Matthaus Krzykowski

The Copyright Debate: How Creatives Become Entrepreneurs

Sat, 26 May 2012 15:35:20 +0200

The Copyright Debate: How Creatives Become Entrepreneurs:

I remember reading an article on Spiegel Online a couple of weeks ago where a Pirate Party member discussed the digitalisation of content with the hip hopper Jan Delay. A core element of Jan’s argument was that musician’s income is evaporating and artists want other organisations than themselves (read: labels etc) to handle business.

Won’t happen. As a former tech blogger with VB I have seen how veteran journalists like Dean Takahashi had to embrace entrepreneurship in their 40s when he moved from the San Jose Mercury News to VentureBeat. Other professions than journalism will follow. The article I linked to has the following excerpt:

“Pinfield (former Columbia Records VP) also commented on the recent success some artist are having with crowdfunding their albums, saying “Kickstarter is great” in reference to the crowdfunded projects platform. Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls is the first big example of Kickstarter success, raising over $800,000 for her record release campaign.

“It’s really great for bands that the record companies don’t want to invest in anymore because they’re only interested in what’s new, fresh,” he said. “There are bands out there with enough fans that are making more money through Kickstarter than they ever made when they couldn’t control the marketing money that was used to promote the record.”

What "Managing Growth" Is

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:42:59 +0200

What "Managing Growth" Is :

Some people are asking me what I do at Xyo. In a way I am a founder, so I do “everything” together with my Co-Founders. In terms of core responsibilities - my core and overall obsession is “growth.”

Xyologic Leading Charge to Revolutionise App Discovery

Sat, 12 May 2012 13:20:43 +0200

Xyologic Leading Charge to Revolutionise App Discovery:

A hometown update on what I have been up to lately.

Tim Chang on the Y Combinator "party-round" seed craze

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:12:08 +0200

Just sorting through some of my notes. Had not much time to read in the last few weeks, now mostly deleting. But stumbled upon a Facebook comment by Tim on a post on Y Combinator seed rounds.

nicely written post on the whole YC “party-round” seed craze. I’ll chime in with my $0.02:

 1) the seed bubble makes total sense to me, and if I were a young 1st time entrepreneur today, I ‘d do the same: it’s a free option to “audition” and build a portfolio of your work in the hopes that a) it happens to explode and go viral; b) attract an early acqui-hire as a mega signing bonus at Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.  

2) most big exit social/B2C plays have never had a viable profitable & standalone business model (Hotmail, Youtube, Bebo, Instagram, etc.) — but they did manage to grow exponentially, retain an engaged audience and hold on to their attention span. This is what acquirers are really buying: captive community, upon which the buyer can leverage existing business models that are working (ad, commerce, etc.). 3) while incubators love to tout the democratization of easy starting capital (“everyone of you deserves to get funded!”), most folks don’t readily acknowledge that the mortality rate is in the 70%+ range — which has always been the case for early stage startups. Seed-stage startups are in most danger of hitting the “tweener” trap: product built, some signs of traction, but not enough to attract pre-emptive VC follow-on. Angels/seed-funds not designed for bridge rounds.  Net-net, I’m no longer looking at YC deals or “party-round” seed deals - but more than happy to revisit for follow-ons when there’s A) growth, or B) the come-to-Jesus seed recap :) Also spending more time with serial entrepreneurs with big vision who skip the incubator stage altogether…

May 1st in Berlin. Never experienced anything like this on Bay...

Thu, 03 May 2012 12:17:00 +0200

May 1st in Berlin. Never experienced anything like this on Bay to Breakers or other similar events. That’s how cool we are around here and you are not (anymore) SF. If you are into this type of urban experiences, then Berlin is the town to be.

Source and photographer

What I have been doing lately … organising www.bobmwc.com...

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:41:35 +0100

What I have been doing lately … organising www.bobmwc.com with my beloved partners at dots’n’spaces Olga and Masha as well as the fantastic Candace, Becca & Erica from Mighty PR.

Strong Opinions @marksbirch: Who Web 2.0 Companies Would Rather Be

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:54:11 +0100

Strong Opinions @marksbirch: Who Web 2.0 Companies Would Rather Be:

The Art Historian (and presumably Paul Graham view) on history is that very, very seldom something new pops up. Agree.

marksbirch:

We think we know what most of the hot Web 2.0 players are all about. It is about growing out the user base and expanding services and making money. But where are they really going and who would they rather be when it is all said and done? I have a few thoughts on that…

Facebook – Microsoft…

Bubble over Barcelona is a unique event my...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:36:00 +0100

Bubble over Barcelona is a unique event my Dots’n’spaces partner Olga Steidl, Candace Locklear and Rebecca Fuller from Mighty have developed. Xyologic is a proud strategic sponsor.

