Your app is not an app

8 bit smartphone

Never, ever tell anyone your startup is an app. It’s a startup that does X, Y or Z.

Saying your startup is an app, is a bit like telling people your startup uses electricity. The app side of what you do is making the infrastructure the hero, not the problem you solve.

My latest startup is all about Surfing. #SneakySurf – you might have seen me tweet about it. It’s still in private beta, and it is, lets say – ‘Smartphone compatible’ but it is much more than an app. I never sell it as such. It is a surfing company.

The world doesn’t need another app, but it certainly needs many more businesses. Make sure you don’t confuse what you really do, with the infrastructure you happen to employ.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Forbes ironically forgets Economics 101

A few times I’ve had friends link me to interesting articles from Forbes. The topic looks good, I’m excited, and click in and I get this:

Forbes ad blocker request

 

What Forbes are really saying is this: “Sorry Steve, even though you have an ad blocker, and you’ve taken definitive action to not see advertising, we want you to turn off your ad blocker, so we can trick our advertisers that your eyeballs are worth paying for.”

And here is what happened. I clicked out and read something else. I’ll never read a Forbes article online again. I’m not sure if it’s a shame or a sham? Why would any media organisation try and trick it’s advertisers into believing they are getting more value than they really are. If I did do what Forbes suggested, then I’d be getting the advertisements, but ignoring them. Certainly a worse outcome for the advertiser, they’d be paying for attention they’re not getting. It seems most people agree.

Forbes ad block comments

What Forbes and anyone else putting up barriers seem to forget is the first lesson in economics – demand and supply. And content is supply rich for readers. If you lock us out, we’ll get it elsewhere. If anyone in the content game wants their audience to jump over walls they better ensure what they’re offering is not on this side of the barrier as well.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Why Twitter will die if we keep saying it

No engagement on Twitter

I’ve been thinking a lot about twitter lately based on the many articles written forecasting its demise. I really hope they’re wrong, but I think they might be right. The main reason I think it will die, is because so many people are saying it. The same people who espoused it’s virtues when it arrived in 2007, are now nostalgic about a time when twitter really, really mattered. The problem with this sentiment, is that it will probably come true even if it isn’t. It’s a bit like a run on the banks. Here’s a short Sammartino definition:

A bank run happens hen a large number of a bank’s customers withdraw their deposits simultaneously due to concerns about the bank’s solvency. As more people withdraw their funds, the probability of default increases, thereby prompting more people to withdraw their deposits. The end result is the bank’s reserves may not be sufficient to cover the withdrawals.  A bank run is typically the result of panic, rather than a true insolvency on the part of the bank; however, what began as panic or opinion can turn into a true situation.

If enough people think there is no engagement on twitter, then more and more people will stop making ‘engagement deposits’ on twitter. Those who are there will get less engagement as a result. Then they’ll leave, which makes it less useful for others and before we know it we have another MySpace on our hands. It’s classic behavioural economics.

For me twitter has been valuable the past 8 years or so – I joined in Jan 2008. While it sounds kinda weird, I met a lot of my current friends through twitter, I built my personal brand there, and it became a tool for discovery and learning. It really helped me find people who cared about what I care about. It was an incredible tool, and my favourite brand for many years.

But if I were to think of one reason why I believe twitter started to stumble it would be this:

Delayed Tweets. Yes buffer, I blame you and cohort.

It’s a bit like this. All of us were at this really great party. Some of your friends were there. You met some new and interesting people. Everyone was really interested in what you were doing, and you interested in what they were doing. We helped each other, built a great eco system and it was all very give and take. But the party was so valuable and fun that no one really wanted to leave. People didn’t want to miss out on sharing a cool idea. So people started to talk more and listen less. After a while it became hard to hear and be heard. People even started sending messages when they were’t really in the room. It was like everyone put up a cardboard cut out of themselves, with interchangeable speech bubbles attached to them. The conversation turned into a noisy nightclub where no one could hear anyone speak. You’d try and have conversations with people who weren’t really there. It lost its authenticity. Slowly but surely, the value declined, and less people turned up.

