All posts in Business & Entrepreneurship

First Fast Follower And The Myth of First Mover Advantage

By On May 13, 2012 In Business & Entrepreneurship With 2 Comments Permanent Link to First Fast Follower And The Myth of First Mover AdvantagePermalink

I watched a short Stanford entrepreneurship lecture on Udemy.com today given by Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur. In the second section, Steve comments briefly about ‘first mover advantage’ and why the difficulties of being the first mover can hinder, rather than hurt your startup. This is for reasons like having to spend a lot of time and effort creating the market and educating users, and learning hard lessons when testing assumptions that no one has ever tried before that don’t end up working (which slows you down). Instead, Steve suggests that being the first mover might not be as good as being the first best executer:

It doesn’t mean you never want to be the first mover, but the historic Stanford ‘first mover advantage’, I think, over the last decade or two, has found out to be a divide by zero problem; It’s just wrong. You don’t always want to be the first mover. In fact,  you typically want to be the first fast follower. And if we take a look at all the companies that presented here this semester, you’ll find out that they were all incredibly great fast followers. Was Amazon the first mover? How about eBay? How about Google? Were they the first movers? No. None of these guys were first movers. They were first best executers, but they certainly were not first movers. – Steve Blank

I’ve heard seasoned entrepreneurs offer the advice that, as a founder, you should assume that, at any given moment, there are 2 or 3 teams out there working on something close to, or exactly what you’re working on and that execution is the real differentiator that determines success in the end, which is why execution matters so much. For a variety of reasons, I find Steve’s words very comforting.

On The Creation Economy

By On May 3, 2012 In Business & Entrepreneurship With No Comments Permanent Link to On The Creation EconomyPermalink

For the last two years, Wired has held an annual “Disruptive By Design” business conference. A few days ago, Wired posted a number of great videos from the conference online at Fora.tv.

One of the videos is a 19 minute interview with Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler about the status of the “creation economy”, and some of the misconceptions and challenges the Kickstarter team is dealing with. It’s always interesting hearing what founders are actually seeing vs. what you see in the media.

I’m admittedly starry eyed about Kickstarter and I’ve backed and followed a number of projects, which has been fun and rewarding, so getting to see a more personal and authentic side of one of the Kickstarter founders made for a great morning commute watch on my phone.

WIRED Business Conference: The Creation Economy from WIRED on FORA.tv

Measuring Social Media Engagement In The Context Of Conversions and Sales

By On June 29, 2010 In Business & Entrepreneurship, Social Media With Comments Off Permanent Link to Measuring Social Media Engagement In The Context Of Conversions and SalesPermalink

One of the issues I see a lot of business people still trying to wrap their heads around is how to measure the effectiveness and value of their social media investment.  In a lot of ways, it’s the question because no online effort is free. Even if all the tools are free, every campaign still takes time and effort, which you pay for by the hour in most cases. In almost every case where you commit to an online project the analytics will be squishy and gray at best, and you’ll have to come to terms with the immutable fear that your people could be spending their time and energy elsewhere. The fear is a given, and if you don’t have it’s because you’re not really weighing your options correctly. Continue Reading →

Case Study: How To Use Foursquare To Draw A Crowd Into Your Restaurant

ajbombers_leaderboard
By On March 6, 2010 In Business & Entrepreneurship, Community, Social Media, Technology, Top Posts, Web Strategy With 80 Comments Permanent Link to Case Study: How To Use Foursquare To Draw A Crowd Into Your RestaurantPermalink

Restaurant owners are quickly discovering how to use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Yelp to their advantage and drive customers to their tables, but there’s a guy in Wisconsin doing it better than almost anyone else.

Joe Sorge, who runs a burger joint in Milwaukee called AJ Bombers, shot me a tweet yesterday to tell me about a Foursquare party they had this week that brought a flash mob of 161 Foursquare users to his restaurant.  My eyebrows shot up when I read that number. 161 check ins in one day?! How could that be? There are only about three or four hundred Foursquare users total in Milwaukee?! Over 150 of them were in the same place, on the same afternoon?

