Some, or really most advocates of this theory will participate in some shape or form of knowledge transfer of belief in problem identification onto armies of wide eyed wannabe entrepreneurs. I wish they’d stop, because it’s phooey, shenanigans and quite frankly bollocks.

Why? Two reasons. Some of the most innovative products (and mind you not all) don’t solve problems, they provide value instead, and by looking first at problem identification you limit yourself to the scope of what’s already out there, effectively blocking you from making something completely new, unique and phenomenal.

Don’t buy it? Fine, let’s look at a product examples.

Example numero uno, and only uno cause this is gonna be a quick one. Twitter.

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that there was a deep rooted underlying need to broadcast 140 characters in February 2006 via non SMS / Text message means? The answer is no, and the longer answer is noooooooooo!

Proponents of the problem ideology, will claim that it was solving a communication issue, that people were writing too much on blogs, and it needed to be less. Truth is, you can make a case for anything, i.e. read this Quora Link, it’s short. But the honest truth (and unless Evan Williams tells me otherwise) is that they just built some cool shit.

Why did it work? Because it was riddled with the V word. Value. There was massive value in broadcasting a message that limited you to the character limit in a SMS, but on the webs.

What was that value? Unclear at launch, let’s put it that way, but people have a fun way of brining ingenuity and discovering most excellent uses for awesome things, and now, Twitter is a news reader, a conversation medium, a broadcast network, a popularity contest, et al., a dynamic and robust platform that provides tantamount value to masses of individuals.

But what if Twitter & Co. was devised initially as a solution to a problem? What if it were devised as say a “social news reader” – problem, your friends and you have similar interests, and the web has loads of blogs, how do you find out about the blogs your friends read? You make a website that lets people share the blogs they read via social means.

Lame. Why? It’s extraordinarily limited in scope. Products that are typically engineered to resolve an issue will do just that, they may have sustainable business models, they may even be profitable, but they’re never going to be game changers.

Since we’re on the topic of Twitter, I reckon we ought to look as well at a new product launched by a pretty big player, Google+. You see Google + was phenomenally engineered to fill the gap between Facebook and Twitter, case in deck that shows exactly how Google+ was contrived and positioned.

And as for what it does, it does well (or poorly depending depending what you’re studying), it fits into this strangely ambiguous space, between the interest layer and social layer. But is it really cool shit? Robert Scoble seems to think so, but I don’t. It just misses something, and that something is it’s not organic, it’s a platform that was engineered to fill a weird gap in the market (or to get Google into the social game), but it wasn’t built with “cool shit” in mind, the product is just too analytically devised, and it will never have the scope or reach or ingenuity of Twitter, because even Google’s $10+ bn in cash just can’t buy that certain Je ne sais quoi.

We recently had the chance to chat with Nathan Roth, CEO of Badger Media Inc. about their upcoming release of Badger, a new app that lets users share photos around interests. The app in itself is something completely new and innovative in the ever growing sea of social picture sharing applications, that for the most part don’t do much aside from sharing photos. Badger is different, it creates communities around the interests that people have, and lets people connect though their common likes, and more importantly in this social-location oriented market also around place.

How did you come up with the idea for your company?

I was at ITP and a former iteration of Badger was my thesis project. We thought about icons, what they mean, and how to initiate new behaviors around those icons. Especially with the ever growing prominence of mobile technologies we saw a great possibility not only in fostering conversation, but also human interactions around those things that people find most important to them. We looked at varying icons, and eventually settled on badges due to their deep rooted significance in western culture.

Any milestones that you’d like to share?

Yes, after building the initial prototype of Badger, we headed down to South by Southwest, a festival in Austin TX, to see if the platform could gain any clout. At the time we only had very limited MMS functionality, and the entire submission process was archaic in comparison to what we have today. It was enough however to get us into a Tech Stars affiliated program and brought us to where we are today, on the brink of app launch.

Can you tell us a bit about the team?

