February 2010
42 posts
“Books are, within reasonable limits, demand-inelastic. Just as movies are....”
– What Henry Blodget Doesn’t Understand About E-Books | The Big Money
This is a very confusing post. The existence of paperbacks undermines the notion that books are demand inelastic. Selling paperbacks at a lower price after hardcovers have been out for a while is a versioning strategy that...
“Great business idea. But did you find a zealot to run it?”
– Jack Welch
One of the interesting things about running an IAC company is that once a quarter you sit in a room with Jack Welch all day and talk about business. It turns out to be an incredibly healthy exercise to have to answer questions from a tough outsider every once in a while. The above...
“as much as Volcker’s is suitably skeptical of the 21st century version of...”
– Volcker Does Not Get It « naked capitalism
This is why I’m not a fan/scared of Paul Volcker.
January 2010
66 posts
“WHEN small businesses face funding squeezes, Mr. Eitelberg and others like him...”
– Spurned by Big Banks, Small Firms Find Cash Where They Can - NYTimes.com
Interesting peek into the world of factoring and purchase order financing. I don’t know much about this space but it reminds me a lot of the check cashing business (which a lot of Koreans run) and the importance of...
“Clearly they’re more interested in unit sales than per-unit margin. The mobile...”
– Daring Fireball: Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad
And from the POV of their competitors—Unexpectedly low Apple iPad price forces notebook vendors to re-evaluate their tablet PC strategies:
However, starting a price war at below US$499 raises concerns...
“Amazon buys books from publishers at normal prices ($10-$14, wholesale), then...”
– Book Wars: Amazon Retaliates Against Publisher Over eBook Pricing, Pulls Books From Shelves
Nice strategy. Actually, Hal Varian was the person who explained this framework to me. Amazon wants the Kindle to be a ebook platform and there are two general ways they can subsidize its growth— by...
“Clearly they’re more interested in unit sales than per-unit margin. The mobile...”
– Daring Fireball: Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad
And from the POV of their competitors—Unexpectedly low Apple iPad price forces notebook vendors to re-evaluate their tablet PC strategies:
However, starting a price war at below US$499 raises...
“The less time-efficient a company is, the longer the wait for that return....”
– Another View: The Challenges of Time for Start-Ups - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com
The two things that are killing IRRs for investors— smaller size of exits and longer time to exit.
“Thanks to cheap ARM-powered laptops made in China, and the latest, most...”
– Slashdot Linux Story | Video Review of Hivision’s $100 ARM-Based Android Laptop
“Amazon – a company that is large enough to be included in the S&P 500 –...”
– How to Lose 50% of Your Money in 15 Minutes Betting on Amazon - Deal Journal - WSJ
“Cloud computing arrived, making VC deal terms economic only as growth capital...”
– Deprogramming VC & Reprogramming SWOT
Jesus, Rafer is so smart sometimes. This is the best rendering I’ve seen of a thought I’ve had for a few months.
(via giantrobotlasers)
Exactly. So now VCs trying to play in the <$1mm range have had to figure out how to scale their operations to make...
AudioOwl - Free Audio Books - Download mp3 and... →
Your source for free audio books. Download one in mp3, iPod and iTunes format today!
“I went to visit this company determined to short the stock. I did not. The...”
– Bronte Capital: The sweetest usurious bastards
John Hempton describes his visit to Rent-A-Center
“Chiat/Day employees were reputed to work so hard that they sometimes sported...”
– A Mercurial Advertising-Industry Pioneer - WSJ.com
“If you are coming to NYTimes.com from another Web site and it brings you to our...”
– Talk to The Times: Answers About Charging Online - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com
If true, that’s a big hole where content can leak. There’s so many ways this can be gamed.
“The primary determinant of the above-mentioned product founder(s) wealth...”
– Mike Hirshland - The Product Guy Myth (via hiten)
Rafer sez: I’d to see the data that supports that. In the absence of any, let me state a highly probable corollary:
The primary determinant of the above-mentioned product founder(s) wealth creation is the presence of a fully engaged commercial...
