My Founder’s Institute Talk on Branding & Naming Your Startup

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking as a Mentor at Adeo Ressi’s TheFunded’s Founder’s Institute with entrepreneurial superstars James Hong and Bryan Thatcher.  

First off, before I get into the topic, let me say that I think the TheFunded Founder’s Institute is innovating the approach to startups in an important way.  The approach is a mix of company building philosophies.  It’s one part bigger hammer–that is bring in lots of smart people as founders.  It’s also another part strong social networks, connect those founders to each other and to experienced, proven entrepreneurs.  Add top-tier, discounted, startup services (legal, accounting, etc.) and that gets at crux of the approach.  The new stock class—F-Class—which Ressi’s introduced is also super interesting.

There are a lot more unique details to how Ressi’s going about this, which I’ll not go into here.  But suffice to say, it is both empowering for entrepreneurs and it has a bunch of detailed thought behind it.  Ressi’s vision is big and broad.  It is exciting to be a part of, and I’m eager to help it succeed.   More concretely, I wish I had had access to such a thing when I was trying to start out as an entrepreneur.

Ok, so that’s the Founder’s Institute, now onto what I was talking about when James, Bryan and I spoke last week.  Our topic was Naming—as in, you’ve now figured out what customer problem you think you’re solving and what you want to do, now what do you call this thing?

This is a fantastically rich and interesting topic.  It’s also, IMHO, super super important.  When you’re a startup, your name is about the only marketing you really have at first.  Also, everyone—customers, potential employees, and potential investors—will ask you about your company’s name.  So whatever you name and brand your company had better be good.

My slides from the presentation are embedded here (hat tip to the folks at Igor International, who’s free naming guide was very influential):

(Shared with permission from TheFunded Founder’s Institute.)

It was a good discussion, and my sense is that this provides a useful prescription for startups thinking about what to name their company and how to approach their brands.  Some key points for reinforcement.

Having a process for naming helps.  What I think is particularly useful about this approach is that you can put numerical scores next to how you think about names.  This enables you and your team to have a concrete discussion about why someone likes versus dislikes a certain name.  This is important, as it enables your team to come to a more objective decision, as opposed to just who yells loudest.

Think BIG picture first, then worry about finding the .com or URL that’ll work. Following my talk, one common theme in speaking with people afterwards is that I think many people get hung up on the challenge of finding a good .COM URL that’s not already been picked up.  While certainly a challenge, I think that worrying about this tends to drive entrepreneurs to small thinking.  You’ll have to work through it, but that’s an end point, not the beginning.

As I’ve said in other posts—as an entrepreneur, my advice to other entrepreneurs is to think big in everything you do.  So when it comes to naming and branding your company, think big.  Go for a big name, figure out what that makes sense and helps position you strongly relative to your potential competitors.  Figure out a name that really delivers on the strategy that you’ve put in place.  Get that strategy right and solid.  Then you can go and figure out the more tactical issues of what the URL hunting strategy needs to be.

Commit to going through the process.  The other thing that I’d encourage people to do is really commit to going through the process that I’ve described in the PPT deck.  I’ve met with several companies over the past year who’ve listened to this process, ignored it, and then have ended up hiring a naming consultant to basically help them go through the same thing.

Acknowledgments to the folks at Igor International. Igor International have open sourced their naming guide, which is a great thing.  My deck basically walks through how I used that free information to secure Moonshoot, an awesome brand name, IMHO .  The tool Igor’s provided is for frugal founders like us a tool to go figure this out on our own.  Invest the time to commit to doing it.

Filed under: business, entrepreneurship, free stuff for startups, internet, marketing, technology , Branding, entrepreneurship, Founder's Institute, marketing, Naming, Start-ups, Startups

I still think this is a goofy debate re: Twitter & retaining users

Image by Joe Penniston via Flickr

I wrote about this recently here, but just saw this as I was eating lunch: Twitter is retaining more users than Nielsen thinks » VentureBeat.

I agree with the conclusion—Twitter shouldn’t worry—but I find the logic goofy.

