The Startup Dream - Andrew Chen's blog

Groupon needs to pivot

2011-08-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

Groupon is in a bad strategic position and needs to quickly pivot. If it does, it might be the largest pivot we've seen in the Internet space. Groupon's cash base will enable the company to sustain for a little while, but we are witnessing a very rapid deterioration of its strategic advantages.

Groupon is a HBS strategy case study waiting to happen (if it hasn’t already). My personal take is that regardless of how the Groupon story ends, it is a rare breed of company. A billion dollars in revenue is a massive achievement. Of US consumer internet companies founded in the last 5 years, there has been only 2 (Zynga and Groupon) that have reached that scale of company—Facebook was founded 7 years ago.

What Groupon has also proved is that there is a massive advertising opportunity connecting local businesses and consumers—hence the hundreds of copy-cat daily deal sites.

Yet the market is proving that Groupon's assumptions about what is defensible in the local advertising space were wrong. Groupon made a bet on a strategy that focused on customer acquisition at massive scale and that its crazy big email list would provide it defensibility.

Once we have a customer’s email, we can continually market to them at no additional cost.
- Andrew Mason, Groupon CEO

http://allthingsd.com/20110825/exclusive-groupons-mason-tells-troops-in-feisty-internal-memo-it-looks-good/

The thinking followed that by owning the biggest email list, Groupon would have a unique proposition to small businesses that they would be the only place where they could reach such a massive reach of customers so quickly.

Initially this was a unique value proposition, and Groupon leveraged this to obtain huge concessions from local businesses (50% of value of coupon sold). There began a virtuous cycle where Groupon had access to the best local business deals, thereby attracting more customers, increasing brand value, and making money hand over fist.

Breaking down Groupon’s strategic position using the Porter’s Five Forces model, you get this picture of the company around 2009:

Groupon was exploiting low supplier power, which ultimately was a result of low competition.
Customers loved Groupon, but still the ball was in the customer's court. The deal (Groupon's product) had to be really good. 20% off was not good enough...it had to be 50% off.
New competitors were quickly sprouting. A lot of people said that it was too easy to copy Groupon's business. Groupon and its investors were on the side that it was not easy.

Fast forward 2 years, and this is the strategic position Groupon is in.

Groupon has no strategic advantage. It's competitive advantages on supplier power and little competition have been significantly weakened by the entrance of hundreds of competitors and significant substitute products.
Customers have proven themselves to be fickle. They are loyal only to the best deal.
Suppliers don't value Groupon's reach as much as they previously did. The huge rush of customers have brought several local businesses to its knees because their operations could not scale.
Groupon has tried to extend its model to new products (travel, goods, immediately redeemable coupons) and new locales (international) to counteract its customers' fickleness.

In retrospect, it now looks like Groupon scaled itself too soon. It had not established a sustainable, competitive advantage and its assumption that scale, in and of itself, would prove to not be a true strategic advantage.

Several folks, including Groupon's CEO, Andrew Mason, keep bringing up Amazon as an example of a company that scaled unprofitably before becoming a huge success. Yet few people have contrasted Amazon's huge initial investment in operations versus Groupon's huge initial investment in marketing. Amazon made a very large bet that by building the most operationally efficient backbone, it would have an advantage on all its competitors on a) price b) shipping time c) selection d) personalization and ultimately e) customer satisfaction. Groupon has made a very large bet on building a big email list.

Where does Groupon go from here?

Groupon needs to change course because it will find that all its initial investments in marketing will start to deteriorate in value.

Groupon's current largest asset is not its email list. It's its brand.

Its brand has immediate recognition with both customers and local businesses. What the company now needs to do is determine how it can provide something new to one or both constituents that no one else can.

Without knowing the internal operations of the company, its hard to say what other assets the company can take advantage of to pivot. But the faster the company makes this change, the better. Making this change as a public company is 10x harder than making the change as a private company.

Airbnb: Crisis Management Fail

2011-07-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

There are so many things disappointing about this story regarding an Airbnb customer and Airbnb.

Customer's blog posts:

http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html

http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html

I hope the victim is able to eventually find peace as this incident certainly appears to have left her in an extremely vulnerable state. What's disappointing is that Airbnb had several opportunities to turn this horrible situation into something better for both the victim and Airbnb.

They only had to do the right thing. By doing the right thing, Airbnb could have made the incident a non-issue. They should have taken care of the victim: provided accomodation, resources, and support. The cost? Some phone calls, a personal visit, and some nominal costs. The downside for not doing so? Alienation of its current and future community members and hundreds of millions of dollars in valuation.

A lot of people argue that by doing the right thing Airbnb is setting a precedent and opening the door for future fraud claims. That is a short-sighted and misinformed judgement. Just because Airbnb provides support to this customer doesn't mean they are setting a precedent for how they treat all cases. And even if they are extremely concerned about setting a precedent, they can take mitigating steps.

If this situation were handled correctly, the victim's blog post never would have been written and none of us would even be having this conversation.

This is Crisis Management 101 for Airbnb and they failed. They failed not just once, but multiple times. Each stage of this crisis elevated the stakes of the game, and each time Airbnb mishandled the situation.

Stage 1. Victim contacted Airbnb
Stage 2. Victim writes blog post
Stage 3. Victim writes 2nd blog post

People familiar with crisis management know that the minute a story about a relatively unknown company hits mainstream media in a negative light, the negative brand cost is tremendous. For the millions that are for the first time hearing about Airbnb through mainstream media outlets, they are leaving with a horrible first impression.

There is little Airbnb can do now to change those people's impression. They read the news story, remembered "Airbnb = not trustworthy", and moved on. Tomorrow their attention will turn to something else.

The best thing Airbnb can do is take advantage of its current airtime to broadcast:
1. What its doing to prevent future situations like this from happening
2. How it plans on supporting community members
3. An honest apology

The climb out of a ditch is always more difficult than the fall in. It's up to the Airbnb team to figure out if they make things right. At the very least I hope they make community management priority #1 (it certainly is not right now).

Why PayPal is interested in Where

2011-04-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, eBay and PayPal announced its acquisition of Where and many felt the reason was to strengthen PayPal's play in the mobile commerce space.

While that is certainly true, the strategic play is to expand PayPal's customer base to include small offline merchants--a much larger market than its current customer base consisting primarily of small online merchants. PayPal's growth and differentiation has been driven by small merchants who were selling online--either on eBay or their own website. Yet the ecommerce industry has begun to be dominated by large players such as Amazon who can provide consistent and simplified buying experiences. Luckily with the recent stunning growth of companies like Groupon, a completely new opportunity opened up for PayPal.

One way to conceptually think about a company like Groupon, which is driving online sales to offline experiences, is as a bank. Groupon is collecting money from online consumers and sending money to its offline merchants. PayPal wants to be that online-offline bank for every small merchant.

The Where acquisition is a great extension of how PayPal will to continue to serve its core customers, small merchants, but in a whole new (and much larger) market -- the offline world.

China = FAIL?

2010-03-16T10:40:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about things and I'm believe that China's economy is in a bubble. I don't know exactly when, but I'm predicting a bubble burst in the next 3 years.

Unfortunately, my economic prediction in 2007 that our economy was going to crash proved true. Again...I am not an economist, but I'm getting the same sense about China's economy.

Why would I make such a prediction when everyone else is saying China is the growth engine for the world's economy?

1. I don't disagree that China will become the world's largest economy over time. "Over time" to me means in the next 25 years.

2. This is China. Everything is China is not what it seems. You can't trust anyone that might have a financial motivation. All the economic data coming out of China comes from the government. Q: Do they have a financial motivation? A: Yes. Conclusion: You can't trust the #s.

3. There are 1.3 BILLION people in China. That is over 4x bigger than the US. China's government says it's unemployment rate is 4.2%. Again, this information comes from the government. So my guess is that unemployment is actually 3x that and is somewhere between 10-15%. China's working age population is around 900 million. Assume, conservatively, that half of those are looking for jobs and you get 45M-68M people looking for jobs. Uh oh.

4. All the shortcuts that is and have been happening in China over the past 20 years will catch up. Whether that is the health effects of pollution, unregulated and widespread food safety issues, poor worker conditions and pay, or low construction quality throughout the building boom...all of these elements point towards an evitable collapse. It's a house of cards that's been built to demonstrate the power of a Chinese economy.

China has built up a tremendous amount of intangible "debt" in the last 20 years. While even if the #s look good, at some point the government's command-and-control will be unable to juggle all the moving pieces and things will tumble.

And following this train of thought, a Chinese economic bubble burst is bad news for the rest of the world and especially for the US. China is the biggest loaner to the US government. Without China's ability to loan to the US, the US economy will grind to a halt (again).

Cross your fingers.

Startups are the future...

2009-12-06T01:56:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last post, but I have a little down time and decided to share a thought.

I was thinking about what the world would be like without startups...and it wasn't pretty. And the reason was that startups are one of the biggest driving forces of progress in our society. Hence, without startups, society loses a lot of momentum.

Why is that? Well basic economics. A startup by its nature has few resources. So to survive, it needs to do 2 things:

1. address a need

2. address the need in a way that is more efficient than how that need is currently being addressed

(1) is pretty obvious. And to serve a need, but with the limited resources that comes with being a startup, (2) must happen.

