Le Web Mobile

Follow me elsewhere

2010-12-27T16:01:00.002+01:00

As I've stopped writing here, you can follow my updates on the following sites:

twitter: @forcevive

blog - quotes and inspiration: forcevive.net
blog - thoughts and writing: venture artist

company Blog: vicventures blog
company: vicventures

If we've met (and we liked each other ;) feel free to add me on Facebook

Image by vinoth chandar

Personal update: this blog will hibernate.

2010-09-06T18:24:00.000+02:00

Celebrating failure
Back in 2008, during a one year break between the studies in Madrid and Paris and while working in Mexico, I co-founded a technology company. Over the next two years my two associates, who were then based in Ireland and Germany, and I build the services and the company simultaneously to our studies. Working together across time-zones, connected mostly over the Internet, via phone calls and meeting in person every so often for intense retreats, was a formative experience.

Launching with minimum viable products, quickly iterating and integrating our users’ feedback, reaching out to a diverse set of people, overseeing the many aspects of the business, a rather uncompromising time management as well as handling team dynamics were only some of the lessons learned. Fruitlessly chasing venture capital was another: the dominant logic in this Silicon Valley focused industry is to wager on investors. Unfortunately, our own efforts were long directed towards this goal as well. While I did learn something on the way, my main takeout was not to enter this time-consuming game again at such an early stage. Not securing financing was also one of the reasons that ultimately led to the demise of the venture. Although we built a community with several thousand users and a strong partner network, and despite winning awards for the innovative nature of our service as well as being recognized as one of Germany’s promising web and mobile start-ups, the undertaking was jeopardized by disagreements regarding the strategic direction among the founders. Following several failed attempts to realign our visions, we decided to dissolve the company in spring of 2010.

Abandoning our creation, I needed to acknowledge that I had tried but ultimately failed. Failure and the important question of when an entrepreneur should decide to move on is regrettably not something that is prominently and constructively discussed in Europe. Looking back at this experience now, a couple of months later, I would still do it again.

New Ventures
A short break and a couple of months later I am now in the process of building a new venture together with two friends, Habib Lesevic and Vijak Haddadi. We form the core of an entrepreneurial collective, based in London and Berlin, which combines avant-garde venture philosophy with a daring and experimental attitude to the realization of entrepreneurial opportunity. We also love parrots and sailing boats - and as Steve Jobs said: “why join the navy when you can be a pirate?”

We operate as a think tank, network and venture coach, but are also pursuing our own ventures. Starting in 2011, we will deliver an undergraduate module on ‘New Venture Thinking’ at Cass Business School in London. The course introduces our key theories and practices on the entre- preneurial process as well as the generation and identification of entrepreneurial opportunities and presents the ʻvalue creation vs. value captureʼ debate to help the students integrate the role of entrepreneurship in the economic and social environment of today.

In Berlin we were recently chosen to develop one of the Über Lebenskunst initiatives. Über Lebenskunst, supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, is a global call for groundbreaking ideas that bring together culture and sustainability. Our venture, a game-based approach to energy reduction, explores the possibilities of how a game can be built both economically sustainable and engage people playfully in change.

Regarding this blog
Currently, my focus is not on mobile; and while it's not sure that I won't give another opportunity in this industry a shot at a later stage, this blog will hibernate until then. Thanks for reading... and feel free to check out a collection of things that inspire me on www.forcevive.net. Namaste!

Mobile Devices Should be About Neither Mobility nor Devices.

2010-09-05T10:28:00.000+02:00

[...] One universal we may forget is that our bodies are naturally untethered - that is, wireless is our natural state. (...) to be mobile is to be human. Let's get beyond the thrill of mobility; we're only getting closer to what it should have been all along.

[...] Here's another universal: Human beings live in a social world, which they co-create in conversation. Enriching our conversation with shared experiences brings us closer together. (...) So just as "mobility" is a natural state and hence a distinction we can lose, "social networking" is a natural state, to which 50 years of computing is just now catching up.

[...] Mobile devices, check. Social media, check. Next up, shall we have a go at expanding the number of cool apps, or perhaps design for being human? Think about this and then ask what it would mean to carry a thousand friends in your pocket.

Via Paul Pangaro on Interactions November/December 2009.

Why I blog this:

Paul makes a very good point to take into consideration the 'universals' or basic human behavior and long-known artifacts when we design new experiences.