Sure retention is important, but it really doesn’t matter as much for Twitter as it does for FBK or MYSpace if a Twitter joiner is an active “Tweeter.”  This is because, as with YouTube or Flickr, a Twitter account holder gets access to the search of the ‘real time web’ or whatever it is we’re calling the sum of all the tweets the user can search. 

In other words, the consuming non-tweeter gets value from the size of the twitter network.  If he or she never tweets, he’s still getting value.  So long as the total audience of twitter continues to grow its account size, and so long as a non-zero percentage of that audience is tweeting and adding to the unique content asset Twitter has, then Twitter is in stellar shape.

The right metrics are not about retention or number of tweets, IMHO.  I think its about # of total tweets, # of accounts, and in time, # of searches in short-term.  Over time, the retention number will go up as more people figure out how to tweet. 

 

 

Filed under: internet, social media , social media, Twitter

Who I’d bet against if Twitter were sold

Image via Wikipedia

This post is inspired by Warren Buffett.  Buffett often talks about how with new technology it’s impossible to pick the winners, but it’s obvious who to short.  He uses the example of the thousands of automobile companies formed in the US over a century ago, fewer than 4 remained a few decades later.  At the start of the auto industry you’d have no idea which 4 car companies to bet on, but you probably should have known to short horses.  Same thing here. 

Speculation continues to mount that Twitter is in acquisition talks with tech analysts and journalists writing about what firms as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and News Corp should or must do.

I wouldn’t put money on who might win or even if Twitter wants to do a deal—there are too many moving parts to read this, as I mentioned yesterday.  If I had to bet, I’d probably say that the most likely 2 scenarios are that that Twitter doesn’t sell or that MSFT acquires them.  The second most likely would be for News to buy them.

If Twitter does indeed sell to MSFT (or rather, anyone but News), then I think there are some obvious bet against that I’d make.  Namely, Twitter clients—e.g., Tweetdeck and Seesmic.  Perhaps others, but those two in particular would I think have a very hard to reach mainstream distribution against someone like MSFT or Google.  One of the challenges with building desktop apps I suppose. 

 

 

Filed under: business, internet, social media, technology , business, social media, Twitter

Let the Twitter Sniff-fest Begin!

Last night I went to bed shortly after reading that Apple was trying to buy Twitter.  This morning, that bid got raised with reports that MSFT, GOOG, NEWS as well as Apple are all in the hunt. 

See: Apple, Microsoft, Google And News Corp Are All Sniffing Around Twitter (AAPL, MSFT, GOOG, NWS)

Twitter may well decide not to sell.  And while I don’t have time now to get into, if Twitter decides it wants to sell, Sweet Maria, what a bidding fest we will see. 

Each suitor is an 800# Gorilla, each with solid strategic interests and potential synergies to bring.  My quick take:

• For Apple, it takes the iPhone to a new level of potential communication / app platform
• For MSFT, I see the desktop having a sidebar twitter stream integrated right in—also helps it with mobile and with internet.
• Goog—Twitter represents that biggest best grab on the real-time info flow.
• News—well, Twitter’s all about the future of news. 

No idea what will happen, but Twitter’s sitting about as prettily as can be.  Very interesting to watch

Also, what happens here will be a signal as to where we are in the context of M&A / IPO in technology. 

Image by jacqueline-w via Flickr

Filed under: business, internet, technology , M&A, Twitter

Does MySpace Really Need a Chief Revenue Officer?

MySpace pulled trigger on Owen Van Natta to run MySpace.  

While I don’t know Mr. Van Natta, my quick take reaction and question centers on whether a former Chief Revenue Officer of Facebook is really going to fix what’s ailing MySpace.  IOW, is the revenue problem really the issue that’s highest priority to MySpace?  My take—absolutely not. 

MySpace’s growth has flat-lined, dead in the water relative to Facebook, to say nothing of Twitter.  The site built for teens as the cool hang-out and spot for media now looks bloated, slow and niched. 

So my question is, how’s a business guy really going to fix that?  What ails MySpace, IMHO, is far more product related – it’s an SNS that appeals to a younger demographic, and isn’t tracking to pull in older users in the same way that FBK and TWIT are.  This isn’t a business problem, it’s a product problem.