It's disruptive innovation. And it can happen on a small scale or a large scale. But in the end, startups that survive end up delivering something more efficiently that had been before. And it's their brilliant execution of improved efficiency which is the key to how they survive. No startup can deliver something more inefficiently and survive. The economics just don't work.

The next step...

2009-04-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the past month. Most importantly, I accepted a position as Senior Product Manager at Simply Hired and started a couple weeks ago.

It was a very difficult decision for me, especially having spent a lot of time, effort, and money on CoNotes. However I came to a point where I realized CoNotes was not headed in the direction I needed it to be going, and finding income was a priority.

A couple months ago I mentioned I was job hunting to a few people and a couple friends, Amit and Victor, mentioned that Simply Hired was hiring. Although neither worked there, they had contacts in the company and both referred me to the company. Luckily they weren't put off by the fact that I wrote "Wikipedia" as an interest and I went in for interviews. What I found was a set of talented people that were passionate about their mission (to make job search simple) and really down to earth. It was pretty much the trifecta of work environments...plus In-N-Out and Costco are both less than a 5 minute walk away. That made it a grand slam.

Nevertheless, after I received an offer to join Simply Hired, I still struggled to make my decision. At what point as an entrepreneur, do you stop? For me, it was a gut level decision. With the current fundraising and economic situation, the future of CoNotes was not too bright. I could struggle along and keep things alive for a while, but I wasn't feeling the motivation. And coming to grips that I had lost a lot of the motivation behind CoNotes was the deciding factor.

Since I had made the decision to start job searching, I was putting in much less hours on CoNotes and starting to just become much less emotionally attached to it. This kickstarted a growing level of detachment, which eventually led to a lack of motivation. It wasn't that I didn't believe in CoNotes anymore...it was just that I didn't think I had the energy or stamina to push it over this hump.

So has the startup dream died? I don't think that dream will ever die. But right now I am motivated to make a big difference at Simply Hired. It's only been a couple weeks and I love what I am doing. So lets see where this journey takes me...

YCombinator dilemma

2009-04-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

So I am in a little bit of a dilemma as I applied to YCombinator's program on a whim (literally throwing together an application in 30 minutes on the day of the application deadline). Then I just received a request yesterday to present. The idea behind my application isn't CoNotes, but an idea that came to mind as I was having a discussion with an administrator at the San Francisco Unified School District--the idea had to do with education technology. I guess I thought of the application as my (free) first market validation study. Haha.

I wasn't really expecting anything out of the application because unlike most applicants:

I have not started development
I have no demo

However, I do have 11 years of experience in startups, 4 years of experience in the education technology world, several high level contacts in the education industry, and know how to code. I'm assuming these traits are why the YCombinator folks are a little intrigued.

Now I have to make a decision as to what to do. I certainly do not want to waste anyone's time listening to me ramble about a business idea I haven't really thought through. I also don't know if I have the time to prepare something reasonable to present.

Any thoughts?

Facebook Redesign is all about $$$!

2009-04-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

I have a few thoughts on the new Facebook Redesign.

Although the redesign adds some new functionality and encourages more interaction among members via commenting, it is a step backward in usefulness. I now find it more difficult to find out what people I care about are doing.
Facebook clearly has Twitter envy.
Facebook looks to be repositioning itself for monetization via the Twitter model.

This 3rd point is the one I want to focus on. Recent news is that Facebook is facing some cash flow issues unless it finds a new influx of capital or revenues. Facebook has been around for 5 years now, and it has yet to find it's business model. It is clear that the business model will be some form of advertising, but how? Twitter, in its short lifespan, has already positioned itself as a new advertising channel for advertisers. Although Twitter has not yet implemented its business model, it is fairly evident that it will be in the form of charging advertisers for use of its communication infrastructure.

My guess is Facebook now envies Twitter's position with a clear path to monetization, and to reposition itself in a Twitter fashion. Evidence:

Facebook's redesign strongly refocuses user attention on the real-time feed and interactions with the feed.
Corporate pages (e.g. fan pages) now take the exact same form as user profiles. This will enable corporations to act more like people on Facebook--just like how there is no distinction between people and companies on Twitter.
The sudden prominence of stupid quizes. There is no reason why these quizes have sudden increased in prominence of feeds unless they are an unfortunate side-effect of increased prominence of advertiser communication in the feed.

Facebook is a smart company and knows why its users love Facebook. I bet they know their UI changes would have this kind of backlash as well. And I bet they weighed the pros and cons of delaying a path to monetization, and decided in favor of a quicker path to monetization in lieu of consumer desire.

The Riskiness of Starbucks Bathrooms

2009-02-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

It's now been a little over half a year since I moved out to the Bay Area and have been working on CoNotes. One thing I've noticed is that within 5 minutes of any conversation with a stranger, I am asked what I do. I always give the same response--that I am working on a startup--and inevitably I am asked what my startup does (that question is often quickly followed with an apologetic "if it's ok for me to ask.") Once it is clarified what CoNotes does, 95% of the time I am asked where my office is...and that is what I wanted to write about today.

I work in one of there locations:

Home
Coffee Shop
Library

It is pretty awesome actually to not have a fixed office location. It provides me with a great deal of flexibility for scheduling meetings and for meeting up with people. The main requirements for picking where I work for the day are: free wireless internet and outlet availability. Since Starbucks started offering free wireless, I have become a huge fan of their shops. While the coffee is average, the ubiquity and standardization of stores makes it too easy to work in a Starbucks. My second favorite (quickly becoming my preferred) work location is the library.

However, I have one big complaint about not having an office: bathrooms. Coffee makes me go to the bathroom. Now I don't have any problems with public bathrooms, but going to the bathroom means leaving my stuff unattended. Ever since I had my stuff stolen from me in college when I fell asleep studying at the library, I have been paranoid about people stealing my stuff. However it would be too simple if the only factor was a fear of theft. If any of you work in coffee shops, you know there is prime real estate. The value of a particular seating location can be calculated by a formula like (proximity to an outlet) + (non-wobbly table) + (size of table) + (next to a window) + (far from stanky bathroom). So when you get a high value table, you don't want to lose it. Furthermore, since the economy crashed, I've seen a lot more people at coffee shops than before; I'm assuming these people were all laid off and looking for jobs online at coffee shops. That means if I pack up all my stuff to go to the bathroom, the likelihood of someone taking my prime table is very high (especially now with all these jobless people). So thus is my daily dilemma. Is the risk of losing my table more costly than the risk of someone stealing my stuff?

More often than not, I end up running to the bathroom, doing my business, and running back to my table. But that time in the bathroom is high stress time for me. Luckily nothing has been stolen and I've started to employ a simple trick I learned from the book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (great book, by the way). I just ask whoever is sitting next to me to watch my stuff--as long as they look like they won't steal my stuff themselves, which was an issue when the guy next to me confessed he just recently got out of jail.

Other than that, I have to say I enjoy my flexible work location. It's even better when you overhear other people's conversations that are really interesting...like the lady who is recently divorced after a 20 year marriage and is now chasing a younger man.

How to handle corporate crises that stem from user generated content (UGC)

2008-12-29T13:45:00.001-08:00

I wanted to share a paper that I co-wrote with fellow students while we were MBA students at Kellogg. The paper covers how a company should respond to crises that are a result of user generated content. With the speed at which information is now disseminated on the internet, companies need to be prepared for situations where employees and customers can create a firestorm with a simple blog post or video upload (example: Comcast guy sleeping).

It's kind of a long paper, so if you want to jump to the meat, the heart of our conclusions start on pg. 14.

Click on the below link to read in a bigger window.
Corporate Crisis Management of User Generated Content

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Marketing Business ugc social media

Monday's got you down?

2008-11-11T22:24:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted on CoNotes blog here: http://www.conotes.com/blog/mondays-got-you-down

Having connected thousands of job seekers with startup companies, we have seen some interesting trends since we have launched. The two that stand out have to do with the day of the week and time of day that individuals tend to seek jobs.

1. I am not sure what happens during the weekends that make people realize they are unhappy with their current job, but Mondays are the most popular day for looking for a new job. 20% of our visitors search for a new job on Monday. Tuesday's and Wednesday's are the 2nd most popular days to search for a new job, with 18% of our visitors coming on each of those days.

Job Applicant Trends by Day of Week

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Career Job Search recruiting job seeking

2. Noon-time PST is the most popular time to look for a job. Just over 7% of job searches on CoNotes come between 12pm and 1pm PST. The amount of job searches starts to climbs quickly from 9am PST (12pm EST), and slowly tapers off in the afternoon. I'm guessing a lot of people's day goes like this:

show up to work
read some emails
update Facebook status to "bored at work"
trudge to a useless status update meeting and munch on donuts
try to stay awake until lunch switching between Facebook and Excel (whenever anyone walks by)
lunch time!
realize hates jobs...there has to be something better than this...

Job Applicant Trends by Time of Day

Get your own at Scribd or explore others: Career Job Search recruiting job seeking

As you would expect, Monday job searches at noon is the most popular time for people to look for jobs.

So if you hate your job, do these trends describe you?

Kiva Loan Repaid!

2008-11-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

I just got an email today that the small Kiva loan I made was repaid. Those of you who follow my blog will remember that I made that loan about a year and a half ago (post here). I just find it kind of funny that I get an email about full loan repayment to an Nigerian entrepreneur in the midst of an economic crises in the US where people making 100x Jeoffery's income can't even pay off their credit cards.

