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- The Value of Customer ForgivenessAugust 17
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There are many beneficial factors I could write about when it comes to why Silicon Valley (or more specifically, San Francisco) is awesome for starting a company. The reality is that there are very specific business benefits that I’ve experienced over the past 5 months in launching a business and seemingly popular product in SF. The strongest of all of those benefits is the value of customer forgiveness.
In the first 2 months of UberCab being live in the app store, we’ve seen tremendous *but early* growth. We went from doing 5 rides in a single night, to nearly 50 rides in a single night. Bam! We’ve gotten here quickly because we’ve made our product easy to use and awesome to talk about, and the organic word of mouth that everyone covets so dearly is exactly what has driven our growth. But greater than the value of social web word of mouth is the fact that customers are using these channels to help us improve, and we’re listening.
About a month ago we went through a relatively small stretch (a few days) of wacky billing. 1 of 3 trips had a completely wrong total fare and we decided, because we’re a lean & scrappy team that we were going to go face down on fixing the issue and combat the potential bad press wit
- Personal brand, or ego?August 9
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The importance of being represented well online is as high today as it has ever been. With the potential of being hired (or not) riding on a Google search, or a look through your Twitter feed, the name you make (or break) for yourself on the internet is critical. With social media going from nerd to main stream the projection of your reputation from the real world to the web has happened quickly and people have made their careers riding that momentum.
Whether you’re Gary Vaynerchuk turning a daily internet wine show into a career building and advising web businesses, writing about using a personal brand to build a business, and eventually owning the Jets ;) …
OR
If you’re Tila Tequila strutting your way from MySpace to MTV and beyond…
The web acts as a megaphone for a persons reputation. An individuals reach and impact is expanded at zero cost, and because of it, everybody should embrace their reputation or if I have to say it, personal brand on the web.
But, the idea of a “personal brand” has been taken too far. Personal brand is just a trendy way to say, my ego! Get over it. Over the past few weeks I’ve had one too many experiences where an individual loved talking about the way that sharing certain content or asso
- My interview with Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon (before Groupon)July 17
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Two years ago today my good friend Blake Samic and I set out to be the Angels of Interviewers. This meant we wanted to interview entrepreneurs who were just on the verge of doing something classic, something disruptive. We called our video blog ActionsTalk because these were the people who were just diving off the bridge of an idea into the water of a startup. They were doers, and we loved doers.
In hind site it’s really too bad that these interviews didn’t come with any equity exchange because our third interview was with now CEO of Groupon, Andrew Mason. Andrew shared his ideas for his startup ThePoint.com, which transformed from an idea to bring people together for collective action, to a company focused on bringing people together for collective purchase, Groupon.com. Both brilliant ideas but the latter turned out to be incredibly profitable.
In the interview Andrew talks a bit about how ThePoint secured their first funding and how and where the team worked. It’s always fascinating to see the origins of startups and I’m super happy for Andrews incredible successes over the last couple of years.
Also, please excuse the amateur nature of the intro. We were Gary V inspired and really excited about ActionsTalk :)
- Road Trippin’, Part 2June 28
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Day 1: Wheaton – St. Louis
Day 2: St. Louis, MO – Denver, CO
Day 3: Denver, CO – Salt Lake City, UT
Day 4: Salt Lake City, UT – Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA
Day 5: Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA – San Francisco, CA
We started our day 2 journey bright and early Saturday morning with Denver as our goal. As we left St. Louis, it was hot and humid even at 7:30 so we were not too sad to leave but of course I insisted that we stop at a Starbucks for something to eat. Since Ryan’s best hours are not before 9 a.m., I opted to drive the first leg of the route. In case anyone is interested to know, the drive from St. Louis to Denver consists of ample farms and maybe even more “adult bookstores.” I vowed to drive 6 hours and then switch but as we traveled through the repetitive flat lands, I found it hard to even think that I could make it more than two hours. So of course I went back on my plan and changed the rules so that we would switch every time we needed to fill the tank.
Our first exit off the highway was outside of Topeka and it promised a McDonalds and ‘clean bathrooms’ at the gas station (I try to keep my standards attainable on roadtrips through the middle of nowhere). As we pulled up to the gas stat
- Road Trippin’, Part 1June 26
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This series of blog posts are officially co-written, by yours truly and the well known author of Mollstar.com.
We’re going to be blogging our road trip, so follow along to the excitement that is central Kansas, the delectable joy of gas station coffee & donuts, or the relief of arriving safely to Hayes Valley, SF, CA.
Here’s the game plan for the journey…
Day 1: Wheaton – St. Louis
Day 2: St. Louis, MO – Denver, CO
Day 3: Denver, CO – Salt Lake City, UT
Day 4: Salt Lake City, UT – Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA
Day 5: Lake Tahoe/Truckee, CA – San Francisco, CA
Packing the remaining items from our apartment in Chicago, this beast stopped by to say farewell (see image left). As we were packing, I totally thought I heard a fire truck…turned out it was a tornado siren. When I asked Moll what we should do, she said, “normally we’d head to the basement, but let’s finish packing”. I was confident in my ignorance. We lived downtown Chicago for 4 years and never once have we heard a tornado siren. Isn’t it lovely that today of all days, as we pack the Pathfinder to the brim, an F1 tornado is spoted within miles of us? We hoped this wouldn’t be an omen to the rest of this journey acro