Blast from the past

In 2003 I sold my Wi-Fi Hotspot company to Dutch telephone operator KPN. One of the first things we did (we = me and my partners Koen & Caspar) after we signed the contract was to install HotSpots in the lobby of the main KPN building. The boxes we hid the Wi-Fi equipment in were shaped in the form of our logo. I was very proud to see them installed there! Then, after a few months, we parted ways and KPN completely restructured the company once I was out of the picture. I heard that most of the people working there were replaced (or left) by KPN people and they changed the technical infrastructure too switching to ‘Off-the-Shelf’ parts instead of the custom made Wi-Fi Access points we developed ourselves. All of this made perfect sense to me and I had no problem with it but you can imagine it still feels awkward to see the company you built change into something completely different.

You can imagine the satisfaction I felt when I got an email from an old friend at KPN who took this photo in the main lobby of KPN last week:

Yep, our original Wi-Fi hotspot, in the case I designed with the logo I designed is still active and visible to everyone visiting. Makes me proud…

Viva la Revolucion!

We bought 15 iPhones in San Francisco last year for all our friends. Last Friday Patrick and I went to the T-Mobile store and bought iPhones. They didn’t have them in stock so we will have to wait for a few weeks before we actually get them. There are several reason why you could get an iPhone but I want to talk about one reason in particular in this post. By buying, using and developing for the iPhone right now you can participate in the start of a new era in computing.

Yep, I’m serious. The other reasons for wanting an iPhone are valid too and apply to me too. It is the mother of all shiny objects, a great tool and a nice phone and you just want one as soon as you hold one in your hands. But besides that the iPhone platform is also clearly the start of something new. And I want to be a part of that.

Early Apple computers (before the Macintosh) had serial ports and something called a Game Port. It could be used for digital and analog input and output and was very powerful. People would buy an Apple I or Apple II and hack around with these ports to build exiting stuff like printers or home automation tools. Back then it was clear to people that you could build practicably anything with these machines if you had some basic hard- and software knowledge and that was an extremely exciting prospect.

Now we have the iPhone. A lot of people are complaining about the closed character of the iPhone but I see it differently. Sure, things could improve a lot. The NDA should go and the App store should work more transparent and all that. But look at the possibilities for a moment and you will realize just how empowering this little computer is!

The early Apple computers had serial ports that let people do anything with their computers which was cool. The box itself could do a few basic things which were exciting but still fairly limited. Now look at the iPhone: developers have access to the Internet, the GPS chip and all the motion sensors. The touch, tilt and move interface is all there waiting for you to take advantage of. All you have to do is come up with an application that uses a few of these, freely available, technologies and built it.

Better yet; you don’t even have to worry about setting up an eShop, coming up with license fees, promotion, illegal copies or how to make your invention available to users. The App store handles everything for you.

So what you have is a phenomenon with unlimited possibilities, free tools to build applications, an app store that handles distribution, promotion and security and millions of eager users who can’t wait to play with your products, and pay for them too.

It is not often that a revolution takes place where you get a chance to participate. It happened, and is still happening, with the Internet and now it has just started with a new platform called the iPhone.

I just couldn’t resist becoming a part of that.

How I’m proved wrong by being right

Often people tell me their ideas looking for criticism or confirmation. They will pitch me an idea and I will give feedback. I enjoy the process and always try to really put energy into wrapping my head around an idea.

Lately I have been experiencing an interesting side effect of giving feedback during pitches; the opposite of what I’m predicting happens because of what I am predicting.

What happens is that someone will casually pitch me a rather simple and raw idea. I think about if for a minute or so and, sensing a lack of real determination in the person pitching it, realize that the idea will never take off. I explain my thoughts and pessimistic view of the idea to the person doing the pitch. He or she feels slightly disappointed and maybe even insulted a bit.

A week passes by and this person comes back to me with more determination. He or she pitches their idea one more time and again I will respond negatively. Of course I will sense the entrepreneurs more determined attitude towards the idea but I will still see some major flaws. But by highlighting them I will maybe just inspire the entrepreneur to find solutions and become even more determined.

So, in both instances I am right that the idea won’t work. But by explaining this I change the situation and the chances of the idea working out.

I could of course simply say ‘Yeah, that will work’ to any idea I’m being pitched. But besides being impractical it would also probably have an adverse reaction and doom the project.

I don’t mind being wrong and I wish everybody all the wealth and successful projects in the world so there is no problem there. But what should I do when someone I like comes to me with an idea I really don’t think will work out?