Below is the text I received from Kiva about the microloan made to Jeoffery:

This is an update on your loan to Jeoffery Ogbvo in Nigeria.

Jeoffery sells provisions like drinks,tomatoes
paste,milk,detergent,etc.He used his last kiva loan to purchase more
provisions to sell.With the profits he made from his sale.He used it in
the payment of his childern school fees.He has fully repaid his kiva
loan.He says thank you to all kiva lenders and Lapo microfinance.

Additional notes from Kiva:

1. This update was posted from Nigeria by Kiva's Field Partner, Lift
Above Poverty Organization (LAPO). If you appreciate this update, please
consider supporting another entrepreneur listed by this Field Partner.
You can view other fundraising loans of Lift Above Poverty Organization
(LAPO) here:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=20&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New%2Bto%2BOld&_te=j

It just makes you reconsider how we view financial stability in this world. There are a lot of things we need to reconsider and we should take what president-elect Obama said in his election night speech to heart.

"This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you."

Casting a ballot for "change" means very little -- especially in California where the same voters that overwhelmingly selected Obama also voted to ban gay marriage; what hypocrisy! We should all consider ways to make the world better. I will continue to support entrepreneurs through Kiva, mentorship, and ways I best know how; and I hope you will support your communities in the ways you best know how as well.

Lehman bankruptcy = $150+MM loss for San Mateo school districts

2008-10-06T11:17:00.001-07:00

Wow. Over dinner, my friend, Mike, mentioned that Lehman's bankruptcy caused school districts in San Mateo county to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. I was shocked to hear this because despite hearing about all of the disasters on Wall Street, I expected any effects out in the Bay Area to be secondary effects.

How did this happen? By California state law, school district funds are held by the county, and San Mateo County had a large percentage of its assets held in Lehman bonds. In a cruel twist of fate, Menlo Park City School District, which had a AAA bond rating (highest possible rating), had just issued $30M in bonds to finance the renovation of its schools. So this school district, which had done its job in running an extremely fiscally responsible operation and, furthermore, had used its strong credit history to finance better schools for its students, was directly impacted by fallout on Wall Street.

Now you can argue that the county should never have had its assets held in such risky assets, but it is a sad story nonetheless. How do you explain to a 10-year old that in addition to their home being taken away by foreclosure, that their favorite teacher is being fired and that their playground isn't going get new monkey bars anytime soon?

News article here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_10632548

So I was thinking about how we got to this situation, and I keep coming to the conclusion that it was a horrible chain of selfish decisions -- none, in and of themselves, 100% at fault, but all contributing to the fallout. It's like a horrible example of Macolm Gladwell's Tipping Point gone right. The start was Clinton's policy of encouraging home-ownership for everyone and Greenspan's outrageously low interest rates. Then it was financial firms taking advantage of this cheap credit (basically free money) and the over-securitizing of financial assets. This inventivized mortgage companies to push mortgages (often illegally) onto unqualified home buyers. That was the tipping point. This basically sent the financial industry into overdrive as it had an overload of mortgages that it could trade and make money off of. This created a recursive cycle that resulted in the creation of trillions (with a T as in TONS) of dollars of fake value. Now those trillions of fake money are being unwound out of our global economy.

The problem that I have is that all these players knew EXACTLY what they were doing. It was not a situation where the blind were leading the blind. The major actors in this play were extremely intelligent and capable individuals. But the reward of payoff for all of them was enough to take the risk. Clinton and Bush had political gains in mind. Greenspan had a reputation as a financial mastermind to hold up (do you think it was a coincidence he left his office at the time he did?). The bankers all had huge bonuses at stake.

Now I don't have any problem with capitalism and free-market economics, but they are not a solution to everything. I don't think supporters of these systems ever consider the down-side cost. They only consider the upside reward. Yes, people who work hard and are talented should be rewarded for their good work. But, people who are by-standers should not bear the outsized responsibility for the cost. THAT is the problem with a free-market system; it never will be run truly like a free-market system. It's an option-call for the people with the biggest upside.

We are seeing exactly what happens when we try to impose too much of a free-market system on an economy. For that reason, I cannot support a McCain presidency. On top of the extreme incapability of Palin, McCain has always been a strong supporter of free-market economics. While he claims he is now all about reform, reform, reform, and maverickism (whatever that means), I cannot trust him to implement any reasonable reform.

Let's hope that Obama can be a voice of reason for the next 4 years.

Why I just can't vote for McCain-Palin

2008-09-15T01:22:00.000-07:00

As a business owner, I should love the Republican Party. But I just can't bring myself to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.

Top 10 reasons in no particular order:
1. The Bush administration is the worst thing to happen since New Coke. It has taken everything good about the Republican Party (small government, states' rights, fiscal conservatism) and thrown it out the door. McCain's statements make me believe we would be in for 4 more years of the same.
2. Sarah Palin.
3. Sarah Palin.
4. Sarah Palin.
5. Palin's response to why Alaska being close to Russia makes her a capable foreign affairs. "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska." That's like me saying I'm ready to go into M&A discussions with Oracle because I drive by their offices every day.
6. Sarah Palin.
7. Sarah Palin.
8. Sarah Palin.
9. Sarah Palin.
10. I want people in office that got their passport before 2007.

Facebook Ads...not so great.

2008-08-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Some of you have emailed me about the CoNotes Facebook Ads that you have seen. I'm impressed that you have even seen them given the atrocious click-through rate that I have been getting. I am going to assume the only reason my friends have actually seen the ads is because I have emailed them about 50 times about CoNotes. So they are pretty aware of my logo and can recognize it at a quick glance.

I have been running ads for a few weeks now, and below charts the CTR data for the past 2 weeks. I ran the exact same ad with different university targets to see if I could detect any differences in market segments according to which university a person went to. The results were pretty inconclusive as you can see.

Facebook Ad Report - Upload a Document to Scribd

I had a theory that there was an underserved recruiting market at schools not typically targeted by startups. Therefore, I was expecting to see higher click-through rates at the liberal arts and top non-Ivy schools. While the average CTR of liberal arts schools was the highest, I can't really make any statements as of yet. I think I will really have to wait for spring to come around to really make any conclusions -- when college students tend to make their employment decisions. Running the ad in the summer time probably hit the alumni at those schools, which is also another interesting group to study.

Nevertheless, despite any trends that are there or aren't there, the CTRs are horrible. The highest CTR I received from ANY segment was 0.2%. Social networks are known to average about 0.1%, so my results confirmed those results. It's well documented that the users of social networks are not in the right mentality when looking at ads. They are there to find out what is going on within their "social graph" and to find some entertainment through social apps. This is much different from the transactional mentality a user has when he/she searches for "digital camera" on Google.

On the positive side, the leads that Facebook does send me (note: this is in the single digits per day) are quality leads. So the targeting functionality is pretty effective. And I'm happy that I can target ads to very specific self-defined interests of users and their school affiliation.

But here is my advice to Facebook. If you are going to build out an advertising platform, you really need to target it to the usage pattern of your users. So what do I mean by that? Well let's think about the main reasons people use Facebook:

To find out about people in their network (in their network = friends or just people "in their network")
To share their experiences with people in their network
To spend time on social activities (not necesarily in their network)

Given these 3 main usage patterns, Facebook's advertising platform should enable different kinds of ads.

For usage pattern 1, self-expression advertising is the most logical fit. People self-affiliate themselves with brands and products. You have Apple fan-boys, Audi tuners, and Jimmy Choo shoe lovers (I'm not totally sure why I know about Jimmy Choo). Why not let companies advertise through these people? It could be a mutually beneficial relationship where brands pick specific people they want to advertise their brand through, and those people are compensated because of the special role they play in their social network (e.g. "mavens" or "salespeople" as Malcolm Gladwell would describe them). Compensation could be money, but even better is probably special privileges to products from the company. Brand companies are very concerned about diluting their brand value, so they want to make sure the right people are promoting their brand (e.g. Kobe lost a lot of endorsement deals after his rape allegations). So to enable such a advertising platform, Facebook would need to build a mechanism for advertisers to find which users to advertise through.

Usage pattern 2 lends itself to more of a transactional advertising model. People often post pictures of food from a restaurant they ate at or write a post about the hotel they stayed at. These are all opportunities to enable transactional commerce. WOM advertising is strong, so why not enable advertisers to take advantage of the best WOM advertising -- through your friends. Imagine that your friend took a picture of an awesome slice of prime rib from Lawry's. If I hadn't eaten at Lawry's, I would either want to save it to a list of "places I want to try" or maybe even make a reservation.

Usage pattern 3 is pretty hard to create a specific advertising platform for. But it doesn't really matter, as this type of usage is actually enabled by 3rd party Facebook apps. Facebook app developers currently can put their own ads on their apps, but it would be helpful as a developer if Facebook enabled ads through their own API. Basically Facebook would create an inventory of ads that developers could tap into and place on their own apps. Depending on the nature of the app, developers could select the best types of advertisements.

The difficult thing about some of my suggestions are that they would be changes in behavior for advertisers. Advertisers like buying advertising products with defined standards and specs. However Facebook has an opportunity to really shape social network advertising if they build out the right advertising platform.

So that's it. Do I really have any evidence to say this would be much better than the current Facebook Ads or their even worse Beacon product? Not really. But I'm pretty sure it is a step forward.

Which has a better business model: YouTube or Hulu?

