What don't I know?

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.

Asking the right questions

I have an idea for a product. How can I get it made?

I can't tell you how many times I see e-mails like this. I was even approached for a consulting gig this week by someone who has a product idea he wants to produce. Is it a good idea? It all depends on whether he asks the right questions before moving forward. Also before I invest my time and energy into someone else's entrepreneurial idea they are going to have to answer some very hard questions from me on the topic of their commitment to the idea.

That's really all it takes to get a product produced. Commitment. It takes a commitment of time and a commitment of money. Time to find the right people to fill the knowledge gap where yours wanes. Time to make sure you know what you want to do with the product once it is produced. Money to pay the people who can fill the knowledge gap and money for the prototype phase and initial production runs of you product. It is as simple as that. Any other challenge you think you will face can be shoved under those two umbrellas, time and money.

Getting it made is the easy part if you identify the knowledge gaps and are willing to pay to have them filled. The hard part is what do you do when you are holding "it" in your hand.

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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?

Some possible reasons:

Reason 1:

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.

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Why do many people fail?

I got a call from a recruiter last week who wanted to engage me in a contingency contract to fill open positions I might be recruiting at my current company. I, at the moment, do not have any open positions and even if I did, this particular recruiter does not specialize in representing the kind of candidates I would be evaluating for hire. However, I gave her the go ahead to send me her contact information and invited her to send me an invite on LinkedIN, a business networking site I am involved with.

Did she follow up?

No.

Will she get referred to the person I know hiring exactly the kind of people she reps?

No

Is this a major failure for her and her company?

You better believe it.

Lack of follow up is a leading cause of failure in business. The worst part about this for me personally is I am as guilty as the next person. There are so many things I really want to be doing, but I am working so hard right now it is very hard to spend the extra energy to follow up and follow through on the things I want for myself. I don't really have it to spend. Of course that is excuse making, no need to point it out to me.

If there is one thing I want to do in 2008, it is to be better, in all things. Now I just need to follow through.

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Twitter will figure it out

Fred Wilson a venture capitalist from New York, is an early stage investor in a an upstart social media company called Twitter.

For the blissfully unaware Twitter has been the subject of much debate in the tech community as of late because no one can really figure out how they will make money long term. They are a company that launched without a business model and are hoping that somewhere along the way they will figure out how to make money. I think they will.

Twitter is a service that allows users to deliver quick messages (tweets) to the community of people who follow that particular user. The tweets can be delivered in various ways. It is catchy because in addition to it being incredibly easy to use it is kind of fun. It is stream of consciousness micro blogging. It is also a lot more.

How do you monetize it?

Well the first thing they can do is make it a "freemium" service like Yahoo or countless others. It is free for the basic service, but if you want more complicated features, it costs X dollars a month/year.

Advertising. Web ad spending is expected to double between now and 2011. If this is true it means a LOT of new potential revenue for a company like Twitter to capture and they have interesting ways they can do it. Basic text ads attached to tweets and contextual advertising (Google-ish) based on tweet content are two very simple and possible ways that Twitter could start generating some significant advertising revenue.

Here is something I consider more interesting. They could partner with communities that already exist and brand their service to those communities. ESPN tweeting customized score updates through the twitter engine with the ESPN branding and Twitter collecting revenue from ESPN each time. ESPN pays the freight, they give an interesting service to their fans, and the brands expand. I know there are similar sports services out there already, but you can apply to any business, especially some that DON'T already have services like that. I know there is interest, because at my company we have already talked about trying to do something with Twitter. I also made a suggestion to a friend who works for a daytime talk show and he was intrigued about some possible ways to put Twitter to use.

None of these ideas even touch on the potential monetization of Twitter's open API which allow other applications to be developed on the Twitter engine. Twitter is a relatively young company and look at all these different applications that have been built!! Pretty impressive stuff.

Good social media tools become good marketing tools and end up being profitable marketing tools as long as they have good management, technology and support backing them up. I believe there are some smart people working on the monetization of Twitter and they will figure it out. I spent 20 minutes working on it and look what I came up with.

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Saliva

I have not been able to get this song out of my head. It is slamming! My musical tastes are fairly eclectic, but stuff like this winds me up. I would have embedded it here, but the embedding is disabled at the request of Universal Music who haven't learned that the free model, driven and bundled with advertising is the way to go and choking off content from the masses is stupid. What's better? Me bashing Universal for disabling the embed capability or, me embedding the song here promoting Saliva's music and Universal and allowing YouTube to get their advertising to a wider (ever so slightly wider) audience. Silly shortsightedness wins again.

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Some thoughts on a Tuesday afternoon...

