The New York Times has a fascinating article today about “shanzai phones” in China. These are knockoffs of existing brands but often come with interesting enhancements, such as support for multiple phone numbers and better cameras. Now one might think of a cell phone as something that is very costly to build and not an area in which one would find knockoffs (unlike, say, designer bags). What makes this possible is the network of parts suppliers that exists in China. Almost all of the global b...

The New York Times has a fascinating article today about “shanzai phones” in China. These are knockoffs of existing brands but often come with interesting enhancements, such as support for multiple phone numbers and better cameras. Now one might think of a cell phone as something that is very costly to build and not an area in which one would find knockoffs (unlike, say, designer bags). What makes this possible is the network of parts suppliers that exists in China. Almost all of the global b...

Caring about the security of your site or service is a bit akin to going to the dentist on a regular basis: It’s not pleasant, doesn’t really get you any visible results and costs time and money. Hence the people who care/go regularly are the ones who have had a bad experience by not doing so. In my own case that is now (sadly) true for both my teeth and security. My exposure to computer security issues started in the fall of 1987 when I was a freshman at Harvard. We had a bunch of VAX machin...

Caring about the security of your site or service is a bit akin to going to the dentist on a regular basis: It’s not pleasant, doesn’t really get you any visible results and costs time and money. Hence the people who care/go regularly are the ones who have had a bad experience by not doing so. In my own case that is now (sadly) true for both my teeth and security. My exposure to computer security issues started in the fall of 1987 when I was a freshman at Harvard. We had a bunch of VAX machin...

One of the great things about running any online business is the amount of data that it throws off. In fact, this is now true for pretty much any business, as processes such as supply chain, CRM, etc are all running through systems that collect tons of data. But I am also finding that it is far too easy to get lost in the data:It is easy for discussions to get stuck in the data weeds, for instance, obsessing why a certain conversion rate went up or down relative to the previous month.With eno...

One of the great things about running any online business is the amount of data that it throws off. In fact, this is now true for pretty much any business, as processes such as supply chain, CRM, etc are all running through systems that collect tons of data. But I am also finding that it is far too easy to get lost in the data:It is easy for discussions to get stuck in the data weeds, for instance, obsessing why a certain conversion rate went up or down relative to the previous month.With eno...

Another announcement from last week that got strangely little attention was Amazon’s introduction of EC2 Reserved Instances. Now reserved instances in the cloud may sound like an oxymoron but it is simply guaranteed capacity. You pay an upfront fee for the guarantee that your instance will be availabl and then a lower ongoing usage fee. Amazon clearly has a ton of usage information on EC2 available that let’s them price this fairly aggressively. For instance paying a 1-year guarantee fee redu...

Another announcement from last week that got strangely little attention was Amazon’s introduction of EC2 Reserved Instances. Now reserved instances in the cloud may sound like an oxymoron but it is simply guaranteed capacity. You pay an upfront fee for the guarantee that your instance will be availabl and then a lower ongoing usage fee. Amazon clearly has a ton of usage information on EC2 available that let’s them price this fairly aggressively. For instance paying a 1-year guarantee fee redu...

Yesterday’s piece by Claire Cain Miller in the NYT titled Angels Flee From Tech Start-Ups prompted many blog responses, including one by Roger which also got picked up by Bijan. Here is what it Roger wrote on his blogAre fewer companies getting funded by angels? Of course. Should all the companies that had previously been funded by angels, many of them dabblers, gotten funded? Definitely not. So is value creation in the early-stage space really being inhibited by a dearth of angel investment?...

Yesterday’s piece by Claire Cain Miller in the NYT titled Angels Flee From Tech Start-Ups prompted many blog responses, including one by Roger which also got picked up by Bijan. Here is what it Roger wrote on his blogAre fewer companies getting funded by angels? Of course. Should all the companies that had previously been funded by angels, many of them dabblers, gotten funded? Definitely not. So is value creation in the early-stage space really being inhibited by a dearth of angel investment?...

A while ago I wrote that there is “No Such Thing as Too Much Seed Capital Availability." I have been asked a bunch of questions (offline) by folks about this idea and am speaking about it tonight. The biggest question has been whether this is really an area for government involvement (whether city, state or federal). I believe the answer is an emphatic yes but I want to elaborate on this a bit. The key here is that every startup generates benefits that do not accrue to the investors. In the l...

A while ago I wrote that there is “No Such Thing as Too Much Seed Capital Availability." I have been asked a bunch of questions (offline) by folks about this idea and am speaking about it tonight. The biggest question has been whether this is really an area for government involvement (whether city, state or federal). I believe the answer is an emphatic yes but I want to elaborate on this a bit. The key here is that every startup generates benefits that do not accrue to the investors. In the l...

We are operating in exceptional circumstances in terms of the severity of the economic crisis with a potential for it to get much worse before it gets better. I think of it a bit like being in the deathzone in mountain climbing (something I only know from books). You really don’t want to be making an effort that’s not focused on your goal because every bit of wasted energy endangers your survival. This is true even if you are feeling suprisingly well at the moment. What does acting like a mou...

We are operating in exceptional circumstances in terms of the severity of the economic crisis with a potential for it to get much worse before it gets better. I think of it a bit like being in the deathzone in mountain climbing (something I only know from books). You really don’t want to be making an effort that’s not focused on your goal because every bit of wasted energy endangers your survival. This is true even if you are feeling suprisingly well at the moment. What does acting like a mou...

NYC EDC has been meeting with entrepreneurs, VCs and others from the startup community in New York City to figure out whether it is possible to create more startup jobs. I recently participated in a discussion on this topic and there was an interesting discussion about the availability of seed capital in New York. Several folks made the argument that there is already enough seed capital available and that if more were available it would just mean that businesses get funded that “shouldn’t.” I...

NYC EDC has been meeting with entrepreneurs, VCs and others from the startup community in New York City to figure out whether it is possible to create more startup jobs. I recently participated in a discussion on this topic and there was an interesting discussion about the availability of seed capital in New York. Several folks made the argument that there is already enough seed capital available and that if more were available it would just mean that businesses get funded that “shouldn’t.” I...

I have been thinking a bit about the pros and cons of grinding it out versus transforming a company. By grinding it out I mean pursuing a path on which you are making progress but very slowly. So I am not talking about situations in which a company has not figured out at all what they are doing or is completely failing, but rather a situation in which every bit of growth takes a huge amount of effort. By transforming I mean making a big shift in strategy with the goal of finding a business th...

I have been thinking a bit about the pros and cons of grinding it out versus transforming a company. By grinding it out I mean pursuing a path on which you are making progress but very slowly. So I am not talking about situations in which a company has not figured out at all what they are doing or is completely failing, but rather a situation in which every bit of growth takes a huge amount of effort. By transforming I mean making a big shift in strategy with the goal of finding a business th...

A little while ago during Web 2.0 in New York, I expressed my sense of deja vu about being at a large Internet conference while the markets were imploding. If anything, this sense has deepened over the last couple of weeks. Not so much because there has been more volatility in the markets than ever before, but because there is such a wide range of attitudes among startups about the depth of this crisis and what it means for them. During the dotcom collapse there was a surprising number of ent...

A little while ago during Web 2.0 in New York, I expressed my sense of deja vu about being at a large Internet conference while the markets were imploding. If anything, this sense has deepened over the last couple of weeks. Not so much because there has been more volatility in the markets than ever before, but because there is such a wide range of attitudes among startups about the depth of this crisis and what it means for them. During the dotcom collapse there was a surprising number of ent...