2008-08-24T01:11:00.004-07:00

There has been some conversation picking up in the past year about the online video advertising business model. Ad rates are rising, and clear distinctions in ad rates between user-generated videos and professional-content videos have emerged. Hulu is now able to command 2-3x higher ad rates as YouTube. For this reason, some people are saying that Hulu is a much better business than YouTube.

Yet I think people aren't really looking at the correct metric when comparing YouTube and Hulu's business potential. People are comparing views, ad rates, and engagement. I argue that the most compelling metric should be Revenue $ per GB. GBs are the driving variable cost units in the online video business (bandwidth, storage, and processing). Therefore looking at the return per GB makes a lot of sense.

Which is a better business: YouTube or Hulu? - Upload a Document to Scribd

Breaking down the #s, it is clear that YouTube has a much better business model. Despite the 3x higher ad rate for professional content, YouTube is able to generate 3x as much revenue per GB because the average YouTube video is 1/10th the length of Hulu videos, and YouTube videos are encoded in a lower-quality bitrate.

These #s may change if YouTube removes its video upload size restriction or increases its encoding bitrate. It is unlikely the upload size restriction will be removed by much, but it is likely that the encoding bitrate will increase as consumers gain access to HD cameras.

Nevertheless, unless professional content ad rates end up 9x greater than user generated ad rates, YouTube will continue to have the better business model.

I’m Brian Jordan Bronson, of the Darien Connecticut Bronsons

2008-08-22T18:02:00.004-07:00

Stuff like this is always better when it's true. It's also a great follow up to my previous post.

---------------------

From: Brian Jordon Bronson
Date: Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Subject: Hello, Stanford!

Dear Future Classmates,

I can’t believe we’re all going to Stanford!

Please don’t be alarmed by the mass email, I do it a lot (LOLz!). This is just to introduce myself, since being Round 3 I missed most of you at the welcoming receptions. I’m Brian Jordan Bronson, of the Darien Connecticut Bronsons.

As all of you probably found it very difficult as well, choosing between Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Wharton, Tuck and Kellogg gave me a lot to think about. Luckily we all made the right choice! The past chunk of years, I worked in private equity, specifically LBO (leveraged buyouts). It all became kind of boring, and I started managing my family’s various funds and investments in my free time... when that all became second nature I decided there must be something else out there and chose to get an MBA. I really want to be challenged.

Stanford advised me to sign up for the facebook group, but I’ll let you all know now that I am new to this facebook thing so please don’t judge my lack of friends... I promise I have many friends from school and from my summer homes. What does poking do? Anyway, please do friend me as I don’t want to miss out on any cocktail or dinner parties.

And, I will admit that I recently broke up with my longtime girlfriend.
Yes, I am single, ladies.

Also, does anybody here do community service? Since I’ll be new to the Bay Area, I wanted to find out where I should best go to do my part in helping those not nearly as fortunate as I am. Specifically, I am interested in volunteering at a soup kitchen, or reading to sick children at a hospital, or maybe cleaning up trash in the dirtiest neighborhood. Stuff like that.

If anyone else summers in East Hampton, please let me know... I’ll be here until Labor Day, call me so we can meet up for a Mojito. There are five or six spare rooms in my house for guests, too, if anyone wants to make the trip out here.

See you all in a few weeks!

Godspeed,

BJ (“The Beejster”)

PS—I didn’t get into Schwab, but all that means is we’ll be partying at my off campus apartment 24-7... I’m calling it “The Fortress of Soulitude.”

--

Brian Jordan Bronson, II
Darien, CT

Universities with hidden talent

2008-08-22T03:01:00.005-07:00

Cross post from CoNotes blog: http://www.conotes.com/blog/universities-with-hidden-talent

In the recruiting world, there is so much subjective opinion that it is very difficult to decide if Candidate A is better than Candidate B. That is why brand name universities and companies carry so much weight on resumes.

What ends up happening, though, is that every startup looks to hire some undergrad engineers from Stanford. They all send an email out over various Stanford listservs, hoping for a hit. Sometimes you’ll get a hit, but a lot of times you are just another fish in the sea of startups recruiting at Stanford. And while students at Stanford are great, there are tiers of students. Some startups are inherently going to grab the top tier students, and some the 2nd tier…but the question is whether it’s worth going for the lower tier students or whether you should really start spending time searching for hidden talent at other schools?

So I wanted to see if there was some way to prove there was talent at lesser known schools. The tough part is finding a common, easily-available metric for “talent” at different universities. I couldn’t come up with anything good, so I settled on what data I could find easily—SAT scores at different universities. Before any of you jump on me for using SAT scores as a proxy for qualified candidates for a startup, I ask that you help find me a better metric that can serve as a proxy for such a purpose.

Given that caveat, I really just want to show that there are some non-brand name universities with just as much talent as brand name universities. I also wanted to narrow down the scope a little since a large number of entry positions at startups are engineering related. So I used US News’ list of top undergraduate engineering schools. The names most people would expect are on there (Stanford, MIT, Berkeley), as well as some other schools less well known for their engineering programs (Michigan, Cornell).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of California—Berkeley
California Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
Cornell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Purdue University—West Lafayette

More surprising were the schools on a second list for universities without doctorate programs.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Harvey Mudd College
Cooper Union
Cal Poly—San Luis Obispo
United States Military Academy

I personally know of these 5 schools because of friends that attended each school, but I doubt a lot of people know that these schools have some great undergraduate engineering programs.

After gathering SAT data on these schools, I then ranked them by percentage of the student body with SAT scores above 1500.

California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
Harvey Mudd College
Cornell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Cooper Union
University of California—Berkeley
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign
Georgia Institute of Technology
United States Military Academy
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Purdue University—West Lafayette
Cal Poly—San Luis Obispo

(Scribd doc with more data at end of the post or link to doc here.)

What stood out to me were 3 specific schools: Harvey Mudd, Cornell and Cooper Union. Harvey Mudd at 32% of their school with SAT scores above 1500 is pretty much neck-and-neck with Stanford. And all 3 have higher percentages than Berkeley and Illinois, two schools with much better known engineering schools.

Now if you want to then look at universities in terms of absolute #s of students with SAT scores above 1500, you get this ranking:

University of California—Berkeley
University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign
Cornell University
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
Stanford University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Purdue University—West Lafayette
California Institute of Technology
Cal Poly—San Luis Obispo
United States Military Academy
Harvey Mudd College
Cooper Union
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

This ranking only reinforces Cornell’s standing as a great place for startups to recruit. With just as many undergrads scoring 1500 or above as Illinois, and more than Stanford or MIT, it seems logical to at least make a small effort to reach out to Cornell engineering students.

At the same time, these are the #s that really hurt schools like Harvey Mudd and Cooper Union because companies feel like there aren’t enough qualified applicants in absolute terms at the schools—despite the high percentage of very smart students. But both these schools are in very convenient metropolitan areas (Harvey Mudd is in LA and Cooper Union is in NYC), so the incremental cost is not that high.

While I want to emphasize again that SAT scores are not a great proxy for talented people, it does indicate that there are some schools with hidden talent pools that startups really should be targeting. And moreover, they might want to spend more time at these other schools than some of their current target schools.

Universities with hidden engineering talent - Upload a Document to Scribd

Olympics and gaming...

2008-08-20T13:51:00.005-07:00

I have to say that the Olympics are the biggest distraction to come around since Facebook. I mean, how can you NOT follow the drama? Michael Phelps, the Redeem Team, Usain Bolt, let alone the whole side story of human rights, pollution, and underage gymnasts in China?

What is amazing about the Olympics is that they epitomize competition. It isn't necessarily the best gauge of who is best, but it is the best competition in the world. In this competition, you have the world's best athletes all together in one place, showcasing their abilities for the world to watch.

I cannot think of any other venue that attracts the world's best talent and have the entire world watching at the same time. The World Cup might be the next closest thing, but soccer is just one sport.

There is something rare about athletic competition that brings people together. No math competition (despite the dreams of Math Counts competitors and their math teachers) would bring such a huge drawing. I think the factor that comes into play is how easily comprehensible every sport is. You could distill every competition into an easily understandable form -- fastest time, most # of points, best form. And even more important, every observer can easily be a judge of the competition. Every observer can make their own call about if a punch was landed, a landing was stuck, or the finish line crossed. Right or wrong, everyone can become involved with sports. Once you take away the simplicity of sports or the competitive nature of sports, people stop paying attention.

These same factors are the driving force behind the success of American Idol, Project Runway, and my current favorite -- America's Best Dance Crew.

Where am I going with this post? I'm not really sure...I think I'm blabbering and on some tangent now.

But the Olympic stage reminds me of the trend in casual gaming. For casual games to explode, they really need to distill the game down to an easily understandable form. More importantly, they also need to have a competitive factor that motivates people to stay involved. Easy for me to say...hard for you to do. That's why I'll just stick to what I know and watch Usain Bolt demolish other sprinters.

Find your dance!

2008-08-02T21:29:00.005-07:00

So I came across this video from Surya's blog and for some reason just couldn't stop smiling.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

It is an awesome video and I thought about why I liked it so much. What comes through is the human desire to connect with one another at a very simple level. I mean here is a guy doing a simple jig in the corners of the world, and people of all cultures, languages, and countries join in. And not only are they joining in, they are LOVING IT!

