Get Rich Slow, Now

Great article in Time Magazine, Get Rich Slow, about the rise of the small startup that can cost nearly nothing and grow into something very valuable.  Paul Graham, Jason Calacanis, and many others have been preaching the rise of the zero-cost startup.

Not only is this my life right now, but it’s the basic basis of most every big Internet success in the 2.0 era: Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, on and on.

I’m surprised I’d never heard the term “ramen profitability” before, but I love it!

If you’re unemployed, get something going now.  Time is your most valuable asset.  If you’re gainfully employed, do something on the side – costs you no more than a hobby, and I think it’s more fun (and creates more value for the world) than most hobbies.  If you don’t, someone else will.  Simple enough.

(via 37Signals)

Hometown Paper Goes Down… To Online

Seattle P-I goes online only (from Mashable’s Adam Ostrow) today, and the largest daily paper to go online only according the seattlepi.com homepage.

My first wage job was as a Seattle Times paperboy.  Bonus: online newspapers don’t get wet, don’t need to get plastic bagged, and don’t get chewed up by the dog.

Kindle App Brings Primetime eBooks to iPhone

I got the Kindle iPhone application this morning.  It’s basic seeming, which can be a good thing and it nicely gets the job done.  I was reading the first chapter (free sample) of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers within minutes.  You have to download eBooks from Safari – seems fine to me until closer integration for purchasing in the app becomes available.

Something is a little obnoxious about reading on the tiny iPhone screen.  Really all I need right now is more reason to stare at the damn thing more often.

In San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle is facing what looks like impending doom.  It’s just a matter of time before the paper portion goes down.  Mayor Gavin Newsom was on Real Time with Bill Maher, proclaiming that bloggers aren’t real journalists (or something to that effect) and that real news will suffer because if newspapers shut down.  Mayor Newson thinks that the Chronicle will probably find some way to rearrange its business.

A rant on why this is a little off would be a whole thing itself.  Writing is writing is writing, and there’s no reason why “real” journalism can’t exist on the web just as easily as on paper – is that not simple enough?  A workable business model is a different story – that’s the piece that’s being worked through.

Marc Andreessen thinks the New York Times needs to kill the paper portion now, as (paraphrase) acute pain is better than years of chronic pain.  Yet he admits that he owns something like 6,000 CDs – quite the counter-argument to the death of media.

Just because a book or newspaper “feels better” doesn’t really mean anything, nor does the fact that staring at a screen so much seems just wrong.  Everyone can have their preferences.  It does not mean that the newspaper, books or CD will go on.  Technology changes things, and hopefully and generally for the better.  Amazon does print books on demand, as do a number of start-ups.  If I want a book to read on the beach, I’ll buy it – plain and simple.  Wasting a tree everytime I want to read the latest marketing guru no latter seems sane though.

My point being – don’t confuse a gut reaction with what way of doing things is really better.  Then, you too can be a futurist and see why paper isn’t dead – it’s just a mostly unnecessary remnant of media delivery.

Mashable gets the credit for breaking this, for me at least.

Staples 2.0: When Online Resembles Offline

Sarah Tavel of Bessemer Partners has a great post about The Staples 2.0 effect, how large e-commerce retailers are leading to the closure of mom-and-pop stores.  I highly recommend it.

The conclusion that e-commerce will come to more closely resemble physical retail in the long run always struck me as a largely underrepresented one. The seismic drop in consumer spending seems to be the catalyst to put this reality front and center.

The post got me thinking. Search Engine Ranking is the key ingredient here.

Many direct comparisons can be made between online retail and physical retail: branding, repeat customers, customer acquisition cost, economies of scale, etc. Many insurmountable benefits to scale.

With Search Ranking, it’s as if once you’ve “earned” your spot, you’ve not only got a flagship store in Times Square, but also in London Square, Union Square, Mall of America, and so on… for FREE. The land grab for this space spawned Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and on.

The existence of Search Ranking, based on popularity (links), makes it even more insurmountable to dethrone a market leader. It’s not the only benefit to scale, but my gut says that it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back for new entrants.

Some of the thinking is very obvious. Commodities will be bought from the low-cost producer. Long tail wise, there can be a healthy long tail serving infinite small-scale interests given removal of geographical barriers. Today’s basically zero cost of real estate means these niches have a lot of room to thrive.

