Snapchat as Sex Appeal, Facebook has Become Boring Infrastructure (and wants to be sexy again)

I finally watched the Steve Jobs movie on a flight to California (most appropriately). Just before read through a Facebook comment thread to a blog post that my friend and Zula colleague Hillel Fuld wrote on the noise surrounding the supposed acquisition offers that Snapchat founders have turned down ($3 billion from Facebook, $4 billion from Google, but whats a billion amongst lunatics)(and yes, I am lunatic too, anyone working in industry is certifiable). Back to Jobs -- what he was about was radical innovation. That is what inspired him -- to use technology to move people. Change how they look at the world. And yes, in an extremely well designed and sexy wrapper. 

I am not going to get into whether or not Snapchat is worth $3 or $4 billion. When ever I am asked about the value of a company (including my own) I always say a company is worth what somebody is willing to pay. There is no objective value in our business (tech start-ups). 

What Snapchat does have right now is sex appeal -- and that is more valuable than a certain amount of users, business model, or defendable technology. Snapchat in particular has no technology (unless you think disappearing ink is "technology"). They do have have a "certain amount of users" (love quoting myself) but all that is vastly overshadowed by their current sex appeal -- and they are probably at their height of sexiness. And that, more than anything, is what Zuckerberg and friends are starting to lose. You see, when Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook he had sex appeal in spades (of a geeky, techy sort). In fact, Facebook got its start trading on sex appeal, which is what initial profiles and usage was all about on college campuses. 

Now Facebook has become, shudder the thought, a boring profitable, successful long-term company, with quarterly earnings, board meetings, strategy. Yup, sounds a lot like IBM. And that is not the rep Zuck wants...he wants to still be the 23 year old phenom with the new shiny thing everybody wants to touch, to own. 

Google long ago became part of the fabric of the web, as have Amazon, and a few other user-known companies, along with a whole set of lesser known companies that make up the infrastructure of what most people think of when thinking about the Internet. And at least in the Western world, the internet has become for most of us part of our lives, much the same way other "technology" companies developed into core utility elements. Some of them started out as owned by the public (even in capitalistic societies such as America). Think Ma Bell, for those of you old enough to remember the original government owned and operated phone company. It was like the mail -- boring service that simply worked and was there. You paid something for it, but you didn't really know if it was profitable or exactly how it worked. Similar to how electrical power is still supplied in many markets, tightly controlled by the governments (which will change, but not the subject right now). 

Utility companies were even traded on stock exchanges -- you didn't buy the stock so much for appreciation as for dividends, dependable, like municipal bonds. 

But utilities, infrastructure companies, are inherently boring. Lots of money flowing around, but not sexy. If you can figure out how to siphon off some of that money, you might be able to buy your way into sexiness, or pay people to tell you are sexy -- but the underlying asset -- boring. 

Facebook is slowly turning into just that -- infrastructure.  When at Zula we needed to decide on two possibilities for signing on (using your credentials from third party to automatically create a Zula account for you) we chose Facebook and Google. We made the assumption that almost 100% of our potential users would have an account with at least one of those companies -- we are looking at them (Facebook and Google) as providing a utility to us, the new sexy guys. 

Without Intel none of what we consider the Internet would be possible, but nobody would call Intel sexy. Dependable, solid, smart, thoughtful, yes. But not sexy. And their stock price reflects that lack of sex appeal. 

So now back to the Snapchat debate. Bottom line: people are prepared to pay a lot for sex. And sex appeal is one degree removed. Snapchat has it, Facebook is losing it, Google lost long ago (and to be clear -- I love Google and constantly praise them, and I actually think they are sexy, just in the public eye they are...Google). 

Do I think Snapchat founders should sell to one of the "utility" players? Well, if Snapchat thinks that they too will become a core part of the fabric of the Web, and they want to be running the company when that happens then no, they shouldn't sell. I personally don't see Snapchat having what it takes to go the distance, but companies also evolve. Perhaps they will...but during that journey they will need to develop business model, start generating revenue, deliver a return on investment -- in other words, grow up and become a boring company. My recommendation to Snapchat founders: sell when you can. You will not be sexy forever. 