I think we all want to be Matt. We want to cut through the bull-crap of politics, stereotypes, and whatever. We want to be able to connect with people everywhere...we just have to figure out our own worldly "dance." For some, it might be their laugh, and others their smile. I'm not really sure what mine is, but this video has made me think about it. I'll let you know if I have figured it out, but you might know better than me what my own dance is.

Oh yeah...and the best clip of the bunch has to be the Papa Nui Guinea tribesmen. That is just awesome.

California Lovin'

2008-07-29T14:26:00.002-07:00

Some of you have contacted me about the latest coverage of CoNotes on Mashable (http://mashable.com/2008/07/28/conotes/). It really is great to hear that CoNotes is getting some attention and I truly appreciate all the support.

Since my last post, a lot has happened. I have since moved out to the Bay Area and am loving the perfect weather! Every day has been 75 and sunny. It's too bad I've spent a large amount of that time inside a coffee shop doing work. But on those days I can get outside, it is awesome. Much better weather than that Chicago cicada summer of 2007. It's also great that I have a number of family and friends out here. Thanks to Ed and Eugene, whom I crashed with for the first 3 weeks I was out here.

I really wanted, though, to write about the wave of emotions that I have been going through. Things like emails from users who appreciate what I am doing are very encouraging. But then I hear about competitors and problems, and I start to question myself. These messages come in every 15 minutes, and I'm in a constant up-down motion.

By now, I've kind of numbed myself to any news. I know I can't get myself too high on anything good or too low on anything bad. I am focusing on getting the work done and taking care of all the tasks that require attention.

Sorry I can't write more, but I'm now starting to think about all the stuff I need to take care of today. So back to work for me. Before I leave, though, I wanted to comment on the passing of Dr. Randy Pausch.

Like most of you, I discovered Dr. Pausch on YouTube. His "Last Lecture" was moving and inspirational. And I find it ironic that it took such a tragic disease to bring him into the spotlight. The message that I took to heart from his speech was this:

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

I hope I am playing my hand as well as possible.

My Blog and Decisions

2008-05-31T13:10:00.003-07:00

So some of you have asked me why I still continue to post on this blog while I now have a blog on CoNotes. Well I plan on continuing this blog with the original intent of tracking my personal story of starting a company. While I have been inconsistent with my posts, I hope to improve upon that. The CoNotes blog will be the company's voice to the public - even though it still is from me. So that blog will relate to decisions about CoNotes and having conversations around CoNotes.

CoNotes is and will be a big part of my life, but I think it will be healthy for me to (at least in the virtual world) put some distance between my personal life and my "business" life. So this blog is merely my statement of what I am going through as the founder of a startup.

So that is a great segway into this post about...

Decisions.

So last night Kellogg had its last school-wide formal for the year and it was Casino Night. For the most part, it was a typical charity event and attendees were able to use their chips to bid on several prizes at the end of the night. I don't really get too excited to gamble because I usually lose money, and given that this event was "fake" money, I was even less excited. Nevertheless, I played some blackjack and I began to bet recklessly. I started playing all my chips -- spread out over 2 or 3 seats. I began lucky and my original 50 chips soon became 500. But then I continued to play in this out-of-control manner and as anyone could predict, I was out of chips in no time. Losing these chips didn't really bother me, but my reaction to my losses did. Even though I knew the chips were just "play chips," I hated the thought that I just squandered them. I wanted to play more just to win them back. I used my girlfriend's chips and lost those. Worse yet, I cheated by holding back some chips that the dealer should have collected. I justified this as being ok because I knew many dealers (which were fellow students) were giving out chips to friends.

As I think about what I did, I am pretty disgusted with myself. And then I think about what it says about me and what I will do in the future. Will I be willing to act irrationally and unethically just for small, meaningless gains? What does this mean about how I will lead my company?

A lot of people have told me that me decision to start a company is a big gamble. I never thought so for several reasons.

I am learning a great deal about the internet space and how to operate in it. The decisions I make for CoNotes are my responsibility. I believe I am and will learn much more than if I were in a larger company, where my decisions would need to be ratified by higher-ups.
I believe I can get a decent paying job anytime I want. I don't think I can get ANY job, but I can get a job that pays well.
Most importantly ...You can't price the difference between doing something you marginally like versus something you love. The cost of being stuck in a marginal job is huge for me. Therefore, while I am losing out on guaranteed salary, I believe it is a smaller cost than being stuck in an unfulfilling job.

But in light of my actions last night, I worry that I am just completely irrational. Maybe I don't really know what I am risking and that really scares me.

Basketball and Business

2008-05-22T12:50:00.003-07:00

It is the heart of the NBA playoffs and the Lakers just won Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. It is hard not to be smiling when the Lakers are doing well. I just was thinking, though, if there is any similarities between basketball teams and business, and I started coming up with some superficial analogies. Most sports-business analogies compare sports positions to corporate positions (e.g. the quarterback is like the CEO), so I am not going to do that. I am just going to compare random analogies to tech companies. And in nerdy fashion, I am going to make the comparisons in SAT analogies format.

Kobe Bryant:NBA fans:: Apple:PC owners
Apple made a huge splash when they first came on the scene and pretty much had meteoric growth for their first decade of existence. Kobe came onto the scene in much the same fashion, earning a spot on the NBA All-Star team in his second season, while only a 6th man on the Lakers. Then both fell out of fashion. Apple started putting out dismal products like the Newton and had PCs that were only useful to graphic designers. But diehard Apple fans continued using their products (and I still know people who continue to use their brick-sized Newton). Likewise Kobe kind of fell out of favor when he was accused of rape. While the accusation seemed dubious, the fact is that he committed adultery and most people weren't too happy about that. The Lakers also stopped being a title contender and Kobe went through this period where he did some strange things like tattooing "Black Mamba" onto his arm.

Fast-forward to 2008 and both Apple and Kobe are high flyers in their respective communities. Everyone wants an iPhone and Kobe just won the season MVP award.

OK...so when I started this post I had a lot of analogies in mind, but I now have 10 emails in my inbox that I need to take care of. I'll leave you with one of the analogies that I really liked and let you fill in the description yourself:

Grant Hill:Dukies :: Linux:techies

Also make sure to check out CoNotes (http://www.conotes.com)! Find an exciting startup job! The traffic growth over the past two weeks has been tremendous.

...and we are live (again)!

2008-05-13T14:29:00.001-07:00

Post cross-posted on: http://www.conotes.com/blog

Hey! This is Andrew, founder of CoNotes. I’m really excited to announce the relaunch of CoNotes. CoNotes is the one place to go to for job opportunities in the most exciting entrepreneurial companies. If fast-growth companies such as Facebook or ZipCar excite you, then this is the place for you. My goal is to help you find your passion and live your dream!

As a business school student at Kellogg, I made a concerted effort to find a position within several startup companies. But I spent hours upon hours looking for, researching, and aggregating information about fast-growth companies. I knew there were tons of others people going through the same frustrating process and that I could come up with a better way to find these companies. That thought was the birth of CoNotes.

So take a look and click around. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if there is an exciting company that you think needs to be added, let me know!

Interesting vs. Interested

2007-11-30T14:36:00.000-08:00

I read an excellent piece of advice last week that I thought I'd pass along. Paraphrased...

"Stop trying to be interesting and start trying to be interested."

My Generation

2007-10-15T17:04:00.001-07:00

I've come to realize that I belong to a most interesting peer group. While I cannot comment on other peer groups or past generations (not having lived in them), the people I am surrounded by can be defined by two traits: 1) preparation and 2) action. These are two very positive attributes, but there is a downside, which I will talk about in a little bit.

First, though, I'd like to say why I think these two traits define the people I grew up around. PREPARATION. We have been preparing for (or more appropriately have had a plan for) our lives since the day we were born, and this is one thing that is definitively a result of nuture (vs. nature). Our parents were the first generation to live in the suburbs. Most of my peers grew up in fairly well-off neighborhoods. At Kellogg, during my orientation, one speaker asked how many members of my class had attended an urban high school. I believe 4 hands were raised. That is less than 1% of my class. Our parents also had less children than previous generations, so there was greater incentive for them to invest in us (i.e. plan our future). We were raised by parents who defined a much larger percentage of our childhood activities than previous generations.

Thus, the second defining characteristic of my peers, ACTION, was born. Our parents had plans for us, and then they pushed us to implement them into our actions. Our parents were not content letting us play in the yard all afternoon. We had to participate in youth soccer, music lessons, and community service. We had to aim for leadership positions in clubs. And as much as my generation likes to believe our parents didn't dictate our actions, it's very hard to find evidence to the contrary.

So picture my generation entering the college setting. We have had a great part of our lives planned out for us, and now for the first time, we have some discretionary control. So what do we do? We play out the plans that we know so well from high school. We get involved on campus. We engage in community service. And this is excellent because we feel good that the world is better because of our actions.

College graduation. The "real" world, or something like it. Our previous framework of plans and actions don't translate so well. Where are the clubs to join? Is there a community service group in my company? It's no fun when I can't be elected president of my group. And thus my peers fall into a mentality of discontent and confusion. So what is the best thing for us to do? Go back to a setting where we can live our lives the way we know how. A place where clubs are ways to stay active and community service groups help us feel good about ourselves. Ohhh...that is a place called business school (or law school, or grad school).

We can all see where this is now heading...we have been planning and acting in such a rote way for so long, it is very difficult for us to break out of this mold. Our goals in the end are to be happy and successful, but it is unclear how to get there from here. The best way we see how is to move forward with everyone else. Our thoughts are subliminally, "These people around me have been successful in the same ways I have been. So as long as we are all moving in the same direction, we will all end up in the golden land of happiness and wealth."

