Getting increasingly frustrated with some Australian VCs.
I keep hearing from Australian founders that Australian VCs keep pushing them to prop up industry incumbents through B2B SaaS when their real goal is (and should be) to disrupt legacy players with a product led, radically improved, direct to customer competitor.
There is room for B2B SaaS. There is also profound opportunity in full stack, B2C disruption.
Canva didn’t build a tool for agencies. Netflix didn’t build a DVD rental management CRM for blockbuster. Uber didn’t build dispatch software for Taxi.
There’s a reason for that.
If you’re a “VC” that doesn’t understand how this works - please delete your account.
Thinking of making a list.
Founders: Please tell these VCs they’re wrong (directly) and walk out of the meeting. Instead, focus on product and product led growth, hit and maintain 20% MoM growth as fast as possible, consider raising from multiple strategics/angels that understand how their legacy parent companies won’t change, and go international (for both users and investors) ASAP.
Product & Startup Builder
Re-earning trust is nearly impossible
Once people decide they don’t like or trust you - it’s very difficult to convince them otherwise.
Everything you say and do from that point forward will be filtered through that lens.
This makes advocating for yourself and personally changing the tide of sentiment difficult (if not impossible).
In a business environment, it takes a strong and articulate leader/manager to push back on false narratives and elevate truth and justice.
But that’s hard and rare to do because the manager risks their own alienation.
The solution?
For leaders:
Work intentionally to create a culture of truth-seeking that minimizes personality/emotion-based decision-making. Conversely, be vigilant about signs of fragility and easy intimidation (ideal case).
Encourage direct communication between stakeholders rather than games of telephone.
Defend unjustly criticized employees (This reinforces point 1).
For individuals:
Ensure careful and diplomatic day-to-day execution so as to avoid crossing the point of no return. (However, be careful: too much of this runs the risk of undermining a truth-seeking culture of honest communication and rapid improvement).
Hyper-vigilance to share your perspective and contributions as you go using a range of communication techniques (clear roadmaps, group status updates, metrics, etc) (taxing but often necessary).
Building political alliances that will support you (yuck).
Grit and perseverance (but don’t spend too long banging your head against a wall - sometimes it’s better to move on).
In short, it takes hard, intentional work from good faith actors on all sides.
Tech companies have an opportunity to switch from Checkers to Chess
I wonder what happens when major tech companies stop playing checkers and start playing chess.
With Netflix facing competition from HBO, Disney, Paramount etc - their response is just more investment in premium content.
What about if, in addition to more great content, the viewing experience was made materially better? Imagine second-screen social experiences, better multiplayer viewing, buy onscreen products etc etc.
With Uber facing competition from Lyft, Didi, Taxi etc - their response is just more diverse businesses. Eats Food Delivery, Car Rental etc.
What about if, in addition to more great on-demand businesses, the ride experience was made materially better? Imagine trip experiences that make the trip more compelling and valuable - seamless arrivals at hotels, real-time arrival ETA updates for attendees of an event, destination insights for museums etc, order ahead on the way to a restaurant etc
There are many examples like this where the executives running major companies fail to think three-dimensionally.
NFTs have the wrong name.
People are so confused about NFTs.
Part of the confusion is that they’re being misrepresented by the current hype cycle.
The first problem is that they have the wrong name. They’re named in contrast to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies instead of being called what they really are.
It would be like calling money “Currency” and cars and homes “Non-fungible Stuff”.
But that’s not what we call them. We just call them “Assets”.
So, similarly, NFTs should simply be called “Crypto Assets”. Let me explain.
Fungible simple means that the individual items have no difference from each other - so therefore each item is equivalent and easily exchangeable for the other.
For example, any dollar can be exchanged for any other dollar. Any Bitcoin can be exchanged for any other Bitcoin.
Homes, cars, boats (and stupid animated gifs) are NOT equal and easily exchangeable with each other. They’re unique. They are non-fungible.
Side note: the reason society switched from the batter system to using money is because money is fungible. It’s easier to buy fruit with fungible money than by trading a non-fungible goat. The fruit guy might not WANT a goat!
Just like Bitcoin is currency (fungible) represented by tokens (unique numbers) on the blockchain, NFTs are just any OTHER kind of (non-fungible) asset on the blockchain.
So if we call Bitcoin a “Crypto Currency” we should just call all the other stuff “Crypto Assets”.
But here’s the thing: It’s not about memes and digital artwork. It’s about registering and tracking ownership of ANYTHING on the blockchain.
Why? Because blockchains are decentralized and transparent vs governments and private databases which are controlled by legacy institutions and politicians.
Bitcoin is the way we digitize gold/money. NFTs are the way we digitize everything else.
Eventually your marriage and your home ownership records will be NFTs.
That’s not a guess. It’s a fact. Just a matter of time.
Facebook vs Australian News
The Facebook/Australian news situation is pretty simple:
If you try to blackmail a corporation into paying you for displaying stuff that’s freely available on the Internet, they can choose to stop displaying your stuff and sending users your way.
If the value of their displaying your stuff and sending you traffic is so high (hence the outrage), then you shouldn’t be expecting them to pay you for it as well.
The proposed Australian law shows the stranglehold that Murdock and the other News companies have on the Australian government, and the abject failure of the Australian government to understand how the Internet works.
