Polygraph Media Blog

SXSW Interactive 2012 Observations

Some thoughts following the blur that was SXSW Interactive 2012:

• I very much agree with the sentiment that "nobody won SXSW" this year, but I also don't think you can expect that every year.  Twitter "won" the conference in 2007.  4sq arguably stole the show in 2009.  GroupMe "won" in 2011.  In my mind, the latter won it only because the tech press had to give the title to *someone*.  But also look at the years... in the even years nobody "won" at all per se.  You don't have a  "press-designated" winner every year and this year was no different.
• Location-based services proved again that their primary use case is in places where a lot of people are in the same place at the same time.
• Interesting to me that Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and Square... amongst others... had little/no presence at SXSW.  A few folks wandering around but no "presence".
• Again, the action for startups was in the hallways and backroom meetings, small group VIP events, etc.  The action for enterprise folks remains in the sessions and in the private parties, where basic education takes place.  I don't mean that to sound bad, but it's almost two different shows depending on why you're there.

Looking forward to a great show in 2013!

SXSW Advice for Startups

Today, SXSW Interactive 2011 kicks off.  During a few meetings this week and after my presentation to Social Media Club Dallas a few nights ago, I was asked for advice -- people wanted to know how startups should act & what they should do at SXSW.  I am no expert, but here's what I told them:

• Enjoy yourself & pace yourself
• Spend time to really be thoughtful about your pitch.  Think back to your single days & you were trying to start a conversation with someone you were interested in.  If you aren't interesting in the first 15-20 seconds, you get blown off.  This is no different.
• Don't get worked up by what other people are doing.  Marketing BS flows like alcohol, and often times the real story does not match the hype.
• Control what you can control -- like going to everything you can and meeting as many people as you can.  Leave it all on the field.
• Spend time with customers, if you are in the business of selling anything to anyone.  It's a great time to understand needs, pain points, and opportunities.
• Don't be stubborn.  Be open to new ideas and approaches that can help your business succeed.  Most startups today are mashups of other technologies, companies, etc. and there really aren't many fundamentally *new* ideas after all.  So discern what you hear but be sure to learn as well.
• Eat all the BBQ & Tex-Mex you can
• Get out & enjoy the sunshine a little also

Have fun, everyone!

Busy Week - Lasso progress, Facebook book release, speaking at Rice Alliance event

Interesting times in the land of Lasso.

We go live with one customer this week although you won't get to see it for another few weeks.  We start onboarding two other customers this week, and we have a third call about a new application of our product that is very, very exciting.  The game is proximity marketing, the applications are tremendous, and the opportunity is significant.  We are the infrastructure that makes it all sing and that infrastructure just keeps getting better & more capable every day.

Add to this two other events more on the social side.  My book, Facebook Marketing An Hour a Day, is formally releasing tomorrow although it has been available on Amazon for awhile.  In fact, the book has been in/around the Top 10 in the Web Marketing and e-Commerce categories so far & has been doing very well on the Marketing list as well.  So far so good.

The "virtual launch" of the book is taking place tomorrow.  My co-author, Mari Smith, and I will be on camera (technology hiccups notwithstanding hopefully) to talk about the book, Facebook, and a variety of other things.  I would love you to join us.  A quick note re: Mari -- she is amazing at mobilizing people & preaching the good word!  We are sortof polar opposites when it comes to all of this.  She's the extrovert, I'm the introvert.  She has really done a great job becoming a face of social media.  I'm less worried about all of that than I am our startup work.  The collaboration worked really well on the book, and I hope it is the beginning of even more.  We'll talk about all of this among other things tomorrow at the virtual launch.

Finally, I'm on a Rice Alliance panel re: monetizing location services on May 5th at the AT&T Conference Center at McCombs.  Joining me will be Josh Williams (Gowalla), Blair Garrou (DFJ Mercury), and Rick Orr (TabbedOut).  It should be fun -- I had coffee with an organizer Friday who told me that the event is very popular.  It's like I tell people all the time -- we're VERY early in the location services game!

When it rains, it pours I guess.  Not a bad thing.  Have a great week everyone.

Austin Technology Incubator Graduation

It's official -- we've graduated from the Austin Technology Incubator.  Check out the announcement here:  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/04/prweb3915854.htm

The last year has been an amazing and wild ride.  We've released two versions of our product and rebuilt it as a platform for local media and technology partners.  We've rebranded.  In another case, we reverted to a brand we weren't using.  We launched product with a major media company.  We built our partner pipeline.  We've attracted investment capital and we have gotten some good coverage in major online publications with much more to come.  And our prospects are great.

But I didn't really know we built a company until recently, when the team ran with some important work in my absence.  Our baby has grown into an adolescent with a ton of promise.

As for the Incubator, it was a great place to start a company.  Special thanks to Isaac Barchas, Bart Bohn, and the rest of the team for helping prod us along.  Although the Incubator doesn't work with a lot of companies like ours, I think their approach to working with startups makes a lot of sense and is a fit for a variety of startups.