Yet in these best laid plans of mice and men, something goes awry. I am not sure how things will progress, but seeing how we as a group move in mass, something will pass us by. My fear is that something is our passions. I fear that we, who have so much to offer, are putting aside our passions for our pre-planned futures. A plan which our parents created for us, but one that we don't understand. A plan which dictates that we do the "safe" things, but has no real meaning behind it. I liken this future to a diamond. It looks good, feels good, and everyone else says it is great. But when you really think about it, is it really worth anything if the only value in it is defined by others?

So an update on CoNotes...things have progressed slower than I would have liked. Since launch, I have had little time to work on the site, which has been frustrating. That is not to say I have not been doing anything productive. Just more that I wish there were more than 24 hours in a day.

I expect to launch some minor revisions to the site in the near future. I would like to thank all of you who have given me feedback on the site. It has been tremendously helpful and valuable. Please continue to email me and be on the look out for future enhancements...

Launch Day!!!

2007-08-22T00:46:00.000-07:00

Today marked the launch of CoNotes (http://www.conotes.com). Wohooo! A very needed step for me psychologically, but a pretty insignificant step in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, it is nice to just have it out there for people to respond to.

I haven't really say anything in my previous posts about my startup, so I guess now is the time. CoNotes aims to solve a huge problem for most job seekers: lack of accurate and relevant information about companies. How do I know this is a problem? Well think about the job that you have now. How different was your impression of the company before and after you started working. My guess is that a) either you didn't know enough to even have much of an impression to begin with; or b) it has changed a lot.

I want to change that because we spend 1/3 of our lives working, so it critical that we know what we are getting ourselves into when we take a job. I want provide you with company information that is both accurate and relevant to you. How is this possible? Well as a product, think of CoNotes as a "Wikipedia + Yelp" for companies. But it is very different in one critical way: the information is guaranteed to be sourced from peers. Unlike other players in this area such as Vault or Wetfeet, where you have no idea where the information is coming from (it could be some 10 year old kid across the street), CoNotes limits its network of contributors and readers to peers. The first network of peers that I am piloting with is my own, the MBA student network. For MBA students, you can count on the information coming from other MBA students at peer schools.

So that is the concept in a nutshell. Currently, the site can be considered in a very early release state. The feature set is going to be built up gradually over time, but a lot of the most critical features are there right now.

If you are a student at one of the following schools, you should have access to the site.

Columbia Graduate School of Business
Cornell University
Darden School of Business, University of Virginia
Fuqua School of Business , Duke University
Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley
Harvard Business School
IMD Business School
INSEAD
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
London Business School
MIT Sloan School of Management
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stern School of Business, NYU
Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth University
UCLA Anderson School of Management
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
University of Michigan
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Yale School of Management

New features will be rolled out soon. But for those of you who are eager MBA students who are always in recruiting mode, hopefully the set of features in there will get you going. Check back often, as this is a viral community. As more people sign up, the amount of valuable information increases exponentially.

And definitely let me know what you think. I love feedback. But right now I need to sleep. Coding is fine and often times very interesting, but IT stuff just hurts. It's never fun setting up a server. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

State of the Economy

2007-08-14T21:39:00.000-07:00

I am not an economist nor a financial guru, but I'm pretty sure our economy is about to hit the crapper any time now. I'm waiting for the day that there are six or seven firms who all simultaneously decide to announce bankruptcy or a halt on withdrawals (which pretty much signals bankruptcy is near).

I'm going to give you my take on why our economy is about to tank, and please let me know if I am crazy. So the past few years of economic growth have been driven by easy credit. Not just for homeowners, but for corporations too. Hedge funds have been doing well by buying securitized debt and things seemed to be going well. Except we have this problem where the debt underlying a lot of these securities had underrated risk (i.e. they are riskier than they were sold at). In top of that, several hedge funds have been levering up the wazoo so that their initial capital makes up only a small percentage of their actual investments. It was as if debt were crack cocaine. They got a taste of it and only wanted more and more, so it could feed their addiction to use that money. But that means if their investors start asking for some of their money back (which all the smart ones are doing now), then they have a serious problem. The debt is like cocaine, remember! It's in their blood and they've already used that loaned money to make some investments. The expectations are that those investments will pay off much better than their debt rates. But to secure the necessary returns, these funds need time to implement their investment strategy. Well they don't have time with their investors demanding their money back. So their investments are not paying off at high enough rates to cover their debt. Now these hedge funds have no time, no money, and pretty much don't have anything besides an addiction.

How does this all lead to an economic downturn? Well this is not a small problem. It's a HUGE problem at EVERY bank on Wall Street. Everyone on Wall Street is sitting around with a finger on their nose hoping it will all go away. These announcements about hedge fund stalls and bankruptcies are an early indicator of what the real problem is. Well if you remember that all that debt was riskier than it actually was...the big trigger will be when all that debt gets re-rated at its true risk value (i.e. higher interest rates and lower value). The current run on hedge fund money by investors asking for their money back is just people who are trying to get something back before this huge debt-rating correction happens. Once that happens, the value of a lot of money will suddenly drop. So imagine if you were living a lifestyle with an income of $100K. Maybe you weren't too thrifty and spent everything you made. Well then one day someone comes along and tells you that you now will be making $50K. Now you are going to have trouble paying down your car lease, your mortgage payments, and that totally unnecessary habit of buying items out of the Sharper Image catalog. That's pretty much what is going to happen when all that debt gets re-rated, but at a much larger scale. No more car, no house, and definitely no more $500 Ionic Sonic Breeze air purifiers. The pains will be felt everywhere. The people to feel it first will be the banks. Then corporations who were expecting to get easy loans will be hit hard. These corporations will get tight with their spending, so service firms will have no business. And pretty much it ripples through the economy.

I'm pretty worried about recruiting for my classmates in business school. It looks like it is going to be a pretty craptastic recruiting year.

What can do you about this? Probably nothing, unless if your name is Bernard Bernanke. I definitely would take a look at any of your investment allocations. Move them out of any companies that are highly-levered and issuing junk bonds (e.g. GM). You might want to look at putting the money in a corporate bond mutual fund that focuses on high-quality corporate bonds.

I hope I'm wrong about the economy. But the more I think about it, the more I realize we are headed for a couple years of a tough economy. That might just be the nail in the coffin for the Republicans in the 2008 elections.

Code Monkey

2007-07-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

Having met up with other Kellogg students over the summer, I have decided that I definitively have had a very atypical summer. I guess that was a given after deciding not to do a standard MBA summer internship. But I am very happy with my summer and am excited with how things are going. Let me give you a breakdown of my typical day:

10-11am: Wake up at 10-11am and eat some breakfast in my boxers.
12pm: Check my email and look at where I left off coding from yesterday (still in my boxers). Figure out what I am going to do today.
1pm: Make some lunch and watch SportsCenter (boxers).
2pm: Head over to Cafe Ambrosia (no longer in boxers...but usually in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals). Order a medium iced mocha. Plop down and start my daily code marathon. I prefer to sit facing the window, which gives my eyes something to look at while I figure out how I want to code something.
9pm: Cafe Ambrosia closes. Pick up some take out and head back to apartment.
10pm: Watch something recorded on my DVR (Man vs. Wild has been my recent obsession).
12am: Return to code monkey state.
4-5am: Get tired. Read a chapter from a book (currently reading Founders at Work). Sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

Mix in some meetings, gym time, and errands, and that's pretty much been my life every day this summer, including weekends. I definitely don't think it is the life for everyone. But I wake up every morning pretty excited to get something done. I have little idea how things will turn out, but I am optimistic there is an opportunity. I also am pretty damn scared. Every morning, one of the first thoughts in my head is, "Crap! I only have x weeks of summer left! I need to have something to show or else people will think I just sat on my ass all summer." Of course I have pretty much sat on my ass all summer, but I was coding at the same time.

Nerd Alert below...do not cross unless a geek.

During the first part of the summer, I focused on learning Ruby on Rails, which is a new web development language created by the guys at 37signals in Chicago. It is probably the best web development language I have used...from the developer's perspective. I now know why people love using it. But the biggest concern for me is scaling. I have done a lot of research on scaling systems that were built on Rails, and people have made a lot of progress with it. Obviously the guys at Twitter have been able to work around its limitations, but not before they hit their own well-published obstacles. I choose to use Rails because I needed a rapid development environment. The initial version of the site is a proof of concept that hopefully will gain traction. If scaling becomes an issue, then that is a problem I'd rather have than a ghost town of a website. Nonetheless, I am keeping the issue in the back of my mind and will definitely be watching for bottlenecks after rollout.

To get to know Rails a little better, I actually began my summer coding a project website, BSchoolCool (http://www.bschoolcool.com). Nothing fancy, but just a way to test out what Rails could and could not do. I am going to soon post the source code for the website on SourceForge and hopefully have others help build out features for it. I guess the end goal will be to create an open-source version of eVite that any organization could use. Thus I will make my second contribution to the open source community...the first being the initial version of ShuttleTrack (http://shuttletrack.mit.edu), which was a low-cost system I developed to track vehicles over the web. Definitely not the prettiest website, but it worked (at least when the drivers didn't tamper with the CPDP modems so that people didn't know they were actually making a 10-minute pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts). It ended up being fairly successful, where a large percentage of the MIT student body used it and relied on it to let them know if and when the shuttle would arrive at their stop. It was written about in several publications like CNET. The lesson I learned from that project was that you have to solve a need to make any technology successful. Pretty obvious, but there are so many projects out there which are just about being technically cool; but with those projects, the user potential is pretty much limited to other tech geeks (i.e. very small).

