fantasy founder - relationship management is engagement management

Continuing an occasional series about products and companies that I’d like to build or see built someday.

There’s a natural cadence to communication. We meet or talk or email or txt or whatever. And we do it over some topic, even if it’s just catching up. The mixture of who we are to each other, the last time we connected, how often we connect, and what we connect over plus our personal contexts (and some other stuff) make up how much of an impression is left and for how long. At least for a moment, you get to front of mind. 

Nothing new there. We can maintain different sizes of connections in our brains. Social butterflies are great at wide swaths of shallow relationships. Most people are good at small numbers of deep relationships, bigger number of casual or business relationships, etc. See Dunbar.

But social networking and freelancing blow all the numbers away. How do you both organize the people you want to keep in touch with and maintain the connection? How do you deal with the fact that relationships wax and wane and change?

• Personal social networks let you organize people and give you the updates about them that are prompts to connect
• Professional CRM systems let you organize people and track communication for the purpose of getting someone through the funnel and keeping the money flowing
• Professional social networks (taking LinkedIn as the only example that matters) don’t really do either
• Contact managers let you organize people
• Communications apps let you connect
• We need to keep track of who matters to us and why
• We need to keep track of when we talked to them
• We need to remember to talk to them again
• We need to be true and authentic to actually have real relationships (nothing’s going to do that part for us!)
• We forget to stay in touch with people we want to
• We want some relationships to grow
• We don’t care if others drift off
• Some relationships change without us even noticing

So what do you do? Actively manage relationships? There’s prior art here: Nimble, Mingly, Contactually, fellowup, Promptivate, CRUMBtrail, Highrise, Google Plus, ICQ (way ahead of it’s time). And I pitched the idea a few years ago to ___, which didn’t work out. But the idea of personal relationship management hasn’t really taken off. Everyone either charges too much, doesn’t have a functional enough (or any) free tier, or is just a poor man’s CRM.

The things I want:

• Integration with email, messaging, contact lists, social networking for both comms recording and metadata acquisition
• Inferring relationship tiers in terms of depth and frequency of communication, but not assigning any meaning—example: you talk to someone infrequently but consistently, which might mean a great old friend or a casual connection you see at a conference every year
• Arbitrary tagging or categorization, because real life is full of Venn diagrams
• Indicators that say, “hey, you’re normally in touch with this person every week and now you’ve dropped off to every month.. is that what you want?”
• Reminders that say “hey, you’ve said you want to be in touch with this person every week, so go talk to them”
• Unobtrusivity
• Refusal to turn into a CRM replacement, integrate with SFDC, Marketo, etc.. if it gets to that point, make another product**
• Freemium, with either a contact number limit or some feature based limitation

**And now it gets interesting. There’s a generalized application here, that for some reason is missing. In a world of SaaS, social networks, and mobile apps—the same relationship persists between the app and the user. Any user has some attentional budget and the same cadence of communication applies with the app. We call this “engagement”. The same ideas and algorithms that are needed for a good PRM would work well for a kind of engagement management (EM). You could set engagement targets (this many high value touches a month, that many low value touches a week), infer engagement quality and relationships status, prompt the user to engage, prompt the app to engage, prompt sales/marketing/account/whatever to engage, etc.

Added Feb 12th: P.S. The CEO of Nimble got in touch after reading the post. Check it out. Although it is targeted at professional use without a fremium model, it does go a long way towards what I'm talking about here. 

communication in the service and api supply chain

Another thought about “the service and api supply chain” —how do we know what an API provider or servicer can do? It’s unlikely that any given servicer of an API will service the same subset of that API as any other servicer or be able to keep up with all the changes that are introduced by the API originator.

Can you ask an API endpoint:

• Hey, what can you do? 
• What APIs do you originate and provide? 
• What 3rd party APIs do you service? 
• What subset of those APIs? 
• What are your SLAs?
• Etc.

Can the API endpoint tell you:

• I’m running out of capacity to service X?
• There’s a degradation of service Y?
• You can send these calls to these other endpoints I own?
• This is how much I charge per call for Z?
• Etc. 

