“You arrive poor, you work hard and you die rich” that’s what’s called the American dream. Today this well known phrase could change to: “you start from 0, you work hard, you help change the world (and become rich in the process)”.
The internet has created a world where opportunities are a function of your mindset, talent and drive, not of geography. Location helps but the era of Sinatra is over and you no longer have to “make it there”
I just found out about an initiative that I thought was smart: “Save the developers”. Basically, developers who are tired of compatibility issues between IE6 and the other browsers (IE7 or FireFox) have created a small code that detects if the user uses IE6 and proposes to upgrade to 7 or Firefox.
Personally I don’t think it removes the need for developers to make the site work for IE6 because you may suggest to a user to change their browser so they can benefit from the wonders of your site but the reality is that it is your site that has to adapt to the browser of your audience. It is still good to suggest and hopefully get to a point where IE6 users are a minority that could be ignored.
I wanted to see what the suggestion looked like for a user so I went to the website of the initiative. It was so typical of developers that I could not “not blog it”. Don’t get me wrong, I love developers but guys, when you get a good idea think about your audience and how the end product comes across.
This is what I got the first time I tried to connect
The second time, after waiting for quite some time I got one of the ugliest “naked” web page I have seen in years. I am sure it works in 100% of browsers but no one really wants to look at it.
Of course people might say that this is bad for Jaguar and few synergies can be found with Mittal but Tata has proven for over 100 years that it had a very strong business sense and succeeded in various industries (creating the first steel mill in India, providing electricity to Mumbai, starting the country’s first airline, and being the first to locally make trains).
What they now need is to prove that they can manage a truly global business and capture the value of synergies,... great challenge ahead !
I subscribe to the blog of a few successful entrepreneurs. In the last week I read the tips for startups from 2 different ones, both very credible.As an entrepreneur and an extravert, I often seek other people’s feedback. On subjects much more important that the espresso machine, I usually get intelligent and contradictory advice. In the end I can only look for trends (if everyone tells me the same thing), keep common sense in mind and trust my judgment/intuition.
I just came back from Plugg in Brussels. I went there to learn about other people’s perspective on web 2.0 and to network. I found the event well worth the trip, the presentation and attendance of quality but that’s not the point.
I always believed that internet would enable a massive shift of power toward consumers. It started with price comparison sites and evolved into the various new themes of web 2.0 (social networks, blogs, consumer produced content, etc.). During the conference, most speakers/entrepreneurs, at some point, touched on that. This proves that today’s internet is starting to deliver on the late 90s promises.
So, now that the consumers’ voices have more power the question is: what really is the next big thing?
I believe that in web 2.0, like in web 1.0, companies who figure out a strong revenue model and build capabilities that are not so easy to replicate will prevail. The web 2.0 consumer-facing companies are usually either partial (i.e. selling their own products) or limited in their revenue model (i.e., advertising and little more, etc).
I don’t know about you but I feel like a piece of the puzzle is missing and that more depth is needed to monetize this new value without reducing its ability to feed upon itself. If you want to know what I want to do about it do not hesitate to e-mail me and ask :-)
Part of the reason I am so optimistic about my project is that the European market is, in general, trailing behind the US in terms of mortgage distribution and use of internet. I was talking yesterday with the founder of a company, based in California, who has developed capabilities similar to some of the capabilities I plan to build. During the conversation he mentioned that he had, in the US, 400 competitors. He also mentioned that he recently started to export his technology to 2 other non European countries and found... 0 competitor.I used to think that the subprime crisis was imported from the US until a friend reminded me of John Law. Granted, John Law was Scottish but he also was “Controller General of Finance” under Louis the XIV, our very own “Roi Soleil”. While there, Mr. Law pretty much created paper money and, rolled up trading companies.
, and his paper money
My last business was a small boutique consulting firm where, with a small team, I basically sold my expertise and energy. It did well but once I decided to stop, nothing was left. That was fine because consulting pays in cash rather than equity; however it is not what true entrepreneurs typically look for.
So, back to the subject in the title, how do you know if your business will have residual value? In truth, you can never be 100% sure however, you should think about which capabilities created in your business are unique or hard to replicate and respond to a market need that is expected to be here for a long time. This will sound to many as an evidence… too often when looking at other people’s business plan.
Has Spain gone crazy with mortgages (hipotecas)? Hipotecas are everywhere, every time you talk to someone, the intensity in the discussion goes up immediately after the H word and usually another H word (help) follows within minutes. I found "hipoteca" (or rather the promise of potentially getting rid of it) in milk or olive oil, and my friend Yannick Laclau from www.properazzi.com was telling me yesterday he found it in his salad! (well,... on the bag)
There is a Hipoteca “malaise”, but what else is new? Until we fix this mess I thought we might as well be Mediterranean about it and look for the humor in the situation so I added YouTube videos using the H word as a filter. Whether you speak Spanish or not, you should get a feel for the situation here and hopefully have some fun.
My bottle of olive oil...
