startups
- Because they’ll be largely negative? Maybe. Arrington and Siegler are full of a fire and insight that command pageviews like few other writers in the tech space.
- Because they would have been pointless? Maybe. After all, the deed is done.
- Because they would have been positive as in you-don’t-need-‘em, casting aspersions on Arrington and Siegler, former colleagues and still friends of Lacey’s? Maybe, but that’s the nature of the beast.
- Because Lacey got some advice about minimizing speculation and keeping the focus on the content, not what goes on behind the scenes.
- Because Lacey got some advice about maximizing speculation and keeping the focus on both the content and what goes on behind the scenes.
- Because the Pando’ board didn’t want to allow a potentially mean-spirited conversation about a decision they made on the site about which they made that decision.
Buffer CEO Joel Gascoigne's blog
Buffer CEO Joel Gascoigne’s blog
Joel Gascoigne is a co-founder and the CEO of Buffer, the most powerful tool for sharing and scheduling stuff across multiple social networks. It’s a great service and one I use almost daily. But more importantly, Joel’s thoughtful blog is a great way to read about how he and his co-founder, Leo Widrich, run a successful startup.
Pivot while there's still time
Pivot while there’s still time
Bobby Ghoshal, co-founder of the now-defunct social news app Flud:
A year after pivoting to the enterprise we were out of business […] because we ran out of money and investors didn’t have enough data to make a decision to jump on board.
I buy this reasoning. I read a lot about venture capital investors and how they conduct their due diligence.
Investors want to (as they should) gorge themselves on data before even discussing the possibility of backing your startup.
But if the first iteration of your idea falters and you’re too late to accept it or notice it or implement a pivot, getting to the next phase of development won’t save you because, as Ghoshal notes, the data won’t be there to convince investors to sign on the line which is dotted.
Of course, passion and user engagement is important when you’re building an app with a backend service. But all passion and users usually get you is a meeting.
It’s data that closes deals.
NoWait protects restaurants from the wrath of restless customers
NoWait protects restaurants from the wrath of restless customers
Rebecca Grant, writing at VentureBeat:
Restaurants can use this iPad app to keep track of available tables and alert customers with a text message when their table is ready.
This sounds like technology with the potential to go far beyond restaurant use cases.
What are some things I'd be shocked to learn about the outside world?
What are some things I’d be shocked to learn about the outside world?
Susan Wu, on Quora:
All products inherit the values of their creators and have a sort of corresponding ‘morality.’ When you create an algorithm, it’s optimizing for something — it might be that you think “saving time” is a value worth optimizing for. Or it could be that what you’re trying to optimize for is quantity (quantity of access, of distribution), which can often come at the cost of quality and depth of interaction. Or like most of us who are successful Americans, we automatically assume that our stance on individual rights and belief in the individualistic survival of the fittest / the elite will rise are “ideal” or “optimal.”. Another example is our cultural bias towards the “cult of the celebrity.”. And we tend to measure success by economic output.
This is geared toward inhabitants of the Silicon Valley “island” on which so many people become detached from reality, but much of it applies generally to life in a first-world country, as well.
Arrington and Siegler out at PandoDaily, don't bother trying to comment about it
As of Monday, April 9 the shareholders of PandoMedia voted to remove Michael Arrington as a director. Given the change in relationship we feel it’s inappropriate for CrunchFund’s partners Michael Arrington and MG Siegler to continue contributing to PandoDaily.
via pandodaily.com
Why?
Arrington has taken the news well, saying:
[…] the company notified me last week that they weren’t happy that I and MG Siegler (my partner at CrunchFund) were going to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt this coming May.
and
Even when I’m being thrown out, I support the entrepreneur. If Sarah feels that they’re better off without our involvement, I support her completely.
both quotes from Arrington’s post about the issue
Apparently, the fact that Arrington and fellow CrunchFund (< irony alert Re: that link…) partner MG Siegler are speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt was a firing offense. Siegler seemed as confused as Arrington, because PandoDaily founder Sarah Lacey knew about Arrington’s contractual obligation to speak at the conference when she took him on as an investor. Purchase Sildenafil online http://www.bantuhealth.org/viagra-buy/ Viagra online pharmacy no prescription.
What confuses me though is that Lacey disabled comments on her post announcing Arrington’s removal.
Why? Well, it’s stupid to speculate, but I’m feeling stupid at the moment. Maybe comments were disabled…
I like PandoDaily. The writers are great, the focus is great, the content is great. And they have a healthy commenting community.
All parties concerned are too thick-skinned for 1 or 3 to be accurate. 2 has never stopped a popular website from leaving comments enabled before.
4 and 5 are doubtful because Lacey is smart enough to know both are good suggestions, depending on the topic in question and the nature of your publication.
6 would just mean Lacey isn’t truly in control over there, and I find that very hard to believe.
So, my speculation seems to have turned out just as stupidly as I had expected. Turns out I wasn’t the only one engaged in stupid speculation, though.
Incidentally, Business Insider's Matt Rosoff claims the Arrington/Siegler tag team at Disrupt “pissed off PandoDaily CEO Andrew Anker,” implying that Arrington’s post about the issue suggested that. It didn’t, and Rosoff doesn’t mention any other potential source for the Anker line at all. Stupid speculation FTW!
At the end of the day, people are talking about Pando, and that can’t be a bad thing.