My email to the speakers at the global panel:

Bubble #3 – Global Explosion Beyond the Valley

12:25pm - 12:50pm Moderator: Mike Butcher (TechCrunch Europe)

Waze
Di-Ann Eisnor
VP Platforms and Partnerships

Alcatel-Lucent
Laura Merling,
SVP Mobile Applications

Telefonica
Tracy Isacke,
Director Business Development and Investments

MIH Group
Stefan Magdalinski,
GM, E-Commerce, Sub-Saharan Africa

Hi there folks!
So delighted you will make our little event. It should result in some great insights & entertainment, for sure.

1. Formalities
I will let Mike take the lead on the specific prep for this panel.

We will have a special VIP seating area in front so please go there and I’ll just call you up when we are ready. While the event starts at 11h00 try to be try to get there at 11:30am if you can! My mobile is same so text me if you need anything +49 179 2981892. The venue is Museu del Rock, directly across from the fira - Gran via de les Corts Catelanes 373-385, 4th Floor. BOB panels are quick, 20 min panels with a bit of time for audience Q&A, no slides, etc. You are all so brilliant and over-informed that it will be easy and fun to do this.

2. Panel Context

I will be MC-ing this panel which will be moderated by Mike.

How mobile times have changed.

I remember Summer 2008 when VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall and I did the first MobileBeat at the grey Plug& Play in Sunnyvale: 250 people, Apple’s App Store was 3 weeks old, Admob won the startup competition. It was one of the four mobile events of the year in the Valley. Few people today understand that even while the iPhone was there prior to the App Store the business for all leading SDK players on iPhone’s mobile web was flat. Under pressure from investors, Admob’s (I was a Product Manager at their largest publisher - located in Europe - before I got to the Valley) Jason Spero tipped me to investigate this. At the MWC in February 2009, before the nascent market became visible, Rich Wong told me that Accel is not investing in consumer mobile anymore at this point.

Now the MWC as the key meeting place for the mobile industry seems less and less relevant with each passing year. Operators are losing their dominant gravity in mobile, and the “off-deck” or “open mobile” model continues to explode. Many of us who are mobile startup veterans often stood around at MWC in years past, attending meeting after meeting to make sure we “got that Verizon deal” or “got that Vodafone deal.” These deals were transformative to our startup companies. Companies such as Phone.com or Infospace or Jamdat went public or were acquired for hundreds of millions on the strength of one or two key deals with an operator.

With over 40% of all 2011 VC investment in mobile now it seems there’s an event every day.

2012, in fact, might be the year that “open mobile” wins. A lot of the key players in the app economy, particularly the consumer-facing startups (like gaming and photo sharing) are not coming to Mobile World Congress this year. Gaming companies which dominate the Apple App Store downloads, and many have growth strategies not dependent on carriers and device OEMs. For reference, we at BOB talked to over 60 startups before MWC this year. As a CEO told us: “It does not make sense for me to attend MWC anymore. If I do a deal with Verizon, that’s 5000 downloads per day for me. To strike such a deal takes a long time, usually months. It’s risky and can come apart in the end. Via Android Market or the Apple App Store I can get a multiple of that.”

With the Valley now being at the centre of mobile gravity I am wondering: do app stores = a globally even playing field for consumer and enterprise startups ? What are today’s global startup success stories ? What are the struggles ? Also, with no carrier HQ present in the region the Valley (not only MG Siegler) likes to ignore how much value is being generated at the carrier, network, chipset, hardware, integrator levels. What is the value of industry partnerships in the current app store age ?

This, in a simpler way, will be my MC intro.

Let me & Mike know if you want to give us additional input.

Cheers,
Matthaus

Shoe Design & Launch Marketing

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:23:28 +0100

Shoe Design & Launch Marketing:

Related to “My passion is to help creative people, be it for example software engineers or designers, succeed.” The shoes mentioned in the link were designed by my sister’s boyfriend (the dude with the back to us on the first FILA logo picture) … we had a fascinating conversation over Christmas on product creation and marketing. Turns out all these fashion brands are even more challenged to deal with marketing in the digital age than the newspapers etc of this world are.

Amazon says its Android Appstore tripled customers in the fourth quarter

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:01:50 +0100

Amazon says its Android Appstore tripled customers in the fourth quarter:

The new king of Android tablet monetisation enters the room.

U.S. Carriers Don’t Want Stock Android Phones

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:48:42 +0100

U.S. Carriers Don’t Want Stock Android Phones:

These analogies like this one by John Gruber are just stupid/misinformed. They are boring. I am tired of them. Unfortunately they are a majority opinion in the Valley in my view. Android always was meant as a toolbox. Don’t act surprised it is not. Don’t be surprised that Microsoft needs to react to mobile computing and pays moolah to catch up. There’s no news in this. Move on. Talk about something which is new. Talk about something which is relevant to startups. Or platforms.