Mozilla: Web Apps vs. Native Apps.

2009-12-19T13:01:00.000+01:00

Trying to get the word out about their mobile browser, Fennec, Mozilla's Jay Sullivan chimes in on the discussion on the future of web applications compared to native applications:

"As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process... I think they'll move to the web."

"In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does."

"We will sync browser tabs in real time. If you have five, 10, 20 tabs open on your PC and something happens and you have to leave, you can pick up where you left off on your phone."

via Simon and pcPro.

Why I blog this:

Rather than giving new insights, Jay's stating the obvious here: native applications are currently very successful and will continue to be in the future but web apps will also be big. Wow, big news.

Of course being polemic helps to get the word out, but stating that 'the web will win' is nonsense. It's not about 'win or loose' at all. The web on mobiles (no matter how it is delivered) will be huge (see Morgan Stanley: 'Mobile Internet twice the size of Desktop Internet' or ABI Research: '5 billion app downloads in 2014'). We are already seeing a fusion of web apps and native apps anyway: native apps pulling data from webservers, browsers within apps, etc.

For developers it's about delivering the best user experience, ease of programming and updating, monetization options and findability of their service. For users, speed, reliability and ease-of-use are very important.

And most importantly, on mobile it's all about catering to the user's one specific, immediate need - not replicating the desktop web experience (i.e. browsing with 20 tabs).

Opinions?

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What others are thinking about this:

Jason Grigsby and Raven Zachary on web apps vs. native apps
Nick Smolney on mobile sites vs mobile apps
Fabrizio Capobianco on a world without the browser
Ilja Laurs on app stores vs the mobile web
Vic Gundotra on the future of app stores
Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia on web apps vs native apps

Web Apps vs. Native Apps: Opinions

2009-12-16T22:43:00.000+01:00

Jason Grigsby (@grigs) of CloudFour says:

"After launching the Obama app, we had people coming to us for native apps every day, but we decided we only wanted to do mobile web apps. Philosophically, I don't see any way that web app technology isn't going to be bigger than distributing apps through an app store. As the demographics of users change, you'll find people aren't going to spend their time browsing the app store. They will go to browse the web and they aren't going to install something unless it's heavily promoted. Who's going to do that? Small businesses are going to need mobile apps if they are going to be found at all."

Raven Zachary (@ravenme) of SmallSociety thinks:

"[Users] already browse the web more than anything else, with the possible exception of listening to music. Apps appeal to consumers in a way that the web simple doesn't today. The first step is getting a great mobile browser into the hands of consumers. That cuts out pretty much all Nokia, Windows Mobile and Blackberry consumers right away. That's a huge portion of the market. That's going to take years to rollout, and for those consumers to adapt. Meanwhile, iPhone app market keeps growing."

via @Sascha and the NYTimes. Highlights by me.

Why I blog this:

Interesting to hear these opinions. While Marshall Kirkpatrick (of RWW) tries to show them as oppositional in the NYT article, both experts actually say the same thing: web apps will be huge on mobiles. The only thing Raven adds is that it'll take time (and quite a bit of that) until web apps will draw level with native apps in terms of user experience. In the meantime: plenty of time for native apps to set the bar very high. Which is good for all of us.

Here's some other opinions that I covered on the same topic:

Nick Smolney on mobile sites vs mobile apps
Fabrizio Capobianco on a world without the browser
Ilja Laurs on app stores vs the mobile web
Vic Gundotra on the future of app stores
Microsoft on web apps vs native apps

Enjoy!

Mobile Apps Roundtable (LeWeb09)

2009-12-09T11:19:00.004+01:00

What about fragmentation?
Across the panel, focus currently is on the iPhone, but other platforms are very important. Great prospects there. But Android will be coming up strong in 2010.
... want to remind you of a quote by Ilja Laurs: 'in 5 yrs we'll only have 5 app stores. to support 10.000 apps you need 10m users. #mobilecontent' (Link)

What about the carriers?
'Not all carriers are equal'. 'There's an incredible fight for visibility and awareness'. Christophe Francois (Orange).
'The company behind Shazam has been around for seven years'. 'Our strategy is to be ubiquitous - and we do this with the carriers and handset manufactures' 'Over time it's about discovery, about differentiation, about raising awareness'. 'In order to go global you have to fully committed: you have to show that your product actually works. Then you have to resource for it (with a significant amount of VC (US$20m+)'. Andrew Lacy (Tapulous).

