A VC - Latest Comments in Business Model Jujutsu

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

BillSeitz — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:49:47 -0000

This reminds me of Bill Gurley's discussion of what Google is doing to the GPS market with free turn-by-turn navigation: "less than free".

http://abovethecrowd.com/20...

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

joni82 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:51:18 -0000

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:18:19 -0000

Hi gavin. Nice to see you on AVC!

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

gavinstarks — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:33:26 -0000

Couldn't agree with this more.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

Citybot — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:15:56 -0000

I guess that all depends on how good your Sandwiches are. If they are no good, than renting a shelf won't save you either.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

COMRADITY — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:07:30 -0000

Back in the Day, Tacoda Traditional Media Clients' salesforces were not very motivated to sell digital media extensions. So Tacoda was smart to sell themselves. But in today's advertising market, Tacoda is competing against their own clients for a piece of a shrinking pie.

So today, I suspect advertising revenue based technologies may find there is an opportunity to sell a package of a technology license and sales training/consulting. (Isn't this how IBM sold new upgrades to clients). Today, I suspect Traditional Media salesforces are more receptive to learning how technology can make traditional + interactive media can be 1+1=3.
Katherine Warman Kern
@comradity

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:47:53 -0000

We have not found many of them. The good ones are mostly still employed in high paying jobs

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

Vladimir Vukicevic — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:14:33 -0000

Partner, yes. Paying the supplier, I don't think so.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

Dave Pinsen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:33:50 -0000

Why not try hamburger instead? In this economy, there ought to be some decent sales guys available who won't break the bank.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

Todd Cronin — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:12:32 -0000

This is a very validating post...
Love the comment about a large potential customer going with a competitor based on their age / experience. Leaves more bandwidth to focus on the innovative young customers who are creating the next youtubes, and facebooks. Growing and learning together is a beautiful thing.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:46:19 -0000

I agree with that vision of where we are going. Just not sure we want patforms investing in services built on them

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:45:02 -0000

It might cost more to hire an experienced sales guy than the entire burn rate of some of our companies

Not saying we shouldn't do it, but it would require a cultural shift from ramen to steak

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

kidmercury — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:07:07 -0000

you ever need a song for your portfolio companies to sing when they are presenting their products/services feel free to holla at me

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

kidmercury — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:57:08 -0000

we are all ultimately building on top of something else; a programming language, a server, a currency, etc. i think the internet simply enables anyone to launch their own platform. in doing so, it makes building on top even easier, which further reduces entrepreneurial risk. the end result i think will be something like a world of microbusinesses connected by APIs conducting business according to their own standards and with their own currency.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

Dave Pinsen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:47:24 -0000

So why not hire professional salesmen with experience in related industries to present your portfolio companies' products? It depends on the companies you're trying to sell to, of course, but when I sold to financial industry firms while working for a start-up, I always wore suits. As a general rule, I think it's best not to dress more casually than the folks to whom you are presenting (I gave a presentation at the Union Bank of California once where that would have been almost impossible: one of the tech guys was wearing shorts and sandals in the meeting).

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

deepeshbanerji — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:39:23 -0000

Twitter should follow the indeed model - provide publishers good
content (as fresh as possible about topic x) and sprinkle in sponsored
ads.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

ShanaC — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:24:16 -0000

If I am not mistaken, that's how major supermarkets determine what goes where on the shelves, which is why the non-major brands are never at eye-height.

You could be the lux nut butter or the .99 nut butter: It might be that one of the reasons this is working is that this model spreads the risk because it is more clearly known what the risks are to spread within the technology.

The technology itself may not even be the product- it is what it does, and that is what screams risk. Spreading the obligations of the risk around gives people a comfort zone in which to operate: especially because there are always going to be a variety of different, similar technologies to serve a variety of needs that develop over time (just liek there are a variety of services to place ads on the net.)

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

AlanPearlstein — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:07:55 -0000

When Yahoo introduced BOSS, i thought they were really onto something along the lines of your post. Yahoo would let developers have access to their search stream through an API to create their own search capability, and Yahoo would pay the sites a piece of the revenue from sponsored ads. i don't think they have had much suceess (I don't even know if it is still available), and I realize that they were not trying to get partners to pay for their API, but i thought it was a briliant "jujitsu" move because it would turn their distribution partners into the search innovators, and potentially drive more searches for Yahoo and more revenue.

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:42:50 -0000

Ok this is an example of why public two way social media is the best

I write a post, we have a discussion, and one of the key figures in the story jumps in corrects me on a few things, and emphasizes the key point

Thanks curt!

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:40:10 -0000

It is the adsense model. But there are variants of it. Many

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:36:28 -0000

Go get lunch shana!

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:35:31 -0000

I like that last line. I'm going to use it

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:32:53 -0000

I think the supplier to partner jujitsu move is available to more people than you might think

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:31:23 -0000

We have a bunch of young companies in our portfolio (many led by young entrepreneurs) doing exactly that

I got a call last week from a potential customer of one of them giving me some feedback. He said our portfolio company's product was superior but their competitors gave a better pitch, wore suits, and were not youg enough to be his boss' children.

Ugh

Re: Business Model Jujutsu

fredwilson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:29:12 -0000

I agree. We had a very lively discussion about this at our portfolio summit. Not everyone agrees with this though