The Fork In The Road

Developing More Developers

When I was just a young lass, I was excited about math and loved to debate. I loved to figure out how things worked and why people did the things they did. Starting in junior high school, I took every advance placement course my school district offered sans physics and calculus. I wasn't necessarily the smartest kid in the room, but I was a solid B+ student.

When it came time to talk about my post-high school future, my guidance counselor suggested that I become a teacher or a nurse. In his words, "that way if your husband needs you to go back to work after you have kids, you'll be able to get a job." I didn't know enough to be offended by all the assumptions related to his guidance. I did know it wasn't the right for me. I remember saying I think I want to "go into the business world." Honestly, at 16, I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew it sounded interesting.

Why do I mention all this? Because that was a bunch of years ago. I still don't think that kind of "guidance" should have been the standard, but I chalked it up to the timeframe and where I grew up. Flash forward to now. I have a 10 year old daughter. For the last two years, she's evolved from wanting to create video games to wanting to create apps. How much longer will she want to do this? I don't know.

There are still too few girls being encouraged to embrace their geekiness.

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area my family has an advantage. There are a handful of camps and lessons to teach coding within an hour's drive of our home. Also, because of my work, I've been able to expose my child to impressive corporate executives - male and female. Even with all this, I don't know if the desire to make technology will stick. It's fine with me if it doesn't, as long as it's her decision, not an assumption about her role in the world that someone else has assigned to her.

Beyond my household and my community, there are hundreds of thousands of girls that don't have the same advantage as my family. As a global society, we need to make a shift. It starts with encouragement and the access to knowledge.

Two programs come to mind as a good starting place. The EMC-sponsored Women in Technology group has a fantastic program of mentoring female entrepreneurs from Africa and the Middle East. In this competitive program, a group of women from these two regions spend more than a month in Silicon Valley working with female executives and learning about both business and what skills other women have used to become successful. Second is App Camp for Girls, which is now raising funds to start it's first camp location in Oregon, with plans to expand to other cities soon. What will make both these program success is what the participants learn and take forward.

There is a future for women in technology, but like so many other social changes occurring now, the change will happen because we make it happen. It's here for the taking.

 

Beyond Virtualization – What Comes Next

While cloud computing continues to be widely discussed, its cousin virtualization continues to be strong and growing as well. According to a 2012 Kaspersky Lab survey:

• 69% of US companies are in the process of implementing or have implemented server virtualization
• 46% plan to implement a virtual desktop infrastructure
• 51% plan data storage virtualization 

Although these are strong numbers, virtualization as we know it today is just the latest step in the evolutionary march.

While some people believe their needs to be a cloud versus virtualization decision, others are arguing that virtualization is cloud. VMware makes this argument and to a degree its correct. Virtualization is at least private cloud and in some cases, could be more. In fact, a strong argument can be made that virtualization has fueled infrastructure cloud adoption.

Many new developments are already here and their adoption is growing like a snowball rolling down a mountain. Three trends – Security, Cross-platform availability, BYOD - are quickly switching from nice-to-haves to must-haves.

Let’s face it.  Although security is always on the requirement list for any technology, there are assumed limitations that have been accepted as “the best we can do.” This will not do. Security must be baked into all virtualization or cloud-based offerings. We can’t continue to expect enterprise companies to purchase their security from yet another company. Layering another technology on top of what is already being used is a clunky solution that should be temporary. Every new technology MUST sufficiently address security.

Originally, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend was addressed when senior management wanted the freedom to use whatever device they chose or when the engineering and creative teams might be on different systems than the rest of the company. Today, BYOD is a must for a global, mobile workforce. When implemented well, it addresses the need for superior and flexible security, support, collaboration and cross-platform usage.

Speaking of cross-platform, 2013 is the year it becomes a must-have. Business users are running out of patience with applications that don’t operate on multiple platforms or have vastly different experiences depending on the platform.  If as marketing budgets seem to suggest, 2013 is the year mobile marketing takes off, it must also be the year cross-platform become ubiquitous. Although there’s still confusion in some organizations if apps and mobile are the same thing, as the mobile experience becomes more tailored and apps become more sophisticated, it’ll become more clear how these differ.

