The following is an entertaining and oh-so-true guest post by Ivan Gaviria – friend and startup lawyer exraordinaire. Ivan is a partner at Gunderson Dettmer’s Silicon Valley office, practicing in the Corporate and Securities Group. He has extensive experience working with startup and emerging growth companies through their entire lifecycle as well as representing venture capital, private equity and other investors.
Oh, and warning: harsh language below – nothing new to you Valley-types…
Ten Classic Valley Clichés
by Ivan Gaviria
As a partner in a startup law firm I have spent countless hours in board meetings over the years. This front row seat has led me to conclude that one of the Valley’s underappreciated contributions to society is the wealth of catchphrases, clichés and buzzwords that permeate the culture. Ignoring the industry specific hacker and technical slang and the trendier offerings, there are a number of phrases that seem particularly unique to world of venture backed startups and have stood the test of time. The following are a couple of my favorites:
“Open the Kimono” – Basically means to reveal sensitive or confidential information; usually in the negotiation context. Example: “It’s going to come out in diligence and we don’t have the time to play games so we just need to open the kimono and take our chances.” I’m frankly amazed that this one is still in heavy circulation with the politically incorrect overtones, but I think I hear it at least once a week. Extra points when it’s accompanied by an illustrative hand gesture from a middle aged guy with a BMI of 30+.
“Agree to Disagree” – This is essentially just a polite version of “fuck you”; it functions as a segue to allow the negotiation or conversation to move on after hitting an impasse and where an actual “fuck you” would be unproductive. Example: “I think we just need to agree to disagree on this and move on.”
“We are in violent agreement” — Sort of a cousin to “agree to disagree” this is also a segue to move the conversation forward, but without the “fuck you” element – it’s more of an acknowledgment that people are missing each others’ points and don’t really disagree but are getting spun up.
“Spun Up” – Essentially, to get upset, irate, etc. In my experience, used predominately as a threat, i.e., “I could bring that point up with our side, but people are going to get spun up.” Can be used in tandem with various head related hyperboles such as “he’s so spun up his head is going to explode/pop off his shoulders/lift off” etc.
“It Is What It Is” – This is a handy phrase for the moment of resignation when it’s clear something can’t be changed. The issue has been fought, the other side won’t concede and you’ve got to accept the point and move on. “It is what it is.” Depending on your perspective it’s either a super trite cliché or a koan with real existential implications. Lastly, with the right intonation, it can also mean “fuck you.”
“At The End of The Day” – This phrase means something like “when all is said and done” and precedes some conclusion about an open discussion point. Example “At the end of the day, this is a small risk and shouldn’t stop us from doing the deal.” It can be used interchangeably with “the bottom line” or in a cliché combo such as “at the end of the day, it is what it is.”
“Is it the Horse or the Jockey” - The first time I heard this one was during a discussion of whether a high priced, highly recruited sales guy was getting the job done. After the discussion, one of the VC’s leaned in and said “We need to sort through these product issues before we can discover if the problem is the horse or the jockey.” I’m not sure if it’s the Woodside thing but equine metaphors in general are pretty popular in the valley.
“Horse Trade” – A “horse trade” is distinguishable from a reasoned negotiation point and typically made in some non linear fashion often at the tail end of a negotiation. A rational negotiation point might be a founder arguing for a smaller option pool increase because her hiring plan calls for only a modest headcount increase. A “horse trade” would be something like “Ok, we’ll drop the post money pool to 15% but we’re going to increase our participation cap from 2X to 3X.” One could say that a good horse trade is also a variation of “fuck you.”
“Sleeves Off Your Vest” – This one’s presumably been around since before the days of business casual. Giving someone the sleeves off your vest is a concession that doesn’t actually cost you anything. Its corollary among sartorial metaphors is the “belt and suspenders” – a purposely redundant addition to an agreement made to satisfy a paranoid party.
“Reach Out/Ping/Circle Back” – No one around here can just call someone. You have to “reach out” or “ping” them, etc. I’m not sure why this is the case but … it is what it is.
If you have the bandwidth, and I can get your mindshare – I’d love to hear other people’s favorites. Comment below!
With Google’s recent acquisition of AdMob (an Under the Radar past presenter) for $750 Million – the mobile marketing world is once again a-buzz proclaiming 2010 the Year of Mobile (again..).