Sure, it’s composed of three guys including myself. None of us really knew how to code when we started this project, but the thing about coding is it’s pretty logical, and we just started hacking at it. I think the team is well balanced overall, as it’s myself, I have a background in anthropology, Oscar, who I met at ITP, he ample agency and graphic design experience, and J, who brought the whole business side of things to team. The funny thing is we all contribute to the technology in different ways, but really have no formal training.

Any advice to pass on to budding entrepreneurs?

Just go for it, if you don’t know how to do something, just learn it, and if you think your product isn’t ready for launch, launch anyway, you can always make adjustments as you go along the way, but one thing for certain is, plan, not for others, but for yourself. We didn’t plan in the beginning and it definitely set us back a bit.

Badger will be launching their iOS App very soon, so be sure to check them out, and spread the word on this great and innovative new startup out of NYC.

Link: http://playbadger.com
Twitter: @playbadger
iTunes App – Badger *

When you think of New Orleans the first things that typically pop into head are Mardi Gras, Katrina, Music, and perhaps Crawfish.

The city itself was devastated after hurricane Katrina, and in many ways what is happening in NOLA now can be described as a phoenix rising form the ashes.  A vibrant start-up and technology scene is taking root and starting to flourish.

Typically a distant afterthought for New Orleans, registered Louisiana start-ups in the digital media space are now eligible for a 25% tax credit on all expenditures made within the state, better yet, hire local and you can add another 10%.

This initiative stems from the success that a similar tax credit for film had on the state’s GDP. In 2010 over a billion dollars were spent by the film industry in New Orleans (NOLA). Whether digital media credits will have the same impact on the city as film credits had is yet to be seen but there are a number of people and groups pushing for the industry to develop in the region.

Building From the Ground Up

One of the groups pushing for NOLA is the Tech Stars Network, well known for bringing entrepreneurial accelerators to many a region, and one of it’s newest members is Launch Pad Ignition, with Chris Schultz spearheading the way to build a sustainable tech industry in the city.

But what about the companies? Some start-ups to follow are LiveSet, Dydra, Kin.io who will pitch in front of such Tier 1 VC firms as AOL Ventures and First Round Capital come May. Better yet, the programme managed to bring in companies from NYC (Badger), and the Valley (Game Builder Studio) as well as one international company (Rayku), to note Dydra is also half German.

Then there’s also the Idea Village an incubator focused on generating more entrepreneurial activity in the city. Sure NY has a few of these, but NY is also 8million people, NOLA, a mere 350k.

Financing Available

Louisiana’s financing situation has historically been in either industry or oil, but such initiatives as the New Orleans Startup Fund, and South Coast Angels increased interest in the tech space means there is enough money to get these companies though a series A, and interest from tier one VC’s on both coasts proves there may be worthwhile investments to be made in the swamp yet.

To sum up, New Orleans still has a long way to go before it’s on the level of New York or Silicon Valley and in fact the presumption of this crescent city known for its music, lifestyle and party will ever contend with the East / West coast big boys may be laughable at present. But with the biggest brain gain in the country, tax credit incentives, a strong and developed network to capital on both coasts and a drive to refashion the city post Katrina, one would be wary to write off the Silicon Bayou just yet. With that, “Les Bon Temps Roulle”.

Springtime Startups and the Road to Austin

The snow has melted and each following days bring with it that extra little bit of warmth signaling that spring is almost here, and with the arrival of spring comes SXSW (South by South West), an annual conference held in Austin Texas that meshes interactive, music, and film all into one, and does a dang good job of it to boot.

Most recently the cultural impact of the interactive portion of the conference has been superseding its counterparts, and in many ways making a real cultural splash as startups head down to Austin to launch guerilla style campaigns to foster user growth and get the wheels turning on their growth. IF you’ve ever heard of Twitter or Foursquare, you’ll be glad to know their presence at SXSW gave them the extra push to escape their limited market size.

Of course some startups may just launch too early, some may launch because they’ve run out of money, and some may have simply waited too long trying to launch an imperfect service, but one thing is certain, and that is that SXSW is a great place to be if you’re a tech start-upper.

