The Intersection of Finance, Management, and Ecommerce

2007-11-17T03:22:00.000-08:00

Good Golly Google

Google, It seems is still a good guy. In an older blog titled, On Science and Entrepreneurship: On Entrepreneurship: Now a huge Company, Google edges closer to the Dark Side, I said that they have lost their way when they went a-traveling to China.

Photo: Yahoo! Blog

Well, since then, it has gone back to becoming a responsible corporate citizen. No more news about kowtowing to bad elements in order to make a buck.

That said, I see potential trouble in the horizon. It seems that Google has now become a necessary stop for Presidential candidates (The Google Primary). Sure, they have lots of money coupled with lots of opinions. But they are now the big gorilla on the block. If they want to wield their great influence, they need to realize that that comes with great responsibility.

Is Google ready for that? Is it capable of that? Should it? Before the whole China debacle, I would have said, "Yeah, for sure." But now, I wonder...

2007-11-17T02:57:00.000-08:00

Sex and Time Management

I got this email from the Keith Ferrazi, you know the guy who wrote "Never eat alone"? I have not read his book yet, but I have heard great things about it. This email, kinda sorta maybe made me want to run out to Barnes and Noble and buy his book.

Photo: Santi-Jose

Well... he has some interesting points about time management. Here's the funny analogy that got me saying hmm.... "If its important enough, like sex with a hottie, you will make time!" I paraphrased, of course, but it gets the point across.

Here you go.

Photo: Patrick Hof

Oh, how true. In the past, I sometimes would find myself saying something like, "I want to go to the gym but I'm so busy at work" or "This job does not allow me to have a work life balance". Although those statements were true, what it implies is not - that I can't do anything about it. Because I do. Rather, I did. In the first case, I talked to my colleagues and boss about it and got them to understand that for health reasons I have to reserve time to exercise. For the second one, well let's just say I have a new job now. :-) Tongue in cheek, yeah, but at least here in America, we have a lot of choices and freedoms that false excuses for not going for something if you really believe it to be important are just that - false excuses.

It may sound silly but this quip about sex and time management kinda reinvigorated me (pun intended) to renew my pursuit for a dream I've always had. I won't disclose what it is, yet, but you'll know when it happens.

2007-11-17T02:44:00.000-08:00

Cooking Stew and The Art of Management

Here you go.

Photo: slack12

I always hear people say that they don't have the time to look for a new job or consult with a personal board of advisors or make that extra call to an important contact. BS, let's get real. When you say "I don't have time," just admit that you are really saying "I don't want to. Other things are more important, and I am not courageous enough to admit that fact to myself and others." You make time for what is important to you! When someone says he doesn't have time to work out, I might say, "Come on, you found time to eat dessert, didn't you? You could have used that time to do five push-ups." Think about the last time you said you didn't have time for sex. Was it because you didn't have time or you just weren't into it? Bottom line, you have time to connect with others for success if it's a priority. I got this email from epiffunnnies.com that applies to living your life the best way possible - whether that's at work (team building), in the community (finding your close circle of friends) or at home (cooking the best stew ever).

No surprise there since life's truths transcend specifics.

Life is a stewpot.

I sit and tend my stewpot, stirring the stew and feeding the flames underneath. If I pay attention properly, the stew will not burn or stick, and the fire will not flare up and consume itself, or flicker and go out. If I form good habits, the tending of my stew becomes second nature, and I care for it comfortably and casually.
When someone drops by, they bring with them things for the stewpot. In our analogy, these things might be, oh, carrots, perhaps, or onions or potatoes. Every person has a particular thing or flavor or spice that they bring - every person's offering/contribution is different.
The more that person hangs around, the more of themselves that they offer to your stew. If someone stays around, they will flavor the stew, whether you wish it or not.
Since every person who sticks around and with whom you interact brings something to the stew, you may offer all of ! those people a bowl or two of your carefully tended stew, without fearing that you will run out.
Pick people who actually put things of worth in the stew, though. Bitter tasting and unpleasant stuff will flavor the stew badly. Everyone else will be able to taste it and may be less eager to drop by with their own ingredients.
If, however, your stew is made exotic and piquant, rich and nourishing, tasty and varied, your fame as a stew-tender will spread and you will attract others who appreciate the care and attention and co-operation that goes into a really good stew!

Enough said. I think I can only subtract from it, if I added anything more. For now.

2007-04-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

Where is Microsoft Search Going? My answer: Nowhere.

