Business Success Pieces - Evan Williams / Chris Sacca / Paul Saffo / Asana / Jordan Cooper

There's been a few interesting business pieces I've seen lately that all seem connected enough to be pulled into one (hopefully coherently written) blog post...

Starting off with the oldest (by far) was "Ten Rules for Web Startups" from Twitter founder Evan Williams on his blog in Sept 2005. Williams track record is remarkable in that he co-founded both Pyra Labs (parent company that created Blogger) and Twitter. Additionally, he's referenced by venture capitalist Chris Sacca as someone to back in a venture regardless of the idea. The rules as laid out in the blog post from Williams were all interesting, but what really stood out to me was number one... "Be Narrow", with the first few sentences why noted below:

"Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do."

With this (and since I so enjoy melding together different iterations of the same theme), it seems high time to bring in something from the excellent Ken Jennings book Maphead. I reviewed the book here and note how in it a collector was quoted saying "if you're going to specialize, specialize as much as possible." It's a tremendously interesting (and logical) concept that applies to map collecting, business creating and I'm sure many other ventures.

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Continuing with this approach of blending and connecting together in this blog post, I saw from the same Chris Sacca Twitter feed that directed me to the Williams piece a link to the recent Wired Magazine story "8 Visionaries on How They Spot the Future" by Joanna Pearlstein. It's written as a wisdom compilation story and below are the people and their insights that struck me the most (or at least insights as I took them):

Paul Saffo (Technology Forecaster) - looks for things that seem out of place as an indicator of events to come. Yea, that's a bit nebulous of a statement, but he describes the idea well is his short missive.

Chris Sacca (aforementioned Venture Capital guy) - you don't need to be a seer (prophet - soothsayer - diviner - augur - clairvoyant) to spot (and potentially invest in) the companies that could be poised for success. Barriers to entry are low enough in many technology realms that evaluation decisions can be made based on the actual product or service experience (or at least an early stage iteration of it). Tied to this idea is how many ways there (Twitter as probably the largest) to discern customer experience (as I wrote about featured in an Oct 2009 Businessweek) with a company and it's offering.

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With yet another "hopefully not a stretch" connection for the purpose of this blog post... rule number ten from Williams of "Be Balanced" reminded me of something else from Sacca in the same interview that he spoke of backing Williams regardless of the business idea. Point as I recall it was the import of working with people that he wants to spend time around as well as invest with.

This idea seems very much in evidence with two other pieces I've seen recently. Peter Delevett wrote "Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz brings new startup Asana into the marketplace" on the company started with a former colleague from Facebook, Justin Rosenstein and I also saw "In Pursuit of 'Brain Doppelgangers'" from the blog of an entrepreneur, Jordan Cooper.

I'm not familiar with Cooper at all, but his description of the power in being with like-minded people made sense and I was pretty amazed to see the title right after reading the excellent GQ piece "The Cooler Me" (haven't yet seen it posted online) by Eric Puchner about... yep, doppelgangers.

"Maphead" by Ken Jennings

I recently finished Maphead by Ken Jennings (best known for his exploits on the TV game show Jeopardy!) and enjoyed the book quite a bit.



There's a lot of interesting material and it all seemed to work well together with each chapter being about yeah, something map-related, but more importantly, something of interest to Jennings. Result of this was a book on content the author into and which was well written in a funny and conversational style.

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Below is some of the specific content from the book that stood out the most (not meant to summarize each chapter, just a lot of notable material throughout the book):

Chapters 2 (Bearing) and 4 (Benchmarks) – Both contained interesting writing about the idea of maps as a key to place in the world today and throughout history. Part of this was look at the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.

Chapter 5 (Elevation) – Was about collectors of maps and included a quote from one who spoke of maps combining "art, history, scarcity, antiquity and intrinsic interest." Additional mention was made in this chapter of different areas of map collecting with another collector quote being "if you're going to specialize, specialize as much as possible."

Chapter 6 (Legend) – Written about the type of people drawn to maps, including Austin Tappan Wright and his incredible made up civilization of Islandia, published posthumously as a thousand page book. Sections of writing by Jennings are also devoted to his idea that "all maps are fantasy maps, in a way.” Related to this, there’s novel series like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings that feature created in the imagination immersion worlds of great detail (i.e. just like maps provide). It’s an interesting idea around made up civilizations and brings to mind that not all fiction has to be about star crossed lovers. There can be incredibly creative fictional writing that would be non-fiction if, you know… actually real.

Chapter 8 (Meander) – About people who obsessively visit places and mark them off… includes mention of High Pointers (who visit the highest geographic feature in each state), Travelers Century Club members (who have been to 100+ countries), and people who just want to experience things. To this last category of person, Jennings mentions Chris Guillebeau, a now 34 year old guy who travels to new places on the cheap because it's interesting to him and has written extensively (with a forthcoming book) on the topic. Struck me as reminiscent of the story of Caballo Blanco with someone knowing what they wanted to do and then doing exactly that, rather than viewing their ultimate goal or lifestyle as being something for later.

Chapter 9 (Transit) – Features people fascinated with roads… which brought to mind for me the excellent Tom Vanderbilt book Traffic.

Chapter 10 (Overedge) – Written about geocaching, a pastime not even possible until 2001, when the government eliminated the GPS mandate of Selective Availability, effectively switching GPS accuracy from a few hundred feet down to a few feet. Jennings wrote interesting material on geocachers… quite a few obsessive people, but also quite a few people (more than ever with GPS on cell phones) getting out and exploring the world.

Chapter 11 (Frontier) – Covers Google Maps and Google Earth and gets into the fascinating concept of mashups (combining Google Maps with data sets like crime statistics) and the one step further idea of augmented reality via things like Google Goggles.

Chapter 12 (Relief) – This conclusion chapter takes things back to the concept mentioned in relation to collectors… maps combine history, geography, art, a place in the world and people, and especially kids, love maps.

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Overall, really entertaining book that comes across as something the author probably enjoyed writing.