Pinboard (earth2marsh) https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/public/ recent bookmarks from earth2marsh The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs 2026-04-09T18:30:53+00:00 https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-passive-income-trap-ate-a-generation-of-entrepreneurs/ earth2marshWhen you make "passivity" the thing you're optimizing for, you stop caring about anything a customer might actually want. Caring is active. Caring takes time. Caring is work. Giving a shit is, by definition, not passive. The passive income thing was a fantasy about not having to give a shit.]]> economics business work carrying care passive https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:14a5fe02f97e/ The Most Expensive Dysfunction in B2B Product Companies 2026-03-21T18:52:49+00:00 https://runthebusiness.substack.com/p/the-most-expensive-dysfunction-in earth2marsh“are there systematic practices to prevent disoriented teams in the first place?” That question led to Staying Synced on Strategy, where I laid out 4 dimensions of strategic coherence: - legibility - is it clearly written and digestible? - synchronicity - does the org design align with it? - composability - is the sequencing logical? - affordability - does the org have the stomach to actually execute it? When one or more of these dimensions breaks down, incoherence follows.
At the highest level, a B2B business can be broken down into 3 KPIs: - growth (revenue generation) - retention (revenue preservation) - margins (revenue sustainability)
create users who are so successful with your product that they become your advocates … The endgame is a shared, operational understanding of what success looks like in the customer’s world, and the discipline to keep pulling the work back toward that understanding every time it drifts.
]]> productmanagement strategy business alignment reactive https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:636a497d015a/ What do coders do after AI? - Anil Dash 2026-03-15T03:06:57+00:00 https://anildash.com/2026/03/13/coders-after-ai/ earth2marshOne of the hardest parts of reckoning with this change is not just the speed with which it is happening, but the level of cultural change that it reflects. Coders are generally very amenable to learning new skills; it's a necessary part of the work, and the mindset is almost never one of being change-averse. But the level at which the change is happening in this transition is one that gets closer to people's sense of self-worth and identity, rather than to their perceptions of simply having to acquire knowledge or skills. It doesn't help that the change is being catalyzed by some of the most venal and irresponsible leaders in the history of business, brazenly acting without any moral boundaries whatsoever.]]> ai llms business shifts https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:bc956e221c10/ Welcome to the Room | Jeffrey Snover's blog 2026-02-09T17:40:18+00:00 https://www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02/01/welcome-to-the-room/ earth2marshWelcome to the room! Congratulations …. your days of whining are over​. In this room, we deliver success, we don’t whine.​ Look, I’m not confused, I know you walk through fields of shit every day.  Your job is to find the rose petals. Don’t come whining that you don’t have the resources you need.​ We’ve done our homework.   We’ve evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities and allocated our available resources to those opportunities. That is what you have to work with.  Your job is to manufacture success with the resources you’ve been allocated. And yes – you have a hard job. You only have 2 controls:​ 1) The clarity, culture, and energy you give your teams​; and  2) Resource allocation​. And I want to be clear with you. If you are in this room, you need to deliver outsized success.   To do that, you will need to allocate resources ahead of conventional wisdom​.   Conventional wisdom will generate conventional success and that won’t allow you to stay in this room.   You need to have courage and be bold. And when you do that, you may fail. BUT.   If you fail, I will back you if, and only if, you are “intellectually honest”. Intellectually honest means:   1) ​You always have a plausible theory of success​. 2) You allocate your resources in accordance to that theory  3) You monitor your theory​  4) When you find it is no longer plausible, you make changes to get a new plausible theory of success. If you are doing these things, I will back  you even if you have a failure. ….  As long as you don’t make it a habit.]]> leadership productmanagement microsoft business culture strategy https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:33db512ca46a/ 20+ Data Loss Statistics Business Must Know in 2024 2025-12-01T04:31:47+00:00 https://www.businessdasher.com/data-loss-statistics/ earth2marshBusiness data loss is a high concern for companies of all sizes as it potentially leads to financial losses, operational disruptions, and reputational damage.  But just how widespread and impactful is data loss in the business world? With that in mind, we’ll cover essential business data loss statistics. Data Loss Statistics: Key Numbers]]> resilience data loss statistics impact business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a2077a209187/ How McClelland’s 3 universal motives can illuminate your blindspots - Big Think 2025-09-01T17:45:58+00:00 https://bigthink.com/business/how-mcclellands-3-universal-motives-can-illuminate-your-blindspots/ earth2marshBehavioral drivers in business include the three universal motives identified by Harvard organizational psychologist David McClelland. McClelland’s motives are the desire for achievement, the search for affiliation, and the quest for power. How we prioritize them sends a clear signal to others.]]