« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 »

September 29, 2004

eBay/Amazon: Depth, Breadth and Keeping All Your "Eggs" in Their Basket

Amazon and eBay developments over the past weeks got me thinking. Of course there is Amazon's attempt to grab more of the whole internet withA9. Meanwhile, with one of the most powerful walled gardens ever decides to keep Half.com alive despite the natural desire to push to one brand.

Across these efforts Amazon and eBay are duking it out for your all online buying dollars in terms of both breadth and depth. They clearly want you never to leave their buying/selling universe - or to put all your purchases of anything in their one big happy integrated shopping basket.

eBay leads on breadth by having so many sellers of everything that can't even be searched outside of the eBay garden, with Amazon working hard to match with auctions, affliliates, etc. Amazon still leads in depth, in particular in categories like books, music and DVDs, by shear completeness of its inventory list - if a book can be found it can be found on Amazon (or so you still believe). So how is eBay trying to match that?

I, like many other customers, go to Half.com first to see if I can get a book/dvd/cd for cheap. But often when I can't find something obscure I go back to Amazon. Why would eBay let me do this? Why shouldn't they make sure every time to have an answer to my search and offer to sell it no matter the price or the amount of time to deliver? Can't they cut a deal with big distributors and sellers like alibris to simply suck in their whole backlists too? I wonder why they let me put any eggs in someone else's basket.

(for more on the Half.com news see here, here, and here

Posted by johnza at 05:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 28, 2004

Travel Drag Race

Great notes from Josh. He was on the team that first worked on Expedia and is doing is own work in the area now in scheduling group travel

Here are his notes on the whole travel space.

The travel meta-search space is currently hot and likely over crowded (Moblissimo, kayak.com, Farechase now part of Yahoo, Sidestep, etc.).  Obviously a ton of money is being spent on travel online (#1 in ad spend and transactions).  Another company you might find interesting for their scrappy approach is "Smarterliving":http://www.smarterliving.com.  Began humbly mid-90s by a guy sending travel deals via email to friends.  Discovered there was demand for this content and has translated that into a very nice ad revenue business.

So it sounds like there are lots of people in a drag race, but folks like Smarter living can do a good job

Posted by rich at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MovableType 3.0 and Comment Delays

. 2Well, we finally upgraded to MovableType 3.x. Its a nice upgrade now that they have their licensing figured out. As an aside, these guys are doing a great job of starting in stealth mode in this strange category called blogging and as it has become mainstream, they are moving to platform with their network of plugins and developer conferences. Heck with blogging as the title story of the NY Times Magazine, you can tell its time has come.

Besides nicer UI, it has better comment management (see below) and also category now can be nested. Something we really need for this site.

Main thing you'll notice that's bad is that comments won't come out immediately.

Although we have a blacklist running, now we have moderated comments so I need to remember to get up there and release comments every so often.

Posted by rich at 12:18 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

MyYahoo's next move - an open medium?

Today MyYahoo launched it's refresh, including RSS feeds. For a long time MyYahoo was basically personalization that was "anything you want, as long as it's on the list of My Yahoo content." I used it and still do, but because it was so closed now it's moved from being my place for everything to my place for weather, driving directions and my horoscope.

Davenetics notes that this is about time. Blogs/rss have become the newsletter writer's remedy for spam and having a name like Yahoo can really help.

What I would love is for all these things to be able to merge with each other. Wouldn't it be great if MyYahoo had a Bloglines export/import function?

More on this here and here (for a historical view of myyahoo too.)

Posted by johnza at 09:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Judy's Book

Nice description of Judy's Book as sort of a best of both on Seth's blog "sort of Craig's List meets Zagats meets Orkut" especially for parents like me.

We agree that it's all in the details, but we're glad that it's one one of our investments. It's a great team. Check it out. And stay tuned.

Posted by johnza at 07:09 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 26, 2004

Our first book review!

From publisher's weekly. If you subscribe you can find it here. If not you can see it on Amazon. Here's an excerpt

"This engaging primer contends that all marketing campaigns can be boiled down to five basic strategies, a typology distilled from the authors' experience as marketing executives at Microsoft and as venture capitalists. The "plays," schematized [are] with football diagrams...

This illuminating conceptual framework is perhaps less important than the authors' lucid analyses of real-world marketing situations, drawn from case studies and from their own gaffes and triumphs in marketing Excel, MS Office and other software milestones in Microsoft's march to monopoly. They throw in lots of practical tips ... The authors' wealth of insights, presented in a breezy, down-to-earth style free of management-theory cant, will give marketing managers much useful food for thought."

Posted by johnza at 11:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anti-full featured mobile

With 3G coming, so much of the talk in the mobile market is about more, new features. Well, sometimes more features are not better. Sometimes a gap analysis will show you the solution to some customer problems is less not more.

Emily Turrettini of textually.org points out the problems arising from kids with cell phones in schools and highlights a suggestion by Xeni Jardin to offer phones that can only call mom and dad (and I think 911 too). Less gossip, less minutes, more safety. I like it.

Posted by johnza at 05:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 25, 2004

What's all this about an actual book?