And speaking of start-ups and the interactive portion of the conference, there is one thing which is fairly clear in 2011, a new emergent gaming theme focused not only on video games, but on the consumer focused product. The ScreenBurn panel shows it all, and quite frankly, I’m looking to attending a few of those discussions myself. Chief among them are.

Digital Avatars and Social Perception – Online, has stirred a new behavior in us, and these two panels discuss that behavior

- Avatar Secrets to Real Life & Love – Speaker Ramona Pringle

- E-Race: Avatars, Anonymity and the Virtualization of Identity – Speakers Jeff Yang, Lisa Nakamura, W James Au

Game Design in Consumer Focused Business – A trend that only seems to be growing.

- Beyond Check-Ins: Location Based Game Design – Speakers John-Paul Walton, Zach Saul

- Power of Socially-Interactive Content in Virtual Environments – Speaker Jon Goldman

Of course there are more panels focused on gaming and if you’d like you can see them all here, but before wrapping this up, just wanted to add two last things, one SXSW Accelerator startup I’m looking forward to seeing is Qonqr a massive mobile real world online game.

And should you be down there yourself try to find the Badger team, and sign up for playbadger.com if you find us, we’ll have something cool for you.

]]> http://f3fundit.com/blog/games-take-over-at-sxsw-interactive/feed/ 0 http://f3fundit.com/blog/why-current-location-based-services-wont-last/ http://f3fundit.com/blog/why-current-location-based-services-wont-last/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 21:06:01 +0000 Jacek Grebski http://f3fundit.com/?p=1758

LBS (Location Based Services) are taking off like wildfire, from your foursquares, to gowallas, loopts, to the newly revamped google latitude (well overdue mind you), it seems that LBS is here to stay. After all, now that a large portion of the population owns devices which allow for location based content delivery, this seems natural.

TROUBLE ON THE HORIZON FOR LBS?

Now, not to rain on everyone’s parade, but there is a hefty problem with a number of these new services. They’re static, it’s repeatedly the same experience over and over, and the one of the key traits of most repetitive activities is that they quickly get tiresome. Take foursquare, which claims to now have over 6m users of their service. Great, but a quick look at their traffic data show pretty much the same unique visitor data when they hit 3m users back in August of last year. What’s this mean? That give or take, for each new active user they lose they gain one. For a company this young – generating this much hype, this throws up a HUGE red flag from a strategic point of view. Something is wrong!

If you look at other LBS services, you’ll see similar trend graphs if not even worse case scenarios. Gowalla, is hitting the slumps, path.com had a quick hurrah due to their launch coverage, and preliminary data shows that even photo sharing site intagr.am + copies are starting to waiver in terms of growth.

So the question I suppose as to why these services really aren’t taking off as well as they could / should be is why?

I honestly believe there are a few reasons, of which the most paramount being that many if not most LBS services are one dimensional. Foursquare is basically Dodgeball for smartphones with a gimmick called the “achievement”, but it doesn’t provide any long term sustainable value to the active user. The “Mayorship” more often than not requires active track-able engagement, for a minimum reward.

What about instagr.am? It’s social photo sharing with a few filters, but what about when the gimmick of those filters goes? What will be the draw then? It’s nifty, sure, but is it sustainable? Without sounding like the harbinger of doom and gloom I reckon it’s not.

Another problem with these LBS offerings is that in a large part they’re based on games, don’t get me wrong, I love games, they can be used as multifaceted business applications, but the fundamental problem with designing a product around a game it that it’s limited by the games rule set.

SUSTAINABILITY OF A LBS DEPENDS ON IT’S NEED INTEGRATION

You see the key here is providing the user with a multi-dimensional product, one that evolves with the user, where the purpose it servers is varied, it can’t be something that’s on rails, but open where the users fashion  their own rule set instead of one being provided for them. The current set of LBS products just don’t possess that openness, and don’t fulfill societal needs that would make these products resonant. In fact about the best example of someone doing this right albeit in a rudimentary way would be twitter. In short, these companies need to innovate or die, whether they do is up to them. But me personally, I believe that something big is in the works for LBS.

if you like this article, be sure to follow me on twitter @jgrebski

What can I say, I love trying out new apps, and I especially enjoy trying out new love location-based service (LBS) apps – except it is, when they get it completely and horribly wrong.