Facebook has eaten their lunch and then called their bluff - and now they’re upset.
The best strategy for news orgs is simple: Build better products, find new business models, and stop trying to use government regulation to compensate for years and decades of failed execution.
This is part of a broader trend of governments and legacy companies throwing tantrums because tech companies are disrupting their business models through better, more user-centric products..
My suggested changes to the Zoom "Waiting for host" dialogue
What is my strategic advisory work all about?
Someone just asked me my target market, what I do, and what my business super power is. Here’s my quick answer...
Targe market: startup founders and enterprise execs looking to drive disruption in their company and in some fundamental aspect of the world.
What do you do: I’ve built and run venture backed tech startups, brands, products and ecosystems for 20+ years. Inc a decade in Silicon Valley. Helped build part of Uber and worked with all the big disrupters.
Now I’m semi-retired. I work with companies as a fractional exec/advisor - helping them avoid costly mistakes and wasted time. I help them to fast-forward to the best ideas as quickly as possible. All from a Silicon Valley, tech, product, hyper growth POV.
What is your superpower: I am able to understand a business and it’s challenges lightening fast (typically 15 mins) and work at every level (super high level strategy all the way down to pixel level detail) to course correct the trajectory and bend the ambition, quality of execution and speed up and to the right.
How Covid-19 affects Startups & Enterprises
How does the pandemic affect big enterprises in relation to their interactions with the startup ecosystem?
1. After shedding staff, enterprises will need to hire fewer, more effective people. I.e Entrepreneurs who know how to hustle and get big things done with fewer resources.
2. Rather than building things in house, large enterprises need to partner or buy more innovation from the outside. That will often mean startups.
3. New cultural norms and massively accelerated trends mean there’s new opportunities for new startups and even more need for enterprises to buy companies to plug their capability gaps.
How does Disney win at the media business? This is one way...
Disney continues to make its own venues for its own content.
Yes, Disney+ is an obvious “venue”, but so is D23, Disney Land, and now Disney “Gallery” as a behind the scenes talk show venue.
In this way, they own the channels through which their stories get told. They build long term brand equity over time, control the narrative, and the money. Then, inside that architecture, they can pour any content they make or buy. Star Wars, Marvel, Fox, Pixar, whatever.
So smart.
More media companies (and traditional companies) need to do this.
How can you help a larger enterprise?
Someone just asked me "Which companies/industries do you think could best leverage your expertise"
My answer... Any company and industry that wants to be the source of disruption rather than the victim of it.
To expand a little more...
It's a truism to say "software is eating the world" (changing business models, driving operational efficiencies and disrupting legacy companies across the board). Therefore the companies that not only survive but thrive must learn how to be world-class software companies.
My role with larger enterprises is to help them understand how to build a software-first business.
Crucially, this doesn't mean just creating another app or website. It means rethinking their operations, pricing, business model, vendor relationships, customer experience and more to drive out inefficiencies and drive up scalability using software.
Not just any software though; software that is built using agile processes, with beautiful, human user interfaces that include habit-forming features and viral mechanics.
Getting the right advice to thrive during Covid-19 disruption
Q2 is fast approaching and while Covid-19 is a big, scary and disruptive force right now, the most important thing for your business is that you focus and execute well to come out of this period stronger than ever.
To this end, I have 2 slots available to work with great companies starting in April. Particularly in this time, I can help you save precious time and money by...
- Avoiding costly business and product strategy mistakes. Build the right things in the right order - Coaching ineffective teams or employees to improve general productivity and team communication
- Speeding up development efforts with sharper requirements and team collaboration
- Building solid processes for continued productivity from your team during work-from-home
Learn about my advisory work at chrissaad.com/advisory and drop me a line to me@chrissaad.com if I can be helpful!
COVID-19 Infographic
Beautiful and useful. There’s a big opportunity for more of this in products and news.
Facilitating Disruption
Media companies are so focused on "going where the audience is" that they forget how to serve those audiences, cultivate them, inform them and build trust with them over the long term.
They say that Facebook and Twitter have "made the home page irrelevant" - while that's true, in actuality they've dived head first into that irrelevancy by missing opportunity after opportunity for true personalization and next-gen UI/UX metaphors.
The latest example is a CNN redesign that is functionally exactly the same as it's been for decades while at the same time they invest in gimmicks over on Snapchat.
It takes two to facilitate disruption. The disruptor to innovate and the disrupted to wallow in inaction.
Cross-posted from here: http://chrissaad.com/…/long-term-personalized-value-in-the-…
Uber's New Website
Uber's New Look
Uber's Brand Refresh
Really great insight from Wired in this article into the new Uber brand refresh
Uber Developers!
LinkedIn Recommendation
I just received a very kind LinkedIn recommendation from a founder I’ve been working with. This makes the whole thing worth it!
Jeenie App for Deaf Users
This is a great startup I've been helping with my 1:1 #consultingconvos - glad they're getting some much deserved coverage
Mailchimp's Monkey Finger
The Mailchimp nervous monkey finger before sending out your email to your mailing list never fails to make me smile. I'd say it's 80% of the reason why I use it for my newsletter. This kind of whimsey and product polish is part of what makes a product stick.