Getting Advice in an Aggregated, Fast Manner

The Internet opened the flow of information by both incredible amounts and incredibly speeds. The same can be done for spreading advice via the Internet as a tool for sharing. Honestly, Now is a profile-based website that lets you ask your community (or the wider community) for opinions and advice for everything from a potential new pair of glasses to how you should handle more serious family issues.

What It Is

Honestly, Now operates on the basis of maintaining a trustworthy community. Through Friend relationships inside the community, Honestly, Now provides users with a base of people to elicit advice from for any decisions they make seek help with making. Users can spread their question solely to friends in a private post, or they can open it up to the community at large if they want a speedier, more widespread response. They can also choose to network with “pros” for more reliable advice.

A Word From The CEO/Co-Founder

We got the opportunity to interview Tereza Nemessanyi, Co-Founder and CEO of Honestly, Now. Take a look at our Q&A for some insight into what Honestly, Now endeavors to do and how they endeavor to do so.

How do you maintain the “trustworthy community”? Is it simply through a strict invite-only policy?

We have several features in place to create a trusting place.  First, let’s define trusting place.  To us that means the asker can select whom they are asking a question, that the comments they receive are free of malice, and thirdly that they are in fact high-quality and useful.  We have two use cases.  The first is when a member asks his or her own friends privately for their anonymous vote.  Only her select friends see this.  So as long as she trusts her friends, she is in a safe place. We anticipate that a member will not be bringing her entire population of Facebook friends into Honestly, Now; just the ones she trusts for personal advice.

In the second use case, a member can ask our community for its opinion.  The community has voting rights, but only Pros can comment.  It bears mention that so far, our community is very high quality — 70% female, average age 38.   Pros are vetted and have their real name behind what they say.  Professionally, it is in their best interest to be respectful and helpful.  We do scan every picture, question and comment and have a no-tolerance policy for malicious or lewd behavior, and delete accounts who breach this.  That said, this has been exceedingly rare, based on the quality of our user base.  We’re pleased and proud that the members we have so far totally “get it”, and care deeply about being honest and respectful.

Until recently we had a strict invite-only policy, which established this quality community.  Over time, our members who’ve asked questions (which is 13% — extremely high for a user-generated site) — have been extremely delighted in their answers.  They now tell us they’re eager to share their questions more, and that the invite-only policy was a little too cumbersome.  So we’ve opened up the community on the invitation side, while maintaining the checks on quality on the inside.

Who is made a “pro” and what are the prerequisites to becoming one?

On the Pro side, we are about people who are in the business of helping other people, and we’re a platform to help them to create new relationships and build their brands.  At the very top of our Pros are what we call the Fab 50.  When we thought about how to create an awesome experience for an asker, we thought — well, what if our friends voted anonymously, but it was accompanied by advice from some of the best people on the planet?!? So that’s what we set out to do.

We initially focused on what we call “aesthetic services” — fashion stylists, beauty and hair, and selected a group of the top people in the world in these fields.  But we also quickly learned that people have awesome questions about other important things:  their relationships, etiquette, parenting, career, home, health.  So we are in the process of expanding both the Fab 50 group as well as the larger Pro set.  All Pros have been vetted by us.  We’ve been incredibly selective with the Fab 50.  They have to “live honestly” by our estimation, and each shares what we call an Honest Moment.  They’ve lived a bit, know life gets complicated, and are real people.  And so importantly — they are nice!  Most are service providers, some are media types or bloggers.   We are loving our Pros, and they love helping.  We’re having a blast.

Are there any planned additions to the service that you can speak of now?

Lots planned, some I can talk about, some not.  We have some gems hidden in the experience and we want to bring them forward, and also lose a bit of the friction of on-boarding.  We kept our service closed for a long time, to learn the core dynamic and establish a core quality level.  We are about “honest questions deserve honest answers” — and core to this experience is that we help people ask lots of great questions.

