Blogger: Successes, not studies, boost state
Needed: A bolder brand for the state? Online discussions and newspaper stories have explored whether Massachusetts ought to do a better job of telling its innovation story to the world. Some say there's an opportunity to spread the word more widely about high-tech and life-sciences breakthroughs here. A new public-private effort, the Information Technology Collaborative, is funding a $150,000 study on the economic impact of technology, and the Boston History and Innovation Collaborative recently brainstormed about branding initiatives. Hewlett-Packard executive Antonio Rodriguez offered his take:
It is really simple: the only thing we need to "brand" ourselves as a technology powerhouse is more successes. We've got almost all of the ingredients in just about the right quantities. What we are missing is minor attitude shifts on the part of investors, start-up service providers (lawyers, landlords, etc.), and even entrepreneurs . . . Oh, yeah, and maybe some more global warming to take care of this "winter thing." But come on - a $150,000 study on branding? Come on guys, if this is how we are going to waste money, we deserve to become irrelevant.
theonda.org
A profitable mindset. Some entrepreneurs build businesses with the hope of one day cashing out by being acquired, and others envision a clear path to profitability. Dharmesh Shah, cofounder of the Cambridge marketing firm HubSpot, argues "there's a big advantage to thinking about profitability from Day 1 of the business," even if there are still big investments that need to be made to grow the business at various junctures, pushing profitability further toward the horizon. Shah spelled out three steps toward being more "mindful" of profitability.
Step 1: When looking at ideas for a start-up, make sure that you pick one that has a decent chance of being profitable some day. Just because you're not solving for profitability in the early stages is no excuse for ignoring the future profitability potential of an idea. It's going to matter. Trust me.
Step 2: When creating a product, make sure that you design and develop something that has hopes of being profitable some day. This goes to functionality, pricing, positioning, etc. Sure, you might give the product away for free and have zero revenues (like Twitter) to start. But, someday, you're going to need to find a way to make money from the product.
Step 3: When building the business, try to lay the groundwork so that you have hopes of making the business profitable within your lifetime. This often involves getting better at tracking the costs of delivering your offering. Sure, in the early days, it's common to lose money on each customer (and as the joke goes "we'll make it up in volume!"). But your chances of survival/success go up considerably if you can get a better understanding of the economics of the business and what it will take to actually get to a point where you're making money.
onstartups.com
Cellphones advance literacy? Jeff Bennett was among the first to check out a new application for Apple's iPhone that allows users to read e-books from Amazon.com's Kindle store. (The Kindle is Amazon's $359 device for reading e-books; previously, Kindle books were only accessible on that one device.) Bennett, president of Waltham-based NameMedia, served up a quick review.
First thing this morning I went to the iPhone App Store and searched for Kindle. I immediately downloaded it and was prompted for my Amazon account details. Voila, I then had access to the dozens of books in my Kindle archive. I quickly retrieved the book I am currently reading, Last Lion: The Rise and Fall of Ted Kennedy, from the archive and it opened where I left it. The text is clear, but you can't use multi-touch to zoom as you can on other iPhone apps.
I believe the Kindle is a superior device for reading, however, the portability of my book for continued reading on demand whenever I want . . . at a break . . . in a cab . . . is just great.
This truly unites two of my favorite tech inventions: the iPhone and Kindle.
jeffbennett.org
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