In-app purchases?
'2/3 of the purchases were 2.99 (other in-app purchase at 0.99)'. 'Conversion rate of in-app purchases was 6% - when we tweeted it it went to 8-10% - this points to the vast potential of in-app purchases'. Shervin Pishevar (Social Gaming Network).

Other tips?
'You need to make sure that your app sustains the load in the first couple of hours.' 'Often, because there's so much content out there, the only way to get noticed is to lower your price'. Christophe Francois (Orange).
'If you make a great application, people will find you. So make great apps!' Andrew Lacy (Tapulous)

What's going to be big?
Location, location, location. And Gaming.

Off to Paris (LeWeb09)

2009-12-06T23:37:00.001+01:00

On Tuesday I'll be heading off to Paris for a couple of days to attend LeWeb09 (more on that below), receive my diploma from ESCP Europe and spend some time with old friends. Very much looking forward to these days.

It'll be my first time at LeWeb. Luckily I'm still a student and wouldn't have Loic and Géraldine generously offered some student tickets, it would have been impossible to go (with a price tag of €1.500, the conference doesn't come in cheap). Thanks a lot for this possibility!

In a blogpost over on the Tagcrumbs blog I made a list of things I'm looking forward to most: two of the sessions at LeWeb (mobile app roundtable and a talk on business models for mobile applications) are especially promising and of course I'll be showcasing and testing the Tagcrumbs iPhone application.

I'm also looking forward to exchanging thoughts, ideas and stories with fellow web and mobile entrepreneurs from all over the world. Meeting people from so many different countries - who all try hard to get their start-ups off the ground or have done so successfully in the past - always opens up great opportunities to better understand where we're heading and what will be next.
Most of all I'd like to learn about the approaches start-ups from other European countries take to successfully establish themselves in the melting pot of languages and cultures that is Europe. And next to celebrating current successes and being inspired by innovative new start-ups this wish is deeply rooted in LeWeb's DNA: connecting European entrepreneurs between themselves and with the rest of the world.
Drop me a line, leave a comment or ping me on Twitter if you'd like to get in touch.

Mobile 2.0 Conference: Twitter List

2009-11-22T22:24:00.000+01:00

I've created a list of those speakers and attendants of the Mobile 2.0 Conference who are using Twitter here: http://bit.ly/listmob20. Let me know if you're attending / speaking but not yet on there (@forcevive).

Conference: Mobile 2.0 Content & Services

2009-11-22T21:15:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, the Mobile 2.0 Conference kicks off in Berlin (venue). The first day is dedicated to a seminar on mobile social networks, followed by two conference days, each broken down ito three major subject areas (day 1: market analysis, mobile internet usage and service development, devices and mobile app stores; day 2: mobile advertising, mobile content, mobile gaming/video/tv).

One talk and a panel discussion look especially promising to everyone interested in the future of mobile - and mobile content in particular:

The future of mobile: presentation by Monty Metzger (of Mocom2020) is taking a look at the big picture and presents findings from his initiative concerning the next 10 years in mobile.

Panel discussion on mobile content with Mo Firouzabadian (Buongiorno), Christophe Hocquet (Founder of Kiboo), Ilja Laurs (GetJar) and Stephen Oman (Changingworlds).

Live updates on the conference on my Twitter account (@forcevive) and on this blog.

Microsoft on Web Apps vs. Native Apps

2009-11-18T14:11:00.003+01:00

Some time ago, I wrote about Vic Gundotra's (Google) and Ilja Laur's (GetJar) views on web apps vs. native applications and the role that the different platforms play (here and here).

Yesterday, Microsoft's chief software architect Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia weighed in on the subject:

It’s not the applications available on the various platforms that will be the differentiators.

All the apps that count will be ported to every one of them [the platforms].

Mobile apps require very little development, so it’s much easier to bring them onto every platform.

It makes sense for many developers to use HTML, especially as it becomes more powerful, but there will always be opportunities for people to build apps that go beyond what standards can do.

via VentureBeat.

The question that arises is: why haven't we seen 'all the apps that count' ported to all platforms yet? Might not be such an easy thing to do. And while there definitely are many mobile apps that require little development (in comparison to web or desktop apps) - might this change in the future? Even if the apps stay simple and restricted to a very specific set of use-cases (which they should on mobile), the number of scenarios that needs to be covered then becomes very big. What I mean: maybe a company doesn't have to support one single app but a range of apps at the same time?