Running, Biking And Wine Making As Team Sports

As many know, I am pretty passionate about both biking and running. Much to the dismay of my triathlon training daughter, swimming [still] is not my thing. But running and biking have been part of my life since I was a child. And over the past few years have become a winemaker (www.jezreelwinery.com), while returning to being the CEO of a start-up (www.zulaapp.com).

 For me, running and biking were, until recently solitary activities. A form of meditation on the move. When I run a marathon I usually am alone, especially in Israel where there could be big distances between people (was not the same experience in New York City Marathon, there I was surrounded by people, but like many in New York still felt alone much of the time).

Only for a short time did I have a regular running partner, but that started as a favor to someone to help her get her running legs...and inspire her. But most of the time I run alone, lost in my own thoughts. In our move to Hanaton I started to bike every shabbat morning with a group of people, but aside from the comfort of knowing that if I had a problem someone would be nearby to help, continued to be an individual sport. As we bike off-road, most of the time on single-track trails, really is still a one by one experience.

 Over the past two years, together with my co-founder Jeff Pulver, have explored what it means for teams to work together, and thinking through how to help teams communicate better. Because so much of what we do is team work in our business lives -- and the world is changing fast, as is our needs to keep our communication with team members constant and effective.

 So how does this connect to running and biking, you ask?

 A few weeks ago I decided rather than drive my daughter and her friend to triathlon practice and leave them there (and have other parent come get them) I would simply stay and work-out with them. So far not the swimming part, but the running and biking. What I have discovered is a whole different approach -- that of a team. In one training session we were actually taught how to physically help other team members push up a hill on bikes -- the ultimate form of team work. In the running I discovered a similar experience, with the coach dividing us into groups and having "team leaders" set the pace, and challenge us to run together at the same pace, each one inspiring the other, and keeping a check and balance system in place as to speed and endurance.

Working out with my daughter's triathlon group has made me realize that what was for me a individual experience can be strengthened as a team activity.

Hey -- didn't the title say something about wine?

Yup, parallel to my entree into the world of triathlon team training was the harvest season for the wine industry in Israel. While my partner Yehuda runs the winery operation on a daily basis, he consults with me about most issues. At the beginning of the harvest season he said to me we need to bring on another pair of hands -- that with the jump in activity (we have enough wine in barrel now for over 60,000 bottles!) we needed to add to the team. It struck me that wine making is also very much a team business -- making  (and drinking it) alone is somewhere between very challenging to depressing. But working as team we can make magic (and do!).

I will continue to live my personal ying/yang of individual/community. But thanks to triathlon practice and wine making I have new respect for the value of teams.

Who is on my team? Dealing with outdated concepts of work, play, and life

As many of you know, I have been focused the past year on team communication, and very proud that soon Zula, Inc. will release iPhone and Android based service to the world (more platforms to follow). Like all good ideas, this one is not alone. Almost a year ago, when Jeff Pulver and I took a decision to pivot what we were working on to center on the need for a new paradigm in team communication, not many people were talking about it. Now there are some nice competitors to look at, which is better than being alone, believe me. But when I look at some of our competitors, I am bemused that many forward thinking people still are stuck on outdated concepts of team, and of work. For that matter play and life, and how they intersect with work. Too many are still looking at hard divisions between work and play. Also coming out with products for team communication that require you to be part of the same "organization" as your team members. But life is not so binary anymore. We don't only belong to one team, to one organization. We "know" people from many different touchpoints, whether it be Facebook, LinkedIn, and yes, even G+ (there are a few diehards out there). Teams get formed on a constant, ad hoc basis, and for many of us we spend much of our time interacting with folks who do not have the same domain name in their email address. In other words, teams today are not internal creations -- they are dynamic situations, with team members being invited through the different mediums of our digital lives.

Why Do They Beep As They Pass My By??

