Monthly Archives: July 2011

A Shamelessly Gushing Review of Anything You Want

A couple of months ago I was given the opportunity to proof read a new book by Derek Sivers, called “Anything You Want”.

He has a knack of taking an idea and making it seem so obvious that you’re embarrassed to admit that you didn’t already think of the world in those terms. However, when that happens ten or fifteen times in the course of one book you have to accept that you didn’t already think those things, but will from here on in.

He is also one of those rare people who is able to write in his own voice – so when you read you can totally hear him saying the words.

Here is a taste (in this case it actually is him saying the words):

On top of it all he’s humble, given what he has achieved.  In fact, many of the stories are examples of the things he messed up through the process of building CD Baby, and the lessons that came from that. I especially enjoyed the honesty in the section where he describes selling the company:

“After a successful re-launch and Christmas rush, I was looking at my plans for 2008 and beyond. All my plans needed a huge effort for little reward, but were required for future growth. I had broken the plans into about twenty projects of two to twelve weeks each, and I wasn’t excited about any of them. I’d taken CD Baby far beyond my goals, and realized I had no big vision for its being much else.”

The book is full of advice, but it doesn’t feel like he’s telling you what to do so much as providing an inventory of stories and anecdotes that you can use to convince yourself or others why something is a good or not so good idea – e.g. next time you find yourself banging heads with an MBA you can explain why taxi drivers in Las Vegas miss the mob.

So, yeah, it’s excellent and you should all buy at least one copy.

Related:

Derek’s TED Talks:

Derek’s Blog

That’s where you lot come in…

… you come up with the science.

“I’ve got the brains.
You’ve got the looks.
Let’s make lots of money”
– Pet Shop Boys

Most of the people who contact me with an idea for a new technology business do not have the skills needed to actually make their product.

In fact, typically that’s why they are contacting me – they presumably think I will want to build it, or else introduce them to one of my technical friends who can.

They don’t seem to realise that their idea by itself is just like the hover board in this Ali G sketch:

On the other side of the equation, there are a lot of developers and designers out there who think that the only piece of the puzzle they are missing is an idea worth executing, as if you just need to build it and they will come (and as if the majority of ideas worth executing are obviously worth executing in advance).

Most of the successful ventures that I’m involved with who have technical co-founders are soon desperate for good quality sales and business development people to help them grow – e.g. Vend has a great opportunity for the right person now, for those of you based in Auckland.

This is silly. The farmer and the cowman should be friends.

Imagine a matchmaking service – where people with a business idea could connect with developers looking for something worth building, and where technical founders could connect with those who are not afraid of talking to people and selling and doing deals.

Imagine … if only I could find somebody to build it ;-)

Questions about your venture


I get contacted by a lot of people who want to talk about their great idea for a new business. Nearly all of them want to meet for a coffee or chat.

I’m time poor and don’t drink coffee – there are unfortunately not enough hours in the day for me to talk in person with everybody.

So, as a substitute for caffeine I normally start with these nine questions:

  1. What is the product?
    A brief description is fine, in fact if you can’t describe it succinctly that’s a warning sign straight away.
  2. How do you know it’s something that people want?
    The only answer I’m really interested in is “because more and more of them are already paying for it”, so expand on that :-)
  3. Who is on the team?
    Again, a brief bio/background is fine.
  4. How do you make money?
    What are the unit economics?
  5. How will people learn about you?
    What is your sales process? How repeatable is it? What does it cost you to get a new customer?
  6. How will you start?
    Can it work small? How will you scale? Are there network effects? What about the idea will be remarkable?
  7. What is the competition and how do you compare?
  8. What are you doing that’s hard?
    What will others find difficult to copy/replicate if you’re successful?
  9. What do you need?
    How much investment are you looking for, and at what valuation? Or, if you don’t need/want investment, what specific help can others provide?

Questions like these are a good way to test the viability of a venture. I’ve found that asking for this information ahead of a talking in person is a useful filter – it’s surprising how often I don’t get a response.

For some #3 and #9 are the difficult questions. If all you have is an idea, and haven’t given any thought to who you will need to work with and how much it will all cost, then you’re probably getting well ahead of yourself in talking to people like me.

For others #4 and #5 are the toughest, because their idea doesn’t have an obvious business model. It’s important to make the distinction between a venture, which has some potential to make money, and a hobby, which is just for fun.

The best thing you can do to stand out from the crowd is to point me at a product that I can use and, even better, that you are already selling. It doesn’t have to be polished or even finished, as long as you have planned for the work required to turn it into something that is ready to be used in anger.

Nothing impresses potential investors like scrappy execution. Most people don’t get that far.

Last, but not least, please don’t just ask me to refer you to the other better known investors I am fortunate to know. They are also easily contactable, are just as likely to reply to an unsolicited email and will probably ask the same questions as me anyway. If I don’t know you at all I’m unlikely to make an introduction.

After all of that, if you’re still interested, then your venture must be awesome and I look forward to hearing from you!

Ten Years Ago

I was asked to speak to the Trade Me Commercial team off-site this morning. There are now 35 people in this team – more than in the entire company in 2004, when the commercial team was MOD.

So, please excuse the reminiscent mood…

Ten years ago this week I left New Zealand to live in London.

I had recently sold my start-up to Trade Me in return for stock. Trade Me was valued at about $1m in that deal. Shortly after that shareholders were asked to provide loans to keep the company afloat while we waited for the recently introduced success fees to start to cover costs.

I had mixed feelings about leaving. I’d spent a pretty full-on couple of years at Trade Me and was pretty proud of what I’d helped to create. But I was a little jaded too and ready for something new.

I was also just married.

I had organised a sponsored work permit to get into the UK, and can only imagine how that must have looked to the person processing our visa applications.

We had no idea…

We were up for an adventure, but within a couple of months we’d be struggling to find new work post 9/11 and wondering what the hell we’d gotten ourselves into. Partly in an effort to deal with the stress of that situation, I started running.

As it turned out Trade Me and impending parenthood would eventually entice us back, but we returned having fallen in love with London and with a new perspective courtesy of travel to some amazing parts of the world.

It seems like yesterday, until I think about everything that has happened between then and now at which point it seems like half a lifetime ago.

Middle Ground

Here are a couple of things that might make you think:

Firstly, Kathryn Ryan’s interview with High Court Judge Justice Joe Williams:

Justice Joe Williams on leading the Wai 262 inquiry

He talks a little about the concept of kaitiakitanga, or guardianship of physical and cultural environments and knowledge, and specifically where this overlaps with the modern idea of intellectual property rights especially where these are used in commercial settings.

As he succinctly describes it (my emphasis added):

“… thinking about how we value this environment, that we share.”

I recommend you listen to the whole interview and would be surprised if you don’t learn something in the process.

(if you have an iPhone or iPad, may you allow me to recommend the official Radio New Zealand app for your listening pleasure!)

Secondly, Lawrence Lessigs keynote presentation from the recent NetHui event organised by InternetNZ:

Among his important suggestions for policy makers is this: assume there is an internet.

Or put another way slightly later in the presentation:

“to protect the future, you need to protect the equality, that produces the sense of entitlement and insight and freedom that the internet has given us, and to resolve the inevitable policy problems we have to churn those problems through democracies that are not corrupt”

Both have clearly thought deeply about these issues, and it’s interesting to hear both of them talking about the importance of finding the middle ground.

Lessig asks New Zealanders to continue to resist US extremism on intellectual property matters, in order to avoid importing US corruption.

I wonder if the is an aspiration even greater than that: perhaps exporting the idea of kaitiakitanga to other places in the world that are willing.