Month: September 2013

The Mobile Market

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

If you are dealing with mobile and emerging markets – this is worth digging into.

http://www.prepaidmvno.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Mobile-Consumer-Report-2013.pdf

YNOT – this if for you JFDI warriors

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of getting to hangout and mentor over at JFDI the other days. Really enjoyed it and appreciate being offered the chance to.

Ray wrote about it here: http://jfdi.asia/2013/09/10/dont-forget-common-sense/

Today I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts :: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/heresthething/2013/sep/02/

This specific episode was from the son of Tony Bennett discussing his father and how they turned his career around together. There was a nice thread about taking chances and even joking about the name Tony meaning ynot? Was a great message so I thought I would share some of feelings after talking to some of the startups that I had. This is me reacting to some of what I was asked during my mentor sessions and rolling up how I might feel about it. Hope this helps.

  • First off to all the companies at JFDI. Don’t be afraid to blow it up. You might have walked in with one idea and suddenly you think it may not be the right idea. That’s okay. Blow it up. You got accepted for who you are and what you are trying to do. The idea is not concrete. You have enough months ahead to do what you think is the best thing. So do it.
  • Be bold. I say this with some amount of joking aside – if you are not transferring money around or transporting someone to the hospital – you should just go for it. You will make mistakes but no worries – no one got hurt. Ship it. Ship often.
  • Don’t try and invent everything. Use as many off the shelf pieces of code or services you can find. Abuse them. Wire them together. If you succeed you can replace components later with things you hand roll but for now it is not how it is done – it is just all in what is done.
  • Have fun with your messaging and just say it. You can say it all better later as you learn.
  • Don’t dwell on metrics and KPIs till you have something running and you know what the metrics worth tracking are. The goal now should be to test your general hypothesis. Then take the answers and sort out whether you are right or wrong. Fix. Do it again. Analyze later.
  • Marketing things won’t be easy. Try to find viral hooks if possible. Get others to invite others for you. Make it worth their while for doing so. Experiment early, experiment often. There is NO magic bullet so have an open mind about trying things to see what might work. Kill what doesn’t. Do more of what does.

    • I am sure I will think of more tips but this stuff was rattling around in my head after listening to Alec Baldwin – so y not share I was thinking?

    Have fun.

    Google will have to deal with android

    ~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

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    Saw this today on the wire and had to think about it some.

    We know RIM is dead. Over. They can open up BBM and hire lots of celebs to flog it. It’s over. It is NOT coming back. Someone may buy it but I don’t think RIM is even worth buying at this point.

    MSFT just bought Nokia and we will have the integrated software and hardware stack that is Windows Phone.

    I have written about dealing with android before from the perspective of Spuul – http://www.nokpis.com/2013/08/13/android-is-a-bigger-ecosystem-but-takes-more-work/ .

    When I look at the android device charts for our Spuul app it is totally dominated by Samsung – but we also see MicroMax in the top 10 as well for India. Somehow I just think this won’t last since the world is getting that the vertically integrated stack that starts with the hardware/software combo is the way forward.

    MSFT now gets this.
    Apple invented it.

    Samsung gets it but they don’t have the apps or the software – they use Google for that. What would a Samsung phone be without android and Play Store – it would look like the old shitty pre android Samsung phones. No one buys those anymore.

    Google has to do something. Is it going to abandon android for a Chrome ecosystem? I guess it is possible but they don’t seem to be moving very fast on that. Chromebook sucks and I can easily live without my Chrome browser – I know others can’t. When I look at the development work for android for what we do – there is NO path to Chrome for dealing with secure audio video well with the UX performance we desire. If this is the path why are they not showing it yet?

    Samsung to me either had to fork their own stuff or come up with something new – otherwise they are just too dependent on Google. Google is too big and powerful at this point with the full stack that they will let one vendor be the face of their ecosystem. I know they have Motorola now and maybe it eventually is just going to be Google Phone but even that is moving pretty slow.

    I can’t predict the future but I just don’t see Google not wanting to change the consumer perception that the Mobile World is Apple, Microsoft and Samsung in the eyes of people buying phones.

    Crazy week in my World!

    ~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

    First up we have Rakuten buying Viki. http://blog.viki.com/2013/09/letter-from-vikis-ceo.html . This was probably be the biggest tech news for me personally. One I almost went to work there so I follow Viki very closely. I guess you can also say I am in the same space as them but much farther behind in our maturity but what happened to Viki is great for a startup like Spuul in Singapore. It shows the video space is hot, you can build something global from Singapore, exits can happen and that the dream is alive.

    I am very curious to see what happens next to the company, who stays around and what Rakuten does with all these disparate pieces that are supposedly tied back into e-commerce. People say it is like Amazon or Netflix – not sure I see that yet. I can imagine the Amazon comparison but where is the cloud stuff? Either way Rakuten is a force and now Viki has some serious backing and is supposedly somewhat independent. All debating aside – congratulations to the Viki team for an amazing exit.

    Next we have MSFT buying Nokia. This one can and will be debated till the cows come home. It essentially always needed to happen – why now? Is it about Ballmer stepping down and Elop coming home. I don’t know but I think MSFT has a huge uphill battle to make Windows Phone competitive but apart from them – it is all android and iOS, so I do hope MSFT can shake it up a bit cause it will be good for the ecosystem.

    Stoked to be mentoring over at http://jfdi.asia this year. Should be fun and great learning experience for me.

    On the Spuul front – we just launched our biggest TV deal yet :: http://blog.spuul.com/2013/09/star-plus-serials-now-available-on-spuul/ . Lots more coming as well.

    All in all an exciting week locally and globally – now over to Apple for next week!