Monday, April 9, 2012

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Sephora Doubles Down On Tech: In-Store iPads, Revamped Website, Pinterest Tie-In Top
sephoraSephora, the cosmetics retailer, is still best known for its brick-and-mortar shops that let customers test out high-end makeup, skincare and fragrance products with less pressure than typically comes with department store beauty counters. But that doesn't mean the company, which has its US headquarters in San Francisco, isn't focused on the increasingly important world of virtual shopping. To that end, Sephora today rolled out what it's calling a "social and mobile makeover." The new updates are pretty visual, so we swung by Sephora's San Francisco flagship store to talk with its senior vice president of digital, Julie Bornstein, about the company's strategy. Watch the video above to see why Sephora is embracing the constant comparison-shopping element that the web has brought, how the company's San Francisco headquarters influences its tech focus, and more.
 
Strategy For Startups: The Innovator's Dilemma Top
929005910_a12cbbc1ecStrategy. Unfortunately, it suffers from a bad reputation among startups. It is associated with consultants who are paid millions of dollars only to come back with a two-by-two matrix of animals. Not that there is anything wrong with it. Some of my best friends are consultants. However, strategy is crucial for startup success. Startups usually operate in an environment of constrained resources while competing with strong incumbents. Hence, the right strategy can be a matter of life and death. This post is the first in a series of posts that will explore concepts in strategy and how they apply to startups.
 
Hooking Users In 3 Steps Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-05 at 1.49.04 AMThe truly great consumer technology companies of the past 25 years have all had one thing in common: They created habits. This is what separates world-changing businesses from the rest. Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are used daily by a high proportion of their users and their products are so compelling that many of us struggle to imagine life before they existed. But creating habits is easier said than done. Though I've written extensively about behavior engineering and the importance of habits to the future of the web, few resources give entrepreneurs the tools they need to design and measure user habits. It's not that these techniques don't exist -- in fact, they're quite familiar to people in all the companies named above. However, to the new entrepreneur, they largely remain a mystery.
 
[Excerpt] Fundraising: From $1,000 To $1,000,000 Top
fundraisingEditor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Onswipe CEO Jason L. Baptiste's new book The Ultralight Startup: Launching a Business Without Clout or Capital. If you pay attention to the headlines about startups getting millions of dollars of funding from investors, venture capitalists, or partnerships, you might think the fund-raising process happens overnight. It all sounds so easy: Some entrepreneur with a thousand dollars in his pocket creates a great PowerPoint investor presentation, secures a few meetings with important people, and bam! A handshake, some signatures, and the deal is done. The reality is a little trickier. Fund-raising is a process, and although the right pitch might come in handy, in this chapter I'll discuss the practical start-to-finish way to think about fund-raising that will get you the money you want in the end.
 
Silicon Valley Needs To Take Itself More Seriously* Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-08 at 4.42.08 PM
"Silicon Valley is high school, except it's only the smart kids, and everyone has a lot of money." -- Kim Taylor, "Silicon Valley" star.
For an industry so reliant on the wholehearted embrace of the future, many technologists and pundits seem so completely resistant to change it's mind-boggling.
 
Push notification and the Beginner's Mind Top
underconstructionPush notification and the fabric it creates are about what comes next. Not what we know, but what we're about to know. The next step, the one we're about to take, the moment when the foot is in the air and hasn't yet figured out exactly where to land. It's like putting english on a tennis return, or the release of the ball in a pitch, the moment when you commit to whatever the strategy is.
 
Patent Law 101: What's Wrong And Ways To Make It Right Top
Patent-Law1Patent blogs were lit up after the Supreme Court's decision in Prometheus v. Mayo. Some have hailed the decision as a "harbinger of progress to come" while others have denounced it as revealing "just how little the Court understands the nuances of science, philosophy and language – let alone the patent law itself." Describing the decision as "controversial" is probably an understatement. The opinion focused primarily on Section 101 of the United States Patent Act, which sets out the basic categories of patent eligible subject matter. The statute is short and sweet: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefore ..." So simple, right?
 
