(This post is running concurrently on the Return Path blog.) It is now widely understood that the Internet runs on data. I first blogged about this in 2004—14 years ago!— here. People have come to expect a robust—and free!—online experience. Whether it’s a shopping app or a social media platform like Instagram, these free experiences provide a valuable service. And like most businesses, the companies that provide these experiences need to make money somehow. Consumers are coming to understand and appreciate that the real cost of a “free” internet lies in advertising and data collection. Today, the Wall Street Journal ran an article exploring the data privacy practices of Google and some of the third party developers who utilize their G Suite ecosystem….
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Business
Feedback Overload and Confusion – a Guide for Commenting on Employee Surveys
We run a massive employee survey every year or so called The Loop, which is powered by Culture Amp. We are big fans of Culture Amp, as they provide not only a great survey tool but benchmarks of relevant peer companies so our results can be placed in external context as well as internal context. The survey is anonymous and only really rolled up to large employee groups (big teams, departments, offices, etc.), and we take the results very seriously. Every year we run it, we create an Organization Development Plan out of the results that steers a lot of the work of our Leadership team and People team for the coming year. I just read every single comment that…
There’s a word or two missing from the English language
In my personal life, I have acquaintances, I have friends, and I have good/close friends. In my work life, I have colleagues – the professional equivalent of acquaintances. But what comes after that professionally? We spend over half our waking life at work. Of course we are going to build important relationships. Some of them will cross over to personal and become legitimate “friends” or “good friends.” I always feel some sense of honor when a colleague introduces me to someone as a true friend. But for those that don’t cross that chasm – for those who are truly just professional relationships but ones with increasing closeness – what are we supposed to call them? I guess in a pinch we…
You Don’t Know How to Drive a Car Because You Know How to Read a Map
I was having breakfast with the CEO of another SaaS company the other day, as I often do to network. He was telling me about his experience working with his company’s new Private Equity owner. There are always a mix of pros and cons that come with any particular shareholder, Board member, or owners, of course. In his case, my fellow CEO was bemoaning the 29-year old associate who acted like a know-it-all in every Board meeting. Lots of CEOs have been there. There’s a lot of value you can get from an associate or VP-level person at an investor who is the Master of the Spreadsheet and who has access to a lot of data about your company. And there is…
No One Will Ever Thank You for Keeping Prices Low
I was in a Board meeting last week (not Return Path’s), when one of my fellow directors came out with this gem: “No one will ever thank us for keeping our prices low.” When I first heard this, as is the case with most great quotes, I was drawn to its wit and simplicity. But then I started thinking – is it true? My mind first went to retail. Having a reputation as being a low-cost provider can be in and of itself effective marketing – if that reputation is strong enough and your selection is wide enough, at least in retail-oriented industries, customers may consistently buy from you even if you’re not ALWAYS the low-cost provider. Wal-Mart and Amazon…
Deals are not done until they are done
We were excited to close the sale of our Consumer Insights business last week to Edison, as I blogged about last week on the Return Path blog. But it brought back to mind the great Yogi Berra quote that “it ain’t over ’til it’s over.” We’ve done lots of deals over our 18 year existence. Something like 12 or 13 acquisitions and 5 spin-offs or divestitures. And a very large number of equity and debt financings. We’ve also had four deals that didn’t get done. One was an acquisition we were going to make that we pulled away from during due diligence because we found some things in due diligence that proved our acquisition thesis incorrect. We pulled the plug on…
How Venture Capital Firms Work, for Entrepreneurs and Startups
A couple of months ago, I was doing an internal lunch & learn for senior managers, and the topic came up as to “how do our VC firms work?” In the spirit of deeply understanding our customers’ businesses in order to better serve them, I thought the same would be true of our investors and Board members – that educating our team on the inner workings and economics of our investors would lead to greater empathy of one of our other key stakeholders. So with no small amount of help from my long-time investor and director Brad Feld and his colleague Jason Mendelson, whose book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist I contributed to in a very…
When in Doubt, Apply a Framework (but be sure to keep them fresh!)
I’ve always been a big believer in the consistent application frameworks for business thinking and decision-making. Frameworks are just a great starting point to spark conversation and organize thinking, especially when you’re faced with a new situation. Last year, I read Tom Friedman’s new book, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, and he had this great line that reminded me of the power of frameworks and that it extends far beyond business decision-making: When you put your value set together with your analysis of how the Machine works and your understanding of how it is affecting people and culture in different contexts, you have a worldview that you can then apply to…
The Value and Limitations of Pattern Recognition
My father-in-law, who is a doctor by training but now a health care executive, was recently talking about an unusual medical condition that someone in the family was fighting. He had a wonderful expression he said docs use from time to time: When you hear hoof beats, it’s probably horses. But you never know when it might be a zebra. With experience (and presumably some mental wiring) comes the ability to recognize patterns. It’s one of those things that doesn’t happen, no matter how smart you are, without the passage of time and seeing different scenarios play out in the wild. It’s one of the big things that I’ve found that VC investors as Board members, and independent directors, bring…
Why You Won’t See Us Trash Talk Our Competition
We’ve been in business at Return Path for almost 18 years now. We’ve seen a number of competitors come and go across a bunch of different related businesses that we’ve been in. One of the things I’ve noticed and never quite understood is that many of our competitors expend a lot of time and energy publicly trash talking us in the market. Sometimes this takes the form of calling us or our products out by name in a presentation at a conference; other times it takes the form of a blog post; other times it’s just in sales calls. It’s weird. You don’t see that all that often in other industries, even when people take aim at market leaders. During…
Being a CEO is Like Playing a Game of Hearts
Hearts was one of my favorite card games in college. I remember staying up deep into the night regularly with my roommates playing it. I recently taught our kids how to play and have been playing with them more regularly of late…and I was reminded how much I enjoy the game. No metaphor or simile is perfect, and this one isn’t either, but it occurred to me the other night that being a CEO is a little bit like playing a game of Hearts. First and foremost, you have to play the hand that you’re dealt. No matter how proactive you want to be about running your own agenda, things happen around you — with your people, your customers, your…