Monthly Archives: July 2006

VCs and Marketing Firms Courting Young People — And the Myth of More Customer Feedback is Better

Comments: 3 Entrepreneurship July 27, 2006

A really funny story (free) in the WSJ a couple weeks ago about VCs trying to understand and court young people — both young consumers and young entrepreneurs. David Cowan, the main VC subject of the article, and I agreed that the next step is for him to set up a fraternity — Old School style. There was also word on SiliconBeat that the Mayfield Fund recently hired a 29 year-old guy to help them attract cash-hungry young entrepreneurs and to understand the youth demographic driving the MySpace phenomenon.

Besides finding this all hilarious, I just wanted to add that I believe some customer feedback is a good thing, but not too much. I believe in many instances customers don’t know what they want, if only because they’re ensconced in a default reality that doesn’t allow them to imagine new and better ways of living. In the complicated world of teenage wants, this is probably more the case.

That’s why I scratch my head when I get emails from market research firms looking to gather teens and talk about where their/our technology desires are heading. Like in other customer segments, I don’t think teens know what they’ll want in the future, and holding a focus group to figure it out will be an exercise of fascinating but unhelpful group psychology: "How I can please the facilitator by sounding smart?" The same thing happens when you parade a handful of teens on-stage in front of adults at the Web 2.0 conference.

While teenage behavior may be complicated, it’s not hard to figure out. I advise companies building the next mySpace-killer to consult teenagers, but less frequently, and instead think about what drives all user behavior and which parts of that behavior can be captured and monetized.

Day 47: Versailles, France

Comments: 3 France July 25, 2006

I spent a night in Versailles where I checked out Palace of Versailles and had a great, 3.5 hour dinner by the water and then a Paris by Night car tour. Had some great convos with the former President of Vivendi International – Games, whose house and family I stayed with, which I will summarize on my main blog.

The Versailles hood is upscale and a 10 minute drive / 15 minute train from Paris. A lot of wealthy families seem to settle slightly outside Paris to avoid the hustle bustle and then make the easy commute.

The Palace of Versailles is nice but frankly was a bit of a letdown. Maybe this was because some parts were under construction. Maybe because I had to pay 10 euros to get in because I look old and couldn’t get in as an under-18 year old person (I want to support cultural instituations anyway). The ornate architecture and gold was nice but inferior to Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum. The park was beuatiful — set up like Washington Monument in D.C. — but still only about equal to other spectacular European parks. I’m sure if I visited Palace of Versailles by itself I would have been more impressed, but since I’ve seen now virtually every major site in Western Europe, it pales in comparison.Img_1506

We had a great dinner by the water in Paris. Politics, business, you name it. For the second night in the row the oven broke — this time in a restaurant. Come on, can’t the French get the cooking right?! We wrapped up at 11:30 PM and then did a 45 minute Paris by Night tour, which was great, but getting home at 1:30 AM killed me (as did getting up early to go for a run and then catch my train).

Summation: Versailles can make a good day trip from Paris, but spend as much time outside lying in the park as you do inside. And try to avoid long queues!
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Tour de France from the Sidelines

Comments: 1 France

Of course the day I just happen to arrive in Versailles is the day the Tour de France just happens to end and just happens to roll right through the little town I was staying in. We walked down to the side of the street and waited for two hours for the cyclists — and eventual winner the American Floyd Loomis (sp) — to whiz by. The first hour was all sponsor cars. Trucks, vans, SUVs, cars, all wrapped head to tow in advertising throwing out free samples to fans along the side of the rode. Our wait ended when a bunch of official vehicles and police slowly drove by and in the next 20 seconds all 100 cyclists rode by. It was over so quickly! I took a few pictures, and then it was gone. The only thing worthwhile I noticed was how relaxed all the bikers seemed. They were talking to each other, eating an energy bar, casually drinking water. Perhaps because it was the last day and they all let Floyd ride at the front, or perhaps it’s because when you bike for that long you get friendly with your competitors. In any case, I’m glad to have caught live action of a major sporting event, and that I could cheer on the American winner in style!
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Bonjour – Loire Valley, France

