innovation Archives

“Yes, And”: The Two Words that Created a #1 App

Nir’s Note: In contrast to last week’s post on the power of saying “no,” Eric Clymer shares how a creative attitude helped his team build a #1 ranked app. Eric was the lead developer of the “A Beautiful Mess” app and is a Partner at Rocket Mobile.

In improv comedy, there are really only two words that matter: “Yes, and.” You share a premise, form a scene, create a character, and if everything works out right, kill the audience. Then, you try and do it again with another, “Yes, and.”

Before I began developing for iOS, I performed stand-up and improv as a hobby. I never thought “Yes, and” would apply to the development of software and how to work with clients. But, in my best Louis CK voice, “It TOTALLY did.” (more…)

How To Save Your Startup From The “Spotlight Effect”

Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Max Ogles, a writer and entrepreneur based in Utah. Connect with him on Twitter at @maxogles.

Spotlight Effect In the beginning of 2010, when daily deals site Groupon was really hitting its stride and copycat businesses were popping up left and right, a small startup called Yipit was just getting off the ground. Yipit was involved in daily deals, too, but rather than creating the deals itself, Yipit simply aggregated the deals offered by the other companies to offer a nice tidy list in a daily email.

Like any startup, the Yipit team planned PR and marketing around their launch and hoped that the buzz would yield a nice base of users, (more…)

Our More Engaging World

Nir’s Note: A few weeks ago, I wrote a brief post summarizing some thoughts for a potential book chapter. I asked my readers for help and you delivered! The comments were fantastic and I received several insightful emails. Therefore, I’ve decided to continue with the experiment with the article below. This week’s post is much shorter and less developed than my previous essays and is intended to solicit more of your thoughts and feedback for a potential book chapter. Give it a quick read and tell me what you think. —

We’re in an engaging world. The world has become harder to resist. Products are getting better at giving people what they want and – for the most part – that has been good thing. Yet, the historical trend-line shows products are also becoming more habit-forming.

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Making a Marketplace

A Checklist for Online Disruption

On November 13, 2012, Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark Capital, posted a remarkable essay on his blog. In it, he described the, “10 factors to consider when evaluating digital marketplaces.” Given the tremendous value marketplaces create and how hard they are to get right, I found this essay to be a goldmine of insight.

I teamed-up with my friend and blogger Sangeet Paul Choudary, to digest Bill’s post into a more memorable format. The result is this brief checklist we hope will help take some of the luck out of evaluating marketplace businesses.

As Bill wrote, “It is unlikely that you will find a marketplace opportunity that would score ten out of ten with respect to this list.” But according to Bill, the odds of success improve the more of these characteristics the business exhibits.

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Time for Digital Hat Racks

The first thing Don Draper does when he gets to his office is give his busty secretary a suggestive wink. The second thing he does is take off his fedora. Finally, depending on the severity of the previous night, he completes his morning routine with a stiff drink.

What can we learn from Don’s habits? First, that scotch and submissive secretaries always equal drama. But what of that fedora? There’s a lesson there too.

As any Mad Men fan knows, it was once popular for men to wear hats everywhere they went — except, that is, when they stepped indoors. When a gentleman went inside, he (more…)