SortiPreneur

The Power of Real Time: the Super Bowl Twitter Experience

I watched parts of Super Bowl LXVI in a lounge at LAX, on my way to the Bay Area.  Not being in an ideal setting, quite distant to the screen, my natural instinct was to tap into my second screen to enhance the experience, so I fired up Twitter on my iPhone, and came face to face with the new social media reality for essentially the first time.

Now I am reading that it was a Twitter record with 12K tweets per second during the game.  While TV viewership is flat, the real time web was alight with interaction, commentary and sharing, demonstrating what is now possible in the connected world.

I really think it's a combination of a few separate curves that is defining the new real time web experience.  On one hand, the community is getting more fluid in its expression.  Conventions are being established and the new vocabulary and interaction modes are now better understood by all.  Some of the early clumsiness has now diappeared.

Secondly, the commercial voices are better integrated. So when Madonna or Shazam or Foursquare are interacting with their audiences, that is also more fluid.

And most importantly, the online communities are extremely comfortable integrating the living room experience to their online conversations.  For me, Twitter was an enhancing addition to my TV yesterday.

All of this tells me that we are still in the very early stages of media and entertainment disruption we are seeing enabled through the connected economy.  It also tells me there will be many more great businesses that will be created in this realm.  What excitement to feel on the month of the Facebook filing.

Artificial Scarcity

I have previously shared my frustration with artificial scarcity around geography restrictions on content (regions), specifically DVDs and video games.  It drives me nuts that I can not watch a DVD I PAID FOR in NYC in Istanbul.  I have two DVD players at home for this problem.  It's idiotic and it sucks.

Today I found myself thinking about another type of artificial scarcity propogated by Hollywood - the movie release windows.  It's a model for premium video content that I suspect is around because "it's always been that way". However, my suspicion is that Hollywood is missing sales opportunities.  The reason I seldom go to see movies in the theater is that it's expensive in time, not dollar, cost.  If I have a chance to watch - legally - the current popular releases at home instead of the theater, I suspect I would.  Once they become available on VoD streaming, etc, a lot of the time, the buzz around that release has evaporated and it's not current and hot anymore.

I can not say I have looked any research on the topic, but my hunch is that this is just another example how content owners don't get the connected economy.  Ripe for disruption.

 

If You Try to Play Like Your (Bigger) Competitor, You'll Lose to Them

I just saw the movie "Moneyball" on my flight to NY.  I'd read the Michael Lewis book (please read the Wikipedia link if you have not read or seen Moneyball, for this post to make sense) and really liked it and was looking forward to the film.  I enjoyed the film as well.

In the film, there's a dialog between Billy Beane and his old-school scout Grady Fuson: 

Billy Beane: We are the last dog at the ball. You've seen what happens to the runt of the litter? He dies!
Grady Fuson: Billy, that's a very touching story and everything, but I think we're all very much aware of what we're facing here. You have a lot of experience and wisdom in this room, now you need to have a little bit of faith and let us do the job of replacing Giambi. 
Billy Beane: Is there another first base player like Giambi?
John Poloni: No, not really.
Billy Beane: And if there was, could we afford him?
Grady Fuson: No.
Billy Beane: Then what the fuck are you talkin' about, man? If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there.
Grady Fuson: Boy, that sounds like fortune cookie wisdom to me, Billy.
Billy Beane: No, that's just logic.

I think the point here is very relevant to startups who are challenging large incumbents with far more resources.  You have to play a different game. If you attack your larger competitor replicating what they have, they always have a better chance of out-performing you.  You have to find your edge and make sure you are playing your game, not theirs.

Sequels and Startup Clones

I was just browsing Google Zeitgeist 2011, and noticed that 7 out of top 10 movie searches in Turkey were sequels.  I thought, "ah, shame on the Turks, for not rewarding originality".  Then I made my way to the list top grossing movies globally, and immediately apologized from my fellow Turks: All but two of the global list are sequels. In fact, the top seven are all sequels!

Thinking of this phenomenon reminded to a popular topic in internet ventures.  In our industry, adaptation of successful, proven business models, in new markets or verticals is often scorned.  Entrepreneurs are chastised for their lack of originality and innovation.

I think there's a key difference between sequels and internet clones.  Film is a creative industry.  Formulaic churning of unoriginal content in a creative industry may very well be a strategic business choice by content companies, and while it may make business sense, it certainly erodes value from the "creative" industry.

In my opinion, internet businesses have no obligation to be creative.  Their objective is value creation: preferably, defensible, sustainable, "thick" value.  There may be a thousand eBay clones around the world, but if each marketplace is reducing commercial friction among buyers and sellers, then each of the one thousand  clones is creating value.