Scarier still, I’ve read elsewhere the argument that MySpace needs to be the SNS for Music.  Perhaps this is why you bring in a Revenue Officer.  My first take is that this is a dumb idea—take a MySpace, a flat lining SNS and combine it with a dying industry.  Good luck there!  Maybe as an encore Mr. Van Natta could combine AIG and GM. 

It’s not at all obvious what the next steps are for MySpace, and how it might speak to a broader set of users.  Their product doesn’t.  The business strategy of pulling in media like music doesn’t resonate with me at all to a level of scale that’d be needed to make an impact.  Sounds like a mess.  My bet would be on MySpace getting sold in next 2 years at >50% markdown to acquisition price. 

Filed under: business, internet, social media , MySpace, technology

Quick Thoughts on Oprah Effect on Twitter

This quote from Hitwise Intelligence – Heather Hopkins – US: Oprah Effect on Twitter caught my eye:

There’s been much debate among loyal Twitter users about whether this spells the end for Twitter’s coolness, as soccer moms sign up in droves.

Total, absolutely, 100%, USDA Prime Grade BUNK.  Wanna know how I know? 

Do this thought experiment…  try it at home. 

Step 1: Replace “Twitter” in above quote with the word “telephone,” “email,” “the Internet,” “Facebook.” 

Step 2: Now put your mind’s eye into the following year for each communication technology.

Email: 1994

Internet: 2000

Facebook: 2007

I may have the years off by a year or two, but the net/net is that anyone who thinks that these technologies would lose something when they became “too mainstream,” fail to understand the power of networks. 

All of these technologies became vastly more cool after they became mainstream.   They became more cool precisely because the broader usage spurred broader innovation and investment.  Sure, you as an early adopter and a technical elitist now have to contend with your mom asking you questions about Tweeting, but in return you get a broader, more robust ecosystem. 

Still don’t buy it: invert the argument.  Raise your hand if you’d like to go back to dial-up internet and AltaVista as the leader in Search! 

Filed under: Twitter, consumer, internet, technology , internet, technology, Twitter

A Key to Diligence from an Entrepreneur’s POV : Know Thy Numbers

Brad Feld had a useful piece on the concept of Total Addressable Market (TAM) when speaking to investors.  Brad is “in the ‘measuring TAM doesn’t matter at all’ camp, especially in an early stage company in an emerging market.”  I understand his perspective, and in general, there’s a lot about his approach on this point that I’d agree with completely.

I think, though, that it is very important for an entrepreneur (and investor for that matter) to have a loose quantitative model in his head around how his business would work, the core markets, drivers, etc.  I call this the “Know Thy Numbers,” and I think it’s an imperative.  If done well, from my POV, even in an emerging market, you should be able to gain a sense of what the total market could be, how it might develop, key drivers, and ultimately, a realistic sense that the total market opportunity is within a zone of reality. 

Here’s a cautionary tale that illustrated to me how vital this is.  Recently, I was helping a venture capitalist look at a company focused on a segment I knew pretty well.  Without getting into any details of the business or value proposition, it became clear to me that someone had communicated an installed base (IB) for an existing product that was an order of magnitude higher than reality.  This IB assumption was pretty important to the attractiveness of the business plan.  Though someone may have had an analyst report stating this number was true, it was impossible doing a basic analysis of the market dynamics to come to a number anywhere close. 

Instead of finding analyst reports on some highly speculative emerging markets, I recommend to entrepreneurs you gain a solid understanding of the key existing market numbers that are relevant to what you do. 

Example, if you’re in the mobile space, start with how many phones there are worldwide – an IB something north of 3B and growing, with shipments of some other large number.  If you’re in the PC / internet software market, you can find out pretty easily the IB and shipments, and again have facility with those.  If you’re in SNS, well you have pretty good stats on FBK to look at. 

It’s important that from these numbers, you have a model in your head for how your business might someday fit into the world.  This exercise should help you expose holes in assumptions—if for example your business require something where you need to have an average of say, 3 PCs per household in the US, or you need 1 trillion accounts on a SNS you’re building, well then that’s a problem.  Things like this can get exposed clearly for people that take time to really get the core market data under their fingernails. 