Tools and applications that don’t operate cross-platform will begin to see declining new sales and limited adoption. Soon after, they’ll be on the list of soon-to-be-obsolete technologies. It isn’t enough to roll out tools for one platform and then a second or third a month down the road. The patience we’ve had for startups’ development roadmaps is waning. When it's an established company that's saying the "it's on the roadmap" line, it's even more unforgivable.

Forget about what will be developed in 2013 or 2014. What’s exciting are the adoption rates that will push enterprises and businesses overall to a new way of operating.

Related articles

Is BYOD Cost Effective for Small Businesses?

Embracing BYOD means understanding cloud and application security

How to Spot a Failed Company Before It Launches

I love that I regularly get to talk with new companies.  I learn so much and always leave with a better understanding of current and future market trends.  What’s also interesting are the statements that raise red flags which have become consistent over the years.  There are several clichés that signal a company is heading in the wrong direction based on what their executives say.  The most obvious is:  Our company will be the next FILL IN BLANK.  

When I started in business, CEOs pitched me by saying they would be the next Microsoft, then it was Yahoo, then it was Amazon, then it was eBay, then it was Google.  You get the picture. If a company is trying to be the next big thing but focuses on existing market leaders, they’re destined to be left in the dust.  By the time said young company raises funds, fully builds its product and enters the market, the large company it was aspiring to be has already moved on.

In the last few years, it’s not the young entrepreneurs who are making these aspirational claims.  It’s executives in their 50s and 60s who seem to be more likely to chase after someone else’s success.  Age of course doesn’t mean someone would know better, but it feels like they should.  

We have a running joke in my home that I shouldn’t be allowed to listen to my friends’ good ideas.  Too many of them have been good on the surface, but light on market research and competitive analysis.  If a company is being founded purely to chase an existing company’s current offering, it’s likely to fail.  

New companies must not strive to be more of what already exists, either in offering or size.  Entrepreneurs don’t need to be the smartest people in the room, but it helps to be the most imaginative. 

Talking Square with Small Businesses

I spent this weekend in Portland, OR.  Saturday was a lovely, sunny day and we walked everywhere.  Besides taking in the city’s amenities, it gave me a chance to speak with local small business owners, particularly food truck owners.  What could be better than eating my breakfast and lunch out of a truck and getting to ask a few business-related questions in the process.  My topic of the day: Square.

For those of you unfamiliar with Square, it is a mobile payment service designed primarily for small businesses.  Its founder is Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter.  I read about the company in May 2010, but first encountered it live at a tournament later that year, when the official tee-shirt vendor used it to process credit cards.  I had seen him earlier in 2010 and it was clear his new payment system was worked better than his previous one.  He showed me the square that plugged into his phone and said it he just got it but it was working well.  

I love new technology, particularly technology that actually fixes or improves and has the potential to make real revenue – in other words disruptive technologies.  My initial interaction regarding Square almost two years ago put the company on my radar.

Flash forward to my trip to Portland this past weekend and my Square-related questions there.  The first people I spoke with were at Sonny Bowl located SW 3^rd and Washington.  When I ask what they thought of Square, the answer sounded like an ad:

• It was incredibly convenient.
• It was so much cheaper and easier than what was quoted by their bank.
• It isn’t has bulky as what the bank processing would have required.
• If it ever runs slow, they turn off the phone and turn it back on, then it works like a charm.

I assumed from this response, most of the city’s more than 200 food trucks must be using Square.  I even imagined a “Sponsored-by Square” sign on the busiest truck lots.  Interestingly, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  My limited, unscientific survey showed that about half accepted credit cards – mostly via Square – and the other half were cash only.

I spoke with Flo of Flogene’s Home Cookin’, at SW 9^th and Adler.  Her food truck has been open a year and business has been booming.  Her business is cash only and she hasn’t seen a need to begin accepting credit cards.  In fact, she said they have a credit card machine from the bank, but only receive one request to use a credit card about every three months.  Arguably, the large “cash only” sign and the abundance of ATMs around the site could be the reason for the low requests for credit card payments.  Flo puts it simply, “We haven’t seen a need. If we thought we would lose business by not accepting credit cards, we would start.  So far, we don’t have a need.”