We will be opening it up through social tools but have been deliberate in design so our members can retain that control over who they’re sharing with.  So they need to feel safe, but when the feel delight and feel compelled to express and share that delight, we want them to do it effortlessly.

Have you heard of Compassion Pit? (compassionpit.com). It’s a community of anonymous venters and listeners meant to mediate conversations between people seeking advice or even just sympathy. What are your thoughts on other services such as this one that attempt similar goals as Honestly, Now? What makes Honestly, Now unique and/or more reliable?

I was initially inspired to create Honestly Now when I lost my mother.  I learned that no one loves you unconditionally like a parent, and there are certain things you need to know about yourself that only your mother will tell you.  It’s truth, plus love.  Joining with my partner Bob, we built an experience that would approximate that — give you truth from your friends (because their vote is anonymous), plus real, informed and respectful advice from really excellent people.  It is snark-free, because the worst anyone can do is vote “no”.  We have a no-tolerance policy for malice.  Our goal is to help you make great choices, and become a better version of yourself.  Each question is structured as Multiple Choice or Yes/No, and includes a picture of your choosing, to enrich the question.  So for the answerers, it’s great fun to be helpful.  We find our members and Pros take it very seriously.  And we’re proud of that.  We are poised to scale and we seek to do so while maintaining this quality of experience.

I had not heard of Compassion Pit before you brought them up, but did take a look.  They seem to come from a really honest place, and I think that’s wonderful. They are serving a very real but subtly different need — to be listened to, in an open-ended way, and the web can help with that.  Honestly Now today gets at part of that, but really where we excel is in giving great tailored advice in an accelerated way.  Honestly Now is like a cocktail party among a group of friends, one glass of wine in.  Compassion Pit seems like an open-ended conversation over a cup of tea with a trustworthy stranger.  And that’s cool too.  Just different.

Startup Perspectives

This feature is a look at growing startup companies from the perspectives of the experts at Fusionapps. We spend a bulk of time getting invested in a product to give you our analysis on their progression and what we think they need to do in their continued iterations.

Aprizi is the “Pandora for Shopping”

Unless you have a particular aim and target in sight, shopping online can be a rather painful process. Sifting through pages and pages of shoes on Zappos.com or unique, handmade bags from independent designers hosting their craft on Etsy will quickly reveal just how difficult it is to separate the good from the bad.

Finding Things On The Internet Is So Easy; So Why Isn’t It For Shopping?

Aprizi startup founders Giff Constable and Liz Crawford identified this same hindrance in online shopping. They recognized that while valuable pieces and sources certainly exist on the Internet, it was difficult to stumble on with currently available boutique networks. Aprizi, however, functions off of an upvote/downvote system to gauge your taste and appropriately suggest other fashion choices based on your individual using of the software.

What Does Aprizi Do?

Selections on Aprizi are composed by the 11 curators, and you can even search based on a particular curator’s other finds. Aprizi even hosts a My Finds tab and a bookmarklet tool to save your favorites. Users can select shopping categories ranging from shoes to tech to home goods. Results can be browsed by a general database, a particular curator, price range, or previously selected favorites. By using the same bookmarklet tool used by the curators, you can add to your database with your own findings.

What We’re Wondering

Aprizi’s stated mission is as follows: “Aprizi started with a question: why is it so hard to discover wonderful independent brands on the Web? There is so much incredible talent and quality out there, but discovery is neither easy nor fun. It should be both!” This is a wonderful goal, and they’re certainly making a run at presenting users with unique or formerly unheard of brands and products.

However, the curation has a strong female-oriented bias. While having a niche is often desirable for a startup, Aprizi neglects a huge, attainable market: the guys. As a guy, I didn’t feel compelled to continue my use of the platform. As a user in general, Aprizi seems to demand a lot of the user to build their stock of “liked” or “unliked” products enmasse. I feel like I am training Dragon Naturally Speaking just to get relevant product notifications.

