Perhaps you have noticed the recent explosion of online start-ups. With capital requirements lower than ever for start-ups, venture capital funds have turned into accelerators that now spread the same pool of money across numerous young start-ups. International barriers to entry have been decimated by the Internet meaning aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world [...] →
Data visualization means taking a set of data and representing it with visual modeling,in a way that makes it easier to understand and observe patterns. In its simplest form, it can be a 2-dimensional chart or graph that represents a single dimension or a dataset. Or you can extrapolate complex representations as well. But what [...] →
When your web application is responding slowly, there are several levels at which the problem could be occurring. Until you instrument the application and begin the diagnostic journey, you really don’t know whether the problem is. It is often difficult to convince business stakeholders to allocate budget to uncover and fix an undefined problem, rather [...] →
Through a convergence of recent events, local small businesses (SMBs) are beginning to flock to online advertising. Businesses and consumers alike are making substantially less use of the Yellow Pages and other print directories to discover local merchants, in favor of more efficient tools search tools such as Google and Bing. Traditional rating and review [...] →
A debate has been raging for the past few years about the right way to build software products. There are essentially two schools of thought and the two are pitted against each other with as much conviction and animosity as a presidential election. And much like a political or religious debate, neither side seems to [...] →
Why is it that some companies are able to scale to International and financial acclaim, while others get mired in competition and struggle to stay alive? There are many obvious explanations of course such as finding good Product/Market fit (creating something people will pay for), and being competitive in terms of cost and value. But [...] →
It is no secret that the iPhone does not support Flash. Steve Jobs went as far as to explicitly rule out support of Flash by name, in his famous 2011 speech. And now, Adobe has responded by announcing they will no longer support or further develop the Flash platform. Instead, Adobe is quietly releasing a [...] →
The product manager is the person inside the organization who is responsible for the definition, development, maintenance, optimization, and ultimately the success of a product. They are the glue between the product development team (engineering) and the marketing team. Many companies are still organized around the management of people, but in recent years there has [...] →
Marketing technology is becoming increasingly important in organizations as online marketing becomes a larger part of the overall marketing strategy. Yet getting anything done for marketers in many of these organizations is becoming increasingly difficult. Marketers typically do not have insight into the technical underpinnings of the systems they rely upon and the IT department [...] →
Tonight I attended an event for Startups at CalTech. The event began with presentations given by several founders and wrapped up with a key note speech by Bill Gross. For anyone who does not know, Bill Gross is a legend in the startup community. He founded IdeaLab in Pasadena, which has incubated over 100 companies, [...] →