A lively discussion on this topic over at Scoble's blog.

Entrepreneurship: Plan B

2009-10-07T17:48:00.001+02:00

Most new ventures, even those with venture capital backing, share one common characteristic. They fail. But there is a better way to launch new ideas—without wasting years of your time and loads of investors’ money. This better way is about discovering a business model that really works: a Plan B which grows out of the original idea, builds on it, and once it’s in place, enables the business to grow rapidly and prosper.

via Techcrunch Europe

Why I blog this:

Plan A is usually an idea that emerges from something you observe: a behavior, problem or bigger trend.

If you decide to follow your idea and dig deeper into the industry, the necessary technology, the economics, analyze the behavior in more detail – simply ‘live’ with this idea and thoughts for a while – your picture of what is actually going on becomes clearer every day.

Some initial ideas, the A Plans, might get confirmed and develop into successful businesses. Others will have to be abandoned (with or without actually starting a business).

Either way, the result for our entrepreneur always is that she knows more (usually by several magnitudes) about the ‘market’. This might be the reason that we see so many successful B Plans: they might still be bold, but they are also a lot more realistic.

Does this mean that specialists, who know a market intimately are more likely to hit a home run the first time around? I don’t think so, for several reasons… but that’s probably a different discussion.

Thoughts?

A world without the browser

2009-08-01T02:56:00.001+02:00

Where is the world going? To mobile. [...] All with your fingers. All with little apps. All with no mouse. All with an App Store where you can find everything you need. The world is all going to mobile. We will spend more time without the mouse than with it.

This is the Internet era all over again. Back then, we had hundreds of small companies that started with the goal to build web sites. Now, every company wants an iPhone app. You can deliver more value with an app, than you can with a web site. More interactive, more personal, 24/7, in the hands of your customer, with push capabilities.

The result is that every company will have a mobile app, and hundreds of small companies will be created to support it. That you will "navigate" between companies moving from an app to another. That the search engine will not be on a browser, but in the app store (or in the search engine of the app stores, which someone should start developing fast...).

This is going to change the world as we know it. If the browser loses its centrality, ads will go somewhere else. The search engine will be way different. Someone has to invent a platform to link apps one to the other, of course, but the infrastructure is there. It is the engine of the browser itself, with its HTML, AJAX, CSS.

The browser will be swallowed inside the apps. We will have a world without the browser. The future is all of a sudden clear to me. Well, the browser fight looks kind of moot now...

via Fabrizio Capobianco on Mobile Open Source (@fabricapo on Twitter)

Why I blog this:

Fabrizio presents a very interesting vision of one possible future. A mobile future. While I disagree that there will be just a few use cases where it's more efficient to sit down at a desk and use keyboard and mouse, I do agree on his main argument: applications will cover many of the aspects that we are currently using search and websites for.

What I believe is crucial to determine whether a mobile application or the mobile web will be used is this: routine or frequency.

Let me explain: looking up the weather for the region you're living in - or for your current whereabouts - is done most efficiently on an application because you look for this information with a certain frequency (once a day, before you go out on a run, ...). Whenever it's a one-off search (I'm looking for the weather in Oman, because I'm at the airport checking out last-minute deals) you'd probably be better off doing a search on the mobile web for 'weather Oman'... and not download an app for the weather there.

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Related posts (chosen for you manually):

- App Stores vs. the Mobile Web
- App Stores are not the future, says Google

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Image credits go to Miss Rogue on Flickr

Business Model Environment

2009-07-27T23:51:00.005+02:00

Continuously scanning your business model’s environment is important because the economic landscape is driven by growing complexity (e.g. networked business models), increasing uncertainty (e.g. technology innovations) and market disruptions (e.g. new disruptive value propositions). Understanding the changes happening in this environment help you more rapidly adapt your model to shifting external forces.

You should apprehend this environment as a sort of design space. It is a context in which you conceive or adapt your business model by taking into account a number of design drivers (e.g. new customer needs, new technologies, etc.) and design constraints (e.g. regulatory trends, dominant competitors, etc.). This environment should in no way limit your creativity or define your business model upfront. However, it should influence your design choices and help you make more informed decisions.

via Alex Osterwalder on Business Model Design and Innovation

I re-created the schema to include the full description of the business model components for people who are not yet accustomed to the model.