One particular thing missing from this Pandora for shopping model is an even more powerful and growing database through the users themselves. What better way to expand your database of trendy online finds than to enlist in the fashionistas already perusing Aprizi? This would increase the appeal of Aprizi two-fold: 1) users would be more interested in engaging if there was a community available, and 2) the database would grow and be more reliable.

The Wait and See

Although Aprizi is a great idea with an already sleek interface, the founders will have to start getting concerned about growing and expanding both the database, reliability of it and potentially a community. I suggest they create strong verticals that appeal to personalities. I don’t want a white-washed, Apple-like buying experience. Frankly, that has become boring. Instead, I would suggest that the team curate products and present me with great content, too.

I’d be really interested to see a partnership with someone like feedly. By learning my  “likes” through my content consumption on a passive basis, they can create an intelligent algorithm that gets to know me. Rather than having to analyze my selections like another work inbox, I want to see the cool, unique attributes of these products surfaced; I want to see the personality. Aprizi is still an early service, and I see the value in a “StumbleUpon for products” kind of service. Now I’d like to see them push the labor of work out in favor of more fun consumption.

Of course, all of these efforts will amount to nothing if there is no business plan. Currently, Aprizi’s plan is to analyze their data of what trends are formulating via the site, and to use that information to sell limited edition products to those deemed interested. We will have to wait and see if this model is successful, and whether or not Aprizi can continue to grow and monetize.

About Startup Snapshots

Once a week, we’re going to profile a new entrepreneur and their start-up. We want to know what inspired the concept, what’s the business model and offer some of our unsolicited advice. If you have ideas for a Start-up Snapshot, send us a tip!

Keepsy Makes Photo Album Collaborations and Gift Giving Easy with Facebook

Have you ever tried to collaborate with friends to pitch in on a gift for a mutual friend? It can become quite aggravating to organize even the smallest of groups. Facebook, however, has a knack for congregating people. Think of all the events you have been to and how many were successfully organized and promoted via Facebook. In a similar vein, Keepsy helps you organize your friends for birthday surprises.

What It Is

Facebook is certainly becoming the culmination of social interaction, and Keepsy is looking to use that to its advantage. Keepsy is a startup application that enables up to 120 Facebook users and friends to collaboratively create scrapbooks and photo albums to gift to friends.

“Make it Together, Give it Together”

Keepsy lets creators invite friends – including those suggested by Keepsy itself – to formulate scrapbooks using photos, tools and templates from Facebook. The software keeps track of important information such as who is contributing to a group gift, and sends (private) reminders via Facebook to contributors involved in the album collaboration for instances such as when the album’s completion date is nearing.

In addition, Keepsy even lets the group chip in to buy a gift of either an actual hardcover version of the virtual scrapbook for $29.95 or a gift card from Amazon. Keepsy handles the delivery of your virtual or physical gift so that it arrives to the recipient on the day of their birthday.

The Wait and See

Unfortunately, given the secretive nature of gifts, Keepsy’s potential for advertising via its users publicly using the platform is essentially non-existent. Co-founders Peter Weck and Blake Williams are planning on implementing other group created albums such as yearbooks, wedding albums, baby showers and travel to avoid the element of surprise that users will want to retain in the case of a birthday gift. For these collaborations, it is more appropriate to allow Facebook updates that can be seen publicly by all of the users’ friends, and thereby function as word-of-mouth advertising for Keepsy.

As a source of revenue, Keepsy and founders are looking into building more relationships with companies other than Amazon to offer gift card deals to the Facebook users. Hopefully, if these two endeavors are met, Keepsy will continue to grow and expand its gift options.

The gift giving aspect of Keepsy is an odd angle. I commend them for trying to monetize, but how much margin really exists in Gift Cards? They need to strengthen the collaborative nature of the product and show real examples of cool ideas that groups can build on their platform. With digital cameras in nearly everyone’s possession, the idea of grouping individual event participants “lens perspective” into a single publication is awesome. I’ve got to ask then: why aren’t we creating photo books that everyone collaborating would like to buy? Why is the catalyst a group buying gift experience for one when it should be a group buying experience for 15?