So there's a lot more news coming out about Google's M&A acquisitions. I say, they are doing the right thing. But let me digress a bit and comment on a BW artilcle.

First, I'd like to comment on this: Where Is Microsoft Search?

Where is Microsoft Search? Why is Microsoft failing on the internet?

I say...

Microsoft's problem is legion. One thing that has not been explored (not so much) is the fact that many people have been waiting for Microsoft to fail. Microsoft's modus operandi was and still is, provide a clunkier but cheaper version of a good thing and people will buy it. If they cant gain market share by going cheap/free by bundling, threatening suppliers and distributors, playing tricks with their code, or suing competitors. Either way they get what they want. In the process, their business partners grew to hate them.

After that, MS slowly improves the clunky product, but always years behind the competition. The only exception is when a point is reached when the competitor reaches obscurity because they become unprofitable. In the back of their many customers minds though, they know that they have been shortchanged since they had to use mediocre products, had their options taken away, and made to tolerate a slower pace of innovation.

Enter the Internet. User cost is close to zero. Software distribution cost is cose to zero. MS can not give things away for free because its already free. It can not intimidate the distribution or manufacturing channels because the distributor is the internet and the manufacturers are the users themselves. Too bad it cannot compete on innovation because that is not its main strength.

People are glad to leave Microsoft behind. If you have MS stock, I'd recommend a "sell".

2006-12-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

How Google and its minions can depose Yahoo as the most visited web portal.

It already started. Businessweek today has reported that according to certain measures, Myspace beats Yahoo. as the most popular site based on monthly page views. Obviously, Yahoo has complained that its ajax technology has affected its statistics.

While it is true that Yahoo is now using Ajaz and it did affect the recorded number of page views, Yahoo is not an early adaptor of Ajax. Others have been using Ajax for years now. It is amazing how it fell so quickly. This means three things. First, Yahoo didnt have a coherent Ajax rollout strategy. Second, Yahoo is again showing that its technologists and managers are subpar. (More on Yahoo's substandard hiring process later.) Third, Yahoo's leadership in this category is slowly fading away.

This development is also proof that Google's YouTube acquisition was has genius written all over it. Think about it: if Myspace can dominate Yahoo in certain metrics with just pictures and profiles on its sites, YouTube has a huge potential - given that the state of the internet is allowing more and more videos to be played online (and legally). Youtube wont kill Yahoo all by itself, but it will be one of 10 who will bury it.

Photo: Dan Taylor

So where is Yahoo going? I submit that it is going the way of AOL's portal. It is going nowhere. Sure, I myself still use Yahoo Finance to track my stock investments, 401k, mutual funds, etc. I like the fact that I can view all my accounts in one place. I am too lazy to migrate my data to others like Google's.

But that will change. One of these days, say, on a four day weekend, I might feel like the responsible adult that I aspire for and revisit how I deal with my finances.

For now, I ams taying away from Yahoo like a plague. If I am not on vacation, I would be shorting Yahoo by now.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!!!!!!

2006-11-14T02:21:00.000-08:00

Beware of the Rising Stock Market

Photo: Marjorie

I dont always agree with Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame, but I was glad to read this one column that he wrote on Fortune. As we all know, Kiyosaki has a lot of great advice to entrepreneurs-at-heart like me and you. He encourages realistic building of wealth and cautions on get-rich-wuick schemes and beliefs that endanger your financial well being.

Well here goes one caution: the purveyors of the current exhuberance of the Dow 12000 are the same as the purveyors of the bubble a few years ago. You have to be careful of who you trust.

I have long argued that Jack Welch was no management guru. I got a lot of resistance from my strategy professor at business school but really... He did not create value -- all he did was harvest the innate value that was created by his predecessors. Note, it is easier to cut costs than to create value/growth. Cutting costs might seem to be creating value - but you can only cut costs so much. At a place like GE it looks like the amount that you can cut is unlimited - not so, there will come a time when these cost cuts will affect productivity and worker safety. Look at what is happening at BP.

Jack Welch's cost cutting skills are great skills -- for a Leveraged Buy Out guy -- but it doesnt make him a management guru.

Kiyosaki argued better than me. Look at the numbers: Welch presided over a time when GE lost 1/3 f its value (>200 billion). Simple, but powerful argument.

So how is this related to ecommerce? Well, there is an parallel event that is found in the VC market these days. Increasingly, even stupid ideas by stupid management are being funded. I guess this is great for entrepreneurs trying to get funding but do any of us want to go through another dotcom bubble again? Not this fellow...