Onward!

Steven Tomlinson on the Life of Meaning

I first met Steven Tomlinson at the McCombs School of Business -- not as a teacher, professor, or lecturer but as a dynamic personality who put the students' individual needs and fulfillment ahead of his own preconceived notion of what business school should be.  In that sense, he was truly unique at McCombs.

Now he's at the Acton School of Business where he's teaching, mentoring, and helping the next round of entrepreneurs find their way.

In his latest blog post -- his TEDxAustin 2010 talk, he tells us about his experience living life by one's own rules and not by the cookie-cutter of conventional wisdom that both organizes and constrains most of us.

I thought it was fantastic and I wish I'd been there to hear it.  True words of inspiration from one of Austin's treasures and thought leaders.

Enjoy.

SXSW Interactive Recap on Techdrawl

Howdy everyone -- I shared some thoughts on the SXSW Interactive 2010 conference at Techdrawl.com where I occasionally blog.  Check out the video blog post here.

2010 SXSW, Location based services, Austin Restaurants, etc.

A few quick thoughts this morning as we near the event of the year, Austin's SXSW Interactive.  It just keeps getting better every year.

Location-based <fill in the blank> is bound to dominate the landscape this year.  Think back even five years ago -- I think a lot of folks in 2005 would've been spooked by any service that collected and revealed the location of users.  But it's another one of those areas where people have relaxed their privacy standards to points unthinkable in recent times.

Overall, I think the buzz/reality quotient is very high right now.  The major players in consumer LBS have a lot of potential, but market share still remains relatively low.  A few things are likely to accelerate this:  the advancement of smartphones and the more widespread inclusion of location into existing services that we all use now (search engines, e-mail, web browsing, etc.).

The LBS providers that can provide a good justification for continually "checking in" and/or those who automate it will be the ones to succeed.  Gameplay is good to start, but IMO it only lasts so long before people get bored with the game... unless you've created the next Pac-Man or something.  Watch out for improvements these services make to convince Joe User to check in every day & everywhere he is.

If you're attending SXSW and/or visiting Austin for the first time, consider going off the beaten path.  There are some great restaurants run by local entrepreneurs:  Kerbey Lane (breakfast), Curra's (interior Mexican), Maudie's and Trudy's (Tex-Mex), Mozart's (Coffee), The Tavern (burgers), G'Raj Mahal (Indian), Titaya's (Thai), Chez Zee (French), Romeo's (Italian) and countless others that make Austin unique and fun and keep money circulating through the local economy.

Have a great time everyone!!

Looking to meet .NET startup-friendly folks in Austin

Howdy everyone -- quick departure from the norm here.  We happen to be one of those rare Austin startups that run primarily on Microsoft technology.  Most Austin startups are built on Rails or Open Source technology.  It makes sense... the open source stack is relatively easy to get into, there is a huge community of helpful developers out there, and developers can learn as they go.  For us it wasn't a religious decision, but it was the background of our CTO, Robert Starek.  Technical leadership does tend to drive these decisions.

Anyway, we've gone to a few events and reached out to people in a few ways.  I'm now resorting to social media (Twitter and blogging primarily) to get the word out that we'd like to meet a few more people.

Now don't get carried away -- we don't have any jobs to offer at this moment.  But we are ready to meet enterprising, high-quality .NET developers in Austin.  To be clear, I'm not looking for product managers, UI designers, DBAs, or business people.  I'm looking for kick ass .NET developers.  That's it.  So if this describes you, please reach out to me at [email protected].  Have a great day.

Entrepreneur Networking & the Scarcity of Time, Part II

A few days ago, I shared some thoughts on the scarcity of time for early-stage entrepreneurs.  Today, I'm going to share some brief thoughts on how this affects me specifically as an entrepreneur in Austin.  Now let me preface my comments by saying two things.  One, I love living here.  I wouldn't have moved back from Seattle if I didn't really love Austin.  Two, by no means is this blog post intended to insult anyone or any group.  Everything written in this blog post is my interpretation/reaction to the community after 18 months of operating a startup here.  It's one person's opinion, and if you want I'm happy to discuss at the next social gathering.  OK... caveat aside... here goes.

Austin has an amazing startup community that I first discovered in 1997 as part of Stratfor, an early-stage startup in 1997 that we moved from Louisiana to Austin.  When talking to people about Stratfor for the first time, I usually describe it as the Huffington Post of 1999 but with three key differences:

• it was subject matter specific -- international news and intelligence is Stratfor's game,
• there was no social media -- although we were doing live blogging/tweeting of major events back then, and
• as it was ten years earlier there was absolutely NO business model at the time.

Fortunately, George Friedman (my first mentor of sorts) and the rest of the team have built an interesting business over time.