When I called him up, Joe explained. They came to earn the highly coveted and elusive Foursquare “Swarm Badge” – something you can only get when 50 or more Foursquare users check in at the same place at the same time. I hadn’t heard of it, but apparently the promise of this coveted Foursquare badge can really draw a crowd. Continue Reading →

Your Customers Leave A Trail Of Breadcrumbs Online

By On March 4, 2010 In Business & Entrepreneurship, Web Strategy With 2 Comments Permanent Link to Your Customers Leave A Trail Of Breadcrumbs OnlinePermalink

If you sell online, pay attention to the data trail your customers leave. There are golden nuggets of information about what your customers are like and what they want everywhere; Some really good stuff can be found in customer reviews, automated “customers also bought” or “you might also like” recommendations (just to name a few). Paying attention to these details can lead to great insights about what your customers actually want, how they use your product and what their other interests are. If you’re an author, what other books are they buying when they purchase yours? If you’re selling electronics, what are customers bundling their purchases with? You’ve got to ask yourself these questions. It could tell you a lot about services you should be offering, where your product might be lacking or even what partnerships and opportunities you might seek for win-win promotions.

flipcamThis (above) is just one example. I’ve talked about how tons of people are hacking their Flip cameras because the company isn’t listening and offering a wide-angle lens adapter. There are a ton of blog posts and YouTube videos about how to glue-on wide angle lens adapters to make the Flip more useful…and these lenses only cost 30 bucks. If the company was listening, they’d be partnering with a lens maker (or making their own) and offering a premium version of the Flip with an adapter included. The trail of breadcrumbs around the Flip already shows that people are willing to pay for the parts and go through the extra hassle to get the improved performance, so this is a no-brainer.

What’s the trail of breadcrumbs around your product telling you about your customers?

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Depleted vs. Spent

By On February 11, 2010 In Business & Entrepreneurship, Psychology & Philosophy, The Future Of Work With Comments Off Permanent Link to Depleted vs. SpentPermalink

cubiclenationI spent a couple of happy, quiet hours last night with my nose in Pamela Slim‘s book Escape from Cubicle Nation. She makes some powerful arguments for why passion is a necessary ingredient to a happy work life. This well worded bit of wisdom stood out:

“What many people don’t realize is that when you force yourself to do something you don’t want to do, you have to deplete the energy from your body to do it. When you make it through a week where you have forced yourself to do work you don’t enjoy, you will feel exhausted, drained, and in need of martinis, industrial-strength aspirin, and/or face-planted-in-pillow rest.”

“When you do things you love, your body generates energy naturally. You may work an equal number of hours, or more, than when doing work you don’t enjoy, but the difference is you will feel spent, not depleted.”

You can’t really say it better than that, can you?

How Social Media Can Boost Restaurant Business

By On January 28, 2010 In Business & Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Technology, Web Strategy With 4 Comments Permanent Link to How Social Media Can Boost Restaurant BusinessPermalink

This short video was posted by Chris Brogan a few days ago. I love finding real-life stories about how small business owners are successfully using social media to increase their business. Joe Sorge, who runs AJ Bombers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin shares how he uses a tool to humanize his business and keep in touch with customers.

The Four E’s Of Social Media Marketing

By On January 27, 2010 In Business & Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Web Strategy With 4 Comments Permanent Link to The Four E’s Of Social Media MarketingPermalink

I’ve heard the advantages of shifting from traditional marketing to social media marketing strategies articulated many different ways, but Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer at Eastman Kodak Company, does it best in this short video. His Four Es – Engagement, Education, Excitement and Evangelism – are spot on. It’s a smart, pithy way to articulate the big picture and what the shift in strategy is all about. The second video highlights another key advantage to marketing on the web – the ability to be agile, and to respond quickly to feedback.