipated tablet expected to debut within the next few months, they’re under more pressure than ever before to “Think Different”. Moving from print to digital isn’t a smooth or easy path, despite the fact that most authors are working digitally in the first place. As early experiences with the Amazon Kindle have shown, digital tablets are not geometric or mental equivalents of the printed page.

“You’ve got to think beyond the page,” says Chuck Toporek, my editor at Addison Wesley/Pearson, “because the page no longer exists — there is no page number, or page to flip.” Book content has to adapt and flow to on-device presentation. Like the HTML revolution of the ’90s, publishers will need to rethink how their content can adapt to changes in font size, and “the page” is more driven by screen dimension and resolution than a piece of paper is. “[Interaction styles like] pinch and zoom should not hinder the user,” Toporek adds.

Publishers need to expand their ideas about how readers interact with a book. A lot of readers tend to make notes in the margins, highlight text, or dog-ear pages as they’re reading. Instead of traditional tools, readers will be using electronic equivalents. But what will the electronic equivalents be?

Adobe’s PDF system has long included mark-up features in its Acrobat product line. Acrobat users can embed notes, scribbles, and other visual elements in PDF documents, and share those marked up and edited files with others. Over the last year or two, many of these features have found their way into Mac OS X via Apple’s Preview application. For the tablet, Toporek thinks publishers need to take highlights and annotations to the next level. “An ebook doesn’t have to be a static thing that just sits on a shelf,” Toporek adds. “Imagine a scenario where the highlights and annotations I make to an ebook can be exported and shared with anyone else who has the same ebook/device.” He goes on to add, “It would be great if I could overlay your notes on top of my own so I can see what’s important to you.”

He envisions a social network of connected readers, built around technical titles. “Wikis and wikibooks never panned out [for these kinds of technical texts] because people were looking for information they could share in but often they weren’t willing or able to write it all themselves…[Authors take] great care in building content for their books, investing hundreds, or often thousands of hours in building that content.” Readers might build on top of that content by annotating and commenting on text, digitally highlighting their favorite portions and creating “reader cuts” of the text.

A tablet could allow a community to build itself around a book, just like communities now build themselves around popular websites. “Reading a book doesn’t have to be a solo effort; it can be communal. Think about taking all those highlights and annotations and storing them on a community server, where readers could overlay the text with that feedback, whether its 2 or 20 or 200 other people. You could toggle that information on and off at will. You can build a community around an ebook, and that’s something you just can’t get with a print book.”

Toporek points out that ebooks shouldn’t limit themselves to static text and images. “You really have to leverage the capabilities of the device, and exploit the heck out of it,” says Toporek. “Think of where audio and video fit into an ebook. You can incorporate screencasts and audio clips from the author, or even include content that doesn’t make it into the print version, sort of like a director’s cut of a DVD.” According to Toporek, tablet-based books might incorporate live examples, demonstrating principles in action, just like web pages currently do. And what if you need an ebook that isn’t for the rumored Apple tablet? “Publishers should look to delivering ebooks to WebKit-based browsers so they can leverage HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript (think web-standards), or other frameworks such as SproutCore.”

If the tablet does emphasize ebooks the way analysts expect it to, we can only hope that Apple helps show publishers The Way in a future version of the iPhone SDK, similar to Amazon’s active content Kindle development kit (KDK) announced yesterday. If the tablet succeeds in its arena, the way the iPhone has before, authors and publishers will be able to Publish Different.

TUAWPublishing different: What the tablet brings to the table originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple buys music streamer Lala, but what’s it getting?

Last week’s rumors have become this weekend’s facts, as various sources are confirming a possible deal we discussed on Friday: Apple has purchased the music streaming service Lala. Right now, Apple’s iTunes dominates the US music download sales, and does very well in many overseas markets, but the company has so far refused to experiment with any delivery model other than downloads. That will almost inevitably change, but the purchase of Lala isn’t necessarily a sign that “inevitably” means “soon.”

The case for this meaning that Apple is ready to start streaming was made by an unnamed source in a Reuters report, who told the news service that, “Apple recognizes that the model is going to evolve into a streaming one and this could probably propel iTunes to the next level.” As our original report noted, Apple has also been rumored to be testing a streaming service for video content; adding music to the menu seems like an obvious choice.

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Everbridge launches web platform for citizen alerts

The ability to predict natural disasters and other emergencies is far from a reality. Which is why Glendale based Everbridge, a provider of emergency notification systems, has launched the Everbridge SmartGIS system. The company, which was founded in 2002, says the web-based platform is designed to quickly notify citizens while providing emergency managers with decision making information.

Emergency systems have existed for some time, most notably the Emergency Alert System (EAS) from the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, which allows for government intervention on all broadcast channels. I’m sure we have all experienced the annoying beeping while they test their system from time to time. Everbridge SmartGIS takes the process to the next level and has the ability to target warnings to citizens in specific areas through a map-based technology as well as provide citizen interaction through polling – -all in real-time.

The system also allows citizens to provide valuable information through a SmartRegistration portal. The portal lets citizens choose how they want to be contacted including phones, email, test messaging, instant messaging or other mediums as well as provide information on special needs, availability for volunteering or special skill sets.

