Posted: March 25th, 2009 | No Comments »
Julie Ruvolo, who pops up everywhere on the digital scene all at the same time, has joined a startup that went alpha this month. www.solvate.com
The concept revolves around creating an uber-database covering answers to common customer service issues that people individually need to solve hundreds of times each day. Solvate allows frustrated customers to not have to re-invent the wheel each time one of us has a problem someone else had before. For example, something like “How can I return my cable box back to Time Warner so I can cancel my cable subscription” probably takes us 45 minutes working through TWC’s byzantine call centers before we find out our options. And even then, we probably only find the option that one customer service rep knows, which I bet would be a different option if we were connected to another rep on another day. Meanwhile, I know hundreds of other people had to have gone through this…why don’t I know what they know?
Solvate plans to standardize the ‘answers’ to these questions, so that Solvate agents (and I assume the online public) can provide fast solutions to the second client who asks the same question.
Solvate charges by the man-hour to find the solution, and is currently offering your first hour of agent time for free. So, I tried it out by asking about the best online site to find a deal for a Disney Cruise. I know that Disney itself doesn’t offer many deals directly to cruisers, but they do offer them to agents (who then can pass on the deals to cruisers). Solvate did work, I did get a list of places from “Ryan C”, my Solvate agent, that offered consistent specials and weren’t shaky fly-by-night travel sites. I’m not sure if it saved me time, since it was just an online search. But, I would guess that if my problem involved customer service reps, and phone calls, and escalations, and specific departments, Solvate would save me time and aggravation. And if I was the lucky second person that asked a question, I am sure that the pain of the first person would benefit me. I think the trick for Solvate is to hone in on the problems people would be willing to pay Solvate to solve. ate.
Good luck, Julie and Solvate. I’ll call you back when I need to cancel my cable subscription so I can get FiOS.
Posted: March 24th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Noticed in facebook, lots of people have ‘registered’ themselves on wefollow. they’re trying to start a tag-based directory.
My tweets, trying to stay industry or expo-relevant are tagged under #consumer #socialmedia #video: http://twitter.com/daphnekwon
Also, to cut the clutter of ridiculous spam Tweets, here is ExecTweets, created by Federated Media, powered by Microsoft
http://www.exectweets.com/about/
Note, I’m not followed by exectweets, so you know it must be good. 
Posted: March 20th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
iMedia’s Sean Egen followed up on a WSJ story about the New Info Shopper. I thought I’d follow up his question: “You might be a New Info Shopper if….”
…you wished the display computers at the Best Buy store were connected so you could surf the web before you bought
…you look at a magazine ad and wish you could click on the URL at the bottom
…you actually thought the Facebook Beacon about what your friends bought was interesting, not the ultimate symbol of privacy being invaded
…you’d buy your second choice item on Amazon because it had customer reviews, rather than your first choice that no one reviewed
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/22354.asp##
Posted: March 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
There are probably many tools out there, but if @mattcutts is using bit.ly, then it’s probably on the better side. When you’re signed in, you get your shortened url (e.g., http://bit.ly/10UdcG). I can now track when someone clicks on that short URL. I can see weird stuff like from what country, but I can also see useful stats like what site you clicked from (twitter, blogger, facebook). I can also see if someone else copied the URL into their own Tweet as well. Movie trailers seem to get picked up pretty well by others!
Posted: March 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
if you see a lot of crazy unrelated things and ads on my site, i’m testing pluck on demand. more later.
Update: So far the note to myself is that I think Pluck thinks i’m an ultra-conservative right-winger because I wrote about Sarah Palin months ago. Doesn’t seem to be able to discern the substance of my post. I’m sure this post today is also going to contribute to Pluck’s perception of me! I have to stop saying Sarah Palin. Whoops.
Update: Pluck is getting better because my posts are more directed. I like the articles it is surfacing, even clicked on one.
