February 2012
1 post
5 tags
Facebook Post IPO Ammunition
In technology companies, you see a lot of hype pre IPO and even in the first few days of trading, however as time goes by a lot of companies lose the heat and buzz it had in the initial days of trading. We’ve seen Demand Media go as high as 27 and some change to as low as 5 and some change, currently trading around 6 something. Then we’ve seen juggernauts like Zynga who had a struggle...
January 2012
2 posts
7 tags
What's next for Apple? Gaming. No, not casual...
Besides the obvious, iTV, iPhone 5, iPad 3, what’s the next big market Apple will enter? Gaming. A bird might have hinted to me, Apple will build real consoles like Microsoft has for Xbox and Sony has done for Playstation.
A gaming console from Apple, iGame (if you will), makes perfect sense if you think about the model Apple uses, which is disrupting a large existing market with a way...
12 tags
What the Apple TV or "iTV" will be like...
Apple just came off of a smoking hot quarter, but now everyone is thinking what the future holds for the technology juggernaut. There are talks about the obvious- iPhone 5 and iPad 3, then there are talks about new Macbooks, and lastly talks about Apple’s physical TV set or iTV as I like to think of it.
I’ve been meaning to comment on it for awhile now, but what better time to discuss...
December 2011
1 post
5 tags
Path Needs to make Web a Priority if it Wants to...
As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of privacy online and services that not only enable it, but make it an essential part of their business. Path is a service that allows people to create a mobile social network, with restrictions of having 150 friends maximum for each user.
Path’s raised some capital from some all star investors and is founded by Dave Morin, who is a Facebook and...
November 2011
1 post
7 tags
Elon Musk is the Next Steve Jobs
If you don’t know who Elon Musk is, you will. Not because I’m going to tell you right now, but because he will become the next greatest mind the world is swept by. DISCLAIMER: Elon Musk is one of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time.
Elon Musk has done a lot of things, started PayPal, started SpaceX, started Tesla Motors, and a few other not so well known companies. The thing that...
October 2011
1 post
7 tags
Steve Jobs, I'll miss you.
You have probably heard by now that Steve Jobs has passed. Firstly, I want to express my condolences to Steve’s family, friends and everyone at Apple and furthermore- everyone that loves technology.
As you can imagine, it was pretty sad hearing about it; news of his passing kind of felt surreal.
I want to take a minute and ask that you join me, to have a moment of silence in Steve’s...
August 2011
1 post
5 tags
What other tablet manufacturers can learn from the...
If you have got one or not, $99 for a tablet like the touchpad is a very cool deal. It obviously drove a lot of traffic to retailers online and off, to deplete all inventory in a matter of hours. There’s no question HP will lose money at the price point (as it costs them $300- and some change to manufacture the product), but there is a huge takeaway others in the tablet business can have...
July 2011
2 posts
9 tags
Google Will Acquire Spotify
Another hit out of Europe (Skype was from there) for sure, but more so one of the most relevant and useful tech companies of the past decade, Spotify, has all the buzz lately. And they deserve it. They’ve managed to create a radio meets iTunes client for online radio that everyone loves, myself included. There has always been different media players for consumers, but there hasn’t been...
7 tags
The Google+ Game Plan
Before you read any of this, I have to say that if you think Google+ is “social”, it is a big understatement of the product.
Remember when Google said “social is a layer?” Well they weren’t kidding. People went as far as thinking Google was clueless about social, but the fact is the average Googler is smarter than the average human (source: myself).
I’m...
June 2011
1 post
7 tags
SayClip: The Future of Video Messaging
A lot of you may know, I recently started SayClip. SayClip allows users to privately message their contacts through video. If you want to know why I created SayClip, you can read that here. You can download SayClip on iTunes here.
In this post, I’m going to give some thoughts on the social world.
It seems just about every new product that is launched in today’s world that relates...
May 2011
3 posts
7 tags
LinkedIn Just Laid Out The Future of Social IPOs,...
Alright so, LinkedIn had its debut as a publicly traded company on Thursday. If you followed it- it exploded. My thoughts? It is absurd- now this is just my opinion, but I am going to say the stock will be worth way less than 1/2 what it is worth today, in 5 years worth of time. But that said, I think LinkedIn just played out the future for Facebook’s IPO and Twitter, if it plans to go...