Comments: 1 France

After flying Lisbon to Paris I embarked on a bus, train, and taxi to get to Insead Business School to catch the tail end of Pascal’s presentation on French-US differences. I missed the 2:47 PM train by three minutes, forcing me to take a train an hour later. In the airport during my waiting period I saw three exhausted French women get off a train with tons of luggage and tons of San Francisco tourist paraphernalia.  After arriving in Fontiebleau-Avon I had to find a taxi. None was waiting in the “taxi” area even though there were several people waiting. The first one that came only picked up some old French women who had called for it. The other Indian people waiting for a cab decided to go in and call for one. Figuring I had no choice but to call the company as well, so I could claim an equal right to the next taxi which arrived, I went inside the station and purchased a phone card (first of the trip). I then went to the pay phone and fought the damn thing for a minute. As I tried to dial numbers, lo and behold, a taxi pulled up. The Indian threesome and another American couple were arguing over who should get in. While they were arguing, I hung up the phone, ran to the cab, and opened the door. The American couple yelled out, “Hey – we called for that cab!” “So did I!” I yelled back, a half-lie. “You’ve got to be kidding me” they yelled out. We sped away. You got to be ruthless sometimes, you know?

Bettervrivereraseother After Insead, Pascal and I headed back to his castle. It’s a real château – it’s even on the city map. Great setup. First, it’s a bona fide castle. Second, the interior is gorgeous and filled with art and furniture which look like they came out of the Renaissance. And the yard, pool, garden, are all spectacular. My room in the castle was at the top. I climbed a windy, narrow staircase, before arriving in my wing of this spectacle. We had dinner at 10:15 PM – Pascal had a conference call at 10:30, Friday night. His wife Natalie had prepared “just a quick something, nothing too big.” Of course, it was some of the best pasta and salad I’ve ever had. Natalie used to run a big time French catering service in Los Angeles. The setting wasn’t too bad, either: in a greenhouse-esque wing of a castle overlooking a grass field and endless vineyards, with candles adorning the room and paintings hanging all around.

On Saturday Pascal and I explored the Loire Valley area. We first visited the Chateau Royal D’Amboise, an impressive sight which housed French kings in the mid 15th to mid 16th centuries. The French Gothic style overwhelms you with perfect perspective and volume: every ceiling seems like just the right height and the width of each hallway is cozy and inviting.  Fantastic views from the top of the Loire river and the adjacent towns. After the Amboise we sat in an outdoor café where we both had kiesh, apple juice made from local fresh apples, and a pastry. Pascal was salivating over his eclaire. My moist strawberry-danish pastry finished off a nice, “classic French” lunch. I like the outdoor café set-up, even though it’s cramped.Melookingout

Next we headed to Leonardo da Vinci’s house near Amboise. Leonardo spent the final years of his life there. During his move to his house, he carried three paintings – including the Mona Lisa – in his arms as he walked over the alps from Italy to France. Holy catfish. His property is amazing. A zen-like tranquility underwrites the house and gardens / yards / rivers. I’m a big believer that the environment you find yourself in affects your creative spark. Leonardo’s setup certainly helped me conjure some an incredible array of inventions (on paper – they were actually built later). Walking around the gardens and mini-forest brought images of the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco combined with the canals in Venice and expansiveness of Golden Gate Park. I would love to rent out this place for a weekend and hold a retreat!
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In the later afternoon I swam in Pascal’s pool, worked online, enjoyed h’dourvs and a sweet, local French dessert wine, and then this amazing cheese thing Natalie made. It was a ball of cheese, baked in some way, wrapped in peppers all doused with garlic and butter. Green beans, meat from the butcher, five different kind of cheeses with 6 pieces of bread, vanilla ice cream with three kinds of berries topped on it, and tons of Evian water to wash it all down. Did I mention that Natalie catered expensive LA parties? Oh, one hiccup: the oven messed up and the meat was overdone. They were apologetic and moping about the food, while I, the dumb American with no culinary sense, thought it was delicious. French culinary standards are quite high!

After dessert I played chess against Pascal. While in the States he achieved the level of Master (2200 rating) and played one game which was written up all over the world (mate in 14 moves). In short, at his prime he was a meaningful participant in the upper echelons of the international chess world. He kicked my ass. He then showed me his famous game, move by move. I would love to spend time reading chess books and internalizing even just a handful of variations…Chess

On my main blog I will discuss the best part of my stay with Pascal and Natallie, and that was our conversations. Some of the most acute cultural discussions I’ve had this whole trip.

Loire Valley is a beautiful place with loads of history. A good warm-up to Versailles, if you’re in to chateaus, or even if you just like wine, small towns, and a local culture.

