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Michael Robertson: Surveying Crowded Music Subscription Sector

Great survey of the subscription music sector and some key insights as to how Apple is uniquely positioned to offer a differentiated service.  Specifically, the ability to integrate the service with a user’s personal collection of music, which is something that I would personally put a lot of value on (because no music service is ever going to have all the music that I have on my computer).

Filed under music industry thoughts stuff worth reading

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The Practical 8-Step Survival Guide For Startups

This is a good list.  I particularly like “temper theory with reality”, which advocates working in the industry that you plan on entering with your startup before you take the plunge.  Zwilling says:

There is no substitute for domain experience. No matter how well-educated you are, and how certain you are that you understand all the nuances of a business area, it is a good idea to work in a similar business for a few months to get a feel for the market and observe the unwritten rules before taking the plunge. This is especially true for students tackling their first venture.

Or just first time entrepreneurs in general.  With TenthRow, I got into two things that I didn’t understand as well as I thought I did:

  1. Working in the music industry in general - working with bands, labels, and publishers (I was actually least prepared to work with bands, who tend to be less much less Type A than I am).
  2. Producing concert videos - there are a million things that can go wrong that are beyond your control (the band has a bad night, the crowd isn’t great, technical problems with the band’s instruments or the venue’s PA system, problems with your own recording gear, etc.).

Had I worked in the music industry and/or produced concert videos before starting TenthRow, I would have much better understood these things and adjusted the business model accordingly.  The other approach, which probably would have been better in my case, would have been to bring on a concert video producer as a co-founder very early in the process.  If you haven’t worked in the industry yourself, make sure that someone on the founding team has. 

Anyway, I also really liked “find and use top-notch advisors” (this is one thing I did pretty well) and “manage your time” (this is one thing I didn’t - I was doing way too much…should have delegated more).

The whole list is definitely worth checking out.

Filed under startups stuff worth reading

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On the importance of not reacting too quickly to new information

This post from Seth Godin really resonated with me today:

It’s (always) too soon to know for sure

The big takeaway for me was the danger in reacting too quickly to a new piece of news, especially when the news isn’t very reliable.  The example that comes to mind for me was the announcement of a new competitor coming to market with a very similar product / service.  In short, this company was really good at marketing but not very good at delivering a product.  Not only were they about 6 months late in launching their website, but they launched with something that was horribly disappointing vs. what they had suggested they were going to launch with (in my estimation, but I think most people would agree with me).

But when these guys first started talking about what they were doing, I freaked out.  I thought we were cooked.  And there was nothing helpful about this.  It not only hurt my confidence, but my team’s.  Luckily for me, one of my colleagues was able to calm me down - he reminded me that talk is cheap and that we had no idea how good their product was going to be until they launched it.  Thanks to that person, I remembered that we couldn’t worry about them, all we could do is worry about ourselves.

At the end of the day, I got over it, and it had only a minor impact on the direction of the company (it just suggested to me that our site should look a little more exciting, which I think was a good change for us - I had been a little too focused on black & white before then).  But it taught me a very important lesson that Seth talks about in his post above - don’t react too quickly to new news.  It tends to be unreliable, and making decisions based on early / unreliable information (which often tends to be wrong), is a great way to destroy your business, project, etc.  Always be aware of and informed of what’s going on in your space, but don’t make big decisions too quickly.  On the other hand, as Seth points out, you have to be careful not to move too slowly either.  So be patient but not too patient, and always make sure that the information you’re acting on is fairly reliable.  The cost of waiting a day or a week to allow yourself to be better informed is never as big as it initially appears to be.

But Seth makes the point much better than I do.  Well worth reading his whole post.

Filed under thoughts stuff worth reading