Period Three Blog » Business

Feb132009

37signals Rails and the Mac

Posted by Gene in Random Stuff, Business

I had forgotten about seeing this a year or so ago. I’m glad I found it on YouTube.

Not that I’m just a fanboy for Apple or 37signals (I kind of am) but this just sums up everything there is about being a web development firm. Insert whatever open source programming environment you like of course.

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Jan302009

Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape

Posted by Gene in Business, Marketing, Branding, Social Web

More Gary Vaynerchuk @Web 2.0 Expo NY this past year, I can’t get enough of what he’s selling (not the wine) but the message.

Gary really hits it home here for me. Your product/service is YOU, you have to be honest and work hard and just make sure you like and respect the people your working for or with.

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Dec022008

Not for Sale

Posted by Gene in Business

I’m really happy to see a site like Digg announce they are in it for the long haul. It seems like every week I read about some start-up or another getting acquired or going down. I know raising venture capital is possible and then it’s always possible to get rich by turning your company over to the highest bidder. But, if you are inventive enough to come up with an idea that’s as great as DIGG and you are so close to actually making profit with that company then why wouldn’t you go for it? What ever happened to starting up a business and trying to make that business profitable so you could live and work and grow old together?

In an interview with BusinessWeek, Digg Chief Executive Officer Jay Adelson says the popular news aggregation Web site is no longer for sale, and the focus of the company is to build an independent business that reaches profitability as quickly as possible. That means the four-year-old startup will dial back some of its expansion plans, instead prioritizing projects that generate revenue and profit. (from BusinessWeek Online)

I know it’s insane to think of bootstrapping your business venture and working hard to see it turn a profit in today’s world and all. Why wouldn’t you want to have a company make a profit without owing any outside investors anything in the end?

Also, You can’t just write off Digg’s decision to not sell as a result of the economy/recession, so don’t even go there…

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Nov032008

Frustration-Free Packaging from Amazon

Posted by Gene in Business

If any of you have kids then you’ve spent at least 15 minutes per gift opening up the ridiculous packaging that comes with it. Its always driven me crazy. Amazon’s new “frustration free packaging” is simply genius.

The Frustration-Free Package (on the left) is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging (on the right). Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box.

This is so genius in my opinion it borders on being inspiring.

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Sep162008

Best Buy snags Napster

Posted by Gene in Business

This looks like a pretty strong move, it allows Best Buy to compete a little on the download front and bolsters it’s line of online offerings (like in-store pickup), not to mention its recent ability to sell iPhones in their stores. Probably a steal at 121 million.

Best Buy said today it would spend $121 million to buy former file-sharing poster child, Napster. The move gives Best Buy the ability to offer DRM-free movies and music downloads that would compete with Amazon.com’s download services as well as proprietary files offered by Apple in its iTunes store.

Full article

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Aug272008

Wine Library TV, Gary Vaynerchuck

Posted by Gene in Business, Branding

I am no way a Wine snob, I know very very little about it. But I feel like I can sort of hang now, thanks to Wine Library TV’s host Gary Vaynerchuck. I started watching his video podcast about a month ago and have just gotten hooked. My point isn’t wine or even Gary, but more how he uses the web and social media to help his business grow.

He started out getting into the family business of selling wine, over the years he’s used his video podcast to help sell wine. He’s passionate about wine and loves to talk about it, he shows it, every week. He doesn’t make any direct money off the video podcast he does it to push his personal brand which in turn helps sales. He uses a barrage of online media; facebook, twitter, iTunes, etc. He’s everywhere, even on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. A year or so ago he purchased the social web-app for wine tasting Corkd.com, a free resource but again helps to push his brand.

Check him out, but aside from that, just pay attention to how he markets himself.

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Aug112008

Build it to last not to sell.

Posted by Gene in Business

I’m an entrepreneur, but I don’t like to admit it. I think of myself more as a product scientist, that name “entrepreneur” just seems to have too much baggage for me personally. I’ve been watching this show called Startup Junkies, you can watch some episodes on hulu.com for free, for a while now. I find it addicting, not because I want to be like them but because I can’t help but watch the train wreck happen. Pretty voyeuristic of me I know. The thing I keep getting migraines over while watching it is the amount of focus both the show and the company seem to place on raising money from investors, and all the talk of going public and cashing in by the employees. I know that makes for good TV but it just hurts my head.

