Sometimes it's great to be reminded of how little we really need. The rest is all wants.
Author Archives: cemsertoglu
Bobiler in Taksim
Extraordinarily fun Turkish entertainment site Bobiler.org has created an experimental cyber protest against the Turkish courts' bans of websites, including Youtube. Check it out.
Social Media Scamming
There is a long-overdue discussion (a few follow-on posts) that got kicked off by Michael Arrington this weekend on the topic of incentive advertising ecosystem that is supporting the hyper-growth social gaming industry. I have not studied the details of the issue. Nor do I click on the types of ads that he's talking about. However, as a social media user, I am absolutely certain that there is not enough value created through this type of advertising models to justify the enormous revenues we are hearing that surround this industry. I am very happy that Mike has decided to tackle the issue.
The debate has reminded me of a very widely-known secret in the Turkish internet and mobile industries. If you speak to anyone who was a player in the ring-tone/logo download mania we had a few years ago, they will confide in you that it was a common practice to get people to sign up for (usually) worthless services and charge them through subscription fees buried in thick fine print (and sometimes not even hidden, simply omitted).
The GSM operators turned a somewhat blind eye to this for a while, but recently, with government and customer pressure, they now seem to be doing an effective job at policing their ecosystem.
Clay Shirky describes social media as "anything worth spamming". I guess we will go on seeing many versions of the type of scams that Arrington is pointing out, or the versions in Turkey I mentioned. What is critical is those of us with a clear vantage into these issues need to bring them up with more rigor.
Net Neutrality
Can you imagine what the internet would look like it had come out of R&D at a place like AT&T or BT? One of the greatest things about the internet is that it's public domain. Yet, the internet sits on the infrastructures of relatively few commercial entities. With this comes the difficult issue of regulation.
Sonia Arrison has a good article on the topic and why she thinks the net neutrality issue should be tackled with an independent, self-regulating approach, rather than inviting the government to step in. It's worth thinking about.
Ross Dawson: Turkey’s a Hot Internet Market
My friend Ross Dawson was the keynote speaker at the IPZ2009 (interactive marketing summit) last week here in Istanbul. It was great catching up with him and listening to his insightful social media presentation.
To follow up, he has just posted his "Five reasons why Turkey is one of the hottest Internet markets in the world". Since I have made it my business to invest in the Turkish internet industry, I obviously agree with all of his points.
One interesting point Ross has picked out is the language skills. He found English skills outside of the professional sector pretty weak. However, Turks grew to be the third largest nationality on Facebook prior to the introduction of Facebook in Turkish. Which makes me think there is a level of language skills, while not sufficient to communicate conversationally, allows one to utilize social media pretty effectively.
Ross's post would be an excellent primer on anyone interested in the Turkish internet market.
Startup Insight
Readers of my blog know I am a big Paul Graham fan. I like him because he is, smart, honest and on the side of the entrepreneur.
His most recent essay, on his insights on what a startup is really like, is one of his most brilliant. I especially like the part where he talks about the relationshp between founders, colleagues and the companies:
Several people used that word "married." It's a far more intense
relationship than you usually see between coworkers—partly because
the stresses are so much greater, and partly because at first the
founders are the whole company. So this relationship has to be
built of top quality materials and carefully maintained. It's the
basis of everything.
…
Just as the relationship between cofounders is more intense than
it usually is between coworkers, so is the relationship between the
founders and the company. Running a startup is not like having a
job or being a student, because it never stops. This is so foreign
to most people's experience that they don't get it till it happens.
Yesterday, I was discussing this exact same issue with a Turkish entrepreneur. I can not agree more with Paul.
Minimum Viable Products
I'm a big fan of Eric Ries's MVP notion. I firmly believe that it's exceedingly rare that a startup or a product fails because it's missing that nth feature.
Feature creep is tempting in the early stages when the product is the one area of a business that the founders have close to full control on. And since founders tend to be very passionate and hard working, they feel that adding that one extra feature will differentiate their product and help them in going to market.
Optimizing features by applying the Pareto Principle will lead to a more effective use of resources. Nivi has a great recent post on this topic with some great ideas and examples. My favorites:
“If Apple can launch a smartphone without Find or Cut-and-Paste, what can you cut out of your product requirements?” – Sramana Mitra
“The first version of Gmail was literally written in a day.”
Censorship Firefox Extension
I just came across an app called Sorumlu Vatandaş (I refuse to link to them). It's a Firefox extension that makes it easier for Turkish internet users to flag a site and notify the Turkish authorities so that site can be examined, and if found inappropriate, access blocked at the ISP level.
I find it deplorable that the internet community in Turkey is working to make censorship easier. I also find the graphic they have chosen to represent the "responsible citizen" ("sorumlu vatandaş" in English) quite funny. 🙂
A Players
The success of any startup, in my opinion, hinges on the quality of the team. This is a statement I can make very comfortably. The trick is gauging the quality. That's usually tough, especially since, as a VC, we get to have relatively little time to spend with the team. So I find myself looking for clues in spotting a great team.
My friend Auren has a great post on the common traits of A players. To summarize, A players tend to:
- Be Relentlessly Resourceful
- Work Around Rules Encourage Mediocrity – So you have to avoid those who try to box them in through these types of rules
- Good at Getting Back to People
- Show up Early vs Late
- Be Founders of Something
- Follow-up
- Work harder and smarter
Of course, this is not meant to be exhaustive or exclusive. But, I view my job to be centered around spotting the right talent, more than anything else. And I know Auren is very good at attracting great players around him. So I think this list is very helpful.
Apple Magic Mouse
I rarely post about hardware but this feels like a breakthrough in UI. I assume the apple tablet will incorporate similar capabilities.
Cem Sertoglu 