About Startup Snapshots

Once a week, we’re going to profile a new entrepreneur and their start-up. We want to know what inspired the concept, what’s the business model and offer some of our unsolicited advice. If you have ideas for a Start-up Snapshot, send us a tip!

Envolve Brings In The Blog Community With Chat Software

Online communities are on a rise. Although larger scaled ones such as that of the Twitterverse and Facebook communities (particularly groups) are incredibly popular, there is something inherently more personal about the smaller scale, tightly knit interactions to be found on other sites. Envolve – a startup online chat software that just launched in July – is an easy way to foster a community directly on your blog via a simple chat feature.

At The Core

People are much more willing to actively and quickly chat with other users that they can see online rather than communicate via commenting on a blog to what feels more like the potential of an audience rather than the more tangible one of a viewable chat room. Users can log in anonymously, via Twitter or Facebook or even the site’s own user database with single sign-on. This encourages users of the site to communicate with one another and develop a stronger, more tightly knit community.

The use of this platform would be phenomenal in a live blogging situation. Its use could revive blogs and hedge concerns of blogging’s death (see NYTimes Post: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/technology/internet/21blog.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=blogging%20dead&st=cse). I for one like the conversation centered on a thought provoking article. I can see this enhancing the interaction between a blogger and his community in live podcasts, videocasts, and reporting around live events (such as Apples event next week – http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110222/exclusive-apple-ipad-2-event-set-for-march-2/).

It’s Customizable; It’s Easy

Options for Envolve are customizable, being a white-label product. It easily integrates into many blog formats through either plugins (WordPress, Joomla, Blogger, Tumblr, and more) or API. With a chat feature, Envolve also provides blog owners with a new form of analytics based on public chat transcriptions and tracking of how often chats are used based on real time statistics.

Instant translation is a fantastic feature. I haven’t seen anything like what Envolve does to open the conversation globally, and its appeal gives new meaning to what entails being social.

The Wait and See

While the app is a great initial implementation, I think it would be very appealing to integrate my social graph with the concept of making new connections in one app. It allows for a continuation of the conversation after I’ve made new friends.

That’d also make signing in with Facebook or Twitter more appealing. I am really digging Disqus (DISQUS is a comments platform that helps you build an active community from your website’s audience) lately, and wish more sites would use it but, frankly, also getting annoyed when it’s not available. Pair these two services, and I see a winner.

I’ve got no problem with the pricing model. I am glad to see them attempting to monetize. Currently, that plan for monetizing Envolve is via their premium packages. While it could be a deterrent to the individual blogger with minimal traffic, I can see premium subscriptions being adopted by blogs with a reasonably active following of fans that pounce on new posts.

I can also see it changing the way businesses use live blogging to communicate new information about their products and getting involved in real-time conversations post announcement. This type of tech could replace small webinar interactions in the long run and provide new opportunities for businesses to connect with new prospects. That said, it’d have to morph from its current form to support this type of use.

About Startup Snapshots

Once a week, we’re going to profile a new entrepreneur and their start-up. We want to know what inspired the concept, what’s the business model and offer some of our unsolicited advice. If you have ideas for a Start-up Snapshot, send us a tip!

In an era where some define themselves by their social interactions – particularly those made online – the team behind Instagram is contributing to how we want to connect with other people. By taking the charm of Polaroid pictures (definitely not a unique software idea on its own given the excess amount of these in various app stores) and joining that with the modern day technology that allows us to instantly share information and even media, Instagram is a realization of the two concepts put together.

At the Core

Both CEO Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have educational and work experiences that cater to Instagram’s development and needs. CEO Systrom has worked with big names such as Odea (that became Twitter) and Google, and Krieger has his own string of achievements including a software development role at Foxmarks (that became Xmarks).