There’s little doubt that in the coming years location based services and augmented reality will shape the way we interact with our surroundings, search for products, and share information, and apparently a lot of other people think the same, which is why you tend to hear more and more these days about what’s hopping in LBS on your everyday tech blogs and in even more traditional media, i.e. the WSJ.

But this post isn’t about how great LBS is, it’s about how horrible some people make LBS. Forget Key Success Factors, let’s talk about Key Failure Factors or KFF’s.

What I mean by this is that mobile devices function in such a way that you have a need and then you use that device to fulfill that need. In the example of a photo, you see something cool, you snap that photo, and that need is fulfilled.

A few applications do an excellent job of fulfilling these needs, these applications are simple, they’re intuitive, and sometimes they can even even boas to be fun, and are growing at the rate of the plague in medieval europe. Unfortunately there’s only a handful of these at best, and the rest of the so-called LBS apps fall short of usability, they are in fact – painful – to use.

One such monstrosity is Whrrl, when started by Amazon veterans in ’07 was a forward thinking product indeed, but one that succumbed to what can only be explained as horrible execution. Why? Well it doesn’t make sense. It’s convoluted, it’s complex, it utilizes it’s own jargon that any new user has to learn, and best (or worst) of all, it has – get this – tutorials. Yes, tutorials.

Any phone application, or for that matter website that needs a “tutorial” is inherently flawed. Imagine – a google tutorial. You don’t need one because it’s just that simple to use. Remember web directories. They were fun to navigate weren’t they? And so now they’re done.

The user needs to “get” what’s going on from the moment they load the app / land on the page, if that user doesn’t “get” it within the first 15 seconds, chances or a repeat use / visit are slim to none. So ask yourselves objectively, if I were your regular tom dick or harry, how would I see this app. Would I get it?

If not, there may still be room to save the concept so fear not, here are a few simple ways to ensure that neither you, nor your product winds up as a jargon filled monstrosity understood only by the people who created it. :EXAMPLE:

The most important is. KISS – keep it simple, stupid, and the second is use design thinking, get everyone involved in the initial stages, but ensure there’s a goal and objective. Nothing worse than 40 cooks in the kitchen, and remember, the product should be understood by the technologically speaking lowest common denominator. In my case – my parents. If they get it. We’re good.

Throw your old investments and econ books in the bin, we’re no longer valuing companies on their streams of future revenues, but instead investing in what they deem the future liquidity of those star-ups.

Good? Sure for early investors who can often expect to see 10-30x of their investment come back to them within the context of a few years, but the question is, is this model sustainable?

Take for example Facebook, which was recently valued at $41B, that’s 41 billion in market capitalization of a company, which undeniably, has had one of the, if not the biggest impact on the web since Google. But where are the streams of future cash flows coming from?

With Facebook, it’s more evident, with twitter, that is now valued at $3B the cash flow situation becomes a bit more hazy. Surely the sponsored hash tags bring in marginal revenues for twitter, and I’m sure somewhere it must charge to remove API limits. But these two companies are tech darlings that have created a monumental impact on the dissemination of global information and data. Should they not have a more standard and embedded business model? Should they have not been making money from the onset, or is the value of each user / subscriber so little in today’s tech space, that you need 100 million users+ monthly to turn a profit?

Internet darlings aside, the idea that investing in the proposed liquidity of a company without a business model is silly, what it does is it creates false equity perceptions on the idea that any of these said liquidity investments will result in the invested company becoming the “next big thing”. The sad fact is, that the majority of these liquidity investments will not become twitters and Facebooks of the future, they will require additional capital investments to stay afloat for two, four, six years, and if they do not become large enough to deploy sustainable and scalable business models then what?

