A lot has been written about Google’s foray into wearable computing – Google Glass over the last year since its announcement at I/O last year. This year at Google I/O, I had a chance to actually wear the Google Glass and give it a go first hand. There has been so much hype about it [...] Read More
Now that another edition of Google I/O has finished, it’s time to step back and look at what new and interesting things are happening beyond the hype of the event itself. Google I/O this year was, as usual, a big and spectacular event with over 6000 people attending, several exciting new product announcements and free [...] Read More
Early adopters play a crucial role in the success of any product. They’re the ones that are usually your biggest fans (or critics), and can be an enormous asset for a product that’s looking to gain traction by word-of-mouth. Early adopters are unlike your regular users, so you need to work harder to recruit and retain them, but once you have the right set of early adopters, they can do wonders for your product.
For any startup CEO, contacts and connections can make-or-break deals. A big part of a entrepreneur’s job is to network with people – With prospective customers, investors, potential employees, media and many more! And the best place to network is at an event or a meetup that has a high density of people that you want to network with. Here are some simple tips that you can use the next time you’re at a startup event to network effectively.
A startup ecosystem needs a lot of things to be able to thrive and flourish. We’ve all heard about opinions about what a startup ecosystem needs to succeed. Talent, Investors, risk-taking, government policies etc… etc…, but I wanted to take a step back today and talk about some meta-level issues that drive the success of a startup ecosystem as a whole. While it is undoubtedly true that Money, risk-taking talent etc… are required for an ecosystem to succeed, there are some higher-level ideas that I think are critical to ensure that success is even possible.
I’m on my trip to London and have been witness to the startup scene here which is quite vibrant. While the city has a significant portion of large businesses and banks, the startup ecosystem is just taking off, with rapid growth the just the last few years. Yes, the startups space in London isn’t that advanced but is certainly flourishing.
Facebook is holding an event later this week to unveil their “New Home On Android” at an event at their headquaters. The teaser culminates the years of speculation that Facebook has been working on a phone of it’s own, likely based on Android.
It makes a lot of sense for Facebook to get deeper into the mobile eco system. Facebook is now undeniabley a mobile company. Over half its active users browse the news feed on the mobile. Facebook has recently become more serious about monetizing its mobile users, and has seen
Last week, I wrote about the tradeoffs that are needed when products “grow up”. Basically, after your product has gather its initial set of (hopefully loyal) users, you will have a choice of whether to design the subsequent iterations for the “power users” – The set of users that have become familiar with your product and are now looking to get more out of it, vs designing for “new users”, who are just getting on-boarded.
Last week, we looked at an example of a product designed for the power users, but this week, lets walk through a product that is designed for novice users, and doesn’t necessarily address the power users. There have been a few interesting examples of this in the past few years from the startup world, especially around email.
The v1 of any product is (hopefully) designed to be simple and straightforward to use, allowing users to jump straight into the product and start using it, deriving value from it in minutes. This key ingridient of simplicity and ease-of-use is what makes-or-breaks a v1 product. But assuming that your product has jumped over that hurdle, and you’ve had some initial traction with your product, there’s a big choice that comes next.
And the choice is whether to design the next versions of your product for simplicity, helping onboard new users, or to design for the power user, helping existing users extract more value and productivity out of your product.
Google’s decision to shutdown Google Reader earlier this week caused quite a stir among loyal fans. The move is not entirely unexpected. RSS feeds have been falling in popularity of late, being replaced by “more social” ways for people to connect and interact with each other – Including twitter, Facebook, tumblr etc. Google Reader was still quite popular, so why the decision to shut it down?
