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Robert Scoble swung by our offices in North Beach in San Francisco and we sat down to talk about Posterous, design, and the future of web publishing.
When you make the decision to start a BIG technology company you are inherently making a somewhat visceral and violent decision that you have evaluated a market and that the key big players that are collecting dollars from this market are not adequately addressing the needs of the customers and in fact are only serving about 10% of the true needs of a market. If this is not the calculation I would argue you are then only planning on offering an incremental value proposition, which inherently is not a BIG tech play. Starting a BIG tech company takes an incredibly long period of time. 6-10 years in many cases (just to start). A great example is Google taking down Yahoo. Up until about 4-6 years into Google's existence it was unclear that Yahoo was even concerned about Google. They were concentrated on building a portal destination with rich content for viewers (the 10%). They failed to recognize the real value they were sitting on which was search and advertising (the 90%). Real technology companies then have to have this 90% insight and patient founders.
Even with my 13+ year obsession with Apple and Steve Jobs, I'm seeing many of these photos for the first time.
Congratulations, Steve. You've had a major impact on computing, design, and my life.
Excerpt from Biz Stone's 2004 book "Who Let the Blogs Out?" -- back when he was working with Ev on Blogger at Google.
Biz was creator of Xanga, which is where I first cut my teeth blogging in a community in 2002. Before that I always wrote my own perl scripts to blog, the vestiges of with are partially memorialized in archive.org. My xanga on the other hand remains online.
Had no idea we would end up building our own take on things, but we certainly stand on the shoulders of giants.
Despite Lilienthal's fate [died when his glider crashed], the brothers favored his strategy: to practice gliding in order to master the art of control before attempting motor-driven flight. The death of British aeronaut Percy Pilcher in another hang gliding crash in 1899 only reinforced their opinion that a reliable method of pilot control was the key to successful—and safe—flight. At the outset of their experiments they regarded control as the unsolved third part of "the flying problem". They believed sufficiently promising knowledge of the other two issues—wings and engines—already existed. The Wright brothers thus differed sharply from more experienced practitioners of the day, notably Ader, Maxim and Langley who built powerful engines, attached them to airframes equipped with unproven control devices, and expected to take to the air with no previous flying experience. Though agreeing with Lilienthal's idea of practice, the Wrights saw that his method of balance and control—shifting his body weight—was fatally inadequate. They were determined to find something better.
YC: Why will users prefer you over Craigslist?Founders: We'll be more localized. Craigslist has listings from all over the city, but we'll just show you listings from your neighborhood.YC: Maybe Craigslist would be better if it were more localized, but until you're popular you'll have to be *less* localized in order to have any listings show up at all.Founders: So we won't turn on localization at first.YC: But then you won't be much different from Craigslist, and there's no reason for people to switch. Your special sauce only works after you're already successful. You need a way to get there.
YC: Why will users use your software instead of Quickbooks?Founders: Our software will be easier to use.YC: Are there a lot of people who find Quickbooks too hard?Founders: Yes.YC: But a lot of people already know Quickbooks, so it's easiest for them to not change.Founders: Sure, we won't take away their users. We'll get new users.YC: How will new users find out about you?Founders: Their friends will tell them.YC: Do people tell their friends, "Say, I just found this really easy new accounting system!"Founders: No, but when people start a business they'll ask their friends what they should use.YC: But they're going to ask their friend who knows the most about accounting. Won't that person be a Quickbooks user? Won't they recommend what they know?
More on Startups.
Every venture capitalist is looking for a “Buzz Lightyear” company (one that goes “to infinity and beyond” like a rocket ship), but history shows that this may not be the best and certainly not only way. Test your knowledge: true or false? Both Microsoft and Oracle took more than seven years to reach $50 million in sales. If you’re starting a company, you need to read this post to see that “hockey-stick” growth isn’t the only way to success.
By Guy Kawasaki. Read this to avoid repeat posts.
If your goal is to start a company, it is mostly a waste of time to work anywhere but a startup.
I agree. Large company experience prepares you for the rigors of navigating fiefdom and hierarchy and pleasing your boss. Those goals don't align you with creating value in the marketplace. But that's the entire point of startups! Get closer to the metal, not farther away.
Before Posterous existed, my blog was mostly photos and reviews. I'm going to shift back in that direction a bit more.
1. Naked Lunch
2. 15 Romolo
We mostly come here to drink but they have great food as well. This place is hidden up an alley between all the strip clubs in North Beach. I was introduced to it by George Penston of Widgetbox. 15 Romolo makes fantastic drinks and it's never crowded. Even on a Friday night, in the middle of tourist packed North Beach, you can come here to get a table and some fine drinks. I think this is my favorite bar in San Francisco. Forget about Bourbon and Branch.
3. Giordano Bros.
We love Giordano's so much, we're actually on overload and have taken a break from this lunch spot. Giordano's is based on the Pittsburgh "Primanti Brothers" restaurant. "The secret? Take two thick slices of Italian bread. Top with your choice of grilled Italian meats and melted provolone cheese. Pile on some freshly cut fries, oil and vinegary coleslaw, and then serve on wax paper."
4. Molinari's
This is a pretty hardcore Italian Deli. Just grab a roll from the bread bin and hand it to the guy behind the counter. The basic Italian sandwich is awesome, and giant. You just can't go wrong here.
5. Good Luck Deli
I miss New York. I miss being able to walk into any corner deli and getting an awesome sandwich for $5. But at Good Luck Deli, you get just that. It's on the edge of Chinatown and owned by a nice Chinese couple, but there's nothing Chinatown about this place. It's friendly and clean, and they make great New York deli style sandwiches. What does that mean? A basic turkey and cheese on a roll, piled high with lots of meat, for only $5. Love it.
This is the official update to "Shift Happens." It provides the latest stats the media marketplace and tech changes. Cool info--very useful at cocktail parties and for speeches.
***** Get your latest tech news at http://tech.alltop.com/ ***** If you haven't seen "Shift Happens," here it is:
AWESOME. Might have to build a few of these ourselves sometime soon. Backblaze does online storage/backup so it's pretty obvious that off the shelf cloud storage won't cut it in the long term.
Mad props to them for breaking it down all the way to parts lists. Talk about open source innovation!