Instagram is About Photography, but it’s Also About Sharing

With Instagram, users can take pictures and send them through image filters to create various effects. They can then upload these images to a social networking site of choice: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Posterous and – with the recent addition of images – FourSquare. Instagram’s dashboard is fitted with a stream of the most popular images uploaded into the database, which can be commented on and shared throughout. Instagram is a mashup of most things photo related. Location, photo filter effects,sharing/liking: the staples of apps everywhere. With its start on the iPhone platform, one has to wonder what they’ll do to innovate at a higher level than Flickr. Have you tried the latest Flickr apps? The experience for Windows 7/Windows Phone 7 is amazing.

Bringing in the Community in a Profitable Way

Although Instagram is a great way to not only tinker with your images, but also upload them instantaneously to share with your online networks, I’m wondering what the team plans on doing to translate their rising community into profit. Although this is a great way to share with your newfound Instagram community as well as your communities already formed on many other popular social sites, the Instagram community needs to be converted from potential to profit. Currently, the folks at Instagram have indicated that they are considering the idea of charging for add-ons like special photograph filters that are not available on the free application. This is a great start, but Instagram has a lot of considerations to mull over.

I’m still not certain that I’d pay for any of it. I understand the motivation for making advertising the play, but that ship and its margins sailed long ago. With a 7-to-1 Free vs. Paid app download ratio, it’s clear (at least for now) that Free is the way to go in an ever-increasing app pool. I’ve yet to click on any mobile smartphone advertisement, let alone care to read one on a Free app where I can barely see the display. The only real way mobile advertising is going to work, in my opinion, is as disruption advertising. I have even less time and patience for that sort of thing on my mobile device when I am on the go. Unfortunately, Instagram currently feels like a novelty app I’d just as easily pass on before involving myself in its community. I don’t need another new silo of “friends.”

The Wait and See

Instagram, only a few months old and yet already at a million users, still has a lot of experimenting to undergo. The potential and the market is certainly there, but hopefully they can maintain the already booming user’s interests and continue to iterate.

There have been many attempts over the years to bridge this gap. Some of which have frankly been successful to my utter amazement. Most implementations are near direct ports of their low-tech paper cousins. Nearly all fail to make best use of the strengths of the platform upon which they’re built. Few, if any, innovate. One very popular and highly praised attempt, Net-A-Porter – by a self-described “online luxury fashion retailer” – tries to entice what they call a “style-savvy customer” with an eCommerce embedded content experience.

Recently, Andrew Davis (http://www.tippingpointlabs.com) reviewed the Net-A-Porter experience in his article, “Magazines as eCommerce Vehicles: Net-A-Porter’s App,” from which I drew inspiration to give Net-A-Porter an extensive look.

The magazine is available both on the Net-A-Porter website (http://www.net-a-porter.com/magazine) and as an iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch application in Apple’s App Store (http://www.net-a-porter.com/app).

Below are just some of my observations and a few suggestions specific to the iPad Device Platform.

Does the Net-A-Porter iPad App Make the Grade?

The Net-A-Porter iPad magazine is effectively an interactive shopping guide. Updated issues are available for download once a week. The interface provides the user with a toolbar navigation system located at the bottom of the screen. It contains page navigation elements and buttons labeled Cover, Contents, Library, Share, Settings, Wish List and Shopping Bag. Most of the navigation provides exactly the functionality a user would expect.

Net-A-Porter's current interface

The experience overall is much like many of the other print-to-digital ports we have become accustomed to: swipe left and right between pages, tap points to reveal hidden content and occasionally watch a video (if you can get it to work). As you interact with the magazine and begin touching elements on the screen, it becomes very evident the point of this publication is to sell shoes, clothing and accessories. Nearly all the items on the screen are selectable. Sadly, most will take you in-and-out of the reading experience in hopes of making a sale. And that’s where the issues begin.