Things To Consider Before Saying "I Do" To Investors Top
i doThe right investor, the kind who can help startups get over the inevitable "We're Fucked It's Over" (WFIO) moments, can turn a startup into a multi-billion dollar company. The fact is that choosing the right investors, whether it be at the seed level or at a Series B or C stage is a life-changing decision for an entrepreneur and a startup. The wrong investor match could derail a startup. "It's like a marriage and it might even last longer." That's how Kleiner Perkins partner Chi-Hua Chien describes the relationship between investor and entrepreneur. And he's not joking in the least bit.
 
What The Cloud Doesn't Do Top
CloudsEditor's Note: Alexander Haislip is a marketing executive with cloud-based server automation startup ScaleXtreme and the author of Essentials of Venture Capital. Follow him on Twitter @ahaislip. We're at a technological inflection point, a major branch of computing is splitting off and everyone from the sysadmin to the CEO is wondering what it will mean. The usual cabal of vocal technologists isn't helping the situation. The chatterboxes maintain a constant chant of change: "Cloud, Cloud, Cloud!" Yet they fail to contextualize it in the overall IT architecture. They imagine a bright future where all servers will hum along in ultra-efficient datacenters (preferably solar powered) diligently tended to by the infrastructure-as-a-service providers. Why would you ever host your own server?
 
From Team Player To Coach = From Entrepreneur To CEO Top
montana_walsh2Editor's Note: This guest post is written by Scott Raskin, who is the President and CEO of Mindjet. Prior to Mindjet, Raskin was President and COO of Telelogic and VP of Sales and Corporate Development at Nexgenix. For entrepreneurs, navigating a career through the Valley can be a lot like competitive sports. Similarities include locker room leadership, a shifting playbook and ongoing onslaughts from opponents. What is perhaps the most important likeness to highlight, however, is the requisite sense of what your place is in the game.
 
An Open Letter To IBM CEO Virginia Rometty Top
virginia-romettyPeople like to kick up a fuss about sexism in tech and how this contributes to a lack of women in the field, whether that's through badly promoted "perks" at hackathons, over-abundance of alcohol at events or scantily clad women in promo videos, etc. But do you want to know why there's sexism in tech? Because it comes from society at large, and even at the very top, we allow it to happen. Traditionally, the Augusta National Golf Club has bestowed honorary green jackets representing membership to the club upon the CEOs of its three main television sponsors for the U.S. Masters – except for this year. Virginia Rometty is the current CEO of IBM, and so far has not been given membership – like every other CEO before her, solely because she is a woman.
 
Fly Or Die: Swivl Top
Screen shot 2012-04-08 at 1.01.37 PMYou've met the Swivl before. Back in November, Satarii debuted the Swivl (formerly known as the Star), and we went hands-on with the substitute camera-man around Christmas. Good times. But today is judgement day. Actually, today is Easter, but let's just roll with it.
 
How The IPO Ruined Google Top
Groupon-Tops-Google-at-IPOI'm a Google-phile. Or at least, I was. Lately, my gut's felt a bit wobbly every time someone mentions the big G. Page, Brin and company have lost their focus. Once, they helped us all find the stuff we needed. Now, they spend their time in slap fights with Facebook. It's almost like the Googlers are no longer in charge at Google. That's because they're not. The Google IPO put the company's fate in the hands of investors. And it's ruined the company. IPO-bashing is popular right now. But I'm not just jumping on the bandwagon here. The evidence is pretty damning: Pre-IPO, Google was laser-focused on being the best tool on earth for search-and-discovery, and they appeared unstoppable. Post-IPO, the company has lurched from one social media debacle to another.
 
Pinterest's Unlikely Journey To Top Of The Startup Mountain Top
ben silbermannOver the past 12 months, I've had the pleasure of interviewing some of the Valley's best entrepreneurs and investors at Startup Grind. People like Naval RavikantKevin RoseTony ConradMG SieglerJeff Clavier, and others have inspired us with stories and trials they have overcome to get where they are. In February we hosted Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann in Palo Alto. He is one of the most humble entrepreneurs I have met in my seven years in Silicon Valley. The story of Pinterest's founding is more valuable to me than most startups because it is a reflection of what a lot of founders who regularly read TechCrunch go through in the everyday startup grind.
 
