May 28: Randi Zuckerberg, Steve Grove, Chris Sacca on Government 2.0

Our Startup2Startup speakers for May 28 are: Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook, Steve Grove of YouTube, and Chris Sacca, ex-Googler and a Twitter investor. 

They will speak about how the Internet, social networks, and social media are being used in government and democracy, and what it means for both entrepreneurs and citizens.

Here is a brief interview Brian Phillips conducted with our speakers before their talk (more video footage below):

Randi Zuckerberg manages marketing initiatives at Facebook, where she has led the Facebook US election and international politics strategy, and managed several large media partnerships. Included in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2008 Digital Power List, Randi has led projects ranging from the ABC News/Facebook Presidential Debates to the CNN/Facebook Inauguration Day Partnership and Comcast’s Facebook Diaries. She is a television spokeswoman for Facebook and has made appearances on Good Morning America, The Today Show, France 2, and World News to discuss Facebook’s marketing and political initiatives. Most recently, Randi represented Facebook as a correspondent for CNN.com’s Inauguration Day live broadcast. Randi is a graduate of Harvard University and has a passion for Italian opera and Broadway showtunes.

Steve Grove is the news and political director at YouTube, where he directs all news and political programming for the company, including the YouTube CitizenTube blog & video channel.  Steve’s work at YouTube has included the development of You Choose ‘08, YouTube’s 2008 Elections platform that hosted presidential campaign YouTube channels, election news coverage and commentary from voters and media organizations, and spawned two presidential debates in partnership with CNN. He develops and manages media programs with national and local news and political partners, in order to increase citizen engagement and in politics, government, and news reporting. Originally from Northfield, Minnesota, Steve worked at the Boston Globe and ABC News prior to joining the YouTube. He received a Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 2006.

Christopher Sacca is an investor, advisor, and entrepreneur in a number of consumer web, mobile, and wireless companies, including Twitter.  Previously at Google, Chris served as Head of Special Initiatives and was responsible for telecom projects including Google’s 700MHz and TV white spaces spectrum initiatives, and  Google’s free citywide WiFi network. Chris also led many Google business development and M&A transactions.  Most recently, Chris worked on President Barack Obama’s campaign as a Telecommunications, Media, and Technology advisor, and as Co-Chair of Finance and a Trustee of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.  Prior to Google, Chris held executive roles at Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai), and was also an attorney with Fenwick & West where he handled venture capital, M&A, and licensing transactions.  Chris graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, and graduated cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Chris also attended university at each of Universidad Católica del Ecuador, University College Cork, and the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain.  Chris lives in San Francisco and is an avid surfer, kitesurfer, skier, and triathlete.

[Part I of III of the Government 2.0 talk]

[Part II of III of the Government 2.0 talk]

[Part III of III of the Government 2.0 talk]

Steve Blank and Eric Ries: “Customers! Customers! Customers!”

Retired serial entrepreneur Steve Blank was joined by IMVU co-founder Eric Ries last night at Startup2Startup in Palo Alto to discuss how startups should couple customer development with product development from day one.

Blank began by describing how the product development process used by most entrepreneurs is ill-conceived. Instead of continually reassessing their product designs in light of customer feedback, companies tend to follow a linear development path that takes them through four main stages: 1) conceptualization, 2) product development, 3) beta testing, and 4) launching.

Ries argued that this strategy only makes sense when both the problem and the solution to that problem are fully understood. Most startups, however, cannot readily conceive a good solution to the problem they’ve identified. And many others don’t even have a clear idea of the problem they are trying to solve. Particularly in the latter case, startups must continually reevaluate both the problem and the solution by consulting their potential customers and developing a thorough understanding of those customers’ needs and behaviors. And this reevaluation leads to lots of product iteration that turns the development process into more of an ongoing cycle.

While we tend to think that the technology behind a startup determines whether it succeeds or fails, most startups actually fail from a lack of customers. This is especially true on the web where the risks to technology are relatively low, while the risks to customer acquisition and retention are relatively high. Therefore, it’s crucial for a web startup to incorporate processes that help it to develop a promising customer base while it builds out its technology.