But what does this acquisition mean? At Under the Radar, we get to ask that exact question during our end of the day panel with Nike, Coca-Cola, AKQA, Isobar and R/GA (see bios below)!
At Under the Radar, we get to ask that exact question during our end of the day panel with Nike, Coca-Cola, AKQA, Isobar and R/GA (see bios below)!
If you could ask the people holding some of the LARGEST mobile marketing budgets in the world candid questions about their mobile strategies, insights/experiences and forecasts on the market next year – what would you ask?
The 10 most thought-provoking questions will be rewarded with a FREE ticket to the conference!
Submit your questions as a comment below (include you email in the provate contact form so we can contact you). DEADLINE: Friday, November 13 6pm PST
Speakers:
Moderator: Mark Silva, Principal & Founder: Real Branding
Daniel Rosen: As Founder and Head of AKQA Mobile, Daniel has been behind some of the most notable mobile campaigns that have received international recognition, for brands including: Nike, Gap, Coke, Smirnoff, McDonald’s and Visa. He is frequently called upon by the industry for insights into mobile marketing from Cannes Lions to Mobile World Congress.
Gene Keenan, Isobar: Gene has been working in the digital space for the last 8 years leading the cutting edge of marketing innovation as Isobar’s VP of Mobile Services. In this role, Gene has won numerous Aegis Globe awards for his innovation and has been the recipient of industry awards including an MSNEMMY for his work on Adidas.
Richard Ting is VP & Executive Creative Director of R/GA’s Mobile and Emerging Platforms Group, where he focuses on creating integrated interactive user experiences across the web, mobile, and physical space. In his 8+ years with R/GA, he has worked with Avaya, Nike, Nokia, J&J, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless.
Stefan Olander, Nike: In his current role as Global Director Brand Connections he oversees the functions of Advertising, Digital Brand, Media, Content and Business Affairs for the entire Nike Brand.
Tara Scarlett, Coca-Cola. Tara is the Senior Manager of Consumer Relationship Marketing and Precision, focusing on engaging consumers in fun and meaningful ways through mobile marketing.
Special Thanks to our very generous sponsors, Qualcomm, Gunderson Dettmer, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Ericsson and Microsoft are offering 10 lucky people a chance to win a free ticket to Under the Radar on November 19, 2009 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View Ca.
Today let’s geek out a bit and combine old-school web history with current mobile tech trends.
Since Tim Berners-Lee’s first stab at mapping out the ’semantic’ web (circa 1998), entrepreneurs and engineers have been trying to harness the power of connecting social networks, disparate info sources, and applications built on a Tower of Babel-esque compendium of programming languages.
Aloqa, one of the startups presenting at Under the Radar next month, is solving this problem two ways.
Second, Aloqa opened up an API for developers to build in a ‘device agnostic’ fashion on the Aloqa platform that doesn’t require them to learn Objective C, C++, and Java to deploy across multiple handsets. You just create a ‘channel’ and publish it to the Aloqa ‘Channel Store’ (think a personalized developer-driven FourSquare or Hot Potato on uppers).
To test the platform concept, Aloqa’s done what a bunch of other mobile startups are doing – they built their own app as a demo, which launched for the iPhone this week. The Aloqa app grabs my preferences and combines them with my ’social graph’ aka friends, tweets, etc, then it mixes in a little geolocation (my current whereabouts) for good measure.
Let’s jump back out of the shop-talk for a minute and take a 50,000 look at the mobile location-aware market, which is getting crowded.
Aloqa’s got, at minimum, the semantics right…they’re calling their new application ‘context-aware,’ and it’s a good term I think we’ll hear more of in the next year or two.
Mobile startups need to find ways to reflect individual relevance that I can proactively program as a user or go the way of the woolly mammoth. At the most basic level that means ’smart apps’ should capture where I am, who I talk to (online and offline) and what I generally want when I’m in that place at that time.
Also, I think we’ll see ‘task’ or ‘activity’ context awareness being developed for mobile apps – i.e. am I in ’shopping’ mode? On my way to work?
Next generation ‘context-aware’ mobile applications will monitor, measure, and manage data flow by asking questions about my behavioral patterns: Do I buy goods and services differently on a Sunday morning in Blacksburg, VA with @kbluey than I do when I’m walking home from work @dealmakermedia in SoMa?
