Discussing Entrepreneurship @ Berkeley

Entrepreneurs feast off ideas, and Berkeley has a thriving community of student entrepreneurs. A simple discussion type of venue is perfect for the exchange off these ideas, perspectives, and experiences. While this often happens informally, oddly I’m not aware of any such organized discussions about entrepreneurship at Berkeley (Startup2Startup organized by Dave McClure is something similar with meetups every month in the South Bay). 

So, last Thursday, April 2nd, Berkeley’s very own ST@B (Startups @ Berkeley) and IEEE got a group of 17 people with varied entrepreneurial experiences (some who had successfully started and sold several startups and others who are considering starting one, with many in between), closed the door, and had them just talk for two hours about ‘Entrepreneurship in Consumer Web Technology’. Some brief descriptions of what we talked about – you’ll have to check out the full video to get the complete scoop (Note: if you do watch the video, please skip the first 20 minutes as we’re just chatting and munching on delicious West Coast Pizza):

• Ad models - Are they substainable? Finding the right demographic and hypertargeting. Gaining critical mass.
• Other Business models on the web - Other Business/Revenue models on the web. Building “products not business models”.
• Picking a team - Choosing team-members you can trust and respect. What’s the right combination of engineers and business people? When should you hire the MBAs; are they even necessary?
• Financing - When do you bootstrap? When do you go to VC’s? 
• Launching web apps- When should you launch – earlier or later?
• Competitive Advantage - How do you take on a large player in the market (the Google’s and Microsoft’s of the world)? How do you reach a global audience?

It was a lot of fun seeing people’s views on these topics, and we thought it went well enough to do it again! We’re planning similar discussion events on renewable energy, biotechnology, cloud computing, and other fields.

I also wrote a post on this on our ST@B blog.

A look at Joost

Joost

Brought to us by the same people who invented Skype and Kazzaa - Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis – Joost can best be described as free on-demand online television.

I’ve been using Joost for a week or so (along with more than a million other ‘beta testers’) and I’m pretty impressed. So let me cover the major features and my thoughts on it…

Features and Feel of Joost

Joost is an application that you install on your desktop. It is pretty non-traditional in terms of it’s interface, and it’s sleek, easy to use, and elegant (takes a little getting used to). When on viewing mode, the controls appear when you go to any side of the screen. My Channels on the left provides you a categories list of the 150+ channels they currently offer, along with the ability to have your favorites. The Video Controls are on the bottom and are the standard play, pause, skip to channel/program, and volume controls one could expect, along with a search box to search for keywords, specific programs, or by subject.

Now the coolest thing that I think is going to work to Joost’s favor is their ‘My Joost’ on the right of the screen. These are essentially widgets that people can use and have on the screen while watching television on Joost – useful things like a notice board, instant messaging with friends, rating of programs, chatting with others viewing the same channel, a clock, news ticker, etc. It works well, and this social aspect of Joost is what I think is going to help differentiate it from other TV-on-internet competitors (see section ‘Competitors’).

Technology

Joost is a growing brand of applications that run on something called Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). The way it can deliver near-perfect streaming is by using a peer-to-peer streaming technology (still depends on connection speed of course). Data is delivered to your internet through encrypted packets, which are cached by your browser (the same way it caches content on the web). This cached content is then sent to other users, so users share the burden of the download in a sense.

The other cool thing about Joost is that it 90% of it comes from open source. The Joost founders say that soon, software developers will able to create their own plug-ins for Joost. Smart move.

Competitors

Joost has it’s share of competitors in the online-video market. I’m not including solely user-created video sites like YouTube because I think while they maybe related, they really are two different things. I haven’t tried out the last two, but here are the four major ones:

1. Babelgum - similar to Joost, but smaller and looks less elegant.
2. VeohTV - similar to Joost, but also smaller. Includes user-generated content along with content from major TV networks.
3. Zattoo - only available in Switzerland, streams actual broadcast and cable television networks. A simpler and more traditional interface.
4. UUSee - similar service to Joost – only in China right now. Live streaming of mainstream TV channels. I’ve been told it’s really good quality, and the content licensing is actually legal (that’s quite an achievement in China I hear).

Can Joost take off?

Joost is really nice, but I won’t watch it often unless my favorite television series or a lot more movies are available on it. The main thing it’s missing right now is abundant content. But it is still in beta, and Joost is aggressively working on the issue by signing up content providers. If it can pass this hurdle, here are some reasons why I think it can take off:

1. It’s easier: Even if I can record my favorite shows at my convenience on television, I need to be near a physical television. I have access to the internet much more often. On-demand television which I can watch with just my laptop is a much better proposition – and I’m sure for many others too. Plus, I can watch whatever I want…when I want it.
2. It’s free: Except for the ads and the internet connection of course.
3. Growing library: Television shows – even the most popular ones – are seemingly disposable. You can’t see old episodes unless you buy the DVD or tape all the episodes. Movies stop playing. With Joost or similar technologies, I can access all previous series or movies whenever I want. And easy to search through them too.

Having said that, do I think people are going to be switching entirely from television over to Joost? Not for a few years atleast. There are plenty of competitors with the same goal as Joost, and the television and cable industries have quite a vested interest in making sure things television channels stays on TV’s. But it’s something to keep an eye on, and as Joost starts putting more and more channels and content, I’ll be watching.

Leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite to Joost (I’ll need your email if you want one).

