Softbank first to announce Iphone in Japan

Apple’s Iphone is coming to Japan, and no big surprise here. Softbank is the first to announce which is great news for them. It will be very interesting to learn whether others (DoCoMo) will also ship the Iphone. Stay tuned. My bet is that SB will have a brief exclusive, though I can’t imagine that DoCoMo will be on the sidelines for long here.

Japan’s consumer and mobile culture should make it a huge market for the Iphone. I’d expect the Iphone to be a massive hit there. In addition, the opportunities there around mobile Iphone-oriented apps should also be quite exciting, as the mobile lifestyle there is something very very well developed.

ABC = Always Be Courtous: TuneCore’s Cautinary Tale

There is a legendary business story about billionaire H. Ross Perrot.  The founder of EDS sold his company to GM and got a huge payday, and was for a time the largest single shareholder of GM.  After the transaction, he would visit local GM dealerships, and without announcing who he was, try to buy a car.  The hitch was–according to legend–he would dress way down, such that a sales person would try to steer him to less expensive cars.  Mr. Perrot would indicate he wanted a Cadillac.  If the sales person responded well, Mr. Perrot would buy the car for that person; if not, Mr. Perrot would have him fired.

The moral of the story–whether true or not–is to treat people kindly as you never know who they might really be.

The TuneCore story below is another good cautionary tale.  Blowing off any PR outlet (or anyone else) as rudely as this is unconscionable.  Good for them that they did it to Tech Crunch.  This type of behavior is too rarely caught or called.   I feel a little bad for them that this might happen as publicly, but probably a good lesson.

ABC can mean “Always be closing.”  An ancillary would be “Always be Courteous.”

TuneCore Tells Us Where We Can Shove It

The Need for Speed

Mike Cassidy’s very useful presentation on the need for speed in a start-up. Embedded below