Basically it is a small example of the Hawthorn Effect. The basic idea here is that people change their behavior when they know they are being observed.

What I’m wondering about is what I should do with this information. By influencing people I end up contradicting myself and I like being right about stuff. So, what is your advice?

V3.com VS TwitterCounter.com

In 1997 I started working on an idea I had for a redirect service based on domains from Tonga. I registered come.to, surf.to and welcome.to and together with two friends (Hans-Poul and Eric) we started a company called V3.com. We ended up selling our company in 1999 to Fortunecity.

That is a short version of that story as I have talked about it a lot before. What I wanted to talk about is how similar V3.com was to TwitterCounter.com. Don’t get me wrong: they served completely different purposes and technically they were very different too but there are a few very distinct similarities which I would like to show you:

V3.com	TwitterCounter.com
Yes, both services have a button. With V3 only people who were really happy with the service (a lot!) added this button to their homepages. At TwitterCounter you could say that the button IS the service so that makes this viral growth aspect even more powerful.
generated money from advertisement	generates money from advertisement
Well, that sorta makes sense right? The funny thing is that most people (now and then) don’t realize how powerful this service is when it comes to advertising. Both services are pretty low maintenance and with every new member you get a few extra new ad views a day. All you have to do is increase membership and with it ad views will increase as well.
Disgarded as ‘funny but not a real business’	Disgarded as ‘funny but not a real business’
Not that I’m complaining here but this one keeps amazing me. When I was working on V3.com I had to defend myself all the time. When I explained the concept I would either get a blank stare or people would say “You are out of your mind, this isn’t going anywhere, who would be interested in THAT’. I never understood that people couldn’t see the potential for the service. Same goes for TwitterCounter. Yeah, it’s a funny little thing I threw together in a few hours. But with every new member I get another banner, and link to TwitterCounter generating a few more visitors a day, generating a little more advertising revenue, and new members. Repeat that last sentence 10 times and you might get an idea of the potential behind TwitterCounter.
Weak spot: Domain prices?	Weak spot: Twitter future?
Another similarity is that there was a big weak spot that is easily recognizable in both services. At V3.com it was clear that as soon as domain names would become really cheap we wouldn’t really have a business left. At TwitterCounter I am completely depended of Twitter. If they stumble, close down, change their policies and become less open, or even lose their market share because of the Next Twitter I’m gone.
Excitement: high!	Excitement: high!
I’m really excited about Twittercounter in a very similar way as I was with V3.com. It is very exciting to browse the web and just randomly see your own product featured on blogs and websites. My partner in V3 (Hans-Poul) once told me he was driving around in his car and felt slightly depressed for no particular reason. When he stopped for a red light he looked out of his side window, through the rain, and saw a sign on a restaurant. In big yellow letters they had printed “Surf.to/Shoarma” on their window. He felt a lot better right away! I get a similar feeling when I brose to Leo Laporte’s website and see a TwitterCounter (leolaporte has 51,738 followers!) displayed prominently.

Ok, I hope that gives you some insight into what I liked about V3.com and currently like about TwitterCounter.com. To finish this post I will answer a question that you might have right now: Do I think that I will sell TwitterCounter for a lot of money (or shares) just like I did with V3.com?

The answer: I don’t know, but lets find out…

New blog theme

As you can see if you are visiting this blog in a regular browser I have updated the design. The last time I spent some time on the design was more than a year ago and recently I received a few friendly suggestions that maybe it was time for a change.

The design you see here is based on a very popular Wordpress theme titled “Bluebird” designed by Randa Clay. I only changed some colors and the header image.

Because of Twitter and TwitterMail I spend a lot more time micro blogging than writing regular, and longer, post here. But that doesn’t mean I’m planning to stop my blogging here!

My presentation at Sprout ChallengerDay 2007

Last year I did a presentation during Sprout ChallengerDay on November 1, 2007. I talked about innovation, big companies and told an anecdote about how hard it is for big companies to innovate. More than 500 people were there and it was the first edition of the ‘Sprout ChallengerDay’ event.

I just received the video and uploaded it so you can watch it too. It is a Dutch presentation but the main story is one I blogged about before in a post titled “Big Companies VS Small Companies on Innovation” so read that if you don’t understand my Dutch.

Challengerday 2007 from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Vimeo.

The next Sprout Challengerday will be held on November 6, 2008. More information on http://www.challengerday.nl/