They will implode, and the bubble will pop. Just like in ‘00/’01, and just like in ’08, but the repercussions of this bubble will be different. It will put a vice on the flow of private capital into new companies, into companies that can from day one show that scalable and sustainable growth.

Which also begs the question, why are we not seeing mote IPO’s? Surely it would suit a company whose market cap is 41B, just 16B shy of the Ford Motor Company, or even game developer Funcom whose market cap is around 200M to offer a public offering.

Or do we not see these companies offering IPO’s because of the VC secondary markets or simply because their valuations wouldn’t be able to perform under the scrutiny of an efficient market? Food for thought.

The Socialist Entrepreneur

It’s no big surprise that on the European side of the Atlantic you can find many government backed programmes and initiatives that offer start-ups and entrepreneurs various forms of financial assistance.

Call up your local chamber of commerce, ask for entrepreneurial assistance, wait about fifteen minutes on hold and then you’ll receive the info you need to search for, apply and learn more about the different help initiatives coming from your European capital of choice. Do some research, pitch them an idea the way they want to hear it, put a new spin on it, and lo and behold you’ve got €20.000 to run wild with and start your enterprise

On paper, it all sounds grand, and I don’t believe anyone would sneeze at a free 20 thousand, but unlike a market such as say the States, where pretty much the only government aid you’ll get is well… none. You have non for profit initiatives such as SCORE and a handful of others, but you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone giving out free cash.

EU hand holding  vs’ U.S. hard love

While 20k is undeniably nice it does cause a problem withing the European entrepreneurship community that we’re calling the softening of the socialist entrepreneur. Meaning, the European entrepreneur that “knows” he / she will receive state aid is not as hard pressed and driven to succeed as his/her American counterpart, the pressure is simply not there to achieve as much with as little as there is in the Sates.

This lack of pressure on the part of the entrepreneur establishes a more lackadaisical approach towards work output that trickles down to the employees of the start up, and creates inefficiency – this need for milestones and successes before money runs out – is simply not there, the living on the edge, or the one foot in the grave the other on a banana peel mentality does not exist to the same degree as it does in the U.S.

Meaning, that the American entrepreneur is more driven to succeed, because he/she knows that once the money runs out, that’s game. In the EU, these disbursements can take place over time, a pre-market concept can go on hold until c grant is received, or assistance is given from a local governing body. There’s a general lack of that type of “pressure” that is so needed to go the extra mile.

Striking a Balance or Changing Mindsets?

This socialist entrepreneurship is a result of the European mindset. In the U.S., business angel and venture capital activity is much more prolific than it ever was in Europe, and especially so now in 2010. As such, finding capital financing, and even bank financing for a new idea and concept has always been easier in the U.S. than in European markets, be it for cultural reasons – or whatever. As such, governments have stepped in to try and fill that gap that is otherwise lacking in the EU. However, lacking a profit motive, the government initiative inherently fails as it’s purpose is to support enterprise, create jobs, etc… and not to turn a buck.

What needs to happen is a balance, where instead of offering grants, those government backed initiatives in the EU, need to function as totally autonomous investment bodies without any political influence – investing in companies that they see the same high growth potential in as an experienced BA, or VC, but taking on a higher risk than your typical early stage European investor, because those mindsets that have led to Europe trailing the U.S. in terms of investment activity will not change for at least another 40-60 years.

Of the better ways to learn the startup scene is simply to work at one, and while you typically won’t find startup jobs listed on your typical job portal that is not to say those positions are not out there.

With that said, the benefits of working at a startup are many, possible chance at acquiring equity, experience that is then pivotal to start your own company, or a chance to break into venture capital.

While some websites exists that offer a job board for early stage companies, such as http://www.startuphire.com/, http://www.startuply.com/, and http://startupers.com/, they are often flooded with hundreds of applications, and moreso at times of economic trouble like what we’ve seen since 2008.

A better approach to securing a position at a startup, and any position for that matter is networking. If you’re into the scene, chances are you should know people within it, or at least make your way out to some entrepreneurially focused meetings / groups where you’ll not only meet people working within the startup industry of your interest, but it will also allow you to feel out the market as a whole.