Moblyng’s Shutdown: Enthusiasm For HTML5 Gaming is Still a Little Premature

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:56:00 +0100

Moblyng’s Shutdown: Enthusiasm For HTML5 Gaming is Still a Little Premature:

For those among you who don’t buy into each self-serving hype promoted by the SV digital mafia (and its current lead Facebook) Kim-Mai Cutler gives an update why HTML5 mobile gaming sucks in the moment. The killer line is “Secondly, many of the HTML5-based games that debuted on Facebook’s mobile platform had usability and latency issues. Even the HTML5-based version of Zynga’s Words With Friends wasn’t so responsive when we tested it.”

HTML5 on carrier networks will need a loooooong time to become a viable option for users of mid-range games and “apps.”

Predictions for 2012 by Asymco's Horace Dediu: None

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:45:12 +0100

Predictions for 2012 by Asymco's Horace Dediu: None:

I can only applaud that stance.

I also agree on his take regarding Wall Street analysts & tech.

In my professional experience it’s been amazing to see how this group as a whole is uninformed about technology and its drivers. Now when I watch Bloomberg etc my basic assumption is that I watch Disneyland.

HTML5 cross-platform game company Moblyng shuts down (exclusive)

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:38:01 +0100

HTML5 cross-platform game company Moblyng shuts down (exclusive):

HTML5 and mobile gaming won’t fly for a long time. Despite the hype from Facebook/Google circles and the VCs related to them.

Poll: What Does Android "Clopen" Mean, Really?

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:35:42 +0100

Poll: What Does Android "Clopen" Mean, Really?:

Dan from RWW gives an update on the boring, because usually ill-informed, debate around Android’s level of “openness.”

Journalist truths: "One of these days you’re going to fuck them over"

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:32:26 +0100

I am not sure you guys noticed, but VentureBeat’s traffic has risen by a multiple this year. There’s many elements of success behind this, one is the editor-in-chief’s Dylan Tweeney’s management of the writers. In my limited time I have I still open up my VentureBeat emails to read Dylan’s weekly goal/vision/bootcamp emails. There’s so much to learn from him. Here’s an example, a memo from one of the VB bootcamps. It actually points out in plain English that relationship between journalists are their sources is antagonistic in the end. Here’s the learning for startups - even if tech blogs hype you up, don’t take it seriously. Ride it, but don’t mistake it for reality. As Tom Petty says: what brings you up will bring you down.

“One of these days you’re going to fuck them over, and you need to make that clear up front.” - a veteran legal reporter

Some weeks ago Dylan had a veteran legal reporter (VLR) come in to chat with us. He was all kinds of awesome. Here are some highlights from my notes. (I’ll ask him for some links to big stories he’s done and send those around later.)

Interviewing:
Don’t start an interview by accusing or confronting your subject. You want to get people on base, not just hit a home run right away. Start by talking about the topic, ask questions you already know the answers to, make incorrect statements to get them to respond. If you ask a straightforward question, they can just say no. If you make statements, they will want to interject, correct you and give the right answers.

Persistence:
Ask the same question over and over again in different ways. It’s amazing what people will tell you if you ask the right questions, are persistent, and continue to call back. Send a ton of emails, call a million times. Even if you can’t call someone or go see them, send actual notes. On paper. [VLR then told a story about the time he wrote Ted Kaczynski a handwritten letter, and Ted wrote back. Creepy.]

Relationships with Sources:
People should know that you are friendly, and they should also know that you are not fucking around. The reporter is in a position of power and authority, so it’s important that you put on a professional game face, know what you are talking about, and don’t ramble.

Never make it sound like you’re their friend or you’re on their side. One of these days you’re going to fuck them over and you need to make that clear up front.

Stay in Touch:
Stay in touch with people. Keep track of people. Contact your sources, even when you aren’t working on an article. Call them up out of the blue and ask them, What’ve you got cooking? Always call the subject of an article up afterwards, even if the piece was unflattering. What’s amazing is that they will usually tell you even more shit.

Get Color:
A story of lots of facts isn’t a good read. You need to add color. His example was a big story about a Ford recall, and the human element was a woman’s story of how her husband died when his car was hit by a train because the car malfunctioned on train tracks. [Did I hear this story right? Sounds like something that only happens in movies.]