For the past four years I have been lucky to have easy access to trails in nature, both for running and biking. But sometimes I need to go for short distances on the main roads, and have experienced an interesting phenomenon. A good percentage of the drivers in these parts (Northern Israel) will beep as they pass me by -- at first I thought it was a reflex time delay, that they mean to beep to alert me they are coming but the actual beeping only happens once they are already passing me. I actually don't like drivers who beep me from behind, as it is usually more startling than helpful, but the intentions are clear, to provide me warning that a car/truck/bus is approaching from behind. But why when passing me? Running yesterday I finally came up with a theory. Completely unscientific, as I have not had the luxury of actually speaking to any of the beeping drivers, but here is my optimistic hunch. The beeping when passing is a sign of identification and support. Even though we are theoretically competing over the same thoroughfare, the drivers want me to know they are with me in spirit, and perhaps even are envious. They are telling me: "Brother, we are with you." This all reminds me of what it is like to be the CEO of a start-up in a space that is quickly becoming competitive. There is limited bandwidth in the world for successful start-ups in the same product space -- top few companies will usually make it, the few after that will drift along, and then massive amount of start-up roadkill... So who are the drivers that beep as they pass me by in my role as CEO of a start-up? An interesting group. There are the other CEOs -- the more experienced know that coopetition is always good, and keep an open channel to the CEOs of competing companies. Just in the past two weeks I have communicated with the CEO of two well funded companies in the messaging space. Yes, we are competitors, but we also identify with each other. Other beepers along the start-up highway are VCs that are not quite ready to invest -- but want to remain in the loop. No, they are not just afraid to say no (well, that too at times) but rather are ready for you to pass them by on the road to success, because they just around the bend we might meet up again. Or the next time we are on the road together. So they beep -- they make connections, introductions, offer (at times) useful critique. And then there are the journalists covering the space, the analysts, and more. All jostling on the same road, and as we pass each other we "beep." This is all when it works according to my rules of coopetition. For those are pur capitalists -- well, they don't beep when pulling alongside. They just run you over! May you blessed to find many of those that beep as they pass by! Shabbat Shalom.

I didn't mean to Link(edIn), but...

"Can ______ access your contacts?" is part of the the modern mobile version of next...next...next of PC and web apps. Last week I was talking to Zula team about particular point of UI and referred to LinkedIn's iphone app design, and was told I was using old version. Checked, and yes, heaven forbid, I was using an outdated version. So I went to App Store and updated. Got a pop up message from LinkedIn asking "Can LinkedIn access your contacts?" Now, as LinkedIn is all about creating and managing network of contacts (yeah, they do lots of other stuff, but at core is the network) I just assumed in the past I had given LinkedIn permission to acccess my contacts. I also assumed that such a "successful" and well known company would be careful about unintentional spam -- and that the permission to access my contacts was designed to allow me to proactively invite people in my contacts to be linked to me. Wow...was I wrong. A few seconds (literally) after I hit yes to LinkedIn's request, my phone and ipad started to go crazy with notifications from people accepting my request to connect on LinkedIn. Seems the folks over there at LinkedIn took my "yes" as permission to upload my contacts and blast a LinkedIn connect request to every last person who somehow ended up in my contacts database. I am talking about people I may have traded one email with, folks I haven't spoken to in 15 years, and other random entries in my contacts... As a result of the LinkedIn spam attack in my name I gained hundreds of new LinkedIn "connections." And days later they are still rolling in. How does this make me feel? Well, at first was embarrased, then realized that it was even worse, for many recepients of this spam felt like I was reaching out on purpose, and many questioned why. Others were happy to hear from me. Many pitched me their current start-ups. And some just said hello. All in all a somewhat harmless experience, but shows off the shallowness of the average LinkedIn network. I was also astonished at how wide the LinkedIn network has become...a majority of my contacts have LinkedIn accounts. And I am not just talking about the VCs and entrepreneurs I know, I also mean the gardener I haven't used in 5 years, my son's nursery school teacher, and many more. Like Facebook, LinkedIn has succeeded in becoming part of the fabric layer of our digital lives. It doesn't mean I actually need to use it, but it does mean that the value of LinkedIn is almost priceless, because after such a wide net is cast, the company can take their time monetizing. We are all there already! Now that I have another ~600 connection am I better off? Well, can't hurt. And that is the key here. As long as a mistake like I made is harmless, LinkedIn and similar companies will continue to expand their networks. This also assumes that I do not share or expose information on LinkedIn that I have any concern about people seeing. As I almost never use LinkedIn, that assumption in this case is correct. I long ago realized that there were so many holes in the fabric of Facebook that their "privacy" controls were meaningless, and adopted the policy of only sharing what I was 100% proud of anyone seeing. Thus I don't care that much about who are in my FB friends list. But even so, if I have absolutely no idea who is sending me FB "friend" request I tend to ignore it. As I saw with LinkedIn, some people will accept anyone (hey, they accepted me...). Bottom line: no real harm done with inadvertently allowing LinkedIn to spam my contacts, but did remind me to be more careful with what I say yes to -- and impressed me with wide network LinkedIn has created and how quickly many jump to accept every new connect request. My hope for the world is that some good comes from all of these "connections."