We could use a (roughly) global language with some basic terms for services that describe what they do, what they service, how they do it, with what kinds of commitments. An analog to Wolfram Language for distributed services. 

We could use a (roughly) global protocol for handshakes and mutual understanding so services can talk to each other, advertise and discover what they can do, what they can service, how they do it, with what kinds of commitments and interrogation mechanisms. An analog to ethernet autonegotiation for distributed services.

Plenty of API providers don't want this to exist. But the competitive advantage that could be generated by programatically dealing with an API should draw a significant ecosystem. So I wonder why this hasn't been done, especially be near-first tier providers like GCE and Azure. I can only guess it's because they haven't figured out how to do ecosystem-based strategic gameplay for cloud services yet. And of course, AWS has no need to do such a thing (yet).

fantasy vc - virtustream

This fantasy vc post comes from something I wrote about in “what we don’t know about private cloud” and “the three cloud questions you have to answer”: 

The line between what we do in the public cloud vs what we do in the private cloud vs what never goes to a cloud model will be moved—both in time and in scope—by the cloudification of legacy applications.

In the space between public cloud for cloud-native applications and on-prem virtualization plus automation for non-cloud-native applications lies a big space for remote hosting of non-cloud-native applications. 

Some of this is satisfied by what can best be called managed hosting for virtualization, which is what most VMware-oriented service providers (even those that use the word “cloud”) do. And some of it is satisfied by VMware-oriented service providers that actually have managed to build a self-service, usage-based service model (like the very successful Tier3, recently acquired by CenturyLink).  

Yet despite the promise of being able to forklift a legacy app to a cloud provider and switch from a perpetual license model to a usage-based model to pay for a particular bit of software as a service—that is something that is rare. Enter Virtustream.

Put these things together:

• Many enterprise apps cannot be re-architected to be “cloud-native”
• There is demand to forklift enterprise apps to hosted infrastructure
• There is demand to pay for those apps on a resource-consumption model
• Many of those apps are only supported virtualized on VMware
• Many enterprises don’t have the expertise to do the forklifting
• Many service providers don’t have the expertise to do the forklifting
• Many (most?) VMware-oriented service providers can’t figure out how to get the automation and resource-consumption parts done in a way that generates a sufficiently cloud-like experience for their customers
• VIrtustream solves for this

The interesting thing about Virtustream to me is the apparent focus they’ve had from the beginning: these exact customers, this exact problem space, those exact applications. And nothing else. Period. 

The technology they built is fundamentally an enabling mechanism to make the resource-consumption model granular enough on VMware to achieve the cloud-like experience. The model they built is predicated on doing the hard work of the full life-cycle of an enterprise pre-sales/sales/post-sales consultative service. And they do the hard work.

That's not to say that they're guaranteed success. Or won't get crushed by an incumbent or other party. Or even scooped up before they become too successful. Just that I would've placed that bet.

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Disclosure: Virtustream, as a whole, was adjacent to my coverage area at Gartner—but their xStream cloud management platform was squarely in my coverage area once it was commercialized.

the service and api supply chain

When we visit a site, start an app, or do just about anything online—what lives behind that one object is 10s, sometimes 100s, of services.

As Mr Krugman notes, the great transport and communication innovations of the past generation did not necessarily reduce shipping costs. Rather, they reduced shipping time while also making international coordination of shipments cheaper and easier. The result has been, in Richard Baldwin's phrase, a "second unbundling". The first unbundling represented globalisation's geographic separation of production and consumption more than a century ago. The second is the geographic separation of stages of production. And one then has to ask how stories of the determinants of international trade apply to each of these various stages.

- Hyperglobalisation and metropolitan gravity, Free exchange @ The Economist [emphasis added] 

We’ve seen a steady unbundling on the web, on our phones, and in our apps. It’s the separation of technological stages of production of apps and services. And it’s turtles all the way down.

When we bought all our software and ran it on our own systems, we controlled the software supply chain underlying the ultimate business apps we used. But if we rely on a SaaS app that relies on other services accessed via APIs which may themselves rely on other services accessed via other APIs—how do we manage this new supply chain? How do we figure out how to manage the risk of our services’ services’ services’ services?

