Digital Dreamer

Charlie Rose Interview With Jack Dorsey

Watch the video here. 

Great interview featuring Jack Dorsey.  I cannot help but think of Steve Jobs when I hear Jack speak.  He has a very clear perspective on how he views the future, and is ultimately working to shape that future.  Dorsey has already helped to fundamentally change the way the world communicates, and is now quickly changing the way we interact with money.  At 35 years young, I anxiously await to see what other areas Dorsey will disrupt in his lifetime.  

- @KunalTandon

Keeping It Real: SideTour Style

I have always been a firm believer in focusing on spending money on experiences that will lead to creating lifelong memories, rather than fleeting material pleasures.   This mindset, and approach to life made me an instant fan of the New York based startup SideTour.  SideTour is a TechStars NYC alum founded by Vipin Goyal, Mark Webster, and Minesh Mistry. The site provides a marketplace for people to share authentic, and local experiences with one another.  SideTour encourages people to escape the routine way of experiencing the world around them, and to engage with all the interesting, and unique people that they share the world with.  The company is driven by the belief that everyone person has a different perspective, and various passions, which can be leveraged to create a handcrafted experience for others to enjoy.

If you are like me, you are probably sick of being inundated everyday with offers for restaurants, tanning, and boat cruises around NYC.  Leave boring behind, expand your horizons, and begin to explore SideTour, you will likely discover a new interest.  An intimate concert from a concert pianist, a tour of a unique NYC neighborhood from a lifetime resident, and racing down a luge with an actual Olympic silver medalist, are just a small sampling of the experiences offered to you on SideTour.  The interesting experiences offered by SideTour are only one part of what makes the company so fascinating to me.  I love the idea that SideTour is essentially creating a platform for sharing unique experiences, and a marketplace for anyone with a passion, or skill to become a host.  I might not be an incredible chef, or an Olympic athlete, but I could probably host a pretty interesting walking tour of fried food in NYC.  The point is that everyone has something unique to offer, and now SideTour has created the perfect platform for people to share their unique knowledge, and talents, with people who are interested in experiencing authentic interactions, with interested people. 

SideTour is a very young company, and I think it is just beginning to scratch the surface on the tremendous opportunity in front of it.  Imagine you are traveling abroad to Japan, you could read travel blogs, and visit the sites that millions of other tourists have visited for years.  But with SideTour you could experience things that are off the beaten path, and will allow you to create truly special memories.  Maybe a tour of the hip-hop inspired fashion/sneaker stores in Harajuku from a designer of A Bathing Ape. An opportunity to witness the intense morning tuna auction at the Tsukiji fish market with a local sushi restaurant supplier. The possibilities are endless.  I look forward to signing up for some SideTours in the very near future, and I might even have to host one of my own.  I’m focused on experiencing new things, meeting interesting people, and possibly going down an ice luge.  Stay tuned.

- @KunalTandon

The small things matter.  I was randomly selected to win two free t-shirts from Snapjoy.  I have written about Snapjoy before, I am a huge fan of the service for storing all my pictures in the cloud.  Upon finding out that I won the two free t-shirts, I was sent the two shirts, along with some Snapjoy stickers, and a handwritten note- express shipping too!  I believe the truly successful companies take customer service to the next level, by doing things that are often not scalable, or time efficent, but they ultimately create a great experience for the user.  Snapjoy could have easily tossed my t-shirts into a package, and it could have arrived in a week or two, and it would have been fine.  But the company took the time to make sure I was delighted when I received my package two days later, with a handwritten note that Dustin took the time to write.  I will certainly be rocking my t-shirt proudly!

- @KunalTandon

Square: Making Money Magical

The payments space is heating up, it seems every big company, along with a host of startups wants to become an extension of your wallet, or eliminate it entirely.  At this point the company best positioned to disrupt, and revolutionize the payments space, in my opinion is Jack Dorsey’s Square.  Everyday financial transactions are still stuck in the past, on systems that were built on limitations that no longer exist with today’s newest technology.  The idea of merchants having to set up large, and expensive POS systems in order to accept credit cards, and consumers being forced to always carry a wallet filled with cards, and cash now seems archaic, and backwards.  As smartphone adoption continues to rise at a rapid rate, and we are all essentially carrying very powerful handheld computers in our pockets, it only makes sense that our phones allow us the ability to send, and receive money.  I want to explore how Square is bringing financial transactions into the future.

