Loic is an accomplished entrepreneur - he founded uBlog (merged with Six Apart), organizes the annual Le Web conference and has now created Seesmic (note that I’m an investor in Seesmic). So even though he’s French, his advice, when given, is worth listening to.
Included in the article are his ten rules for startup success. Reprinted below.
Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.
I always love the series of Mac vs PC ads. Great actors. Clear message.
They just had a new series of web only ads and I thought this one was pretty cool, integrating a large rec on the left with the leaderboard on the top. Check this out!
I always love the series of Mac vs PC ads. Great actors. Clear message.
They just had a new series of web only ads and I thought this one was pretty cool, integrating a large rec on the left with the leaderboard on the top. Check this out!
People are already lining up to get the first iPhones. There has been so much hype since Steve Job’s announcement at MacWorld early this year. So here’s a more detailed review done on iPhone by a Wall Street Journal reporter Walt Mossberg. Seems like the gadget is living to most of its lofty expectations.
There are reports saying that eBay has pulled out its ads from Google in return for Google’s decision to promote an event at eBay Live conference to put pressure on eBay to include it’s Checkout service (competing directly with eBay’s Paypal) in eBay. eBay is one of Google’s biggest customer and to do something like this sends a clear signal.
As a result of this, Google has announced that they will cancel the event. Wonder if eBay will resume its Adwords spending soon but looks like that there will continue to be some conflict between them as Google continues to push for Checkout acceptance.
The biggest story last week was was Microsoft’s (NasdaqGS: MSFT) $6 Billion buy out offer of aQuantive (NasdaqGS: AQNT). I was in Bangkok and watching this news over CNBC. I was not sure if I heard it right as the premium offered was a whooping 80% on the stock price. I am sure that aQuantive shareholders were laughing to the bank but some seems to see it as a desperate move by Microsoft.
After losing the bid for DoubleClick to Google at US$ 3.1 billion, Yahoo!’s purchase of Right Media’s 80% for 680 million and with WPP buying 24/7, there were not much candidates left for Microsoft to buy if they are serious about online advertising.
One thing for sure is that this transaction is something that Microsoft could afford financially with its cash on hand. This appears to be a last attempt to stay in the online advertising game which they are currently losing ground.
Just as I write this blog there was another news saying that Google and Salesforce are teaming up to help them better compete with Microsoft in the software business. It will be interesting to see how the battelfield develops in the coming years.
After Steve Jobs earlier asking labels to offer DRM (Digital Rights Management) free music, EMI finally announced that they will be offering such to music fans.
However, instead of taking out the DRM protection from the existing catalog, they are actually charging a higher price ($1.29 compared to the standard $0.99) claiming that the quality is better at a higher bit-rate and because it is DRM-free. I thought that is a bit disappointing. AlLso, they are offering it through iTunes in AAC format so that means not all MP3 player is able to support playback.
I have shared my views on this on LinkedIn through their Answers and thought I could also post it up here:
How will that affect sales?
a) sales probably will have a slight positive increase, especially for those converted (like me) who owns ipods but also like to use my mobile phones (Windows mobile 5.0 or Symbian) to listen to music. I think there will be minimal impact on piracy, those who won’t pay will continue refuse to pay.
Who are the winners?
b) winners will be those who have been or seriously thinking about legal music downloads. EMI will also win as it seems to be more willing to listen to music fans. Those major labels who are not following quick enough may be losers. An of course Apple will be a winner too, since the files will be in AAC format and that could probably lead to more hardware sales … where the profit is.
Will other labels follow?
c) I’d say other majors should follow soon as it will be likely that the move will be positive to sales. Plus DRM does not really help in combating priracy.
Will the public be convinced and start paying for music?
d) I have doubts if the move can win over those who have not considered paying for music, especially in this part of the world ( China and Asia ). However, in the longer term and together with more education/legal threat, the removal of DRM should be a positive incentive for the public.
Here’s a good one pulled by Google on April’s Fool Day. They were announcing a free in house wireless internet access by installing a device in your toilet! They are quite serious in the whole thing with detailed installation procedures on their site.
I quite like the design of the installation kit which comes with a pair of gloves!
NBC and Fox announced that they will work with a number of major websites including Yahoo!, MySpace and MSN to distribute legally free TV shows and movies. This appears to be a direct response to Google/Youtube where a lot of illegitimate copies of the shows are available.
And we are talking about hits like ‘24′, ‘House’, Heroes’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. Being FREE to users.
The model is to join hands and start a new video site that will run content from the two organizers and be supported by advertising. They’ll also supply content and a video player to their partner sites. So it’s like back to the ‘old’ days where internet services and content will be free to the users but supported by advertisers.
I will be very keen to see how successful it will be. I think initially the potential lost in sales of DVDs may not be compensated by the ad dollars. Yet with P2P sharing DVD sales may be hurting anyway so this is quite a bold move by the media companies to try out this new ad-supported model. I think it makes sense to go to this direction as advertisers will see that more people will start watching video on their computers (or TV via their computers, think Apple TV). Hence it also makes sense for advertisers to follow their audience and advertise on this new channel.
While it may take some time to see if the media companies will benefit, looks like the clear winners will be users who can enjoy free quality content and those companies who provide the streaming and ad insertion technologies.
I’ve been trying pageflakes recently and find it very convenient to use. Essentially it is similar to MyYahoo! where you can pull in different content and also your email. However, Pageflakes main advantage is that they can aggregate not only content or mail from Yahoo!, but from most of the leading websites.
I’ve got my Gmail linked up and you can see your most recent mail on that page. What’s more, you can even read the details (not just title and sender) and even reply on the homepage of Pageflakes.
Thanks to RSS fees, there are a lot of content available and most impressive is that you can even have youtube feed sent over to your pageflakes page. My favorite Flickr photo can also be fed to the page.
Creating your own pages only takes a few minutes. You could get content from Reuters, Businessweek, CNN, ESPN. You can also add PIM applications like calander, to-do-list, clock. Leading social networking sites such as youtube, MySpace and Flickr also being available. I don’t see any ads on the page so not sure what is their business model.
March 14th, 2008 by 
Administrator
The Financial Times
has a profile of French (now Silicon Valley) entrepreneur Loic Le Meur
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