That's right. Surprise, surprise, it's called The Marketing Playbook: Five Battle Tested Plays for Capturing and Keeping the Lead in Any Market. . You can order it now, just click here, or for group orders click here. . By John Zagula and Rich Tong . From a great publisher, Portfolio. . It's being well received by those who've seen and reviewed it (click here to see some "advance praise"). . For a summary of what the book is about, keep reading... This is how Amazon describes it: "Every company needs to figure out the best way to beat the competition. What do you do if the other guy is already dominating the market? Should you challenge them head on or lie low for a while? Should you offer customers high-end features or a low-end price? Or both? During their years at Microsoft, John Zagula and Richard Tong answered such questions so effectively that they helped Microsoft Office and Windows grow from a 10 percent to 90 percent market share. As venture capitalists, Zagula and Tong have continued to test and perfect their system with hundreds of companies of all sizes and at all stages. Now they’re sharing their best ideas and methods in an easy-to-apply book that will be enormously helpful to marketers in every industry and leaders in every size company. The Marketing Playbook explains the five basic strategies for a competitive market—The Drag Race Play, The Best of Both Play, The High-Low Play, The Platform Play, and The Stealth Play. It illustrates how each one works, how to pick the best one for a given situation, and then how to implement it effectively in the real world. Just like a great sports coach with a well-designed playbook, managers who read this book will have the tools, tips, and tricks they need to leapfrog market research, craft a smart strategy, motivate their team, and start scoring major points with customers and against the opposition." The Marketing Playbook is meant for regular business people and marketing people in just about any highly competitive industry. It is our attempt at capturing the simple, straight-forward system we've used to help take the mystery out of marketing strategy and tactics, to kick start the process and to keep it simple and keep it going toward your goal - the lead. That system and approach is what we tried to capture - along with lots of examples and simple tips, tricks and tools you can use - in the book. We can't wait to hear what you think of it.

Posted by johnza at 08:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gbrowser: dragrace on every front?

More evidence of a Google browser (kottke.org) Not announced, but if this is true, it's an interesting potential play for Google vs. Microsoft. Not too much has happened with the browser for some time and it seems to be more and more linked to Longhorn's fate, wonder if/how Google will try to exploit this potential product gap?

Posted by johnza at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Interdependant Dragraces, Stealth Plays and Platforms

Marketing Tom: Search Engine Relationship Chart (updated) Very interesting chart on the topic of search engines. Take a look on how interdependant they are. Thanks to Marketing Tom.

Posted by johnza at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Advance praise for the Marketing Playbook

We've given a number of people a sneak peak at the book, The Marketing Playbook. Here's what some of them had to say (boy are we blushing):

"New ideas in marketing strategy are extremely rare. Rich Tong and John Zagula have come up with one with their system of battle-tested plays outlined in The Marketing Playbook. Marketing managers everywhere should open up their own playbooks and be prepared to start using some fascinating new ideas."
- Al Ries, co-author, The Origin of Brands & The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

"The hardest part of marketing is the discipline required to figure out what, exactly, you are selling and how you should make the sale in the context of competition. Too many marketing folks want to quickly dispose of this step and get on to the creative part. The Marketing Playbook does a great job of reminding you of the importance of such up-front discipline and provides you simple, straight-forward steps to do it successfully."
- Bob Herbold, Former COO of Microsoft; former Senior Vice President, Advertising and Information Services at Proctor and Gamble; and Managing Partner, The Herbold Group LLC

"The Marketing Playbook is a must read, practical guide for anyone looking to create a winning marketing strategy for their business. Tong and Zagula take the shroud off the marketing black box and reveal a handful of surprisingly simple, market-proven principles. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their odds in today's competitive marketplace."
- Rob Schoeben, Vice President Applications Marketing, Apple Corporation

"For start-ups and established businesses alike, the Five Plays provide a really powerful, yet easy to use, kick-start to your strategy and great, simple guidance for getting your message heard. It is just this kind of thinking that can help you take the lead in a competitive market like we did with the search market in China."
- Robin Li, Co-Founder & CEO, Baidu, China's leading search engine

"The Marketing Playbook is like a "Best of Both Play" cross between Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy and Adrian Slywotzky's Art of Profitability. Its? powerful metaphors and insightful strategy tools make it a great addition to any business leader's arsenal."
- Dr. Mohanbir Sawhney: McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology and Director of the Center for Research in Technology & Innovation the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

"John and Rich have had ringside seats to the launch and development of some of the most powerful brands in the world, and they've packaged that experience into strategies that you can put into motion the moment you finish the book. Obviously, tech marketers can benefit from this team's insights, but any company looking for a simple, powerful marketing system will fine value here."
- Christopher Ireland, Principal and CEO, Cheskin Consulting and Strategic Market Research

"We live in a world of highly tested and refined messages. You often only get one chance to do it right and be successful. Any business person entering a market, launching a product or kicking off a campaign would be well advised to read and heed the Marketing Playbook. Use it to test drive your strategy, hone your message and come back to it to stay on track as the results come in."
- Pam Edstrom, Founder and EVP, Waggener Edstrom (PR Agency of the Year)

"What others have unnecessarily complicated, Zagula and Tong have made remarkably simple. Their background may be Microsoft, but their playbook is relevant to virtually every business category."
- Stan Richards, Founder, The Richards Group (leading independent ad agency)

"The difference between champs and chumps is the ability to executive the right strategic marketing plays. The Marketing Playbook is a no-nonsense, insider?s look at how to choose and execute the right marketing strategy for your company."
- Christopher Lochhead, Chief Marketing Officer, Mercury Interactive Corporation

"High tech marketing - hell, any marketing - frequently hovers in the clouds, about 40,000 ft. above real customers. At best, it's a costly effort, run by pretty smart people, whose effectiveness is difficult to gauge. In The Marketing Playbook, Zagula and Tong have built a solid staircase between marketing strategy and real customer-driven results: Strategy that is tangible, actionable, and measurable. This is marketing, not as fodder for consultants, but as fuel for sales. Better get a copy before your next board meeting? and before your competition does!"
- Bob Stearns, Founder and Managing Director, Sternhill Partners and former Chief Technical and Strategy Officer, Compaq Computer Corp.

