Offline Mode

I have been offline several days in a row now. Glad to be back online. Thank God for scheduled posting, I have still managed to blog daily.

I stayed away from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Quora, AVC, Hacker News, TechMeme, Gmail, Google News, the whole nine yards. It was an experience. I missed the internet bad. But I also learned it is really important to be with people when you are with them, like really be with them. I used to be really good with it, and I am still not someone who is permanently glued to the smartphone when out and about - I take the time to smell the roses - but I still was not doing as well as I wanted to do.

I have some work cut out for me.

Time spent offline made me want to try out a phase of staying away from the usual suspect sites for a while to focus on only blogging about my startup idea. Time spent offline made me want to churn out a 100 page autobiography to feed to Amazon Kindle self publishing. Do you think people will buy? I am tempted to give it a try. I think I have a story to tell.

I am glad to be online. But staying offline several days in a row was a necessary exercise.

(Blogging live from the Apple store on 59th Street)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (6)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (5)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (4)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (3)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Speaking Invitation

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeA few days back I kinda complained about not having been invited to sit on a panel at SXSW. Well, looks like I have a speaking invitation somewhere else. I was only joking, people.

Like Mark Pincus said once, when you become successful and visible as an entrepreneur, you end up with all sorts of speaking requests, panel requests, media interview requests. Often times you have to choose between making those appearances and getting actual work done.

Well, I don't have that problem yet, just like I don't have an inbox problem either. I just have been complaining on Fred Wilson's behalf.

Notice how this email has been composed like I have a personal assistant who reads my emails for me. I don't have one of those. You can talk to me directly, that's fine.

Idea to Initial Execution

Image via Wikipedia"If you're investing in a startup at a $10 million valuation, you're not saying it's actually worth $10 million … You're saying it has a 1% chance of being worth a billion."
- Paul Graham

March 25: Stern: Entrepreneurs Exchange Summit

TechCrunch: If Execution Is What Matters, Where Does That Leave Ideas?: the process of getting a great product out there is a vital part of what constitutes innovation in the first place.

The saying that it is not the idea, it is the execution is cliche in the industry. I am going to argue to the contrary. Ideas matter. Big, unsexy companies execute all the time. When a Marco leave a Tumblr to launch an Instapaper, that is not to say he got dissatisfied with Tumblr's execution, and decided he could do a better job at it, and so he left. It was not about the execution. Tumblr's execution is the most sophisticated it has ever been. He left for the idea.

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (2)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Apple Refuses To Get Categorized

Image via CrunchBaseInstagram Wave

TechCrunch: Before It Even Begins, Apple Wins SXSW: Apple will be opening a temporary store in downtown Austin for two weeks beginning on yes, Friday, March 11. This will be in the Scarbrough Building on Congress Avenue ...... Work began on the 5,000 square-foot space on Wednesday, and they’ll undoubtedly be working around the clock to get the space done in time. ..... to sell a metric ton of iPad 2s. ...... If there’s one thing SXSW is good for, it’s for flash mobs and hive-think. Once a few people see others with iPad 2s in their hands, everyone is going to want one. This temporary Apple Store is probably going to be the hottest venue in Austin for the week. ..... I just hope the temporary store has the rock-solid free WiFi that regular stores do.

What is Apple? Is it a PC company? Is it a post-PC company? Is it a smartphone company? Is it a hardware company? Is it a software company? Apple refuses to get categorized. In that it reminds me of Nokia.

Instagram Wave

Image by exoskeletoncabaret via Flickr

TechCrunch: Instagram Now Adding 130,000 Users Per Week: An Analysis: Since launching just six months ago, Instagram has quickly become one of the web’s top photo sharing services. The company recently passed the two million user mark and announced the launch of their API....... Instagram is currently adding 130,000 registered users per week ..... Instagram’s 2.2 million users upload 3.6 million new photos per week (or 6 photos per second) ..... 37.5 percent of registered users have never uploaded a photo ..... 5 percent of users have uploaded over 50 photos ..... 65 percent follow nobody, and only 12 percent of users follow more than 10 people .....For users who upload at least one photo, there is a 45 percent chance they will upload a photo the following week ..... Those same users have a 25 percent chance they will upload a photo 12 weeks later, representing a significantly stronger retention rate than Twitter...... If it maintains its current pace, Instagram will continue to add a million new registered users every two months. ..... 37% of Instagram’s users have never uploaded a single photo and 65% have uploaded fewer than three photos. ..... This glut of inactive users is common in free online services, as we saw in our studies of Twitter Data and Foursquare Data last year. This isn’t necessarily a lack of total engagement, as users can use the app to simply follow their friends’ photo streams. ...... over half of Instagram’s users are following exactly one other user, with another 13% not following anyone ..... the vast majority of users who follow only one other user are following the “Instagram Team” account ..... 65% of users effectively follow no one. ...... Only 12% of users are following more than 10 people. ...... 76% of those users who upload their first photo go on to upload a second, 85% of those users go on to upload a third, and so on. ...... average time between any two uploads made by a single user is 43 hours ..... With each new photo uploaded by a user, the expected time until they upload their next photo decreases. ...... 45% of users are still uploading photos in Week 2, but that number drops down to around 25% by Week 12...... users who continue to upload are uploading photos at a faster rate as time goes on. ...... users acquired during such press flashes are, on average, more likely to churn than new users who came in through other channels. We’ve seen this trend in countless other businesses.