Posted: October 22nd, 2008 | No Comments »
I’ve been through two of these, like many of my fellow serial entrepreneurs. Once when the bubble burst around my ‘convergence’ company, Oxygen Media, and now again with my current company, Expo Communications. We’re in a period of high revenue growth, so it isn’t easy to distinguish what is critical spending and what is not. But you should be motivated thinking that your competitors – whether they compete for your customers, users or funders – may be acting faster and more decisively than you are right now. Here were some tasks that I’ve found effective for long-term strengthening:
1) Build Staff 2.0. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. Unless there’s a crash. Then, you totally can. Here are some thoughts about how to build Staff 2.0:
a. Be very skeptical of keeping headcount that is not directly attached to revenue, or in evidenced growth areas. There is no time to be investing ahead of success when success just got a lot riskier. It’s called right-sizing and it will save your company and the jobs that it should support.
b. Start with a blank org chart. Build an org chart with no names of people…just titles and functions. It helps you think less emotionally about who you’d like to keep and more about who the company needs.
c. Do it all at once. I can’t stress this enough. Doing it in a thousand cuts is demoralizing, painful, and will result in losing the staff you need to keep. Work very hard at shaping your target org, then create it in a humane but decisive process.
2) Support the resulting Staff 2.0. Your staff is far from stupid. They know why you made those changes. They silently questioned why that guy over there was writing copy all day. They might have liked that guy and thought he was talented, but deep down they didn’t think he was contributing to the company like they were. After your restructuring, bring Staff 2.0 together, and give them the positive news: this team is the team that you believe will bring the company to the promised land.
3) Extend your payables. Why are you paying on time when no one is paying you on time? You will pay…just a little later. The amount of working capital you will free up that first 30 days will amaze you.
4) Change old policies. This action may not save a lot of money, but it can start a culture of frugality that will benefit the company for years. Tighten the travel policy, and start tracking vacation days. Overhead contracts should be now treated as variable. Cancel all contracts you can terminate, and negotiate new terms with either existing or new vendors – HVAC, cleaning, legal, consultants, etc. Put new cost controls in place, such as additional approvals for discretionary spending.
5) Exude a positive attitude. Be transparent in all these changes and answer all questions about the health of the company, additional staff reductions. This is where your prior planning can help you answer decisively, clearly, and immediately. Having a plan can help you communicate with a level of certainty that you probably don’t really have, but that your staff will crave.
As you make your plans, target a material amount to reduce – try to find over 25% of existing costs. You don’t have to make all the cuts, but forcing yourself to identify potential reductions is the first step toward honestly evaluating whether you need to make them.
Posted: October 10th, 2008 | No Comments »
There’s a lot written about the
Sequoia “world is ending” meeting, with presentations by Sequoia professionals Mike Moritz, Eric Upin, Michael Partner. At the very least, this presentation helps clarify the task at hand during this very complex environment.
Here’s the actual presentation, thanks much to Fred Wilson’s blog where I found the link first.
The presentation is MUCH better than any of the writeups, as it provides context to the comments.
SlideShare Link
Posted: August 19th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I recently spent time with 8 women who were old enough to remember Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10. All were professionals, from Google to Goldman Sachs. Amazingly, only one woman other than myself was on Facebook. No surprise, she was also the CEO of an internet company.
Some were on Linkedin, but seemed to dismiss it as a job tool, not a social network. Regarding FB, privacy seemed to be the loudest concern. “But can’t everyone see it?” was the main objection. The next objection was “Who would want to see it?”. They derided needing to know if their co-worker was now a fan of Michael Phelps, or poking their old college boyfriend.
My description of “completely remapping the social neural network in my brain” didn’t seem to move them much. Transforming my social connections into a movement that I can observe instead of single points that I have to directly contact didn’t resonate. Weakening the isolation that accompanies privacy in favor of participating in a self-selected, partially unintentional social dialogue was baffling.
That said, my group is a strong, fearless bunch of girls, always up for new things (as long as someone else is doing it, too). I’ve set up a ‘secret’ and more public group for them to join, and am sitting back as a few are entering. I’ve been peppering them with advice, which I thought I would list here for those of you who need some courage.
Rules for being 40 on Facebook.
1) Get a picture up. Immediately. Pictures are part of the way the web is becoming personal, less anonymous. Having one up shows that you’re willing to show the person behind the action.
2) Don’t stress over your profile. Profiles are boring and people only look at it once, anyway. Put a few fun things so you don’t seem uptight, but don’t go crazy filling everything out. If you’re over 30, take off your birthyear.
3) Join your school and work networks. Joining networks helps people find you to friend you. The location network you joined when you signed up is lame…it basically lets FB geotarget ads to you, but is too large to be of any use. Go to “settings” in the upper right corner > account settings> networks. Search for your undergrad/grad schools, and the company you work for.
4) Become a fan. Type in a person, politician, cause, even a product or restaurant name in the search box, and then select “Pages” in the tabs. This gives you the ‘official’ brand pages of which you can “Become a Fan”. These show up on your profile. Check out the page first, make sure it seems legit. Michael Phelps has 995,000 fans, and In-n-Out burger has 28,000.
