Honestly, Why Bother? We have a small competitor who has, on and off over the years (they just re-did it) blocked access to their corporate web site from one of our offices. Like we can’t see it from our other offices or from home or from wireless air cards sitting in our offices. Honestly, why would you bother going to that trouble just to irk a competitor? I guess I’m glad that’s how they’re spending their available cycles.
Category
Business
Book Short: A Must Read
Book Short: A Must Read Every once in a while, I read a book and think, “This is an important book.” Microtrends, by Mark Penn, was just that kind of read. Penn is the CEO of one of our largest clients in the market research business as well as CEO of Burson Marstellar and, more notably, the Clintons’ pollster and strategy director for much of the last 16 years. He’s a smart guy, and more important than that, he’s awash in primary research data. The premise of Microtrends is that America is no longer a melting pot, where lots of different people come together to try to be the same, but rather that it’s a big tent, where lots of…
It's Copyright Time
It’s Copyright Time Brad must be off his game this year, so…time to update all those copyrights to say 2008. Or as Brad gently suggested last year, make that field variable so you never have to worry about it again! (Thanks to our CTO Andy Sautins for the reminder here.)
The Highest Form of Flattery
The Highest Form of Flattery Competitors copy us all the time. Sometimes it’s big things like product features or strategy. Sometimes it’s little things like marketing collateral or a logo or product name. Those are always a little annoying, but really, there’s nothing one can do about it. As we say at Return Path, it’s the price we pay for being a market leader. And to be honest, I’m sure we do the same on occasion, whether inadvertently or on purpose. But we spotted one today that’s so incredibly egregious and just plain silly, I don’t even know where to start. A competitor — name will be hidden to protect the guilty — just ripped off our boiler plate language…
Back to Business?
Back to Business? Today is the day every year that everyone keeps saying, "well, it’s back to school time." Ignore for a moment the fact that half of the schools I hear about now start in the middle of August…it’s interesting to see how some things in the business world really slow down in the summer, especially in August as well as the school system. People really disappear for vacations, short and long. Even if we aren’t like our European counterparts who really have it figured out and can virtually shut down in August, it’s just harder to get things done. People might not all be out at the same time or for as long, but having one or two…
More Good Inc.
More Good Inc. Last year I was pleased and proud to write about our debut on the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. At that time I wrote that “Now our challenge, of course, is STAYING on the list, and hopefully upping our ranking next year!” Well, I am again please and proud to announce that we, in fact, stayed on the list. (You can read all the Inc. coverage here and see our press release about the ranking here.) Unfortunately, we didn’t make the second part of our goal to up our rank. But, we did up our growth – our three-year revenue growth rate was 18% higher than last year. This is a testament to the…
Father/Mother Knows Best?
Father/Mother Knows Best? USA Today had an interesting article today about how founder-led companies perform better than their non-founder-led counterparts, with a 15-year stock price appreciation of 970% vs. the S&P 500 average of 222%. That’s pretty powerful data. The general reasons cited in the article include founders having deep industry knowledge…having a powerful presence in the company…having a huge financial stake in the success of the business…not looking for the next job so can take a long-term perspective…being street fighters early on I think all those are true to some extent. And it’s certainly true, as one of the CEOs interviewed for the article said, that it’s not because founders are smarter or harder working. But to add to…
A Model for Transparency
A Model for Transparency Rob Kalin from Etsy (a marketplace for handmade goods) wrote an outstanding blog post today that Fred describes as a transparent window into what makes the company tick. I’d like to riff off of two themes from the post. First, the post itself and the fact that Rob, as CEO of the business, is comfortable with this degree of transparency and openness in his public writing. I still think that far few CEOs blog today. There is probably no better window into the way a company works or the way a management team thinks than open and honest blogging. One member of our team at Return Path described my blogging once as “getting a peek inside…
Everything That is New is Old
Everything That is New is Old With a full nod to my colleague Jack Sinclair for the title and concept here…we were having a little debate over email this morning about the value of web applications vs. Microsoft (perhaps inspired by Fred, Brad, and Andy’s comments lately around Microsoft vs. Apple). Jack and his inner-CFO is looking for a less expensive way of running the business than having to buy full packages of Office for every employee to have many of them use 3% of the functionality. He is also even more of a geek than I am. I am concerned about being able to work effectively offline, which is something I do a lot. So I worry about web…
Why Do Companies Sell?
Why Do Companies Sell? Fred has a good post today about Facebook and why they shouldn’t sell the company now, in which he makes the assertion that companies sell “because of fear, boredom, and personal financial issues.” He might not have meant this in such a black and white way, and while those might all be valid reasons why companies decide to sell, let me add a few others: Market timing: As they say, buy low – sell high. Sometimes, it’s just the right time to sell a business from the market’s perspective. Valuations have peaks and troughs, and sometimes the troughs can last for years. Whether you do an NPV/DCF model that says it’s the right time to sell,…
Starbucks, Starbucks, Everywhere, Part II
Starbucks, Starbucks, Everywhere, Part II In 2004, I blogged about Starbucks’ implausible Forbidden City location (post includes picture) in the heart of one of China’s most prominent national monuments. Today, under pressure from the Chinese government, Starbucks announced that they’re closing the location, reflecting “Chinese sensitivity about cultural symbols and unease over an influx of foreign pop culture,” according to a very short blurb about this in today’s Wall Street Journal. It must be indescribably different to live in a society that’s so tightly controlled.