Accepting payments anywhere, anytime, anyway.  No longer does a person have to go through the long process of signing up for a POS system, and being chained to it in order to accept non-cash payments.  The Square Card Reader now allows anyone with an Android, or iOS device to quickly sign up, and become a merchant in minutes.  Let’s think about the enormous impact of this new ability, now there is even less friction than ever before to starting your own business.  Lawyers, contractors, tutors, street vendors, food trucks, and countless other professionals now have the ability to give consumers multiple options to pay them for their services, consequently increasing their revenues.  The card reader was Square’s first step into the payments space, but I think it is only a small part of its vision to revolutionize the payments space.

Square Card Case, now updated and renamed Pay With Square is Square’s first step in trying to replace your wallet, with your mobile phone.  The app allows you to discover businesses that accept Square, and sync your credit card with the app.  Once you visit a business, you simply order, and provide your name at the register.  Your picture and your name will be on the register so the cashier can complete the purchase.  You don’t even need to pull out your mobile phone, magic!  No fumbling through a purse or wallet, making change for a cash purchase, or signing a receipt, and receiving a copy that you will stuff back into your wallet, or throw out.  Think how much time is saved with each transaction. Time saved allows more time to serve customers.

Square Register allows any business to create a custom tailored register for itself, by simply using an iPad.  It can let you upload, and change your inventory in a matter of minutes; this is especially attractive for businesses that have constantly changing offerings.  If you are using Square Register, you will appear as a business that accept Pay With Square, thus allowing potentially new customers to discover your business, it is essentially free advertising.  The Square Register also gives a merchant tremendous access to data that was not easily accessible with other POS terminals.  A merchant can explore the data to find out what times are the busiest, and adjust staffing accordingly. Find out what days are not performing well, and maybe implement specials, or not be fully staffed on those days.  It can also give the merchant information on what is selling best, and what is not as popular, so inventory purchasing decisions can be made more efficiently, to be more in line with customer demand.  The Square Register can also help business owners identify, and reward their loyal customers, by making it clear who is spending what, and how often they are visiting an establishment.  The data available to merchants through Square allows them to operate their businesses more efficiently than ever before.

The Square Card Reader, Pay With Square, and Square Register are all products that other companies can, and are trying to replicate, so what sets Square apart?  I think it is a company that is changing payments by focusing on interactions rather than transactions.  Square appears to view every interaction as an opportunity for merchants to build a relationship with their customers, rather than simply exchanging money for goods and services. Business owners are in a better position than ever before to serve their consumers effectively, and efficiently.  The relationships they build with customers through interactions, allows them to learn more about what their customers want.  Every size business today needs to be more data driven in order to inform their decision-making.  Loyalty, and analytics aspects of the Square Register can help every size business leverage the data from their customers.

In order to win in any space, it is critical for any company to win over the hearts, and minds of “the normals”.  “The normals” are the everyday users, not the early adopters in the tech community, and people who love to try out the newest app, or gadget.  “The normals” are after all the majority of the world, so in order to have a meaningful business, of a serious size, it is important to have “the normals” on board with your product.  I think this is where Square has a tremendous advantage over its competitors.  Square’s focus on design, the user experience, and making every interaction delightful sets it apart from the competition.  People who have done something as critical as spending/receiving money one way for so many years, will understandably be hesitant about trying something new.  It is the job of the new product to be so easy to use, and intuitive in every function, that after using it for the first time, the new user will feel that the old way of doing things was in fact broken.  I will be watching Square closely, and am excited to see how they will continue to make every transaction feel like a magical interaction. 

- @KunalTandon

Back To The Future, Err…Past

Now what I am about to tell you might sound impossible at first, but please bear with me.  Every morning when I wake up, from the comfort of my own bed, I enter a time machine, and travel back exactly 365 days back into the past. I get to relive my day one year ago through pictures, tweets, and status updates.  Ok, don’t get too excited it is not an actual time machine, but it is the closest thing we have to one, it is Timehop.  Timehop was originally born as 4SquareAnd7YearsAgo at Foursquare hackathon.  Co-Founders Jonathan Wegener and Benny Wong created Timehop as part of the TechStars NYC winter class.  Timehop delivers a daily email that shows the user her tweets, Facebook activity, and Foursquare check-ins from a year ago. 

