EricDS bits

But the most important advantage of being good is that it acts as a compass. One of the hardest parts of doing a startup is that you have so many choices. There are just two or three of you, and a thousand things you could do. How do you decide?

Here’s the answer: Do whatever’s best for your users. You can hold onto this like a rope in a hurricane, and it will save you if anything can. Follow it and it will take you through everything you need to do.

“I think we’re seeing a new definition of “the economy.”

The old definition meant and measured the performance of big companies and their impact on each other. This was especially the case in media and advertising, which served only companies of a certain size because only large companies could afford to advertise in large outlets. But Google’s marketplace for advertisers of all sizes represents the small-is-the-new-big economy: no limit of small enterprises that can now add up to a critical mass. The fact that it is an auction marketplace also means that this economy is more fluid; it fills in voids.

So for example, when there’s an economic downturn that affects, say, travel, that will affect a magazine like Condé Nast Traveler; airlines and hotels of a certain size will advertise less and there aren’t new advertisers to fill in that void at Traveler’s price. But on Google, if American Airlines and the Ritz aren’t buying the keyword “Paris” this month, there are no end of advertisers who will step in to buy the word. The price of that keyword may decline. But in Google’s very broad economy, the prices of other keywords (e.g., “credit”) may rise.”

Really makes me miss nyc.

“Imagine that products are mountains. To build a product, you will need to climb that mountain. Some mountains have a big pot of gold at the top, and some do not. In order to make money, you will need to pick the right mountain and then successfully climb to the top and gather up the gold. You can fail by choosing a mountain that has little or no gold at the top, or by dying on the way up.”

Genius, someone should do this for beer labels.

Robert Scoble interviews me about how I conduct customer research (listening labs) at Mahalo (13 mins in)