The Hidden Formula for Success
I used to complain at least internally (and probably used it as a pathetic internalised rationalisation for bad behaviour) that I didnt use my brain in the corporatesphere. In a startup its the opposite : You use 110% of your brain, and usually come up short. Again and again.
Any of the non stoopid ideas are also often redundant as 110% of resources are focused on fixing indexing and speed issues, not to mention the 115,000+ splogs that have applied to be in our little Aussie Made engine and structured blogging platform.
Any spare technical resources in a startup are then allocated to (revenue attributed) bug fixing projects : And before you know it; It's the end of the week which culminates in Melbourne losing their 2nd final last night to the Dockers. It was so close you could touch it, but Fremantle played a perfect 4 quarter offensive game and it was over.
So I'm drawing a line in the sand and it's a new day/week today. And Rye (my other local team) is playing off in the grand final at Frankston. Evan Williams comments are so true from an entrepreneur, it's easy to say "i'll have what he's having" - well um, not that you would want to order the pain of the startup. But someone who wants a real challenge there is no better game.
Evan captures the essence of knowing the end game while fighting in the trenches. You are fighting because you believe that when you came out the other end, and the murkiness subsides, and the resources stockpile, you got to the right place, not a misadvertised holiday. My favourite one reported by Om : “It turns out long term is not soon enough for a startup if you’re trying to get a foothold.” These are pretty good too :
“Trying to build too much”
“Not building for people like ourselves”
“Not adjusting fast enough”
“Raising too much money too early”
“Not listening to my gut”
The great thing about 1.0 though is the case studies of what takes success, and empirical lessons on successful online ventures : Downunder examples of profitable companies with 130-250 employees and market caps in the hundreds of millions and billions include Hitwise, Carsales, and Seek - All of these have always been very focused businesses attacking large economic markets, which they have ended up leading with continued profitable growth.
Assuming you have the product strategy and focus, the big elephant in the room is technical execution. New technology is great, but that also means especially in Australia, not everyone is at a cafe coding away the next web 2.0 app and an expert in RSS, Blogs, Ajax and the like. You just dont have the same resource pool to draw on face to face. Unless you hunt and build relationships with trust. It's hard.
Companies that get their people dynamics right have a huge headstart, and very few really successful companies arent great peoplewise topdown and bottomup. BusinessWeek have an interesting if expected profile on Apple's designer Jon Ive (and his team of 12 industrial design mavericks), someone who obviously has a got a great formula for product design, which is protected very strongly. Interesting too that Yahoo is setting up an incubation arm around the same ideas.
BW : "Most of Ive's team live in San Francisco, and rumor has it that the starting salary for the group is around $200,000, some 50% above the industry average. They work together in a large open studio with little personal space but great privacy. Many Apple employees aren't allowed in, for fear they'd catch a glimpse of some upcoming product. A massive sound system pumps up the music. Ive invests his design dollars in state-of-the-art prototyping equipment, not large numbers of people. And his design process revolves around intense iteration -- making and remaking models to visualize new concepts."
OK I'm off to the footy. I wouldnt trade what Im doing for something else, especially with the great amount of opportunities locally. And getting the secret source formula is the art in itself. But right now Im going to go see Rye kick Langwarrin's arse.
Any of the non stoopid ideas are also often redundant as 110% of resources are focused on fixing indexing and speed issues, not to mention the 115,000+ splogs that have applied to be in our little Aussie Made engine and structured blogging platform.
Any spare technical resources in a startup are then allocated to (revenue attributed) bug fixing projects : And before you know it; It's the end of the week which culminates in Melbourne losing their 2nd final last night to the Dockers. It was so close you could touch it, but Fremantle played a perfect 4 quarter offensive game and it was over.
So I'm drawing a line in the sand and it's a new day/week today. And Rye (my other local team) is playing off in the grand final at Frankston. Evan Williams comments are so true from an entrepreneur, it's easy to say "i'll have what he's having" - well um, not that you would want to order the pain of the startup. But someone who wants a real challenge there is no better game.
Evan captures the essence of knowing the end game while fighting in the trenches. You are fighting because you believe that when you came out the other end, and the murkiness subsides, and the resources stockpile, you got to the right place, not a misadvertised holiday. My favourite one reported by Om : “It turns out long term is not soon enough for a startup if you’re trying to get a foothold.” These are pretty good too :
“Trying to build too much”
“Not building for people like ourselves”
“Not adjusting fast enough”
“Raising too much money too early”
“Not listening to my gut”
The great thing about 1.0 though is the case studies of what takes success, and empirical lessons on successful online ventures : Downunder examples of profitable companies with 130-250 employees and market caps in the hundreds of millions and billions include Hitwise, Carsales, and Seek - All of these have always been very focused businesses attacking large economic markets, which they have ended up leading with continued profitable growth.
Assuming you have the product strategy and focus, the big elephant in the room is technical execution. New technology is great, but that also means especially in Australia, not everyone is at a cafe coding away the next web 2.0 app and an expert in RSS, Blogs, Ajax and the like. You just dont have the same resource pool to draw on face to face. Unless you hunt and build relationships with trust. It's hard.
Companies that get their people dynamics right have a huge headstart, and very few really successful companies arent great peoplewise topdown and bottomup. BusinessWeek have an interesting if expected profile on Apple's designer Jon Ive (and his team of 12 industrial design mavericks), someone who obviously has a got a great formula for product design, which is protected very strongly. Interesting too that Yahoo is setting up an incubation arm around the same ideas.
BW : "Most of Ive's team live in San Francisco, and rumor has it that the starting salary for the group is around $200,000, some 50% above the industry average. They work together in a large open studio with little personal space but great privacy. Many Apple employees aren't allowed in, for fear they'd catch a glimpse of some upcoming product. A massive sound system pumps up the music. Ive invests his design dollars in state-of-the-art prototyping equipment, not large numbers of people. And his design process revolves around intense iteration -- making and remaking models to visualize new concepts."
OK I'm off to the footy. I wouldnt trade what Im doing for something else, especially with the great amount of opportunities locally. And getting the secret source formula is the art in itself. But right now Im going to go see Rye kick Langwarrin's arse.
posted by redbarren at 11:13 AM
1 Comments:
There was nothing original or creative about Seek or Hitwise. They both copied other groups that were already doing the same thing years before.
What they were both very focused on is sales and marketing.
So the lesson if anything from both of them is raise money, copy someone else and sell the shit out of it. Whatever you do don't try to be original.
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