Another, and a more novel approach is to focus your search through venture capital funds / groups. More often than not, VC’s will have their portfolio companies listed on their websites, and better yet, some will even have a listing of the jobs that their portfolio companies are looking to fill. Another advantage here is that the above method will allow you to better fine tune your search in terms of industry and expose you to companies that you may not have been previously aware of.

But how do you do it? Call up the VC fund, ask who to speak with at the startup of your choice, then call the startup directly. Make yourself stand out and show that you have what it takes to make it in a diverse and often chaotic environment that requires quick thinking and an innovative approach to problem solving.

BY JACEK GREBSKI

No one said it was easy, and although in business we tend to generally talk about strategies, objectives, finance, and other business related topics, emotions come into play as well, and I would say even more so when you’re trying to get something off the ground than when you’re working for someone else.

One of these emotional issues is burnout, depression, doubt in yourself, your business, what have you, if often comes and goes, and sometimes can be a truly stifling force in your life. Long story short, Entrepreneurship is difficult, some say even a more difficult profession than say Management Consulting, or IB. Whether that’s true is a different story all together but one thing is certain, there will be ups and down on your entrepreneurial journey and getting through the valleys to reach the peaks is an important thing you just need to cope with. Luckily, you’ve got F3FundIt and we’re here to help.

As such, here are five tips that are sure to help you deal with burnout.

Tip 1. Exercise. Not only is is just all around good for your body, but exercise has been proven to help increase dopamine levels in the brain. You know, that stuff that makes you happy. Not only that, it will also make you more energetic, and make you feel all around better.

Make time for it. Seriously. Starting to exercise can be stifling, but once you’re on your way, you’ll be all the more happy for it. Take 30 minutes a day in the morning, and go for a jog. Within a few weeks you’ll see that those valleys are getting smaller and smaller.

Tip 2. Work with others. I know at present four entrepreneurs who are working from home, alone. And it gets lonely. So if you know anyone else starting a business, working from alone from home, etc… set aside a day or two a week where either you work at theirs or they at yours. You’ll see your productivity skyrocket and it will most definitely kill the doldrums of another day working solo.

Tip 3. Get out of the house or office. If you’re working alone or with partner or two, you can always bring your office to a coffee shop, or the library. Free Wi-Fi access is easily accessible and you’ll notice that being out, and changing your scenery can help a lot. This is mostly due to the fact that humans are social animals by nature, and Entrepreneurs – extroverts. Add one and one together, and you need people.

Tip 4. Take a day off. Seems like something out of science fiction, doesn’t it? But unwinding is absolutely necessary. Sometimes when trying to make something out of nothing we forget that we’re not machines, and that we need our R&R. I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs I’ve seen just go go go. The truth is, that a missed e-mail, or phone call can be returned, and the party on the other end won’t think you all the less if it’s not immediate. So, turn off that mobile phone, shut your laptop and have a day for you, your friends, spend time with family. Not only will you feel a hundred times better the following day, but your loved ones will appreciate you for it all the more.

Tip 5. Have a 1 on 1 with yourself. Simply put, ask yourself why you’re down, identify the root of the problem. Is the burnout a result of you working too hard, is it lack of social interaction, or perhaps just stagnation in the markets. It’s hard to sit back and reflect sometimes when you’re constantly on the go, but this reflection will help not only you, but your business. Perhaps, you’re not approaching the market in the right way, perhaps no one has responded to your solicitations because you’re going about it wrong.

Simple, sit back, and think about it, and if you can’t identify the problem ask a friend. More often than not, outsiders can see what we can’t.

That said, live by these tips, they’ve gotten me through some thick and thin, and I’ve personally seen them do wonders for others as well. One thing to remember though. Sometimes the doubt, and exhaustion come from an idea that simply isn’t working, and while many will tell you to relentlessly and eternally pursue your passions. The sad truth is, some ideas aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. In that case, bin it, and start anew.