Honestly, I don’t know if this is the cause, but it’s how it feels for me. If someone shared a blog post of mine it used to mean they really liked what I wrote. Now it probably means they have an IFTTT recipe set up. I’ll probably still hangout at twitter for a while yet, I might be one of the last to leave. But if there is any lessons for business people it’s this:  Twitter is classic reminder that we can never be sure of a channels long term survival. We should all be trying to build things we own and control so we have independence. We need to be our own media channel and have a place to talk to people who want to hear from us. It’s probably a portable email list. If people don’t have a reason to follow us on our own channel, then maybe our we need to create something more compelling.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Entrepreneurs, it's ok to copy

DNA

There’s a tension in our connected world about being the originator. Apparently those who invented it first always win. It is said that the best entrepreneurs are those who change things. It turns out though, those that win reinterpret that which is already here.

Here are a few examples of things that weren’t invented by who you think:

Some break dancing way before it ever appeared in the Bronx.

A graphical user interface & mouse way before Apple.

The first automobile from China in 1672, way before Carl and Henry.

So the next time you get accused of copying someone, just tell them they copied their DNA from their parents. They copied their language from their community and they should also start copying their ideas from the giants who came before them. We first must copy before we can create. Go forth and copy.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

Why on line prices can mislead

Cars for sale

On line markets where people sell peer to peer – think eBay sellers, or used cars on line –  can trick our perception of the price of things. Here’s why:

This is the advertised price, not the price it sells for.

When we compare similar items on line, we are more likely to see the price of things that haven’t sold yet. The price people actually buy at, is often not advertised long enough for comparisons. This means the real value of something is often much less than we think. Especially when we are looking to sell something we own. We are weirdly programmed to think items we own are worth more than they are. 

You might notice a car like yours is advertised for $20,000. There may even be multiple advertised at this price.  Other sellers also see the most common price and follow the market. But we need to remember these are the cars which ‘haven’t sold’ – those that sold probably did so at $17,ooo and are no longer listed. It’s the overpriced stock that creates our price perception.

Why does this matter? Because it is counter intuitive, the opposite of what we’d expect. It’s the filter bubble in action. The more we see homogeneous products with price X on line, the more we should remember it’s the price people hope for.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

The Blue Ocean of January

Perfect blue ocean

You might have heard of the Blue Ocean Strategy. A business book which ascribes the benefit of competing in a space where less competitors exist. Which, sometimes means people think than selling plastic fur balls for imaginary internet cats is a good idea. But it generally means find a market that’s valid, but has been ignored.

Here’s another way to view it: Thought the time lens. 

I started work a bit earlier than usual this year. I usually take all of December and January off. But this year I got busy early. You might have noticed my blog frequency is now daily. And here’s the thing I noticed; January (read holiday periods) are filled with opportunity, because the business community ocean is blue. There’s less noise and interruption to those who are working. I cut a couple of important deals, got lots of momentum with my new startup Sneaky Surf and I am close to a green light on one of the coolest projects I’ve ever worked on. Big props to the Chunky Media folks for giving me an early year push.

The blue ocean isn’t just what we make or where we sell it, it can also be the time of day or year we get it done.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.

What we really hear – Above all Human

Mike Monetiro #AAH16

Today I went to the second Above all Human Conference and it was as terrific as the first one. A lot of great speakers but, Mike Monteiro really spoke to me. I was thinking about what made him the stand out for me and this is was my conclusion.

“I don’t hear what comes our of people’s mouths, but what comes out of their hearts.”

He meant what he said, and I felt it. I feel like we learn more from peoples hearts than their minds. So next time you do a talk, ensure your heart is in charge of your mouth.

Kudos again to the organisers. #aah16