"Incredibly insightful. The Marketing Playbook is a must have for all marketing led organizations. It offers straightforward tools and approaches applicable to any situation."
- Scott S. Ballantyne, Marketing Vice President, T-Mobile

Posted by johnza at 09:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Google's next plays

We've written a lot about the search engine dragraces (and Amazon's new sort-of-stealthy entry). Here's a nice summation from the Economist on the history and potential future of Google's playbook:

Google now faces a three-way fight [double dragrace] with Yahoo! and Microsoft, which have both vowed to dethrone it as the dominant internet search engine. Yahoo!'s strategy is to interconnect its various online services, from search to dating to maps, in increasingly clever ways, while Microsoft's plan is to integrate desktop and internet searching in a seamless manner, so that search facilities will be embedded in all its software, thus doing away (the company hopes) with the need to use Google. Both firms are also working to improve their basic search technology in order to compete with Google.

In response, Google has gradually diversified itself, adding specialist discussion groups, news and shopping-related search services, and a free e-mail service, Gmail, which is currently being tested by thousands of volunteers. It has also developed “toolbar” software that can be permanently installed on a PC, allowing web searches to be performed without having to visit the Google website, and establishing a toe-hold on its users'PCs.

Google's technical credentials are not in doubt. The question is whether it can maintain its position, as search, the activity where it is strongest, moves from centre stage to being just part of a bundle of services. Yet the example of Gmail shows how search can form the foundation [i.e. platform - if, and only if lot of others make money from it] of other services: rather than sorting mail into separate folders, Gmail users can simply use Google's lightning-fast search facility to find a specific message. So the technology that made Google great could yet prove to be its greatest asset in the fight ahead. Let battle commence.

via Emergic.

Posted by johnza at 06:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Search engine plays on Marketing Playbook

There has been so much activity in this space, thought it would be fun to do a quick retrospective on the entries we have done chronicling the progression of plays in the ever changing google/microsoft/yahoo/amazon playing field.

GMail Drag Race Ho!
Beyond the Google Search Dragrace
Baidu vs. Google -taking a page from your competitor's playbook
Google Moves Toward a Direct Confrontation With Microsoft
Google gains or holds share
Chinese Search Engine Battle: to the loser goes the...
Email dragrace heating up
And the email battle rages on...
Search Turf Wars - Next Chapter
Gmail part of Google moving to plaform play?
Search Engines - let all dragraces bloom
David and Goliath redux redux
A9: What Play is it?

Are we obsessed, not really, but fascinated to watch, yes.

Posted by johnza at 06:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An iPod stealth play?

iPod for Tweens: Mattel's Juicebox Interesting article on how toy companies are filling a customer gap in the "iPod market" by focusing on price and content for tweens.

Posted by johnza at 06:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 24, 2004

Kryptonite disaster

I'm sure that the Kryptonite people haven't slept for days. Someone on the Internet figured out that you can open one of their locks with the cap of a BIC pen. You just take a $100 lock that has a $5,000 equipment guarantee on it, shove a BIC pen into the key and then wiggle it.

What a nightmare. Your core value proposition attacked by a $0.59 pen. So what to do. Most folks would duck and cover and say it ain't so. But in the world of instant Internet information it takes 48 hours for it to propogate everywhere and think of the lawsuits.

So what to do? Deny is one thing, but Kryptonite did the right thing, offer a free exchange for all the locks. Put it at the top of your website in _RED_

Nice job Kryptonite and I hope your engineers are working like crazy right now!

Posted by rich at 10:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

International Publishers

Some really great news. Even though the book isn't out until October 21, we have already signed two international publishers for foreign language versions.

For the China market, the publisher is Sunbright Publishing, Ltd., Taiwan's leading Chinese-language magazine and book publisher and a division of Taiwan's leading business magazine publisher "Business Weekly."

And for the Korean language version, the publisher will be the Sejong University Press, leading publisher of books in many topics and with great business authors like Phil Kotler (thanks Ike for your help).

The actual translations and printing will obviously take some time, but we think this is terrific. Stay tuned, more to come...

Posted by johnza at 08:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Entrepreneur and the Playbook

Work At Home Dad: The Marketing Playbook, Yup, thanks for your note. Appreciate your link.

Also, love to chat with you about the business you are starting. We have lots of questions for entrepreneurs and want to do some interviews of folks like yourselves if you have time.

Posted by rich at 02:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 23, 2004

Eye Candy Can Help

OK. OK. We are always harping on about how it is more important to put strategy first (do your homework, pick your play, yadda, yadda), then do the communications and creative stuff. Well, sometimes just plain terrific, haunting, funny, memorable creative really can do the trick. Hip to Be Square is compiling a very nice archive of blog banner designs. Maybe sometime it is OK to judge a book or a blog by it's cover...

via Foe.

