(Of course, I love the Runkeeper guys. It's actually very impressive I've gone this long without getting any spam. A little tongue-and-cheek never hurt anyone. Well, except Monicagod40@yahoo.com)
Friday, June 22, 2012
Runkeeper has made it!
It's official, RunKeeper has finally made it to the big leagues as a social network - I've got my first RK spam! Sadly, it was not a Nigerian Banker with my lost millions, but this is progress none-the-less.
(Of course, I love the Runkeeper guys. It's actually very impressive I've gone this long without getting any spam. A little tongue-and-cheek never hurt anyone. Well, except Monicagod40@yahoo.com)
(Of course, I love the Runkeeper guys. It's actually very impressive I've gone this long without getting any spam. A little tongue-and-cheek never hurt anyone. Well, except Monicagod40@yahoo.com)
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Nike FuelBand and Ice Hockey
My own little Quantified Self project is to review the Nike FuelBand and it's use during Ice Hockey games. I have two specific questions I'm chasing, although I expect fully to get some new insights in how to improve my hockey performance, or at least my fitness level, by challenging some assumptions. And, I freaking love data, healthcare gadgets (actually any gadgets) and Ice Hockey, so this is pretty much the definition of "in my wheelhouse."
Specifically, I have two hypothesis I'm testing.
I want to see if playing center is, in fact, the hardest position on the ice - or as Wikipedia puts it centers "are expected to cover more ice surface than any other player". Does this hold true for me? Could I even map it to team performance? I believe it to be true, at least, if you are playing center the right way (a huge caveat in this experiment, of course), but I'd like to see if I can actually show it in my play. I love playing defense (and the whole idea of hitting, rather than being hit, is appealing as well), but I'm focused on really understanding if I'm working as hard as I should at center. It's arguable that I should also be playing harder on defense, too. At least, so says my goalie.
I'm also starting to wonder if I'm not ending hockey days with the best workout - or even, surprisingly, an average workout. Specifically, I think I'm sandbagging it during the day of Ice Hockey games. I think I'm actually using hockey as an excuse to not get more steps, travel more distance, and use more "fuel" because "I'll make it up at hockey" - or, when I'm feeling particularly good "I need to save myself for the game" - although I'm starting to doubt either of those are facts. First, I don't think I actually make it up or hit my fitness goals, and second, I don't think going into the game with any more steps or exercise really adversely effects my play. I think it's an excuse.
I'm playing on three teams this season, so we should have ample data, although my FuelBand arrived after the season started, and the Memorial Day holiday in May is throwing a wrench in my first month collections, as all the schedules are a little disorganized heading into the weekend. A version of the spreadsheet is here, but a live-updating version can also be found in the next section.
So far there are only two games to show, but there is a difference (about 100 FuelPoints) between center and defense (with same number of lines), and interestingly, my 2nd best day and my worst day - both hockey days. Let's see what the data will reveal!
The Data:
Specifically, I have two hypothesis I'm testing.
I want to see if playing center is, in fact, the hardest position on the ice - or as Wikipedia puts it centers "are expected to cover more ice surface than any other player". Does this hold true for me? Could I even map it to team performance? I believe it to be true, at least, if you are playing center the right way (a huge caveat in this experiment, of course), but I'd like to see if I can actually show it in my play. I love playing defense (and the whole idea of hitting, rather than being hit, is appealing as well), but I'm focused on really understanding if I'm working as hard as I should at center. It's arguable that I should also be playing harder on defense, too. At least, so says my goalie.
I'm also starting to wonder if I'm not ending hockey days with the best workout - or even, surprisingly, an average workout. Specifically, I think I'm sandbagging it during the day of Ice Hockey games. I think I'm actually using hockey as an excuse to not get more steps, travel more distance, and use more "fuel" because "I'll make it up at hockey" - or, when I'm feeling particularly good "I need to save myself for the game" - although I'm starting to doubt either of those are facts. First, I don't think I actually make it up or hit my fitness goals, and second, I don't think going into the game with any more steps or exercise really adversely effects my play. I think it's an excuse.
I'm playing on three teams this season, so we should have ample data, although my FuelBand arrived after the season started, and the Memorial Day holiday in May is throwing a wrench in my first month collections, as all the schedules are a little disorganized heading into the weekend. A version of the spreadsheet is here, but a live-updating version can also be found in the next section.
So far there are only two games to show, but there is a difference (about 100 FuelPoints) between center and defense (with same number of lines), and interestingly, my 2nd best day and my worst day - both hockey days. Let's see what the data will reveal!
The Data:
Thursday, March 22, 2012
On Incubators and Rock Health
Yesterday I posed a rather long rant/entry on the Rock Health blog. It was in reaction to a really ignorant piece that ran in MedCityNews, where the interviewee literally just ran his (uninformed) mouth on and on, with no facts, and no data. He compared Incubators such as Rock Health to puppy mills, a garden of broken dreams, the valley of death, and finally, accused people inside incubators are just gambling with people's dreams. Yes, these incubators include YC and Techstars, if you can believe that.
Meanwhile, you'll be glad to know, he works for a saintly profession. He's a VC. He's been one for a whole six months, according to his LinkedIn profile. So clearly, he's got it all figured out.
Anyway, it was a horrible piece and it drove me to reply. It took a few drafts to get all the f-bombs out. You can read the whole entry on the Rock Health Blog
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Startups, Patents, and Me
This morning, Mobihealth news reported that Bosch Healthcare has sued three companies on alleged infringements of the Health Hero patent portfolio. Although I don't know the details of the lawsuit beyond what is reported, my former role as COO/CTO and author of several patents for Health Hero resulted in me waking to numerous emails asking me what I thought. There was even one that asked me if I felt like I had "blood on my hands." I searched around the bed for a horse head.
Of course, I had three options.
The Caveat
Before I get to my biggest issue, let me be clear that I'm not against patents, only their abuse. Our patent portfolio saved us many times, and was, as a defensive mechanism, a brilliant device. It gave some people confidence to choose us in a competitive situation, for example, with Panasonic. It lead to a license with Philips Electronics and others, who were going to run over the top of us without it. It made us better partners to McKesson, and certainly enhanced our valuation. Most of the credit for the depth and size of the patent portfolio goes to Steve Brown, who started patenting many of these core ideas long before there was a Health Hero Network. If you look closely, priority dates go back to 1992. That's amazing foresight, and also why some of the claims which look "obvious" today are actually shockingly predictive.
On Startups and Healthcare
My disappointment is predictable and obvious. Bosch is litigating MedApps, Waldo, and Express MD Solutions. These are hardly brand name companies. You only need to look at my dedication to Rock Health or view AngelList page to know I believe Healthcare and Technology (in general) are both best served by supporting entrepreneurs and startups. Most will fail. Some will change the world. But there is nothing more motivating, exciting, and encouraging than seeing experts of all kinds coming together to solve real problems that scare other people away.