Anyway, food for thought...

Here's the sappy Google Zeitgeist clip:

 

Ignore the Noise - Keep the Focus

The financial world seems to be in shambles again.

Pictures of 2008 are flashing back in my mind.  I spent the bulk of 2008 to execute a fairly hairy deal in an effort to raise $50m to invest in my vision of Turkish internet back then.  Had it not fallen apart at the nth hour in December 2008, it now looks like it would have created monumental returns.

So forgive me if I get a bit upset when the headlines are screaming apocalypse again.  I get upset because barely 2 years after the apocalypse cries, and RIP: Good Times memos, we were watching our trading screens looking at LNKD's $10b market cap and 2,400 PE ratio.  And then, apocalypse again.  

If I have learned anything in the last two years it's that it is mostly noise.  As humans, we are in constant need of narrating the world around us.  The explosive growth of media and the proliferation of channels that deliver us that narrative has exponentially grown the amount of noise.

To an entrepreneur, the noise can be paralyzing. Best entrepreneurs I know have taught themselves to tune it out, except maybe a few trusted sources to keep an eye on macro factors, while maintaining an intense focus on the work at hand: the KPIs, strategic imperatives and the general landscape in which their venture operates.

I just thought it may be the right time to remind my readers (myself?) of this.

BTW, regarding the current financial mess we are seeing around the world, Umair Haque has been calling this out forever.  

Twitter Killed My Blog

"Rewritten by machine and new technology,
and now I understand the problems you can see."

The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star

I realized today, with amazement, that it has almost been 3 months since my last blog post, and that this is just my 7th post since May.  This is by far the slowest blogging I have ever logged and I am a bit embarassed.

In parallel, I have probably been tweeting on average twice a day for the same period.

In short, Twitter has killed by blogging.  And I suspect I am not alone.

I also realized that I am not as good a blogger as I fancied myself to be.  When I analyze the 500+ blog entries I have written over the 5 year life span of this blog, I find that most of them are reflections on content that has been created elsewhere - mostly links and comments to others' blog posts,  videos, articles, etc.

In other words, they have been glorified ReTweets.  And the same act now takes me a few seconds (to retweet), as opposed to the 15-minute blocks of time that a blog post typically requires.

From now on, I'll stop fighting the natural flow and try to RT when that is all that's called for.  So this blog will probably see fewer entries but hopefully more original thinking.

If you enjoy hearing from me, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/csertoglu.

 

 

S&P Upgrades Turkey

S&P has upgraded Turkey's sovereign credit rating today.  I think i's well-deserved and long overdue, given the level of resiliency Turkey's shown through the global credit crisis.  It's also a bit ironic that the move coincided with recent troubles all over the EU, particularly Greece and Portugal (via Marketwatch).

We have not seen any bank failures, significant stimulus moves by the state, or any large company busts.   Turkey's held up remarkably well and that performance supports my overall bullish stance on my country.

Tiny House

Sometimes it's great to be reminded of how little we really need.  The rest is all wants.

Startup Insight

Readers of my blog know I am a big Paul Graham fan.  I like him because he is, smart, honest and on the side of the entrepreneur.

His most recent essay, on his insights on what a startup is really like, is one of his most brilliant.  I especially like the part where he talks about the relationshp between founders, colleagues and the companies:

Several people used that word "married." It's a far more intense relationship than you usually see between coworkers—partly because the stresses are so much greater, and partly because at first the founders are the whole company. So this relationship has to be built of top quality materials and carefully maintained. It's the basis of everything.
...
Just as the relationship between cofounders is more intense than it usually is between coworkers, so is the relationship between the founders and the company. Running a startup is not like having a job or being a student, because it never stops. This is so foreign to most people's experience that they don't get it till it happens.

Yesterday, I was discussing this exact same issue with a Turkish entrepreneur.  I can not agree more with Paul.

A Players

The success of any startup, in my opinion, hinges on the quality of the team.  This is a statement I can make very comfortably.  The trick is gauging the quality.  That's usually tough, especially since, as a VC, we get to have relatively little time to spend with the team.  So I find myself looking for clues in spotting a great team.

My friend Auren has a great post on the common traits of A players.  To summarize, A players tend to:

• Be Relentlessly Resourceful
• Work Around Rules Encourage Mediocrity - So you have to avoid those who try to box them in through these types of rules
• Good at Getting Back to People 
• Show up Early vs Late
• Be Founders of Something
• Follow-up
• Work harder and smarter

Of course, this is not meant to be exhaustive or exclusive.  But, I view my job to be centered around spotting the right talent, more than anything else.  And I know Auren is very good at attracting great players around him. So I think this list is very helpful.