Posted by johnza at 06:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 22, 2004

If you are going to be a real Platform, stay that way

Infectious Greed: Lane: Oracle Should Stop Selling Apps

Ray Lane says of his former employer, Oracle, that they ought to stop building apps and stick to databases. Key lesson of the Platform play - you make money by making others make money by using you. Never bite the many hands that feed. Wonder what Larry will think of this.

Posted by johnza at 10:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nice tips for China

global_jd: More Pimsleur Tips
Wish I had followed these. More folks might have understood what I tried to order in fun restautrants.

Posted by johnza at 10:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friend's new blog

Dave Feinleib (former Igniton EIR and portfolio company founder) has just become an MBA. Wonder what he will be teaching his professsors because he has a lot to tell. Check out his site, VCMBA to find out.

Posted by johnza at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2004

Two China's Again - A Mobile Phone for Each

textually.org: Rich Asians snapping up world's most expensive mobile phones

Check out this new phone: the flagship Vertu model is a platinum-cased Signature model, costing $ 32,000. "Self-made millionaires, celebrities, high-flying professionals and ladies who lunch are flashing Vertus made of precious metals, ceramic and leather at one another in Asia's corporate boardrooms and country clubs... The most avid buyers in Asia are mainland and Hong Kong Chinese, Indonesians and Singaporeans."

Meanwhile the other 290MM Chinese cell phone subscribers are pretty happy with voice and SMS on the least expensive phones around (but just as good or better for their class).

For more impressions on the "two Chinas" we saw, click here.

Posted by johnza at 07:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 17, 2004

Pens vs. Pencils

Just heard a totally apocryphal story from a friend:

"When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered the ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil."
The truth is that Fisher designed the pen for the astronauts, but didn't charge NASA for the design.

Frankly I don't care whether it's true or not and I don't see this as an opportunity to rant about government spending. I just love the story as a way to remind us all to keep our thinking simple. Sometimes seemingly daunting problems (like marketing strategy for instance) don't really have to be so mysterious and complicated. Just keep the goal in mind, think simply and execute.

Posted by johnza at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Broadband Playing Field

Talk about a gap in the playing field. Look at the numbers below. Here is the penetration of broadband into US homes by city according to Internet Retailer reports on Nielsen/NetRatings.

The top 10
San Diego, 69.6%
Phoenix, 68.4%
Detroit, 67%
New York, 66.8%
Sacramento, 64.9%
Orlando, 64.7%
Seattle, 63%
San Francisco, 63%
Los Angeles, 61.6%
Boston, 61.4%

Bottom 10
Baltimore, 50.1%
Miami, 49.6%
Chicago, 48.4%
Denver, 48.3%
Minneapolis, 46.9%
Milwaukee, 39.3%
Salt Lake City, 35.3%
Pittsburgh, 33.3%
Charlotte, 31.6%
Columbus, 26.9%

OK, some cities have higher broadband penetration than others. And happy to say Seattle is one of these. (The total penetration nationally is 51%). But compare even the best city to South Korea where (according to very worthwhile review in Chief Executive) overall broadband penetration is 78% of households. This is really significant. We are way behind in the most important area of infrastructure of the day.

The implications are dramatic. This is not just some techno geek issues or an just an opportunity for more massively multiplayer games. This reaches into everything. Think of what could be done if this kind of infrastructure gap was closed. Think of what kinds of new businesses or changes to existing business smart entreprenuers could accomplish. Think of distance learning. Think of healthcare.

I know there are lots of other issues this election year, but we need the same attitude about this infrastructure as we had in thirties about rural electrification and basic telecoms or in the fifties about interstate highways. This is the most critical infrastructure of the modern world. Invest in it ahead of the concrete applications and you will get the most innovative applications to fill it (witness the original internet). Wait for others to show the way and you get let behind. Access is key. It needs to be universal and cheap and flexible. Not exclusive, expensive and monolithic. The government can help. And it needs to get on the stick or watch or productivity go down the tubes. End of sermon.

Data via Perception Analyser.

Posted by johnza at 07:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 16, 2004

A9: What Play is it?

There have been a lot of interesting entries and contrasting opinions (see below for a summary of many of these)about this week's official launch of A9, the search engine from "an Amazon company." While I'll save my impressions of the service below, I have to say I really intrigued by what play Amazon is running here.

Search is one heated battlefield with apparent dragraces galore, whether Microsoft entering the fray against Google, Google trying to extend its platform into Microsoft desktop territory, or Yahoo or others trying to win in local search, or Baidu in China.

So what play is A9?

� Stealth? Based on the relatively low profile of marketing, it seems like A9 is trying to avoid direct comparason or confrontation. Heck, they are just using Google search results and providing some "complementary" enhancements. "This is just a commerce thing - don't worry." Yeah, right.

� Platform? Well, Amazon is one of the most platform oriented companies out there. It has always been more about their platform than their actually being a direct merchant. A9 clearly extends and reinforces the Amazon ecosytem. If you've ever bought anything on Amazon, A9 knows you automatically - providing more customer data and recommendaitons for targeting - one of the things Amazon is just plain the best at. The integrated book search is clearly reinforcing, same with movies and soon everything else I'm sure. On the Amazon home page, the A9 search dialogue is right below product search and could easily be confused with it (no loss for Amazon if the previous statement is true).