Some Real Estate Tips for Startups
continuations:
Now that the cost of servers and bandwidth has plummeted, office space tends to be the biggest expense following payroll for a lot of web startups. Here are some quick tips on what to do.
When you are just getting going, simple get some desks, ideally at a friend’s startup. New York City also has some great deals in the NYU Poly incubators. Whatever you do, it should be...
Google is philosophically against search... →
Strength of network effects in social gaming
Trying to catch up on reading and I’ve read a couple of posts that don’t agree on the strength of network effects in social games.
Gamasutra says social game companies don’t rely on network effects. Instead they rely more on virality (which is not quite the same):
It’s also important to understand something about ‘social games’: Most of them are not social....
Epigenetics, DNA: How You Can Change Your Genes,... →
mikehudack:
Specifically for Evan Gotlib. Could potentially be interesting to the rest of you, too.
I saw this Nova series on epigenetic theory a few months ago and it blew my mind: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html
“I.P.O. has become a bad word in the Valley,” said Richard Barton, a founder and...”
– For Many Start-Ups, Spot on Nasdaq Not the Goal - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com
But then: Zillow Plans to Have 2011 IPO, Change Its Image on Wall Street http://bit.ly/7UHv0I
“When Mayer says her “mind has evolved” to the point that it can only...”
– Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: It’s not what you know
“I don’t trust algorithm like I trust intuition: the art of dowsing through...”
– EDGE question 2010: How is the internet changing the way you think? Boing Boing
“President Hugo Chavez ordered Sunday the seizure of a French-owned retail chain...”
– Marginal Revolution: PPP Fail
Why All Earnings Are Not Equal - NYT →
rafer:
It would be super handy to have a table that ranked the public companies with the highest forward twelve months P/E ratios by percent of non-cash earnings.
A couple of years ago, I learned about Richard Sloan’s fascinating work on linking accruals quality to earnings and stock prices. Over the years, quants have filled the gap but it’s said that small opportunities (in...
“We used to gather in someone’s office, close the door, and say, ‘I hate my life,...”
– No Longer Their Golden Ticket - NYTimes.com
Ha, several of my lawyer friends have told me they do the same thing at their respective firms.
“some proprietary search software purchased by the State Department didn’t...”
– State Department thwarted in Abdulmutallab case by pesky misspelling - The Curious Capitalist - TIME.com
Random Ad Positions | CSS-Tricks →
Tom Pinckney: Betting against commodity systems... →
Commodity hardware and software can justify huge R&D given that everyone uses them. If your business is predicated on performance gains relative to commodity hardware, make sure your advantage will still be there in five years.
“I’ve decided that the biggest threat to a software as a service startup isn’t...”
– SaaS’ biggest enemy | Startable - Healy Jones’ & Prasad Thammineni’s Blog
Can credit card cancellations really bring down a subscription-based startup? I fully understand the importance of cash management for any business but are cancel rates really that high?
“The Iranian government has labeled Yale University as one of its enemies.”
– Yale Blacklisted By Iran | NBC Connecticut
“The problem is that a lot of investors in 2007 knew the markets were overheated,...”
– Roubini v. Gross on Outlook for 2010 « naked capitalism
This sentiment was pervasive during the dot com bubble too. I guess that means one CAN identify bubbles before they pop.
“But after March, assuming the Fed keeps its word, I think those sub-5 percent...”
– What The Fed’s MBS Exit Means For Fannie, Freddie And Rates - The Atlantic Business Channel
“Slide Shows in XHTML— Works across browsers and is operated like...”
– HTML Slidy: Slide Shows in XHTML
“The only server cloud that delivers dedicated servers instead of virtual...”
– NewServers: Bare Metal Cloud
“Moving quickly and boldly has made Hyundai Motor Co. the fastest-growing major...”
– Hyundai smokes the competition - Jan. 5, 2010
Paul Krugman’s New Trade Theory at work.