Anyhow, I'd like to end this post saying that the tech community is very cool. That's not to say it is not geeky, but more that it is geek chic. Haha...if that term has any validity. The community is a microcosm of the greater capitalistic economy and society. You have your open-source developers who you can liken to people that like to bake for others. They do it for free because it's hobby. Then you have the mom-and-pop bakeries that try to make do (early start ups), the franchised stores that try to appear like mom-and-pop-bakeries like Panera and Cosi (Facebook), and the mega food companies like Nabisco (Microsoft and IBM).

Yet it is a bizzaro microcosm because the winds change so fast and the small guys can have a huge impact on the big guys. A company like Google is what Microsoft was 10 years ago, which is what IBM was 20 years ago. Facebook is looking like the next Google. It is where Google was 5 years go. If you think back 5 years to 2002, Google was at a crossroads. It was well known among the tech community, but still a relative unknown among mainstream America. Google was projected to pass Yahoo! as the #1 search engine soon, but search engines such as AltaVista and Teoma were big looming threats. It was pre-IPO and many questioned whether or not Google had a sustainable business model. But that same year, Google launched its PPC (pay per click) advertising model and signed an agreement with Yahoo! to serve as its primary search engine. Facebook is closing in on MySpace as the #1 social network, is pre-IPO, and most analysts question if Facebook can generate a sustainable business model. I believe the people behind Facebook are smart enough to figure out how to make Facebook a successful public company. But the only question in my mind is how successful. IBM, Microsoft, and Google all serviced a basic computing need: IBM (hardware), Microsoft (operating system), Google (information retrieval). Facebook is in a different situation where at its core, it is not solving a computing need, but a social need. We are all getting busier and busier. Our family and friends are scattered around the country and around the world. How are going to have the time to stay in touch with everyone? Facebook aims to simplify all your social interactions and responsibilities. Why call your friends to know what they are doing? You can just read their News Feed. You don't need to join a gossip circle to know who is dating whom. I am certain Facebook will soon add an IM component, as that is the big missing piece in their website. Thus, my question is actually, "Is there a big enough social need?" Or is this something people just grow out of?

More Da Vinci craziness

2007-07-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

So this doesn't really have to do with entrepreneurship, but I was reading the news and came across the below story.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2779072020070727

New "Last Supper" theory crashes Leonardo Web sites
Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:58PM EDT
MILAN (Reuters) - A new theory that Leonardo's "Last Supper" might hide within it a depiction of Christ blessing the bread and wine has triggered so much interest that Web sites connected to the picture have crashed.

The famous fresco is already the focus of mythical speculation after author Dan Brown based his "The Da Vinci Code" book around the painting, arguing in the novel that Jesus married his follower, Mary Magdelene, and fathered a child.

Now Slavisa Pesci, an information technologist and amateur scholar, says superimposing the "Last Supper" with its mirror-image throws up another picture containing a figure who looks like a Templar knight and another holding a small baby.

"I came across it by accident, from some of the details you can infer that we are not talking about chance but about a precise calculation," Pesci told journalists when he unveiled the theory earlier this week.

Websites www.leonardodavinci.tv, www.codicedavinci.tv, www.cenacolo.biz and www.leonardo2007.com had 15 million hits on Thursday morning alone, organizers said, adding they were trying to provide a more powerful server for the sites.

In the superimposed version, a figure on Christ's left appears to be cradling a baby in its arms, Pesci said, but he made no suggestion this could be Christ's child.

Judas, whose imminent betrayal of Christ is the force breaking the right-hand line of the original fresco, appears in an empty space on the left in the reverse image version.

And Pesci also suggests that the superimposed version shows a goblet before Christ and illustrates when Christ blessed bread and wine at a supper with his disciples for the first Eucharist.

The original Da Vinci depicts Christ when he predicts that one among them will betray him.

Since all the linked sites were down, I decided to try and make these mirrored images myself. I used a few versions of The Last Supper that I could find using Google Image Search. They all showed pretty much the same patterns with different levels of clarity. Below is the one I think came out the best. The original image is here, which is from a website titled The Truth Decoded. Kind of ironic that I am using their hosted picture, as the website's mission is to arm Catholics with information to dissuade believers in any theories presented in The Da Vinci Code. Anyhow. the top picture is the original image and below it is the overlayed mirror image. Now the real question is...is there something really there?

Click for a larger image

ADDITION:
I thought I'd add a little help for those of you who are looking for the images described in the article.

1. goblet
2. person cradling a baby
3. Templar knight

Click for a larger image

We are the Fortunate...

2007-07-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, I came across an interesting website called Kiva (www.kiva.org). Kiva is an organization that allows anyone in the world to loan money to needy entrepreneurs in less developed areas around the world. As a striving entrepreneur, I felt Kiva's mission definitely struck a chord with me. Furthermore, I really respect that Kiva is trying to use capitalism (albeit in a roundabout way) to stimulate growth. Money given to Kiva is not a donation. It is loaned money that most likely would be repaid. Using the revolutionary microfinance model, for which Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize, Kiva enables microloans to these entrepreneurs that they are obligated to repay. Even better than that, Kiva uses the power of the web to connect all these people!

It is pretty amazing what growing up in a certain situation affords people in terms of opportunities. In the US, we take for granted how readily available money is. We could be knee-deep in credit card debt and most likely still be able to convince yet another credit card company to give us a new card. Then I think about what it would take to get someone to loan me the money to start a company in an underdeveloped country, and it becomes virtually impossible.

Today I returned to Kiva's website just to check it out again. I was obviously skeptical about where my money would actually go, if I were to loan it, so I did some research. Although I couldn't fly out to places like Cambodia and Azerbaijan, Nicholas Kristof with the New York Times did just that and reported back (http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=FEEDROOM186917).

I decided that I would loan a small amount ($25) and see where it goes. In retrospect, the path I chose in picking which entrepreneur to support was pretty ridiculous. I like to eat, so I filtered the list of entrepreneurs to those who are trying to grow a food-related enterprise. Then I clicked through about 20 of their profiles and picked the one that had the most amusing picture. This is who I decided on:

Jeoffery Ogbvo who runs Jeoffery's Provision Store in Asaba, Nigeria.

"I have a business that is presently worth about US$ 1500 (Nigerian Naira 200, 000)," says Mr. Jeoffery Ogbvo, "and I hope to expand my inventory with a Kiva loan." Jeoffery is 53 years old and father of six children. He is requesting a loan of $625.

(Click on the picture or here for more information or to loan to Jeoffery.)

I really liked Jeoffery's picture for some reason. I can't tell if he is confused, frightened, or pissed off. For some reason his expression makes me chuckle and thus we became friends...business friends. I also liked the fact that his store was named a provision store. It sounds old school. I think one of the most absurd things I did was to Google for "Jeoffrey's Provision Store Asaba Nigeria" in hopes of determining some legitimacy of his enterprise. 0 hits.

Well I encourage you all to take a look at Kiva and make a microloan. I even more strongly encourage you to support my friend, Jeoffery. Do your own research and hopefully you'll come to the same conclusion as me.

The Summer of Code

2007-06-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

My first year at Kellogg is winding down and I have just a final paper and a final to get through. It has been a very interesting year with a lot of learning experiences inside and outside the classroom.

When I first decided to attend Kellogg, I knew that the school was not known for entrepreneurship. Reputation wise, it was a school known to have a strong marketing department, and known to produced a lot of consultants. Those two reputations have definitely held up. But it is also very misleading to place most Kellogg students into these buckets. As with most other business schools, the diversity of the student body -- in terms of interests, backgrounds, work experiences, talents, and personalities -- is simply amazing. That is what has caught me off guard the most. It would take me forever to describe how varied my classmates are, but suffice it to say that if you are interested in anything in the world, there is someone at Kellogg who shares that same passion.

So back to entrepreneurship...I knowingly came here expecting to do a lot of pushing forward on my own. But I actually have not had to do as much trailblazing as I had expected. There is a group of entrepreneurial students at Kellogg (and at Northwestern...which I will talk about in a bit) that share the same dreams. To start something, be our own boss, and take full responsibility for our own successes and failures. Having these students alongside me has opened a lot of doors, taught me a lot about what I will need to do, and most importantly inspired me.

As I hinted at earlier, the community of entrepreneurs extends far past Kellogg and into the Northwestern community. And this larger community of students with law, medical, engineering, and other backgrounds have been an even better resource for me. I have been very active in InNUvation, which is the university-wide entrepreneurship organization, and have been grateful to have found them. I would encourage anyone who is looking to come to Northwestern and is interested in entrepreneurship to get involved with InNUvation.

Looking back at the past nine months, I am definitely glad I chose to come here. Now what is in store in the future...

Well once I finish up with my class-related items, I am going to dive into The Summer of Code. I haven't done full-time coding for a few years, but that will be my main job responsibility this summer. Although creating a Ruby on Rails website is not what I came to business school for, it is something that I just have to do to get this web company off the ground. I could outsource most of the coding, but I actually do like programming. Plus for some reason I have some twisted notion that it wouldn't be a real startup unless I grunged it out for the summer. Maybe its my old MIT masochistic nature coming back -- where we prided ourselves on how much work we had to do -- but I am somewhat proud to be truly bootstrapping this company.

