Brilliant. Competition FTW.
Dear Google,
Bright and early I logged into one of my favorite services and saw this news.
You’ve been catching a lot of heat lately. The echo chamber seems to think you want to be everything to everybody. As though dominating our search box wasn’t enough, now you want to control our friendships, our health records, what we carry in our pockets and the pipes into our homes.
I for one welcome out new overlord. Not because you will dominate in all of these categories or even do any of them all that well. Frankly, I think many of the powerful subtleties of these servies and devices will be lost on you.
No, I welcome you because each time you plant a stake in the ground it makes everyone uncomfortable. It makes them nervous. Because as much as we love to hate you, your engineers and your reach scare us.
You see, we need competition. It brings the best out of us. We can fall into the rut of seeing nice month over month growth and increasing market share that leads to high fives ‘round the board room tables for meeting our modest metrics. As true as this scenario is in start ups, its even more true in large companies who’ve been holding back innovation in the fields of mobile, media, telecom, energy, health and education.
Yes, you’ll make missteps and may never gain the kind of presence in any of these categories that you have in search, but I don’t think that’s your point. I think you see the same complacency we see in very large markets and want to rattle the cages to remind us we’re all still alive and we all need to compete every day to deliver the best possible experience for our customers.
Look, I’ll probably never own a Nexus One, but I think my iPhone will be better for having you put Apple’s feet to the fire. I may never switch from Comcast, but I bet they’ll up their service level and bandwidth speeds with you in the market. And I may never store my health records with you, but I bet we’ll get closer to a transparent health system with you in the mix.
So, thank you Google for a reminder that the aim of competition is to bring the best out of us all. Oh, and, Game On!
XOXO,
bryce.vc
i love the muppets (and these are 3 of my favs). perfect afternoon pick-me-up for a long day.
The Muppets: Beaker’s Ballad (via MuppetsStudio) via @ptmaddiganesq
lunchtime entertainment: this f*ing polar bear blows up Earth!
UAF Nanook Hockey Opening Vid (via @nromeo)
Its not the size of your market, its what you do with it that matters.
As an early stage company with a product we consider somewhat disruptive, this is so refreshing to read. Thing is, we know our core market, we know we provide value, and we know we can scale to reach a much wider customer base, but at this stage there’s so much ‘guesstimating’ involved. Read on…
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.
Who would have thought a decade ago that Cisco would be here talking about consumer products and video?” joked Chambers. “It is video that changes everything… The video experience was not really ready for the big time until now.
Let the Beat Build by Nyle
Another great song pulled from @Vimeo’s 25 Favorite Videos of the Year. The whole song was recorded and filmed in one take (so it’s not properly mixed but it’s great nonetheless).
What I really love about Nyle is that he is a modern artist - check out his site and see how he’s embracing the web as a means of distribution. He’s got an entire strategy around his music career.
Vote for HomeField!
We’re looking for a little Facebook love! Vote for @HomeField in @NYV2’s top video startups ‘09. http://topstartup.nyvideo.org/ Thanks!
![Wow, look at Japan. Let’s get up to speed America… literally.
bralfucious:
Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World, Shown Visually [Infographics]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ks4vrygbM21qz4ytwo1_500.jpg)
Wow, look at Japan. Let’s get up to speed America… literally.
Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World, Shown Visually [Infographics]
Never Enough Competition | from This is going to be BIG!
@ceonyc has a great point here. Competition is good (the market is proven).
“In fact, I’d beware of spaces where absolutely no one is playing. Capital moves pretty efficiently. If anyone else thought there was money to be made in what you’re doing—I find it hard to believe no one else would be trying it.”
It’s execution that matters.
here’s the Narragansett Beer owner doing some grassroots marketing. great stuff. i love seeing brands use the web like this. maybe i’ll order a case to support the cause. (via NarragansettBeer)