The third person with whom I spoke about credit cards was a cab driver.  He actually did accept them, but it was so old school that even though my credit card was swiped, he still needed to use a manual credit card imprint machine with carbon copies.  He complained about the slow process and occasional dropped connections with his cab company’s credit card processor.  I don’t work for Square, but it was the one time during the trip where I felt like I could have been an ambassador for the company.  I stepped out of the cab saying to my husband: why would the company use such an antiquated system, when the driver has a smartphone right there and could be running the payments so much easier?

The next 12-18 months should be interesting for Square.  A year ago, Kleiner Perkins led its $100 million series C round.  The company continues to grow.  I’m looking forward to seeing the product and business developments sure to come soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook Won't Open IPO Flood Gates

Whether Facebook’s IPO occurs on Friday, May 18 or is delayed is still yet to be seen.  As of the morning of Saturday, May 12, MarketWatch was reporting that the company was still awaiting approval of its latest S-1.  I expect they’ll be able to debut as a public company on the much-reported May 18 date, but we’ll know for certain in a few days.

Either way, I have no doubt Facebook will be a public company soon.  I’ll also be surprised if it doesn’t top expectations.  If this happens, we need to remember short-term market growth doesn’t equal long-term success.

Groupon is a recent example of this.  On its first day of trading, Groupon was up more than 31%.  It closed at $26.11 per share.  On Friday, May 11, it closed at $9.90.  Even if their pre-IPO hype hadn’t existed, the current trading rate would be disappointing. 

Just as Groupon was expected to be, Facebook is now the new company to be heralded as the IPO market starter.  Despite what some people believe, a good performance from Facebook doesn’t mean the market will soon be flooded with companies going public.   For all its faults, Facebook has been able to show consistent growth in users and revenue.  Yes, it still has to develop additional sustainable revenue streams, but it is at the point in its history where a public offering is warranted. 

We aren’t in 2000 anymore and I tell myself today’s market won’t accept ridiculously underperforming companies going public as they did before that bubble popped.  I may be very wrong, but I’ll continue to cling to this belief. 

In February 2000, Pets.com raised $82.5 million in a less than stellar IPO; nine months later it collapsed.  Webvan’s IPO and collapse was even more spectacular with $375 million raised in a November 1999 IPO before it died in 2001. 

Of course, the one I still personally mourn is the downfall of Kozmo.com.  I knew at the time it was too good to be true – movies, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Krispy Kreme donuts, and just about anything else you wanted, at your door in an hour or less.  Unfortunately, Kozmo.com only introduced minimum order requirements a few months before it officially died.  That means the dozen Krispy Kreme donuts I had delivered to my hotel room in NYC, which was delivered by a man who was probably paid $10 an hour, actually cost the company a few bucks.  Yes, I loved the concept and I helped contribute to its downfall.

So, although there will be more IPOs to come in 2012, it will not be the flood some are anticipating.  In the end, the market and those of us doing business in it will be much better off.  

 

Benioff Wins This Round

Whether Oracle actually cancelled Marc Benioff’s keynote speech or simply “rescheduled it” to Thursday, a day Benioff couldn’t be there, is immaterial. Oracle World is clearly huge and very focused on all things Oracle. I walked on the bridgeway above Howard Street yesterday and even from the outside, you can see it dwarfs the Dreamforce conference from a month ago. However, if someone thought moving/cancelling Benioff was a way to avoid giving him a voice, they calculated very, very wrong.

Now, no matter what Oracle and its partners announce, Benioff will always be mentioned in any news coverage of the event and, possibly more importantly, the gossip/Twitter streams, and blogs like this one. That means a whole lot of money is being spent and Benioff gets the last laugh.

I missed Benioff’s alternative talk this morning at the St. Regis Hotel – which happens to be across the street from Oracle World – but what he said doesn’t matter. What will remembered is the already famous tweet I saw retweeted dozens of times in my Twitter feed starting yesterday afternoon.