There is a sign that hangs at the doorway to Rock Health, paraphrasing something I wrote in response to a different topic, but it sums up the point of view.
Every "big" company has to decide how to work within its ecosystem. Most simply ignore it, outside large conferences and events. There are some who focus supporting the ecosystem, through the availability of APIs, Hackathons, incubation sponsorships, and other vehicles. There are, of course, also those that choose not to ignore it, and not to support it, but consciously attack. Nothing wrong with that either, but who you choose to pick on matters. I'm uneasy not so much with patent litigation, but with the targeted companies. I hope the community does not quickly forget this action next time someone offers a conference sponsorship or speaking engagement.
Lawsuits like these have, much to the determent of true progress, become the new normal. With a sigh, I read through the quotes from Bosch defending the process:
"We feel it is important to demonstrate that IP is important, and not just to our company"
Does anyone - and I'm serious, is there a single person - who feels that this demonstrated IP was necessary for other companies? Did you read the article and think "thank you for clarifying that for me, I had no idea IP was important."
Just say it - you have a patent, the system allows you to protect it, and clearly there is some competitive threat from the market you feel the need to defend yourself. Okay, that's fine and within your rights. But when you start to talk about making a demonstration of someone, here's what I read: "We're going to take someone out behind the shed to make a point. We picked someone we know can't fight us with dollars or time, and we're sending a message to the rest of the market." When it's three startups with barely any traction, it's hard to read it any other way.
Now, I have no idea if there's a misquote in there or not, but read this one (emphasis added):
"Bosch is open to working with those companies that are interested in securing this technology through a licensing agreement."
I've got a better idea. Build something people want, and technology licensing won't require a shotgun. Again, I don't know the details, but if this is really about forcing severely outdated technology down the throats of others, that's an even more horrible state. I hope that's misquoted and pure patent license is on the table, if nothing else.
Bosch and Health Hero are better than this. There was a time when we built great, patient-centered solutions to real problems, and there are still so many high-quality people there who are, in the end, only motivated to fix a broken healthcare system. But this can't go without comment – the very companies being litigated against could be the next Health Hero, and the market, the healthcare system, and our patients deserve better. I want Bosch and HealthHero to be great, and I'm sure they can again rise to that greatness, but this is not the path.
While this "demonstration" may be Bosch's right, that doesn't make it right.
Of course, I had three options.
- Keep my mouth shut
- Reply "no comment"
- Blog about my opinion
The Caveat
Before I get to my biggest issue, let me be clear that I'm not against patents, only their abuse. Our patent portfolio saved us many times, and was, as a defensive mechanism, a brilliant device. It gave some people confidence to choose us in a competitive situation, for example, with Panasonic. It lead to a license with Philips Electronics and others, who were going to run over the top of us without it. It made us better partners to McKesson, and certainly enhanced our valuation. Most of the credit for the depth and size of the patent portfolio goes to Steve Brown, who started patenting many of these core ideas long before there was a Health Hero Network. If you look closely, priority dates go back to 1992. That's amazing foresight, and also why some of the claims which look "obvious" today are actually shockingly predictive.
On Startups and Healthcare
My disappointment is predictable and obvious. Bosch is litigating MedApps, Waldo, and Express MD Solutions. These are hardly brand name companies. You only need to look at my dedication to Rock Health or view AngelList page to know I believe Healthcare and Technology (in general) are both best served by supporting entrepreneurs and startups. Most will fail. Some will change the world. But there is nothing more motivating, exciting, and encouraging than seeing experts of all kinds coming together to solve real problems that scare other people away.
There is a sign that hangs at the doorway to Rock Health, paraphrasing something I wrote in response to a different topic, but it sums up the point of view.
(Credit to Ryan
Panchadsaram for the layout and design)
Every "big" company has to decide how to work within its ecosystem. Most simply ignore it, outside large conferences and events. There are some who focus supporting the ecosystem, through the availability of APIs, Hackathons, incubation sponsorships, and other vehicles. There are, of course, also those that choose not to ignore it, and not to support it, but consciously attack. Nothing wrong with that either, but who you choose to pick on matters. I'm uneasy not so much with patent litigation, but with the targeted companies. I hope the community does not quickly forget this action next time someone offers a conference sponsorship or speaking engagement.
Lawsuits like these have, much to the determent of true progress, become the new normal. With a sigh, I read through the quotes from Bosch defending the process:
"We feel it is important to demonstrate that IP is important, and not just to our company"
Does anyone - and I'm serious, is there a single person - who feels that this demonstrated IP was necessary for other companies? Did you read the article and think "thank you for clarifying that for me, I had no idea IP was important."
Just say it - you have a patent, the system allows you to protect it, and clearly there is some competitive threat from the market you feel the need to defend yourself. Okay, that's fine and within your rights. But when you start to talk about making a demonstration of someone, here's what I read: "We're going to take someone out behind the shed to make a point. We picked someone we know can't fight us with dollars or time, and we're sending a message to the rest of the market." When it's three startups with barely any traction, it's hard to read it any other way.
Now, I have no idea if there's a misquote in there or not, but read this one (emphasis added):
"Bosch is open to working with those companies that are interested in securing this technology through a licensing agreement."
I've got a better idea. Build something people want, and technology licensing won't require a shotgun. Again, I don't know the details, but if this is really about forcing severely outdated technology down the throats of others, that's an even more horrible state. I hope that's misquoted and pure patent license is on the table, if nothing else.
Bosch and Health Hero are better than this. There was a time when we built great, patient-centered solutions to real problems, and there are still so many high-quality people there who are, in the end, only motivated to fix a broken healthcare system. But this can't go without comment – the very companies being litigated against could be the next Health Hero, and the market, the healthcare system, and our patients deserve better. I want Bosch and HealthHero to be great, and I'm sure they can again rise to that greatness, but this is not the path.
While this "demonstration" may be Bosch's right, that doesn't make it right.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Paper vs. Plastic, eBooks revisited
I love my Kindle. Despite it's usability issues, Android operating system (Que Horror!), and all the other bits people complain about, I enjoy carrying around the Kindle Fire much more than I would have lugging around the Steve Jobs Biography or any other number of books. It's the right size, and much easier to read on than my iPad. It works for me(1 ) That said, there is one small problem with eBooks, be they on the Kindle, Nook, or reader of your choice.
Bits don't stick.
I'm hardly nostalgic, but the physical manifestation of a book is a powerful mnemonic. Like a greeting card from your past to future self, the good ones mean something to you. This can take several forms.
Today, I decided to re-read Alan Cooper's classic "The Inmates are Running the Asylum." I pulled the dead-tree-version from the shelf, dusted it off, and flipped it open. On the second page of Inmates, I found lovely note from the person who gave it to me. I had remembered it was a gift, but seeing the inscription there, in the person's handwriting, was a lovely experience.