Here is a clip of his post...

A Rogue's Gallery
Some of the people who made off with millions of investor money are still being celebrated rather than questioned. For example, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch is still considered a leadership guru.
Yet if you look at the facts, Welch took a lot of investor money and left GE in worst shape than ever. When he was exposed for an extra-martial affair, his retirement compensation also came to light. His work at GE netted him nearly $1 billion. His retirement benefits include use of company jets and a lavish New York apartment, and his stipend is $734,000 a month.
Now, if he'd left GE a stronger company, I wouldn't have much to criticize. But the hard facts are that the 2000 value of GE was $600 billion and by early 2005 it was down to $379 billion.
There's also Steve Case of AOL fame. When AOL acquired Time Warner, Time Warner's stock went to $90 a share before falling to a low of less than $10. Market value of the merger was $240 billion, but by 2005 it was less than $82 billion. Thanks to Case, I have a number of friends at Time Warner who are wondering what happened to their retirement.

2006-11-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

Ford, Leading the Way to Online Transparency

Photo: WatermelonSugar

I got this info from a mailing list that I belong to - the LinkedInBloggers. It looks like Ford is starting an online revolution on its own. And unlike its old forays that didnt work, this one is worth a lot -- a lot of goodwill and transparency.

How often have retail investors like us gone through hoops just to get basic information like the number of layoffs at a company that is downsizing, rightsizing or merging? Often, we have to get our data from the biased analyses of Wall Street analysts.

Well, look no further. Ford is leading the way.

2006-11-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

Scams come to Ecommerce.

Photo: crunked_22

I guess it was only a matter of time until scams came up with a sophisticated way of getting themselves into the internet. Much like get rich quick schemes are now seen on TV.
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So this morning, I received an email for a job that I didnt apply for. Its about a company called www.toospoiled.com It seemed okay until I googled it. They are very sophisticated at SEO and SEM too.(Apparently, Google and Yahoo has now blocked their SEM campaigns, but I digress... ) But it has all the trappings of a Spam campaign.

This thing is potentially dangerous. Imagine a "scout" coming at you saying that you could be a model. He wants you to upload your picture and create a webpage with your portfolio... You pay him to maintain the webpage, you pay him for "leads" and "callbacks" too. For a wide-eyed kid, this could be a money trap.

here's a full text of the email:

Dear [NAME IN CAPS],I recently saw your resume online and feel you would be ideal for an immediate opening as a Scout Manager with our company. We are TooSpoiled.com, one of the most exciting website launches in the last few years. [NAME IN CAPS], if you are looking for a real opportunity and a real long-term career with an exciting cutting edge company, you may be the person we are looking for. TooSpoiled.com is a combination of a modeling and acting database and MySpace.com with much more. We offer Models and Actors the opportunity to gain international exposure, network with the world's largest entertainment industry network and make money through online advertising. And, best of all, TooSpoiled allows Talent to earn money instantly. TooSpoiled allows each member to earn money by displaying ads on their portfolio page. Unlike many other sites in the entertainment industry, TooSpoiled is 100% free for Models and Actors to join. Scout Managers manage a team of up to 50 Scouts. This is not a recruiting position; we assign you Scouts that have already been hired. Your background makes you an ideal fit for the position. We offer our Scout Managers the following:
Highly competitive salary
Bonus and Incentive Program that can add 30 - 50% or more to Base Salary
Medical, Dental, and Vision plan
Paid Vacation
Tuition Reimbursement
Rapid Fast Track Advancement Program
The person we are seeking must have strong leadership skills, be extremely organized, and have a big picture mentality. A passion for the entertainment industry is a huge plus. College degree or equivalent experience required. [NAME IN CAPS], if you feel the Scout Manager position is right for you, visit the link below and fill out the online application. (If the link does not work in your e-mail, you may copy and paste the address in your browser.) http://www.toospoiled.com/cmanager.aspx?id=toospoiled_scout_manager_ts_10152006_2&email=falfredo@ChicagoGSB.edu&rd=www.TooSpoiled.com/Careers/opportunities.cfm?jp=994140 Once I receive your online application, I will contact you within one to two business days. Regards,Bethany Reagan Click here to be removed from any future employment offers.

2006-11-13T13:44:00.001-08:00

See great airfares at cFares

Photo: Mathew Spolin

Let me just comment on something that blazing its way through the blogosphere: cFares.com. So just like this travel guy, I like to think of myself as a perennial traveller too.