Riding the Wave/Rising Above the Noise

This past weekend I spent time with my younger children at the beach. It was a perfect day, water refreshing, sunny but not scorching, and waves just the right size for my almost-6 year old and ten year old sons (Mishael and Nachum). Shefa, my two year old daughter, was with me... But back to the boys. Within a few minutes, they had mastered the art of the boogie board, and wave after wave served as an endless God given ride, more fun than anything Walt Disney or Six Flags Adventure ever dreamed up. As I watched them, and allowed Shefa to dip her feet in the waves, I was reminded how much of start-up life is trying to catch a wave -- and then stay on top. As many of you know, I have been part of the start-up ecosystem long enough to see wave after wave, sometimes catching a ride up but also at times crashing down, and yes even a "wipe-out" or two (or more, but that's a different discussion). Back to wave catching. Obviously when there are many waves, easier to catch one. On the other hand, it means there is great turmoil in the market -- and thus no time to rest between waves, to plan properly -- simply need to react. And of course there is the "fear" that there is even better wave coming... The kissing cousin of "Riding the Wave" principle in start-up life is "Rising Above the Noise." When there are many waves, there is noise in the system. All the surfers come out at once, and all of a sudden it gets crowded and noisy. Noisy in a real sense, and noisy in the way that the endless ocean all of a sudden feels crowded. Now, in the back of your mind, you know that it can't stay this way -- eventually some of those surfers will get tired, and will go home. But what about you? As an entrepreur, do you have the stamina to keep paddling, and the skill set to rise above the noise, to get noticed by the cheering throng on the beach -- so that they start rooting for you to catch the best waves, to stand up on your board and make the magical seem effortless. In an another post I will take apart a recent rejection I received from a potential investor regarding crowded market and differentiation, but for now let me bless all of us that we manage to keep our heads above the water, catch a wave we like, and ride it in. For those of us serial entrepreneurs -- same blessing, but repeat. :-)

Catching The Wave (or the next one...)

So I am not the first VC/Entrepreneur to write about "catching the wave." A big part of start-up success is timing. Being pre-mature or late to the game are ingredients for failure. Perfect timing is a lot like surfing -- need to catch the wave so you go soaring with the tide. Of course, like with surfing, catching the wave is not enough -- it is just the beginning. But an essential beginning.

But I want to take the analogy a bit further. Sometimes you manage to stay at something long enough (or return to it after a hiatus) and you can actually experience second or third waves.

I have been involved in start-up life on a professional basis since 1994. Almost twenty years (pretty scary thought!!). I am now seeing the second and sometimes third waves within specific industries. I am blessed to still be active, and with enough strength (mental, emotional, and physical) to continue to "catch the wave."

As an example, as some of you know, I co-founded a start-up last year with my good friend Jeff Pulver, called Zula. We are focused on how teams communicate, and developing a platform to allow for team/group conversations to continue beyond the conference room. But more on that in a later posting...Important part of the story is that Jeff and I are engaging a field that we first worked in 18 years ago. We have participated in and witnessed multiple waves (and sometimes tsunamis) within the communications industry. It doesn't make the surfing any easier, but it does give us the perspective that waves do not come one at a time, and often difficult to tell exactly when to push off and hang ten. But try we do.

A friend called me the other day to say I needed to come pick up a box of stuff I had left in his store room when we moved up to Hanaton. I skimmed through the contents of the box this morning, and found presentations I delivered for Delta Three back in 1998 and 1999, as well as business plans for other start-ups. When looking through the Delta Three presentations I reminded myself just how pre-mature we were, although we still managed to catch early waves in the changing landscape of how people communicate.

I also reminded myself how visionary we were were -- the problem is vision does not allow for success. I can envision a wonderful wave, but if I don't get my tuchus off the beach there is no chance I will succeed to fly through the surf.

Of course surfing doesn't come naturally to all of us, and even for those that it does, intense training and planning is required to face the big waves.

May we all be blessed to catch the waves we want, at the time we want, and ride them to shore. Again and again.