Philipp Moehring

Category: Blog

  • European success that could only come from here?

    Caution: excessive stereotyping in this post!

    People quote Skype ad Nauseam when talking about category changing models from Europe. It’s time for the new generation to come up with businesses that actually take advantage of the unique makeup of Europe and show that we’ve got it.

    I’ve been looking at the various European grant and support programs in what is called Horizon 2020, FP7, and various other names. These are EU and EC designed programs that are supposed to come up with a new mega success in Europe, or at least support regions and markets to compete on an international scale. All those programs quote the great minds, research, education, and design from Europe. And all of those programs remind us of “world beating companies such as Skype” that play to the unique abilities of Europe.

    Where are the new players in that category, and why are they unique and why can they only be built here? Skype couldn’t have built in the US alone, for the simple fact that long distance phone calls were already cheap enough or free by the time it came around. Europe with its borders and the built in issues was a perfect place for Skype to emerge. MySQL and Linux were probably rooted in the strong socialist (for lack of a better, or worse, word) nature of the north, and the resulting strength of OSS there (also influenced by the strong academic and scientific education and resulting community). Betfair and it’s siblings are of course the result of strong betting/gambling cultures, especially in the UK, that are regulated out of existence in the US. H&M and Zara aren’t tech startups, but still immensely successful companies based on the design heritage in their respective cultures, much like Ikea is the result of no-nonsense design combined with wonderfully Swedish egalitarian principles of affordability (the egalitarianism is still there, not so much the affordability I might add).

    What are companies that are playing to similar principles, and build their raison d’être simply on cultural, regulatory, or market realities?

    Transferwise is one I’m very familiar with (Seedcamp was an early investor and I’ve spent a lot of time with Kristo and Taavet). In most markets, nobody besides marginalised minorities is even thinking about cross border financial transactions. That’s why I’m so excited about it. Oh, and Taavet was early at Skype. Go figure.

    I’m sure there are more, and I’m already thinking about markets that might be unique to Europe. The nucleus for this post was Fabrice’s piece on Craigslist. They have about 90% of the classifieds market in the US (a guess), and are prohibiting a single player to take over their market. Of course, as per Fabrice’s post, the mighty will probably stumble and fall, but this is the reality today. Might this lack of a clear leader in Europe make for an opportunity to build something? Of course, Zoopla in the UK, the Scout Group in Germany, and many others have taken some of those markets, but there are many more white spots than in the US.

    If you’re in Europe, and thinking of something big to build, find one of those markets where you don’t just have speed, ideas, and great execution on your side. An inherently different and hard to understand market might be the biggest moat you can build to prevent a well capitalised competitor from the US to enter your space.

    If you have an idea of some of those markets, leave it in the comments, I’m excited to hear about this stuff. Or, even better, build a kick ass company and take that market for yourself and replace the same name to pop up in those policy briefings.

    via Tumblr http://pmoe.de/post/82892590701

  • Why Apple doesn’t get community

    I was reading [this great post by Tom Tunguz](http://tomtunguz.com/social-disambiguation) on the tube and realized one thing: apple doesn’t get the ‘community’ aspect nailed in their software because they don’t have the culture and values across their customers like our other great social products do.

    Reddit, tumblr, soundcloud, Instagram – all amazing social products have their own community and put an amazing amount of effort into keeping them alive and true (HT David at SC and Topher at tumblr who’ve worn the community hat proud and high).

    Apple simply uses ‘social glue’ type products like twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to augment the experience of their users. They allow you to take your output back to where your friends are by some level of mostly superficial integration.

    While Startups often fear Apple as a category killer (filters in the phone app? Simple video editing?), they oversee that community and a sense of belonging is a much stronger barrier to entry and mechanism of defense. Especially early on, a lot of companies fail to build a brand and sense of style that allows customers to closely identify with the product. This is a variant of lack of focus and decision taking that is prevalent in many product focused companies: my suggestion is to build a much stronger voice, _intentionally_ excluding customer groups so that your core users feel as much at home as possible, allowing you to build the social fabric that will make your community.

    It also helps to not build a feature, but a business (best use of VC parlance in this post yet). Actually, building a movement or a tribe (+1 Seth Godin point) is the corollary to that in the social universe.