With actual manufacturing, if a supplier stops delivering or goes out of business, you find another maker of the same component or ship your specs off to another manufacturer who can make that very same part you need. 

In the API economy, if the provider of a service goes under or simply stops providing the service, what can we do? 

• Suffer and recode to a new API for a competitive service (if one exists)
• Build an abstraction (maybe our own API) to make that easier
• Use two or more similar services via our own abstraction with some ability to switch if one fails, which still involves building the drivers (as it were) for each service’s API

What we can’t do is ship the API calls to another provider to service, or put a service spec plus API out to bid, or create an ecosystem of multiple suppliers for each service layer. 

Why not?

Where’s the alternate service provider who will service the AWS APIs? Where’s the alternate service provider who will service the Twilio APIs?  Where’s the alternate service provider who will service the Dropbox APIs? 

Added Feb 12th: Where's the communication mechanism to discover services, APIs, nodes and negotiate transactions? More on that question in another post.

There’s an opportunity in there somewhere.

fantasy vc - apprenda

Considering the press and recent funding round for my friends at Apprenda, it seems a bit disingenuous to fantasy vc them. But no matter.

I’ve been convinced of their success since the first explanation of the product and target. There were plenty of PaaSes at the time, but they were mostly targeted at developers and mostly public. Press releases from analysts firms like this notwithstanding, the market wasn’t taking off and didn’t look like it was going to take off any time soon.

Put these things together:

• There is a lot of in house development in the enterprise—though no one knows how much exactly, it’s at least enough to support a couple of private PaaS players
• That development is mostly Java or .NET on Linux or Windows
• And it runs on fleets of servers, storage, networking, and data centers that are not at end of life
• What’s developed is custom apps for core business/ops, paperwork apps, extensions to COTS with SDKs, glue to connect together these things and/or legacy apps and/or cloud apps and/or cloud services and/or…
• There was and is very little “private” PaaS competition
• There was no private PaaS for .NET applications at the time that I knew of and there are only a few today 
• There was little that provided the experience of a distributed runtime on prem out of the box
• Virtualization is not required
• Apprenda was (and is still the only?) private PaaS supporting .NET that doesn’t predicate itself on some hypervisor

You offer a runtime, so you may or may not have VMs--but who cares since what you need to expose is the runtime, a management console for that runtime, and (hopefully) APIs to connect to and operate it

- me, provided vs exposed

To me, that last point was the killer. Before the renewed popularity in [the old technology of] containers, Apprenda leveraged Linux container tech and figured out how to get a workalike on Windows to underpin their PaaS. Thus totally foregoing the overhead of hypervisors and the overhead of VMware’s margin.

That's not to say that they're guaranteed success. Or won't get crushed by an incumbent or other party. Or even scooped up before they become too successful. Just that I would've placed that bet.

Disclosure: Apprenda is not in my former coverage area and I have no financial interest in them. But Sinclair and I do share an alma mater.

fantasy founder - what if your eyeballs make you (not google) money?

Kicking off an occasional series (like fantasy vc) about products or companies that I’d like to build or see built someday.

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Two thoughts:

• Thought One (from fantasy vc - cumulus)— Either you disrupt by doing something new. Or you disrupt by changing the supply chain, removing middlemen, disintermediation (or consolidation of intermediaries unto yourself?).
• Thought Two (from facebook, instagram, snapchat and you the product)— The cost of everything Facebook does to create and run Facebook is the cost of acquiring the product—your attention. Facebook sells your attention to advertisers.

Here’s the idea:

• If your attention is the product being sold by some third party to the highest bidding advertiser, why aren’t you getting the proceeds from that sale? 
• What if you had a way to sell your units of attention directly to the advertiser and get paid? 
• And what if nothing about how you use the web changed? 
• Except that now you get a check in the mail or money deposited in your bank account every month.

So, how might this work? An easy (in the sense that we’re not inventing anything new) approach: use ad block technology to strip out everyone else’s ads and insert ours. Have a plugin for each major browser. Create (or jack into an existing) an ad network to source the ads. And give users (for example) 65-75% of the transaction, claiming the rest as a transaction fee to run the business.

The point would be to give you most of the profit being made off your attention.