Unfortunately, Aloqa doesn’t help me answer any of these questions (or use that data to drive recommendations) nor do any of the other location-aware startup apps I use, including FourSquare (although I can leave a status update of sorts in the ‘tips’ section when I check in), and this is a marked weakness.
It’ll also be interesting to see if the early lead Aloqa is taking here in personalizing ‘context programming’ will attract developers who help build on top of the company’s API.
Here’s where I think Aloqa may have a niche market on lock IF we see them at every Super Happy Dev House and tech user group over the next quarter…
My engineer friends love to recommend events, geek tee-shirts, and smart friends’ blog posts/code to each other, so being able to build a mobile application that highlights what we like to do and buy may be an attractive hackathon project, but it remains to be seen if the platform code will be attractive enough for indie developers to build anything bigger than personal ‘me-tric’ channels.
Letting me define location relevance by building a personal ‘channel’ on the Aloqa platform may indeed be enough of a carrot, but many of the startup teams I know are having problems with geolocation (lack of GPS specificity in pinpointing where I am at any given moment within ‘arms length’ radius, especially when I’m in motion). It’ll be interesting to hear how Aloqa stacks up here.
In passionate pursuit of what’s happening in mobile tech, Twitter helps many of us act as ‘first responders.’
Over the last 3 months, the Dealmaker Media team has hacked through hundreds of mobile companies preparing for Under the Radar.
140 characters may not seem like a lot to work with, but tweets are an effective way to connect innovators with companies solving big problems on small screens.
Getting ready for #utr, we figured it’s time to share the goods. Here’s a short list of the people on Dealmaker’s Twitter radar…
Some are companies, some are individuals, some are developer programs, some are folks employed by organizations, some are analysts, some are bloggers, some are enthusiasts, some are Twitter arms of new media outlets, but all use their Twitter power for providing content value.
Here’s the list, with corresponding follower headcounts (current as of 3pm PDT today – follower counts may have changed since publication).
A quick disclaimer: Review the numbers with a grain of salt – I don’t consider follower numbers the primary indicator of a valuable Tweet. It’s more about what you tweet than how many people follow you…
Kurt Daradics is a good friend of ours here at Dealmaker Media – and he’s certainly one of the best champions of the LA tech startup and social media scene. Waaayyyy back in the early part of this year he launched “Digital Family Reunion” a mixer event that toasted the who’s who in LA’s startup community.
And he’s at it again! If you’re in Los Angeles this Wednesday, join Kurt and all the members of the growing “digital family” as he calls it for a summit on community management. Use the Promo Code: DFR16 for a VIP price of $30.
DIGITAL FAMILY SUMMIT
Wednesday, September 23
Wokcano Restaurant, Santa Monica REGISTER for a VIP pass ($20 off) with promo code DFR16
You can find out more about the agenda and speakers here.
The following is a blog re-post from Raj Kapoor’s , Managing Director at Sillicon Valley’s Mayfield Fund. Raj is an energetic type A personality that likes to explore, learn, question, and enjoy. The original can be found here. Contact Mayfield Fund here. Thanks Raj!
PREDICTION: Social Networks Will Make More Money Off Site vs On
by Raj Kapoor.
Social networks are here to stay…100s of millions of consumers now use them as an indispensible tool to stay current with friends and interests. There has been a lot of debate on how they can make money. Let’s keep in mind that they ARE making money today (facebook over $300M annual revenue and LinkedIn well over $100M) – more than most internet sites – but just not a lot on a per-user basis.
I believe this is because the traditional ad model doesn’t work well here – social networks are a communications platform at the core.
People log on daily to check messages, photos, and videos that were added by interesting people for them to view. They are not coming to view content as much as people would have hoped, nor are they using it as a main portal or launching point for all web activities (Google won that so far…)
Communications sites have never monetized well because the consumer is focused on communication and is not going to be diverted by ads.
I experienced this firsthand running Snapfish and trying ad sales for 6 years against online personal photo pages. We got advertising up to 10% of revenue but that was about it.
Why? Lack of performance and attention from users… they were too busy viewing photos vs clicking on ads. Many social networks suffer the same issues as shown by their dismal click thru rates.
THE DATA ECONOMY:
That said, I do believe there’s a big opportunity – it’s in the Data that is captured explicitly (entering info on yourself in your profile) and implicitly (the groups you join, the content of the messages you send each other). In some social nets like Facebook and LinkedIn, the data is very deep and for the most part true. The profile page itself is a treasure trove of information on age, gender, location, interests, work experience, favorite movies, tv, etc – all the attributes a great brand marketer wants to target when reaching an audience.