Attempting to add items to your “Wish List” requires signing in or, if you have yet to register,  signing up by giving your email, first name, surname, password, re-typed password, country and pre-select to receive Net-A-Porter fashion news. Now, don’t get me wrong – I realize the business would like some user data. List creation of your products, however, is a poor time to ask for it. The user is not yet invested enough in the interaction to give that level of data at this stage. So, why deter them? Net-A-Porter stopped short of completing the user experience when they decided not to enhance my reading experience with a passive product browsing and sharing experience.

Am I Reading or Buying?

McPheters & Company praised Net-A-Porter as one of the most innovative iPad apps of 2010 citing, “Everything is, discretely, for sale.” This is, actually precisely one of the issues I’ve spotted in the application. Net-A-Porter’s focus is primarily on the eCommerce experience. As users come upon items of interest, they’re immediately redirected to an eCommerce experience that encourages purchasing. There is nothing “discrete” about it. The constant shift of the user’s experience between reading mode and buying mode confuses the user and creates too much cognitive load.

Users are subjected to a feeling of a lack of control, and the constant interruption of their reading experience results in a trust barrier that will limit their willingness to explore and interact with the products embedded in the issue. This makes it impossible to enjoy the content that presumably was being created to strengthen my impulse to buy. The interruption of the reading experience to the user is akin to traditional media advertising tactics. Net-A-Porter’s iPad Magazine is little more than a sparse content experience surrounding a re-skinned navigation for a traditional Web eCommerce engine.

Net-A-Porter could easily retain the reading mode while still encouraging shopping, and even offer their users a more personalized shopping experience should they change the format of their website. As Andrew Davis mentions in his impressions of Net-A-Porter, “The closer (and more seamless) the shopping cart is to the point of inspiration, the higher the likelihood a consumer will make the purchase (and in fact the larger their cart will be).”

How to Get Out of the Way and Support the Experience

With a touch items jump off the page

With one fluid motion to the right

Leveraging the main input ability of the iPad, users should be able to extend a touch on the screen to drag an item off the page into the foreground and into the “My List” widget as the page contents fade into the background.

Store the selected item in the "My List" widget - Get back to reading!

The user is then able to return to their reading experience as the page contents are returned to the foreground. At any time, the user can resurface their list by double tapping the “My List” widget on the right.

Double tap "My List" to access your favorite items

Share, Comment, Save, Shop and Delete - All at your finger tips

Within said “My List” widget users can: 1) View Details of the respective products page, 2) Share Items with their friends on Facebook, 3) Share This List with their friends on Facebook, 4) View Comments and Leave their Own within the Net-A-Porter Community, 5) Save This List for future browsing after registering and 6) Shop This List by adding items to their Shopping Bag.

Tap "Share Item" to post to Facebook

Share your Net-A-Porter selections with your friends

Rather than consistently interrupting reading mode to have users confronted with a potential purchase, users can comfortably browse “My List” consisting of their personalized choices to make their purchases. Davis expressed similar concerns about being forced out of the magazine experience to promote eCommerce, “Suddenly, I’m thrust out of the ‘browsing’ experience and I’m pushed into ‘purchase’ mode.”

Net-A-Porter’s  “Shopping the Magazine” experience that comes at the end of the magazine would also benefit from similar customization by easing the transition from reading to buying. Personalized data that is relevant to the user will give the user the opportunity to review the items they expressed interest in, rather than sorting through a hodgepodge of items. Users will have the option to save, shop and share their list from this page.

Now that I am finished reading present my options

Selecting the “Shop My List” button will bring users to a compiled, visual list of the items they have interacted with as well as a preview of their shopping bag beneath that.

Convert "My List" Favorites to Sales

Clicking on an item from their list, users will have access to an information box that is currently available on the Net-A-Porter iPad application. In it, the selected item’s image is magnified and juxtaposed with additional information as well as the option to add the item to the shopping bag.