In a digital world, where we often create content to capture a moment, to share it with various social networks, we rarely go back to reengage, and reconnect with this content.  Timehop lets you briefly travel back in time, one year into the past every morning.  Through old tweets, Facebook activity, and Instagram images we are able to revisit the past, and evaluate how our lives have evolved, and changed in a relatively short amount of time.  We can be reminded of triumphant moments, or hard times that are now hopefully just a memory.  Upon visiting the past, we can see what used to be important to us, and maybe how we lost sight of what matters in the present, perhaps offering a chance to refocus, and reprioritize.  Being a Timehop user, you now know everything you put into the digital world; you will be taken back to a year into the future.  Knowing about this inevitable trip back in time might impact your sharing habits.  I know I have become much better about checking in on Foursquare, because I like to be reminded of where I have been, and whom I have been with.  The more I engage with various services, the more I will get out my Timehop trips in the future.

I have always been a firm believe that in order to ever truly appreciate the present, and move forward towards the future, it is important to maintain a healthy perspective informed by what one has been through in the past.  Nothing better than a daily reminder of where I was, what I was thinking, and whom I was with a year ago to help me keep everything in perspective.  Until someone is able to come up with an actual time machine, I am happy to travel back in time from the comfort of my bed every morning thanks to Timehop.

- @KunalTandon

Quora: The World’s Most Comprehensive Storybook?

Story telling has been a fundamental part of civilizations since the beginning of time.  People used to tell stories, and record the history of their communities by illustrating on the walls of caves.  Many communities also would pass down stories from generation to generation, in order to ensure that their history, and past would continue to live on in the future.  As reading, and writing became common, people wrote in diaries, we saw the advent of publications, books, etc.  With these new mediums often the voice of the individual, and the perspective of the everyday man was lost in the noise created by large publications.  In the last several years with the rise of blogging, Twitter, and Facebook- the individual has become empowered to publish her own stories, opinions, and have them potentially seen by millions.  It is clear that these platforms are a tremendous step towards providing everyone with a microphone, but in a world that has become increasingly noisy, and fragmented, finding the stories we want to hear most has become increasingly difficult.  Enter Quora, a service that has the potential to be the best organized, searchable, and easy to publish platform, for anyone, and everyone who has a story to tell, or information to contribute on topics that people find interesting. 

We live in an incredibly connected world that is composed of an eclectic set of people.  There has never been a time in our history where it has been easier to connect with one another, and share our thoughts, opinions, and experiences on such a large scale.  It is still hard to discover new blogs on specific topics on the web, effective Twitter search still seems like a distant dream. There is an overwhelming amount of interesting content on the web, but discovering it has become increasingly difficult.  I think Quora has the unique opportunity to provide the platform for user generated information to be collected, and made easily searchable for people in the future.  For example, twenty years from now, a child who wants to learn about 9/11 beyond the information offered in her textbook, might find it even more informative, and powerful to read first hand accounts by people who actually lived through the event.  They could try and search for individual blogs, but they might be better served visiting Quora.  A platform like Quora has provided a place on the web where everyone can go to ask, and answer questions.  Not everybody is an expert in a certain field, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t possess a unique insight into a specific life experience, or the privilege of being a first hand observer to a historical event.  Everyone now has the ability to tell stories unique to their own lives, which can become part of the larger narrative of the human history.  The web has allowed everyone to have a voice, Quora is a powerful network that can allow everyone to be heard.

- @KunalTandon

Keep Your Fans Forever? Never Say Never

Throughout history we have seen the rise, fall, and eventual fading away of pop-stars from the limelight.  It has almost always just been accepted, that the majority of acts targeted at young fan bases, will eventually lose their appeal when their young fan bases grow up, and outgrow their extreme fanaticism.  Like many accepted norms from the past, I think technology is helping to change this once certainty; we are in the midst of an important, and fundamental change in the artist-fan relationship.  Up until recently you were able to keep up with an artist only through magazines, TV appearances, catching them on tour, and a website.  Most of these opportunities to see your favorite artist did not happen frequently, and often did not allow for the opportunity of any meaningful interaction.  It was easy for an artist to lose a significant share of his fan base during a long gap between tours, or a new album release.  Out of sight, out of mind is a powerful force that allowed many artists to fall out of favor with their once enamored fans.  In recent years with the rise of social networking services like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare artists have been provided with powerful platforms that allow them to remain in constant contact with their fans, and engage them on a level that was never possible before.  This relatively new shift, got me thinking about the effects this could have on the fan-artist relationship, and if it is now possible for artists to maintain their fan-bases for the entirety of their careers.

