johnny won - human

Growth Hacker

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:50:40 -0400

I honestly thought this would be a bullshit post but I was totally wrong.

Marketing+APIs+Doing it

This really is a great case study and without a doubt, marketers suck at understanding how to promote through APIs.

"We’re Fucked It’s Over” (WFIO)"

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:49:54 -0400

““We’re Fucked It’s Over” (WFIO)”

- Things To Consider Before Saying “I Do” To Investors | TechCrunch

Nice acronym to keep memorized.

The Day After - NYTimes.com

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:02:54 -0400

The Day After - NYTimes.com:

Quite a good opinion piece in the New York Times about the day after North Korea falls. The question of when North Korea falls is insignificant when rebuilding North Korea will take decades upon decades. Shin Dong-hyuk’s “Escame from Camp 14” only touches upon the incredibly alien existence of North Korea.

Dubin wrote the spot last October and shot it with his good...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:52:56 -0500

Dubin wrote the spot last October and shot it with his good friend and co-director, Lucia Aniello. It cost about $4,500 and the team managed to bang it out in a single day, shooting on location at the actual factory warehouse, at their fulfillment center in Gardena, California. (via A Startup Ad Pivot: Behind The Dollar Shave Club Promo | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce)

Now this is a startup video.

(via Apple Wins Patent for iWallet: The one that will rule the...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:23:00 -0500

(via Apple Wins Patent for iWallet: The one that will rule the World - Patently Apple)

Apple’s iWallet patent shows exactly what Apple could do. This is why I’m excited:

Read this patent for Apple’s iPhone integrating NFC for mobile payments with the iTunes Store.

Now look at $AAPL.

The general theory in mobile+NFC has been this: the moment Apple’s iPhone has NFC for mobile payments, the entire world will embrace NFC. Literally, it’ll be almost over night. Like how Apple made smartphones with keyboards completely irrelevant or an iPad to be the standard for tablets; I think this will change everything.

I believe this will happen for several reasons:

The iPhone’s overall position as a smartphone sales leader places it either number one or number two in whatever available ranking. An iPhone 5/5s/6 would be able to immediately make a dent in the market.
The hundreds of millions of credit card accounts tied to an iTunes/App Store account let this feature work immediately out of the box. Setup would be blindingly simple.
Merchants with NFC swipe capable credit card readers would have to do nothing.
Apple’s marketing genius (ie: running tons of TV ads showing a product demo) would make understanding how this works ubiquitous.

The hundred billion dollar wrinkle of all this is simple but crazy. If Apple let users put in their bank information into iTunes, Apple will have invented a better debit card.

Of course, it’s actually way more complicated than that but Apple could offer merchants a lower fee to process the transaction (let’s say Apple takes 2% to Visa’s 3.5%), the user doesn’t have to pay anything extra and iTunes would show a charge that would be pulled at little cost from the bank (credit card fees > debit card fees > direct debit payments).

Users would love the superior experience. Merchants would relish a new competitor to the Mastercard, Visa, American Express card fee oligopoly. And Apple would be able to profit on every transaction.

I don’t think Apple is thinking about a NFC payment system, an Apple iPhone enabled NFC payment system will happen and it’s only a matter of time (this year’s 5 or ‘13’s 5s is my bet). The 2nd part that I wrote about, the disruption to the credit card fee oligarchs, is more of an if but I believe Apple’s interests are strong enough that it will absolutely happen. If this is the case, Apple’s stock is worth billions more than what it is today.

Lastly, it’s important to note a final point about Apple. Apple doesn’t go into markets because money can be made. They go into markets because they can make the experience significantly better than the status quo and find healthy profits. Mobile payments as an industry right now is a total mess (Isis, Google Wallet, Wal-Mart+Target) and the credit card fees charged on merchants make no one happy (take a guess what Apple pays out to credit card fees, this can be calculated). This is why the “iWallet” patent is so exciting, a completely better experience is around the corner.

"What’s holding back mobile ad spending is the almost caveman like belief that display..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:44:06 -0500

“What’s holding back mobile ad spending is the almost caveman like belief that display advertising is going to be relevant on a mobile device the way that it is in a magazine. The truth is that meaningful, measurable brand engagement - that companies will be willing to put meaningful dollars to work with, will not come from display advertising on phones, but through more engaging experiences like the app ecosystem or social experiences. Lets stop trying to pretend that the mobile ad space is a great delivery vehicle for display advertising, and we will see mobile as a brand/commerce marketing opportunity take off at scale.”

- — Jeffrey Dachis

What’s Holding Back Mobile-Ad Spending? | Digital - Advertising Age

Hmmm. Something worth thinking about.

The “Galapagos effect” in Japan

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0500

Fantastic Japanese denim & neo-French style pastries are great and everything but the Economist smartly points out the Japanese electronic manufactures are hemorrhaging money.

$17 billion in fiscal 2011 losses for Sony, Panasonic & Sharp? With no Japanese manufacturer seems capable of making a profitable LCD TV nor a globally competitive cell phone, it’s sad times for that Japanese.

This whole article does make you wonder about reiterating in isolation. Do firms and or people have enough self-awareness of working in the galapagos?

The headline, the tweet, and the unfair significance of Jeremy Lin - Grantland

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:11:10 -0500

The headline, the tweet, and the unfair significance of Jeremy Lin - Grantland:

By far one of the best things I’ve read in the past week. Jay Caspian Kang had a bit of a different childhood than what I experienced but an outstanding essay about the state of the current issues facing Asian Americans. It’s a good place and a weird place.

Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom? - NYTimes.com

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:43:29 -0500

Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom? - NYTimes.com:

In their book “Freakonomics,” Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt explain, among other things, the odd economic behavior that guides many drug dealers. In one gang they described, the typical street-corner guy made less than minimum wage but still worked extremely hard in hopes of some day becoming one of the few wildly rich kingpins. This behavior isn’t isolated to illegal activity. There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.

This more or less explains Hollywood.

This more or less explains Advertising.

Freemium Games

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:30:22 -0500

There is a lot to explore here and I like EA’s freemium push with the Simpsons. A nice proof point showing how it works with Temple Run:

Right before we switched it to free in September, we had a couple hundred downloads/day at 99 cents, with some in-app purchase sales. After switching it to free and settling at No. 100 Top Free app, we had about 50,000 daily downloads, and a whole lot more in-app purchases. In fact, revenue went up 10x immediately upon switching to free, so keeping it free was a no brainer.

— Temple Run developer Imangi Studios’ Natalia Luckyanova in Venture Beat

Is Tokyo the best place on earth for food, denim & drink in the world or what? Who wants to go?

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:41:47 -0500

For decades, Japan simply imported the wares of foreign cultures, but recession has led to invention. The country has begun creating the finest American denim, French cuisine and Italian espresso in the world. Now is the time to visit.

Made Better in Japan - WSJ.com

Born or Raised In the U.S., Why Are Entrepreneurs Returning to Korea? | Inc.com

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:20:03 -0500

Born or Raised In the U.S., Why Are Entrepreneurs Returning to Korea? | Inc.com:

It’s funny, the story really doesn’t address the question with a well defined answer but it doesn’t really matter. The beauty of the story is the amount of hustle by the Korean-Americans & internationally minded Korean nationals trying to reconquer the old-school Chaebol powered Korea.

If it means sleeping on a futon next to your desk for a year to win then so be it. I’d do it in a heartbeat.

"SOME parents give their children cakes. A few give them cake shops. The hot topic in South Korea is..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:33:02 -0500

“SOME parents give their children cakes. A few give them cake shops. The hot topic in South Korea is the trend for daughters and grand-daughters of chaebol families to open bakeries and other small food outlets.”

- Bakers and chaebol in South Korea: Let them eat cake | The Economist

This in a nutshell defines Korea’s chaebol problem.

"The Asian woman speaking in this video would be no different than him having a black person speaking..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:02:06 -0500

“The Asian woman speaking in this video would be no different than him having a black person speaking in slave dialect”

- — The Rev. Charles Williams II of Detroit’s King Solomon Baptist church

Pete Hoekstra Ad Draws More Criticism, Called ‘Really, Really Dumb’

Pretty much dead on.

Facebook Files for an I.P.O. - NYTimes.com

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:27:15 -0500

Facebook Files for an I.P.O. - NYTimes.com:

And a new era begins. The publicly traded social networking company.

How Samuel Palmisano of I.B.M. Stayed a Step Ahead - Unboxed - NYTimes.com

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:51:56 -0500

How Samuel Palmisano of I.B.M. Stayed a Step Ahead - Unboxed - NYTimes.com:

IBM is at an entirely different level than what people would assume. Totally closer to an Apple or Amazon than a Microsoft or Yahoo.

4 reasons:

This column is a glimpse of the thinking behind some of the major steps I.B.M. has taken under Mr. Palmisano’s leadership, based on two recent interviews with him.

He says his guiding framework boils down to four questions:

• “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”

• “Why would somebody work for you?”

• “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”

• “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”

…

The four questions, he explains, were a way to focus thinking and prod the company beyond its comfort zone and to make I.B.M. pre-eminent again. He presented the four-question framework to the company’s top 300 managers at a meeting in early 2003 in Boca Raton, Fla.

“This needs to be our mission and goal, to make I.B.M. a great company,” he said, according to executives who attended the gathering.

THE pursuit of excellence in those four dimensions shaped the strategy. To focus on doing unique work, with its higher profits, meant getting out of low-margin businesses that were fading. I.B.M.’s long-range technology assessment in 2002 concluded that the personal computer business would no longer present much opportunity for innovation, at least not in the corporate market.

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives - Forbes

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:24:45 -0500

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives - Forbes:

Pretty much ego, hubris, vanity, hype & the lack of imagination.

The Downside of Obvious

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:00:00 -0500

It occurs to me at the beginning of 2012 that the most obvious business decisions in 2011 are the decisions that needed the most scrutiny and thoughtful analysis. Coming up with a disruptive web product or a business idea can’t be obvious nor can it be simple; they should be both brutally ridiculed and as Fred Wilson notes, mocked and misunderstood.

My lesson from 2011 is the obvious products and ideas that are praised for their simplicity are stripped of their disruptive quality that only the unknown can offer. And when building a disruptive product or idea, the unknown is far more limitless than what is known.

Going forward, this framework sounds like an excellent litmus test to make the most disruptive and challenging ideas come to life. There is something that should be uncomfortable about building the obvious to everyone idea because it truly indicates that the upside is nil.

(via A VC: Mocked And Misunderstood)

BRIC for Mobile. Worth Billions of $. Calling it now: (via A VC:...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:36:50 -0500

BRIC for Mobile. Worth Billions of $. Calling it now: (via A VC: Where To Find Your Future Customers/Users)

"Shift the dynamic of business away from gaming the expectations market and back to doing the real..."

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:19:48 -0500

“Shift the dynamic of business away from gaming the expectations market and back to doing the real job of delighting customers.”

- The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value - Forbes

A nice goal for everyone in 2012.