I just wanted to point out in the new layout there is a second set of links. The business links are business blogs that I read every day written by very smart people. What you have to take into account when you read the works of smart people, whether it be the Freakonomics guys or anyone who knows what they are talking about is they occasionally fall in love with their own ideas. I do it. I think everyone does to a certain extent.

At one point I thought it would be a great idea to own a retail video store. I thought it would be a great business that could pay the bills while I wrote the great American novel. Looking back now I was clearly an idiot. I bought into a dying industry at the end of its run without knowing a whole lot about retail, market conditions, budgeting or forecasting, or generally anything about business. It cost me on every level, but was also probably one of the better learning experiences of my adult life. Was it worth the lesson? The jury is still out on that one. Failing big is a hard teacher.

I guess the most interesting thing I learned from that failure is that I am not afraid to fail. Perhaps a better way of saying it is fear of failure will never stop me from putting it out there. The true enemy of all success, in my opinion, is fear. Whether it be fear of the unknown, fear of the consequences, fear of being wrong, or fear of life, the biggest factor in anyone's personal failure is being so afraid of the outcome it prevents you from trying.

The business blogs are writte by people that had the big idea or funded the big idea and helped that big idea turn into massive success. Marc Andreessen's blog is especially interesting. As big time minds go, his is among the biggest.

I hope you enjoy the new links as much as I do.

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The internet is dead and boring... says Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban did an interview with Lloyd Grove and said the internet was on the decline. Due to the backlash from the interview he has followed up with a couple of blog posts amplifying and inflaming his comments and detractors.

Here are some of his comments:

The days of the Internet creating explosively exciting ideas are dead. They are dead until bandwidth throughput to the home reaches far higher numbers than the vast majority of broadband users get today. Few people's actual throughput to their homes have increased more than 5mbs in the past 5 years, and few people's throughput (if you dint understand the difference between throughput and the marketed downstream speeds your read from your ISP, you should) to their homes will increase more than 10mbs in the next 5 years. That's not enough to define a platform that allows really smart people to come up with groundbreaking ideas.

Let's be clear about my opinion of Mark Cuban. He is a visionary businessman that has created a billion dollar fortune out of ideas. That is something to be respected, in my opinion, because I spend a large part of my day trying to come up with the next winning idea. However, in this particular case I think he is dead wrong.

Let's assume for a moment he is right about the bandwidth that most people's homes will be able to manage. All that means is the smart people will have to think of ideas to make use of the bandwidth people have. I am sure there are start up companies out their right now that are working on data compression technology that will allow the kind of content delivery Cuban thinks necessary for the internet to advance. Maybe the better questions is why do people need more throughput to their homes for the net to advance beyond it's current state?

Take a look at the history of the internet and the creation and loss of great wealth that has come with it. Look at the new tools that are popping up and the different ways of interacting with everyone that is, was, or will be in your life. To say the net is in its infancy might be a gross overstatement, but it is definitely in its adolescence. The world is making demands and the markets follow demand. If the net truly needs greater throughput to expand, it will have it. My hypothesis is that someone will think differently and come up with a better idea of how to use the bandwidth that exists to advance the net for themselves and for the world.

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***EDITOR'S NOTE*** A lot of my respect for Mark Cuban has been lost. He is scheduled to appear on Dancing With the Stars.

Chess, not checkers...

I absolutely do not have time to get involved in breaking down the terrorist/Israeli crisis that is currently taking place in northern Israel and Lebanon. However, I read something online today that caused me to respond with a comment, which I rarely do anymore. Then the author took the time to respond to me... and rather than keep the discussion going there, I am bringing the whole thing here and stealing it for a blog post. I posted the flag because I don't want there to be any mistake who I support. Feel free to check in on some of my past Arab/Israeli conflict writings here.

Here is what I read. Take some time to read it if you can. It is thoughtful and well written from an informed and educated person about the conflict.

This is what I wrote in response:

While your post is strongly written and certainly somewhat analagous to the situation, I think you are talking about checkers in a chess game.

You are clearly a well informed and insightful person, but take a gander at the whole board.

Isn't it convenient this whole thing started relative moments before the G8 summit? I think it is.

What has overtaken the entire G8 agenda? Israel-Hizbollah

What has been pushed to the backburner for the G8? Iran's impending nuclear capability and proliferation in the region.

What happens if Iran reaches nuclear capability?

Gd only knows, but you are 100% correct that if unconventional weapons are employed, Israel will have no choice but to respond with retaliatory strikes. Damascus and Tehran will in all likelihood be scorched with nuclear fire.

The Hizbollah are nothing but pawns of an Iranian insanity that could kill millions.
If that maniac gains the capability, I believe he will launch. Right now, he is just sacrificing pawns to Israel to buy himself enough time to make a run at check mate.
Maybe I am wrong, but the whole world seems to be falling for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's gambit of "hey look over there."