> leadership business motivation https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:0fa9a329ad91/ Let's stop pretending that managers and executives care about productivity 2025-08-07T17:05:35+00:00 https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2025/disingenuous-discourse/ earth2marshEven if Large Language Models resulted in a 20% improvement in productivity (unlikely) that would still be substantially less than the negative impact of the overall productivity-hostile design of the modern workplace. And if they harm overall productivity (as is likely) companies have already demonstrated that they absolutely do not care about that one single jot. Control and stock prices are all that matters.]]> llms technology trends business productivity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:f2f4ce821d98/ Pluralistic: How twiddling enshittifies your brain (28 Jul 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow 2025-07-29T05:39:52+00:00 https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/28/twiddlehazard/ earth2marsh"If your customers are too happy, you're leaving money on the table": it's the rallying cry of the enshittifier, and it's also what a friend of mine was told by a respected professor in a top-tier MBA program. Enshittification is the theory that if platforms can shift value away from workers, suppliers, users and/or customers without facing consequences, we should expect that they will. A company is a colony organism made up of many differing organelles, some of whom have firm moral centers and good values, but those factions can't win an argument about enshittifying the company's offerings merely by gesturing towards their ethical reservations. To win that argument, the good guys have to be able to appeal to a villain's highest priority: their own self-interest. It's one thing to say, "I'll feel gross if we wreck our product this way," but it's another altogether to say, "We'll go broke – because of fines, or employee defections, or competitor poaching, or interoperable blocking tech – if we do it your way" Someone in the org is always ready to believe that the customers (or workers, or suppliers) are too happy, and that this represents money left on the table. Customer service can be scaled back, wages cut, free features turned into upsells. Some of capitalism's most imaginative inventors are enshittifiers, dreaming up new ways to sell you to yourself.]]> enshittification capitalism business platforms https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:064d800695ff/ How did they not know? 2025-07-23T20:39:42+00:00 https://mailchi.mp/rawsignal/how-did-they-not-know?e=055eb9e333 earth2marshLook, there are lots of hazards in the workplace. Steel mills don't work without hazards. Neither do power plants, printing presses, dry cleaners, or dentists. The problem isn't the existence of a hazard. Sometimes those are intrinsic to the job itself, and sometimes they're just part of the way a given business chooses to do the job faster or cheaper or better. The way you spot a well-run business is not necessarily that there are no hazards, but that there are thoughtful protections in place. There are safeties, and harnesses, and cross-checks, and training, and duty rotations. Exposure to the hazard is monitored and contained and minimized. There is care. And bosses, we're just not seeing a lot of that in the decrees around AI.]]> ai llms business risks protections https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e186df4baf41/ The Remarkable Incompetence At The Heart Of Tech 2025-07-21T21:49:54+00:00 https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-remarkable-incompetence-at-the-heart-of-tech/ earth2marshMost enterprise SaaS purchases are simply a distraction – total wishful thinking – for leaders that hope waving a credit card is going to absolve them of the need to understand and manage the true crisis in software engineering. Buying software has many desirable characteristics – everyone else is doing it, it can stall having to deliver results for years, and allows leaders to adopt a thin veneer of innovation. In reality, they’re settling for totally conservative failure. The real crisis, the one they’re ignoring, is only resolved by deep systems thinking, emotional awareness, and an actual understanding of the domain they operate in. And that crisis, succinctly stated, is thus: our institutions are filled to burst with incompetents cosplaying as software engineers, forked-tongue vermin-consultants hawking lies to the desperate, and leaders who consider think reading Malcolm Gladwell makes you a profound intellectual (if you don’t understand why this is a problem, please report to my office for immediate disciplinary action). ]]> saas b2b productmanagement software business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:31ca79ade9e9/ Changing Your Priorities. The what, how, and why of prioritizing… | by Kevlin Henney | Medium 2025-07-13T16:57:44+00:00 https://kevlinhenney.medium.com/changing-your-priorities-19202e42546e earth2marshWhat should we do next? What’s the most important thing? What’s the most urgent thing? What’s the riskiest thing? What’s the surest thing? What’s the quickest thing? What’s the thing that is likely to have the greatest long-term financial return on investment? What’s the thing that creates the most opportunities? What’s the thing that most likely generates the greatest revenue in the short term? What’s the thing that will most benefit the development team? What’s the thing that is currently of most interest to our customer? What’s the thing that we should already have done but haven’t? What’s the thing we can do now that we couldn’t before? What’s the thing that we keep putting off?]]