I’m a sucker for analogies between sports and business. With Barry Bonds on the cusp of tying Hank Aaron’s homerun record, the issue of steroid usage is front and center in sports. That got me thinking about “performance enhancement” in the venture capital business. In other words, how do you transition from “safer” investment strategies to ones that provide more upside?

The suspicion of Barry Bonds has a lot to do with his transformation about ten years ago from an average power hitter to the most dominant power hitter of our generation. In his first ten years as a player, Bonds averaged more doubles than homeruns (31 compared to 29). During the next ten full-seasons, that ratio inverted sharply (28 compared to 44). In baseball, hitters possess different styles. Three common varieties are singles hitters, doubles-hitters and power-hitters. One is not necessarily better than the other (though prestige, compensation and star-value will vary widely). These styles of hitting are fundamentally different meaning that almost everything the hitter does to become proficient at the desired approach will have to be tailored. Pitch selection, the mechanics of the swing, the weight of the bat and the physical regimen are some important factors. While players are developing (typically in the minor leagues of the first few years of MLB experience), there’s possibility of transition from one style to another. But deep into one’s tenure as a professional, the transition is almost unheard of. This accounts for much of the circumstantial evidence people gravitate toward in the case of Bonds and alleged steroid usage.

But what about the venture investment business? Can someone make the switch from one investment style to another? It’s a relevant question to ask because today’s investment climate for web ventures provides strong incentives to be the venture equivalent of a doubles-hitter. Read more »

• Web 2.0 Is A Gift - Not A Threat To VCs
• Recent Acquisitions by Yahoo!/Google/Microsoft

Filed under: Web Apps | 2 Comments »

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Fortune held its high-profile iMeme conference last week, which is billed as venue to bring together the “Thinkers of Tech.”

I found the substance of the conference lived up to its aspirational billing. Many factors influence the utility of an event including the speaker line-up, topics, format and quality of the audience. This event rated highly among those criteria. One additional consideration was the moderation style, lead by Fortune reporters, who often didn’t refrain from asking tough questions and probing into sensitive but relevant issues. Fortune played to its strength by leveraging the journalistic voices of its staff to drive meaningful dialogue amongst panelists.

This approach made for a very lively session on the search business, where rival companies were assembled to speak about business strategy. The search panel included Sheryl Sandberg (Vice President, Global Online Sales and Operations) from Google, Jeff Weiner (Executive Vice President) from Yahoo, Yusuf Mehdi (Senior Vice President and Chief Advertising Strategist) from Microsoft and Jim Lanzone (CEO) from Ask. Herding the first three companies onto the same stage in the current market environment is as close as you can come in business to pure theater. While these executives are too polished and experienced to draw direct comparisons to each other’s businesses, it’s not too difficult to read between the lines and get a glimpse into how these companies are framing high-stakes competitive dynamics.

Each company discussed current initiatives. Google didn’t share much new perspective, except to say that users still only receive a small portion of their daily information from Google despite it’s dominance, meaning more of the world’s information needs to be brought onto the web. “We think there is a long way for us to go,” said Sheryl Sandberg.

While Yahoo and Microsoft may have conceded this round of the battle, they have several initiatives in the works, some of which were explained. Read more »

• Fortune iMeme - What Next For The Internet Media Giants?
• Search Leaders Get Defensive
• iMeme Fa So La Ti Do
• Web Leaders - Search is Just the Beginning
• What's Right and Wrong with Yahoo

Filed under: Events, Google, Search Technology, Innovation | 1 Comment »

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Launching iPhone is a lot more fun than doing the same for even the coolest web app. The physical nature of consumer electronics allows for some launch activities that can’t be replicated with web products. This includes the promotional frenzy of having people line-up outside retail outlets to get early access to a new gadget. As Apple demonstrated last week, nothing beats the dynamic of a physical crowd even in the digital age.

But after launch, true glory tilts in the favor of the web. Web products may launch with a whisper but when things go right, their traction and growth can be heard with a roar.

This starts with the fact that web products are generally available to everyone. There are little to no barriers to consumption. Not only are they almost always free, increasingly, they are also registration-free. Examples of this would be Pageflakes and Netvibes, which allow you to customize a personal page without any sign-up. Web products generally subscribe to logic that product consumption will speak for itself, leaving traditional (outbound) product marketing obsolete.

Distribution is getting to be almost frictionless as well. In web 1.0, there were many gatekeepers like AOL and Yahoo. But now users can add services to their pages whether those pages sit in a content or social network. Facebook and now MySpace are being fairly open about all of this. Blogging platforms have allowed for this from the start. Browser extensions also opened a new channel of portal-circumvention that is now so obvious, we are drowning in a sea of options. The word of mouth factor is so powerful on the web that new products need only get two things right to grow business. The first is the core application and innovation. Not so easy. The second is allowing for all the hooks that users could imagine as ways to pluck great services into other places on the web.

Maintenance is also a snap compared to physical products. iPhone is reported to have bugs. With a web product those bugs can be fixed right away. Most early web companies conduct major releases monthly, minor releases weekly and random fixes on a daily basis.

So what exactly would be some best practices on launching web products? I decided to look into the matter.  Here are four key takeaways. Read more »

• Techcrunch - Don't Blow Your Beta
• Beta--The Four Letter Word of Web 2.0
• iPhone Debuts in Sea of Hype
• Can iPhone Sustain its Launch Success?

Filed under: User Experiences, Web Apps, Innovation | No Comments »

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