Viewing profile — bbalfour

I don't think there is an obvious one that stands out. Feels like a couple years before one really emerges. Lots of really early stuff in the hype cycle with blockchain, autonomous…

There are all the obvious public metrics from things like Compete, Alexa, app rankings, twitter following, facebook following, etc etc. But beyond that I would dig deep into using …

Good question. Not to be a pessimist, but in most scenarios I have found partnerships to under perform initial expectations. Part of that can be mitigated with the things I outline…

I really like these week by week courses that are coming out. I have a lot of things I want to learn, so the cadence and content size of the weekly chunks is perfect. I'm looking f…

Well besides the lessons about culture that I talked about in the article, there were plenty of lessons about how we should have managed the business differently prior to getting t…

That is an excellent question. Here is a quick answer off the top of my head. As mentioned, the foundation for maintaining the culture was laid far in advance. The tight relationsh…

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of these brands are riding on their brand equity, not the superior quality of their apparel." I think you are right that some consumers buy becau…

I've had the luxury of seeing the initial prototypes of at From Holden and was impressed. I feel like a fool buying $100+ shirts from places like Rag & Bone, but I do it because of…

Great post. I'd like to expand on your point on how your brain is plastic which is important when it comes to positive/negative thoughts. Positive Psychology is a really new but ac…

By Brute Force, I think I mean just incentivizing the audience in some way. The two most likely ways to incentivize are: 1. Monetary - Yelp paid reviewers a couple bucks a review. …

Thanks. I'm glad you found it helpful. Building networks/platforms/communities is extremely tough. Hoping more shared tactics will come out.

One other thing that should be discussed in the post that I forgot about is the amount it costs to properly test a paid acquisition channel. Many underestimate this cost. But getti…

Happy to answer. I am one of the founders of Boundless. The first iteration of our product gave a student a 100% free alternative to buying their expensive textbook. The product is…

Studies like these don't look at the holistic picture. Productivity isn't just a function of minimal distractions, but a combination of a bunch of items. In particular to this stud…

Vannevar, If you asked my investors about my history prior to Viximo, they wouldn't have a clue what I had done. It didn't matter. In any case, the point of the article isn't the e…

I actually have a follow up post exploring that. I felt like having them combined was waayyyy too long.

Thanks for the compliment. Really appreciate it.

I knew the Betahouse crew for about 3 - 4 months prior. But from conception of the idea for Viximo to completion of the three items in the title, it was actually less than 4 weeks.…

This is pretty cool. I'd love to see a list of the most hated twitter users as a measure of who is muted the most using your service. You could also do this with the hash tags to s…

Good analysis of the changing market dynamics. One of the surprising things is that the most lucrative vertical for Craigslist, apartment rentals, still hasn't seen major disruptio…

Agreed. Tons of scrappy startups on here that could use a deal like this on tools that could help them with company. If it was some random groupon deal for a new restaurant in SF, …