Rollinglobe No Sleep ‘Til Switzerland 2010 Promo Tour!!!

At Rollinglobe we’re running a Promo Tour through Barcelona, Florence, and Interlaken, Switzerland to launch our Rollinglobe Store and giving away trips to Oktoberfest, skydiving in the Alps, and surfing in Morocco. Check it out!!!

Quora… what AskJeeves always wanted to be

Quora is what Ask.com (AskJeeves) always wanted to be… but it’s not really anyone’s fault. If anything you could argue that AskJeeves was about 10 years too early for the perfect conditions to truly flourish. Disclaimer: I am jumping the shark. Who’s to say Quora is anything but a flash in the pan with a great team tackling a big problem in a legit bubble of hype. But then again, that’s why blogs are here… for a seemingly unqualified observer to prognosticate their opinion to an open mind.

This phenomenon of curiosity is prevalent everywhere we look, from a think tank in DC to a church congregation on Sunday to a dog sniffing new territory. At its most basic level, it’s curiosity of a subject that evokes action. A dog sniffs around the park because there is an element of unknown and the desire to discover the unknown is innate. In the simple mind of a dog, I would imagine the process goes somewhat like this:

Peanut breath > Squirrel stench > Jackpot… a furry light appetizer

This process isn’t too far from our standard method for search online… shit, Google makes billions catering to this natural tendency. Type in a single point of curiosity and bam! Sniff around all you want until you can find exactly what you’re looking for…

Now, being the intellectually superior beings that we are, humans have created a more sophisticated method of interaction… language. Instead of acting on an unknown, we question it. But it’s naïve to think that this complex system of interaction happened over night. Millions of years were needed to set the foundation for communication let alone, reason, rationality, and most importantly qualification.

And that’s the argument here. In order facilitate a legitimate interaction online in the form of Q&A, you needed a foundation. You needed to communicate and argue with reason and rationality, borne from an actual identity with some level of qualification. Applying this methodology of questioning to a world with out these structures left you with at best, an unreliable set of answer… and that’s what AskJeeves was.

Today, Quora has the foundation of communication and qualification (namely through their old employers, Facebook) to facilitate a higher level of interaction.

What’s your favorite startup?

I was in a meeting recently where the question, ‘what are your other favorite startups?’, popped up. What a great question. In the imperfect science of entrepreneurialism, our hypotheses are based on the laws of comparison. A recognized theme, trend or belief applied to a new market, group, or subject.

Now the key word in this conversation was ‘other’… being any company besides my own, Rollinglobe, which was the main topic of the meeting. My natural answer was Etsy. Etsy in the lateral comparison I use when describing Rollinglobe. Rollinglobe is the Etsy for tour operators and travel vendors (see how I just did that?). The model is solid. Use technology to enable, in our case, local service providers to reach larger markets.

That concept is part of a larger theme, which I fully embrace…. the use of technology to overcome, breakdown, or diminish barriers. While, there are plenty of examples of truly innovative ideas that create a new need or world, I’m admittedly too much of a realistic, pessimist, or idiot to identity those ground breaking concepts.

For me, I like looking at tried and true businesses, interactions that happened yesterday and will happen tomorrow, and going from there. These businesses have natural barriers and they have adapted to function within or around these walls… and the challenge is to hurdle.

I love making a standard practice easier. That’s why my second answer to the question was Venmo, and my third answer was 20×200. I threw in Flavors.me because I just think it’s cool as shit.

But which came first? There’s definitely a chicken and egg thing going on here. Did I start Rollinglobe because it emulates the theme I embrace? Or did I weave a decent sounding concept into the rationale for why my company will be successful?

I like to think the idea was always there and it’s getting nicely polished along the way.

Convincing Your Market

Last post I talked about contextual and societal qualifiers that prove the value of a product… in a less than demure fashion I might add (Sorry about that, but you perked right up when I started talking about shit, didn’t you?).

The point is, that to truly replicate a market online, you can not forget about the challenge of proving a need. Just throwing a product out there, available to the market, will only get you so far. And it is here that innovation is needed to bring e-commerce to the next level of the game.

We as sellers we have to create a world of need (or desire) through the use of context. And how do you create that seemingly easy to comprehend world of context? Content. Explain your product, its advantages and disadvantages. Tell a story. Paint a picture. Sing a song. Anything to put your customer in a mindset where the world isn’t right without your product.

But let’s be serious. A good thing is only good when you can share it with others. The others don’t necessarily have to have the same product but they need to understand that there is value in owning it… maybe even coveting it. Often times the value of a product is only as high as what others will pay for it. This is a KEY element of any market that we must acknowledge. Social validation drives consumer goods.

As the organizer of a market you must embrace and endorse the often intangible contextual and societal elements that drive the value of good.

