stop the non*sense

Which player would you want on your team?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it is the 2nd year in a row that i prefer the Real Madrid Vs. Barca decisions:

not ready to switch sides.

but sometimes the home team is paying a dear price.

 

 

 

Pricing

Benny Daon, is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. why?

• he is  hard working -when i met him first in 1998, he was bootstrapping his company. this included packaging CDs in cardboard boxes prior to shiping to customers.  i believe this is a sight i will not see again.

• he is insightful – he named his product “the cloud” in 1998. early to market?  i believe the company still has a TradeMark for the word cloud. i did not know how to say ‘cloud’ till 2009.
• he is unusual – named his company Shunra. perhaps the only start-up in the world with an Aramaic name
• he still loves coding

and he is also a social entrepreneur

his claim:  the most important page one your website is the pricing page.

how insightful.

that’s the one page you want all your customers to get to.

it also exposes many of your values. what your company really stands for. show me your pricing page and i can tell you who you are

here is what i think is a great pricing page. why?

• pricing parameters are associated with value created
• transparent – lends itself to fairness
• variable –  i pay for what i get
• simple

1 page, 1 slide

can you describe your company in 1 slide?

that is really hard.

usually takes quite a bit of time to understand your customers well enough to articulate your value in 1 slide and for the customers to agree.

but these days people have less patience and want to make decisions quickly.

would it be a pie chart of what you save them on costs?

would it be how you increase their revenues? or profits ?

perhaps how we improve their conversion ratios?

I always liked the signs posted on poles next to stoplights saying

“loose 10 kg in 10 weeks”

these guys can explain their business very quickly.  they have to – no angels, no VCs.

today i spent 2 hours with some guys, and i still do not understand their business. but they seem very close to something very interesting. hence the 2 hours.

back to the guys who want me to loose weight (and i should).

what is their cost per lead?

i bet the conversion ratio is not that high; and their best conversion ratios and channels are word of mouth. for all of us working on digital marketing machines, let not forget that. our customers can create the best leads for us. does your product/service make it easy for them to recommend you?

more often than not, the answer is “not”….

or

“paint your house for 1399NIS (3 rooms)”

the beauty with that one is that up-sell is coming. i bet’ya his ASP is > 1399NIS.

the photo here is one for a plumber. ( called ‘installer’ in hebrew – no downloads, no SEO)

“the fast plumber”

a bit too much text?

this plumber does not drive an old truck.

he drives a motorcycle. and this sign is on the box on the back of the motorcycle where he keeps most of his tools.

we all know it is no fun to seat at home and wait for the plumber. the fact that he is on a motorcycle, makes me believe his customers wait less. made me want to call him.

finally, lets see, on your website, most users or leads end up reading/using one page and then make a decision.

what is your most important page?

 

 

 

 

which would you rather be?

in life, and in your startup, what would you rather be?

this earth digger?

moving earth one bucket at a time

or

    this guy, who skates almost frictionless on ice?

its kind of a loaded question.

yet, it is surprising how often in life and in business we choose the digger.

in Start-up life, as en entrepreneur or CEO, there are several ways you can make your life easier.

yet some people choose to dig a hole rather than skate.

the most common way to make life hard for you self is in your business model.

the most common mistake that is still common amongst early-stage SaaS startups is to go for direct sales:

• it is costly.
• it takes a long time to figure out
• it changes the DNA of your company early. how easy is it to change later to Self-Serve after your VP sales has dedicated a year to sell direct.
• it effects the leads you seek, and their costs
• it gives a false sense of control
• oh yeah, and the switch later, is really painful

most of the above applies to our bad-traits as individuals, too.

rejection

wanted a deal real bad and lost it

first time in a long time

bitter

it is nice that this happens to a VC once in a while. we inflict this pain every day

good luck to the entrepreneur. i really want him to succeed.

but hey, not too much

boycott

Boycott was a name of an Irish estate agent who did not behave nicely to others, and thus got ostracized – socially isolated:

The word boycott entered the English language during the Irish “Land War” and is derived from the name of Captain Charles Boycott, the estate agent of an absentee landlord, the Earl Erne, on Achill Island in County Mayo, Ireland, who was subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880.