� Dragrace: Google in the long run has got to view this as a race with them, a threat. If people start using the A9 toolbar, just because it's nice those are eyeballs away from Google. At first it could be easy to pooh pooh A9 as a gimmick with its somewhat cluttered appeareance, history, bookmarking and other features. But they are actually kind of nice and note that Amazon also gives a small discount to anyone with an A9 toolbar. All small, sneaky, stealthy yes, but I cannot imagine that Google sees this as anything except a long term thinly veiled dragrace.

Now, for all that competitive strategy talk, how is A9? What are people saying?
� Paul Kedrosky is skeptical. He is still searching for the one feature that would make it indispensible.
� John Battelle has a balanced view recognizing in his Biz2.0 article that they have adding a new level of sophistication to search but does not know whether most users will want that level. That said, in his first look he did not doubt Amazon's intentions: "It seems to me, Google's position in Amazon's A9 implementation is at best a step backwards. If A9 is as good as it seems to be, every customer that uses and/or switches to A9 becomes an A9 search customer, and, more likely than not, a deeper and far more loyal Amazon customer. In essence, Amazon seems to be making a play for Google's customers."
� Business pundit thinks it's clearly an interesting move, while it's readers wonder what's the big deal.
� The Unofficial Google Weblog thinks that it's a pretty different, pretty elegant interface.
� The folks at Precommerce admire it. Smart play for Amazon, smart use of Alexa, like how they are pushing search farther, and look forward to the next chapter.
� Me. I have to admit to being skepitcal at first. It seemed cluttered and oppressive. Then I noted how easily I could personalize the interface. How cool it was to have simple things like history and reference. And how nice it was that it already knew me. Personalization is huge for me and these guys did the first real step in that direction in search. Hats off to them.

Still what I'm really excited about is seeing how this all plays out.

Posted by johnza at 10:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 15, 2004

Basecamp - Eating Dogfood, Part II

Here's part two of our discussion with Jason Fried of BaseCamp, 37Signals and Signal vs. Noise (click here for part I) about his business, his playing field, his play and his marketing secrets....

Marketing Playbook:
What about target customers? How did you think about the market for
Basecamp?

Jason Fried:
We started out thinking of the market as other folks like us. If we needed a tool like this, surely plenty of others did as well. We talked with our colleagues, clients, and friends in the industry and they confirmed our assumptions.

Small firms like ours are often stuck with subpar software solutions because 1. The big expensive mature products that exist aren't tailored for their needs, 2. They couldn't afford a mature product anyway, and 3. They don't have the time to build their own tool. So, they were pretty psyched when we (one of their own) built a product for them. And so far the response has proven everyone right.

Marketing Playbook:
You know the phrase "eating your own dogfood?" It sounds like you were both the proverbial dog and the dog food maker.

Jason Fried:
Definitely. We even used Basecamp to develop Basecamp. It really helped us refine the product, and I think people can sense that by the attention to detail. We would have never caught and improved the little annoyances and weak spots if we hadn't used the product during its development. Today we use the exact same version as everyone else so we know what everyone else is going through. I know some companies that develop software are always using their own latest beta or alpha, but that makes it easy to ignore the actual version's shortcomings. We want to stay as close to what our customers are experiencing as possible.

Marketing Playbook: What's happened since then?

Jason Fried:
Well, Basecamp has been widely adopted by all sorts of companies. Web design firms, advertising agencies, management consultants, schools, non-profits and government agencies. And, most surprising to us is the adoption by individuals to manage their own personal projects, their weddings, their home improvement projects, and their lives.

We've also been pleasantly surprised by the uptake from educators. Teachers are using Basecamp to manage their classrooms. They're posting homework assignments on Basecamp and students are even setting up accounts to manage group research projects. We're very pleased with the response so far. I'll leave it at that ;)

Marketing Playbook:
In terms of marketing, how would you describe your play?

Jason Fried:
Definitely not a dragrace. We didn't want to attack anyone. We targeted a different segment of the market and we built the buzz virally. I guess that would be a Stealth play. And we'll continue to keep it that way.

There are others out there now but we see them trying to one up each other on a feature-by-feature basis. I'm sure they will find appeal but for our customers we're keeping things simple.

Marketing Playbook:
How did you reach so many people? How did you execute on this play so successfully?

Jason Fried:
We were lucky -- we already had an audience. We've been building an audience with our Signal vs. Noise blog since 1999. We use the blog to talk about design, usability, simplicity, business and more. So, when we released a product that demonstrated we practiced what we preached, the audience was very receptive.

We also built in a lot of features that were interesting to a variety of vocal special interest groups. Basecamp allows you to subscribe to your projects with RSS feeds so the RSS community embraced it and promoted it. Basecamp uses CSS extensively for layout purposes so the heavily trafficked CSS gurus talked it up. You can also subscribe to your milestones with Apple iCal so the Mac folks just loved it and spread the word.

We have done some Google Adwords runs, but most of our business and traffic still comes from word of mouth.

Marketing Playbook:
Any other things important to your success that you want to share.

Jason Fried:
We're big believers in staying as close to your customers as you can. Use what they use. I answer all support emails personally -- mostly because I like to know what's right, what's wrong with Basecamp. I want to hear the praises and I want to read the reasons why people cancelled. Being so close to the customer, and building these personal relationships is what allows you to think like the people who keep you in business. And, if you don't think like they think, you'll be out of business quickly.