We once did an exercise on this at MSFT for a meeting with Steve Ballmer.  We were getting ready for an Annual Strategy Review with him, and the evening before the final presentation, I was reviewing notes of a chat he’d given on what he wanted to hear from different business group leaders.  One point he really hammered on was along these lines: have a model in your head of how your business works and what needs to happen for you to be able to hit your numbers. 

It was a good catch, as we didn’t have it at this point in our prep, really.  Also, it was an easy fix, as at this point our finance people and myself (who was building the presentation) had the key numbers in our head.  We realized that it’d be pretty easy to build a stacked bar chart of what it was we thought we’d do in the next FY, and what had to happen for us to get there.  It took about 30 minutes the night before to build a slide that was a real hit.  Without giving away the business or the numbers involved, etc.  we basically built a chart that said,

next FY, we’re going to grow revenue by XX%

To do that, the following has to happen:

• Market grows X%
• We take Y points share from competition
• We shift Z points of our product mix from lower rev/unit to higher rev/unit
• We increase annuity mix by Q points, which has downward pressure in next FY, but helps us long term
• Channel shift will lead to P points of revenue growth  Etc. 

That kind of model is one that most businesses—even in emerging markets—can come up with.   Even if you can’t, its useful to spend time trying to get your head wrapped around a quantifiable model for how your market works.  It’s not a TAM analysis, it’s a simple business modelling exercise that I recommend highly.

Filed under: business, entrepreneurship, internet

Seesmic Desktop release: a strong product step that exposes the right question on Twitter’s business model

Background: I downloaded Seesmic Desktop tonight.  I like it a lot, but that’s not the subject of this post.  This post is about the importance of Twitter’s business model to nurture a vibrant ecosystem.

2009 is shaping up to be the year Twitter’s white-hotness explodes into the mainstream.  To me, nothing made this more clear than the New York Times’ real-time mapping of tweets during the Super Bowl. 

Leading up to and following the Super Bowl, the media coverage and hype on Twitter has been, in a word, superlative.  Literally, stuff of Silicon Valley legend.  Facebook and Google are rumored acquirers.  Inaugurations and political conversations are changed.  Terrorist attacks are reported first through twitter.  Sully’s downed plane was twittered.  Etc.

And all this is fantastic.  Twitter’s a very useful service, and there’s not a shred of doubt in my mind that it will continue to have an ever increasing impact, its management team will find a substantial, sustaining business model for itself, and its founders, investors, and employees will make a well-deserved, honestly gained fortune. 

In the technosphere, not everyone is so sanguine.  It is a common question to ponder how Twitter might make money.  I was pondering this myself tonight as I tried out Seesmic Desktop.  I realized the question of Twitter making revenue is a silly question; entirely the wrong question.   Playing with Seesmic more, though I realized that there is a better question on the topic of Twitter and business model. 

The right question is this: how will Twitter enable a broad and sustainably profitable partner ecosystem? 

Twitter is clearly the PLATFORM, rubbing in Barry Bonds’ “Clear,” and eating the Michael Phelps 20,000 calorie diet (no bong hits thank you!)  to bulk up into the 800# gorilla it will be.   It’ll make revenue in the same way that Bonds, Phelps, Microsoft, and Google do—they have natural monopolies, in the form of hand-eye coordination to hit 800 HRs, win 8 Olympic medals or own 98% share of PC OSs or 75% of web search.  Twitter’s got the traffic, the network effect is strong and increasing. 

Everyone else though — the Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop or Bit.ly guys are the “Applications,” and they don’t ride with the Platform guys (yet).    The Application guys, at least for now, appear to be catching the crumbs from Twitter’s table.  This is a challenge for Twitter, potentially a tough one for them longer term.  To use the most powerful recent example of platform healthiness—the Iphone–the great thing about the Iphone platform is that it’s crystal clear that app vendors can make money on it.  App writer builds app; app writer gets royalty.  Very clean.  very simple.