Written on a 300 MPH bullet train from Fonteblieu to Paris

The Moroccan Immigrants Hawking Fake Gucci

Comments: 4 General/Misc. July 22, 2006

They’re everywhere in Europe. 10-15 black guys on a random sidewalk with various fake Gucci, Prada, and other brands I know nothing about. It’s shocking people would stop and buy what is so obviously fake and so obviously low quality.

The funniest relationship isn’t between these street vendors and their delusional patrons, but the vendors and the police. Without a license, the vendors are always on the run. The cops care enough to scare them but not arrest them. So every so often you’ll see a parade of black guys — I’m told from Morocco — running across a street holding their huge cardboard stands before settling down on some new sidewalk.

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Who Knows What Could Happen If You Raise Your Hand?

Comments: 1 Entrepreneurship

I’ve been a long-time supporter of the BizWorld Foundation; we deploy entreprenership curriculum into 5th grade classrooms. Since I’m in Europe I couldn’t speak at one of our recent youth events so I asked my buddy Ramit Sethi to go and on his blog he relays his experience. He did a wonderful exercise.

After giving them a simple overview of entrepreneurship–"entrepreneurs think about failure differently, take initiative, and challenge assumptions"–one of the things I said was, "Who thinks they can do something risky right now?" A few of them raised their hand, so I picked one of the students out and asked him to come up to the front of the room, where I gave him $5 and had everyone applaud him. His name was Em. See, I told them, there are 2 lessons I see:

1. Sometimes you can get great things just by raising your hand.
2. The world isn’t really fair. A few students raised their hand, but I picked him for no good reason. It’s easy to get discouraged, but the people who want to succeed will shrug it off and keep trying next time something like this happens.

This is similar to my post about calling that person you’ve always wanted to know. Who knows what could happen? The "worse case" scenario in Ramit’s exercise and in a cold call is embarrassment. It’s amazing how much fear of embarrassment drives our actions. As Steve Jobs said,

Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.

The Perceptions Of America From a "Populist" in the Pub and an "Elite" In a Restaurant

Comments: 3 Globalization

On my trip I am meeting a nice mix of highly educated businesspeople / writers / academics (through my network) as well as the more "comman man" (in bars, restaurants, on beaches, etc). There are consistent contrasts in how they respond to me, an American, and America more generally.

In Barcelona my friend and I went to an Irish Bar one night. We have both studied Irish writers and I had a successful stay in Ireland a few weeks ago. Unlike many Irish pubs, this one was Irish owned, showing Irish football on the TV, and we happened to sit down next to an Irishman comedy-club/music manager who immigrated to Barcelona a few years ago. He was a fun guy but "doesn’t want to visit America anytime soon". He has a kind of unacknowledged split in how he views my country. On the one hand he adores some of its cities (New York and San Francisco, he mentioned) and enjoys many of its cultural exports. On the other hand he deplores George W. Bush, the War in Iraq, etc. His opinions are more emotional than philosophical.

In Madrid we had dinner with a private equity business guy named Luis, who Chris Yeh introduced me to. Luis is a Madrid-based investor who attended Harvard Business School for a couple years and thus has acquired a honed "pro-market, pro-capitalist" outlook toward the world, making him seem like an alien to his Spanish business colleagues. We had a great time discussing Spanish politics, business, media, and life. Unlike the guy in the bar, Luis has a more favorable disposition toward America. It’s less charged and more nuanced: he admires the American model but qualifies his support saying what works for one country may not work in another.

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These are just two examples. It’s been healthy to interact with all kinds of people on my trip — in train stations, over dinner, in a park, at a tourist office. I’m not necessarily surprised that the businesspeople, scientists, and academics I’ve met have a considerably more enthusiastic view of the U.S. because they personally experience the country’s contributions in all those arenas. The guy in the bar isn’t employed by an American multinational, doesn’t collaborate with America’s science labs, doesn’t sell to the American market, and thus only bases his anti-Americanism on the America government as reported by European media.

I’m not big on "populist" techniques to learn about the world. I don’t buy the idea that "media elites" or academics are out of touch with "regular Americans." Heck, maybe I’m an elitist myself (ok, I confess, I am). But this doesn’t mean I should avoid the "bar conversations" altogether. Indeed, I would argue it’s the aggregate of thousands of conversations in bars around the world which together constitute the "public opinion" of a nation, a statistic so often quoted in newspapers. It’s this aggregate, not the "chattering classes" of academia, which is measured and is where one must influence minds.