The person who gave it to me was a prior VP of Operating Systems at Apple, and later the co-inventor of WebOS. Yet none of those make his inscription valuable to me, what was valuable was that he took the time to do it at all. This was not a book signing, he's a friend who wrote something memorable and meaninful.
Thankfully, when Inmates was published he couldn't "gift it" too me on Amazon
When I left Health Hero/Bosch last year, I gave everyone on my team books I felt were fitting for that person and their current career path or professional interest (2 ), but looking back, I wish I spent time writing in the books, rather than cards, as a more permanent reminder and thank you.
I dug around my shelf and noticed that almost every book I've kept was either personally signed, like Inmates, or stretched my mind at the time that it had signficant impact on how I've worked, led, and behaved (3). Clearly, these books made it through a lot of years of purging, donating, and generally clearing-house, yet here they are, and I'm unable to part with them.
So I wonder, emotionally, mentally, when there are no physical constraints on my ability to posses these books as bits, and no emotional tie, with they be as valuable to me? Will I be as connected to the words and ideas? How will consuming e-Books change the ways future generations attach value to the long-form written word? As an early adopter, technologist, and human (mostly), I'm fascinated by this topic, and it's potential cognitive effects.
(1) well, except for the horrible spiral-round-about-selection-UI that's so terrible, I can't even come up with a phrase to describe it.
(2) Rework was one I gave to a lot of people who were part of the acqusition. I think you can do the math.
(3) Some quick, but non-exhaustive examples: Inmates and Rework, Don Norman's "The Invisible Computer" and "Things That Make Us Smart", Neil Gershenfeld's "When Things Start to Think" (the cover with the shoe, not the new horrible cover), Gary Vaynerchuck's "Crush It!" and David Beckham's autobiography. Okay, that's a joke, just wanted to see if you really read the footnotes.
Bits don't stick.
I'm hardly nostalgic, but the physical manifestation of a book is a powerful mnemonic. Like a greeting card from your past to future self, the good ones mean something to you. This can take several forms.
Today, I decided to re-read Alan Cooper's classic "The Inmates are Running the Asylum." I pulled the dead-tree-version from the shelf, dusted it off, and flipped it open. On the second page of Inmates, I found lovely note from the person who gave it to me. I had remembered it was a gift, but seeing the inscription there, in the person's handwriting, was a lovely experience.
The person who gave it to me was a prior VP of Operating Systems at Apple, and later the co-inventor of WebOS. Yet none of those make his inscription valuable to me, what was valuable was that he took the time to do it at all. This was not a book signing, he's a friend who wrote something memorable and meaninful.
Thankfully, when Inmates was published he couldn't "gift it" too me on Amazon
When I left Health Hero/Bosch last year, I gave everyone on my team books I felt were fitting for that person and their current career path or professional interest (
I dug around my shelf and noticed that almost every book I've kept was either personally signed, like Inmates, or stretched my mind at the time that it had signficant impact on how I've worked, led, and behaved (3). Clearly, these books made it through a lot of years of purging, donating, and generally clearing-house, yet here they are, and I'm unable to part with them.
So I wonder, emotionally, mentally, when there are no physical constraints on my ability to posses these books as bits, and no emotional tie, with they be as valuable to me? Will I be as connected to the words and ideas? How will consuming e-Books change the ways future generations attach value to the long-form written word? As an early adopter, technologist, and human (mostly), I'm fascinated by this topic, and it's potential cognitive effects.
(1) well, except for the horrible spiral-round-about-selection-UI that's so terrible, I can't even come up with a phrase to describe it.
(2) Rework was one I gave to a lot of people who were part of the acqusition. I think you can do the math.
(3) Some quick, but non-exhaustive examples: Inmates and Rework, Don Norman's "The Invisible Computer" and "Things That Make Us Smart", Neil Gershenfeld's "When Things Start to Think" (the cover with the shoe, not the new horrible cover), Gary Vaynerchuck's "Crush It!" and David Beckham's autobiography. Okay, that's a joke, just wanted to see if you really read the footnotes.
Monday, December 26, 2011
There is no joy in (Android) appville
TechCrunch posted the-first-of-many "Top 30 Android apps of 2011" article earlier this week, which is always must-read fodder for me. As an Android owner and hacker, I'm always interested in what people think are great applications. For fun, read the article and try to figure out if the author really thought these were 30 great apps, or the editor said "Find 30 apps!" Somewhere around 17 the author just started swearing under their breath.
I was going to write about how despite it's openness and Java-based development, Android is still suffering from a lack of really great applications and developers. Don't get me wrong, some of these applications (Path, Any.do) are brilliant, but there are still damning details in the article.
Of the list of 30 applications, the only developers with more than one application on the list are people who also host their own App Store, and combined they have 7 of the 30 applications. (Five are from Google, and two are from Amazon).
On the surface, you can discount this by saying "they are the most motivated to have great applications" or "they have the best developers because they have the biggest investment", but neither one of those really, in the end, make sense for what Android is, which is a platform. After this many years of Android, it should be hard to build a great list because you'd feel like you're leaving things out. And shouldn't be dominated by Google and Amazon.
This speaks loudly to the state of developers and development on Android. It's very easy to get started. It's easy to get distribution. It's really, really, really hard to achieve greatness. That's not all bad - that should sound eerily like Windows development of the 1990's, or Web Development of the 2000's. We've seen these cycles before, but they are not pretty, and they all were forced to change.
The day before the "30 best apps" article, TechCrunch also had an piece on the challenges of native applications and the opportunity of HTML5. You know, the one we get every few months about the impending greatness of HTML5. Despite editors feel this article must be (re)written at least once a quarter, I'll admit it's an important topic, and a long-term trend to watch. (Sidenote: despite all the departures, there are still plenty of good contributors to TechCrunch. It's no longer must-read, but it's not dead either. I prefer pieces that take an opinion, and the latest contributors are doing that.)
The article was decent, and I liked it's presentation. But even more important was the comment by Harry Tomey, where he summed up some of the "hidden" challenges of Android Development. Fragmentation is an oft-cited downside of Android, but I think Harry put it more concretely, especially for startups. The cost of QA and support for multiple OS versions, patches, UI overlays, and hardware form factors - all major realities in Android - have tipped into the prohibitive.
These two TechCrunch pieces intersected quite violently - of the three "best of" applications I tried to install, all three of them worked on my phone (Droid X), only one ONE of then even installed on my Android tablet (Galaxy Tab 10.1) and well, I'll have to go to another app store to see if they work on my Kindle. Yet these are all Android devices.
At that point, I was motivated to see if they had an iPad version. That would only take one step, rather than three. (Go ahead and make the point I'm not an average user because I have all these gadgets - the problem is only worse for the person who only has a Galaxy Tab or a Kindle and can't figure out why their "Android" apps won't work).
