Web X.0

Moneyball - highly recommended

Last week I participated in a roundtable organized by Carmel Ventures, with probably 20-30 entrepreneurs in the room. I recommended they all read Moneyball by Michael Lewis - a book I read a couple of years ago. I think most of the people in the room didn't have a chance to take note of the recommendation, so I'm repeating it here. 

Moneyball is a must-read for any entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with entrepreneurship (it's about baseball), and it's not a very good book (in the literal sense, I mean). 

But if you read it with an entrepreneur state of mind, there are great lessons to be learned... 2 have been particularly useful for me:

1. Look at the same game differently - Most startups compete with many other companies for the same market share. In the online world in particular you are likely to be competing with hugely successful companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc. You can't win by playing their game. But you can absolutely win by playing a different game in the same space. An example that comes to mind is Yelp - while all other yellow pages and review sites are focused on getting readers and selling to advertisers, Yelp seems to be playing a completely different game. It looks like they are focused obsessively on their reviewers - giving them tools, recognition, community etc. Yelp is looking at the exact same market as all other yellow page companies are, but playing a totally different game.  
2. Understand what metrics really matter for your business - the metrics that *seem* to matter for your business might not be the ones that really determine your eventual success. Moneyball shows how the Oakland A's found that most of the metrics that baseball teams have been using for decades (batting average, # of steals, etc) had little or nothing to do with how successful the teams were. Another example is a post I wrote recently about how PV's and ad revenues might not be the best success metrics for publishers. 

Bottom line - highly recommended. Get it here at Amazon or here at Audible. 

Magnes Sisters handbags

Disclosure: I'm highly biased on the subject on multiple levels...

The Magnes Sisters are three sisters (surprise..) who design wonderful handbags. They are among the nicest entrepreneurs I've ever met + they are passionate about creating a wonderfully designed and crafted product. Their bags are in the moderate price range - $150 - 350 - but offer probably the best value you can find for a nice handbag. 

If you're not part of the handbag-ing 1/2 of the population - believe me - a Magnes Sisters handbag is a *perfect* gift for a special occasion.

I'm far from being a fashion expert (especially on woman's accessories..), but here are a few comments I picked up from this site:

• "Love these girls and love these bags - they are amazing, well made and very cool!" - Sari from Brooklyn, February 13, 2007.
• "These handbags are terrific, every detail is figured out, they are worth every penny." - Anne from NY, NY, February 14, 2007.
• "I own a gorgeous red on red Magnes Sisters Bag and I have more people stopping me and asking me about it than you can ever imagine!!! It is roomy and classy -- a perfect bag." - Lisa from NJ, February 14, 2007.
• "Such classy bags, perfectly finished, and goes equally with a relaxed jeans look or a dress! Wait till you open one and see every detail inside... amazing:) Love them!" - Jennifer from NYC from US, February 14, 2007.

Go here to read more. If you own a Magnes handbag and have any feedback, please submit a comment below. Magnes Sister handbags are sold at Nordstrom's and hundreds of other stores (a full list is on their site).

If you're in the NY area tomorrow (Thursday, November 20th 2008), you can meet the sisters (and buy a bag!) at a special event they are doing before the holidays. Full details are below (click the invite for a full size version):

Cosmic VC

Charlie Federman - a VC and a friend - has recently launched a new and excellent blog about VC's, startups, etc.

One post I couldn't agree more with:

"Try as you may, but no young company, founded with a growth oriented DNA, that I remember, has ever slashed their expenses to victory. Many companies appropriately encouraged to slash budgets find themselves with now unproven markets, or a value proposition which has not yet resonated. Nevertheless, if a company has momentum, this environment presents an incredibly capital efficient time to garner market share as distribution, R&D and customer acquisition expenses are in a deep downward spiral."

As bad as things are today, it's important to keep in mind that there will be big big winners in 2010-12, and those winners are being incubated right now. The smart companies are going to figure out how to provide clients with great value in a down market. They're going to have massive access to great talent and cheap office space. They're going to have the full attention span of their potential clients.

VC's that are panicking out of investments today are probably missing out on the companies facing the best opportunities in nearly a decade.