Why I blog this:
The blog post gives an excellent overview on important areas in the environment of a business that influence the business model. I completely agree that it is very important to understand the changes in the environment (where we come from and where we are now) - and the three analyses (competitive, marketing, macroeconomic) let you do this.

To design or re-design a business model not only for the 'Now' but for the future it is even more important to understand where things are heading. Foresight applied to driving trends AND the analyses of the environmental forces is therefore needed.

(0. Evaluation of current business model)

1. Analysis
2. Foresight / Extrapolation
3. Design

-> start over with 0.

Appropos: mobile sites vs. mobile apps

2009-07-23T09:06:00.002+02:00

[...] mobile web is significantly easier to support than a plethora of apps.

Just to make one change for an app (assuming you did it all in-house) requires you to recompile all builds. Then you need to get it recertified and hope your end users all upgrade. If these weren’t in-house, you have to contact the contractor(s) and coordinate this whole process with them.

Alternatively with web, you can fix the issue once, roll it out to all devices at the same and since you do your own quality control, this can all be done much quicker. Not to mention with the web, the user is presented with the latest version every time they visit, so there’s no need to upgrade.

[...]

All it will take is one of the big guys to stop supporting apps, and start pumping some marketing into mobile web and this will begin to gain traction with consumers.

Nick Smolney on the Crisp Voices Blog via @tamega

Why I blog this:

He mentions seven reasons, why to consider mobile sites: portability, upgradability, scalability, cost effectiveness, cross-linking, SEO, getting better every day. Good list.

However I don't agree with Nick's view that pumping some marketing money into mobile web will suffice. He mentions the problem: monetization (see also my blog post on that here). Developers won't flock to developing mobile web apps as they do now to applications. Even if the average revenue on an app in Apple's app store is just 1.000$, the potential to hit a home run is still bigger than on the mobile web.

One Scenario for the Mobile Web

2009-07-23T08:40:00.001+02:00

One scenaria for the mobile web by Howard Rheingold:

The merger of the mobile phone and the internet has not grown anywhere nearly as rapidly as the web precisely because there is someone you have to ask for permission in the mobile world - the network operators. And network operators evolved from regulated monopoly telephony providers, who have done their best to prevent, rather than to facilitate, an internet-like ecology of small and large businesses, heterogeneous media, decentralized control, and a rising economic tide that lifts small boats and threatens huge ships that take a long time to turn. We have yet to see an owner of significant telecommunications network open their network by providing an open application programming interface (api).

on smartmobs.com (via @hbamoba)

Why I blog this:
Interesting take on the evolution and a possible future of the mobile web. How would network's APIs look like - and what could that do for us?

App Stores vs. the Mobile Web

2009-07-20T20:56:00.000+02:00

Ilja Laurs, chief executive of GetJar, a leading independent application store:

"Apps will be as big if not bigger than the internet."

"The full blossom will come in ten years and mobile apps will become as popular as websites are today with consumers."

via BBC News

Why I blog this:

Today we've seen two opposing opinions regarding the future of mobile apps vs. the mobile web. Earlier I wrote about Vic Gundotra stating that the browser is the future while Ilja holds the opposite opinion.

The bias is understandable: an app-store executive is seeing his field blossoming, while web-app-centric Google sees the upside on their side.

In my opinion, both are right. Why?

With ever more powerful mobile phones, an increasing number of app-stores and developers (with monetization options) and a highly improved (even seamless) user experience we'll see mobile apps exploding over the next 3-5 years.

At the same time browsers will become increasingly powerful, interact with the phones' sensors and built-in features that before only apps could touch AND offer offline functionalities.

What's missing? Two things (at least):

Monetization possibilities for web apps other than advertisement. What's good: users currently get used to paying for applications. If the experience is similar - or even better (connecting on- and offline functionalities; full screen launch of the browser) - my bet is that people will be willing to pay for web-apps, too. Packaging is important here though.
Findability. Getting away from the catalogue game of the current app stores, where the top slots take it all (Mr. de Halleux of Playfish is right on this one) is paramount. But I'm sure we'll get there - and see some creative marketing along the way.

Question: will there be a time when we cannot tell apart mobile apps from web apps?

