Frightened Rabbit – I Feel Better
Month: March 2010
My first apartment in San Francisco
I’m having an absolute blast going through the old photos that I recently digitized.
Here’s my first apartment I rented in SF back in the summer of 1992 (I was 22). It was on Waller Street, one block off the Haight.
That’s Lauren and my brother Amin in the pic. Lauren lived around the corner on Frederick and Cole St. Amin and I drove out together from Boston to SF in just four days. I taught him how to drive stick along the way.
My apartment was a studio – 600sq feet. The rent was $700 a month. The bathroom was so small that you had to walk in sideways to get passed the shower.
It was a fun place.
Notorious B.I.G. vs The Grateful Dead – Sky’s The Limit
I should’ve posted this yesterday but I missed the date. Here’s my favorite track off the album, Gratefully Dead.
Bright Eyes & Neva Dinova – Rollerskating
I preordered the re-release of “One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels” and I received an email today with the mp3 code. I can’t wait to download it when I get home. There are four new tracks. This is one of them.
Scale first, monetize second
With every (venture backed) consumer web startup there is always the question of when to start thinking about monetization.
If the monthly burn is modest, I usually suggest that startups focus on reaching scale first.
It’s not because I don’t care about revenue or because I embrace “hope as a strategy” (which never works).
Rather it’s because:
1 – when your user base is small it really doesn’t matter if you can get advertising, digital goods, subscription revenue going. The base is so small the conversion will be even smaller.
2 – startups need to focus, especially in the the early stage. With limited resources, the company needs to focus on the product and the users. If you start tinkering revenue too early then you suddenly find yourself having to borrow precious team resources to deal with various revenue projects. They always look small and innocent at first but they can snowball and can distract the team.
3. the ultimate revenue model may surprise you. as the product develops and evolves and your community grows, the revenue model is likely to reveal itself in an entirely new way. I’ve seen this happen several times and it’s a powerful reminder each time.
So when I meet a founder and he/she tells me that they are confident that they can monetize their future service with ads or subscription or whatever, I blow by that slide. I want to know about the product and how they are planning on growing the service to reach scale. That’s a leap of faith we both need to take at some level but that’s what I want to talk about vs a 2015 revenue forecast.
p.s.: Congrats to our portfolio company Tumblr for focusing on growth. Last year I remember David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, came to a board mtg. and said he was going to delay his monetization experiments and focus on growth. He had a game plan and told us about it. I’m so glad he did just that.
Startup Adolescence
In the earliest days of a startup, the assignment for the company is straightforward. Most, if not all, of the resources of the company are devoted to building the product and getting traction with early users.
In a world of constrained resources and limited funding, the focus is clear, decisions are made and the best startups just execute. There is no time for great debates or philosophical arguments.
That’s why startups often beat big companies to the punch. Startups burn their boats the day they are born while big companies have multiple plates spinning and even internal competing product groups.
But as sure as the day is long, the startup hits adolescence. The company starts hiring outside of their network. They may have begun monetization efforts which take up resources and mindshare. Stuff breaks. The board expands and now there more voices than ever around the table. Decisions seem to take longer. Every startups reaches adolescence – it’s how you get through it that makes all the difference.
Speed is one way to get through it. How do you get speed?
I used to believe that speed was about a startups work ethic and the teams clock speed. In all of startups I’ve worked at or invested in you can just feel the energy in the room.
And while those things are certainly true, speed is really the result of a having the company aligned. I heard this from someone a few weeks ago and I couldn’t agree more. Doubt and confusion create more than a speed bump, they create a flat tire.
There are many ways to get through the startup adolescent period. Every company is different. I think one way to get through it well is by creating an efficient decision making machine at the company which creates speed.
I’d love to hear how others get through it as well.
The one thing technology companies do really well is deal with constant disruption. “Microsoft is going through this right now,” he points out, “Ballmer is not complaining about it.” He’s tackling it head on. So did Intel when Andy Grove gutted it to shift from memory chips to microprocessors. So does every technology company CEO. It is ingrained in the industry Andreessen comes from, so it is just obvious to him: “You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt.” Media companies need to learn that lesson fast. To the extent that their products are now delivered and consumed as digital bits, they too are becoming technology companies
Bijan, First, I enjoy your blog. Second, your post regarding the need for a Spark associate got me thinking about VC in general. I work in cardiac rhythm management as a clinical specialist. I’m beginning to see some “noise”, for lack of a better term, regarding social networking in the med space. I ran across @futurewell, which is an interesting follow. I’m curious about your thoughts on how startups that Spark and other VCs invest in might begin to impact healthcare and those of us on the business side of healthcare. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. Kevin K.
There is a lot going on with tech & healthcare. Much of it is happening top down – building stuff for hospitals and doctors.
While those are powerful ideas and opportunities, I’m much more interested in things that are focused on the user/patient first.
All the power & magic of sharing, information, social nets, community and transparency need to come to our healthcare system. And I believe it will.
(answered this question using the new Tumblr Ask feature).