Reading nearly any App Store, er Market (you know what I mean. For Android. Wait, I mean, the Google one, not the Amazon Appstore on Android. URGH...) review has at least one "This piece of crap app doesn't work on my Galaxy IV-R27 Turbo!" - this got so serious, reviews in the Market now includes the model and version of the reviewer. Want to be really scared as a developer? Just scroll through a few pages like this:
At this point, I switched my opinion. This is not a problem for developers anymore. It's a consumer problem; because developers, frankly, gave up.
The problem of Android fragmentation is not a problem for most developers. I'd argue that today the majority of Android developers (remembering that the majority is still the small shop/individual, not a major corporation) don't even care anymore, and are not really trying to solve the problem. It's beyond their ability do manage, profitably.
Don't believe me? Don't believe the statement about "most are still small shop/individuals")? Okay, we'll do this your way. Download Google+ or any of the "30 great" Google apps for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Six month later, and with the exception of GMail, they are still all simply scaled up versions of their phone versions, not taking advantage of any Android-Honeycomb futures, not attempting to deal with even the most basic fragmentation. And this is Google. Most apps from other publishers won't even install.
If this is true of the top applications for 2011, it's scary to think how many people opened an Android-based Christmas gift yesterday, and are now wondering why they can't install an app, or why a certain service doesn't work for them but works on their friend's devices. How do you even start to explain that to a consumer?
This is a consumer problem, which will, over time, harm Android distribution, and in turn, harm developer brands. Eventually, that will lead to developers leaving the platform, unless it's addressed, quickly. Putting this genie back in the bottle is going to be the biggest challenges Google has faced, if not the biggest.
The negative impact on brands will cause publishers enough pain that they will need to figure out some path to avoid bad reviews, upset customers, and frustrated development teams. This cannot be solved with volume alone, because the volume numbers do not accuratley represent the market opportunity for a developer. They simply do not account for the overhead of fragmentation. The emperor has no clothes, and it's painfully obvious.
The only upside I see? There is a huge startup opportunity here: if you can build a Selenium-like product for developers, and a process for managing fragmentation issues, you can translate those market numbers to profitable releases across multiple versions. All of a sudden those market graphs really translate to dollars. Might be the best Android app yet.
I was going to write about how despite it's openness and Java-based development, Android is still suffering from a lack of really great applications and developers. Don't get me wrong, some of these applications (Path, Any.do) are brilliant, but there are still damning details in the article.
Of the list of 30 applications, the only developers with more than one application on the list are people who also host their own App Store, and combined they have 7 of the 30 applications. (Five are from Google, and two are from Amazon).
On the surface, you can discount this by saying "they are the most motivated to have great applications" or "they have the best developers because they have the biggest investment", but neither one of those really, in the end, make sense for what Android is, which is a platform. After this many years of Android, it should be hard to build a great list because you'd feel like you're leaving things out. And shouldn't be dominated by Google and Amazon.
This speaks loudly to the state of developers and development on Android. It's very easy to get started. It's easy to get distribution. It's really, really, really hard to achieve greatness. That's not all bad - that should sound eerily like Windows development of the 1990's, or Web Development of the 2000's. We've seen these cycles before, but they are not pretty, and they all were forced to change.
The day before the "30 best apps" article, TechCrunch also had an piece on the challenges of native applications and the opportunity of HTML5. You know, the one we get every few months about the impending greatness of HTML5. Despite editors feel this article must be (re)written at least once a quarter, I'll admit it's an important topic, and a long-term trend to watch. (Sidenote: despite all the departures, there are still plenty of good contributors to TechCrunch. It's no longer must-read, but it's not dead either. I prefer pieces that take an opinion, and the latest contributors are doing that.)
The article was decent, and I liked it's presentation. But even more important was the comment by Harry Tomey, where he summed up some of the "hidden" challenges of Android Development. Fragmentation is an oft-cited downside of Android, but I think Harry put it more concretely, especially for startups. The cost of QA and support for multiple OS versions, patches, UI overlays, and hardware form factors - all major realities in Android - have tipped into the prohibitive.
These two TechCrunch pieces intersected quite violently - of the three "best of" applications I tried to install, all three of them worked on my phone (Droid X), only one ONE of then even installed on my Android tablet (Galaxy Tab 10.1) and well, I'll have to go to another app store to see if they work on my Kindle. Yet these are all Android devices.
At that point, I was motivated to see if they had an iPad version. That would only take one step, rather than three. (Go ahead and make the point I'm not an average user because I have all these gadgets - the problem is only worse for the person who only has a Galaxy Tab or a Kindle and can't figure out why their "Android" apps won't work).
Reading nearly any App Store, er Market (you know what I mean. For Android. Wait, I mean, the Google one, not the Amazon Appstore on Android. URGH...) review has at least one "This piece of crap app doesn't work on my Galaxy IV-R27 Turbo!" - this got so serious, reviews in the Market now includes the model and version of the reviewer. Want to be really scared as a developer? Just scroll through a few pages like this:
At this point, I switched my opinion. This is not a problem for developers anymore. It's a consumer problem; because developers, frankly, gave up.
The problem of Android fragmentation is not a problem for most developers. I'd argue that today the majority of Android developers (remembering that the majority is still the small shop/individual, not a major corporation) don't even care anymore, and are not really trying to solve the problem. It's beyond their ability do manage, profitably.
Don't believe me? Don't believe the statement about "most are still small shop/individuals")? Okay, we'll do this your way. Download Google+ or any of the "30 great" Google apps for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Six month later, and with the exception of GMail, they are still all simply scaled up versions of their phone versions, not taking advantage of any Android-Honeycomb futures, not attempting to deal with even the most basic fragmentation. And this is Google. Most apps from other publishers won't even install.
If this is true of the top applications for 2011, it's scary to think how many people opened an Android-based Christmas gift yesterday, and are now wondering why they can't install an app, or why a certain service doesn't work for them but works on their friend's devices. How do you even start to explain that to a consumer?
This is a consumer problem, which will, over time, harm Android distribution, and in turn, harm developer brands. Eventually, that will lead to developers leaving the platform, unless it's addressed, quickly. Putting this genie back in the bottle is going to be the biggest challenges Google has faced, if not the biggest.
The negative impact on brands will cause publishers enough pain that they will need to figure out some path to avoid bad reviews, upset customers, and frustrated development teams. This cannot be solved with volume alone, because the volume numbers do not accuratley represent the market opportunity for a developer. They simply do not account for the overhead of fragmentation. The emperor has no clothes, and it's painfully obvious.
The only upside I see? There is a huge startup opportunity here: if you can build a Selenium-like product for developers, and a process for managing fragmentation issues, you can translate those market numbers to profitable releases across multiple versions. All of a sudden those market graphs really translate to dollars. Might be the best Android app yet.
Friday, October 7, 2011
My Steve Jobs Story
(Originally posted on G+, here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104945599561982033177/posts/Ggi4Ev1XVxL)
Working at Apple was my dream job - I wanted to work there, and specifically for Steve Jobs, since I could remember. Some kids want to be firemen. I wanted to be a programmer at Apple. I pretended to be sick so I could stay home from elementary school to write code. My ][e was my prized possession, and later an early Mac.
