Corp Dev People, Platforms, Xiami's business, Internet History, Product Manager's job, Working Backwards. The Pmarca Blog Archive Is Back… as an Ebook. Somewhere along the way Marc Andreessen went from being pmarca to @pmarca.
He took down his popular blog, and years later took up tweetstorming. Which means you can keep up with his current thoughts on Twitter — and also catch up on them (in the form of tweets, podcasts, and op-eds) here. Don't Talk to Corp Dev. January 2015 Corporate Development, aka corp dev, is the group within companies that buys other companies.
If you're talking to someone from corp dev, that's why, whether you realize it yet or not. It's usually a mistake to talk to corp dev unless (a) you want to sell your company right now and (b) you're sufficiently likely to get an offer at an acceptable price. In practice that means startups should only talk to corp dev when they're either doing really well or really badly.
If you're doing really badly, meaning the company is about to die, you may as well talk to them, because you have nothing to lose. The danger is to companies in the middle. But it's a mistake founders constantly make. Well, I'll tell you what they want. Most founders who get contacted by corp dev already know what it means. No. Distractions are the thing you can least afford in a startup.
And then you're really in trouble. Their tactics in pushing you down that slope are usually fairly brutal. Notes. The 3 Types of "Platform" Companies. People use the word "platform" to describe products with fundamentally different characteristics.
Xiaomi's Ambition. Xiaomi, the Chinese smart phone company that late last month raised $1.1 billion at a $45 billion valuation, sells way more than smartphones: Mi.com boasts over a thousand items, and it’s the third-largest e-commerce site in China.
One item it doesn’t sell, though, is a AA battery charger. Only Apple: I clearly remember when this rather oddball product came out, not because it was particularly magical or revolutionary, but because a co-worker had one in his hand the very next day. He regaled us with tales of power efficiency and “vampire draw” (or the lack thereof), curiously neglecting to mention why it was he actually needed a battery charger. He bought it because it was made by Apple, and that was enough. What is Xiaomi? There’s come to be a bit of a cliché when it comes to writing about Xiaomi.
The trouble with a lot of this commentary surrounding Xiaomi1 comes in determining exactly what those “services” are. Horizontal versus Vertical Xiaomi’s Fans Note Han’s age: 24. Xiaomi and China. VC investment vs Gartner hype cycle. Tech Here is total VC investment over time: And here’s the Gartner hype cycle: One reading of this is that the advent of the internet was the technology trigger, the dot-com crash was the trough of disillusionment, and 2004-present is the slope of enlightenment (with a mini-crash in 2008 due to the implosion on Wall Street).
A Product Manager’s Job. Product management is one of the hardest jobs to define in any organization, partially because it’s different in every company.
I’ve had several recent conversations about “what is a product manager?” With friends who are taking their first product jobs or advancing in their product careers. I wanted to capture and share them here. Please share your feedback via notes. The job of a product manager is to: Help your team (and company) ship the right product to your users Or to break this down into smaller pieces: The best product managers spend all of their time on the highest priority things that help their team. These are primarily (a) coordination — ensuring that the team is planning, making decisions, and working together effectively with a clear purpose and focus, and (b) communication — making sure everyone understands what is happening, when, and why, especially as things inevitably change. Nothing matters more than actually delivering products to your users. Reverse Engineering Your Startup’s Success. Who can forget gems like these word problems from 3rd grade math class?
Q: Jack walked from Santa Clara to Palo Alto. It took 1 hour 25 minutes to walk from Santa Clara to Los Altos. Then it took 25 minutes to walk from Los Altos to Palo Alto. He arrived in Palo Alto at 2:45 P.M. At what time did he leave Santa Clara? It was during those classes that our mathematics teachers taught us how to work backwards through the problem.