5) Join some groups. Anyone on FB can start a group. I started a group for people who used to work at Oxygen Media back in the day (pre-NBC). To find a group to join, type an interest into the search box, then select “groups” in the tabs. Joining a group shows up on your profile, and is a way to make a statement, without really making a statement. Two that I want to join but don’t have the guts are: “I went to public school….bitch!” and “Zero Population Growth”.
6) Friend Farm. Look at me, I’ve coined a phrase. Everytime you make a friend, go to their friend list and see if there’s anyone you want to friend off it. No one will know you found them by poaching off your friends’ list.
7) Lastly, after you’ve done everything, go prune your personal newsfeed. Almost everything you do in FB is broadcast in your newsfeed, which will show up on all your friends’ newsfeeds. Because FB is a robot, it often sounds like English is its second language, and something like “Daphne Kwon is no longer single” is just embarrassing. Hit your name in the top menu bar. Mouse over any news item you don’t want broadcast, and you’ll see a little “edit” button on the right pop up. Click it and select “delete”.
After a while, when you have time, check out all the fine-tuning under “Settings” in the upper right under account settings and privacy settings. Don’t over do it on the restrictions…. You didn’t go join FB to be private! Take a little risk for a while, let yourself ‘out there’ and see what happens. Who knows. Maybe some day you’ll ask me about Twitter.
Posted: July 26th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Last night Bill Hildebolt and I attended the annual Techcrunch Meet-up in the valley. There was a definite dearth of East Coasters there. We did meet some new folks at cool SF companies. But more importantly, we saw a bunch of old friends at even better SF companies. Here’s a more detailed run-down of some of the HBS contingent we saw there:
Heather Harde : has to be one of the classiest people in the joint. CEO of Techcrunch, and our personal ticket connection. (Heather, we should have pulled a Todor and just yelled “BUT WE KNOW HEATHER” at the doorpeople.) Michael A, I don’t know you, and while you looked like you adore Heather, as a woman I have to implore you not to give your beautiful CEO a noogie on the head during speeches. It’s a hair thing.
Tom Patterson : gets second billing because it was his “not-yet-40” birthday. He got sung to by a bunch of drunk entrepreneurs (I think the VCs were lip synching) and a free cake. I thought that big fake check was for you, too, but alas, it was for malaria . Tom’s the CEO of Wize.com, a soon to be partner of Expo.
Raj Kapoor: whose lovely doctor wife Lydia is due any day! MD at Mayfield and one of the best friends an entrepreneur could have, having been a great one himself.
Carol Linburn , group product manager for mobile authoring at Adobe and one of the nicest people in the valley. Trying desperately at the party to feel like an entrepreneur again. We asked her to go back to work that night and, for the love of all that is holy, get flash working on the iPhone.
Steve Abernethy The founder of squaretrade.com and the only guy I know that got kicked out of the Apple store during the iPhone debut because of anti-competitive practices. Steve, Expo taped at the NY Apple store without incident…
Todor Tashev: Director of Investments at Omidyar Network. His wife sings with Sting.
Erik Eklund. Stealth. I’m afraid to even link to his LI profile.
Dana Shapiro Marotto , Marketing at ExpertCEO that just launched in Q2 of this year. Dana, how did you get into HBS with a CPA? Did you just not put that on your application?
Elliott Ng in marketing at Uptake.com, who we saw in line and then completely missed the entire rest of the party.
Was great to see others, like Bong Koh, Deb Schultz, Sam Lessin (another NYC interloper, but he’s like 12 so he fit right in).
Oh, and I cannot fail to mention that as a NYC citizen (our car-related excitement is limited to flagging a hybrid taxi), despite all the change-the-world ideas at the party, the most motivating was seeing Jason Calacanis’ Tesla up close and personal. Bill was hyperventilating. Go electric.
Posted: July 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
We were proud to host Pete Blackshaw’s NYC “Tell 3000″ book party at our offices last night. It was a spectacular turnout, and lasted well past the anticipated ending time. Rick Lerner and Expo’s pres Bill Hildebolt were the hosts. Thanks to Rick and his wife for publicizing, financing and catering the event.
The books sold out, some pool was played, some wine was poured, and some great conversations were begun.
We look forward from continuing to learn from our friend and advisor as he continues to simultaneously teach and learn about this space.