Greplin is a sibling company to Google. Greplin is a search engine. (Greplin: The First Y Combinator Company To Get Me Excited) The Huffington Post is a content company. It is pre Google.

It has been my contention that Instagram has been a sibling company to FourSquare and Gowalla. It is a check in company. Only you are not checking into a physical space, a business establishment, but rather a moment. It has hit some kind of a sweet spot.

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Fred Wilson, Soraya Darabi: Both Crazy About Music

March 25: Stern: Entrepreneurs Exchange Summit

Image via WikipediaNYU Stern Entrepreneurs Exchange
EEX Annual Entrepreneurs' Summit
Hosted by Entrepreneurs Exchange Club
When: Friday, March 25, 2011 at 4:00pm 9:00pm
Where: Kaufman Management Center, NYU Stern, Room 1-100
Ticket price: $45 (Non-Stern Ticket)

1st Annual EEX Summit

Keynote Speaker: Seth Godin

Panelists
Chris Dixon, Co-Founder - Founder Collective (SEO Is No Longer A Viable Marketing Strategy For Startups)
Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder - Reddit, Breadpig, Marketing - Hipmunk (How reddit became reddit - the biggest smallest community online)
Eric Wiesen, General Partner - RRE Ventures
Ian Sigalow, Partner - Greycroft Partners
Brian Hirsch, Managing Director & Co-Chairman - Greenhill SAVP
Charlie O'Donnell, Principal - First Round Capital
Jason Finger, Founder - Seamless Web
Idan Cohen, Co-Founder & VP Product - Boxee
Sam Hamadeh, Founder - Vault
Soraya Darabi, Co-Founder & VP Business Development - Foodspotting
Jen Fleis, Founder - Rent the Runway
Mike Yavonditte, Founder, CEO - Hashable
Vin Vacanti, Founder - Yipit
Jesse Hertzberg, SVP Business Development - SquareSpace (former VP Operations & Business Development at Etsy)
Peter Shankman, Founder & CEO - HARO
Sean Black, Founder & CEO - SalesCrunch
Giff Constable, Co-Founder & CEO - Aprizi
Seth Berkowitz, Founder - Insomnia Cookies

Sleep More Important Than Food: But I Knew That

Image via WikipediaI have instinctively known these things. I am a good sleeper. Thanks for the confirmation. I am actually way up there with the violinists.

Harvard Business Review: Sleep is More Important than Food: When researchers put test subjects in environments without clocks or windows and ask them to sleep any time they feel tired, 95 percent sleep between seven and eight hours out of every 24. Another 2.5 percent sleep more than eight hours. That means just 2.5 percent of us require less than 7 hours of sleep a night to feel fully rested. That's 1 out of every 40 people. ...... When I ask people in my talks how many had fewer than 7 hours of sleep several nights during the past week, the vast majority raise their hands. ...... We've literally lost touch with what it feels like to be fully awake. ...... In Anders Ericcson's famous study of violinists, the top performers slept an average of 8 ½ hours out of every 24, including a 20 to 30 minute midafternoon nap some 2 hours a day more than the average American. ...... The top violinists also reported that except for practice itself, sleep was second most important factor in improving as violinists. ...... I go to great lengths to assure that I get at least 8 hours every night, and ideally between 8 ½ and 9, even when I'm traveling. ...... the overnight "redeye" from California to New York, but I'm asleep by takeoff — even if takes an Ambien. When I get home at 6 or 7 a.m., I go right to bed until I've had my 8 hours. What I've learned about those days is that I'd rather work at 100 percent for 5 or 6 hours, than at 60 percent for 8 or 9 hours. ..... Go to bed earlier — and at a set time. ..... Start winding down at least 45 minutes before you turn out the light. You won't fall asleep if you're all wound up from answering email, or doing other work. Create a ritual around drinking a cup of herbal tea, or listening to music that helps you relax, or reading a dull book. ...... Write down what's on your mind — especially unfinished to-do's and unresolved issues — just before you go to bed.