By a stroke of hard work and a little luck, I got recruited out of college all the way from east coast to come work for Apple, joining the MacApp team. Even though Steve had long been gone, it was still my dream job. To be very, very specific, I wanted to go work on the Knowledge Navigator. Since that job didn't exist (yet! Siri, way to go!) I took the MacApp job, as it allowed me to work on nearly everything that was coming out, new OS features and hardware, and mold them into something great for developers.
MacApp was a C++ framework that was used by developers to create applications, making the Macintosh Toolbox more accessable. It was a small team, and many of the brightest minds of Apple had worked on the project at some time. It was an incredible honor. I even got stage time at WWDC ('96) co-presenting an entire session on the latest MacApp version. I was far too young to realize how amazing this all was.
As MacApp grew long in the tooth, and the team changed (including the departure of +Greg Friedman to Microsoft, who was an amazing mentor and friend). I looked for a new opportunity, and transferred to the OpenDoc team. It was particularly nice because it was filled with great engineers, and, it was just the other side of the same building. I didn't even have to change where I park, just turn around after getting off the elevator at IL3 (the Apple building looking out on 280), rather than going straight to the frameworks team.
A few months later, the rumors started - we were going to be buying either Be or NeXT, although everyone seemed to think it was Be. I think we couldn't fathom, as a bunch of fanboys, that Steve might be coming home. Either way, an Apple icon was coming back (Jean-Louis Gasse is no Steve Jobs, but he had a "Apple Reputation", and it was particularly interesting, since Scully hand-picked Gasse so it was Jobs/Scully/Gasse Part Duex. People forget that little bit of drama.) Rumors also swirled that we were going to be bought by Sun, so it was hard to make sense of it all.
Without droning on about my personal history, Steve Jobs did come back. And, fairly quickly, killed off OpenDoc. I believe about 5000 people were laid off as projects that didn't fit the vision were shut down, and I was one of the unlucky. During WWDC '97, shutting down so many developer-related projects got a lot of attention, and he took some shots (and gave some out) about killing OpenDoc (see the videos below).
People who know how important being part of Apple was to me ask if I was bitter or angry. Long before Steve passed away, I've always maintained that I was neither of those things. I was sad, and worst of all, I felt like I let down my hero. I realize how cult-like and insane that sounds, but that really his how I felt, and still feel in a weird way. Again, I was far too young to really grasp what it means to get laid off; I didn't have a mortgage or family or anything to worry about, but I bled the Apple colors, and was so disappointed in myself for not delivering something so insanely great that Steve would consider Apple worthy. But, this changed me in a good way.
I'd probably still be an Apple employee if it wasn't for that moment. That's not good or bad, it's just fact. I learned so much in that time period - mostly from "doing it wrong" - about focus, product design, eating your own dogfood, and many more lessons, that it made me who I am, and made me a much better entrepreneur.
It turns out, I wasn't supposed to be at Apple, I was supposed to be an entrepreneur, I was supposed to change healthcare (who knew?!) and how chronic care is delivered. I was supposed to create,build, foster, and sell a great company.
If you look at what we built for health care - insanely focused on the patient experience (even stealing fonts from Apple! Sssh) and on a big vision of changing an impossibly failed system - I got to live my Apple dream, just, elsewhere.
The last few days were sad for me, because it brought back that feeling of never getting closure with those Apple years, that weird, almost parent/child desire to do something that would make my idol proud.
Like so many people I wish I could have said thank you. I've decided the best way to do that is to keep trying to change the world in the ways I think are best, that I'm insanely passionate about, to give back to others in the startup space and help them find that inner insanity, and carry just a little bit of that Apple-ness and Jobs-ness into everything I do.
It won't be about wearing a turtleneck or copying a catch phrase, but about the passion, desire, and willingness to do what I believe in, even when everyone else thinks it might be wrong.
Even though he's literally talking about something that caused great change for me personally, I find the two speeches below perfectly motivating.
(Update 10/8/2011: I just read Sam Altman's blog post on Steve's passing, and he has a sentence that summed up my feelings exactly: "I had disappointed one of the few people I cared about not disappointing" - that may be the trick to Steve's leadership style, to personally set a standard for those who simple want to be the best. Simple, obvious, effective)
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The end of my FitBit love affair
Today marked the end of a relationship. My fitbit and I are breaking up. I loved my fitbit. I told everyone I knew they had to get a fitbit. As someone who has been in the healthcare space for a while, I lauded the ease of use, data integration, and behavior change it could empower. I really believed in the device and the service.
I was not rewarded for that loyalty.
From a "let's learn a lesson here we can apply to start ups" angle (which, by the way, is the most annoying of all angles. Lessons, learning? Meh. Being angry would be easier. But I digress) , they broke two really important rules.
First, they have a very low quality device that sells for $99. For $99, the device should work, all the time.
You want to know my experience? I'm on my 7th device. That's right, SEVEN. That's how much I believed in them. To be fair, one I broke wearing in a ice hockey game, and one I lost. So I've had five that did not work. That's five hundred dollars worth of pedometers. For reference, that's a 16 GB WiFi iPad2 + shipping via a gold-plated Ferrari (not exactly sure about the details of that shipping option).
Before you start to think I'm the only one, the forums and poor Amazon reviews have many, many people all with the same issues and same phrases, over and over: broken, good support, low quality, great when it works. It appears I'm neither the most loyal, or the most frustrated, of their customers. There are a lot of good Amazon reviews as well, but the overwhelming feeling is the product violates most important rule: "just work."
Now, to be fair, Fitbit replaced the last two free of charge. They are making up for quality issues with great customer support; for me, the support team has been top notch. They've told me that this happens a lot, and they are quick to set replacements without a lot of questions, and they are always nice - even when I got a little impatient the last few times. Why was I impatient you ask? When I got my most recent free replacement in the mail, it promptly broke within 24 hours. That's right - within 24 hours, the screen was no longer displaying data, and within 48 hours, it was no longer syncing. Again. After waiting a week for a replacement to come.
Which brings me to lesson number two. Don't make me feel stupid for buying your product.
I know, that sounds simple, right? Well, somewhere around Fitbit number four, friends starting saying "you bought another one of those things? What did you expect?" Remember that relationship analogy? Well, it sticks. You know when your friends say "Really, you're still with (or going back to) him/her? What did you expect?" - and then, when the same thing that always happens, happens again, you feel like a moron. Well, today, I feel like a moron. Maybe I thought number seven would be lucky. I can't explain it.
The good news is, there are many new startups on the horizon, with products like the Basis Watch and the Jawbone Up looking like worthy competitors, or at least something else to try to offset my disappointment. Even different failure would be easier to take than the same thing, over and over. Maybe they will work, maybe they won't - but my fierce loyalty to Fitbit has eroded to the point that it's time to look elsewhere. If they actually send me a replacement that works for more than a month, I'll post an update to this entry. I really do want them to succeed.