Real Estate Will Always Be The Best Investment: Time To Augment It Top
model homeI spend a good portion of my day thinking, researching, and analyzing our industry, our world, consumer habits, and the technology products that enhance and cause fundamental change within it. My job is quite literally to see where the puck is going and get there first. My goal is to gain insight into the direction before the shot is hit, before the trajectory is set, and if possible, before the puck is even dropped into play. Over the past months I've been mentally mulling over the profundity of Real Estate. Throughout history, real estate has been the most coveted, fought-over, and valuable resource to humanity. Entire civilizations were created, and wiped out, on their level of success in securing it and the access it provided for their people. In the modern age, this has meant the creation of vast amounts of wealth for those who control and monetize it according to their needs, for both countries and individuals alike.
 
Cater2.Me Finds A New Way To Feed San Franciscans With Pop-Up BetaKitchen Top
PrintUntil now, Cater2.me has focused on using the Web to connect companies (which need to feed their employees) with small restaurants and food carts. Now it's opening a restaurant of its own — or rather, what it calls the BetaKitchen. The idea, says co-founder Zach Yungst, is to create something that's to be visible to consumers, not just office managers trying to plan the next big meal. As with Cater2.me's existing service, the goal is to connect people with a wider variety of food than they might experience otherwise. At the BeatKitchen, you'll have the opportunity to sample food from a changing lineup of San Francisco chefs. Eventually, the "pop-up and test kitchen" should also drive people back to the Cater2.me site, where they might see upcoming chefs, rate the food, and eventually vote on the who will be cooking.
 
Ridiculous 'Google Glass' Video Ripe For Parody Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-08 at 1.14.50 AMSuddenly all your friends are wearing those dumb black nerd glasses. You, as a NYC-dwelling (of course) uberhipster in the first clip spend your day at the Strand Bookstore, chasing around a food cart, photographing street art and learning how to play something called Monsieur Gayno on the ukulele.
 
How Can We Disrupt The Cell Carriers? Top
cell towerEvery time I pick up my iPhone lately, I've been asking myself: Why do we call this a "phone"? If my "phone" habits are any indicator, we shouldn't be calling this a phone at all. On the iPhone, I don't like taking phone calls. I've moved the green phone application button away from the bottom tray and replaced it with other apps I use frequently. If Apple allowed us to actually delete the phone app, I'd bet some of us would do it right away. In our evolving relationship with mobile phones, I wonder when we are going to stop calling it a "phone." It's semantics, but the words are important and affect our mindset. If we're using precise language, these devices are really computers with data-collecting sensors and processors that happen to have voice capabilities as a feature.
 
The Rise of Full-Box CRM Top
StuffCRM is a massive business. At least an $8 billion industry according to Gartner. Salesforce, the company you think of when you hear CRM (after all, it is their ticker symbol) has a market cap north of $21 billion dollars. And while sales departments are typically most commonly thought of in conjunction with these systems, they're far from the only adopters of CRM. In the human resources and recruiting space the equivalent to CRM is the applicant tracking system or ATS. This is also a big business, worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. Taleo, a leader in the ATS market, was recently acquired by Oracle for $1.9 billion. SuccessFactors, another provider of ATS software, was bought by SAP for $3.4 billion.
 
Selling Digital Fear Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-07 at 4.02.12 PMThe crowded building's not on fire. After an exhaustive investigation of the top 100 Facebook apps, the Wall Street Journal didn't find any serious privacy violations. While sensationalizing the dangers of online privacy sure drives page views and ad revenue, it also impedes innovation and harms the business of honest software developers. Reality has yet to stop media outlets from yelling about privacy, and because the WSJ writers were on assignment, they wrote the "Selling You On Facebook" hit piece despite thin findings. These kind of articles can make mainstream users so worried about the worst-case scenario of what could happen to their data, they don't see the value they get in exchange for it.
 

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