PS: while writing this, Helge posted a comment to the previous post in which he rightly addresses security and privacy concerns when relying on the browser as the access mode. He also mentions the inability of web browsers to achieve the richness any OS offers in terms of GUI. What do you think?

Image credit goes to Ryan Orr

App Stores are not the Future, says Google

2009-07-20T13:12:00.002+02:00

Vic Gundotra, VP Google Engineering:

"What we clearly see happening is a move to incredibly powerful browsers."

"Many, many applications can be delivered through the browser and what that does for our costs is stunning."

"We believe the web has won and over the next several years, the browser, for economic reasons almost, will become the platform that matters and certainly that’s where Google is investing."

"I think Steve [Jobs] really did understand that, over the long term, it would be the web, and I think that’s how things will play out."

via Chris Nuttall, FT.com

Why do I blog this:

The discussion of web apps vs. mobile apps is getting more and more interesting by the day. While discovery (65k apps vs. billions of websites) and local storage/data (e.g. access to phone sensors) are important issues to be considered, the most important is monetization. Most web apps have no established billing system, rather earn cents than dollars (which adds up only if you're Google and the like), while mobile apps do.

Interesting comments over at FT as well.

Mobile Web a Throwback to the 90's

2009-07-18T14:18:00.001+02:00

Researchers at Nielsen Norman Group put people to the test to try to look up everything from movie listings to product reviews on their handsets. The conclusion: The mobile web is about as tough to navigate as traditional websites were 15 years ago.

A study to be released Monday by the researchers — they’re product “usability” experts -- found that the average success rate in completing various tasks on the mobile Internet is just 59%, compared to an average success rate of 80% for websites on a regular PC.

Source: Technology Live via Textually.org

Why I blog this: Interesting to see that the experience of the Internet on the go is still so bad. Speaks for apps that are handset AND task specific. At least until mobile sites become commonplace and handsets are actually usable for surfing the web.

Looking forward to reading the report.

Four Components of a Business Model

2009-05-05T15:02:00.004+02:00

What compelling reason exists for people to give you money? (or votes or donations)

How do you acquire what you're selling for less than it costs to sell it?

What structural insulation do you have from relentless commoditization and a price war?

How will strangers find out about the business and decide to become customers?

via Seth Godin.

Seth describes the four elements a business model needs to address. Number 1 is the value proposition; two is your financials (revenues-cost) and revenue model; three is your infrastructure management, partner network, innovation mechanisms, brand loyalty (is that structure though?); four is your customer interface and marketing efforts.

It's a break down in plain English of what other have called the Nine Business Model Building Blocks:

(via Osterwalder, Pigneur, Tucci; Clarifying Business Models: Origins, Present and Future of the Concept)

Business Models: Just a Way to Sell Stuff?

2009-05-02T23:30:00.002+02:00

[...] the best business model in the world is also the simplest: make stuff that's insanely great.
[...]
The real problem with business model innovation is that it dilutes the incentives to make good stuff in the first place.
[...]
When you can make awesome stuff, you don't need to find "better" ways to sell it.

via Umair Haque on Harvard Business.

I usually think Umair Haque is spot on in his analyses. Although I completely agree with him that the best business model is built around having a product or service that is loved by the users, he's got it wrong when it comes to looking at business models. I'm sure he only wanted to spark a discussion when introducing his polemic argument that a business model equals 'a way to sell stuff' (in the end he's director of the Havas Media Lab, an advisory on 'business model and strategic innovation') but let's take a step back and and see what a business model actually is.

"A business model is a conceptual tool that contains a set of elements and their relationships and allows expressing the business logic of a specific firm. It is a description of the value a company offers to one or several segments of customers and of the architecture of the firm and its network of partners for creating, marketing, and delivering this value and relationship capital, to generate profitable and sustainable revenue streams." (A. Osterwalder, Clarifying business models: Origins, present, and future of the concept, worth a read!)

Clearly, a business model is more than 'selling stuff'. Innovation in business models then means to look for new ways to organize your business (intelligently allocate what you have) to be able to serve your customer in the best way you can while making some money from it (intelligently profit from the value you create).

But does that 'dilute the incentives to make good stuff in the first place'? I don't think so: a business model is at its' core about thinking about the customer and delivering a great product. But it's even more than that: it's the logic that helps a company to build an awesome business around the product it delivers.

... of course not everyone does that - but there are great examples. Look at Apple (and maybe one day Tagcrumbs as well, when we really get started).