I won't be working in a garage, but I will be a nomadic coder visiting libraries, study rooms, and coffee shops. I am actually looking forward to seeing what other strange people frequent these places in the summer. But that's just because I'm weird like that.

Beyond this coding, I will be pushing forward with Biotic Laboratories. We have a game plan but need to iron out some details such as hiring lawyers and raising a few hundred K in angel to finance the first phase of the company. The goal by the end of summer will be to be in discussions with medical device companies about opportunities for technology licensing. Balancing my time between coding and keeping BL's discussions alive will be tough. But what else do I really have to do this summer?

So join me in a toast to my Summer of Code.

while (code < finished)
{
int whatIsAndrewDoing = Math.rand(0,2);
summerOfCode[3] = ["eating", "sleeping", "coding"];
print "Andrew is " + summerOfCode[whatIsAndrewDoing];
}

Boo yah!

Decision made...what to do next??

2007-04-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, but a lot has happened. Since my last post, I went through a whirlwind of recruiting. The two companies I was pushing hardest to get offers from, Yahoo! and Google, both ended up giving me offers. Now that I had exactly what I was seeking, what did I do? I turned them down.

You probably think I am crazy and an idiot, but I spent a long time thinking about my decision. It came down to what I really wanted to do. I started this blog as my statement to the (virtual) world that I was going to push forward with a dream to create my own company. To not pursue that dream would be a lie to myself. So that is what I am doing.

I will be particularly broke this summer, so any donations would be wonderful. I like sushi, steaks, and lobster. Unfortunately, my $0/hr wage will not support such fine dining. Yet despite what my mom and dad considered "risky behavior," I am very happy with my decision. I am doing what I want to do.

On the front of the business that I am helping start with my friends, Dean and Ed, things have been going particularly well. I forgot to mention a couple other teammates: my roommate, Craig, and Dean's postdoc, Erik. Apparently the idea has been getting some kind of buzz among the engineering school at Northwestern and Dean has been approached by several groups offering their assistance. I have just been trying to setup meeting with possible advisors, and we have had a few meetings with great people. Tomorrow is the semi-finals of the NU Venture Challenge (http://nuvc.innuvation.org), and I will be pitching our biotech idea to a panel of judges. 3 minutes to sell them, 3 minutes to win them over. I think I can do that.

I'll let you know how everything goes.

One reflection I've had recently: the sooner you decide where you want to go, the sooner you realize you're not sure how to get there.

Getting traction...

2007-01-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. A lot of things in school have been ramping up such as the NVC (NU Venture Challenge) as well as classes. On top of that I'm working on two company ideas and meeting with a lot of people to get some feedback/insight. One of the ideas I am working on is really not mine. It came from Dean and Ed, who are friends I grew up with at home. I've known Dean since we were 6 and he is a professor at Northwestern. Ed is a high school friend who is finishing up his Ph.D student at UCLA. I'm not really going to say what the idea is, but it could be a huge opportunity in the medical device field.

The other idea is a web idea. I've been able to get some people on board to help me refine the idea. Most importantly, a programmer. Next I'm working on finding advisors who can help me think through the business model.

Exciting stuff!

MBA Recruiting

2007-01-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

As I alluded to in my first post, I am taking part in the circus show known as MBA recruiting. It's one big show and dance (from both sides). I've been surprised that some of the companies I've talked to are actually appealing. Yet there is a little voice in my head that keeps saying, "Be veerrrryyy afraid...don't be persuaded by the free food and driiiiinnkkks." Don't worry, though. My goal is to find a great startup that has a need for an MBA intern over the summer. Unfortunately, those startups are hard to come by.

Originally, my plan was to work on a business idea full-time for the summer. But I've been getting advice from experienced entrepreneurs to start something on the side while I make some pay (and hopefully build my network). I guess it makes sense, unless my idea really requires my undevoted attention for the entire summer. Luckily, as I draw out my business plans, it does not.

I also would like to make a plug for Northwestern's student entrepreneurship organization, InNUvation. I am part of the leadership team that is putting together the university's first entrepreneurship competition: the 2007 NU Venture Challenge. Things are coming along really great and I have a feeling there will be some great ideas coming out of the competition (like mine).

Meeting fellow entrepreneurs

2006-12-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

I can't say enough about how great a feeling it is to talk to entrepreneurs. There is just an air of excitement around them just because of the fact that they are doing something they are passionate about. These people are the ultimate "do-it-yourself"-ers.

This past week, I spent time in the Bay Area meeting with a few startups. Being a student definitely has its advantages...one being the ability to open doors. As a student, when you ask to meet a company, you are seen as harmless and inquisitive. Furthermore, many companies welcome your visit with open arms. As a non-student, either unemployed or employed, you are seen kind of as a nuisance.

During my trip, I met up with the founders of Spark Parking, TravelPost (recently acquired by SideStep), and meebo. I asked the founders the same set questions centered around what it takes to start up a company. Should I seek investors? When is the right time? How do I find the right people? When do I know if my idea is a good one? Although I have worked for a couple startups, I had a lot of other questions. It is very different if you are the one actually leading the charge and much more intimidating.

At the end of my meetings, I came out with some key takeaways:
1) Believe in your idea! If you think you have a need for your idea, chances are there are millions of other people who also have the same need. To be a successful entrepreneur, you also have to believe more than others. It is this dedication that sets you apart.

2) Be resourceful! If you believe in your idea, then find the best way to execute with the least amount of cost. Don't reinvent the wheel, especially when someone else is selling what you need at a lower price than you could make it for. Open source is great.

3) Sell! You must always be in constant sell mode. In addition, you need to regularly fine tune your pitch based off of feedback from customers, investors, and partners.

4) Plan for the future! As a web company, this means make sure you use technology that is easily transferable. You'll never know when your lead programmer will leave, so making sure someone else can pick up where things are left off is critical.

I was also able to bounce my business idea off of them and get some good feedback. Let's see how things go from here...

Message me

2006-12-03T23:39:00.000-08:00

I've added an IM widget from meebo (a very cool company by the way), on the side >>>.

If you see that I'm online, send me a message and I'll respond right away. If I'm not on, still leave a message and I'll respond the next time I'm logged in.

Finals week. When that finishes up, I'm hoping to find a coder from my fraternity who can help me build out my site!

Good Reading

2006-11-30T23:57:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple links to some good readings I have come across recently.

For Start-Ups, Web Success on the Cheap
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/technology/09venture.html?ex=1165122000&en=7c5549d9119f9512&ei=5070
- Discusses a trend for startups towards smaller amounts of financing

How to Start a Startup
http://paulgraham.com/start.html
- An article from Paul Graham, who created the technology behind Yahoo! Stores, with tips for startups

Here we go...

2006-11-30T22:33:00.000-08:00

Given that I am considered by many who know me a pretty tech-savvy guy, I am pretty late in the game to this blog scene. However I have never really seen the need to share my life with others. So what has changed now? Well let me start with where I am in life...

I am a 1st year MBA student at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Before starting at business school this fall, I worked at a startup education consulting firm name ADIS Corporation. I learned a great deal working at ADIS and met some interesting individuals during that time. ADIS was the 2nd startup I actually worked for. The first was an internet consulting firm named ZEFER. It was at ZEFER that I found my interest in entrepreneurship. I worked at ZEFER the summer after my freshman year at MIT. I was one of its four original interns, earning a $500 stipend (and free monthly subway passes) for the entire summer (that worked out to much less than minimum wage). But as I have learned in business school, non-monetary compensation often is valued much more than monetary compensation. And as an eager student at MIT, the prospect of being involved with an exciting venture-backed firm was more than enough compensation for me.

Back to today...so here I am sitting in my apartment thinking about what I want to do. Most of my fellow business school students are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out if they want to go into banking, consulting, or marketing. At least most of them have narrowed it down to two of the three. Not to let you think I am above the fray, I have also dipped my feet into the pool of consulting presentations. I even had one firm call me today asking me if I was going to apply -- to which I of course said "Yes!" Ugh...I feel shameless.

But I feel somewhat lucky. I actually do know exactly what I want to do. I want to start my own tech company. The sad thing is that I've been saying this since I was at MIT. Ever since I got the startup bug at ZEFER, I've been telling people that I wanted to start my own company; but the time wasn't right or that I didn't have the right idea. I'm 27 now and I think those two excuses have now exhausted themselves out completely. Especially since as a student I don't have a job so the time IS right; and because I do have the idea. And yet I keep feeling held back. Professors, career counselors, family and friends all tell me to "get some work experience first." It would be too easy to listen to them. I need to believe in myself and break free from the binding safeness of excuses that are too easy to fall back on.

Harking again back to my college days, my fraternity had this tradition of watching Braveheart before the start of every term to inspire us through the academic gauntlet known as MIT. My favorite scene is before the Battle of Stirling when William Wallace stands before his ratty and timid army of Scotsmen -- sent to the battlefield by their coward lords -- and to this band of men he says,

Fight and you may die. Run and you will live -- at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!

That scene never failed to give me a rush of adrenaline. So this blog is my statement that I am making a commitment to my goal, my dream. It all starts here...