Datum - Jay Meattle's Blog http://hepguru.com/blog I love making things happen. Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:17:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 en hourly 1 The Way I Work http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/12/the-way-i-work/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/12/the-way-i-work/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:34:29 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=377

“Music helps me when I’m coding, which is still my priority. When you’re coding, you really have to be in the zone. I’ll listen to a single song, over and over on repeat, like a hundred times.” — Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress and Automattic

Funny, I do the same thing. It makes me more productive.

(source)

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/12/the-way-i-work/feed/ The New Startup Resume http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/05/the-new-startup-resume/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/05/the-new-startup-resume/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:02:04 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=366 Came across this comment thread on Bijan Sabet’s blog today:

Tal: I’m hoping to join a tech company as a programmer or user experience designer, a small startup would be ideal.

bijan: do you have a blog or linkedin account. happy to send your contact info to a few of our portfolio companies. where are you located?

If you’re looking for a startup/any job, and don’t have a LinkedIn account — get one! Also recommend starting a blog if haven’t already.

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/05/the-new-startup-resume/feed/ The Evolving VC Business Model http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/04/the-evolving-vc-business-model/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/04/the-evolving-vc-business-model/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:25:59 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=364

To give a fund’s investors a 20% annual return, the firm needs to triple the money raised within a six-year period, Kopelman said. For a $400 million fund, that means returning $1.2 billion to investors. Since VCs typically don’t want the risk of holding more than 20% of the companies they invest in, they have to help build a few companies with a total of $6 billion in market value. But in the past few years only a handful of companies have sold or gone public for more than $1 billion. “You sit there and say, ‘Holy crap, that model doesn’t work,’ ” said Kopelman.

What’s a venture capitalist to do? For Kopelman and other super angels, the answer is to get small. Super angels still aim for billion-dollar exits, but their model doesn’t hinge on home runs. Instead, they can profit by hitting singles and doubles and reducing their strikeouts.

– Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital in a BusinessWeek interview.

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/04/the-evolving-vc-business-model/feed/ Tribes, Commitment, Movements http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/01/tribes-commitment-movements/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/01/tribes-commitment-movements/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:57:38 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=362

Shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change.

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/06/01/tribes-commitment-movements/feed/ Tech Rock Stars http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/19/tech-rock-stars/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/19/tech-rock-stars/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 05:46:21 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=354

LOL :)

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/19/tech-rock-stars/feed/ Trying to make the world a better place http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/18/trying-to-make-the-world-a-better-place/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/18/trying-to-make-the-world-a-better-place/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 20:37:50 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=352

Thanks @habibh !

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/18/trying-to-make-the-world-a-better-place/feed/ Ballmer on work ethic, leadership, and balance http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/17/ballmer-on-work-ethic-leadership-and-balance/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/17/ballmer-on-work-ethic-leadership-and-balance/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 13:43:49 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=347 Bits of advice from Steven Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft:

On work ethic:

Something that my dad always told me growing up, which is a simple piece of advice that really shaped my approach to life and to business.

My dad worked for Ford for 30 years. When I was a kid, he’d say: “If you’re going to do a job, do a job. If you’re not going to do a job, don’t do a job.” What he meant was, if you really want to accomplish anything, you have to be committed, motivated, tenacious and smart about what you do. That’s really just the essence of the American work ethic, but it’s one of the most important things I ever learned.

Lessons on leadership from growing from 30 employees to 90,000:

I’ve come to believe that to be a great leader, you have to combine thought leadership, business leadership and great people management. I think most people tend to focus more on one of those three. I used to think it was all about thought leadership. Some people think it’s all about your ability to manage people. But the truth is, great leaders have to have a mix of those things.

The most challenging part of his job:

Finding the right balance between optimism and realism. I’m an optimist by nature, and I start from the belief that you can always succeed if you have the right amount of focus combined with the right amount of hard work. So I can get frustrated when progress runs up against issues that should have been anticipated or that simply couldn’t have been foreseen. A realist knows that a certain amount of that is inevitable, but the optimist in me always struggles when progress doesn’t match my expectations.

Read the entire New York Times interview here.

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/17/ballmer-on-work-ethic-leadership-and-balance/feed/ The Open Share Icon http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/06/the-open-share-icon/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/06/the-open-share-icon/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 14:26:06 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=345 What is the Open Share Icon? The Open Share Icon is designed to help users easily identify shareable content. A new, truly open, free and more flexible community-driven icon. The icon is freely available for use in connection with content sharing, in all its forms.

Today, I am pleased to announce that the Open Share Icon has a new website!

Open Share Icon Homepage

Learn more about Open Share Icons here

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/05/06/the-open-share-icon/feed/ Shareaholic v1.7 http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/04/28/shareaholic-v17/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/04/28/shareaholic-v17/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:18:03 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=337 After a lot of hard work, we pushed out Shareaholic v1.7 last week! You can get the latest version of Shareaholic from here, or you if you already have Shareaholic installed, just wait for Firefox to automatically notify you of the update.

If you use the NoScript Firefox Add-on, please make sure you read this.

If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please do let us know. We’d love your feedback. A big thank you to you for sticking with us in our journey to make Shareaholic simply the best way to share stuff online.

Learn more about Shareaholic v1.7 here!

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/04/28/shareaholic-v17/feed/ The Hulu Century http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/31/the-hulu-century/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/31/the-hulu-century/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:32:06 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=325 Thank you, Hulu! I visit Hulu at least twice a week, if not more.

hulu_century1

hulu_century2

hulu_century3

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/31/the-hulu-century/feed/ Negril, Jamaica http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/30/negril-jamaica/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/30/negril-jamaica/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:55:38 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=316 26-29th March 2009 - good times with @gramblings @jasonreuben @zacharybk. Rawssspecting manners mon :)

negril_jamaica_1

negril_jamaica_2

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/30/negril-jamaica/feed/ MIX09, Las Vegas, Add-on-Con, Shareaholic, Keynotes http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/24/mix09-las-vegas-add-on-con-shareaholic-keynotes/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/24/mix09-las-vegas-add-on-con-shareaholic-keynotes/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:33:23 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=312 Last week I attended the MIX09 conference in Las Vegas. At the conference, Microsoft announced the release of its next major web browser - Internet Explorer 8. Read all about it here.