It should be profitable. But mainly, I’d like to see if  something sustainable can survive that puts a noticeable dent in advetising-driven business models. 

Why? Because I don’t care to have my attention sold. Because it’s grossly inefficient to pay for, say Google searches, by maybe being made more likely to buy some product part of the profit for which turns into the operating cost of some company that in turn spends that money on advertising on the web. There are tons of middlemen in that chain taking their cut of the money I could just pay Google for the damn search capability without fueling the consumerism, growthism, more-ism that prevails.

P.S. Prior art: AttentionTrust

technology analyst 101 for startups - wrapup

It so happens that when I was at Gartner I spent a fair bit of time with startups. Many of whom didn't know what to do with me. Or thought they did and were sorely mistaken. Thus a 101 on tech analysts for startups, finished here. :)

Tech Analyst 101 for Startups

Part One - introduction to analysts / what they do

Part Two - why you want to talk to them / what they can for you

Part Three - how to engage with them / what you should do with them

Part Four - wrapup / tl;dr and tips from analysts

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Part Four - Wrapup 

tl;dr

Analysts are not press.

Analysts serve: end users, vendors, investors.

Analysts provide procurement, product, and investment decision support.

If your customers are other startups or bleeding edge technology companies, analysts are probably useless (unless they’re RedMonk and you care very much about developers).

Otherwise, analysts are used by your customers, acquirers, and investors to understand, evaluate, and position you. Whether you like it or not.

Figure out who the right analysts are that cover what you do and brief them regularly.

The right analysts can help you with strategy, marketing, product, business development, and sales—if you become their customer.

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What other analysts (current and former) have to say about it

Roughly presented in the order in which they were received on twitter. :)

Biggest thing is to accept that you need help, and more importantly, where you need help.

- Steve O’Grady (RedMonk) // @sogrady

(1) Have a realistic perspective on what your place is in the ecosystem, competitive landscape. (2) Analysts are not cheerleaders. (3) Analysts there to give constructive criticism so tell you your challenges and deliver a solution (not just saying you suck).

- Vanessa Alvarez (ex-Forrester) // @VanessaAlvarez1

(1) Make sure your talking to the right analyst - everyone's time is wasted if your not talking to the right guy. (2) Show understanding of your limits, no startup is going to solve everything, understand your limits & sell what makes you different. (3) The best thing you can show me is actual product, not powerpoints (but I'm a tech analyst).

- Gunnar Berger (Gartner) // @gunnarwb

Get your story straight. What market are you in, and how are you different there? You probably won't create a market for yourself.

- Jenny Sussin (Gartner) // @JSussin

Don't say, "Oh, you're a woman. We just assumed you weren't technical." Really nothing beginning with "Oh, you're a woman..."

Also, the startup should assume the analyst understands the area they cover. Explaining the basics is a waste of time.

- Lydia Leong (Gartner) // @cloudpundit

Do your homework. Don't waste time brainwashing (doesn't work). Understand that my goal is not trashing you but protecting my clients.

Don't expect that I suggest or recommend slideware to my clients.

- Alessandro Perilli (Gartner) // @a_perilli

Whenever I speak to traditional vendors, they are always interested in partnering/acquiring disruptors. Make [my] list.

I WANT to hear from more startups. Rarely hear innovation coming from "traditional players”. Show me how you solve real probs.

Be prepared, you only have one chance to make the first impression. Have seen some terrible presos from startups.

- Rick Holland (Forrester) // @rickhholland

I have clients (end user & vendor) who tell me they want to hear about you. Some want to partner, etc. Others may participate in a beta.

Use briefings, twitter, email, LinkedIn messages, informal chats via phone, and meet up at an event/conference.

- Heidi Shey (Forrester) // @heidishey

Keep it real. No ass kissing BS.

- Chris Wolf (Gartner) // @cswolf

I loved hearing from founders who were pissed off about the way something worked/cost/etc and how they wanted to fix the problem.

Get the problem space and market failures identified before feature/function or speeds/feeds or at least understand that I could help validate/refute/ adjust the start-ups assumptions on that front.

- Abner Germanow (ex-IDC)// @abnerg

Why should a customer talk to you? Don't play to the analysts ego!