Staying Hungry/Avoiding Boredom:
We all gotta feed the beast. Not everything that we feed to it is that tasty. There’s no fucking around, you just gotta spit it out at times. But you always have to have stuff going up on that you’re interested in. Always be working on longer, important pieces in addition to the daily rigamarole. If you don’t, you’ll get bored. It’s one thing to be busy, and it’s another thing to be excited and have all this stuff up your sleeve and be excited about what you do.

You gotta have a drive. Instead of being content flipping pancakes all day long, you have to want to make chocolate cake too.

On Pandering:
We’re supposed to tell people what they need to know, not what they want to know. You can’t lose sight of that. If you’re writing about something that’s important, people won’t always read it. But you have to keep feeding people smart stuff.

Organization:
VLR recently started using Evernote to keep track of his interviews and notes and legal briefs. But he claims to actually be a disorganized mess, which I found comforting.

Collect Contacts:
“All contacts are gold.” VLR names, titles, and contact info from unsolicited emails, PR pitches, and anything else and puts them into Google Contacts with appropriate keywords. Then, one day down the line when he needs to find a contact, he can search the keywords and find great sources.

Writing the Article:
A story will only take you long to write if you don’t understand it or if there are holes in the reporting. If you have it all the information, it writes itself.

Building products from improvised user behaviors - the cynical CMO view

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:33:00 +0100

Building products from improvised user behaviors - the cynical CMO view:

There’s tons of wisdom in this post by Chris Dixon. Quick add-on from a marketing view: when you do your business planning, you should also check out where these existing communities are in the digital universe and come up with a bottom-up estimate of their numbers. in conversations with startup CMOs or with CEOs - whenever they can not give me these numbers or can’t tell me who the key figures of these communities are I know their marketing and the numbers they sold to their investors are a hail mary.

Chris’ original post: For a long time, there were niche communities of “lo-fi” camera enthusiasts: people who shared photos taken on old cameras that had interesting ways of filtering shots. The iPhone app Hipstamatic popularized lo-fi filters, selling over 1M copies …

MG Siegler Special on Android's Openness

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:21:00 +0100

There’s good posts arguing Android’s “Openness” like the post Andreas from Visionmobile did back in 2010 where he asked “is Android evil?” Then there’s MG Siegler’s constant tirades which are super speculative and most of them times don’t get the most basic facts on the issue. I like and respect my part-time VentureBeat ex-colleague MG, but on this one he’s very much off. Hence I invite him to some cliff notes courtesy of Rich Miner on Android’s Openness. Even some shots against Apple are included, for example “if you are forced in a business model then it’s not open” ! They also go well with Rich’s 2007 Stanford lecture on Android which I have repeatedly referenced already.

2009 2 19 Rich Miner, Open Your Open Your Network

View more presentations from Matthäus Krzykowski

Going through some of the end of year posts by some of my...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:09:00 +0100

Going through some of the end of year posts by some of my favourite pundits as I am spending some very limited time to figure out what the big trends affecting my work will be. One big take away: Nobody in the media still understands the workings of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) which stands behind the Android project and comes up with tons of bullshit arguments.

I remember talking to Carolyn Penner, then the PR lead for the Android team, now the comms director for Twitter back in August 2009 on how OHA works and communicates. Summarised, Google NEVER NEVER intends to talk for OHA. Now compare that with how tech pundits view OHA. Particulary in the last couple of weeks journalists tried to have make a point of arguing that “running a mobile OS (read Android) by committee can be very hard” and try to make an argument out that no Google spokespeople comment on it. So I repeat: Google NEVER NEVER intends to talk for OHA and will never comment on it. Specifically, Android is so designed that NO PARTY, even Google, can not control the platform. Rule by committee is exactly what is not happening - any other announcements are lip service. Additionally, Android IS BUILT to be used by each OHA member in a way he likes. The supposed weaknesses folks write about are keys to its success.

If you want to hear any comments on this issue, then you need to look for very early commentary, like the video from 2007 I just have referenced above. Anyone, please view minutes 5-20 where Rich Miner walks you through the motivation behind Android. Thank you.

Strong Opinions @marksbirch: Ownership and Middlemen in a Digital Age

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:44:30 +0100

Strong Opinions @marksbirch: Ownership and Middlemen in a Digital Age:

Let me go contrarian on this and say the following: there’s middlemen and there’s tools or platforms to organise markets. Think of websites. In the early days it was all Altavista, AOL, Yahoo - hierarchic arrangements. Only a few winners benefited - those with ties to these middlemen. Then came search - and the long tail became much bigger. This is something we think and prototype a lot around over at Xyologic.

marksbirch:

What does ownership mean in an age when any piece of art or information is simply an arrangement of orderly bits? There was a time when we thought the question of ownership seemed clear cut. While the general public could buy the medium, it was artists and/or middlemen that controlled the…