I had an opportunity to catch up with a friend of mine this evening over drinks/dinner before he and his fiance move off to Colorado to continue building their online startup: foodzie.com. Foodzie is one of 10 very fortunate and well-deserving startups that will receive seed money and mentoring from some of the industry’s finest all thanks to TechStars.
The premise behind foodzie is to provide artisan food producers with the means for selling their products online with minimal investment. On top of that, foodzie will build a community of “foodies” who will have an opportunity for “one stop shopping” online. Their site will be launching soon (presumably in beta after they settle into their new digs in Colorado) and I’m very excited to see how it will take off.
Not being a die-hard “foodie” myself, my wife and I are certainly more of a “mass consumer” at heart as we purchase based on ease and convenience due to our busy schedules. That being said, foodzie presents an opportunity for even non-foodies like us to indulge in the latest in greatest without having to be die-hard foodies. Whenever business models like these come to fruition and take a complex process, make it simple, and bring it to the masses, it is a recipe for success.
It was a great change of pace to talk entrepreneurial strategy — which is a completely different type of discussion than the day-to-day enterprise strategy discussion.
Good luck to Rob and Emily on their venture!
Tags:
foodzie,
strategy,
user experience
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I’m a frequent reader of CIO.com articles — such an invaluable source for eBusiness managers and directors. I’m a big proponent of open source and am finding it to be such a taboo subject within the enterprise. In the article The Challenge of Open Source Presents to CIOs, open source is almost presented as a “problem.” So much of a problem in fact that certain enterprises ban it entirely.
Quick question: Since when it is a bad thing to save money?
Now, I understand it can present challenges from governing the use of open source as it pertains to compliancy issues. However, this is no different than governing the proper licensing of Microsoft products, too. The fact that it’s open source doesn’t make open source a “problem.” If you have problem governing open source utilization, then you have a larger software/infrastructure governance problem.
Tags:
cio,
open source
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Just used RedBox DVD Rentals for the first time this evening and what an impressive service:
- DVD rentals for $1.00/day
- Easy-to-use interface
- Online integration (rent online, pick up at your local RedBox location)
- Return the DVD to any RedBox kiosk (not just the one you rented from)
- Slick little DVD dispenser that casually spits out the DVDs in their hard-plastic cases
These are new to our area in Greensboro, NC but I know are popular in the Atlanta area (based on feedback from a few friends who pick up DVDs from the RedBox at their local McDonald’s). And what a business model this must be: Drop a kiosk in the store, feed it new DVDs each week for new releases, and watch the money roll in. I’d love to learn more about their infrastructure and how they keep tabs on the health of the machines.
The user experience on the computer kiosk is well-done, although I wish the system was a little more responsive (i.e. faster). It could use a slightly larger screen to view the DVD titles. These are very minor complaints considering how easy it was to walk up and rent a DVD for the first time. Our main problem the whole time was feeling “rushed” by the other people waiting in line to rent and return their movies!
Tags:
kiosk,
redbox
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This post about business processes as a competitive advantage hit home for me (it references a poor experience with an airline — which I’m sure we’re all familiar with). I am often jokingly ridiculed for how often I ask “why?” when evaluating internal business processes and the way data is organized in the enterprise. Quite often the answer is surprisingly, “I don’t know, that’s how it was done before I got here.”
In the link above, the same is true for the airline industry. It’s as if the entire industry was designed for an ideal world where there are no mechanical malfunctions, bad weather, or delays. Contingency planning and business process optimization go such a long way to improving operational efficiency and most importantly, customer satisfaction. Revisiting pre-existing processes is also a great way to find the low-hanging fruit of improvements.
When building any new business process or system, I find that the following question is helpful to ask over and over during the planning phase: Does this process add value for the end-user?
Such a simple question can go a long way to avoiding a situation like in the above post/link.
Tags:
customer service,
enterprise
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In a tough economy, advertising dollars are typically the first to go. On the flip side, in a flourishing economy, advertising dollars seem to be readily available without needing much justification or proof that the advertising will pay off. Why is this?
Many advertisers have no methodology for measuring the effectiveness of their ad campaigns. In a flourishing economy, taking risks with a low probability for success is often encouraged in hopes of the big pay-off. In a tough economy, investing in anything (advertising, R&D, etc.) will require a great deal of scrutiny.
At SES NY in ‘06 I attended an invite-only dinner with WebTrends with a group of about a dozen online marketers — some existing clients of WebTrends and some were potential clients they were wining and dining. One of the dinner guests I sat next to was Rex Briggs, co-author of What Sticks.
For anyone who thinks “advertising cannot be measured,” I would recommend reading this book. It covers concepts that online marketers should hold close to their hearts: Test, Learn, Deploy, Repeat. Many traditional marketers are used to deploying large budgets on print and TV advertising with no plan or budget to measure the effectiveness of the ad spend. They excel at developing the creative, but fail miserably when it comes to answering the simple question of “Did it work?”
In the online world, measuring ad spend becomes somewhat easier with the various tracking technologies (particularly if you sell online). If you can definitively prove how advertising positively impacts sales (directly or indirectly), then you’ll most likely see your ad budgets remain flat in a tough economy, but not entirely eliminated like some marketers are experiencing this year.
Tags:
banner advertising,
SEM/SEO
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