Select an item from your list to view its Product Page

I would also suggest an option to submit your body type. By constructing measurements and giving the user a more accurate impression of what the clothing would look like for them, this further personalized experience would prove to be an innovative step for eCommerce. An application like Fits.me encompasses this exact idea. Fits.me is an online, virtual fitting room that makes the sometimes disconcerting aspect of eCommerce less questionable.

Serving the Needs of the User Over the Company

As it stands, Net-A-Porter emphasizes a user interaction that directly benefits them. Namely, this entails forcing the user out of the experience of an online fashion magazine and into an eCommerce model. By providing a deeper interaction with the content – allowing users to explore both information about what is presented in the magazine as well as giving them the option to share that knowledge with their friends and family on Facebook – Net-A-Porter will inevitably gain both sales and readership.

I’ve recently found myself taking a lot more meetings with entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs, most of which I’ve been offering too much of my time. This is not without valid reasoning, but I do need to improve my selection criteria.

I love listening to people’s vision for a new product idea, and occasionally some of those folks prove to be equipped with the proper research and knowledge required to iteratively grow their business.

Unfortunately, however, most come to us with little more than speculative ideas. Few – if any – have actually tested their assumptions against their target audience. Rather, the immediate goal for these entrepreneurs seems to be to answer the question of cost for the sum of their “Big Idea”.

This morning, while sipping my requisite coffee, I stumbled on an intriguing post by serial entrepreneur Steven Blank. Upon its completion, I determined that the article should be on every fledgling entrepreneur and idea-man’s morning coffee reading list. Being that its broader message is so inline with my recent experiences, I felt the need to share it on my blog.

Steve Blank professes many of my thoughts of undeveloped, premature ideas being placed under the facade of a pitch ready to be presented to investors. Without concisely composing their thoughts, an aspiring entrepreneur’s pitch of 35 slides of rambling will not make the cut.

Blank insists that the more potential customers you interact with, the less your pitch comes across as a spew of hypothetical visions and more as tested findings conducted outside of your building. This all culminates in what Blank refers to as the “Lessons Learned” VC pitch which takes the VC along the journey of what you learned in the process of developing your customer.

The article is a compelling read, and certainly a worthwhile lesson from one of the godfathers of the lean startup movement.

Facebook Doesn’t Understand How We Live
Look, my Highschool friends like fart jokes and post them on my wall all the time. On the other hand, however, my family and business friends don’t. Quite frankly, I don’t want my business connections or my Mom to read Steve Skain’s latest fart joke. My personal, professional and family lives need to be separate, but – until recently – Facebook didn’t allow me to do this. I needed Facebook to mirror my life.

Roughly three months ago, fortunately, Facebook finally revealed a technique for compartmentalizing your groups of networks with the aptly named Facebook Groups. Now, users have the ability to add their connections to particular groups to partake in private discussions amongst each other via a separate wall, group chats and email threads and even share photos, videos, events and more a la the original Facebook.

I’ve had the desire for this for some time now. Imagine for a minute that when I log on to Facebook, the site is segmented into three tabs: one each for friends, family and work. I’d have three walls, three photo galleries, three friend lists. I can post on all three if I want to, but most times I have more to say in my separated communities than I do to everyone at once. Three tabs – that’s all I had envisioned. Facebook chose to go with the “Group” feature, which is a step in the right direction.

Facebook’s Vision is Flawed
Why did Facebook insist that I post everything to everyone? Well, their latest mission statement says it all: “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Facebook would like me to involve everyone all the time. That’s like asking me to invite everyone to my bachelor party. It’s not going to happen.

Go Back to Your Old Vision
Ironically, Facebook’s mission used to be: “help you connect and share with people in your life” (2008). That’s a better vision. If they would go back to their original mission and focus on “helping me better connect,” perhaps the need for something like Facebook Groups would have been held at a higher importance and seen its fruition much earlier.