Collaborative Fusion, a Pittsburgh based incident management solutions provider, offers a similar web based platform module called Notifications. However, the Notification service doesn’t provide real-time polling or the option for citizens to customize their contact profiles. Back in April, Microsoft announced Vine, a location based service for emergencies, though the service is for less time sensitive purposes including checking in with family or friends to let them know you’re alright or sharing work schedules.

The system is targeted at cities, counties, 911 centers and other agencies. High profile customers include Salesforce.com, AirTran Airways, the American Red Cross, and Virginia Tech. Cost starts at $10,000 and can rise with the size of the audience you want to reach.

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If Kerouac Lived In The Present, OnTheRoad, The Service, May Have Interested Him

There’s a ton of buzz around location right now. Our discussion on it at the RealTime CrunchUp this past Friday easily could have gone on twice as long as it did. There are just so many interesting facets: Business models, privacy, real-life social implications, and so on. Not surprisingly, we’re seeing an explosion of services that are built around it. One such service was a TechCrunch50 demo pit company this year, OnTheRoad.

Started in 2004 in the Czech Republic to connect travelers, newer devices like smartphones with GPS are poised to take the service to the next level. While a lot of location services such Foursquare, Gowalla, and now Loopt are built around the idea of “checking-in” to venues, OnTheRoad takes a different approach. It’s more about creating a geotagged travel diary when you specifically go on a trip somewhere.

Visitors to your OnTheRoad travel page see a map with various locations marked. On the other side of the screen there is a dynamic timeline of entries depending on what place on the map they click on. (A good example is the page the OnTheRoad team created for their TechCrunch50 trip.) This journal can contain both text and pictures. The use of this map-plus-timeline to navigate through your trip makes a lot of sense. There is also a horizontal timeline along the top of the page to go step-by-step through a trip that way.

And for the person on the trip, it’s easy to update on the go, which is obviously key. You can update your OnTheRoad journal via SMS, email, IM, or the service’s dedicated mobile apps. But what’s great is that even if you don’t have access to something like GPS to tag an entry, if you simply state where you are, the service will be able to figure it out. And if you do have access to the service’s Android or iPhone apps (the latest version of the iPhone app was rejected recently due to an API issue that they are resolving, we’re told), it’s even easier to update.

The company says Symbian and BlackBerry apps are also in the works. They also have an API they will be launching later this week. If you choose to update your page through the main website admin center, it’s a little cluttered, but overall seems to be pretty intuitive. But again, the mobile way to update seems to be key.

Though, as I said, OnTheRoad originally launched in 2004, the new direction for the service as a location-based travel journal only came about around 9 months ago. Since then, they have added about 5,000 registered users with over 50% of those coming from mobile devices. And the service is only currently localized for three areas, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the U.S. (with Japan and China in beta testing). They hope the new iPhone app, when approved, will help them make a stronger push in the U.S.

So what’s the plan to make money? Next year, the team has “5 or 6 revenue streams” they’re going to look at, U.S. marketing manager Michaela Romanova tells us. One is looking at subscription-based premium features, such as breaking news for locations. Another interesting idea involves using OnTheRoad to supply worldwide 911 numbers to travelers. In Europe, the company has already been monetizing a bit, having launched in the past year a promotion with a new Volkswagon SUV that had OnTheRoad built in to the dashboard console.

They face some competition from the likes of TripIt and Dopplr, but really this trying to be something else. It will no doubt help you organize trips a bit better like those services do, but this is more about simply sharing stories and pictures from where you are while on the go with people back home.

OnTheRoad may not be the Ker0uac novel, but it’s interesting.

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London VC: European Startups Need To Work Much Harder
This is our third guest post written by a London-based VC. To allow them to speak plainly without jeopardising their fund or their career in the small village that is the London VC scene, I’m allowing them to post anonymously. FYI, LondonVC is a genuine VC and TechCrunch Europe has met them face to face.

One of the biggest challenges for any investor (regardless of the stage/type of investment they target) and founders alike is hiring great talent. In early stage investing the team may be the single criteria upon which an investment decision is based (considering how many times when that’s all there is to go by) and even in later/growth stages, while the founding team has been historically crucial, bringing someone new in to help “get the company to the next level” can be the difference between investing or not.

Something I’ve realised and have to admit is that while obviously the absolute pool of talent is smaller here in the UK/Europe than it is in the U.S. (and that cannot be disputed nor is it anything more than a function of population) another factor. It is one which I keep hoping will change, because if it doesn’t it threatens to make a small pool even smaller. And that is a cultural and behavioural issue: work ethic.

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Turning the tide: a hands-on look at Google’s Wave

Many of the underlying standards that define modern e-mail technology were originally developed in the 1980s. Almost 30 years after the birth of SMTP, e-mail is still the dominant Internet communication medium despite its significant limitations and increasingly anachronistic design. Supplementary services like instant messaging and microblogging have emerged to fill in some of the gaps, but virtually no attempts have been made to build a holistic replacement for e-mail. Our most important day-to-day messaging infrastructure remains intractably mired in antiquity.

To advance the current state of Internet communication to the next level, it will take a truly audacious vision and highly sophisticated technology. The engineers at Google seem to have both. At the Google I/O conference earlier this year, the search giant unveiled a new prototype service called Wave, which aims to deliver a unified platform for next-generation messaging. The prototype, which is currently accessible to a limited number of users and is scheduled to open up for broader testing soon, is an intriguing communication tool that also provides compelling insight into the future of the Web.

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