Hence an Etsy, Zazzle or such can thrive as well.

You’ll basically see large e-commerce retailers, with niche retailers competing on a specific niche service, which sure looks a lot like physical retail.

There’s still of lot of room to grow and create value to build a brand and your base of loyal users/customers/followers: aggregation, customization, community, socialization.

It’s just unoriginality that will go unrewarded… it’s no different on the Wild Wild Web.

(via GigaOM)

Why Americans Should Be More Thankful Than Ever

I’ve resisted writing much about the economy, but since it’s a rainy day in San Francisco as people start taking off for the long weekend, here it goes…

Last night, I watched Magic Johnson, Steve Wynn and Eric Schmidt on Larry King Live.

It was a surprisingly thoughtful (not that I didn’t expect it but sometimes these interviews are broken records) treatise of what’s ailing now and what to do next. They identified their focus now:

• People
• Innovation

Again, it’s called adding value- and these are the key ingredients.

They identified top priorities in getting the economy moving again:

• Unfreezing credit markets, in a direct fashion
• Infrastructure Investment. Green technology, physical infrastructure- roads, transportation, etc.

I would also add Leveling The Playing Field to the list, such as Net Neutrality. Steve Wynn mentioned that government is good as some things, such as regulation, and bad at others. I agree wholeheartedly, set the right regulations and rules in place (which is a fluid process) then get out of the way. I believe fundamentally the new administration agrees, no matter what the rhetoric being thrown out there may say.

Steve Wynn also suggested it’s a good time to save money and hunker down a bit. Eric Schmidt continued to focus on the Google mantra of creating innovations and value-adds that people delight in.

All three men were remarkably optimistic. Granted, I would find it hard not to be optimistic but you also have to remember all three are self-made men.

Sage advice is not to ignore the realities of today. I hold that this is healthy for America.

Americans should be more thankful than ever because this is the richest country in the world, by far. Americans should be thankful because we’re free. We can have an open debate about free market capitalism, dangers of greed, and how to best cure the spreading divide between rich and poor without harming the very economic system that got us to where we are today.  Be thankful because amidst the chaos, we live in a place that allows us to strive for a better tomorrow.

Have a wonderful and joy-filled Thanksgiving!

Live Poker for iPhone: Time Wasters Are Rising!

Zynga’s Live Poker for the iPhone (via TechCrunch and Mashable). Texas Hold ‘Em for Facebook is my original Facebook application time waster; the application for iPhone seems even better. Of note is that it’s also the first iPhone app to use Facebook Connect.

Jason Calacanis also mentioned a category of startups that provide free, lasting entertainment that will do very well in this prolonged recession. Live Poker and Zynga will certainly fall into that category.

Jason also mentions that the days of $3,000 bottle service in New York and Los Angeles are gone, not only for financial reasons but because you look like a jackass doing it. As such, the entirety of high-end nightlife predicated largely on real estate windfalls and a strong(er) economy is a particularly hard trodden space.

There’s a very special category of entertainment that will also do especially well today, and that’s social entertainment with lasting entertainment value. These I think will do well even if there’s a high price attached to them. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Wii Sports are three easy examples. They’d do well anyway because they’re fun as hell – they’ll do better as people look to stay home but still want the fun company of others.

The days of excess are gone, boys and girls.

Yahoo BOSSes Its Way Into Long Tail of Search

I could have almost missed this: Yahoo has announced Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build your own search service) as also reported by GigaOM and TechCrunch. You can access Yahoo! search results via API or framework, mashing up Yahoo’s index, and ranking and relevance, with your own algorithmic take on search. Not much concrete is being commented, possibly because there’s not much to be said. Om Malik has has reservations, but is interested in seeing what comes of it.

Broadly, it is one of the neater applications of open strategy and web service. For Yahoo, it’s smart indeed just like SearchMonkey was the neat and smart first part of its open strategy.

It is hard, or maybe impossible, to tell what will come of the strategy. It still hinges on someone to create a better secret sauce of smart algorithms, data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence and all the cornerstones of CS intelligence. And it must be done: it’s a hedge to give Yahoo a better shot at possibly acquiring or partnering with the big bang company that somehow does search better than Google. But all the infrastructure savings doesn’t presume that a better algorithm will emerge.