I said earlier how certain elements were in place to help create e-commerce 1.0, namely the developments of transportation and shipping, currency markets, identity security, etc. Today there are several elements in place to help create e-commerce 2.0. Content creation couldn’t be easier with Flickr, Youtube, WordPress… I could go on and on but the point is create that world of need. If you’re looking for product validation all you have to do is bringing in the social worlds of Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The elements are there, now go out and start convincing your market.

Convincing Markets

Last post I talked about creating a market and ended on the note that qualification is key to truly bringing a market online. In order to sell something, you MUST convince the buyer.

So how do we, as sellers, convince someone to buy our product? We simply have to prove its value. If you’re lucky, the value of your product is innately understood in the marketplace. Even when you’re not qualifying the need for A product you are qualifying the need for YOUR product, right here right now. To do that, you need a value proposition.

Without getting to in depth, you need to create an environment where the need for your product is realized. There are many ways to do this but the most natural is context. Let’s take an example.

Toilet Paper

You are going to eat. Your body will extract all the nutrients of that food and dismiss the rest. At which point it will expel any unneeded or unwanted byproducts. Now the body is a beautiful thing but sometimes it just doesn’t get the job done and you’re there left to clean up the mess. Low and behold, I’ve got just the thing to help you out… toilet paper.

There you go, you’ve described a situation, highlighted the problem, and supplied a solution, your product. All in a context that anyone can understand.

But why?

Well besides the hygienic reasons, and I’m no doctor, I can definitively say that you don’t want to smell. Why? Because the people you interact with on a daily basis expect you not to smell like shit. It is the law of the land by which we live.

And there’s your social validation. If you want to be part of a normal, functioning society, you’ve got to keep yourself clean. And the best way to do that is by using my product, toilet paper.

Seeing a digitized image of a white, fluffy roll of paper on Ebay does little to convey the need for such a product. But the context by which we live and the societal rules that we abide by clearly prove the need for Charmin Extra Soft.

Making Markets

Of all the innovation going on these days, one of the hottest topics around is e-commerce. E-Commerce 1.0 was one of the most successful implementations of internet technology to truly revolutionize an industry(s). The act of buying and selling goods has been the backbone of any economy since day 1. It was only natural to use the internet as a tool to breakdown the traditional barriers that inhibited the exchange of goods.

Of course there were other elements at work, namely the developments of transportation and shipping, currency markets, identity security, and so on that created a world ripe for such innovation. The culmination of these elements came to brew the very fruitful process we now know as e-commerce.

After a decade or so of success, we are now starting to hear people claim that this process is antiquated compared to other areas of technological innovation… and I would tend to agree. This is not to say that the process is flawed; it most certainly is not and there is still huge opportunity to implement these relatively stale methodologies in countless industries with wild success. But the proliferation of new technologies, specifically with respect to contextual and social elements, are creating huge potential for HOW we exchange goods.

First, it’s important to take a step back and look at how a market is created. At its core, the market is made up of both a willing buyer and seller. Now e-commerce 1.0 championed the process of bringing these 2 crucial entities to a single location in order to facilitate the trade but one thing that gets overlooked in the discussion is the good itself.

Before talking about market participants you’ve got to address the good. What is it? Why should I want it? What will it do for me? These questions, or more aptly, the answers are often taken for granted. Most of the markets that have migrated online have been in existence for many years before the internet. The value of the goods are inherently understood among participants. Still, in order to understand the inner workings, and potential, of any market you need to focus on this question.

Yeah yeah you’re thinking…. I don’t need a lesson on the nature of a market. And to that I would argue, as markets and commerce move more and more into a virtual world we begin to lose some of the tangible elements that qualify the value of a good. Simply stating the description of a product is only effective when the buyer can naturally understand the value of that description. In a farmers market or at Best Buy there are contextual and societal elements that help the buyer understand why something is, or should be, of value to them. These are the elements that have greased the engines of commerce for thousands of years and will continue to for another thousand.

And while e-commerce 1.0 has done a tremendous job of bringing together buyers and sellers into a new marketplace and even succeeded in defining tangible products in a virtual world. It is the intangible market forces that qualify the value which are so often missing.

If e-commerce is ever going to truly replace walking into a Best Buy or strolling through a farmers market on a Saturday afternoon, it is the act of qualification that must be championed.

Is Facebook the AOL of yesterday?

Back in the day AOL was pretty much the sole tap into ‘the internet’. For the general consumer, that sign on was the only way to access the underlying structure of the web. They had a pretty good run at regulating this flow of information but we all know how the story goes…

My question is, are we witnessing a similar phenomenon today? We can all agree that social networks are creating an underlying structure of interconnectivity based around identity and interaction. Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter et al, are building the railroad tracks of the social graph as well as pioneering its migration into the new (old) world of the broader internet. But is this the creation of a social information pipeline? I think so.

As seen in the past, activity tends to congregate around these portals that control access to the pipeline. This is most certainly the case with Facebook and Twitter who tightly regulate the connection to their pipeline. But what happens when new entrance points become available?