Social Web Giants have Problems in Developing Countries

2009-04-29T12:00:00.002+02:00

Services like YouTube and Facebook are distracted by their primary markets. They don’t have the time, the resources, the know-how or the local context needed to figure out what works in a country like Uganda. This creates new opportunities for local entrepreneurs with bright ideas. People who can appreciate local circumstances and innovate the business models that make the difference.

via Ben White, ICT 4 Entrepreneurship

After the controversial article in the NYT ('In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit') there has been a heated discussion on the future of the advertising-based business model for the social web in developing countries. New business models and approaches are desperately needed and I'm sure we'll see them coming from these countries.

A New Kind of Science

2009-04-28T12:00:00.001+02:00

I came across a feature on Stephen Wolfram recently where he talks about his newest service: WolframAlpha, a 'computational knowledge engine'. I was intrigued and dugg a little deeper.

One can always in principle find out how a particular system will behave just by running an experiment and watching what happens. But the great historical successes of theoretical science have tipically revolved around finding mathematical formulas that instead allow one to directly predict the outcome. Yet in effect this relies on being able to shortcut the computational work that the system itself performs.

via Stephen's book: A new kind of science.

Complexity and shortcuts. Reminded me of the current crisis that we're in which in big part is due to shortcuts. So what if you apply this thinking to economics - where we study how societies (made up of many individuals) allocate and manage their resources? Everything that happens in markets, in production or consumption, is determined by the involvement of many individuals, their perspectives on the world and of course the informations that they possess and process when they take decisions. This would be the 'computational work' that the system performs.

Much of economic theory takes shortcuts here. Maybe that's also one of the reasons why the system seems flawed.

Unwinding the Free Business Model

2009-04-27T12:00:00.002+02:00

We’re currently moving through a period of disequilibrium. The prevailing price structures and ways of doing things are unlikely to be viable in the long term. As more eyeballs move to internet connected devices, the supply of advertising inventory is going to grow explosively and it is going to become cheaper and cheaper for advertisers to reach massive audiences or just the right audiences. But as advertising fees decline, web publishers are going to have to find other revenue streams to survive.

via David Evans on Catalyst Code

Although the article takes a closer look at the publishing industry, the same is true for web start-ups relying on advertising as their only business model. What is the 'mixed model' (free + premium content in the publishing space) for your idea?

Rule of Three for Start-ups (by the founder of LinkedIn)

2009-04-26T11:15:00.001+02:00

Every net entrepreneur should explain how they will rise above the noise to attract a massive audience, how they will get to 1m and then 10m users.

They should have a unique value proposition, backed by a product which is sufficiently innovative to distinguish itself from the pack, but not so forward thinking as to alienate the user.

A capital efficient business plan. (via Nic Brisbourne)

With these three elements in place – mass audience, unique value, stable funding – a startup has time to discover where it can make money. [...] The formula is to build an audience with a great product – then secure enough funding to figure out how to make it pay (via Techcrunch)

Interesting thoughts here by Reid Hoffman. With many endeavors on the web it is possible to be very capital efficient (at Tagcrumbs we are living this) to have enough time to build your product, your audience and figure out where you can make money. Once you find this toehold it's time to get some financial backing on board to grow what you have.

Vitamin or Pain Killer? Start-up Thoughts.

2009-04-23T12:45:00.003+02:00

Many products fall into the vitamin category. Things like productivity tools, content aggregators, mashups, utilities, collaboration applications, measurement and monitoring tools, in fact anything that is a tool, development or otherwise, is by definition a vitamin.

Pain killer products are products that solve for a specific pain point. Sometimes the pain is measurable in terms of ROI, winning sales that could not be won before, or satisfying a regulatory requirement.

There is another set of products that are "vitamins" (nice to have) until you feel the pain. Then they become "pain killers" (got to have it). There are actually lots of products that fall into this category.

via Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing.

Don describes a helpful taxonomy for start-ups to think about their product. Depeding on where your product sits, your business has to think about the impacts on (business) functions: marketing, communication and sales efforts - what do you communicate and how? I have also come across the term 'enabler' instead of vitamin as well but I like the image. Flow Ventures proposes a method to find out whether you have a pain killer or vitamin.

The third category sparks a very interesting question as well: what are the events that might change the clients' perception of your products from vitamin to painkiller?