Whether you like Benioff or Larry Ellison, no one should question Benioff on this one. I’m not sure if Ellison actually made the call to cancel Benioff’s keynote or if it was someone else’s idea. If it was some else’s idea, their boss should be asking why someone who can’t think through potential ramifications is in a position to make these types of decisions. Anyone who knows Benioff, his reputation or has read his book should have seen this exact course of action happening, including the “street protest.” If this truly was Ellison’s idea, it is another example of what happens when people can’t tell their leader he has a bad idea. Either way, today, and this particular Oracle World conference, belong to Benioff.

 

Netflix’s Future Depends On Distribution Deals

When I was in the VOD business many years ago, the weak link in the business model was access to content (film and television distribution deals).  Flash forward to today’s world of video streaming – nothing has changed.

Now that Netflix has separated into two companies: Netflix for streaming and Qwikster (side note: really dumb name, but that is a different discussion), availability to licensed content for both companies is going to become even more important. Two years ago, Netflix signed an agreement that delayed when it could start offering many new releases, namely those from Universal Studios, Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox. This gives on-demand providers via cable and satellite a 28-day head start. Given their ties to some studios, the reason for this anti-competitive maneuver is clear. 

For Netflix, these agreements were supposed to help build up its catalog of available content for streaming. Earlier this month, Netflix lost valuable future content from Starz Entertainment. Their current distribution deal is set to expire February 2012.

I love streaming video and live in a household that consumes way more than the average amount of available video. Netflix is one of our main sources, but it isn’t the only way we access films and old television series. As Netflix has shortened the amount of time some content is available for streaming, delayed other content and is about to lose even more content, Hulu, Comcast, Amazon Instant Video and other options have come on strong.

Netflix will be around at the end of 2012, but it is yet to be seen if it will be able to bounce back into the growth mode it had only a few months ago. The company has put its eggs in the streaming delivery basket. Now is the time for it to guarantee it has and will have the available content consumers want, when they want it.

Where Founders Should Go After They’re Done Founding

It is rare to find a founder who is visionary and can grow a $1+ Billion organization. For every Jeff Bezos, there are 100s of founders who create very good concepts and then allow their companies to miss their true potential because they don’t know how to move beyond being the founder, CEO and company rudder.

The best founders know whether they are the right leader for the next stage, when it’s time to have someone replace them, or even leave the organization. The second best version is the founder who has trusted advisors who can provide this outside guidance.

For the founder who chooses to leave the company they helped create, their next step depends in part on what brought them to become founders in the first place. For some people, it is as if they have no choice but to create over and over again. For others, founding their first company was based on happenstance. For example, Engine Yard received the funding that put it on the path it’s on today because VCs noticed other companies were using it to build their technology. Wildfire Interactive was created after its founders experienced the painful process of trying to create promotions for Facebook.

Three options are available outside the initial company:

1)   Move into a technical or business role in a related business sector. Yahoo and Google have been known to hire former founders. A large technology company could be a good fit because the founder’s technical skills married with the personality characteristics required to develop and launch a company (determination, organization and confidence) makes these people more likely than their peers to prove themselves and move up quickly.

2)   If the VC who funded the initial company sees potential in the founder’s skills and creativity, an entrepreneur in residence position may be offered. This gives the entrepreneur the opportunity to assist other startup companies by providing insight and subject matter expertise. This also gives the entrepreneur in residence a needed break in which they can cultivate their next idea.

3)   An often-overlooked option is moving into academia. It’s unfortunate that this isn’t considered more. Just as some founders have an abundance of determination, organizational skills and confidence, others are much more interested in the process of creating and perfecting new things. These people will be more focused on details than the big picture. The same characteristic that makes it hard for them to decide what is the best business approach and stick with it makes these people good academics because they want to examine and reexamine every possibility multiple times.

For founders for whom it is not appropriate to remain in any role at their company, what comes next could be uncertain and an ego blow. Two important things to keep in mind: (1) whether you are currently in charge or not, the prosperity of the company you founded is bigger than you and it comes first; second, you can find success beyond one company.