So I do applaud Yahoo for going down the long tail of search with BOSS. Yet Farecast, Kayak and Sidestep, Oodle, Vast, SimplyHired, NexTag, Shopping.com and many more “vertical search” aggregators ofttimes rich in metadata dominate the fat middle (fat belly?)– and I bet they will continue to do so.

Contradictions, Changing the World & Success

The contradictions and absurdities that exist in the city always crack me up. I could honestly go on and on.

Another interesting week in San Francisco. A stranger tracks your contact information down, and mails you your a stranded credit card as simple courtesy. An accidental bump when running down a busy boardwalk with a group leads to a lecture about “running in single file line” as the proper formation when going for a leisurely run. Or at a free concert: defensiveness over a piece of grass when there was no outward intention to steal the free grass, yet a willingness just minutes later to scoot in closer to your two children just to make your young neighbors a little more comfortable.

This is generally a business blog, but it’s also just my ramblings about how to tie life and business together and a process I find unendingly enjoyable.

There was a short interview with Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster, on GigaOM. There are elements here of benevolence as a effective business strategy. The essence, without agreeing completely with some overly save the world sentiments, is that changing the world with a side consequence of making a lot of money is today’s recipe for success both in life and work.

This is not the touchy-feely argument either. There are many reasons by focusing on “get rich! get rich!” will lead you down the wrong path. Most simply, you’re not going to innovate. And you’re just another rider just looking to steal a position too late to ride a wave of money, ready to get pummeled in the white water. Ride the wave you’re meant to ride in a strong yet principled way, and you might ride the wave of your life.

My question in today’s world is: which of these above people are you and do you want to be? Seems like a simple choice to me.

Internet Famous (and Successful) in San Francisco

Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and Founder/CEO of Slide, walked into the coffee shop I was posted up at this afternoon.  He was talking something about widgets, RockYou and such, but I didn’t encroach enough to gather much more than that or anything of substance.

Cool though… Yet another gotta love SF Tech story!

Getting Ahead of the Curve, Lost of Reason

I’ve been busy in the weeds, the real work to make iLetYou as useful to people as possibly can be.  Blog posts have been slow in coming, and this post might even be a little light on substance (although most are).

As of this writing, I’m about 8 months into my San Francisco/Silicon Valley/Bay Area adventure.  I could make hundreds of observations thus far, but I’ll make one stand out: acclimation comes quickly here.

When applied to the hype machine of the Valley, live here for a while and you start to see things the way the collective “we” of the patch stretching from approximately San Jose to San Francisco (maybe partially into Marin County) sees things…  And I think most people actually believe that is a positive.  I tend to agree.

This is a land of forward thinkers, borne of reason and deep contemplation (there’s the Ivy influence for you).  I always fancied myself a forward thinker, but this is where forward thinking is pushed to boundaries.  That boundary where most reasonable people would label people a “nut job”.

Steve Wozniak was a nut job.  Bruce Sterling can seem like a nut job.  On and on.

And it’s in the fabric here.  Everyone who’s anyone has an idea, everyone’s an innovator of some sort small or not.

An aside about Twitter: I have not yet set up a Twitter account.  To balance the sides out, I can see how a lot of people don’t get Twitter.   I can see how it’s enjoyable as is updating your Facebook status, but I really can’t understand it myself because I’m not addicted to it.  There’s just so much going on, that sometimes I choose to filter noise to the better cause of focus.  Lots of people here choose to always be the prototypical early adopter – some wisely, some not I would think.  For me, sometimes you can’t always allow yourself to hear the noise – it’s much better to concentrate on the signal.

So now when people ask about Facebook apps, social networking monetization, online video monetization, Twittering, Office versus Google apps, altruistic and open source projects, cloud computing, software as a service, I just tell people that it’s just a matter of time.  In these easy cases, the signal is loud and clear.

To do something interesting and to have the best chance of success, you have to get ahead of the curve.  This is especially the case in technology.  Like I said, I think I possess the ability to see ahead but it’s a process that I’m glad my peers in the area embrace likewise.  And, yes, you do have to be right.  And you do have to be in a position to take advantage of trends.

Sometimes you get trampled.  But it’s necessary to lose that sensibility that every naysayer espouses.  That loss of sensibility is what drives the area, what makes me really embrace all that the Valley is about.