Month: August 2010

Last night, I was watching Lauren read the local town paper.

We live in a little suburb right outside of Boston and there is something special about that town paper. It’s a combination of the local news (politics, schools, high school) or seeing a photo of friends or neighbors. It’s just something we really enjoy reading.

i keep my social network on foursquare pretty tight – 112 friends altogether. So when I check in somewhere I want those people to know where I am and to me it’s sort of an implicit permission if friends are nearby they can come by and say hi. This happened recently. I was at a restaurant in nyc with lauren. we checked in and 30 minutes later Mo dropped by after seeing our check in. Fun.

Local on Twitter is magical too. I’ll tweet about something local and hit the geo button on Twitter for iPhone. Now that little tweet plus a map tells a story to others nearby or friends that know the area. 

We are just at the early days of figuring out how local, social, mobile, commerce, media, search and entertainment will evolve. It’s a huge opportunity.

But looking past the economic opportunity for a moment, I’m just possessed by all things local. There’s something magical about things actually happening right in front of you. 

Techmeme is dominated by the future of openness this morning. 

Some folks have been beating the drum for some time that open is really something the minority of techies care about and most people prefer closed as the success of the Apple App Store shows.

I don’t agree with that.

I have always believed that the success of Apple’s App Store is because for the most part it’s mostly open. The vast majority of applications are accepted. That’s a huge change from the mobile world pre app store.

(Now to be clear, Apple’s policy rubs me the wrong way. I wish it was even more open. I want Google Voice on my iPhone. I believe it would be better for their users and as a result better for Apple too btw)

Okay, back to this mornings meme. Is the Web dead? I agree with Fred, I don’t believe the open web is dead. 

But I am concerned about some big companies and their approach to the web – everything from their stance on net neutrality to new products.

Consider Google’s upcoming Chrome Store. On many levels I love the idea. Give developers better ways of reaching their users and allow them to monetize their work. On the surface it seems like it could bring them many of the benefits that Google search provides. Distribution and monetization. Very cool. 

But here’s the thing. I don’t believe that web apps in the upcoming Chrome Store will work “as is” in other browsers. (please correct me if I’m wrong about this). So now developers creating a service have to build custom things for Android, Chrome Store, iPhone and the open web. 

One thing I’ve noticed since owning the iPad is that I don’t yearn for native apps. At first I was bummed that Yelp doesn’t have a native ipad app. But  the web site is damn good in Safari on the iPad. Same for other services.

It’s a great browser in the end and we shouldn’t forget it. 

Within 12-18months a venture backed startup will expand from the founding team, to a larger core team and then the need for management in different parts of the organization are required as the company expands.

Hiring strong executives is critical to a company’s success over time. But it’s not easy to do. 

A few weeks back Ben Horowitz wrote a post about how founders should consider scaling their organization. It’s well worth a read. I especially like Ben’s image of an offensive linesman in his post and how founders should hire but give ground grudgingly. 

There is a great analog to this concept in American Football. An offensive lineman’s job is to protect the quarterback from onrushing defensive linemen. If the offensive lineman attempts to do this by holding his ground, the defensive lineman will easily run around him and crush the quarterback. As a result, offensive linemen are taught to lose the battle slowly or to give ground grudgingly. They are taught to back up and allow the defensive lineman to advance, but just a little at a time.

When you scale an organization, you will also need to give ground grudgingly. Specialization, organizational structure, and process all complicate things quite a bit and implementing them will feel like you are moving away from common knowledge and quality communication. It is very much like the offensive lineman taking a step backwards. You will lose ground, but you will prevent your company from descending into chaos.

There are two benefits of scaling the team this way. Ben highlights the most important one at length in his post. Communication. If you give ground grudgingly you will keep communication lines clear. 

The other benefit to this approach is managing costs. I’ve seen some capital efficient startups start to scale and then they bring in the senior executives who then hire rapidly in their own groups. Sometimes that’s necessary and extremely helpful but sometimes it can grow out of control with VPs hiring VPs who then build out an even more vertical group. Suddenly the organization is overstaffed up and down company and politics enter the picture. 

I’ve seen many founders fight title inflation to avoid this very scenario. That’s not easy when trying to attract senior staff but it’s something to keep in mind. 

The challenge for founders/CEO is to give ground grudgingly and balance that with letting go. It’s hard to attract great managers when they don’t have the ability to make things happen. 

So be careful when hiring your senior staff. Make sure expectation are set up front on both sides.