1st penny: Isn't America great?! Start a company, generate effectively no revenue and 100 million views a day, sell out for 1.6+ billion dollars, in about 20 months!!
2nd penny: Doesn't this deal make Murdoch seem all the smarter. I remember when News Corp bought Myspace and people were skeptical about the deal and today Myspace's video is outpacing youtube?! It makes him look like a genius.
Judy's Book was started with a couple of simple insights about people. We knew people used word of mouth to make decisions about purchases of products and services. We thought that it would be useful to create a company that fostered a community of people online to share recommendations. Judy's Book was born as "your friends' yellow pages." We put a product in market and have worked hard toward that vision. We've been successful -- we get over a million page views a month, we've got half a million reviews, etc. About six months ago, we started a process of understanding our business and more specifically understanding our customer.
We interviewed our customer, we analyzed what was being clicked on, and went through a management process and came to the following conclusions:
Our Consumers
Our users wanted more from our site than simply "reviews". Our users were interested in answers to their local purchasing decisions. Up until recently, we had really only been focused on the quality side of local purchases (that was our initial hypothesis). What our users were expressing to us was a few important insights:
- Purchases were a result of finding the best quality at the right price and that what they were interested in was value
- Price mattered most to them
In addition, we got clear on who our target customer is and what it is that we should be doing to serve them. Bottom line, our customer likes the online community, shops regularly, doesn't like to pay retail, tends to be more female than male, tends to be age 25-45, enjoys promotions, coupons and deals.
Our Product
ii) Our focus on local "only" wasn't working. Local is critical to our business but our product had created too many empty local silos. The example here is that a new user in Memphis, Tennessee would come to the site and wouldn't experience the living breathing site that Judy's Book is -- because of the way our product shows the data to this person.
One of my next posts will be about what how we took these conclusions and modified Judy's Book insights.
This blog post is dedicated to Nicholas.
I graduated from Brown in 1990 and have had varying levels of success over the past 17 years keeping in touch with friends from that time (it's true it was the best 4 years of my life). I've managed to establish a regular ski trip with 4 other friends (Mark, Jay, Andrew, Rufus), I've managed to start a business or two with one friend from school (Shaun), I talk regularly to one friend (Jon), but there are a handful of friends who I inevitably lost touch with after Brown. Try as I might to write or call to continue a relationship with these guys, I was unsuccessful.
Well, one of these 'lost' friends recently has been reading my blog and periodically leaves me comments. I have to say that it makes my day each time he does....no, we're not hanging out at Louies', smoking cigs at the echo chamber, or playing drums with dung beetle. I've always been a Nicholas B fan ....always thought he was a good friend just never could figure out a way to keep our relationship up. Blogging -- unintentionally, has provided me with the perfect vehicle.
So, I'll keep writing for you Nicholas and I want to encourage all me old friends to comment on my blog or email me.
I've been waiting to write this post for a while. I'm going to write a series of blog posts about corporate evolution -- the blog posts are going to explore the why's and the how's of making the decision to evolve as a company. I've got lots to say on the topic because I've been living this topic for the past 6 months or so at Judy's Book. We're approaching the eve of releasing an exciting new feature set and natural evolution for Judy's Book.
Companies evolve every day, either consciously or unconsciously. Early stage companies in particular, need to evolve to survive and thrive. Normally, this process is meant to be seemless to a companies constituents -- employees and customers. However, sometimes you have an insight into your customer and product that requires a more significant evolution to occur. I think we at Judy's Book have had such an insight...but more on that tomorrow.
I got this from the summary of the Future of Web Apps Conference'
I had a board meeting last week. We had prepared a power point deck of 28 slides -- it was full with lots of information. The problem was that the entire meeting was spent on reporting -- and we didn't get the benefit of actually discussing the real issues facing the company at this time. As a result, the board meeting was dry and dull.
