New Book – From eCommerce to Web 3.0

Excerpt from my new book, From eCommerce To Web 3.0: How To Leverage The Evolution Of The Internet.

Back in 2007, even before the iPhone was launched, giving us a powerful computer in our pockets or handbags, I started outlining a vision for Web 3.0.

There are numerous definitions of Web 3.0 floating around. Tim Berners-Lee, a father of the World Wide Web, talks about the “Semantic Web,” a way that computers employ the meaning of words – not just pattern matching – along with logical rules to connect independent nuggets of data and so create more context for information. The formula that makes the most sense to me is this: Web 3.0 results from combining content, commerce, community and context, with personalization and vertical search. Or, to put it in a handy phrase: Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS).

Here’s what it means.
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Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO, Tony DiCostanzo (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What are some of the major trends that you are tracking and building your strategy around as you’re watching the book business?

Tony DiCostanzo: I think the one that’s most prevalent is the momentum that e-books are building in the market. That’s one of the reasons that we pursued and made the investment within the e-book platform. The challenge for us and distributors in general is the cross-platform compatibility of e-books. To take a step back on this, all the major publishers, for the most part, require digital rights management. What that means is that when we sell a book, it has to be locked down to a specific device. Because of that platform requirement, we’re able to provide an app and allow our customers to download the app onto any Android or iOS device. >>>

Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: There are major trends in the space right now. For example, Amazon has made it very easy for independent or self-publishers to maintain a whole portfolio of books. A lot of major writers are moving to that mode of publishing. Especially in the business books genre, there’s a major shift. These are in your sweet spot. For example, in our organization we have a portfolio of eight books out. In the next 18 months, we’re going to be doing 12 more books all in the entrepreneurship genre. How would you work with publishers like that?

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Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did you build the corporate business? What was the go-to market strategy and customer acquisition strategy on the corporate business?

Tony DiCostanzo: Going back to the epiphany moment, the other entrenched players in the book space weren’t adequately servicing the corporate buyers. At that point, I realized that the biggest opportunity is getting in targeting those disgruntled customers. These are the ones that go to Barnes & Noble with an order for hundred copies of a title and the response they get is, “We only have four in stock.” They call Amazon and Amazon is unable to tell them when the hundred copies will arrive, because they’re fragmented in 20 different warehouses. For us, it was important to be visible to that buyer in the decision making process.

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Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 4)

Tony DiCostanzo: When I started engaging customers on the website in the broader segment of enterprise sales rather than just healthcare, I initially put up the books and made single copies available. It was difficult to say, “We’re great at these bulk sales but we also can do one copy.” That’s what everybody else was doing. Within two months, I realized that we needed to get rid of all the small sales to position us as experts. That was an important distinction for us because it enabled us to convince publishers that don’t normally ship on behalf of book distributors to become drop-shippers for us. We have some unique leverage in the market that we’re really the only company that some of these major publishing houses will drop-ship for.

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Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: After you sold the healthcare business?

Tony DiCostanzo: Yes. I didn’t think of the book company as having a big potential because at that time, it was limited to probably about 20 different books that we sold consistently. Some of those books were from different publishers, but I didn’t really represent all the other books that those publishers carry. We didn’t develop our own content.

Sramana Mitra: Were you focusing the business on business books and those kinds of books? >>>

Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 2)

Tony DiCostanzo: We engaged a professor out of Stanford who had developed some studies documenting a return on investment for companies that implemented this wellness program. We were able to take that and develop a new company without all of the baggage that the other firm had. That was the first personal foray into entrepreneurship using the company experience and applying it into a new company. It felt more comfortable, if you will, to get my feet wet in something that I knew.

About eight months later, I pulled in a business partner who was involved with the previous firm. Together, we grew the company over a two and a half year period. We had the good fortune of a private equity >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What is your perspective on this theme that often gets discussed that there’s a bias against women in Silicon Valley. Do you buy it?

Ilana Stern: It’s a hard question to answer. I think I’ve been really fortunate in fund raising, team building, and getting support from my environment. I don’t feel disadvantaged. I am a minority, so it’s not unusual for me to walk into a room of a hundred men and I’m the only woman. I look back and thank my dad for being intentional with me from a very young age and challenging me to make my voice be heard and just helping me build my confidence. It hasn’t been a challenge for me but it is very much a reality that I’m a minority. >>>