Are simplified hadoop interfaces the next web cash cow?

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Brian Breslin

I have this thesis that goes a bit like this: phase 1 of the modern world wide web was about linking documents (hyperlinks), phase 2 was about enabling users to create content for the web (user generated content/social media), phase 3 was about linking the creators of that content (people – social nets), and phase 4 is about data (making sense of sum of phases 1-3).

So now that we have these tools to create and consume and link together tons and tons of content, how do we filter it all? That is where I think we need to focus on a higher level, and see what the problems are, and how to make simplified services to solve them.

We have petabytes of data floating around the web, many companies have petabytes internally of data that’s been collected throughout I-III but have no efficient means of digesting this and consuming it. We also have more and more efficient computing power idling away in servers all across the globe. So now what we need is an INTUITIVE way for people to consume large batches of this data and have it spit into usable results.

What I’m suggesting is that whomever builds a yahoo pipes (but easier to use) interface for hadoop level data processing could make a killing. Imagine customers load up via their terminals (web browsers) terabytes of data, design the process and algorithms, and the system distributes the computations wherever capacity is available. This is how you solve complex problems. This is how genomes get cracked in hours, and for much lower cost.

Why did I suggest hadoop as the possible basis for this? Its open source, its free, and its able to run across a myriad of machines already out there. No need to reinvent the wheel.

So build an interface, charge by the computing cycle, and profit.

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The only five tips you need to get started with in social media

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Brian Breslin

I speak about social networks, social media, viral marketing, yada yada, all the time and figured it was time to use my pulpit to dispel lots of the myths and bullshit we’re seeing out on the web these days. So here are my top five things you need to know when you’re getting started with social media. The intent of this is also to teach you sound business advice in addition to providing you with a solid web marketing background.

1. Social media is not your end solution.
If your business plan’s marketing/user-acquisition/business development section says anything like “we’ll use social media to engage/capture new users,” then you need to light that sucker on fire. Burn that shit. That is the vaguest line of bull you’ve likely written in ages. You’ve got to understand that social media should be a component of your overall strategy, not the entire strategy.

2. Social media is about evolving your business communications
Right from the get go you need to understand the premise of how social media has shifted communications so radically. It has changed your communications from being a largely mono-directional system to a bi-directional or multi-directional tool. Forget ever being able to solely talk down to your customers. That shit is over with. Seriously. You now have to learn to listen as much as you talk.

3. Quit ignoring your customers and start embracing them.
Jason Fried of 37signals fame once quipped that you should ignore your customers ideas and suggestions. This my friends is some seriously short-sighted advice. He probably meant you shouldn’t pivot at every customer request, as they haven’t been validated (from a business perspective), but you have to keep track of them and acknowledge them to those customers. It has never been easier to get instant feedback and instant advice from your customers, so take advantage!

4. Don’t dive headfirst without looking
Do some research before you launch your campaign. Do what you would do in business, research the competition, research the tools, and weigh your options. Treat these decisions as you would a big software purchase (because it is), and make sure you find what is the best fit for you. These products may be largely free to use, but if you end up wasting your time on things that may be a bad fit, they can be more costly than your previous alternatives.

5. Set yourself some goals.
You’d be amazed at how many people have no goals in their heads for their social media campaigns. Without a goal/objective, how are you going to plan for getting there? Say you want 5000 facebook fans to your company fan page. How do you get to them? What are the steps you need to take in order to get those first 500? Set goals, and plan out your strategy to get there.

So what’d I just do there? I gave you 5 social media tips that are really just business tips didn’t I? Think about that.

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What is good social media advice?

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Brian Breslin

A couple weeks ago I was on a panel at the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce annual goals conference, and the topic was getting noticed using social media amongst other tools. On the panel with me were a PR specialist, an Advertising specialist, an Email/direct marketing specialist, and me, not really a specialist (I detest the social media guru/expert term). The audience was made up of about 100 business owners from around Coral Gables, FL (a fairly wealthy enclave in South Florida).

So as our panel got rolling, lots of good questions kept coming in about best case uses for various pieces of technology, how we integrate these tools into our repertoire and so forth. I went through the usual rant about what social media should be to them (a component of what everyone else on the panel was an expert in). We talked about simple ways to integrate, and not overwhelm themselves. We also talked about some of the fears people have. It was interesting to see how this group approaches social media in particular considering their demographic (largely older crowd [avg age 50+], these are the people who OWN the businesses after all).

