Netizen: Naveen Selvadurai

Showing posts with label Naveen Selvadurai. Show all posts

Monday, April 26, 2010

2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments

I am not suggesting all four spaces carry equal weight; they don't. Location carries more weight than all the rest put together. 2010 is location's year. By now that is conventional wisdom. I can see why, and I buy into it. But these strike me as spaces to watch for this year. One of the other three might claim 2011 as their year. And I am open to adding other spaces to the list if I can find them, read up on them, imagine them. This list of four is by far not exhaustive. Charlie (@ceonyc) had a blog post a few weeks back (my comment) that ranked high on my vision grid, and he talked about some spaces he would like to see action in as an early stage investor. And he does not even touch upon these four spaces. So what you are looking for impacts what you see. There's plenty of exciting stuff happening in many directions. The 2010s will be what the 1990s should have been but weren't. We will dream big again, only this time there will be less fluff. Real businesses will get built. Old industries will get reinvented. New industries will see light of day. These are exciting times.

(1) Location

I'd be rooting for FourSquare even if it were half the size of Gowalla, but it makes it easier to root for because it is crushing the competition. But like the Google and Amazon people will tell you, don't spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror. Focus on customer feedback more. Grow.

Selling FourSquare Would Be A Mistake, Partnering Would Be Genius

The mobile web is bigger and is growing faster than the old web. Location is key to the mobile web. FourSquare has itself a sweet, sweet spot. All the best to Dennis (@dens) and Naveen. (@naveen)

(2) Random Connections

Chatroulette Is For Real

We could have had Mark Zuckerberg, but instead we lost him to the Valley. We should try better with Andrey. We want people all over the world to be able to meet random New Yorkers. There's the fun in sharing.

(3) The Inbox

ReadWriteWeb: Gmail Becomes an App Platform: Google Adds OAuth to IMAP ....Syphir, which lets you apply all kinds of complex rules to your incoming mail and then lets you get iPhone push notification for your smartly filtered mail.
Rapportive - an incredible GMail contacts plug-in.
Your Inbox as Platform: Google Calendar More Closely Integrated With Gmail

Everything is email, if you think about it. When I first started blogging, I was like, great, I no longer need to flood people's inboxes. All I have to do is send them a link to a blog post. Facebook is email. People who don't know you don't email you, and people who email you are only one click away if you want to know the latest in their lives. No need to call them up, or ask them. Twitter is the ultimate email. Eric Schmidt even called it that, but he was a little miserly in the description. A poor man's email? I am poor, everyone is poor by Eric's standards, but hey! FourSquare is email. I am emailing you my location.

Don't give up on email. Email is here to stay. There is so much that can be done with the inbox. I am glad some startups are looking into it.

For now all I want is about four different inboxes. Inbox 1, emails only from individuals whose addresses I have saved. Inbox 2: emails from those people that are going out to more than me. Inbox 3: emails from mailing lists I have subscribed to. Inbox 4: everyone else.

(4) Frictionless Payments

Venmo is my FourSquare in this space. I take hometown pride in Venmo. But then supporting FourSquare and Venmo is like supporting Obama. (Jupiter And Obama) It helped that the guy was outstanding. I get the impression Venmo is also a leader in this crowded space. It was listed in Time magazine as one of the top 50 sites of 2009, along with Drop.io, another hometown goodie. (@lessin)

It is like this, there was barter trade back in the days. Then they had coins, some coins were as big as cart wheels. Then paper money. Then plastic. Then PayPal. We are about to hit the next phase. That is where Venmo comes in.

In my homevillage in Nepal growing up, I saw rice used as currency. Farm workers got paid in rice. Vegetable vendors would give you vegetables for rice. And it was pretty smooth, as in frictionless, enough to give Kortina a run for his money. (@kortina)

What I am telling you, Kortina, is rice as currency is pretty cutting edge, and there was major trust involved.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Selling FourSquare Would Be A Mistake, Partnering Would Be Genius

Dennis, Fred, Scott: Tweet Boom Tweet Boom
4/16: I Found Myself A Party: Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night
If The Tweet Is The Atom, What Is Location?
Location! Location! Location!
Craig Newmark, Dennis Crowley, Jennifer 8 Lee: Koreatown

First there was talk that Vinod Khosla wants to pump 10 million dollars and above into FourSquare at a 80 million dollar valuation. Vinod Khosla, mind you, raised half of all money all VCs raised last year. He is a top dog in the game. (I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla, Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising)

Then there was talk Yahoo wants to buy FourSquare for over 100 million dollars, some figures put it at 125 million. More recently there have been reports other big fishes are also looking, namely Microsoft and Facebook. These stories are relevant whether they are true or not. It is entirely possible the different players are exploring their options. Feelers might have been sent out. Formal talks might or might not have happened.

I think selling FourSquare would be a mistake. Selling Hotmail was not a mistake. Sabeer Bhatia sold it to Microsoft for 400 million. But Hotmail was pretty much a finished product. FourSquare is nowhere close to being a finished product. I could argue it has not even started to start. And if it is about money, waiting a few years makes money sense too. Sell for more in a few years if you really, really want to sell it. But I am going to argue against that as well.