Favorite podcasts, part 3

TED Talks has to be my all-time favorite podcast. Here's an excellent talk by Robert Lang on origami... wow...:

TED Talks are generally so good, you can hardly go wrong. But as a service to Webx0 readers, here are a few that I particularly liked:

• Craig Venter about designing artificial life
• Joshua Klein about the intelligence of crows
• Deborah Gordon about ants
• Ken Robinson - a classic about education and creativity
• David Gallo with incredible undersea creatures
• Robert Full on evolution and engineering
• Blaise Aguera y Arcas demoing Microsoft's Photosynth

Point your iTunes here to subscribe to TED's video feed.

The post every software engineer and PM should read

Here's why Joel Spolsky has one of the most popular blogs in the software world. This post is a must-read for anyone developing a software product (and definitely for all the software engineers and product managers over at Quigo and outbrain!):

A game of inches

Don't let the slow start detract you.

Momix - Highly recommended

My wife treated me yesterday to the Momix show at the Joyce Theater. And what a treat it was! This is easily one of the best shows I've ever seen. As far as I could tell, there's no deep philosophical layer or storyline (or at least I was too stupid to notice any...), so the highly intellectual among you might find the show disappointing.

But Momix is simply stunning to watch. The dancers are incredible, and the scenes and music are all beautiful. It's really amazing to see how ~8 dancers with a minimal set and minimal accessories (3 sticks, a ball, a hoola-hoop, etc) can create magic. Highly recommended.

Here's a video of one of my favorite scenes in the show:

(if you're reading this in an RSS reader, you may need to click here to see the video)

Momix is showing daily at the Joyce through June 10th. If you're in NYC this week - go get your tickets now.

Graffiti 2.0

MomentaryExposure.com is an addictive little experiment from my fellow Quigo'er Yigal. It'll take me more time to explain what this does, than it would for you to check it out. So go and graffiti something, and get your 15 moments of fame!...

This post seems to have been dugg:

Sea Breeze and Biz

My old friend and fellow outbrainer, Ori Lahav, has joined the blogosphere with his new blog - Sea Breeze and Biz. He's writing about his two favorite topics - outbrain and yachting.

If the first few posts are any indication, this blog is well worth subscribing to.

Jim Lavoie speaking at BIF

A few months ago I recommended a video cast of Jim Lavoie (Rite-Solutions CEO) speaking about applying wisdom of crowds concepts within a corporation. That video is available here.

Looks like Jim was invited back to speak at this year's BIF (Business Innovation Factory) conference in October. It's taking place in Rhode Island and if you're in the neighborhood, my guess is that this is well worth attending.

Registration for the conference - here.

Holy shit!

This post is about one of the coolest startups I bumped into recently called TerraCycle.

A little background - My next startup, after I finish with all this web stuff, is going to be around recycling/reusing. Yup - the business I aspire to get into is - just like Tony Soprano - the waste management business.

My dream is to invent the ultimate contraption that descends upon landfills, chews up all the garbage, and spits out useful products on the other side.

That's why I loved everything about TerraCycle, though I have to admit that I've never bought or used their product which is basically a fertilizer (NYC apartments are not particularly famous for their spacious backyards...).

What they do is basically release a bunch of worms on a pile of garbage, and collect the worm-shit (hmmm... not sure that's the most scientifically accurate term...) and package it as plant fertilizer. In their words:

TerraCycle Plant Food is the first mass-produced consumer product to have a negative environmental footprint.

But obviously there are a bunch of products in the market that claim to be organic/recycled/eco-friendly/whatever. The thing is, that usually these products pay the minimal lip service needed to be able to claim eco-friendliness (for marketing purposes), and then do all the rest in some of the most eco-unfriendly ways.

Here's an example:

Organic Valley produces organic milk. They claim that "Organic dairy farmers do not use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers on their land. This protects our soil, water and air resources and also protects the health of wildlife and people."

So they get all the good will and great eco brand image, but then they go ahead and package that wonderful milk in a box that's pretty much a disaster to the ecology (the embedded plastic cap being the icing on the eco-disaster cake...). It's not recyclable, not reusable, and doesn't degrade elegantly when dumped. Yuck. 

And that's where TerraCycle gets really cool. Their product is driven by passion to be eco-friendly, not by passion to gain some PR points or appeal to amateur tree-hugger shoppers. Their whole product, end-to-end, is truly eco-friendly. The full story is on their website, but I'll just point out one feature that I LOVED - their amazing packaging:

Take a good look at the bottles on the right (not sure what I'm talking about?.. scroll down to see the graphical explanation). I can't give enough kudos to the product designer that made the design decisions on the TerraCycle bottles. Simply brilliant!