With Twitter, less so.  While I think its silly to ask whether Twitter will make money, I do think its a fair and important question to ask whether the Twitter App guys will and how they’ll do it sustainably.  And answering this question is important, not just to the App guys, but in fact to Twitter as well. 

Here’s why.  First, it is going to be hard work for app vendors to get and sustain a lead, as Seesmic and Tweetdeck among others will likely show us in the next several months.  The arms race will continue, etc., but it’ll be difficult to see who will ‘win’ the market share.   Beyond that then, there’s the question of how would either monetize?  Will they have an ad platform from Twitter they can tap, similar to Facebook?  Not clear yet.  Are customers going to want to send virtual beers or pokes thru Twitter in the same way they do in Facebook?  Not sure.  So my view is that the application guys have a tough slog in front of them.  They could end up winning some market share war, without any revenue legs to stand on. 

And this is something Twitter needs to help the Seesmics and others get clear around.  How all this tweeting will turn into sustainable revenue for them.  Twitter can’t entirely punt this to the app guy, nor can Twitter solve it entirely for them.  In my experiences with platforms, and I spent a decade on them, this ain’t easy. 

It’ll be exciting to watch Twitter continue to grow and the innovation in the ecosystem around it.  I’ll be keen to see how Twitter’s business model comes forth, and I’ll pay attention to how that model helps app vendors make money. 

Filed under: Twitter, business, internet, social media , seesmic, Twitter

New FriendFeed Search bring FF a lot of promise

FriendFeed launched a new advanced search capability today, reported on here.   I think it opens up the promise of FriendFeed to expand into something far more impactful and useful than it already was.

To date, I’ll confess that I’ve not been a heavy user of FF.  It was awesome in terms of its sheer conversational (and other) data that would go through there.  But in terms of usability, it seemed like people could get really, really drawn into threads and discussions that went way past their usefulness.  A bit like those email threads that just won’t die.  Prominent tech bloggers were getting sucked into the FriendFeed vortex, and interventions were being publicly advocated.

Yep, as someone who needs to stay productive, I had to stay away from FriendFeed.

Now along comes the Advanced Search, and now, all these conversations become something that I can go and pull stuff out of.  I can choose to be part of the whitewater rapids of conversations flowing through FriendFeed, or I can drop my search in and fish out whatever I want.  I’m more of a fisher, and this feature’s great.  Obviously a ton of different scenarios could be useful as Marshall’s article mentions.  But this feels to me like FF could become a pretty strong platform where vertical searches on all sorts of stuff becomes important.

I’d watched FF from a distance, admiring it and thinking that it was pretty ingenious.  Now I’d say I’m pretty excited about their prospects indeed. 

 

Technorati Tags: friendfeed,internet

Filed under: internet, tech, technology

Is Facebook taking out LinkedIn?

As a mid- to late-thirties professional in the high-tech field, I have been a long-time member and user of LinkedIn.  In the past, it was a super useful service for me to get my professional profile out there, connect with colleagues and friends, and so on.  I would consider myself a relatively ‘heavy user’ of this service.

I was relatively later to Facebook, joining about 2 years ago.  For the first 1-1.5 years, I dabbled on Facebook, enjoyed connecting with friends, mainly a social thing.

From basically 2007 to mid-2008, I used Facebook for fun and LinkedIn for business.  A good analogy is that Facebook was the Mac in my life; LinkedIn was the PC.

My usage over the last 6 months has been interesting is that I’ve basically stopped using LinkedIn entirely.  Any professional interaction that I need to have basically, I can do on Facebook.

One person’s experience is probably not that useful.  What’s interesting for me though is that I’m in the core segment that LinkedIn is targeting.

Given the accleration of more Facebook adoption in my age demographic, I think LinkedIn is going to face an increasing challenge.

I’ve pulled the latest web metric scores comparing FBK and LinkedIn, and it shows the juggernaut-like growth of FBK and what looks (in comparison) basically flat numbers at LinkedIn.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next 18 months, but I’d be pretty skeptical of where LinkedIn is going to be, as they are super exposed to Facebook.

Filed under: internet, tech, technology