3 tags
Blippy should return money to investors, if they...
Note: This post has been sitting in my queue for over a month or so now. TechCrunch recently posted this article talking about “the end of Blippy as we know it.” So I feel this post is relevant enough to share my thoughts through. Below is part of the original post, and everything in bold is written today.
Blippy was cool, for 5 minutes. A tool for sharing your credit card purchases...
6 tags
Microsoft Paid $8.5 Billion for Skype, Now What?
You’ve probably heard by now that Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion. Most people think that Microsoft overpaid for Skype, and quite frankly it is irrelevant. Microsoft wanted to “guarantee” their acquisition of Skype (didn’t want to risk Google ousting them on the deal), and a couple bucks more doesn’t really matter if they have a solid plan on how they can take...
April 2011
9 posts
4 tags
Why Tesla Will Be A $200+ Billion Company
Tesla Motors, you know- the electric car company. Yes, I believe they will become a $200B+ company. Obviously I could be wrong, but I’m probably not. In other words, worth more than Ford and GM put together as of today’s market cap. Or about 77x what it is worth today.
Why? It’s simple. Tesla has been hacking away at an alternative for oil or battery powered vehicles for a long...
3 tags
Google is a Threat to Everyone in Daily Deals
Whether you hate or love Google, you still probably use one of their products on a daily basis. If it is Google search, Gmail, YouTube, whatever it is, they have a large user base.
Google launched Google Offers last week. This is going to mess up everyones business in the deals space. Why? I’ll tell you why.
1. Google has an endless barrel of cash. They can put billions into this project,...
1 tag
Groupon Reached Out
A lot of you (if not all) have read the post on Groupon vs LivingSocial and my experience with both companies.
Clearly, the experience with Groupon was a bad one. However, since writing the post, numerous people from Groupon have reached out, including my account rep and have expressed their deepest apologies for my experience.
Andrew Mason, the founder of Groupon, and I talked about it and he...
5 tags
Why Groupon Sucks For Merchants and LivingSocial...
Update: Groupon has reached out.
It doesn’t matter whether you like Groupon or LivingSocial as a consumer or not, because this post is discussing why Groupon is like dealing with a child, for merchants.
As many of you know, I own a few QSR (quick service restaurant) outlets. I also have diversified interests in internet companies. Put 1 and 1 together and you get curious. Since I am in...
Kevin Rose's, Milk Inc, is a needle in a haystack.
Kevin Rose, for those who don’t know is the founder of news site Digg.com. In its glory days Digg was all the hype in the media, but lately has been facing inevitable death. Even Kevin isn’t interested in it anymore.
Aside from all that, he has started a new company called Milk. Milk basically aims to create a few mobile projects and hope that one or two will strike it large. This is...
2 tags
Expect Your Company to Die, When You Sell It.
Broadcast.com, Dodgeball, LinkExchange. Countless others.
You may or may not have heard of these companies, but they were all sold to bigger companies (Yahoo, Google and Microsoft respectively), and then became defunct.
Entrepreneurs build companies for one reason and one big reason- to make money- lots of it. Yes- companies are built to fix problems, better the world, and to create jobs, but...
6 tags
Silicon Valley: Bubble 2.0
If you follow the valuations of companies like Facebook, Twitter, or Groupon- you will see their valuations go from about $10B to $100B. Lets take Facebook in this example; their estimated 2010 earnings were about $2 Billion. Now take that $100B valuation and then look at the earnings multiple. 50x? That’s high.
So for a minute lets say that is ok. Now lets take Google. Its market cap is...
Venture Level 2.0
I’ve had a long hiatus from this blog and I’m back- so is this blog; with a twist. I’m no longer going to talk about my business thoughts from experience, but I’m mostly going to blog about what I think on current happenings in the tech industry. This blog is about to turn into a heavily opinionated one.
You should continue reading if:
you are into tech,
you want to...
3 tags
Why Color's $41MM funding isn't crazy.
You may or may not have heard of Color, the photo sharing app based upon location. Either way, it has received $41 Million in venture capital funding and there was a lot of stir in the media saying that it was too much and absurd.
The firm that took the funding to this level was Sequoia Capital, which put $25MM in the company after they met with the founders for 45 minutes. If this bet turns out...