~Carter
17th May 2012
Christina over at Union Square Ventures had a solid post back in 2011 on “What Come Next” in technology. She identified two trends from watching 160 companies pitch at 8 different accelerator programs.
- Software is developing its own component industry
- Work is shifting towards a peer-to-peer model
With the advent of AWS, Heroku, MongoDB, etc. the technology components of “tech” companies are becoming part of a menu of options. Need cloud services? Try AWS, heroku, or Parse. Need marketing? Try Twitter, Facebook, or LaunchRock. And the list goes on and on. There is a tech company serving nearly every “tech” component you could need. Her article does a good job of distilling the many startups she saw down to these two high level points.
I do have a concern though. What happens when the majority of innovative startups become more focused on building parts than building complete products? It’s great that you can grab a bunch of parts off the digital and shelf and slap a new service together. But what about the end user? What is good for AWS may not be good for the consumer in the end. We could see a replay of Microsoft and the IT industry. Microsoft spent so much energy meeting the specs of the IT departments (and wooing their big contracts) that it ended up shipping worse and worse iterations of Windows with terrible end user experiences.
Just because you can build your product with “stock parts” does not mean you should. If it allows you to serve the customer better, faster, or more simply then go for it. Otherwise, you are just building crappy products faster.
The Expert Enough Manifesto
Notes: 3
Kauffman Sketchbook - “Take the Leap”
I am an info junky. I admit it. I check my email right when I wake up and right before I go to bed. During the day I’m checking the 50+ blogs in my Reeder, the 300+ people I follow on Twitter, and my large networks on Facebook, LinkedIn, and the multiple other sites I belong too. I’m constantly making calls, sending texts, and interacting both on and offline. I bet many people are just like me. I know most of my friends are.
The question I am asking myself is: Why? Why scan 1,000+ posts, emails, tweets, updates and more every single day? Why do I go to multiple events/parties/get togethers every week? Why invest so much time in consuming? Am I really a better person for these huge commitment?
I figured out that I am more concerned with missing something. The fear that something important or earth shattering will happen and somehow I will miss this key thing whatever it is. It’s the fear of missing out.
Leo at Zen Habits referenced this yesterday in his post on the 39th Lesson. It’s a good post and I’ll sum it up with his statement “You’re not missing out.”
So I’m giving myself a challenge to consume less and permission to “miss out”. I’ve important todos on my list and after an honest assessment, most of my info junky diet is not helping accomplish any of these. So, here goes a one week, cold turkey info cleanse:
- Check email no more than 3 times a day.
- Check blog, twitter, Facebook, etc. no more than once a day
- All of this can take no more than ~1~ hour
This should free up time for meaningful work and “just being”.
Paul Graham
on reversing the 5 biggest regrets of the dying into the 5 todo’s of the living.
(Source: paulgraham.com)
Deeply touching talk by a designer about what it means to design. via bryce.vc
via 30andbroke
Reblogged From brycedotvc
A simple reminder that everyone should revisit often. Head over to islifegood.tumblr.com to grab the desktop, iPad and iPhone wallpapers.
via 30andbroke
A Rant on Patterns (via @bfeld)
Marc talks about 2012 and the continued onslaught of e-tailers against retailers.
Since it’s a long weekend and since I think this is such a beautiful video, I’m giving you one extra credit weekend viewing assignment.
This is a short film titled “Bundled, Buried and Behind Closed Doors” and it give us a sneak peak into one of NYC’s more fascinating pieces of real estate- 60 Hudson Street.
Kevin mentioned it in his TED talk. It’s a carrier hotel. And what’s happening behind it’s closed doors is playing an increasingly important role across industries and cities that rely upon the web to transact.
But the arc of this story only begins at 60 Hudson. How we are adapting to technology and vice versa is an important thread we’ve just begun to pull on. And it’s impact will play heavily into not only how we architect our companies and cities, but how we draft our legislation and even our borders.
More food for thought and more required weekend viewing on BRYCE DOT VC.
In this post Fred talks about the need for expensive items to become “dumb” and allow cheaper devices to be “smart.” While at first that might sound backwards it does make sense.
How often do you purchase a car? Every 5-7 years maybe. How often do you upgrade your mobile? Probably close to every year. With the rapid change of technology, expensive, long-term goods need to incorporate a way to allow their functions to be up-gradable and controllable by smarter and cheaper devices.
The company that gets this down first will have a huge advantage both in benefit to the end customer and in recurring revenue through upgrades. Smells like opportunity.
PBS takes a brief look at startup accelerators.
