Fail Spectacularly

Posted on Monday, 21 March 2011 5:58 pm by markpilip

Andy Swan writes, as usual, another good blog post today.  He asserts that in order to win, you have to know how much you’re willing to lose.  And he takes to task the use of Chinese Math, which I learned in graduate school as Chinese Marketing, but same concept.

How much will you commit to?  Are you willing to go all-in in order to win?

A good reminder for entrepreneurs, both ones working their own startups, as well as those trying to build something new inside their own companies.  You’ve got to know what you will be willing to lose in order to win.  And if the number–or effort–is too small, maybe you’re not ready to win?

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Citizens Band Radio at Threadgills

Posted on Wednesday, 16 March 2011 8:59 pm by markpilip

At Threadgills in Austin right now, where Neustar is sponsoring a MusicFog event. Four days of music, free of charge at SxSW. Watching Citizens Band Radio right now. Stop by for some food, drinks and entertainment.

Full disclosure: I work for Neustar.

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CapEx = Dead

Posted on Tuesday, 15 March 2011 2:27 pm by markpilip

I had this conversation last evening as we were wrapping up the Neustar booth for the day.  If I was starting a company today, why would I ever buy any capitalized equipment? We decided that with a credit card we could have walked the floor and purchased everything we needed for our hypothetical startup.  Everything we needed is available as SaaS or PaaS or whatever aaS you like.

I don’t have to buy iron, expensive client-side software or anything to get going or even run my new business at scale.  Brilliant and great for the innovative people we’re seeing at SxSW this week.  Bad for the Oracle’s, etc of the world, however.

But what happens when you build your great new application, the world flocks to your door and then you run afoul of the vandals at Anonymous?  Your wonderful new services go bye-bye under the weight of a DDOS attack.  So do your users, your revenue stream and your chances of survival.

So you had to buy expensive hardware solutions and many gigabytes of capacity, just in case the miscreants decided to come after you.  Uh-oh, back to CapEx just to protect yourself from DDOS attacks.  Bad use of your cash.

Until now.  Neustar’s SiteProtect is kind of like insurance against vandalism. For a reasonable price, you can have many gigs of capacity ready to deploy for when the bad guys come after you.

Not unlike an insurance policy.  And like insurance, it’s not CapEx.  And it works. I hope a lot of the things I’ve seen this week have the ability to withstand the inevitable attempts at vandalism they’ll face as they get successful.

Full disclosure: I am employed by Neustar.

 

Posted in Leadership, Security, SxSW | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Data Customization & Privacy: Coexisting?

Posted on Tuesday, 15 March 2011 1:07 pm by markpilip

Regardless of the law, 90% of legal and privacy-related issues can be solved using the following construct:

If I couldn’t explain this to my grandmother, then I probably shouldn’t be doing it.

I’m at a legal and privacy panel at SxSW and we are discussing what companies could do to ensure we can customize the end-user experience while avoiding PII (Personally Identifiable Information) issues.

Interesting panel which prompted me to download the Ghostery add-in for Safari.

The key takeaways are:

  • Consider the relationship dependent environment in which you are interacting with the end-user.
  • Don’t collect everything you can. If you don’t have a business need to collect the data or if it doesn’t generate a lot of value, don’t bother.
  • Consider the fact that the class action environment is asymmetrical. (That means if you have an issue, it’s cheap for a class action lawsuit to a have a very large negative impact on your business.)
  • Build privacy into your model. The best companies will build in the above in how they operate.  This helps mitigate (but will not eliminate) the amount of trouble you can get in.

Privacy regulations, in whatever form they take, will not be the end of the advertising industry or stifle innovation for new web and mobile services.  If you’re thinking of the issues above as you build your business, you can avoid major problems.  Handling PII sloppily will cost you your business.

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Keynote ProTip

Posted on Monday, 14 March 2011 3:29 pm by markpilip

When you are asked to do a keynote for an event like SxSW, consider what the audience will take away. If all you’ve got is a lot of “me” “my” and “I”, you need to rethink the speech or decline. I listened to Felicia Day for about 5 minutes at SxSW and caught those words about a hundred times.

And there was nothing in her ill-prepared ramble that was for me.

I’m learning more camping out next to a power outlet now.

Posted in Leadership, SxSW | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

A Fear Industry Fail

Posted on Sunday, 13 March 2011 5:22 pm by markpilip

When you build an industry based on compliance and FUD, is it any wonder that success in that business is hard to come by? It seems as though the TSA rules on what you can bring on board are clear. Yet this guy gets through with what appears to be a club, and my tiny Swiss Army nail clippers would practically make me a felon.

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Getting Ready for SxSW

Posted on Saturday, 12 March 2011 8:42 pm by markpilip

I’m getting ready to head off to Austin for SxSW 2011.  I’ll be in town around 9 pm on Sunday night through Thursday.  Stop by to see me at the Neustar stand.  Or give me a ring on my cell phone and we’ll try to connect.

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