In September that year protesting tenants demanded from Boycott a substantial reduction in their rents. He not only refused but also evicted them from the land. Charles Stewart Parnell, in his Ennis Speech proposed that, rather than resorting to violence, everyone in the locality should refuse to deal with him. Despite the short-term economic hardship to those undertaking this action, Boycott soon found himself isolated—his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, as well as the house. Local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail.

The concerted action taken against him meant that Boycott was unable to hire anyone to harvest the crops in his charge. Eventually 50 Orangemen from Cavan and Monaghan volunteered to harvest his crops. They were escorted to and from Claremorris by one thousand policemen and soldiers—this despite the fact that Boycott’s complete social ostracism meant that he was actually in no danger of being harmed. Moreover, this protection ended up costing far more than the harvest was worth. After the harvest, the “boycott” was successfully continued. Within weeks Boycott’s name was everywhere. It was used by The Times in November 1880 as a term for organized isolation. According to an account in the book “The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland” by Michael Davitt, the term was coined by Fr. John O’Malley of County Mayo to “signify ostracism applied to a landlord or agent like Boycott”. The Times first reported on November 20, 1880: “The people of New Pallas have resolved to ‘boycott’ them and refused to supply them with food or drink.” The Daily News wrote on December 13, 1880: “Already the stoutest-hearted are yielding on every side to the dread of being ‘Boycotted’.” By January of the following year, the word was being used figuratively: “Dame Nature arose…. She ‘Boycotted’ London from Kew to Mile End” (The Spectator, January 22, 1881).

On December 1, 1880 Captain Boycott left his post and withdrew to England, with his family.

dis-illusioned by happiness

People who are medically depressed have a clearer view of matters

the rest of us are just way too optimistic.

“People in a positive mood generally rely more on their own thoughts and preferences, and pay less attention to the outside world and social norms,” says Forgas.

heard about Forgas new research via  Max, my brother in law, from  Eugene’s blog:

…negative moods can improve the detection of deception

• reduce judgmental errors (Forgas, 1998),
• improve eyewitness accuracy (Forgas, Vargas, & Laham, 2005),
• and improve interpersonal communication strategies (Forgas, 2007).
• The present experiments confirm this pattern by demonstrating that mild negative moods also increase fairness and sensitivity to the needs of others.

read all about it in the new scientist

Decafalon

The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

welcome to my new diet:

no sugar, no wheat and cereals, no milk and cheese. no wine!

especially difficult, no coffee

i still try to drink one, once a week

otherwise, i really miss it

HOT V.O.D

i really love the idea of VOD

especially if there would be a much larger selection

when i worked in ECI, in 1991, my room-mate guy went down under to australia to try and sell a VOD system

it is now 20 years later

However, the VOD experience still sucks:

• you wait too long.
• the system gets jammed to often.
• till you find and ‘download’ a movie it takes 20 minutes (just slightly less than the trip to blockbuster)
• dear customer, please unplug the devise and wait. and wait, and wait. now, plug back

the real genius of hot VOD, (and comcast as i experienced it in NewHaven last year) is that the service providers have reached a perfect equilibrium of poor service, but just good enough. they have really mastered that one.

just a bit worse, and many would leave, i would like to think. or, maybe we are all just lazy suckers who want to be mastered by service providers who silently reach into our pocket every month.

what efficiency! i salute them and despise them at the same time. how dare they?!!

i am sure there is another equilibrium point in which we as customers are much more satisfied, cost are not higher, and prices are lower, too. with much more usage. go for “חבילת מתעקשים ומרווחים”.

perhaps it will happen faster if we disconnect and stream on-line.

advise welcomed

what kind of an organization do you (want to) work for?

met a good friend yesterday, roni

she told me most companies or organizations you work for you have to lie

you lie

• to your customer
• to your boss
• to your self

or any combination of the above

this is most organizations.

the beauty in being an entrepreneur of a start-up, (or a VC – but let’s not kid ourselves, mainly the founders)  is that you can bring into life, or create, organizations that do not have this deceit built into their DNA

priceless

frictionless

what a joy