A few days later though I went to speak at a young professionals group (avg age ~27) about social media. I had gone in here expecting to have a completely different experience than the previous week’s talk. Surprisingly, these younger professionals shared many of the same trepidations that the older crowd had. The big difference was the higher % of personal users of facebook vs the chamber crowd.

Something struck me in both of these talks: all the social media advice you can give is just general good business advice. I realized about halfway through the second set that I wasn’t giving people social media specific advice, I was giving them startup advice. Everything I was telling people was tips I wish I had received as an entrepreneur, not a social media marketer. You can’t really tell people in generalized terms how to be successful at social media without teaching them how to be successful at business first.

I’ll do my best to outline the things I touched upon, but the gist of it is: research, plan, measure, and then adapt.

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What startups can learn from the world cup

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Brian Breslin

south african fans vuvuzela

I’m an avid soccer fan and student of the game (20 years of playing + 3 years coaching), and just like millions of other people around the world have been watching way more soccer than I normally would recently. Along the way I realized there are a lot of similarities we as entrepreneurs can learn from watching the highest caliber soccer in the world being played.

Every startup needs to have people filling roles the same way a soccer (futbol) team does. You need a coach/or captain to set out the overall strategy (founder/ceo), you need a playmaker on the field who can distribute the ball (project manager), you need people who can defend (support team), people who can attack (programmers/developers), and people who can finish (the rockstars/head developer).

What role are you playing in your startup? (coach/field leader/supporting cast/rockstar)
I think its vitally important to know your position in a startup, and from there determine your roles. Each and every player on the field knows what their role is if they plan on being successful. Each player knows that they are responsible for certain tasks and areas of the field from both an offensive and defensive standpoint.

Are you studying game tape?
All of the top teams in any sport, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc. have scouts that watch what the others are doing. They analyze game tape. They study patterns. They look for holes. They build plans to adapt to these tendencies. In your startup, you might not have a distinct person for this, but whomever is in charge should be doing periodic surveys of their competition, jotting down the tactics they can readily observe. Don’t focus solely on your competition though, you need to be observing your own game play as well. Looking for ways to optimize your strategy, teamwork, and performance.

Are you changing your strategy?
A good soccer team is like a good startup in their attack. They pivot. Sloppy soccer players have tunnel vision, they see one straight line, and attack. They don’t see what’s going on in their periphery and don’t use their teammates well. A smart offense thinks both vertically (up and down the field) as well as horizontally (side to side). Smart offenses know to shift their attack, to change their gameplan on the fly. They are pivoting.

Are you finishing?
Anyone who watched the World Cup in South Africa saw that the teams who were capable of finishing were the ones who won. You might think this is common sense, but there were games were top-tier teams were getting lots of opportunities, but failing to capitalize and losing left and right. Many teams that were on the cusp of greatness were lacking someone to finish, and when it came down to it if you aren’t scoring you aren’t moving onto the next stage. In business it holds true that if you aren’t finishing, you aren’t making money. Many startups get caught up in these endless cycles of product development and miss their opportunities.

So what do you think your startup can learn from the World Cup?

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Automattic caught A/B testing pricing for Vaultpress

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Brian Breslin

As someone who is fascinated by a/b testing, metrics driven design, lean startups, and all of the things that go with smart startup design, I found it particularly interesting what I saw the other night while chatting with a friend of mine. We were talking about Vaultpress, the upcoming product from Automattic to manage blog backups. I said “it seems kind of overpriced to me, its $20/month” he tells me “what are you talking about, it’s only $10!”.

So in addition to their innovative “suggest it yourself” form they are price testing what seems to be 3 price points (their faq, my $20 price, and his $10 price). Chances are they are testing a handful of other price points as well.

See my version

and now his
davide's version of vaultpress

This is definitely one of the most clever examples of price testing before a product launch.

What examples have you seen of price testing in the wild?

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Is the BP Gulf Oil Spill the perfect excuse to diversify Florida’s economy?

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Brian Breslin

When news first broke of the oil spill, one of my first thoughts after a bout of swearing and cursing at BP was “how is this going to affect real estate prices along the gulf coast?” Then it hit me, real estate prices are a small fraction of what is going to be affected in Florida.

Tourism will be the first to take a hit, and the panhandle is already reporting drops of 30-40% in traffic over Memorial day weekend. I am betting Fourth of July travel will fare even worse along the coast as more oil is reportedly washing up every day. Now many of you may not realize that a large percentage of Florida’s tax dollars come from Tourism. These tax dollars are the same that were already squeezed after the real estate market bubble burst, and the same ones that fund our state universities, services, etc.