The author of the blog, responded:

No1ofconsequence... You may be right. What the heck, you are probably right. But that doesn't negate the fact that Israel has to respond to the source of the attacks. If We were to attack Syria or Iran right now and ignore Hezbollah, the world would (justifiably) condemn us for an unprovoked attack. Yes, this is likely a proxy war... but just because the G8 are preoccupied don't think for a minute that Israel has taken its eye of Syria or Iran.
_____________________________________

Here is the problem with that response. Of course Israel has not taken its eye off of Syria and Iran. I am sure Israel is poised to deal brutal and crippling blows to Syria right now should they even blink in Israel's direction, however, Israel does not have ability to bring Iran's nuclear program to a halt. Only the G8 and the UN can do that.

Of course the questions remain, what should Israel do, or what should they have done? There is no easy answer. Israelis are prepared for dead soldiers. They are hardened by years of conflict. Israelis are not prepared for missing or kidnapped soldiers. The unresolved nature of a kidnapping gnaws at the collective soul of a people that have been fighting for survival since the 40's. They had no choice but to respond with overwhelming force, because not to, would have most likely brought down the Olmert government.

However, I believe that to continue to meet each poke with a sledgehammer blow is not prudent to the long term security of Israel when faced with the possibility of a nuclear Iran within 2 years. Doing everything possible to make sure the G8 doesn't lose focus on Iran is the key. Hizbollah could have kidnapped those soldiers at any time. Why do it on the eve of the G8?

To disconnect from the emotion of the loss of these brave young men is difficult, unbearable. However, wouldn't the chess move, the strategically victorious move be not to act. To say Kaddish (the prayer for the dead) for their souls and cry out to the UN, the G8 and anyone else who would listen and say, "We sacrifice for peace and choose restraint. We leave it up to the world community to disarm Iran and choke off their support of terror. Iran and Syria support Hizbollah. Iran and Syria acted against our sovreignty. Iran is building nuclear weapons as we speak. You must act against Iran, you must act against the threat of nuclear terror, because if you don't, we will. We don't have that many young men to sacrifice for the greater good. This act of restraint will be the last act of restraint."

How could the G8, which already had nuclear proliferation in western Asia and IRAN on the top of their agenda, fail to act in the face of Israel's sacrifice? Iran's misdirection play may have failed.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it wouldn't have worked and those brave boys would have been lost in vain. However, if I am right, I think there could have been major movement from the world community. Chess requires seeing the whole board and thinking 12 moves ahead. If Iran puts a nuclear warhead on a Shahab 3 missle Israel will only have one move and Gd help us all if they are forced to make it.

No1ofConsequence

Dumb Democrats, failing their base (meaning me), yet again

Look at this nonsense. Joan M. Quigley and Linda Stender, two democrats, assemblywomen from NJ have called for retailers in NJ to boycott Ann Coulter's book. Defacto calling for corporate censorship of someone because they didn't like what she said. I realize that they are trying to generate publicity for themselves by piggybacking on Ann Coulter's publicity, but come on. Can they find a smarter way to do it? Can they rise above the muck and take the high road, please? Saying the book should be banned just drags the debate to Ann Coulter's level and she succeeds because of democratic failure to think strategically. Saying it should be banned gives that hate monger credence because now all that skeleton with bad extensions has to say is, "See, look at the left, they are afraid of my words, my truth (insert propaganda here)." Those two idiots from my home state probably did more for her book sales than they did to hurt them. Once again piss poor democratic strategy hamstringing the entire cause.

As the great Aaron Sorkin wrote in The American President "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

I believe in free speech for everyone, not just people that agree with me.

For anyone in our government, Democrat or Republican, to stand up and say that people shouldn't be allowed to say what they want offends me at a core level. Healthy debate on issues is good. Disagree with someone's policy ideas and disgaree with their beliefs, combat them with facts. Saying they shouldn't be allowed to give their opinions is facism and calling for them to be censored by the government or by corporations is just wrong and not what this country is supposed to be about.

Ann Coulter is just an opportunist looking to profit off something republicans care about. She doesn't care about what they care about. She cares about money and fame and will do anything to get either. She is a media whore. Republicans should be ashamed to have her in their corner. Her sort of infantile, "look at me," tantrum style anti-journalism is an embarassment to humanity and drains credibility from their cause. The best way to combat her is to ignore her. You ignore her and all the tantrums become background noise as she fades into the background as a has been know nothing who used to be famous.

Can someone in the democratic party read Macchiavelli or The Art of War before it is too late and Jeb Bush gets elected President of the United States?

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