After the board call ended, I jumped on a plan to go visit with Brad Feld -- our lead investor in the Series B. We had sushi dinner and discussed the changes going on at Judy's Book and the board meeting. It turns out that in less than 30 minutes of dinner, I had more suggestions, insights, and constructive feedback than I had received during the entire board meeting.
The net result: I'm going to still send out the 28 page power point -- but I'll assume it's been read and I'll try and structure the board meeting on issues facing management to engage the board in constructive conversation.
I participated in a tea ceremony in Kyoto yesterday. The tea master was an old wise man who told me that he travelled to the US recently and realized that the problem with the US is the sofa. It prevents people in the US from learning to sit properly, breathe properly and fundamentally takes the culture away from its center. He thought that people should remove their sofas and couches from their homes and hotels. I didn't argue with him. It's an interesting perspective. He was clearly wiser than me.
As we finish our remodel, I am reconsidering the purchase of a sofa. So if you come to visit you may have to sit on the floor.
Brad Feld's Post on the 80-19-1% rule in online communities is insightful and spot on. To give people a better sense of how I think about the rule and online communities, I thought I'd share some info about our perspective on managing the 1% hopefully growing to 19% at Judy's Book.
Marketing at a start-up is tough business. Marketing at a
start-up with an online community is really tough business. You need to be focused
on traffic volume to be recognized as a vibrant player in the marketplace but
diligently watchful over the activity contributed by that traffic to make sure
it aligns with your business goals. In January, we launched a
City Editor
program for the most active members on Judy’s Book to kick off our first loyalty
program. Since we launched, the program has accounted for a large amount of the post
activity (approx. 20%) on the site—and membership continues to grow by 20% each week. Now
that we’ve got a captive audience of loyal users, we’ve been
experimenting with the best way to turn the quantity of content into
constructive, quality content that has value to our tens of thousands of readers
daily.
We recently instituted a new set of rules for the program. Here’s what we think is working:
We’ll probably lose a few members over our adoption of these rules for the city editor group but ultimately we hope (and think) that what we’re left with is
higher quality contributors that can help us carry out the Judy’s Book mission
over the long haul.
I had been planning a business trip to Japan and China. Now, I'm just going to Japan because I learned that you need a visa to get into China. Ooops.
The good news is that I learned of this fact before departing...the bad news is that I didn't learn this fact soon enough to be able to get one. Oh well. Sushi == here I come.
I've been tivoing (is that a verb?) the US Open and watching it late at night and this weekend I managed to watch the Agassi - Becker match. I was moved to tears and as I've spoken about it with others -- so were many others. For me, this was the most significant sports hero retirement in my life. I remember Larry Bird and Michael Jordan retiring....I was a big Celtics fan growing up. But their retirements were lost on me because I was too young and their games were ultimately team sports. Andre's retirment really struck me -- in part because I'm going to be 40 next year and feel my own age coming on, in part because I grew up watching Andre and rememeber him with his long hair, and also because it was one of the most vulnerable human moments I've seen in sport.
There's a great post on publishing 2.0 about developing applications for the average user.
Google’s problem with vertical search adoption (as documented by Bill Tancer at Hitwise) is a lesson on how average people adopt and use applications. Most people use Google’s main search rather than the vertical options (which are plainly listed on Google’s main page) because they see “Googling” as a simple, elegant, one-stop-shop for any and every search need — this is how most people function. Using different search engines for different types of searches is several standard deviations of complexity away from average user behavior — the people who adopted Google for its simplicity are the same people who won’t stop to think what type of Google search they need to do. They just Google search. Just one, plain, simple application.
Life is complicated. People cling to simplicity and proven results. Behaviors are deeply ingrained and do not easily change.
For me, this is a profound post and incredibly relevant to the challenge of Judy's Book and others who operate social networks that haven't achieved critical mass in the market yet. That's most of us non-myspace companies and networks.