Twitter developers have voiced the desire to create a pipeline away from the main site supported by 3^rd party apps. Now a couple of NYU students are tackling the social network from a new angle with their sights set on Facebook.

At best it’s an open-ended question to ponder but one that will definitely be in the back of my mind.

Shape up

A quick glance at my posts and it’s clearly apparent that some sort of structure is needed. I tackled the issue of starting a blog the same way I tackle a lot of things. Procrastinate, procrastinate, jump in head first, realize what I’m dealing with.

I’m an over thinker. My mind races analyzing the past, present, and future and all the possibilities there within. If you ever catch me when I’m exhausted and the translator that regulates what I’m thinking and what I’m saying is broken you’d understand what I mean, or maybe not.

But I don’t believe in changing who you are. I’m actually an advocate of embracing who you are. So instead of conforming to some standard of what I think a blog should be, I’m just going to let it flow.

Some people think I talk too much while others think I talk too little… not sure exactly what to say to that except, past performance does not indicate future results. While I can’t guarantee much, consistency is important and something I am actively trying to address.

I may not have the time to articulate a well thought argument but I do do a great job a staying update to day on the most recent developments (one of my favorite habits from working on a trading desk). So even if it’s just a link to an interesting article… it will be worthwhile. I’m a good filter.

Are you a provider or a consumer?

There are two types of people in the media complex, media providers and media consumers. While it’s gotten a whole hell of a lot easier to be both a provider and consumer thanks to social media, the overwhelming majority of us are still media consumers.

I’ll admit it, I’m a consumer. For every status update or tweet, I’m taking 100x more out of the system than putting back. For every article read vs written that number is probably closer to 1000x or 10000x. But I’m actively trying to improve (like right now!). I know I’ve been a glutton, allow me to explain.

Delivering quality content is time consuming. I want to do it but I just don’t have the time. My boss says, ‘excuses only satisfy those who make them’, but shit… he’s taking up all my time.

I’m a bond trader at an electronic broker/dealer in New York. My company is owned by a few major investment banks that highly regulate their public image and for that reason alone shall go nameless. Now the job is great and quickly using technology to transform the OTC fixed income marketplace. One of the few gripes I have is the limit put on my interests outside of Fabozzi related topics. My day is spent tightly regulating the flow of information when I’d rather be loosely regulating the flow of inspiration coming my way.

Besides a quick stint at the gym, I’m a big fan of crossfit.com, I spend my nights and weekends on a startup of my own, www.rollinglobe.com. Hence the desire to get involved in the first place. Unfortunately I wasn’t warned when I started out,… this is hard work! Then again, I probably wasn’t listening to the negatives, which tends to happen when you’re passionate about a topic.

The point is, when I’m not squeezing out another hr in the day whether in the bond market or creating a market of my own, then I should be telling others about it. I’m not going to sit here and talk about why you should blog, or do anything else for that matter. There’s more than enough people out there using social media to push their own agenda (myself included)

But not here. This space is reserved for my own learning, my own categorizing of the things I see from the driver seat. It’s here for me and it’s here for anyone else interested my perspective.

Ding Ding…. Round 2

I started this blog a few months ago sparked by the motivation to get involved in the start up community but more importantly to reflect and categorize my thoughts as I enrolled in the greatest crash course ever created… starting a business (or at least attempting to).

I’ve been selfish… and I’m not surprised, it’s pretty typical behavior for me. In school I could sit there, listen, read a little, and understand a topic. Homework was never a strong point of my academic career. It was for those who didn’t get it, who needed the practice. Why waste my time going over stuff I already knew when there was so much out there I didn’t know. I probably spent more time trying to figure out how to get out of homework, a TA session, or going to class, than if I just followed the syllabus. But it didn’t matter… the only thing that mattered was the test and grade that followed. All those hours boiled down to 2 tests>1 grade>1 semester>1 degree. Nowadays it seems like the values of that test, grade, and even degree are diminishing with every year I get older.

No one cares where you went to school (or shouldn’t at least) and your GPA is a meaningless number to anyone worth an opinion. I shouldn’t say that, academic pedigree and performance are decent filters and indicators of general intelligence and competence. If you are in school, then test scores, clubs, and accomplishments are extremely important because it shows how you interact in your natural environment. Just like standardized tests, these aspects serve as a great basis for comparison. But it’s as much about ‘what you HAVE done’ as it is about ‘what you WILL do for me’.

So what’s the whole point of this tangent? There are no tests in the real world – save me the alpha dog, everything is a test bullshit. You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Now I like tests. It’s a method of intellectual validation that I’m generally pretty decent at. So you can imagine that in the class of entrepreneurism, without those structures of validation, I’m feeling a little at a loss in the ego department. So in the short term, I’m tending to this need with a blog. Hopefully it will serve its purpose in Round 2.