Another thing we believe in is open and honest communication. If we go down, we let people know we went down -- even if they'd never know about it since it was at 3am for 20 minutes. Be honest and clear at all costs.

Marketing Playbook:
Well thanks much Jason. This was great. Best of luck in all your future projects. We will be staying tuned.

Jason Fried:
Thanks so much, and best success with your book. I know a lot of people who can certainly use your advice ;)

Posted by johnza at 04:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Science of Listener Attention

Was watching a re-run of West Wing and was struck by some stuff that my favorite character, Toby Ziegler said about oratory. He called it the Science of Listener Attention.

You want the benefits of free trade? Food is cheaper. Food is cheaper, clothes are cheaper, steel is cheaper, cars are cheaper, phone service is cheaper. You feel me building a rhythm here? That's 'cause I'm a speechwriter and I know how to make a point. It lowers prices, it raises income. You see what I did with "lowers" and "raises" there? It's called the science of listener attention. We did repetition, we did floating opposites and now you end with the one that's not like the others. Ready? Free trade stops wars. And that's it. Free trade stops wars! And we figure out a way to fix the rest! One world, one peace. I'm sure I've seen that on a sign somewhere.

Sounds like the art of persuation or marketing to me. Repetition sounds like what we call the Rule of Three (keep your benefits/claims to just three - awesome, awesome, not screwed up). Floating opposites sounds like what we call the Rule of Pardox (e.g. Tastes Great, Less Filling).

Smart for any kind of campaign, product or political.

Posted by johnza at 04:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Looks/Brains: skin deep or deep skins?

Check out Wildseed's Identity phone, where you get youth, beauty and brains with SmartSkins. The company just launched it's totally cool, totally new phone with Dobson and CellOne.

Marketing to the changing tastes of teens can be tough, unless you change with them. The folks at Wildseed have really done their playing field homework on this market and found that coolness, personality and the ability to change with changing tastes are key. Teens love to use mobile phones but find the phones themselves pretty boring. They also found this goes way beyond just cosmetics.

So their new phone technology, SmartSkins, allows you to do so much more to personalize your phone than change its' color. No need to be bored with your wireless phone ever again. Different SmartSkins deliver different themes, entertainment assets and styles. When you snap on your own SmartSkin over the phone it takes on a complete new personality to match your tastes from the including ringtones, games, screensavers and much more.

On top of that teens love to message each other so Wildseed built whta they think is the best messaging on any phone in the world. Since the features were designed for and by young consumers, the messaging on Identity looks a lot like IM on the desktop. Conversation boxes capture SMS, MMS and/or email all into one convenient spot. Your top ten friends can be assigned special Speed Lights status for a dedicated number and lights on the keypad tell you which of these friends is trying to contact you.

It is early days but we (and yes, we are investors in the company) think this lauch is very exciting. For additional news on the launch see Wireless Week.

Posted by johnza at 07:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 14, 2004

More stuff about proof

Our earlier entry on Proof is better than Marketing generated a fair amount of commentary. And one notable correction, "proof is marketing."

Nice to see our blogging compatriot Mark Ramsey highlight the same thoughts, both in his endorsement for radio stations of our maxim that Proof>Benefit>Features. He also highlighted the challenges facing you in finding the strongest proof. Number one sounds like a great thing to claim, but proving it whole 'nother thing.

Thanks Mark.

Posted by johnza at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Basecamp: Eat your own dogfood for health, wealth, massive popularity

Just had a very illuminating conversation with Jason Fried. He's
behind Basecamp�, the growing project management phenomenon, the very cool and very respected web design firm 37Signals, the wide ranging and
widely read blog Signal vs. Noise and co-author of the new book, Defensive Design For the Web.

Their story is a strong example of how great marketing doesn't have to be some big mystery. It shows how following your instincts, listening to your customers (and being one) and sticking to principles while executing like crazy, actually go a heck of a long way. A couple of key principles really stuck in my mind:
� Don't just eat your own dogfood. Be the dog, make the dogfood you want, eat it, and then tell the other dogs like yourself.
� Build your audience first, then give them something to buy and sell. If you can gain respect and trust and interest first (e.g. in your blog) then you have not only a receptive initial audience for your product but a group of potential evangelists.
� Keep things simple. You don't always have to have the most features or options. Less really can be more. Let the competition try to beat you on complexity - see how their customers like it.

Here's the full text of our conversation, in two parts:

Marketing Playbook:
How did you decide to build and launch Basecamp? Did you look at what we call your "Marketing Playing Field?" Did you do a gap analysis on your customers, competition, and competencies? What did you find?

Jason Fried:
Whenever we decide to build a product/service we first make sure it's something that we'd actually use ourselves. Just as you should invest in what you know, we think you should build what you'll use. When you build something you are going to use yourself you'll build it better. So that's where we started.

The competitive analysis phase revolved around shopping, not competition. Originally we weren't looking for something to compete against -- rather we were looking for something we could buy and use to manage our clients and projects. Once we couldn't find anything that satisfied our needs we decided to go out on our own and build Basecamp.