    So, why does Apple not get this? Actually, I totally think they do. They are many times smarter than I am, and therefore have figured it out a while ago: their users are too broad, too generic, and from too many different cultures. If you build essentially 4 products (iPad, iPhone, Mac, Laptops, and add ons), you can’t start targeting your packaged software at certain groups. You need to go wide and let others take care of the community bit.

    Once that is done, you can _use_ these communities by integrating (twitter, fb, YouTube) or _leapfrog_ because you have penetration of devices (see the new sharing through airdrop in iOS 7). People then use these functions as tools and infrastructure in their products and habits – making Apple much more engrained in the experience.

    Being infrastructure sounds commoditized, but in the end, is the better way for Apple to deal with its multiple million users, who all care about their own communities. A classic case of ‘design is what you leave out’.

    via Tumblr http://pmoe.de/post/54086215672

  • Can’t wait for the really cool photo apps on tablets

    I really love my cameras. I put a lot of hours into learning to use them, figuring out particularities, buying lenses and filters, etc. I am by no means a prosumer or even expert, but I know a little bit about taking pictures, composition, and aperture, exposure, blablabla. In high school, we had a very cool photography lab, and since my aunt was one of the arts teachers at my school, I could basically use it whenever I wanted. Thus, my love of pictures.

    Now, since I use Instagram on my phone, I use my camera much less. These photo sharing apps are especially nice because they almost force you to use filters, making every picture look artistic and sophisticated. BUT: I can still take much better pictures with my SLR.

    So, when will Instagram offer a simple desktop or even web version, to allow me to a) use these filters on bigger pics, and b) feed my stream from somewhere else, or c) allow me more immersive interaction with my photos?

     How about that bigger screen?

    Here’s a thought: All these camera apps on the market have very similar features (take photo, tweak it a little, publish to stream), and don’t go far beyond those. I will take out the ones like Path (private activities) and Eeve (group albums), as I think they have a great niche where they can grow and add more value.

    BUT: creation and tweaking, and also photo storage, management, and ordering across devices is still done in an app as annoying as iPhoto. How about these get thrown into the next generation?

    I would love to see an app that allows me to take pics on my iPhone, edit them on my iPad (easy to do with iCloud photo stream), and share them anywhere. Simply integrating the iPad into this experience will be a great opportunity to do more.

    Next step: instead of creating photos only, create collages, mosaics, GIFs, and other formats. Now, sharing these on your social networks will be much cooler and allows for much more of a story being told.

    Please, build this.

  • Effective intros

    My life consists of making intros to various people – for better or worse. I love connecting dots, so it’s a lot of fun and often rewarding, but it can also be lots of back and forth. In the series of “posts that originally were emails I wrote at least 5 times in the last week”, here is some advice as to how to make it work.

    Whenever you are looking for an introduction, the key is to make it clean, understandable and directed.

    How to ask for an intro in three simple steps:

    1. Clean: Use a fresh, empty, virgin email with a powerful subject line that conveys your message to the introducer and the next person
    2. Understandable: A short paragraph describing what you are working on (relative to you/ your company) and what you are looking for and information about the steps you have already taken, and why that did not work (if applicable)
    3. Directed: Put a specific ask in there so the person on the other end knows how he can help

    “Hi Philipp,
    we are looking for…. because we want to… I tried … but it did not work because… Do you know XYZ/someone at… would be great to be introduced.”

    BEFORE you ask for that intro:

    • Please check if you can find the solution on the interwebs or the documentation (FB, Google, Twitter, etc have great docs that you will most likely be referred to if your question is not specific)
    • Find out if you maybe already know that person. It usually works better if you know them yourself.

    When introduced, be polite and humble.

    This should be more than obvious. No one owes you a thing – you asked for the introduction in the first place. Afterwards, keep it easy for the introducer and move them to bcc as soon as the introduced person replies.

    [EDIT] In my case, I would probably forward the email to the next person, add a little flavor and some witty (bad) jokes, and get out of the way.

    Fred Wilson wrote about another technique when making introductions – the double opt in. Basically, it entails asking both people if they would like to be introduced to each other before you make the introduction – otherwise you can leave a sour taste.

  • Startup Metrics

    Got asked about this twice in the past week – here are two very good videos about basic startup metrics and their application to your business.

    Dave McClure at Seedcamp 2009 about “startup metrics for pirates”, a talk he has given in lots of places. It’s a good and fun overview of what you should think about and look at.