- Matt Eastwood (IDC) // @matteastwood

If you don't understand the value of analysts, find a trusted third party who does and ask them.

- Donnie Berkholz (RedMonk) // @dberkholz

Unfortunately, a lot of people see analysts as an extension of marketing #wrong!

- Floyd Strimling (Platen Report) // @platenreport

Why? Messaging review, collateral review, product strategy, competitive analysis, trends, futures.

- Jonah Kowall (Gartner) // @jkowall

Shed assumptions, reach out and touch someone. (Not all) analysts bite!

- Jarod Greene (Gartner) // @jarodgreene

The more forthcoming you are, the better. If you're just giving us marketing BS, save your breath.

- Wendy Nather (451) // @451wendy

Analysts are usually micro or macro focused. Figure out which type they are. Act on your goals for interacting with them, not theirs.

- Michael Cote (451) // @cote

Don't tell me how you are special for reinventing the wheel. Highlight competitors and what makes you different/worthwhile.

- Trevor Pott // @cakeis_not_alie

Do you have time to keep track of the market? You’re not working hard enough. Hire us.

- Merv Adrian (Gartner) // @merv

Make it a regular conversation instead of a PR pitch at the time of need. Medium has changed. With blogs and twitter, more non traditional avenues are available through the "independent" analysts—easier access to these analysts than the traditional ones. Journalists prefer a quick check with them than the trad path to trad analysts.

- Krishnan Subramanian (ex-analyst) // @krishnan

Don’t be shy. Just reach out and build a relationship with us.

- Ben Kepes (independent) // @benkepes

Be open. Inform with proof points. Do it often.

- Eric Goodness (Gartner) // @EFGoodness

Quick answers to questions don't guarantee inclusion, but slow answers guarantee exclusion.

- Eric Knipp (Gartner) // @erichknipp

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Suggested reading

From RedMonk: The Startup’s Guide to Working With RedMonk

From Jeremiah Owyang: What an Effective Analyst Briefing is Like

From Chenxi Wang (Forrester): Be A Good Marketer And Win Over Your Analyst In 8 Slides

From Michael Cote (RedMonk, 451): Dealing with industry analysts for startups 

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Have questions? Need advice? Etc? Feel free to ping me on the twitters: @aneel

technology analyst 101 for startups - how

At Gartner, I spent a fair bit of time with startups. Many of whom didn't know what to do with analysts. Now that I'm other side of the table, here's a 101 on tech analysts for startups.

Tech Analyst 101 for Startups

Part One - introduction to analysts / what they do

Part Two - why you want to talk to them / what they can do for you

Part Three - how to engage with them / what you should do with them

Part Four - wrapup / tl;dr and tips from analysts

—

Part Three - How

What not to do

The tendency amongst startups, especially those that outsource AR (analyst relations) to PR firms, is to treat analysts like press and try to get written up. But most of what analysts write is behind a paywall and targeted at very specific audiences. Also, nothing you do can make them write about you. They don’t win by writing about you, unless of you’re worth writing about. In which case, it’ll happen anyway if they know you exist and why. So setting "getting into such and such report" as the goal is basically a colossal waste of time. :)

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What to do

In the typical analyst model, there are two fundamental forms of interaction you can have with them:

• Briefing: Any vendor can brief an analyst—no $ or being a client required. Briefings are one-way, you -> analyst. They can be requested by your or the analyst. As an analyst, I used to request many briefings with startups that I heard about through the grapevine or read about elsewhere.
• Inquiry or advisory: You must be a client. Inquiries are two-way, you <-> analyst. You get to ask questions, get feedback, have a dialogue, drill the analyst on their views.

Briefings

No matter what, you should always brief the right analysts about what you do and any significant changes in your business. "Significant changes" include things like new funding rounds, new notable customers, major product updates, upcoming announcements. The right analysts are the ones whose coverage area(s) overlap with whatever you do or are adjacent influencers. For example, if your product is a mobile only SaaS CRM app, you probably shouldn’t brief an analyst whose primary coverage area is supply chain management. Figure out what analysts cover through their profiles, published research, LinkedIn profiles and what they're talking about on social media. 