Today, ironically, they launched an upgraded device, the FitBit ultra. It not only brings you choices of color (blue! plum!), but improved sensing. TechCrunch wrote a not-so-glowing review today, but for me, it's simple. You know what would be Ultra? One that worked.
Update 10/4/2011: - Fitbit offered to return my money, or provide me a new Ultra device, if I send back the broken devices to their support team. Given I've been through this process with them for a while, this seems like a proactive and very fair response, and I was a little shocked at the offer of a financial return. Like I've said, the support team has been great, but that doesn't make up for all the issues. That said, it does make it hard to leave.
I was not rewarded for that loyalty.
From a "let's learn a lesson here we can apply to start ups" angle (which, by the way, is the most annoying of all angles. Lessons, learning? Meh. Being angry would be easier. But I digress) , they broke two really important rules.
First, they have a very low quality device that sells for $99. For $99, the device should work, all the time.
You want to know my experience? I'm on my 7th device. That's right, SEVEN. That's how much I believed in them. To be fair, one I broke wearing in a ice hockey game, and one I lost. So I've had five that did not work. That's five hundred dollars worth of pedometers. For reference, that's a 16 GB WiFi iPad2 + shipping via a gold-plated Ferrari (not exactly sure about the details of that shipping option).
Before you start to think I'm the only one, the forums and poor Amazon reviews have many, many people all with the same issues and same phrases, over and over: broken, good support, low quality, great when it works. It appears I'm neither the most loyal, or the most frustrated, of their customers. There are a lot of good Amazon reviews as well, but the overwhelming feeling is the product violates most important rule: "just work."
Now, to be fair, Fitbit replaced the last two free of charge. They are making up for quality issues with great customer support; for me, the support team has been top notch. They've told me that this happens a lot, and they are quick to set replacements without a lot of questions, and they are always nice - even when I got a little impatient the last few times. Why was I impatient you ask? When I got my most recent free replacement in the mail, it promptly broke within 24 hours. That's right - within 24 hours, the screen was no longer displaying data, and within 48 hours, it was no longer syncing. Again. After waiting a week for a replacement to come.
Which brings me to lesson number two. Don't make me feel stupid for buying your product.
I know, that sounds simple, right? Well, somewhere around Fitbit number four, friends starting saying "you bought another one of those things? What did you expect?" Remember that relationship analogy? Well, it sticks. You know when your friends say "Really, you're still with (or going back to) him/her? What did you expect?" - and then, when the same thing that always happens, happens again, you feel like a moron. Well, today, I feel like a moron. Maybe I thought number seven would be lucky. I can't explain it.
The good news is, there are many new startups on the horizon, with products like the Basis Watch and the Jawbone Up looking like worthy competitors, or at least something else to try to offset my disappointment. Even different failure would be easier to take than the same thing, over and over. Maybe they will work, maybe they won't - but my fierce loyalty to Fitbit has eroded to the point that it's time to look elsewhere. If they actually send me a replacement that works for more than a month, I'll post an update to this entry. I really do want them to succeed.
Today, ironically, they launched an upgraded device, the FitBit ultra. It not only brings you choices of color (blue! plum!), but improved sensing. TechCrunch wrote a not-so-glowing review today, but for me, it's simple. You know what would be Ultra? One that worked.
Update 10/4/2011: - Fitbit offered to return my money, or provide me a new Ultra device, if I send back the broken devices to their support team. Given I've been through this process with them for a while, this seems like a proactive and very fair response, and I was a little shocked at the offer of a financial return. Like I've said, the support team has been great, but that doesn't make up for all the issues. That said, it does make it hard to leave.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
I have found the problem with our Debt Crisis...
....it's education.
Take a look at this screen shot from a recent CNN article about the United States getting "booted from the Triple-A debt club".
First, I don't believe this is an actual club. A club should have membership cards, or at least a cool logo for a t-shirt.
Second, I know we've already failed the math part of this test (what's a few trillion, anyway), but it appears we've also failed the geography part of the test as well. Dear lord.
This map can only be explained by one of the following:
(PS, the screen shot is from CNN and is still live as of this posting. The Photoshop awesomeness is all my own)
Update: How Awesome - they updated and fixed the graphic 4 days later! I'm not saying that we (by we, I mean me and the 4 of you that read this) but let's just pretend this was our moment in the sun.
.
Take a look at this screen shot from a recent CNN article about the United States getting "booted from the Triple-A debt club".
First, I don't believe this is an actual club. A club should have membership cards, or at least a cool logo for a t-shirt.
Second, I know we've already failed the math part of this test (what's a few trillion, anyway), but it appears we've also failed the geography part of the test as well. Dear lord.
This map can only be explained by one of the following:
- Sarah Palin really did have a plan.
- Canada was still pissed about the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup, and took Alaska for their own while we slept.
- CNN's editors went through California public schools. (Hint: This is what happens when you slash education funding)
(PS, the screen shot is from CNN and is still live as of this posting. The Photoshop awesomeness is all my own)
Update: How Awesome - they updated and fixed the graphic 4 days later! I'm not saying that we (by we, I mean me and the 4 of you that read this) but let's just pretend this was our moment in the sun.
.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The Great Incubator Debate
Today at the Computer History Museum, Chris Yeh moderated a panel of entrepreneurial thinkers, including Jonathan Abrams, Dave McClure, Adeo Ressi, Kindra Tatarsky, and Cameron Teitelman. The panel was part of the Orrick Total Access series, focused on Startup Incubators.
After listening to the panel and taking some time to consider what I heard, here are my observations and thoughts on the session. I'm unable to squeeze in all the topics here - in particular, addressing the gaps in gender and race of founders needs further discussion.
What is an Incubator
I cannot remember an event where within the first five minutes, everyone on the panel made a concerted effort to distance themselves from the term "incubator". To be fair, Dave McClure did exclaim “we’re an incubator, we embrace the term” after one pass through the panel with everyone explaining why they were not an incubator.
With an unfortunate run of failed experiments in the 1990's, the term incubator takes on a lot of different meanings to people. If you were in Silicon Valley for the "first bubble", you probably wince a bit when you hear the term. If you're under twenty-five, you probably don't care. In either case, it was interesting that each panelist pointed out they are not an incubator, and did so using definitional design of "what is an incubator."
In the end, the debate on definition came down to three main topics - space, funding, and mentor networks. Only one of the participants offered all three of these attributes, although there was great debate if some, or any of them, are requirements to be called an “Incubator”.
Jonathan and Dave provide some of the most amazing space in the Valley in FoundersDen and 500Startups (read the 500Startups blog entry on space). Adeo, Cameron (StartX), and Kindra (Astia) do not provide space.