We also knew that we weren't special -- if we needed something better there had to be tens of thousands of other companies just like ours that were equally fed up with the current options on the market. And while we felt the assumption was correct, we did ask a fair number of our colleagues what they used, what they needed, and what they wanted. Our assumptions were confirmed -- there was nothing simple enough, fast enough, elegant enough, and flexible enough for a small firm to trust, use, and expose their clients to.

We also discovered that in many ways the size of your firm is inversely proportional to your expectations. The smaller and tighter your team, the higher your expectations for the products you purchase with your limited resources (you really need to make your expenditures count). We
knew this market would take notice and be loyal to a quality product.
So, while we didn't perform a formal gap analysis, we did go through a
similar, albeit more organic process.

Marketing Playbook:
So you really started with your own needs as a company. How did you go from there? How did you think about the competition?

Jason Fried:
Yeah, we originally built Basecamp as our own internal project management tool. It wasn't until we started showing early beta versions to some colleagues and clients that we started hearing "wow, I need something just like this" or "can we use this too?" or "you read our mind," etc. So, after a couple of days of brainstorming, we decided that we would turn Basecamp into a full-fledged ASP-model product/service.

We checked out the competition a little more, but we didn't feel like we were trying to beat any specific product -- rather we were trying to beat the general level of clutter, complexity, and misplaced priorities that we felt existed in the marketplace. We saw a lot of project management apps focused on stats and charts and graphs. We knew from experience that projects don't fail from a lack of graphs and charts, they fail from a lack of communication. So we decided that Basecamp was going to be built around making internal and client communication as simple and effective as possible. One of our development mantras is "Project management is communication."

You know, it's not that the other products out there were bad, it's just that we felt they were overkill and confusing. We wanted to build something focused, simple, and clear. So, I guess you could say we were competing with a different point of view of what makes project management software useful.

Finally, we wanted to get the clients involved in the management of their projects. A lot of software project management apps (like Microsoft Project, for example) are one-sided -- the firm handles the entire project management process. We wanted to give the clients a tool that they could use as well. When they're involved in the management of their project they feel a greater sense of ownership, and that often leads to a better experience and product in the end. Plus, a great project management tool increases client loyalty.

Stay tuned for the second half of this discussion...

Posted by johnza at 11:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Not All Proof is Created Equal

Making a bold claim is important to get an audience's attention, but supporting it is even more critical if you want to convert that attention into action. You can support a claim at three levels:

. Functionality and Features: What you have.
. Needs and benefits: Why they should care, what's in it for them.
. Evidence or Proof: Why they should believe you.

And in our calculus not all support it equal. Features are great but not as important as the benefits they provide to customers. Benefits are the center of all good messaging. But proof speaks the loudest. Therefore Proof>Benefits>Features.

Beyond that, not all proof is equal. Depending on where you are in the market, you can leader with weaker or strong proof of your claims.

The strongest is when you can say you are number one overall. The next strongest is when you can claim leadership of some subset of the category (e.g. "choosey mothers choose Jif"). The next best is individual endorsements from folks your audience trusts. And the weakest (but still essential at whatever stage of market development you are in) is simply to show how you are better.

Proof may be the most powerful marketing but always make sure to engineer your proof to put the strongest foot forward. End of soapbox.

Posted by johnza at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 11, 2004

Pitching to VCs

For many, if not most companies, investors are a very important target audience. Here is a short guide from Northwest Venture Voice on how to persuade them in your pitch. It's very good (because it's by me ;-)

Posted by johnza at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

When "No" might mean "yes"

Dmail in the UK has launched a new service - a totally closed "digital mail" service as a complement/alternative to email. It takes a totally different tack on the whole anti-spam war. Instead of the other players who attack spam head on (the very best of which is Cloudmark - blatantly one of our investments) dmail is like a whitelist of whitelists. Peter Judge of Techworld thinks these guys are crackpots. Anne Mitchell of SpamWeblog and the folks at NetImpertive are intrigued.

Although it kind of strikes me as a feature that, what struck me was their feature/benefit list. It's much less about what they are than what they aren't, what they do vs. what they don't:
� No use email servers
� No viruses, ever
� No Spam, ever
� No setting up accounts etc.
� No limit on storage of messages
� No searching or scanning of message content
� No pop-ups
� No "@ address.com"; a dmail address can be as simple as your name e.g. �dave�, �abc� or �007�
� Does not hold or store personal or sell details of customers
� Non-scannable
and, of course
� NOT a Microsoft company

Intriguing approach to hook people. We will see.

Posted by johnza at 05:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Platformness" exemplified

"We've got 114 million people working in our behalf" - Marty Abbott, eBay's senior vice president of technology

from Crossroads Dispatches: Participatory Marketing at eBay

Posted by johnza at 04:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Proof is better than marketing...

Seth highlights No. 17, the "hottest design firm in NYC."

It's not about how much they say but that they support it with quiet but impressive proof of how good they are (i.e. the names of people who've hired them).

One of our maxims is Proof>Benefit>Feature. Great example.

Posted by johnza at 04:24 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

9 naming keys

Very good article form Laura Reis on naming - The 9 keys to naming success (get many if not all and you're on the right track).
Key #1: Short
Key #2: Simple
Key #3: Suggestive of the category
Key #4: Unique
Key #5: Alliterative
Key #6: Speakable
Key #7: Spellable
Key #8: Shocking
Key #9: Personalized

I agree with them all except sometimes, "shocking" outside of themeparks, toys and movies really shocking names are not that likely to also be suggestive of a category.