For me it is not about price. I am not saying don't sell to Yahoo for 125 million, but if they give you 200 million, then maybe. I am saying don't sell it, period. Google buying Facebook would have made no sense. Facebook could not have digested Twitter and instead would have ended up with constipation.

I can't think of one company that could buy and digest FourSquare and do the location space justice. Facebook could not do it, Twitter could not do it, and I am not even thinking about any other name.

The mobile web is bigger than the old web and also is growing faster. With the mobile web, location is key. Where you are when you are playing with your smartphone is so very important. And for FourSquare location is not an afterthought, location is the beginning point, and that makes all the difference.

FourSquare should be flattered by all the attention. Things have not always looked this rosy for FourSquare or its two founders. So they should take all this attention as ways to boost their self-esteem.

But flat out saying no might also be a bad move to make. The attitude should be, selling to you would be injustice to the location space, but let's work together, let's see if we can add the location feature to your many web properties wherever they make sense, and pay us for that instead. I think that would be the smart thing to do.

FourSquare has only a million users. That is nothing. The FourSquare team knows better than to wallow in all of the buzz. It is always safer to stay focused on the fundamentals of the business. Buzz comes and goes, ask Twitter. Twitter is in a better shape as a business today than ever before, but it does not have the buzz it had a year back.

FourSquare should use all this offer talk to expand its user base. Google expanded its user base dramatically by becoming the search engine for web properties like Yahoo and AOL. FourSquare should make similar moves. Create location space where it does not exist, and inhabit that space. It makes a ton of sense to talk to the big dogs in town. Cut deals.

2010 is location's year and FourSquare has the clear lead in that space. I see FourSquare never getting sold. Just like I never saw Facebook or Twitter getting sold. FourSquare has IPO potential, not now, I don't know when precisely, but it has IPO potential. If I had my way, Twitter would go for an IPO this year, before Facebook. (Twitter Should Go For A Netscape-Like IPO) I can see FourSquare going IPO somewhere in the mid 10s.

FourSquare is a business. For a business it is about money. The big money is in going IPO. FourSquare has reached that rare threshold for a tech company that it will never have any problems raising money ever again. That gives the FourSquare team the luxury of superb execution.

FourSquare will not get bought. FourSquare will buy. It could makes its first major acquisition later this year or early next. Stay tuned.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

Friday, April 16, 2010

4/16: I Found Myself A Party: Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night

I was at David Noel's blog, at this particular blog post actually, following everybody on the list, trying to give myself a relaunch at Tumblr, a platform I use to listen in. And way down is Dennis Crowley's tumblog. Guess what I find on there. Tonight's gonna be a good night.

David Noel: Best Entrepreneurship/VC Tumblr Blogs
Dennis Crowley: Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night
FourSquare Tweet, FourSquare Blog Post

Four squared is 16, get it? Hence April 16. That was a grassroots recognition, not a Team FourSquare recognition. FourSquare just had its RT moment. The RT - retweet - did not come from Team Twitter.

Friday April 16, 10pm -> 2am
The Hotel on Rivington - Penthouse
107 Rivington Street (btw Ludlow and Essex)
Lower East Side, NYC

Friday, February 26, 2010

The Foursquare Rap: Badges Like Us

Lyrics:
Mr. Silvas in da building
Checkins by the hundreds, thousands, trillionz

Ayo I know its my first stop
Look at that leaderboard and see me at the top

Bouncin to new places, adding em quick
I know all the TO-DOs and I got all the tips

Show up at the Bar and I check in Right Away
Sent it to my Twitter cuz Im here to stay

Looks like you got ousted welcome to the game
This is Foursquare bitch! Gowalla aint the same!!

Now that Im the mayor, now that Im here
Gimme my free breadsticks AND my cold beer!!

La la la la
How it feel to wake up and be the mayor of the city!
La la la la
Tryina get that Crunked badge, drinkin like P Diddy

[Chorus]

Got a rock like this
Cant use an iPhone, AT&Ts a piece of shhh

No one on the corner had an app on this
So I used my mobile web, wasnt very quick

You can learn where to eat just by checking my feed
Checkin checkin my feed checkin checkin my feed

Follow my lead its the road to success
Never need a reservation, they always say YES

But I cant teach you my swag
You can pay for a coffee but you cant buy a badge

School of social media Imma grad
I hope this hits techcrunch or else Ill be sad

Its Newby
Checkin w/ the groupies eating lotsa sushi

Newwwbyy
Bet you didnt know we could flow like thiiiiis

[Chorus]

Lets talk about the knockoffs, they just imitating
They cant even compare and no were not even hating

Copyin foursquare cuz you lack innovation
How could you turn down Googles valuation?

So let me say it now, let me be clear
Foursquare is the app that all you should fear

Hockey stick growth, all star investors
Lots of passionate users, all beta testers

I add lots of value, Im a superuser
You cant spell your top venues, super abuser

Dont checkin to your house, thats just really lame
Ill snatch up all your badges, call me David Blaine

Your checkins are fake, theres no way those are true
20 stops in one night? IM GONNA CATCH YOU!!

And whats up with all these randos trying to friend me?
Im checked in off the grid like TIGER WOODS B!!!!!