Cool new tech VLog

Morgan Webb, a co-producer and co-host of the popular video game review television show X-Play, started her new VLog called WebbAlert last Thursday, August 2nd. It’s a daily Monday-Thursday 5-minute piece on the top news from technology (links to all she talks about are included). I’ve been watching it for the last 4 episodes, and it’s both informative and witty. She’s also easy on the eyes – even if her facial expressions get a little wacky sometimes (maybe move the video a little further away please). For an indepth discussion of the VLog (well, more of Morgan herself), check out Techcrunch’s article on WebbAlert.

Thanks for nothing

I’ve been reading the blog Fake Steve Jobs for quite some time now – along with much of Silicon Valley and the world – and it’s some of the wittiest, funniest, and best satirical writing that I have ever read, along with managing to give deep insights about Apple, the real Steve, the tech industry, and every other imaginable topic. Written as it was Steve Jobs himself (some believed it was), people kept guessing (/fantasizing) about the blogger’s true identity.

Guessing time ended today when he was revealed to be Daniel Lyons (shown above), a senior editor in Forbes, by Brad Stone, a New York Times reporter – followed by a post by FSJ.

I don’t think Brad was a true believer in entertainment or brilliant writing – yes, FSJ’s readers wanted to know his identity, but didn’t actually want to know it. Mr. Stone, thanks for spoiling the fun.

A refreshing view on entrepreneurship

There was a cool post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog today about starting-up – written by Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin. Go ahead, click on the link. A unique and refreshing perspective. Points like loving the journey and working hard are very true. One of the best posts I’ve read!

Life is good

Venture capital investment in the U.S. in information technology companies (hardware, semiconductors, and communication companies as well as Web 2.0 startups) hit $979 million for the second quarter of 2007, up 52% from the same period last year. This is the highest figure recorded since 2001.

Some reflections on the increasing VC investment on IT startups and some things it made me think of:

1. Venture capital investment in startups doesn’t indicate that we’re in a boom, nor does it pinpoint the current atmosphere (for at least the simple reason that VC’s only invest in a small percentage of startups), but I think it does show that we’re in a time of rapid change and investors are, with restraint, pouring in money to make this change happen.
2. Interestingly, the venture capital funding in Information Technology was topped by $1.045 billion that was invested in medical device companies, a jump of 58% in the same period a year before. The emergence of new technologies such as wireless devices that communicate what they find inside the body – drives such companies. Renewable energy (wind, solar, biofuels are the biggest types) and biotechnology are also two fields that are getting huge increases in VC funding.
3. Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark Capital (a VC firm that sprang to prominence in the dot-com era) puts it well when he says innovation is happening “because everyone is pushing the gas pedal.” Large companies such as Yahoo and Ebay, who were the innovator-drivers a few years back, are having a slight ‘brain-drain’. Even Google, the “poster child” of innovation and creativity today, isn’t able to keep up with rapid innovation in video and social networking services (and thus the purchase of YouTube last year for $1.64 billion, and the down payment of $900 million to secure MySpace as an advertising partner). We increasingly need startups that bring creativity, crazy ideas, disruptive business/social models, and new ways to exploit the interactive power of the internet to its full.
4. Startup costs are lower than they ever were, and it will continue to get cheaper. While open source and open platforms on the web are especially to blame for this, everything from servers to bandwidth costs less. This makes it easy for anyone from a tech-savvy 18-year old in a dorm room to a 55-year old experienced software engineer who has a spark of creativity to play the startup game – and be part of this rapid innovation.

I say there’s no better time to be an entrepreneur.

A lifetime of free VOIP

Ooma is a new VOIP startup that allows consumers to use their normal phones to make calls (similar to Vonage), but at drastically reduced prices. Vonage provides unlimited calls in U.S. and Canada for $25/month. With Ooma however, you just have to buy the hardware (starting at $399), connect it to your existing broadband connection with an Ethernet cable and a normal phone- and you’re set for free calls- for life! No joke.

The Ooma hardware looks sexy and has a lot of nice built-in features. Ooma also allows you to install “scouts” where you can set up your entire house with Ooma- something you can’t do with Vonage (which only allows one unit). They go on sale in September.

Their management team is looking to “revolutionize an industry that hasn’t innovated in 100 years” and is quite experienced and diverse. Aston Kutcher- yes, the actor- is the ‘Creative Director’, and is actively engaged in the business.

Facebook and money

I’m skeptical of the revenue opportunities for third-party applications on Facebook right now. True, Zuckerberg has promised third-party applications that they can keep 100% of the profits they make. But, where are the profits going to come from? It’s not clear if there is significant purchasing intent for users while they are on Facebook. It’s a social application right now- people are on it see what their buddies are doing, not buy stuff (even though there are ‘marketplaces’ popping up in Facebook). Facebook banner ads and flyers have an average 0.04% clickthrough rate, which is quite terrible by any standard. Andrew Chen, a Silicon-Valley VC, offers a solution:

If widget makers are allowed to send traffic a ton of traffic to their own destination sites, that might work well – in that case, it’d make sense to charge the widget makers a cost-per-click for every user leaving the site, similar to the way that Google funnels people OFF the google.com search engine for a fee. That would make Facebook a true traffic acquisition engine.

Are you a Connector, Maven, or Salesman?

I recently read this book called Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a wonderful book, talking about how social epidemics start. Well, you have to read the book to find out more, but…

There are three kind of people that make it possible for epidemics to start and explode into well…stuff that everyone knows about- the facebook’s and myspace’s of the world (not limited to the internet of course):

1. Connectors - These people seem to know everyone. By merely knowing so many people, if an idea comes across to them, they’ll be able to spread the word to all the people they know.
2. Mavens - These people accumulate knowledge and seem to have detailed information on the newest product, or the newest thing. In the web 2.0 world, they’re called the ‘early adopters’.
3. Salesmen - These people convince us to use the a product or a website or try something out.

So which one are you?