That question might be the most important question you can ask yourself when starting a business venture. Obviously, before starting any enterprise you should have a great understanding of both the industry and marketplace you are getting involved in. You have asked yourself, what is the lifespan of this business? What can I add to the market? What problem am I solving? (Unless of course, you are me, in which case you flush a whole pile of money down a toilet mainly because you didn't ask yourself any of those questions) How is my business different than other businesses trying to solve the same problem? Eventually you will get to questions you don't know the answer to. When you get to those, how you address them will very often be the key to the success or failure of your enterprise.
Fred Wilson over at A VC gave some public kudos to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. Zuckerberg hired a professional operator to take what was recently a very small company, international. Wilson cites the successes of other similar young executives at suddenly massive companies bringing in top notch operatives to keep things moving forward as the reason Zuckerberg gets a pat on the back. What he doesn't address is why this is an important indicator that Mark Zuckerberg (MZ) is a good bet to lead Facebook for a long time.
It seems that MZ has a genuine lack of arrogance. He understands what he doesn't know. He accepted he needed help at the highest level and acted swiftly and effectively to bring in a serious operator to help him through the unknown waters. So I too, tip my hat to MZ, and hope that this incredibly important business lesson is not lost on me in the future.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Social, semantic, 2.0, 3.0, what is the web these days?
The brilliant boys over at Freakonomics put together a group of top minds to debate the benefits and challenges of social networking. Why has social networking exploded?
Social networking changes the way business is done. I am currently doing some consulting work for a web start-up. They are two young guys with a very interesting idea. How did I meet them? One of them showed up as part of my fraternity networking group on Linked In. I was interested in his company because I am seriously considering leaving mine. However, they have not received funding yet and aren't realy sure how to seek it. I have given them advice and pointed them in the right direction, but at the end of the day they need a veteran to help them through. I am not in a position to lead that charge for them. However, I knew the perfect guy. I used Linked In to introduce them. They've had a very productive meeting and my veteran friend is most likely going to sign on with my young friends in a mentoring-interim CEO capacity to help them through the funding process. Before Linked In was a story like this possible? No, because it is unlikely I ever would have met the young entrepreneur.
Reason 2:
A serious desire to connect with other people in an increasingly hostile world? It is harder and harder to make friends the older you get and I think it is a daunting task at any age once puberty hits. Social networking gives people the ability to reach out there and find people they really have common ground with, allowing them to connect on a different level than normal. Normal being, "I work with this guy and he isn't a complete ass so let me go to lunch with him." Occasionally those relationships turn into real friendship. Most of the time they disappear as soon as one or the other changes jobs.
Are there more reasons? Yeah, without a doubt, but these are two big ones in my opinion. I started to write this post a long time ago about how fragmented society has become and how that is hurting television ratings. What I am starting to realize is social networking is becoming as fragmented as society at large. MySpace rose, and then Facebook, Friendster, Linked In and more and more. It has gotten so crazy someone started a social network search engine called YoName.
Look at all the networks it searches:
26... I am pretty dialed in webwise and I haven't heard of some of those. I am 100% sure that isn't all of them, because one of my favorites is Ning, and Ning is not included on the list.
What does any of this mean? I am really not sure, but when looking at sociological interactions of the human race, social networking is a very interesting twist in the way we touch each other.
No 1 of Consequence
Some possible reasons:
Social networking changes the way business is done. I am currently doing some consulting work for a web start-up. They are two young guys with a very interesting idea. How did I meet them? One of them showed up as part of my fraternity networking group on Linked In. I was interested in his company because I am seriously considering leaving mine. However, they have not received funding yet and aren't realy sure how to seek it. I have given them advice and pointed them in the right direction, but at the end of the day they need a veteran to help them through. I am not in a position to lead that charge for them. However, I knew the perfect guy. I used Linked In to introduce them. They've had a very productive meeting and my veteran friend is most likely going to sign on with my young friends in a mentoring-interim CEO capacity to help them through the funding process. Before Linked In was a story like this possible? No, because it is unlikely I ever would have met the young entrepreneur.
Reason 2:
A serious desire to connect with other people in an increasingly hostile world? It is harder and harder to make friends the older you get and I think it is a daunting task at any age once puberty hits. Social networking gives people the ability to reach out there and find people they really have common ground with, allowing them to connect on a different level than normal. Normal being, "I work with this guy and he isn't a complete ass so let me go to lunch with him." Occasionally those relationships turn into real friendship. Most of the time they disappear as soon as one or the other changes jobs.
Are there more reasons? Yeah, without a doubt, but these are two big ones in my opinion. I started to write this post a long time ago about how fragmented society has become and how that is hurting television ratings. What I am starting to realize is social networking is becoming as fragmented as society at large. MySpace rose, and then Facebook, Friendster, Linked In and more and more. It has gotten so crazy someone started a social network search engine called YoName.
Look at all the networks it searches:
26... I am pretty dialed in webwise and I haven't heard of some of those. I am 100% sure that isn't all of them, because one of my favorites is Ning, and Ning is not included on the list.
What does any of this mean? I am really not sure, but when looking at sociological interactions of the human race, social networking is a very interesting twist in the way we touch each other.
No 1 of Consequence
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