The thing about Austin then (and now) is that the startup community is distinct and for the most part supportive.  You don't have to talk to too many people before you meet folks willing and able to offer help and advice.  Further, there is a lot of startup activity here -- a little less than 1999 but certainly the most I've seen here over the last decade.  The cycle is refreshing, and it's great to be in Austin for it.

All of that said, I'd almost say that the community can be too supportive at times.  Positive thoughts are great, but everything in moderation, right?  Austin reminds me of that kid we all know whose parents shower him/her with so much positive affirmation, he/she won't be able to process failure or criticism later in life.  Are you really doing people a service if you are light on constructive feedback and heavy on celebrating relatively minor achievements?

This dynamic in Austin is one reason why we don't do a lot of socializing -- at least in this stage of our business.  But perhaps more importantly, it's also about where we are as an early-stage startup seeking its way.  We get a lot of value out of "surgical" networking, where we find people or put feelers out for folks who should be interested in the things we do.  More often than not, those people are on the East Coast or the West Coast -- not so much in Austin -- although there are certainly a lot of really interesting people who are doing or have done big things here in town.

All told, one good, meaningful, action-oriented 1:1 conversation over 90 minutes is typically our strike zone for networking.  It's just the way it is for us in our specific situation today.  Do I miss out on some serendipity by not doing the cocktail party scene?  Probably.  But I also get back 10 hours a week that can be put to use elsewhere -- and it is all about the scarcity of time after all.  :-)

That said, there are some events that I hit with regularity if the schedule permits, primarily because there is a higher concentration of these folks.  Texchange is an excellent organization with some outstanding events.  SXSW obviously is a "must attend" event -- it's the one time every year when Austin becomes the center of the tech world.  The Capital Factory Demo Day was off the charts.  Events thrown by the Austin Technology Incubator tend to be high-quality as well.

I am extremely careful with time I spend on networking in Austin.  Generally, I lurk, go to an occasional party, and go about my business.  I value deeper, more meaningful interactions that might start at a cocktail party but are generally developed over time and not at the normal networking events.  That's just how I go about it.  How do you view networking in Austin?  Agree/disagree?  Looking forward to your thoughts.

Quick Hits - February 10, 2010

It's been too long since I've made some random, unsubstantiated observations.  Lucky you.

• I have used Google Buzz for just a few hours, and I'm already convinced it's a game-changer.  Watch out Twitter... and Facebook, you'd better not get too comfortable.
• I really do think I could make a compelling argument for you that Twitter's best bet is for AOL or Yahoo or Microsoft to buy them.  Not that any of that would be inherently bad, but I just don't see Twitter surviving and thriving as an independent business over the next few years.
• Social media "fatigue" really seems to be an increasing trend among younger people who have used things like Facebook for awhile.  I spoke at an event at Texas A&M recently that really reinforced this point.  It will be interesting to see if this is a limited case or something that marketers will have to deal with in coming years.
• I have given up on working with my neighborhood association.  It involves the worst elements of  government, bureaucracy, volunteering, politics, incompetence, ego, and personal fiefdoms -- and very few benefits.
• Lots of people out there are willing to give advice to early-stage entrepreneurs... but if they haven't created an early-stage startup themselves, be careful how much you internalize.  There is nothing like starting a company from its earliest stages, and it's a very, very unique business experience.
• Writing a book while starting a company is hard.  At some point, I'll share the story of how I got this opportunity, how I made it work, and why I'll never do the two things at the same time again.  It's a rewarding life goal achieved, but everything has its costs.
• Facebook is a particularly tough topic for a book, since the platform and/or the rules change about every 3 weeks on average.
• The Austin Technology Incubator has significantly improved its portfolio in my opinion, and is rebuilding its brand around substantive member companies.  You heard it here first.
• I'm increasingly of the opinion that networking for the sake of networking is a really bad idea for early stage entrepreneurs.  I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but I have a good argument.  Later.
• Location-based services are in their v2 with foursquare, Gowalla, and MyTown.  No offense to the good folks in those companies, but I really think the act of "checking in" is too hard and lacks enough of a consumer value proposition for any of those services to "win".  You'll know you see a winner when 1) there is a real compelling reason for consumers to check in, 2) a lot of it is automated in some way, and 3) there are reasons to do so that will appeal to "Joe Public."  These are very much early-adopter technologies today.
• Speaking of location-based services, can Apple really get away with removing apps that surface location-based ads from the App Store?  I know they make their own rules, but that's unreal.
• I love the potential of Google Android.  My wife has one & it's a pretty neat device.  But it isn't quite there right now.  Let's see how it evolves before handing it the future. ;-)
• We're told that the economy picked up quite a bit in Q4 in the US... yet capital efficient startups are still in vogue.  I'm telling ya, this frugality thing is here to stay for a decade or more.
• Finally, I finally yesterday met the first woman I know who likes the iPad branding.  Ultimately, I think after the shock wears off it will be OK.  But gosh, how obvious is it that Apple's branding team is lacking???