I loved kayak when it was new because it saved me time. Now, I like cFares even more. You see I am not much of a bulk purchaser but I appreciate the Costco model -- a lot of my friends who have families swear by it. And even single friends who have recurring purchases - say disposable contact lenses - save a ton using Costco.

So now, for an impulsive traveller like me, who travels at least once every two months, cFares is awesome. I looked it up and I can basically break even by flying 1.5 times in a year.

Apparently, this company had investments from Guy Kawasaki who also created a blog about it.

Its just sad that I already bought my holiday tickets to Asia a full month ago. I could have saved $200 dollars. Oh well, there's always next time.

I wonder how would expedia.com and orbitz.com react to this?

2006-11-11T01:21:00.000-08:00

The Rule of Cool

Photo: Monica

I haven't encountered The Rule of Cool before but it makes a lot of sense. It was discussed on businessweek on 11/10/2006.

This rule applies to websites too. These days, its what differentiates hugely successful ecommerce businesses from flops. YouTube is cool, Google Video was not. MySpace was cool because the naturally cool artsy crowd was its early adoptors, and Friendster proved uncool because its direction and membership proved suspicions that its nothing but a free www.lavalife.com.

Coolness increases the desire to buy. Coolness increases the impetus to check something out.

In ecommerce parlance, the coolness factor increases conversion rates and it also boosts click trough rates. Hence, it is a huge factor in pumping up the bottom line.

Coolness can make or break an ecommerce business.

This talk about Rule of Cool reminded me of a narrowly-focused retailer who only sold products with popular brands. This was its way of building its own cool factor. Coolness by association, so to speak. Its strategy was based on a belief that coolness can be "bestowed", much like when one buys an iPod because she wants to be in the in crowd. And for this one business, it worked; that is, until they were spurned by the brands - the bestowers of coolness - when they were found out to be doing too many discounting. Big mistake. Now that I think about it, I guess the decision makers were never cool - and they dragges the company woth them. Otherwise they would have known that cool brands, like cool people, do not want to do things that are contrary to their cool nature. And so, even if the company was cool for a time, its innate uncoolness came out in the end. This specific business is now dead.

That's it!

Here's a few excerpts from the Business Week article:

"Remember the three rules of cool, as documented by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker almost a decade ago. First: The act of discovering cool causes cool to move on. If you accept that the iPod is still cool, as many still do, then the Zune can't help but seem an arriviste, an interloper, poseur product encroaching on well-defined "cool" territory. When the uncool discover a cool place, the cool take their business elsewhere. Microsoft's a little light on the cool bona fides, despite the Xbox 360.

The Zune will seem a not-pod, proving the second rule of cool: It cannot be manufactured, only observed, and then by those who are themselves cool. An iPod is a requisite accoutrement of cool. This is the result of a carefully constructed marketing effort on Apple's part. Any attempt that Microsoft makes to market the Zune will fall short of the high bar set by Apple, which has an almost natural sense for turning its ads into entertainment. Describe for me three Apple TV ads you remember from the last two years. Now, try to describe for me three Microsoft ads. Bet you can't. That's the Apple marketing machine at work.

Finally, there's the third rule of cool: You have to be cool to know cool. And since when is Microsoft cool? The iPod was cool from birth. The Zune will be seen for what it is: a me-too product that is expressing Microsoft's envy at not being cool. It will carve out its own niche of the market, but by this time next year, it will be considered a dismal failure."

2006-11-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

The Bad News: October Retail Sales Are Mixed

Photo: Dystopos

Wal-Mart has so far performed weakly According to a an article from AP, this weak sales performance raises the possibility of price wars for the holiday season. Let's back up a bit. This also means that consumer spending did not start to rise as early as it did last year. Which means that to top last year's sales, the Holidays would have to bring in more profits.

As if the fact that people are feeling poor not enough! (because of things like the Real Estate downturn, the minimum wage is so low, and the price of oil - though now lower - has gone up compared to last year) Now you have to add the fact that WalMart is incentivizing the other Walmarts of this world to squeeze profits out of the market.

Okay, so WalMart is playing in the cheaper price range. And WalMart's experimental foray into higher fashion didnt exactly work. So products with higher price ranges are safe, right? I dont think so. If walMart's action is a sign of things to come, then the internet will be abuzz with bargains faster than you can say Thanksgiving Weekend. This environment fosters price cuts at all price levels. I predict that the Holiday Season will be great for customers but bad for ecommerce businesses.

I could be wrong now, but I dont think so.