What happens when you brief an analyst well and regularly:

• You stay in the front of mind when the analyst is thinking about the market space you operate in and they might write you up in a research note as an example or even in a list of vendors to watch or something. 
• When one of your potential customers (that you might not even know about or be targeting) asks about or is looking for something like what you do, the analyst is more likely to suggest they have a look at you or mention you.
• When a customer you are trying to land asks the analyst whether they should consider you, they have something to say other than “never heard of them, try this other thing that’s getting some traction instead”. 
• When a potential acquirer (that you might not even know about) asks about or is looking for something like what you do, the analyst is more likely to suggest they have a look at you or mention you.
• When a VC or other investor-type asks about you, the analyst has something to say other than “never heard of them, but I know this other thing that’s in the same space that’s getting traction.
• When the press ask the analyst about your market segment, the analyst might actually mention as an example.
• When the press ask the analyst about you, the analyst has something to say other than “never heard of them, but I know this other thing that’s in the same space and getting traction”.

What you can do if you brief an analyst well and regularly:

• You can refer potential customers to them for an objective 3rd party gut check
• You can refer potential acquirers to them for an objective 3rd party gut check
• You can refer investors to them for an objective 3rd party gut check
• You can refer press to them for quotes and an objective 3rd party gut check

Inquiry

If you choose to become a paying customer of an analyst firm, you can do inquiry—which basically means you can call up and ask questions, send in documents and get them reviewed, etc. The major benefit to inquiry is that you can ask all kinds of questions and get serious, sometimes useful, answers.

All the things that I put under the heading “What analysts can do for you directly” in Part Two they can only do if you’re a paying customer:

• Help with message development, testing, and segmentation
• Help with product strategy and roadmap
• Help with business development strategy and tactics
• Help with pricing and packaging

Color outside the lines 

You don't have to only follow the typical analyst model and use the formal channels. Reach out on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. You should be building awareness and interest in what you do through those channels before, or in conjunction with, formal inquiries and briefings.

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General tips

If you are selling into any kind of business that is NOT another startup or at the bleeding edge of technology, there is an analyst out there who has influence on your customers.

Figure out whether your customer, investor, acquirer, or press base overlaps with that of any given analyst firm. Brief every analyst that it might. The more overlap, the better and more regular the briefings should be.

What to include in your first briefing:

• Company overview, founding team, investors, investments and total investment amount
• Vision, mission, value prop, use cases, target customer segment(s)
• Who you think you compete against, who you actually compete against, and what differentiates you
• Product overview, architecture, demo if possible (and if not, on followup); and be prepared to go deep technically if needed (bring the head of product or engineering, if you’re talking to someone like Lydia)
• Actual customers, why they bought, and any customer references that would be willing to talk to the analyst

Consider paying for a seat/license to an analyst firm only if you know for a fact that they (or particular analysts there) are influencers of (i.e. directly serve) your target customer segment.

Always brief or inquire with adjacent analysts—especially if what you do crosses categories or coverage areas. You want to get multiple angles on what you do and get yourself into the heads of whoever might touch upon your product area. Also, analyst reports get peer-reviewed inside (the good) firms; so the more analysts there are who will say good things about you, or provide support for your claims, the better.

Consider attending an analyst firm conference (e.g. Gartner Data Center) if your target customer segment will be present. I can’t speak for other firms, but Gartner conferences are attended by a surprising proportion of actual executives with buying power. I can’t imagine better qualified leads coming from any other kind of industry event.

Find out if your VC is a customer of any relevant analyst firms. Have your VC do inquiry for you! Or next time the right analyst comes by in person to visit your VC, make sure you’re in the room. :)

Most firms will do a free inquiry session as a POC (in person or on the phone). Take advantage of that. :)

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Have questions? Need advice? Etc? Feel free to ping me on the twitters: @aneel

facebook, instagram, snapchat and you the product

Some simple ideas from broadcast television/radio/etc:

• The station buys your attention with entertainment, news, etc.
• The station sells your attention to advertisers (who created the station in the first place)
• You are the product
• Advertisers are the customers
• The cost of everything the station does to create the entertainment, news, etc., is the cost of acquiring the product—your attention 