The artist that got me thinking about the shift in how stars can constantly engage, and communicate with their fans was Justin Bieber.  I am not ashamed that I have been following Justin Bieber’s meteoric rise to mega superstar status since the early days.  Now this is not because I have a special place in my heart for teen pop acts, rather it just happened that the brains behind the Justin Bieber movement was an Emory classmate of mine, Scott “Scooter” Braun.  Scooter discovered Bieber on YouTube, and then used social media networks to build a following for Bieber through a grassroots movement, while all the major record labels passed on him.  You can learn about the incredible story in Bieber’s movie Never Say Never.  For years, Justin Bieber has been a force on Twitter, often tied to one or more trending topics.  Many young Beliebers fans use Facebook and Twitter to coordinate meet-ups, create fan clubs, and coordinate buyouts of Justin’s albums at local music retailers.  If you dive a little deeper, and check out some of the tweets from Justin Bieber, and his fans, it tells a much more interesting story.  Everyday, Justin takes the time to reply to some of his fans on Twitter, and retweets several.  If you then visit the profile of a fan that he has replied to, or retweeted, you will see that the Belieber army begins to tweet at the lucky fan, congratulating her, and telling her how lucky they is.  Millions of fans tweet everyday, simply hoping that one day Justin Bieber will notice.  Bieber’s team has also used Twitter effectively to build buzz for his movie, album, and appearances.  The team has used platforms to engage fans, and make them feel that they are an integral part of the process at every stage.  Millions of fans don’t view Justin Bieber as just another pop star, but rather as their superstar, one that they have followed everyday since his journey began from singing cover songs on YouTube.  Uploading videos to YouTube, sharing where he is on Foursquare, uploading pictures to Instagram, communicating directly with fans on Twitter, and broadcasting news on Facebook, allows Bieber, and any other artists to keep in constant contact with their fans, making them feel like they are heavily invested in their careers.

We will likely not know the real impact of this new level of access that fans now have to their favorite artists for several years.  I believe that we are going to see many artists extend their careers, and increase their time in the spotlight, as a result of being effective communicators, and sharers with their fan base.  Fans, who feel like they are part of a movement, and interact with a person everyday, have to be less likely to lose interest, and move onto the next hot thing.  I think brands can take some notes from how artists like Bieber are using different platforms to engage their fans, and include them in the process, rather than simply promoting a product/person to them.  Social networks have created an environment where interaction, and engagement is paramount, and everyone feels like they have a voice, and a part in the process.  In the past it would have been unfathomable to think that a child pop star could maintain, and even grow his fan base as he got older (except Michael Jackson), but now I think we need to realize we that it could very well become the new normal.

- @KunalTandon

Climbing The Entrepreneurial Ladder

Last night I attended the NYVC Speaker Series at Dogpatch Labs, featuring Skillshare Founder/CEO Mike Karnjanaprakorn.  Mike was incredibly generous with his time, and willing to speak openly about his experiences as an entrepreneur, and his current role in building Skillshare.  One idea that Mike focused on was how people need to climb the entrepreneurial ladder.  In most traditional career paths, there is a career trajectory on how someone can move upwards in terms of promotions, and titles, but this is not the case for entrepreneurs.  In order to climb up the entrepreneurial ladder, an individual needs to execute on ideas.  Executing on your ideas, and acting on your instincts allows you to make mistakes, so you can learn not to repeat them again.  It is a good idea to ask successful entrepreneurs what ideas they have worked on that ended up failing; it can provide you some interesting insight.  As you execute on your ideas, you can begin to understand what does, and does not work for you, but you will never be able to do this unless you actually do something.

Mike also gave us some great advice on finding cofounders, building a company, and fundraising.  Finding a technical cofounder is not something that can be done effectively at a meet-up.  Ultimately, you need to understand that starting a company with someone is similar to a marriage.  Just like you would date someone before proposing to her, it is important to get to know a potential cofounder over an extended period of time.  It is best if you and your cofounder can both come up with the idea together, to ensure that it is something you are both passionate about working on. It would not be a good for the non-technical founder to just tell the technical person what they should build.  A great point that I had never heard anyone else highlight, or read in a blog before, was when Mike explained that when evaluating a potential cofounder, it is important to explore if they will be a good manager, and partner in running the company after the initial build.  Once you start hiring programmers, and designers, can your technical cofounder become an effective leader within the organization?  Not every technical co-founder will be capable, or even interested in making that transition, so it is a conversation you need to have before proceeding in founding a company with someone.