Blank emphasized that there are no magic solutions for customer development; it simply takes a lot of focus on customers and the market at hand from the very beginning. When startups continually focus on their customers, they tend to fail fast and often because they discover a need to realign their efforts. But this is a good thing since lean startups with the ability to adapt (and “get outside of the building” to talk with customers) end up creating products that customers are actually willing to pay for. After all, earning revenue from the start is the best signal that you’ve stumbled upon a real solution to a real problem.

Here are the slides from the presentation by Steve & Eric:

Here is a recent presentation by Eric Ries on “The Lean Startup, Step-by-Step”, from his webcast earlier today via O’Reilly:

Here is a schematic from Eric on the Lean Startup feedback loop / iteration process:

Here is a brief pre-event interview with Steve Blank, conducted by Startup2Startup co-founder Leonard Speiser:

Here is the full recorded webcast of Steve & Eric’s talk below, courtesy of uStream:

April 30th: Steve Blank on Speed & Tempo for Startups

Our speaker for April is Steve Blank, founder of E.piphany, author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, and creator of Customer Development methodology (slides).  Steve will speak about Speed & Tempo for Startups, a discussion about decision-making.

Steven Gary Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over thirty years of experience in high technology companies and management.  He teaches entrepreneurship at both Stanford and UC Berkeley, and his Google Tech talk “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” (video) is one of the definitive views on early Silicon Valley innovation (updated clip from Computer History Museum).

Steve has been a founder or participant in eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978.  His last company, E.piphany, started in his living room in 1997 and went public in 1999.  His other startups include two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company (Convergent Technologies), a supercomputer firm (Ardent), a computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and a video game company (Rocket Science Games).

Total score: 2 large craters (Rocket Science, Ardent), 1 dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany) + several base hits.

Steve is on the board of CafePress.com, an on-line marketplace, and IMVU, a 3D IM social network. Steve was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Coastal Commission and is the Chairman of Audubon California and on the board of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST).

Tony Hsieh: Zappos In The Business of Selling “Happiness”

 

 

 

 

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are often criticized for seeking quick exits instead of building companies with long-term value. However, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com for over nine years now, is immune to this criticism having built an online retail business that strives above all for customer loyalty and the sale of “happiness”.

In a wide-reaching talk at Startup2Startup in Palo Alto last night, Tony explained how Zappos doesn’t try to extract the most profit out of every transaction that’s made on its site. Instead, Zappos makes the experience of buying merchandise on Zappos as pleasurable as possible so that customers will refer the site to their friends. This word-of-mouth marketing strategy is bolstered by a well-funded call center (a so-called “customer loyalty center”) that uses the 10 minutes or so it has with each captive customer on the phone to make the best impression possible. In effect, Zappos takes a lot of the money it would have put into advertisements and channels this money into providing great customer support.

Tony’s slides on “Delivering Happiness” are below:

To ensure that Zappos provides the best customer service, the company is intent on developing an extraordinary corporate culture, one that recently earned it 23rd place on Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for list. Employees are hired and fired based on their appreciation of customer service, and all employees – regardless of their rank – are required to undergo the same training program, which puts them in the call center and on the shipping floor for two weeks. Zappos holds its employees to 10 core values (which include principles like “Be Humble”) by applying these core values to its performance reviews.

Zappos may be best known as an online shoe retailer, but Tony says that the company actually has plans to become a multi-purpose corporation, one that’s in the business of selling happiness in a variety of ways. Like role model Virgin, which is in the business of selling “hip and cool” products and services in several industries, Tony expects Zappos to move into other verticals. More clothing and electronics listings are coming in 2009, and Tony only half-joked that perhaps by the year 2019 Zappos would have an airline focused on helping passengers enjoy flying again.

UPDATED: Here is the full video (3 segments) from Tony’s talk:

Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness (Part 1 of 3)

Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness (Part 2 of 3)

Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness (Part 3 of 3)

Here is a short video interview with Tony before his talk:

 

 

 

 

 

More photos from the event can be found on Flickr.

[Thanks to Brian Solis for the event photography]