     

    and the accompanying slides:

    Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp, Sept 2009)

    View more presentations from Dave McClure

    And Ryan Carson of Carsonified with a more direct, and very numbers-focused talk from last year. He goes through a very detailed example, explains concepts like CAC, churn, lifetime value, and will give you an idea what unit economics are all about.

     

    He talks about this spreadsheet, which you can copy and play around with easily, giving you a good idea of what your own numbers can look like.

  • I loved this city

    I moved to London a little bit more than a year ago, and I fell in love with it right away.
    In the beginning, I was intimidated when I walked from our office through Regent Street to the Oxford Circus Tube stop – I couldn’t stop being amazed by the expensively dressed, very busy and important people whizzing down the sidewalk, avoiding running into me. I was amazed by all the tourists, looking at all the fancy stores and buildings, looking in the air, not seeing where the “real Londoners” were trying to get to work, meetings, or home. Because, when you are at home in a city, you don’t look up.

    After a while, I walked faster, talked in shorter sentences, and was whizzing by the tourists to get to the Tube – I even figured out I should walk to Green Park instead of Oxford, as it was less littered with visitors and more conductive to fast walking, checking email, and getting my breakfast sandwich. Of course, I felt like I was at home. I accustomed myself to the town, got along with the weather, and with the people that were much tougher and more focused than anyone back home. I made some great friends very quickly, and felt like I belonged.

    After about three months, I started missing my home and everything I was used to (moving around a lot, I know that this is what happens every time). I worked incredibly hard and much, travelling a ton, and being busy all around. I still used to go back to Cologne quite a bit, and was always struck by how slow and peaceful things were. At the same time, I couldn’t enjoy that – I felt I was missing out on the action, and was fed up by the slow pace, and couldn’t wait to get back to London.

    That was last year. This year, I have made myself a home here. Isa moved over in March, we lived together in my small room for a while, and now we found a gorgeous little place in a quiet street that is just simply beautiful. I work less crazy hours, we go on cool weekend trips, and I am much more of myself again – thinking, reading, and writing, besides being at work and on email all the time. I fell in love again – this time with the beautiful, the quirky, the individual, the incredible London in all its variety.

    And now this crap happens. On Sunday, we saw it on the news, TV, and of course Twitter and Facebook. I heard the sirens, and saw the police vans driving around. I biked through a good part of London on Monday, and saw more police than ever before, but still, it was weirdly detached from real life. Then, on Tuesday, we all decided to go home early from work. I saw four big police vans near my bus stop. Nicolas told me how Upper Street, where I lived for a year, was the place for some (thankfully small) gangs to smash windows and steal sporting goods. Friends emailed me links to warnings about Islington (where I live) being the next target. I saw more violent videos, gangs rioting for no cause, setting fire to houses, shops, and family’s livelihoods. More police, more police, and more police.

    Today, it felt like it had calmed down a little. We met all of the participants for Seedcamp London, which is taking place tomorrow, and had a great afternoon getting to know their companies, their ideas, and visions for what they want to become. When we were having a beer in the pub around the corner (central London, mind you), two guys come sprinting down the road, followed by a shocked man, who was telling us how these kids had just kicked down his door, standing in his flat with a pair of bricks in their hand, threatening his family. It was so surreal, a bunch of international, good natured, and ambitious entrepreneurs, who couldn’t even understand what he was talking about. Once it sunk in a little, it left an eerie feeling with all of us, and the crowd broke up to go to their hotels and homes. When I rode home on the tube, the usual bumpy ride sent my elbow onto my seat neighbour’s arm (think of a passive aggressive armrest fight on the plane). He started to go off at me, and I of course didn’t want to take it – arguing him for the better part of my ride home. Since he got more and more aggressive, I just backed off – but the sour feeling remained. It was nothing, really, but it upset me. This was my tube, my way home, my city where I felt safe.

    Whatever it is, a disconnection of environments, a lack of communication between people, or just plain reality, I liked it much more before I felt this way. I hope it will come back, but I think we need to work a lot on what we have before it will be that way.
    At least I include myself in the We, which makes me think I care enough to help bring about that change. Whining like this won’t help, but being aware is the first step, as they say.

  • Me, talking.

    Boring, i know.

    Thanks a lot to Manuel Gruber for the interview – was a lot of fun. I am looking forward to the final movie.