Pickpocketing, AIDS, Marijuana, and Condoms – A Conversation in Lisbon

Comments: 5 Portugal

Today I was on the train coming back to Lisbon after a brief visit to a suburb to visit Microsoft.

I sit down next to an early 40 year old man dressed in a suit, well-kept. After I sit down he eyes me up and down. He says something to me in Portugese. I say “English.” He says, “Oh, thank god, I thought you like club XYZ. Club XYZ bad. Football. I don’t like. Your shirt is their colors.” I smiled and turned me head straght again, staring aimlessly.

“You’re from England?” he asks me.

“No, San Francisco. California.”

“Oh, California! Why are you in Lisbon?!”

“Tourist and some friends. It’s a beautiful city.”

“Pugh. Yeah right. No beautiful. Not compared to California. Ugly. Ugly city.”

“What, do you even live here?”

“I live in Lisbon. Grew up Lisbon. Work Lisbon. Have kids Lisbon. Married Lisbon. Whole life, Lisbon.”

“Uh-huh, well, I like your city.”

[1 minute pause]

“Where do you go next?”

“Paris.”

“Ah, Paris…..Be….Be…Be care, be careful.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Uh, um, um, uh, uh…AIDS.”

“AIDS?”

“Yes. AIDS. I mean, it nice city. Beautiful. Beautiful people. But AIDS. Don’t do prostitution. Always cary some, some, some, condoms in your pocket. Be careful.”

“Ok,” I laugh.

[train arrives in station]

“Can you tell me how to walk to Plaza de XYZ?” I ask him.

“Ah, follow me. I go that direction.”

As we walk along the street, he brings up my favorite topic: pickpockets and safety.

“Be careful for [hand gestures to signal pickpocketing].”

“Ah yes, I know, I’m being careful.”

“Too many people walk around with hands flailing and look up at sky and BOOM, watch, documents gone.”

“Yeah, I know, thanks.”

Literally a minute later a husky man comes out of no where, grabs the guy I’m talking to, reaches into his suit jacket for wallet, and runs off. Holy shit! I was just witness to a real pickpocketing right in front of my eyes, with the victim being a man who had just warned me! We both pursue the assailant, who runs into the sidewalk crowd, but then stops. My train friend grabs him. The assailant is laughing. What the fuck is going on I ask? I’m starting to think I’m being set up, all this is too bizarre. It turns out the husky man had heard the guy talk about pickpocketing, knew the guy, and then played a practical joke.

As I walk off my train-friend calls out one last time, “Be careful for pick pockets!” A few minutes later I meet Austin in a plaza and see him in conversation with a dark skinned man holding sunglasses. I think to myself, “He better not be buying face Gucci sunglasses.” I walk up behind him and play the same practical joke I had just witnessed — on Austin. Feeling his backpack zipper opening he flips out.

Only later do I realize I had chosen the best — or worst — time to play the joke. It turns out this “sunglass seller” was in fact hawking marijuana and cocaine, and Austin was just realizing this, and the vendor was becoming aggressive and Austin was trying to leave. He feared an accomplice would pop out of nowhere and steal wallet, which is just what happened (me)!

We were approached a couple times later in the day by druggies.

What a day.

Conversation of the Day in Portugal

Comments: 0 Portugal

In hotel lobby at front desk.

Me: “Do you know of a nearby laundry place where I can wash clothes?”

Receptionist: “Hmm…in the metro station there’s a laundry place.”

Me: “Self-service? You know, machines, I do it myself?”

Receptionist: “Oh self-service, no, no self-service.”

Me: “Do you know of self-service?”

Receptionist: “Nah, we don’t have self-service laundrymats in Portugal.

Me: “Really? Every European country I’ve been to has had laundrymats.”

Receptionists: “Look, I’ve seen your American movies, I know what you’re talking about, but we don’t have them in Portugal. Think Iraq or Africa. That’s the mentality of Portugal. No self-service.”

Me: [laughing]

Receptionist: “See, I made you laugh, that’s what’s important, who cares about dirty clothes?”

Indeed.

Quotes of the Day About Money and Water

Comments: 0 General/Misc.

“Part of me doesn’t even want to go to dinner tonight, so then I’ll be 7 fucking euros up on you.” – My traveling companion in Spain and Portugal. We are keeping track of the money we’re spending. Frugality is in.

“You are absolutely insane. You are totally insane.” – My traveling companion after I said I would charge him for drinking half my water bottle. Yes, I’m insane. I need water. What can I say?