There was not much debate on the value of co-working or co-location. Having lots of smart, passionate people with different backgrounds, skills and experiences in close proximity creates better startups. Everyone from Mark Suster to Fred Wilson has chimed in on the topic in the past, and great environments like PariSoma, Dogpatch, exist, along with so many others, even if if you are not in an incubator.
For me, space is important. When it’s time to move out of your home office and local Peets, its important to get into high productivity, high-community Co-Working spaces. Jonathan had a lot to share about this point, and how it shaped FoundersDen.
The discussion of space also let to debates of "services", a term I believe that was misunderstood by the audience, and even the panel. In today’s startup world, services are not accounting, legal, and front desk support - which you can get at Plug and Play or Regus rental offices - but having SEO, Marketing, Design, Mobile, and UX experts around, able to help with tough problems; these are the startup services of today.
I think this is one of the fundamental differences between today and the 90's incubator market. Legal, accounting, and other services are important, but to be successful today, it's less about payroll and more about customer aqusistion. I think this is directly attributable to the state of funding. I don't need to worry about payroll services when I raise $25k. I need to worry about getting revenue. In the 1990s, incubated companies were raising $5-10M rounds on ideas (or without ideas!) - so they needed legal and accounting services just to manage the intake.
Frankly, the "support" industry for startups in the late 1990s - from legal to Solaris servers - was also tilted towards funneling big money back into the coffers of established businesses. As the Lean Startup and other movements that value execution over idea have taken hold, and server infrastructure become commodity (Rackspace, Amazon), the needs of the companies are laser focused on execution, revenue, and customers. This is a very good thing.
In the end, I think these market trends lead to the importance of community and mentor networks as the most critical asset that a Incubator can bring a potential applicant. The beauty of FoundersDen is not only an amazing physical space, but a curated community of people interested in helping others. I/O ventures, although not on the panel today, has a similar concept linking amazing co-working spaces, mentorship and incubator models.
It does not mean you cannot be successful without a great space - the mentor network and community is the most important aspect, which you can hear when Adeo explains that he ensures that all founders and mentors in his program have an equity stake in the other program participants. Any effort to keep incentives aligned is a good effort.
So the question to the entrepreneurs in the community is, would you give 5% of your company for amazing space and people, but no funding? I would. I’m lucky to have had an nice exit so money is not the critical aspect, but having an extended team of people, mentors and friends with aligned interests in an amazing space? Priceless.
Metrics and Scale
One of the biggest considerations you can hear, both in their words and in their voices, is the struggle of how to understand and scale the incubator process. In particular, Adeo Ressi and Dave McClure, in very different ways, are quite humble in admitting that they are still trying to figure out the metrics, values, data, and systems to filter the enormous deal-flow, and a process that is providing little repeatability in the process.
Dave often talks about Billy Beane and the Moneyball movement as one of his inspirations (if you have not read his blog post on Moneyball for Startups, please stop reading this and go do it. Now. I'll wait). If that sports reference does not translate well, I'll try to summarize a the entire book in one sentence: Billy Beane is a General Manager who figured out new models and approaches to talent aquisiton in baseball, which let small-market teams compete and excel with big market teams with less revenue.
This is the foundation for 500Startups, the Oakland A's to Sequoia's New York Yankees, but it also goes a bit deeper. What Billy Beane figured out, influenced by brilliant statisticians like Bill James, was how to break down common myths and apply a statistical model to find the best value. The subtitle for the book was "the art of winning an unfair game". That should give you the best idea yet of the fit and strategy of 500Startups.
A startup example - maybe Dave cannot afford Bill Nyguen and the Color team at $41M, but he's betting with the right system he can find the next Bill...before they are "Bill". Remember, the A's found and nurtured Jason Giambi, and later the Yankees overpaid him (Three times as much as Color, to be specific) a few years later. It's not a static state - some today's 500Startups companies will raise gigantic (and in some cases, overvalued) rounds. Dave will have participated in seed, and A rounds, and will let the Yankees take up B and futures.
This is the idea, to find a model, method, or some predictability in what seems to be a very unpredictable market. Specifically, Dave mentioned female founders, the international market, and husband and wife teams that are undervalued today, so he invests in those places. As he said - “I’m not doing this to be nice. It’s good business”.
Adeo is taking a much more scientific method with a testing and review process that he believes will lead to a data-driven approach to finding the best entrepreneurs. Although their methods, process, and outcomes have been challenged, the Startup Genome project and even Y-Combinator have been attempting similar, albeit less rigorous methods, of reviewing and synthesis of data.Cameron has created a filter by requiring you to be part of the Stanford Community, and Kindra requires at least on woman co-founder. These are all filters and methods to try to narrow down overwhelming opportunity.
It shouldn't be any surprise that many of 500Startups companies are in the area of metrics, process optimization (usually email), and related fields. Although he does not embrace it as publically as Adeo, Dave is circling the same topic. What's the signal to help identify great entrepreneurs in all the noise?
The current market, and the forseeable future, past success, market space, concept/execution, networking, and social proof (a reference is a requirement of 500Startups) will still make up the lionshare of successful applicants. It's never been easier to test out your ideas, get customer feedback, blog, execute, and network. As Mark Suster said at the Founders Showcase just a few days ago, in the age of social networking if you can't make a connection, you're probably already in trouble. So while it’s a fine process, it does lead to overwhelming in-flow. There was a time when execution set a high-enough bar as to filter out a large majority of companies that should not be funded. That bar has dropped a bit.
Personally, I'm leery of the purely data-driven approach. I added a Cognitive Psychology degree to Computer Science because I believe in the ideas of social science, but still find the process to be too malleable to believe in it as a sole input. As a startup community, we need to continue to collect and analyze success and failure.
We're currently devoid of a enough data in enough markets, and still struggling with issues of cultural/gender/race bias. Adeo is onto something, and combining his data-driven approach with social proof, execution, and hustle found in the 500Startups methods will be the best filter for another five or ten years, as we gather actionable data we can use to have a more predictable model.
In the end this is still a hits business, be it baseball, music, or startups. There will be misses.
The most important thing for you to do as an entrepreneur is to know the incubator you are applying to, do the research to understand their values, process, and interests, and be sure there is a match with your values and interests. You have a responsibility to contribute to the community, to give back, and to be bigger than something you can be on your own. There are a number of great incubators (or whatever they want to call themselves!) - go make it happen!
After listening to the panel and taking some time to consider what I heard, here are my observations and thoughts on the session. I'm unable to squeeze in all the topics here - in particular, addressing the gaps in gender and race of founders needs further discussion.
What is an Incubator
I cannot remember an event where within the first five minutes, everyone on the panel made a concerted effort to distance themselves from the term "incubator". To be fair, Dave McClure did exclaim “we’re an incubator, we embrace the term” after one pass through the panel with everyone explaining why they were not an incubator.
With an unfortunate run of failed experiments in the 1990's, the term incubator takes on a lot of different meanings to people. If you were in Silicon Valley for the "first bubble", you probably wince a bit when you hear the term. If you're under twenty-five, you probably don't care. In either case, it was interesting that each panelist pointed out they are not an incubator, and did so using definitional design of "what is an incubator."