 

What’s Coming and What Could Hold Us Back

Last week, I attended Dreamforce, Salesforce’s conference. Like the now defunct TechCrunch 50, it is a great place to see a lot of very different companies; in this case with a thin layer of similarity. It is the common ground of Salesforce integration that makes the companies so ripe for assessment and comparison. 

I met some old friends, saw the next version of some familiar technology and had a few people lie to my face.

I’m not necessarily in the market for new vendors/technology, so for me it is a perfect time to skim the surface of new companies. There are definitely some interesting things happening.

Without a doubt, social has become more integrated into the mainstream consumer experience over the last 18 months and will continue to expand into the enterprise in creative ways. Having said this, the next significant wave seems to be new ways to leverage business intelligence and predictive analytics. This makes sense given both the technology evolution and the desire for companies to prepare for whichever direction the economy/business may go.

So getting back to the people lying to my face. Enterprise sales and marketing have often sold ahead of what is actually generally available. I get this. If you assume it will take at least two to three months to roll out new software that could push the software into the next release. With the increasing adoption of SaaS and PaaS, this is becoming less likely, but in many cases could still be a legitimate assumption. For startup companies with limited resources, there is also the development plan that builds what customers want, also called customer-sponsored development. If customers understand the timeframe of receiving newly-developed capabilities, this also seems a legitimate approach. I am not labeling either version of this selling technique as a bold-faced lie. 

Unfortunately, there are companies so eager to close deals, they promise features and capabilities that are several releases into the future. If prospective customers don’t know this timing, this can only be seen as intentionally misleading, and if the company in question is promising what it does not intend to deliver, it can be defined as fraud. This has happened throughout the history of business, but combatting it is more important than ever. 

Although the percentage of companies guilty of this might be small, their reach is large. Dreamforce is a good illustration of the reach of SaaS companies. Obviously, main companies around the world use Salesforce. Now these companies are starting to, or are about to start making significant investments with other SaaS vendors. If what they purchase does not meet baseline expectations, it damages the reputation of that vendor, the cloud computing sector and potentially the bottom line of the business that purchased it. “Bad seed” companies can only survive for so long, but it’s the potential for them to drag the rest of us down a peg or two on their way down that will hurt.

 I love startup companies and I love optimism. All I need now is a BS meter for the next conference. 

 

Integrated Marketing: The Only Way to Guarantee Fully Optimized Marketing

For years, I’ve preached the benefits of integrated marketing, so it is time I write about it here as well. Too many companies silo their marketing approaches into narrow disciplines without creating a plan for them to support each other.

The answer is not to only hire generalists without any expertise, but in addition to these focus-area experts, senior marketing executives must be responsible for creating an integrated marketing approach.

One of the easiest ways to begin to create and implement an integrated marketing approach is with a themed approach. Take for example these four potential themes that could run in three or four month cycles over a year:

1)      Cost Savings

2)      Time to Market

3)      New Approach to Old Problem

4)      Sustainability

Messaging related to themes would then be woven into product marketing, analyst relations, demand generation programs and public relations. Like a product launch, the timing of each effort and tactic should be plotted so as to support each other. For example, the analyst relations outreach and thought leadership push would be a few months ahead of the demand generation and messaging to existing customers.

It should go without saying that although the themes and core messaging are the same, each piece must be tailored to a specific audience type. This is even true within the same marketing function. For example, your buyer could be a business unit leader, while the end user (influencer) could be at the staff level. While an attribute such as “easy to use” will resonate with the influencer, it is only a nice additional benefit to the business unit leader looking for a more strategic reason to approve the purchase.

Early stage tech companies sometimes mistake their product attributes for their brand. Others mistake public relations for a brand strategy. A good brand strategy is the perfect example of integrated marketing because it:

• requires articulating the company vision
• influences the product marketing approach and messaging
• determines if the product roadmap is legitimate
• is justified though leadership/analyst relations/public relations/social media
•  is sold as a concept to prospects through demand generation/advertising/ SEM

A siloed marketing approach will never see these commonalities. At best, companies without an integrated marketing approach are wasting time and money by duplicating efforts. At worst, they are weakening their brand and confusing the marketplace.