Meaty post on designing metrics that drive desired behavior.

‘betcha didn’t see this coming.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on planes this week and as a result have had a chance to catch up on a few books that I’ve been meaning to read. In my stack for this trip (yes, stack, I actually carry real books in a real bag) was one I’ve been hearing great reviews and implementations of called 4 Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank. Admittedly, its a fairly dry read so I’ve been slowly working my way through it but I’m struck by a few of his ideas and how they apply, or don’t, to how Steve Jobs operates particulally in light of the iPad launch yesterday.

Blank posits that to successfully launch a company or product one needs to create a system for what he calls “Customer Development” which includes a process of validating assumptions about your product based on pre-emptive customer feedback and direction. This, he goes on, should inform your Product Development thus creating feedback loops which validate market fit BEFORE investing time and resources into staffing up to deliver a product for whom there may be no real customer base or urgent application.

Enter the iPad and the Jobsian path of product development; which, on the surface may seem counter to Blanks ideas around Customer Development yet still succeed time and time again. The product launch video actually begins with Jonathan Ive suggesting that users won’t know they need it until they see, feel and use it. Hmm, doesn’t sound much like “we want to know what our customer needs” rather “we’ll tell them what they need” Which, on the surface, would appear that one Steve is drinking the others milkshake.

And blogs and twitter are lighting up to tell the world why this was the wrong approach. Didn’t he know we’d want a camera, or an ability to multitask or how ‘bout a freaking’ keyboard. C’mon!

Its these very comments that lead me to believe Jobs may be drinking the Kool-Aid after all. As Blank’s theories have evolved there has emerged the concept of a minimal viable product. Getting something in the hands of users so you can really begin to understand what they want and need. Note- there was a bunch of promotion from Apple around a new SDK for developers to start building next generation apps that leverage the gestures and form factor of the iPad. I sense they’ll be taking a lot of ques from these developers about what they want to be able to do with the new technologies perfectly packed within the skin of this thing they’re calling the iPad. The device ain’t perfect, buts its enough to get it into the hands of customer and developers so they can begin to better understand and deliver what they really want. You can almost here Jobs breaking through the walls of the Yerba Buena Center saying “Oh Yeahhhh!”.

Which leads to my last point. This launch was really not about the iPad at all. Whether that particular device actually creates a new, large market for a 4th screen is really secondary. This launch was about Apple setting the agenda in personal computing for the next 10 yrs. It was about packaging a new user experience which really comes down to the software’s gesture interface, the SDK and the underlying hardware that powers it all. You can’t tell me that once you’ve gone all in on your iPhone that you want every screen you use to be a touch screen. That you aren’t disappointed when you can’t press, pinch and expand screens that aren’t touch sensitive in the way your iPhone is.

I may never buy an iPad as the use case for it is just not there for me today, but I’m certain that as the form factor morphs and the gesture interfaces find their way into other Apple products that I, and a very large number of others, will never think twice about using a traditional PC again.

(*please note I’m only a few chapters into Blank’s book so I likely butchered may of his principles. If you’re into this stuff, I love you to clarify or expand on this post in the comments)

Love to see love for our portfolio co’s on Tumblr. I’m with you Daryn- don’t know how I lived without it. And, its just going to keep getting better, so stay tuned…

daryn:

I first heard of Tripit when they launched a couple years back, but though people raved about it, I didn’t really see the need. I had my own system for tagging all of the emails related to a trip in my gmail, as well as manually entering things into iCal, and for the handful of times I travel each year, that worked fine for me. Well, I finally started using Tripit a few weeks ago, and boy have I been missing out.

Tripit is awesome! It is so dead-simple. Just forward all your travel receipts to plans@tripit.com, and you get a sweet itinerary built for your trip, and available in your calendar, on the website, and via their iPhone app. Here are my SXSW plans, for example.

You can also publish your stream to LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, as well as Tripit’s own dopplr/plancast-esque social network (which I’d love to connect with you on), but the utility value of the organizer alone is enough to keep me a loyal user.

Truly fantastic.

I have Steve’s book tee’d up for a long day of travelling tomorrow. I look forward to digging in a bit deeper on his themes and thinking.

robgo:

Great summary of evolution of Steve Blank’s work and where it’s going.

A few months back I was attending beta day hosted by my friends at Betaworks. The event was kicked off by the infectiously enthusiastic Gary Vaynerchuk. Even though I’m not a huge WineLibraryTV fan, GaryV holds a special place in my heart, and the above picture is why.

In 2007 I was planning to throw a party at OATV HQ and was stressing over the budget (I know y’all think we VCs are swimming in fees, but we’re a small fund yo). Our party planner said she had someone lined up who was willing to front all the drinks for the party and we jumped at the offer. I’d never heard of the guy, but she said he was someone who was internet famous and that he’d be the one pouring drinks all night. Great- free drinks and a bar tender, done!

The night of the event I met Gary who stands about armpit high to me, but towers me in enthusiasm. Though he was just “the help” that night (his words, not mine), he worked the room like he owned the place making the most out of the opportunity he’d created for himself (that’s him chatting up Jay Adelson, founder and CEO of Digg) and making sure no one at the party left without his signature WineLibraryTV wrist band.

Fast forward to Betaday and there’s “the help” on stage blowing minds with his ideas for how companies and individuals can leverage the web and its social systems to build direct relationships with customers and increase their visibility on a global scale. I was stuck more by the messenger than the message. Here was a guy who’se built his own brand and identity by leveraging all the web has to offer from a home base of Springfield, New Jersey, not exactly a tech hub.

It was a reminder that the web is leveling the playing field for all of us. There really are no excuses for not going after what you want anymore. Blogs are spawning mainstream book deals, YouTube clips are leading to well funded movies and music videos, and individual Twitter streams are breaking stories faster than news rooms stuff with professionals. And its doing that for everyone- whether you’re in Springfield, New Jersey or New Guinea. If you have a voice, a message, a mission and drive the web can open many of the doors you’re hoping to step through.

Gary is a great example of that.

One of the most pedestrain of questions that arise in many VC meetings is that of market size. How big is your market? Really. I’ve found that should this question arise more than once over a series of meetings, you’re better off looking elsewhere for funding than the blue shirt and khaki MBA staring at you pointedly from across the table.

If history is a guide you will not be able to answer this question with cleverly constructed Excel spreadsheets or elegantly cascading waterfall projections. For seed and early stage investors I’ve found that you either fundamentally and instinctively believe that something is a big market or you don’t. Because, often, the most interesting companies are operating in as-yet-undefined markets or are attacking and existing market from some niche that the large incumbents dismiss as not being big enough to warrant their attention and resources.

I posted a link a graph sizing the mobile ad market today at $215M. Now, most VCs say they won’t even look at markets that aren’t well north of a billion dollars in size. Also note that AdMob was funded pre-iPhone which seems to be making mobile ad networks a more reasonable bet. That market barely exists today and was even less obvious for the VCs who wrote the original checks to back a company in an undefined and, wait for it, small market.

The same could be said of the VCs who wrote the first checks for Facebook (social graph, wha?), Twitter (no, what you doing?) Zynga (a niche inside a niche) and many others.

Of the two new investments I made last year, I believe the current market sizing for each would be some approximation of zero. And that’s the point. Its not about the size of today’s market its what you do with it that really matters.

dpstyles:

Life at a tech startup. I’m expensing the hotdogs too.:

Snille x6 FTW!

www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S19859100

Now we just need a few more butts to fill those chairs!

This man makes his living providing charges for cell phones (pay by the hour). A reminder that entrepreneurship comes in many shapes and sizes.