In the end, the debate on definition came down to three main topics - space, funding, and mentor networks. Only one of the participants offered all three of these attributes, although there was great debate if some, or any of them, are requirements to be called an “Incubator”.
Jonathan and Dave provide some of the most amazing space in the Valley in FoundersDen and 500Startups (read the 500Startups blog entry on space). Adeo, Cameron (StartX), and Kindra (Astia) do not provide space.
There was not much debate on the value of co-working or co-location. Having lots of smart, passionate people with different backgrounds, skills and experiences in close proximity creates better startups. Everyone from Mark Suster to Fred Wilson has chimed in on the topic in the past, and great environments like PariSoma, Dogpatch, exist, along with so many others, even if if you are not in an incubator.
For me, space is important. When it’s time to move out of your home office and local Peets, its important to get into high productivity, high-community Co-Working spaces. Jonathan had a lot to share about this point, and how it shaped FoundersDen.
The discussion of space also let to debates of "services", a term I believe that was misunderstood by the audience, and even the panel. In today’s startup world, services are not accounting, legal, and front desk support - which you can get at Plug and Play or Regus rental offices - but having SEO, Marketing, Design, Mobile, and UX experts around, able to help with tough problems; these are the startup services of today.
I think this is one of the fundamental differences between today and the 90's incubator market. Legal, accounting, and other services are important, but to be successful today, it's less about payroll and more about customer aqusistion. I think this is directly attributable to the state of funding. I don't need to worry about payroll services when I raise $25k. I need to worry about getting revenue. In the 1990s, incubated companies were raising $5-10M rounds on ideas (or without ideas!) - so they needed legal and accounting services just to manage the intake.
Frankly, the "support" industry for startups in the late 1990s - from legal to Solaris servers - was also tilted towards funneling big money back into the coffers of established businesses. As the Lean Startup and other movements that value execution over idea have taken hold, and server infrastructure become commodity (Rackspace, Amazon), the needs of the companies are laser focused on execution, revenue, and customers. This is a very good thing.
In the end, I think these market trends lead to the importance of community and mentor networks as the most critical asset that a Incubator can bring a potential applicant. The beauty of FoundersDen is not only an amazing physical space, but a curated community of people interested in helping others. I/O ventures, although not on the panel today, has a similar concept linking amazing co-working spaces, mentorship and incubator models.
It does not mean you cannot be successful without a great space - the mentor network and community is the most important aspect, which you can hear when Adeo explains that he ensures that all founders and mentors in his program have an equity stake in the other program participants. Any effort to keep incentives aligned is a good effort.
So the question to the entrepreneurs in the community is, would you give 5% of your company for amazing space and people, but no funding? I would. I’m lucky to have had an nice exit so money is not the critical aspect, but having an extended team of people, mentors and friends with aligned interests in an amazing space? Priceless.
Metrics and Scale
One of the biggest considerations you can hear, both in their words and in their voices, is the struggle of how to understand and scale the incubator process. In particular, Adeo Ressi and Dave McClure, in very different ways, are quite humble in admitting that they are still trying to figure out the metrics, values, data, and systems to filter the enormous deal-flow, and a process that is providing little repeatability in the process.
Dave often talks about Billy Beane and the Moneyball movement as one of his inspirations (if you have not read his blog post on Moneyball for Startups, please stop reading this and go do it. Now. I'll wait). If that sports reference does not translate well, I'll try to summarize a the entire book in one sentence: Billy Beane is a General Manager who figured out new models and approaches to talent aquisiton in baseball, which let small-market teams compete and excel with big market teams with less revenue.
This is the foundation for 500Startups, the Oakland A's to Sequoia's New York Yankees, but it also goes a bit deeper. What Billy Beane figured out, influenced by brilliant statisticians like Bill James, was how to break down common myths and apply a statistical model to find the best value. The subtitle for the book was "the art of winning an unfair game". That should give you the best idea yet of the fit and strategy of 500Startups.
A startup example - maybe Dave cannot afford Bill Nyguen and the Color team at $41M, but he's betting with the right system he can find the next Bill...before they are "Bill". Remember, the A's found and nurtured Jason Giambi, and later the Yankees overpaid him (Three times as much as Color, to be specific) a few years later. It's not a static state - some today's 500Startups companies will raise gigantic (and in some cases, overvalued) rounds. Dave will have participated in seed, and A rounds, and will let the Yankees take up B and futures.
This is the idea, to find a model, method, or some predictability in what seems to be a very unpredictable market. Specifically, Dave mentioned female founders, the international market, and husband and wife teams that are undervalued today, so he invests in those places. As he said - “I’m not doing this to be nice. It’s good business”.
Adeo is taking a much more scientific method with a testing and review process that he believes will lead to a data-driven approach to finding the best entrepreneurs. Although their methods, process, and outcomes have been challenged, the Startup Genome project and even Y-Combinator have been attempting similar, albeit less rigorous methods, of reviewing and synthesis of data.Cameron has created a filter by requiring you to be part of the Stanford Community, and Kindra requires at least on woman co-founder. These are all filters and methods to try to narrow down overwhelming opportunity.
It shouldn't be any surprise that many of 500Startups companies are in the area of metrics, process optimization (usually email), and related fields. Although he does not embrace it as publically as Adeo, Dave is circling the same topic. What's the signal to help identify great entrepreneurs in all the noise?
The current market, and the forseeable future, past success, market space, concept/execution, networking, and social proof (a reference is a requirement of 500Startups) will still make up the lionshare of successful applicants. It's never been easier to test out your ideas, get customer feedback, blog, execute, and network. As Mark Suster said at the Founders Showcase just a few days ago, in the age of social networking if you can't make a connection, you're probably already in trouble. So while it’s a fine process, it does lead to overwhelming in-flow. There was a time when execution set a high-enough bar as to filter out a large majority of companies that should not be funded. That bar has dropped a bit.
Personally, I'm leery of the purely data-driven approach. I added a Cognitive Psychology degree to Computer Science because I believe in the ideas of social science, but still find the process to be too malleable to believe in it as a sole input. As a startup community, we need to continue to collect and analyze success and failure.
We're currently devoid of a enough data in enough markets, and still struggling with issues of cultural/gender/race bias. Adeo is onto something, and combining his data-driven approach with social proof, execution, and hustle found in the 500Startups methods will be the best filter for another five or ten years, as we gather actionable data we can use to have a more predictable model.
In the end this is still a hits business, be it baseball, music, or startups. There will be misses.
The most important thing for you to do as an entrepreneur is to know the incubator you are applying to, do the research to understand their values, process, and interests, and be sure there is a match with your values and interests. You have a responsibility to contribute to the community, to give back, and to be bigger than something you can be on your own. There are a number of great incubators (or whatever they want to call themselves!) - go make it happen!
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