Getting to the Core
At the end of the day, if Facebook really focused on understanding how its members connect and share in the real world they’d have an even more profitable platform. Why? With three tabs instead of one giant convoluted wall (or at least now with Facebook Groups) they should immediately increase their ad impressions threefold. Facebook should take a moment to remember their original mission: namely, help me (don’t give me the power to) connect and share.

In the past I’ve heard people stress the importance of mission, vision, and value statements. Whether they are the same or different in definition traditionally is not important. What is important is the need for all stakeholders of any initiative to agree on the basic goals of an effort. I’ve read a few texts for example (Crossing the Chasm) which provide guidance and exercises that groups can use to define an appropriate project vision, but few if any extend it to apply to a larger product vision. Product vision statements are less about the focus of the moment (features, functions, user requests, and current competitive demands) and more about staying true to the specifics that gave your idea legs in the first place. If you pivot and the fundamentals that formed the foundation for your product shift – either your product vision statement must change or you have a new product. I’d suggest it’s more likely the latter scenario.

Assuming you use this product vision statement properly to frame each product planning session with your company’s stakeholders – how do you continue to get consensus on your team and drive product innovation?

Step 1.
Pick a Product Champion

With start-ups this is almost always the originating entrepreneur/founder/co-founder. In all cases it’s the person with that passion and enthusiasm for the unique solution presented by your product idea.

Step 2.
Be a Diplomat

Be inclusive. Let all ideas flow freely. Don’t squash anything, and capture it all. Then, revisit these ideas for each new release planning session.

Step 3.
Develop a Culture of Innovation

Consider developing a culture that harnesses the excitement of your team by sharing control. Assign individual build managers based on their expertise and passion for the solution. Then share the wins by acknowledging their leadership and foster a culture of innovation.

Step 4.
Learn

Improve fast and improve often. Learn from everything. Engage all areas of your business (marketing, operations, sales), your products users, your development team, your infrastructure team, your partners, and your vendors. Provide a feedback loop and a collection point for suggestions and ideas. Don’t assume you and your team know everything (You Don’t)!

I’ll get more into these ideas in future posts. For now – I’d like to hear what you do on your team to drive innovation and gain consensus to grow your software products intelligently. Theory is great, but real world examples and in the trenches stories are invaluable. So tell me – how do you do it?

I’ll be attending the Hoboken Tech Meetup 4 (http://www.meetup.com/HobokenTechMeetup/) at Steven’s Institute on Monday, September 27th. Hope to see you there. Details below.

Feature speaker: Seth Besmertnik, founder and CEO, Conductor.com
“From credit card debt to VC capital: How Seth built the 12 fastest growing software company in Inc Top 5000.”

More info about Seth/Conductor:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-bring-west-coast-talent-to-the-alley-2010-8
http://www.conductor.com/news/conductor-sees-tremendous-growth-fueled-rapid-customer-expansion-and-inclusion-inc-500
http://www.inc.com/inc5000/profile/conductor

Seth’s BIO: Seth Besmertnik guides corporate strategy and develops strategic partnerships for Conductor, and his vision and thought leadership have established the company as a recognized authority in natural search. Since co-founding the company in 2005, Besmertnik has navigated the company through multiple finance rounds and extraordinary growth. Today the company boasts a customer list of more than one hundred Fortune 500 and Internet Retailer 500 companies and hundreds of the worlds most recognized publishers. In addition, Conductor provides natural search solutions for more than half the top search engine marketing and optimization agencies in the United States.
Besmertnik frequently speaks at industry events as an expert in search marketing and is a frequent guest lecturer on entrepreneurship at various universities. In 2009, Besmertnik was selected as a Finalist for Ernst & Youngs prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Also Presenting:
• SkillSlate: Hire People, Not Companies.
• Grovo: Learn the internet.
• MetroFlats: Your vacation rental source.

Hoboken, NJ 07030 – USA
Monday, September 27 at 6:45 PM
Photo: http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/b/f/e/event_15939934.jpeg
Details: http://www.meetup.com/HobokenTechMeetup/calendar/13951299/