Mike explained how it is not wise to quit your job to pursue an idea, until you have done the work to validate you idea, to confirm that it works.  Mike worked on Skillshare for a year, reviewing the risks, and talking to people, before launching.  Rather than having people focus on what they liked about the site, he asked them why it would fail? Then he went back and came up with solutions, and rebuttals to all their objections.  When getting feedback from people it is important to listen, and not to talk.  On the topic of building a company, Mike explained that it is important for every employee to be able to answer several questions.  What is my job? How do I know I am successful? What impact does my job have on the company?  Being able to answer these questions gives everyone a sense of a personal investment in the company’s success, and reenforces accountability across the organization.  He also explained that when building your product, you should not focus on your competition until you are huge.  When it comes to fundraising, it is never too early to start building relationships with investors, but it is important to know when to actually raise money.  You don’t want to raise money too early, because as soon as you do, the clock starts ticking, and you need to start to meet expectations. 

Ultimately, the best advice I took away from the talk was that everything you do is going to be harder than you expected it to be.  There will be obstacles, and challenges that will come up that you will fail to anticipate.  The only thing you can do is to prepare the best you can, and execute.  You can only move forward, and upward by executing, and learning from your mistakes.  

- @KunalTandon

“Ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone’s humanity.” -Bryan Stevenson.  This is an incredible TED talk that was shared by Chris Sacca on Twitter yesterday.  Please take the time to listen to it, it will make you think, force you to reevaluate how you view many issues, and hopefully inspire you to help bring about change.  We all have the capacity to contribute something hopeful.

- @KunalTandon

Conquering Local

Local, local, and local…we hear about it everyday. Everybody is trying to figure out how to tackle the local market, and usher small businesses onto the web.  Groupon, Yelp, LivingSocial amongst countless other technology companies are trying to figure out how to effectively monetize the local market.  As financial details have come out about many of these companies, it is apparent that cracking local is an extremely difficult, and incredibly expensive endeavor.  The shear number of local businesses has forced companies to hire extremely large sales forces, which have to be paid.  No one has been able to find a scalable method to garner the attention of local businesses that does not force them to hemorrhage a tremendous amount of cash.  I don’t know if any company will be able to efficiently work with the local market by hiring a large sales force, and hoping to reach each business owner individually.  As we see an increasing number of companies enter this space, but struggle to efficiently scale, it has become clear to me that the only way to succeed in this market might be to build a platform that will be attractive to merchants.  An attractive platform would be one that presents an opportunity for merchants to interact directly with their customers. A platform, which allows merchants to offer deals to customers when they think it would be best, and to tailor each deal specific to the needs, and capabilities of their own unique business.  It is impossible for a sales person who is calling hundreds of local business owners to truly understand the nuances, and important details of running each specific business.  I think Foursquare is the company that is in the best position right now to provide this attractive platform for local businesses. 

Let’s explore what the Foursquare platform currently offers local merchants.  Once a business owner claims her venue on Foursquare, she quickly has a powerful set of tools at her fingertips.  Business owners have the ability to create, and share their personally tailored specials.  Some skeptics might ask how is this different from your everyday daily deal site.  The answer is pretty clear. This is a special created by the business owner, the person who best understands the needs of the business, and its customers better than anyone else.  The Foursquare platform also allows you to create specials in minutes, so a business owner can have different specials available at different times of day, or during specific weather events.  For example, the coffee shop might be a little slow on a rainy Wednesday afternoon; now the owner can create a special offering free Biscotti with every purchase. A huge advantage of being an active merchant on Foursquare is the access you have to valuable data via the Merchant Dashboard.  A business owner gets full access to real-time data about her customers, including: total daily check-ins over time, most recent visitors, most frequent visitors, gender breakdown of your customers, what time of day people check in, and portion of your venue’s foursquare check-ins that are broadcast to Twitter and Facebook.  All of these tools are FREE!  The platform is allowing business owners to garner insights into their customers that were never possible before.  With all this valuable information, merchants are in a much better position to create more effective specials, reward loyal customers, and make critical business decisions that can impact their revenue.

I am confident the Foursquare platform will continue to improve. The team is constantly iterating, and shipping at an incredible pace. The real challenge is making local business owners aware of the myriad of services available to them, and communicating the value of being active on Foursquare for their business.  In the past we have seen in order to try and achieve these goals, companies have been forced to employ huge sales teams, that make thousands of calls a day.  We have also seen that this model is not economically efficient, and needs to be approached differently.  I believe the combination of more local business owners becoming knowledgeable about technology/social media, combined with the extremely passionate Foursquare users, who are likely to suggest (maybe demand) specials from their favorite local establishments, has placed a very unique opportunity in front of Foursquare.  Serving as the platform by which millions of local businesses connect to their existing, and future customers, by allowing owners to advertise, interact, and reward their customers, is a tremendous opportunity.  I think Foursquare is in the unique position to seize this opportunity, and become the company that finally conquers local.  

- @KunalTandon