So we’re likely to start seeing a trickle down effect as early as this next upcoming quarter as universities get their budgets cut, as the state government cuts back on services, and those dollars that would have then in turn flowed to any number of industries throughout the state will be hurt.

Agricultural production will likely have a big impact as fisheries close, oil gets picked up in the clouds and spread across the state impacting livestock, farming, and more (Tallahasee, florida is already reporting “slick” roads from oily rain).

So is this time for us to rapidly (well as rapidly as possible) shift our state’s economy away from environmentally sensitive (note, everything is ultimately environmentally sensitive) sources of income and invest more heavily in Soft-Tech?

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Are startups too focused on the exit?

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Brian Breslin

I read through HackerNews and tons of other blogs, am also incredibly fascinated by the proliferation of tech communities outside of silicon valley, but I keep seeing a common thread amongst all the naysayers. The argument goes that in the end it doesn’t matter what or where you build if there are no exit opportunities outside of the Valley.

This brings up an interesting question, are tech startups still too focused on the exit? What happened to the days of building a solid cash-flow-positive business? Are we eschewing sound business practices or giving up on good business ideas because we don’t see them having a giant payoff? People seem to be forgetting that the likelihood of hitting an IPO is much smaller these days and getting acquired for 9+figures is also super rare. For every Mint.com there are 100,000 other financial services sites that aren’t going to be capitalizing on an exit. There may be a large percentage of those services that are generating healthy profits and revenues for their founders/employees though. So what’s wrong with that?

Furthermore the idea that there are no exits outside of Silicon Valley may be 100% correct for all I know, but moving to Silicon Valley doesn’t give you a guarantee of an exit either. Look at tiny Octazen from Malaysia, they got snapped up by Facebook earlier this year. We don’t know much about their acquisition, but I am sure they were doing an impressive enough job in Malaysia that it made sense for Facebook to acquire them for what is a healthy sum in Malaysia.

It seems counterintuitive to build a business and be looking at the door from the start. How can you pour your heart and soul into building a business when you’re more focused on leaving it? I’m sure some VC somewhere is reading this and thinking I’m being naive, but in reality the idea of building a solid business should be one they appreciate. The lean startup movement is a great step in this direction, as it focuses on metrics (the ones that matter) and revenue (the ones that pay the bills), but I feel we’re going to need a shift in mindset to get back to sensible businesses.

So what’s my point here? Play the odds, and those odds are that you won’t get an exit, so build your company as if you weren’t going to get one. At the very least you’ll be able to hopefully support yourself and your employees, and do something interesting.

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World Cup Preview – Argentina & Holland

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Brian Breslin

This guest post was written by Adrian Bacariza
Continuing in my world cup 2010 preview, I figured I would take a look at some of the teams that have a legitimate shot at winning the cup and are not explicitly favorites. These are the teams that you need to keep your eye on.

Teams to watch:

Holland:
Dutch worldcup 2010 squad
In my opinion this is team is flying under the radar but should be considered one of the favorites. The dutch are very deep and have one of the best mid-fields in the cup. If you give this team too much possession they will pick you apart. Arjen Robben is one of the best wingers in the world right now, the major issue with him is he is made of glass and is prone to muscular injuries but a short tournament like the world cup is perfect for a player like him. However the Dutch have Dirk Kuyt who can fill his spot perfectly if he does go down. People also need to keep an eye out for Wesley Sneijder and Rafael Van der Vaart both very creative central mids that can finish very well both in the area as well as from long range. The defense is a question they have some talented players but haven’t really been tested. Should be interesting to see how they do against teams that control the ball more and have more possession than there recent competition. All this being said this is a team that can score in bunches and should be fun to watch.

Argentina:
Argentina World cup 2010 team
This team should be one of, if not the favorite to win this world cup but they struggled mightily to qualify. They had to win the last game of qualification to make it and placed fourth in the South American bracket. This team has five of the best forwards in the world right now as well as the one of, if not the best player in the world in Leo Messi. Their attack consisting of Messi, Higuain, Kun Aguero and Carlos Tevez just to name a few should be the most prolific scoring team in the cup. However their lack of coaching and leadership is a major concern. The other concern i have with them is there mid-field play, they don’t have a creating mid that can get there ball to the front line attackers. All this being said they are still a great team due to there attacking ability. There true test will be when they play against teams that have a strong mid-field. We will have to what and see how Maradona handles a this. The breakout player for them is going to be there left wing Angel De Maria who plays in Portugal and is linked to a summer transfer to some big name clubs. He has great past and his crossing ability and wing play should be fun to watch. He is not a very well know player but i believe he could be the big stand out on this team.

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