categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
management
Re-engineering the Book Business: Blurb CEO, Eileen Gittins (Part 5)
SM: How did you penetrate the market and get early traction? EG: Word of mouth driven by a great and viral product and turbo charged with amazing PR. SM: What stage are you at now? Revenue? Profitability? Traffic? Titles? Any other metrics you track? EG: Blurb expects turnover between $5-10MM in 2007, its first full
Happily Bootstrapping: Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu (Part 6)
Here we begin to explore the current status of Zoho a bit further. Impressive numbers considering there has been no advertising campaigns conducted. The business model is simple – let users try the service for free, when they are comfortable they will migrate over. Afterwards, they compete based on pricing (less than 20% of the
Efficiency—The Key to Microfinance Success
By Robert Lowry, Unitus, Guest Author Microfinance reaches fewer than 20% of the people who could benefit from it. Only 2% of microfinance institutions serve more than 100,000 clients. Why is the impact of microfinance, after more than 30 years of effort, still so limited? A big reason is efficiency—or lack thereof. Inefficient microfinance institutions
Happily Bootstrapping: Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu (Part 2)
Sridhar’s experience in bootstrapping is something to learn from, especially for entrepreneurs in India, who keep complaining about the lack of funding availability from venture sources. Along the way, he weathered many storms, as all good entrepreneurs learn to do. SM: How did you fund your early initiative? SV: It was all bootstrapped. My wife
Innovation in the Microfinance Industry
By Robert Lowry, Unitus Microfinance is a powerful, sustainable way of reducing poverty. However, despite its tremendous strength, it’s just not available to enough people. Three decades after Muhammad Yunus started giving microloans to women in the village near his university in Bangladesh, fewer than 20% of the world’s working poor have access to basic
Why Silicon Valley Lacks True GMs?
I made the comment in an earlier post that Yahoo now needs true GMs, not just glorified functional managers. As I wrote that piece, it made me reflect on the significance of what I just said. Silicon Valley is not a place that has that many true General Managers. In the sense that GE or
Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 7)
Chris earlier brought up Compartamos, an MFI currently operating in Mexico. It seems they have a solid customer base and a very profitable business strategy – further proof of the validity of cash-positive microfinance business models. SM: How many loans does Compartamos have ath the moment? CB: I think they have about 600,000 customers. I
Who Should Buy Yahoo? For now, Nobody!
While I suggested 2 years back, that Yahoo and eBay should merge, at the moment, it appears that Yahoo has created a bigger mess than what eBay (or anyone else for that matter) ought to try to clean up on their shareholders’ clock. eBay, on the other hand, for the moment, looks like it has