I stitched together this short 02:53 video from the main keynote recording. Hope you like it!
Full keynote video can be viewed here.

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/24/mix09-las-vegas-add-on-con-shareaholic-keynotes/feed/ Watch: How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/23/how-to-grow-your-own-fresh-air/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/23/how-to-grow-your-own-fresh-air/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:35:15 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=305 ted_talk_video_watchnow
(Recorded at TED U 2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 04:04.)

TED LINK: Why you should listen to him >>
Get the slide deck from this talk >>

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/23/how-to-grow-your-own-fresh-air/feed/ Shareaholic Accelerator for Internet Explorer 8 http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/19/shareaholic-accelerator-for-internet-explorer-8/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/19/shareaholic-accelerator-for-internet-explorer-8/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:39:42 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=302 Similar to Shareaholic for Firefox, Shareaholic Accelerator for IE8 enables you to quickly, and very easily share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages via a wide array of your favorite web 2.0 social networking, bookmarking, blogging, and e-mail services from Internet Explorer 8.

IE8 users, get it now! –


Shareaholic Accelerator for IE8

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/19/shareaholic-accelerator-for-internet-explorer-8/feed/ FlipKey - applying web 2.0 principles to an underserved market http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/13/flipkey-applying-web-20-principles-to-an-underserved-market/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/13/flipkey-applying-web-20-principles-to-an-underserved-market/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:25:52 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=277 It was great catching up with TJ last night. TJ and I worked closely together on Compete.com from inception to launch. He also taught me a lot when I was at Compete, and I thank him every day for those seemingly small, but significantly valuable life/work lessons that stuck.

TJ is now one of FlipKey’s co-founders. FlipKey was conceived with the basic idea of applying web 2.0 principles to under served markets — in their case vacation rentals.

TripAdvisor invested in FlipKey last year, and it’s great to see how well they’re doing. TripAdvisor now includes FlipKey reviews on its own network of sites, which attract over 30 million visitors a month worldwide.

The big challenge with UGC is reaching critical mass quickly. FlipKey took an alternative approach compared to its parent TripAdvisor. Rather than offering an open review system where consumers were required to find the site and home/accomodation they stayed in to leave a review, FlipKey went directly to the source (the rental management companies) and created a Reputation Manager that invites confirmed past guests via an email to leave a review. This also ensured higher quality of reviews, as the reviewer is guaranteed to have actually stayed at the vacation rental. Smart.

Last night we also brainstormed some _big_ ideas for Shareaholic, which took me right back to when compete.com was hatched — lots more on that soon :)

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/13/flipkey-applying-web-20-principles-to-an-underserved-market/feed/ Can Digg keep up with Facebook’s growth? So far it surprisingly has, and here are the stats to prove it. http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/06/can-digg-keep-up-with-facebooks-growth/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/06/can-digg-keep-up-with-facebooks-growth/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:22:57 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=263 Below is Digg and Facebook’s monthly Unique Visitor chart going all the way back to the month they were launched. After looking at the first chart, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that Facebook has been growing faster than Digg (isn’t so), so before you do, make sure you take a look at all the charts in this post.

The chart below overlays the same Facebook vs. Digg’s traffic data to their respective launch month’s:

  • In their first 4 years of existence, Digg and Facebook have very similar curves
  • Digg traffic has been greater than Facebook’s 33 out of 51 months (65%)

Facebook’s recent growth and expansion strategies are paying off in a big big way. It is going to take a special effort from Digg to continue keep pace with and beating Facebook, a leap of imagination if you will. Facebook doubled traffic in its 5th year of existence, going from 28,487,293 to 73,787,766 unique visitors. Can Digg do the same in its fifth year?

Will Kevin Rose+team at Digg be able to innovate at the pace that is required? Innovation certainly beats size when in the battle to grow attention. Digg has a lot going for them, but only time will tell how ultimately successful and innovative they will be. I’ll certainly be watching intently :)

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/06/can-digg-keep-up-with-facebooks-growth/feed/ Shareaholic limited-edition laptop stickers now available! http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/04/shareaholic-limited-edition-laptop-stickers-now-available/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/04/shareaholic-limited-edition-laptop-stickers-now-available/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:55:11 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=262 Shareaholic Stickers #2

Find out how to get one here.

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/04/shareaholic-limited-edition-laptop-stickers-now-available/feed/ Non-linear paths & leaps of imagination http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/01/non-linear-paths/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/01/non-linear-paths/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:42:08 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=261

“Linear analysis will get you a much-changed caterpillar but it won’t get you a butterfly. For that you need a leap of imagination.”

– Robert Hutchings, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the cover letter for Mapping the Global Future (National Intelligence Council 2004)

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/03/01/non-linear-paths/feed/ Validation http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/02/28/validation/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/02/28/validation/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:46:53 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=260

“Validation” is a short film, a fable about the magic of free parking. It’s about much much more than just parking!

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/02/28/validation/feed/ My Dad @ TED2009 :) http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/02/04/my-dad-ted2009/ http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/02/04/my-dad-ted2009/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:38:14 +0000 Jay Meattle http://hepguru.com/blog/?p=259

On the TED Official Blog | Talk details here

Share/Save

]]> http://hepguru.com/blog/2009/02/04/my-dad-ted2009/feed/