I love thinking about naming. We had a post a while ago on the topic, in addition to some of these criteria and tips and tricks we looked at the process and "ground rules"...
� Names should either be memorable or meaningful
� Company names should be flexible and bigger than the names of the products
� Invest in very few core names, build the rest of your convention around them
� Do not name stuff you are not going to support or invest in over the long term
� Don't work too hard. Even if you don't love the name, even if it doesn�t make sense, if people already love it and are aware of it, keep it.

Posted by johnza at 03:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Customers first, brand second?

What's Your Brand Mantra?: Customer-Centered Brand Management
Nice post from Brand Mantra. I realy like this idea: focus on your value proposition to customers first. Be a great customer manager and then become a great brand manager. That way when you make claims in building your brand they're actually credible and don't backfire.

Posted by johnza at 03:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2004

Ads in Subway Tunnels -

From Venture Wire today, "Sidetrack Technologies Inc., a newcomer in the alternative advertising market, has made its first U.S. installation of a subway tunnel commercial [in Boston], as it makes plans to raise a $3 million to $5 million venture capital round."

Although advertising in subways is not new (check out video advertiser SubMedia in NYC, or any number of Asian and international countries where ad and screens are more and more ubiquitous), Sidetrack has a twist. The campaign, for Royal Caribbean, is not on a screen at all it is actually a series of still images that look like a movie. When the T accelerates, it breaks an infrared beam that turns on lights over 400 such images running along the tunnel wall for about 1,000 feet. Kind of making the train itself the film projector with no screen installation required.

Only question - will I ever be able to just zone out in the train again?

Posted by johnza at 06:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 08, 2004

Winners - Fast Company Better Brand Contest

The Fast Company "This Brand Can Be Better Contest" has a winner. And it isn't us. But hey, we were one of TWO honorable mentions. Pretty cool. We got our mention for our thoughts on Radio Shack. To see our thoughts on all the brands Fast Company suggested could be better, see entries 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

The winner was Dan Limbach of Siren Interactive (who also has some pretty intriguing thoughts on topics from advisory boards, to krispy cremes and books). He won for his really smart thoughts about Brooks Brothers. In sum that Brooks Brothers should own ambition, focus on loyalty with the most pivotal target and the pivotal moment - collegue students and the job interview and surround this with help for that target inclusive of but beyond just "dressing for success."

The other honorable mention was Christy Saito of Nike for her right-on input for McDonalds. Stay focused on the kids (and their parents). "If McDonald's encouraged and promoted actual physical activity and exercise for kids in their product marketing programs, it would not be so bad for an active child to indulge in a Happy Meal every now and then."

Posted by johnza at 09:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 03, 2004

Call to Action Call to Action

I have to say the folks at ChangeThis (talk about a big call to action) are up to something. I think some of these manefestos are pretty cool. Especially in an election year I love seeing this type of communication - straight, hard hitting and open to everyone. And of course you should take it all with a grain of salt. It is someone else's manefesto, your job is to translate it into your own - and then maybe even submit it.

Just read Scoble's manefesto and I love it. No BS. Recognize the realities and expectations, risks and opportunities of a corporate blog. Things like tell the truth, post fast (and frequently) on both good news and bad, have a thick skin, don't ignore outlets you hate. To me, these things aren't just a blogging manefesto but a PR or communications manefesto. In my experience I really wish more corporate PR folks had recognized these things and act accordingly. They would have saved a lot of pain. By the way, Scoble practices what he preaches - check out how open he has been about opinions around Microsoft LongHorn.

Also just read Guy Kawasaki's Manefesto. Not just a great set of guidelines but an invitation to not get stuck but get started. As JRR Tolkein said, "It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."

Posted by johnza at 03:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 02, 2004

David and Goliath redux redux

Microsoft sets its sites on Google. - The Unofficial Google Weblog - google.weblogsinc.com
Another chapter in the pending search engine dragrace. Ballmer declares war. This will be fun to watch.

Posted by johnza at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Some notes on the China Market

NW Venture Voice: September 2004 Archives More from our trip, with a bit of a focus on venture capital.

Posted by johnza at 04:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sites of Interest

Affiliations:
* Ignition Partners
* Stanford University
* The Fletcher School
* Princeton University
* Marquette University
* Microsoft Alumni

Related Blogs
* Tong Family
* Zagula spells trouble
* Geekfishing
* A Little Ludwig
* VC Mom
* Smithstuff
* The Hoopers
* Northwest Venture Voice

Bloglines/Blogroll

Posted by johnza at 06:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 01, 2004

Ikea - the same thing might not work everywhere

As you may know, I love Ikea - think it is a great best of both play. But interestingly enough despite great ads and the notion of "build it and they will come," Ikea may run into some issues in China.

You can see their huge logo and warehouses in Shanghai and Beijing and they are well trafficked. But according to local friends, there are some real issues. First, it is all the same stuff - nothing really Chinese all the way down to the meatballs. Also two ends of the China market shy away. The higher end folks who think its cool to buy Ikea designs do not ever want to put something together so the whole little wrench thing doesn't go over. On the low end of the market a whole cottage industry has developed that will clone and assemble any Ikea furniture for half the price.

I'm sure Ikea will figure it out and do great but it's always a good lesson not to take to much for granted about your marketing playing field.

Posted by johnza at 09:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack