Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 6)

SM: What are your margins on the photo book business? JH: We do not disclose margins specifically. What we report to Wall Street are prints which are all prints from wallet size to the 20×30 pictures, and personalized products and services, and that’s how cards, calendars and photo books are counted. What we have said

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 5)

SM: You are focusing on personal memories and personal experiences exclusively. JH: Exactly, things which are near and dear. We have always been a password protected environment. I am not going to put the pictures of my three young boys across Flickr for everyone to see.

Catching Up On Readings: Media Mania

If you have missed these posts from my recent writings, today may be a good time to catch up on some reading: First, in the blogosphere, online media, old and new media, advertising – big changes have taken place. Here is a set of posts from the Deal Radar series that might help you make

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 4)

SM: Your vision was to move beyond the traditional print model, and rather be the center of a lifestyle. JH: I also saw us as building a personal publishing platform. Yes, we have consumers doing all the beautiful cards, books and calendars, but we also have lots of small businesses, charities, schools, non-profits, jewelry manufacturers,

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 3)

SM: Before we move on with your Shutterfly story, can you shift gears for a second and tell us the history of Shutterfly? JH: Shutterfly was founded in 1999 by two employees of Silicon Graphics – Eva Manolis and Dan Baum. Eva was a product person and Dan was a technology person. They teamed up

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Shutterfly’s Strategy: A Conversation with CEO Jeff Housenbold (Part 2)

SM: What timeframe was this work with Raging Bull going on? JH: This was in the 1998 – 1999 timeframe. We then raised a $20M round with CNET, CMGI put in money and we started doing some television on CNet TV. We had a financial hour and hired some on-air talent. It was a really

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Deal Radar 2008: GigaOM

Blogs have changed the face of the web dramatically over the last few years. GigaOm is a network of blogs published by GigaOmniMedia, Inc. You could read my interview with founder Om Malik here to get a flavor of how he pioneered blogging in the early years of the millennium.

Lars Dalgaard and his Success Factors (Part 14)

SM: Were they willing to fill out the spreadsheet you sent over? LD: Most people are like, “this is insane … what are you, a root canal?”