The advertiser may not have measurable success reaching the user in the social network, but if they had access to the data when the user is on other sites – more conducive to engagement with ads – the advertiser would be in nirvana.
The data economy is developing fast where data is decoupled from ad inventory and used to target audiences where ever they are (Mayfield companies Audience Science, Adchemy, and Rubicon Project are leading the charge here). I think the big social networks are aware of this but are treading carefully given the privacy concerns. I do believe when they find the right mix of user privacy and sharing of this data, they can provide it to advertisers, networks, and publishers and profit handsomely from it. They can make more money on a user by charging a tax for the data each time its used vs the pageviews from that user on their site.
Let’s do the math and make some assumptions to illustrate:
I used the following estimates on ad impressions/user/mo on top social networks:
- Facebook: 356
- Tagged: 387
- Myspace: 452
….Avg: 403
…And I assume $.50 as the assumption for eCPM (which I believe maybe high). Thus, on average a social network makes $.20 per user per month on ads on their site.
USING SOCIAL NETWORK DATA TO MAKE MONEY OUTSIDE THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Now, let’s look at how many ad impressions the typical internet user encounters in a month – I’ve found it to be about 1,650 per month. Let’s also assume the following:
- 50% of these impressions could be targeted using the vast amounts of profile and friend data from SNS
- $2 eCPM for such a data targeted ad
- the social network keeps 15% of this revenue for its data (which seems like the going rate talking to data players).
That’s about $.25 per user per month. So, if my assumptions hold true, then a social network can monetize their users $.25 offsite vs $.20 onsite….
Social networks will make money on their site – thru ads, virtual goods, etc – but the real big opportunity is freeing all the user data and enabling it to target them wherever they are on the web.
Following on the success of the Wall Street Meltdown parodies, I wrote Mad Avenue Blues. Like Wall Street Meltdown and WSM Redux (both on YouTube), the new video takes a popular song and substitutes industry-specific lyrics. Only instead of finance, Mad Avenue Blues is about the media/advertising world and the impact to the traditional models brought about by the accelerating migration to digital.
Among them are Neil Young, CEO of iPhone game developer phenom, ngmoco and Jane McGonigal, Director of game R&D, Institute for the Future and Bart Decrem, Chief executive officer, Tapulous (Tap Tap Revenge, anyone?.
Some of the people listed are responsible for literally shaping the future of business and entertainment through videogame theory and understanding the ‘culture of play,’ but some of the others’ creativity is shown by identifying something much smaller: something fun and addictive – like touching your screen to the pulsing beat of Lady Gaga.
In this Ted Talk, David Perry features a video called “As Real as Your Life” by Michael Highland (a video game designer, and student of his) that exposes how video game addicts view the world: as a hybrid of virtual and real elements. As someone born in 1984, Michael’s entire life and perception of the world has been shaped by interactive stories delivered through games and television.
Michael is today’s consumer audience. His video begins about 10 min into David’s presentation, but watch the entire video. Trust me.
Released in 2006 this video still whacks me over the head. It is a MUST WATCH for anyone trying to wrap their heads around the reality that game elements are the driving force behind all successful social networks, MMOs, casual games, viral videos, etc.
…And the magazine’s cover story title was less than 140 characters! Hurrah!
Last week it was Michelle Obama.
This week, Time chose to highlight Evan Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter; bringing the web’s fave micro-blogging tool into the main stream spot light once again just after it got huge props from Oprah.
I’m sure Millions of Moms (excitedly exaggerated number) hopped on Twitter to follow the television talk show goddess’ tweets of wisdom.
Glossing over Twitter’s constant down time, Oprah and Time are two of North America’s most respected cultural pulse checks – and both have given Twitter the nod; proving the real-time, conversational web is live and well – and finally everyone is taking notice as to how these social technologies are changing our world.
I mean SRSLY… My Mom follows me on Twitter. Her first tweet “Look at me! I’m a Twit! LOL.”
Yes she LOL’s and yes, she’s awesome. If only she’d tweet more random thoughts – it’d certainly light up my day.
After all, as we all scratch our heads wondering how they’ll make money, this skyrocketing Silicon Valley startup phenomenon has, as Time says, created a social warmth in social media:
“We don’t think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask. The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn’t be taken lightly…”
