If anyone sees pins based on those found in The World Ends WIth You for the Nintendo DS for sale anywhere in real life, please inform me. I know where to get Pokemon dojo pins, but these would be much nicer.
Tonight you went bike riding and went to a dark place so you could play with fireflies. They fly high up into the treetops where you can't bother them.
Remember to actually give snacks to your pets if you're going to wrap them in a napkin and take them home with you. Otherwise, your handbag will smell like french fries at the computer lab.
This is the last post here. I've moved my blog over to TypePad. To be more accurate, I will continue blogging there as VOX stinks and doesn't allow you to export your previous blog posts. How stupid is this considering that VOX is owned by the same folks as my new blog host, TypePad? Anyway, enough of this place. Find me here now.
If the link doesn't work, try this: http://babblingvc.typepad.com/pjozefak/
Sorry, for any inconvenience!
I just finished reading the book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" and have to say it was unbelievably funny. Sexist beyond belief (from some people's perspective) and very frat boy oriented, but still. Let's call it "Man-Lit" (see "Chick Lit"). This was a book I actually was laughing out loud to when on the plane. My colleague was getting a kick out of this as he was sitting next to me, seeing me break out in laughter (my inner frat boy kept trying to get out). But, this is not meant to be a book review.
The point is that it's unbelievable how this book came to be. Tucker Max (that really is his name) started a website where he basically chronicled all his sexual escapades. The guy is an outright player (admittedly so) and basically ended up having his site help him to find women whom he could bed (plus, along the way getting sued). When you actually read the stories you cringe at some of his experiences. Pretty disgusting some of the things he gets into. Had I known what the book is about, I probably wouldn't have bought it (on second thought, I would have). Yet, I simply saw it at Borders, prominently displayed amongst other bestsellers and was looking for something to read on the plane......the back page synopsis intrigued me. The catch here is that it's basically a book which copies his online stories and pastes them together into one book. No real advertising was done for it.....it simply was funny enough that word of mouth let it spread (plus the title sure is catchy). This at the same time drove traffic to his site, further driving word-of-mouth for the book. Not only once was he on NYT's bestseller list, but twice (the second time without any special PR). What's the point? Well, this reminded me of how "4 Hour Workweek" spread like wildfire. Further, there's a ton of books out there now trying to follow the same path, but only some really work, taking advantage of hard-copy and the Internet to such an extent and fulfilling basic desires of the general public.
What's this mean for the Babbling VC? Well, probably not much! It's basically a reminder of what sells. If you can get an audience based on common themes such as sex (which as a business case we won't fund) or hating your job (which we might), your audience will be huge. Your typical high school or college aged kid is driven be the urge to hook up. The post-college-age employee often hates his or her job. Nail either of these themes and you have a loyal audience, more than happy to tell their friends about you. Both of these camps tend to be bored out of their minds more often than not. How can you take advantage of this? Well, figure out a way to combine age-old desires with new technology and market it. Not that many ideas like this are fund-able for a VC (well HotOrNot is a perfect example of one that would have been) but you sure can be creative about finding a way to market yourself, or a book, a product, etc. And to really stretch it a bit, sites like MySpace or Facebook are intrinsically driving dating (and you can call it social networking as much as you like). Finally, how many sites have thrived as people were sitting in their office, hating their job and surfing the web? If you really think about it, there is so much more which can be done using the net and fulfilling basic needs. I often wonder whether we aren't thinking too hard at times as investors, missing major opportunities sitting in front of our noses. I sure am glad though that I often pick up books like this and get a reality check!
Once again, I'll be there this Wednesday in Hamburg. Turnout has been good in the past, so if you haven't checked it out yet, do so!
Here you can find further details as to time and logistics.
Due to meetings, I will only be there until 10am but I am sure the others will stick around longer than 9-11am.
Well, I guess it was suppossed to be for a good cause..."Lights out Germany". Somehow it didn't guite work out. Did you "catch" it? I didn't!
Everyone was suppossed to turn off their lights tonight between 8 and 8:05pm to send a message to the world about climate change. I don't know about the rest of Germany, but in Hamburg it was quite bright at this time. I guess not as many people happened to see Goolge (or the others pushing for this) at the right time.
It was still cool though to see Google in black. I guess the "reach" of the web has a ways to go though (or most were really all so lazy and didn't bother getting their butts up off the couch).
I'm always a bit hesitant about giving management advice as it's very difficult to argue in one case versus another. Yet at times, I simply see things which bear noting. I'm all for tradition in the sense that I accept Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa,etc. (holidays), Coke associated with the colors red and white (branding), driving in the left lane (UK laws), metric versus imperial (measurement), etc. You get the point by now. Yet, "tradition" should never be used as an argument for business decisions, as in "we've always done it that way", or "it's simply tradition here". If there isn't a business case, there's no justification for it (note, I said business case....and yes, at times there is a business case for "tradition" but not as a primary driver for decisions). If you see management making these arguments, or you see them within your own organization, be afraid. It's not only bad business practice, it's a double-edged sword as it's very difficult to argue against if it's ingrained. At times, you pick your battles. If you see this "battle" coming up in a business, you may be better advised to avoid that business altogether.
You know it's becoming a small-world when you're pulling out of a parking garage in San Francisco and very nearly run over a VC from a German firm who happened to be jogging by in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even though I do think the headline may have made for some very gossipy journalism along the lines of "German VC's killing each other for deals" or something like that!
Sorry Bart! ;-)
I ran across this phrase when thumbing through an Esquire magazine I found in my hotel room. The article is about TMZ.com, a site which pretty much is everything paparrazi get on film, collected on one site online. Ross McCammon writes about how everyone is now more interesting when they are equally uninteresting. There is a fascination nowadays with seeing celebrities screw up, yet at the end of the day, when you think about it, they are all equally uninteresting. This kind of sums up pretty well most things online: "equally uninteresting" and therefore mesmerizing!