The post reminds me of a speech I heard Mary Meeker give on technology adoption. She said, if you're replacing some consumer behaviour, then your product needs to clear the technology adoption hurdle by being twice as good (good could be fast, easier, cheaper etc) to get people to switch. Otherwise, consumer inertia sets in and they don't switch.
Google's simple search interface managed to get the average user to switch from yahoo, alta vista, and lycos because it cleared the adoption hurdle. The question we're (at Judy's BooK) left contemplating and attempting to prove is what is required for Judy's Book to clear the same hurdle.
I've been watching Netscape's re-launch. I've been a fan of the work that they've done there -- but consumer traction isn't following and I'm wondering why.
I read today that In three months, and since the debut of Netscape's venture into presenting news channels influenced by visitors' recommendations, its popularity has plummeted, according to analysis by Alexa.com.
Three months ago, Netscape.com was the 238th most visited site. This week Alexa calculated it was in 438th place. It's been downhill for Netscape since late 2004, despite numerous efforts at reformatting and re-launching.
Why don't consumers care?
My quick take is :
All these thoughts will be important for me and my organization to keep in mind as we move forward.
This is the question that I am working on right now ....and what does winning look like?
We've come up with some new and different answers as to how to do that and you'll have to watch the site to see them implemented over the next few weeks and months.
I got this from Ask skeptic's mom....
So, today's question was, "Mom, what is RSS and what is it used for?"
You asked me what RSS is.
Well, my first response is that I just don't have a clue. In today's world
it could be a disease…as in "I have RSS and nobody believes that it's a
real illness; but I just don't have any energy". It could be someone's
initials. I don't know!!So I googled it and I still just don't have a clue. I didn't understand the
first paragraph, got totally bored because there are words in there that
mean nothing to anyone who hasn't heard of RSS.The answer to your question: I just don't have a clue!
Thanks Mom!
Here's the source
I can't believe it but I haven't gotten a response to my last email blast. Nothing. No response. Just more calls from the collection agency.
What are these people thinking?
I've been a bit bearish on google stock for a while. I've thought about shorting the stock and have been rightfully scared. I would have lost my shirt over the last 12 months.
But I have to say when I read this article quoting that google execs sold 7.4 billion worth of stock and this quote in particular...it makes me wonder.
Nevertheless, it is remarkable that not a single Google insider has bought a single share of the company in the 18 months since the IPO lock-ups expired, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Washington Service, which tracks insider sales. Philip Remek at Guzman & Co. in Coral Gables, Florida, is still the only equity analyst with a “sell'’ rating on Google; you could argue that he’s not such a lone wolf, given the behavior of the company’s owners.
My son graduated from nursery school yesterday. Hard to believe but it's true. It was a nice day and very cute to see -- my son was acknowledged as the best cashier in the nursery school. I was proud.
I don't recall "graduating" from nursery school. In fact, "graduation" only applied to high school and college when I was growing up. What's up with all the new "graduations" and levels in today's elementary education? On the one hand, I guess this is a good thing -- the kid feels acknowledged for the life steps thier taking. On the other hand, it undermines the real graduations that occur in life.
I am going to take a trip sometime next year to celebrate my 40th birthday. I'm thinking about taking about a month and doing one of the following:
i) back country snowboarding in Aspen or Jackson Hole or Calgray
ii) A himilayan trek with my friend Parthiv
iii) Motorcycle Europe
iv) Learn to fly and fly around America (yes, mom, that means a pilot's licence)
v) Rafting in New Zealand
vI) A month of intensive yoga
vii) Mountain climbing or eco challenge of some kind
Other places of travel interest are cuba, spain, and chile.
I thought about going to a buddhist retreat and sitting silent for a month but I don't think that works for me now. I need to get cracking on planning once I figure out what to do....any thoughts from you?
Hi, I'm Andy Sack!
This is my bag o' thoughts about entrepreneur-ship, venture capital, parenthood, and the world in general.
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Executive Director, Seattle
Chairman