Month: November 2008

A strong showing (for me) at the 2008 Seattle Half Marathon

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

1:53:55. 

That was my chip time today for the Seattle half marathon.  Here's the results.  Surprisingly good given the fact that I parked AFTER the race had begun.  Traffic was pretty much a nightmare getting to the start although I can't say that I did myself any favors in terms of planning other than leaving the house really early.  I guess I got my stretching in working the clutch in my car as I made my way through the traffic.

I will say that it seems that a better job could be done getting folks off I-5 onto the Mercer exit then up to Seattle Center.  The only police car I saw actually pulled someone over for blocking an intersection as we all made our way to the start line.  Remember – follow the rules in Seattle!

A good race and nice stroll through downtown as well as some of the really cool neighborhoods of Seattle (Leschi, Madison Park, etc.).

Full menu

/ Robert Pease / 2 Comments

Today was a wonderful day full of food, family, friends, and great weather here in Seattle (a bit cold, but mostly sunny).  I exercised my creativity by spending most of the day in the kitchen cooking up a Thanksgiving feast for the family. 

Here's what I whipped up:

  • Roasted duck – here's the recipe I mostly followed.  I don't really like to follow directions so used it as inspiration.
  • Sauce – I can't quite call this a gravy but did come up with a red wine sauce made from the duck "parts" plus some herbs from the garden (thyme, rosemary, etc.)
  • Mashed parsnips with truffle olive oil- I'm too cheap to buy truffle oil, but the infused stuff does a nice job
  • Seared Brussels sprouts – render the fat out of some bacon, saute the sprouts in it, and add the bacon back – you'll love it!
  • Butter sage roasted Cornish game hen – as the name implies, mix butter and sage and roast those birds in the oven
  • Some great wine including a 2005 Pine Ridge Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon
  • And turtle cheese cake for dessert – store bought, but darn good

I hope you all had an equal or superior feast today.  Time for bed and an early run to work some of the goodness out of my system.

Be thankful

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

For what you have, what you have been given, and for what others have done for you.  Focus on those things that are real and mean the most – those you love and love you, your health, your potential.  These are all great things.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Start with a narrative

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Designing, building, and launching a new product or service is both complex and exhilarating.  I believe one of the keys to doing this successfully is to write a narrative about how your target user uses your product/service in the context of a day in their life.  I can't claim credit for this approach as I learned it from the guy who gave me my first shot as a product manager (thanks again Jim). 

This sounds easier than it is but thinking through what your target does before, during, and after using your product/service forces essential features to the forefront, surfaces substitutes, flushes out bad assumptions, and adds a persona to your internal engineering and marketing meetings.  Instead of "the user does this or that" you discuss how "Jim does this or that."  This also further crystallizes thinking on target markets and go-to-market approaches.

If you can't tell the product/service story through the eyes of a target persona, you're not as focused as you need to be.  Start with what they do first thing in the morning and describe everything they do in a given day until they go to bed working your product/service into the story.  Give it a try.  I promise it will be a revealing exercise.

Steve Jobs on being laid off

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I came across this some time ago (via Sramana Mitra) and thought it was a good read and great perspective.  This is taken from a 2005 Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford.  Here's a couple of quotes that I thought were share worthy given lots of news of layoffs these days:

"I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple
was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness
of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner
again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most
creative periods of my life."

And this one…

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way
to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the
only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found
it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart,
you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just
gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you
find it. Don’t settle."

The key to on-line marketing is organic traffic

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This came up twice last week and is consistent with a realization I came to some time ago regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).  No, I'm not hating on these disciplines or the service providers that deliver them.  I am, however, trying to shine some light on what to expect from them and how to use them to your advantage.

I heard (roughly) the title of this post twice last week – once from Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez and again in the Dharmesh Shah video and notes posted Saturday (BTW, very cool of Dharmesh to thank me for the post in a comment – he gets it). Phil used a phrase I really like during his panel – "being smart in the market."

Being "rank worthy" is not about picking the right words and bid price to make sure you are in one of the top four ads served or trying to use words in your web site content that will get you search hits.  It is about being smart, relevant, and compelling in what you project to the market. 

Static content is out of date the minute it is posted.  Dynamic content like blogs and even micro-blogging services like Twitter allow those that are looking for products or services like yours to find them without an ad and on their terms.  The bar is higher, but buyers have access to more information than ever before and if you aren't part of the resources they tap during the information gathering process you will be left out in the cold.

If you can afford an Aston Martin, do you really need Msft stock?

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I get one paper – The Sunday Seattle Times.  Even though we have no shortage of on-line/real-time news feeds these days, I still enjoy thumbing through the paper on Sunday morning with a cup of coffee.  Call me old fashioned.

Anyway, the ad below caught my eye today (on the back of the business section) and wanted to share it here.  It definitely hits on Marketing 101 concepts of promoting with an offer (buy car, get stock) but I found it being applied to an Aston Martin purchase a bit interesting.

I love these cars and if I ever have the means, I will own one.  Unfortunately, I am not in a position to take advantage of this offer.  Maybe you are so give them a call.  I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.

Aston

What you need to hear about the business of software

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

This is a great use of an hour of time (for real).  I have not met Dharmesh Shah but follow his blog OnStartups and would love to have the opportunity to meet up some day.  I am also intrigued by his most recent company – HubSpot.

Below are the notes I captured as I watched this.  Great stuff. 

  • A small exit is a good exit (but not if you take VC funding so be aware of the pros and cons)

  • Be wary of the "attention economy" as advertising-based models are perilous

  • Enterprise software selling sucks

  • If you want to do a start up, get started

  • Get your product or service out there and charge for it asap – people will tell you why they won't buy it

  • Downsides to SaaS business models – margins aren't as good (b/c of COGS – you are running your own software); human costs; subscription shifts risk back to vendor

  • Focus on total cost of customer acquisition (references Constant Contact); $300 sales/mkting/mkting programs cost versus lifetime value of customer($1500); factor in churn

  • Drivers of that business: lifetime value and cost to acquire; focus on churn rate

  • What can the usage data tell you?  CHI (Customer Happiness Index) is a probability calculation that a customer will stay with you; Did the customer log-in plus usage patterns; Customers that use this feature stay with us, those that don't use it leave; This data will make product management work

  • On partnerships – don't do them.  The 900lb gorillas don't care (even though they act like they do); as for start up partnerships (you both want the same thing – looking in the mirror); but distribution partnerships can work if there is an established process and model.  Beware the time/resource suck from these efforts.

  • On marketing/lead generation – create an industry/market blog (even before product) to get feedback, establish your reputation and domain expertise, will also help you understand if there is a there there; reduce market risk as early as possible (will anybody buy what I built?)

  • Google Adwords – created an efficient market to connect sellers & buyers but still a Google tax involved (that is what organic search is all about)

  • CPC is a 'morphine drip'; you become a victim of the latest market entrant who bids up the price

  • Get good at being found in organic results (longer term b/c it is harder); upfront investment that pays off over time; make sure your website is best search result possible (be rank worthy).

DS_onstartups

Last slide first

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There were lots of great presentations at the SIIA On-Demand conference in San Jose this week and I'll be posting some thoughts about what I learned over the next few days.

One of the highlights was a presentation by NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson and his first (and last) slide.  He told a short story about this being the way to do a presentation from his early working days at Motorola.  The then Vice Chairman (missed the name) told him to skip all his foils (pre-Powerpoint, egad!) and put up the last one.

We have all gotten away from this with too much Powerpoint in our lives and I promise I will now start all my presentations with the last slide.