Transpose station with Facebook:

• Facebook buys your attention with entertainment, keeping in touch with friends, etc.
• Facebook sells your attention to advertisers
• You are the product
• Advertisers are the customers
• The cost of everything Facebook does to create and run Facebook is the cost of acquiring the product—your attention
• The more of your attention Facebook has, the more it can sell
• When Facebook bought Instagram for $1B (ignore the actual number), it bought the attention of 30M users at something like $33 a pop
• That’s 30M more units of your attention to sell to advertisers
• In order to keep making more money, Facebook has to sell more (and better) of you to its customer the advertiser
• At some point, Facebook’s organic user growth has/will drop off and thus its supply of you—the product—will become constrained
• So Facebook must go out and buy your attention wherever it is, be that Instagram, SnapChat, WhatsApp, whatever in order to maintain its supply of product (you)

The real question...Is $33 a pop a good price to pay per unit of your attention, given

• The cost to run a service like Instagram AND
• What advertisers are willing to pay to plaster themselves in front of your eyeballs everywhere your eyeballs might roam AND
• Whatever measure of “quality” you can apply to the particular unit of attention you give to Instagram?

Replace Instagram in the story with SnapChat and that’s how I’d look at whether $3B is a good price to pay.

Replace Facebook in the story with any other advertising-selling business that does not charge for what you as user get from it.

Then consider what most of the talent in the technology world is out there doing. 

And finally, what would you do if the money these companies are getting from selling your attention went to YOU instead?  

Hat tip: this post 100% inspired by Benedict Evans’ post on Instagram and Youtube.

And finally, this:

Attention is the currency of rich people.

— Paul Ford (@ftrain) February 13, 2014

technology analyst 101 for startups - why

At Gartner, I spent a fair bit of time with startups. Many of whom didn't know what to do with analysts. Now that I'm other side of the table, here's a 101 on tech analysts for startups.

Tech Analyst 101 for Startups

Part One - introduction to analysts / what they do

Part Two - why you want to talk to them / what they can do for you

Part Three - how to engage with them / what you should do with them

Part Four - wrapup / tl;dr and tips from analysts

—

Part Two - Why

Remember that their customers are users, makers, investors. If they work with your (potential) customer, your (potential) competition, or your (potential) investors—chances are you should be talking to that analyst because.. 

What analysts can do for you indirectly:

• Users: Tell them you exist and are worth looking at for project X.
  • Customers will ask analysts about you, your product, your potential, your competition, etc.
• Makers: Tell them you exist and are worth buying for product gap Y.
  • Big vendors will ask analysts about you, your product, your team, your potential, your competition, etc.
• Investors: Tell them you exist and are worth investing in for thesis Z.
  • Investors will ask analysts to gut check your pitch, during due diligence, and to verify your product-market-fit. 

What analysts can do for you directly:

• Marketing: Message development, testing, and segmentation—
  • Are we using the right words? Does the story make sense? Are we actually articulating value? Are we saying anything compelling? 
  • How do we create the end user, influencer, and buyer versions of the message?
  • Will this work with a foreign audience? Will this work with partner of type Y? Will this work with investor of type Z?
• Product: Roadmap and strategy—
  • Is this the right strategy for getting into market X in front of buyer Y competing against vendor Z?
  • Is this the right roadmap? Should certain features get prioritized over others for customers of type X? Or for differentiation amongst 5 known competitors?
  • What aren’t we thinking about? What are we missing? Where will we get steamrolled by incumbents or competitors?
• Business Development: Strategy and tactics—
  • Should we work with partners? What kind? Which specific ones?
  • What’s the best model to go to market with partners? What should partner agreements and contracts look like? How do we keep from getting screwed and/or sued?
  • What do we have to do to enable and support partners? 
• Sales: Pricing and packaging—
  • Is the product packaged in a way that makes sense and matches how end users consume this kind of thing?
  • Does the pricing make sense? Is it too low? Too high? How does it compare to all the other vendors in the field?
  • What will the objections be? Who’s the real buyer? Who are the influencers? Who are the likely champions? 

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Next, how you should engage with analysts.