Um, let’s all quit comedy because apparently Liam Neeson is already the best at it. Incredible.
(This is a clip from that new Ricky Gervais/Warwick Davis show.)
mike dibenedetto
Kickstarter, Groupon and the more opportunities in group buying
Perry Chen, CEO and founder of Kickstarter, and Scott Heffernan, CEO and founder of Meetup, visited our Social Media & Entrepreneurship class last week. They were quite an inspiring pair; they urged us and all entrepreneurs to create companies that enabled behaviors and actions that were not previously possible (or were sufficiently difficult in the past) but have profound positive impacts on users’ lives.
Hearing about Kickstarter got me thinking. Its service strikes me as very much akin to Groupon’s model. While these two companies are using the same core idea - group buying triggered by a critical mass very successfully in their own right, it occurs to me that two related opportunities still exist in this space. Think about these services in terms of who initiates the opportunity and whether or not the product exists yet. In Kickstarter’s case, a seller/creator solicits support for something that does not yet exist and with Groupon, a seller seeks buyers for something that does. Why not let buyers indicate intent to purchase something (discounted or not) if and only if other users join them? [This idea is not mine, rather it was inspired by a very cool project from the brains of my fellow students Shehab Hamad and Mike Podwal.] This would probably work best for groups of friends planning movie nights, book clubs, vacations, etc. But perhaps there are use cases for strangers buying together at their own instigation. The other potential critical mass purchasing opportunity would involve a user indicating interest in buying/supporting something that doesn’t yet exist. Suppose I am not a developer but I really want an Android app that does this one really cool thing that no one has thought of yet. I could indicate a willingness to pay five bucks for it and encourage others to pledge money for it as well. A developer could come along and build it and, upon verification, collect the money. This is just one use case and many more can be imagined: I want a Vietnamese restaurant in my town and would commit to spending $100 in one in its first month in existence; I want an ipod dock that does X and would pay $50 for one; etc. You would have to work out some hairy logistics but I think these two opportunities are real and would love to see a promising entrepreneur run with them.
Be among the first to use Moonit’s iPhone app!
Fellow Social Media & Entrepreneurship student Mason Sexton is the co-founder of Moonit, a social app/service that predicts the strength of your relationships based on its own private algorithm. While I may not understand how they come up with the predictions, I know that reading them is absolutely addictive. It’s hard to resist seeing an analysis of your chemistry with friends, love interests and family members. But you don’t have to take it from me, Techcrunch thinks so too. The service was pretty great as a web site but I have seen the designs of their upcoming iPhone app and it is going to be amazing. If you have an iPhone, head over to Moonit’s early adopter signup page and leave your email address so they can ping you when they launch the app.
The advice that birthed SecondMarket
A few weeks ago, Barry Silbert from SecondMarket gave a talk to InSITE, the graduate student entrepreneurial fellowship. He told countless stories and relayed some great pieces of advice that he has been given over the years. One in particular stood out because it allowed Barry to create a company that was profitable in month one. When Barry was first starting out in 2004, he wanted SecondMarket (or Restricted Stock Partners as it was known then) to be a fully automated online marketplace for illiquid securities, like restricted stock in small cap companies. His initial fundraising target numbered in the millions, which is quite a lot of money to bet on a revolutionary idea like the one he had. One prospective investor, intrigued by the idea of injecting liquidity into these securities but turned off by the size of the ask, told him to forget about building the web platform and to just make transactions happen. The web platform could come later. Essentially, he was telling Barry to prove that there was a desire for the product by doing by hand what it would do automatically. So he opened up Excel, researched potential buyers and sellers of illiquid securities, made a lot of phone calls and started brokering transactions. And the money started rolling in – to a company without any big expenses or technology investments to pay off, no less. A profitable company was born and an entirely new way to trade previously untrade-able securities was unleashed on the world. Boom. Game changed. All entrepreneurial stories are inspiring but to a non-coding business student like me, this one in particular moves me.
Baby Gives Compelling Argument
Check out this website I found at collegehumor.com
Posted via email from mikedibenedetto’s posterous | Comment »