What I’ve learned over my tenure of running my own business is, that you have to build a company that you can live with. Something that you would feel comfortable with for the rest of your life. Something that you would never — NEVER — sell to anyone else (even if you wind up selling it later). We have had many clients at Period Three that are “start-ups” and I guess at a certain point we were a “start-up” ourselves. I believe in letting your business fund itself naturally and organically very early on (I know some businesses have a larger scale than P3) and I believe you can’t be afraid to work very hard to achieve and continue any money making sustainability. That means you must be willing to work ALL THE FREAKING TIME…

A good read is this post on the Diary of a failed startup blog:

It’s a marathon, but it’s a marathon made of sprints
Initial conditions matter. A lot.
Developing in a vacuum never works.
Beware the chicken and the egg.
If you’re doing anything other than building your project and getting users, it’s premature.
The product will take longer than you expect. Design for the long-term.
People have an incentive not to crush your dreams. Take everything they say with a grain of salt.
Know your limitations.

Good advice all around. Another useful set of points is this 17 Mistakes Start-ups Make list (some of these are fast killers):

Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it’s viable.
Miscalculating market size, timing, ease of entry and potential market share.
Underestimating financial requirements and timing.
Over-projecting sales volume and timing.
Making cost projections that are too low.
Hiring too many people and spending too much on offices and facilities.
Lacking a contingency plan for a shortfall in expectations.
Bringing in unnecessary partners.
Hiring for convenience rather than skill requirements.
Neglecting to manage the entire company as a whole.
Accepting that it’s “not possible” too easily rather than finding a way.
Focusing too much on sales volume and company size rather than profit.
Seeking confirmation of your actions rather than seeking the truth.
Lacking simplicity in your vision.
Lacking clarity of your long-term aim and business purpose.
Lacking focus and identity.
Lacking an exit strategy.

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Jun252008

12 Rules for Success From Tiger Woods

Posted by Gene in Business

I don’t care if you like Tiger Woods or not, if you hate Golf or not or simply don’t think he can be motivational because he is young or plays golf or whatever… If you’ve ever tried to play the game of Golf in even a remotely serious manner you will find that it takes a great deal of focus and you actually need to practice to get good at it. This list that Alex Shalman has put together on Tiger’s rule book for success inspired me. You can directly apply this to business and life in general.
1. Constant and Never Ending Improvement
2. A Bigger Plan
3. Embrace Defeat
4. Take Life Lightly
5. Don’t Stop
6. Live Your Own Expectations
7. Do What You Love
8. Focus
9. Pay It Forward
10. Learn From All Mistakes
11. Celebrate Your Victories
12. Pay No Attention To Naysayers
You can read the full post here.

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May052008

CMLS Rules Obstructing Competition

Posted by Gene in Business

I’ve been interested in the real estate market for most of my professional career. Not the buying and selling of homes but specifically in areas where real estate touches the internet. I’ve worked for two real estate technology start-ups (that shall remain nameless for the sake of good karma) and in each instance I only grew more interested in it. So naturally I’ve still followed this stuff over the years. I’ve always known the Columbia Multiple Listings Services (CMLS) to be behind the times, in a major way for most of their existence. This lawsuit by the Justice Department against the CMLS comes as no surprise to me.

By providing an efficient means of exchanging information on home listings, MLSs can benefit consumers, but that same role makes access to the MLS database - and therefore MLS membership - critically important for any broker seeking to serve clients efficiently in the MLS’s service area, the Department said. Consequently, the rules adopted by CMLS governing who can be a member and how members must run their businesses have a significant impact on competition among brokers in the area served by the MLS.

This is the rub, they provide the service but they control the data as well. Realtors willingly give them their data, and even pay to do it in one form or another. I’ve always thought of starting a 100% free MLS service for the Columbia area, but CMLS has always been the warlord of the area and significantly controls the mind-share of the local Realtors.

The Department said that CMLS’s rules also give Columbia real estate brokers the ability to exclude rivals from outside Columbia who might offer local consumers innovative brokerage options that save them money or provide services that better match their needs. The Department’s lawsuit challenges these and other CMLS rules that unreasonably restrain competition among real estate brokers and thereby lead to reduced consumer choice and higher fees paid by consumers.

Did you know the only way you can gain access to the CMLS data is if you are a licensed Realtor?

There you go, it’s all about the money right? By controlling the data they control the money, clever. I have to think that by keeping the technology that powers the MLS itself they also control the money by controlling the way you can access it.

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Apr282008

Rackspace files IPO

Posted by Gene in Business

Looks like Rackspace has filed with the SEC for an IPO. They are going to do an auction round just like Google originally did when they went public. I don’t normally care too much about this kind of thing but this one peeks my interest both because we use them as one of our hosting providers and that they’ve already tried to go public a few years back. Good luck Rackspace!

Link for more info here.

With the filing we also get a clearer picture of Rackspace’s business and financials. Its revenues grew 62 percent last year to $362 million, but it posted net profits of $17.8 million, which were down 10 percent from the year before. Cash flows from operations, though, remained healthy at $105 million last year, up from $61 million in 2006.

Another interesting tidbit: that truck accident that took down one of its data centers in Texas last November cost the company $3.4 million in credits to customers.

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