> prioritization priorities productmanagement timing scheduling business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:5d96cd8cadc3/ Data Rules Everything Around Me: The Future Of Enterprise Applications 2025-06-05T06:17:01+00:00 https://mslotnick.substack.com/p/data-rules-everything-around-me-the?triedRedirect=true earth2marshAt the risk of reductionism, a business is really just a bunch of workflows. And a workflow is really just a series of actions that causes one field in a database to change to another. Open Support Ticket to Closed Support Ticket. Lead to Closed/Won Opportunity. Open Job Rec to Hired Employee. If you investigate any valuable business, you’ll realize that enterprise value rises as the Objects owned are more critical to running a business. It’s why Salesforce, Workday, and ServiceNow are huge, and most other businesses by comparison are not. Because Salesforce owns the customer, Workday owns the employee, and ServiceNow owns your technology. And what is a business if not employees, customers, and technology? Salesforce has built an empire with this ownership of the data model. You don’t touch the customer without talking to Salesforce]]> business software ai LLMs trends https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:eb8f8c025ba7/ Product Market Fit Collapse: The AI Tipping Point 2025-03-11T00:30:57+00:00 https://www.reforge.com/blog/product-market-fit-collapse earth2marshCustomer expectations aren’t rising at a predictable, linear pace over longer periods of time—they are spiking exponentially. Suddenly, “good enough” solutions look obsolete when users realize they can receive more efficient, hyper-personalized, and near-instant responses from AI-driven platforms. This creates Product Market Fit Collapse.]]> productmanagement pmf llms business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:8cae063395eb/ on private equity and what's happening in dc 2025-02-07T17:39:45+00:00 https://hachyderm.io/@earth2marsh/113963680912398057 earth2marsh government profit business self https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:cf1a0a4cf6c2/ Reimagining OSS Licensing and Commercialization with Fair Source Adam Jacob, System Initiative 2025-01-05T06:40:08+00:00 https://youtu.be/rmhYHzJpkuo earth2marsh opensource licensing distribution productmanagement business models https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:99e900e693ce/ Opinion | Founder Mode Helps Explain Why Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen Are Backing Donald Trump - The New York Times 2025-01-04T19:13:31+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/opinion/silicon-valley-musk-trump-andreessen.html earth2marshAutocratic leadership, whether in a corporation or a nation-state, is a negative-sum game. On the basis of innumerable research papers, Robert L. Sutton, the author of “Good Boss, Bad Boss,” concluded that when a person who bullies others is removed from a team, the performance of that team improves — even when the bully was a high performer. In her book “The Fearless Organization,” Amy C. Edmondson showed that a team unafraid to speak truth to power performs better. Her research and Google studies that examined what makes teams successful have demonstrated what we all know in our gut: that the bloviating bully taking up all the air in the room is not a leader but a value destroyer. And also damned unpleasant to work with.]]> founders essays business leadership authority https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:23db67fd9c84/ Nonviolent Communication - Wikipedia 2025-01-03T20:51:10+00:00 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication earth2marshThe development of NVC is highly reliant on concepts developed by Carl Rogers and person-centered therapy. Rogers emphasized: 1) experiential learning, 2) "frankness about one's emotional state," 3) the satisfaction of hearing others "in a way that resonates for them," 4) the enriching and encouraging experience of "creative, active, sensitive, accurate, empathic listening," 5) the "deep value of congruence between one's own inner experience, one's conscious awareness, and one's communication," and, subsequently, 6) the enlivening experience of unconditionally receiving love or appreciation and extending the same. These influenced the concepts described in the section below.
There are four components to practice nonviolent communication, and in this order: Observation: These are facts (what we are seeing, hearing, or touching) as distinct from our evaluation of meaning and significance. NVC discourages static generalizations. It is said that "When we combine observation with evaluation, others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying." Instead, a focus on observations specific to time and context is recommended.[1]: ch.3  Feelings: These are emotions or sensations, free of thought and story. These are to be distinguished from thoughts (e.g., "I feel I didn't get a fair deal") and from words colloquially used as feelings but which convey what we think we are (e.g., "inadequate"), how we think others are evaluating us (e.g., "unimportant"), or what we think others are doing to us (e.g., "misunderstood", "ignored"). Feelings are said to reflect whether we are experiencing our needs as met or unmet. Identifying feelings is said to allow us to more easily connect with one another, and "Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts."[1]: ch.4  Needs: These are universal human needs, as distinct from particular strategies for meeting needs. It is posited that "Everything we do is in service of our needs."[14] Marshall Rosenberg refers to Max-Neef's model where needs may be categorised into 9 classes: sustenance, safety, love, understanding/empathy, creativity, recreation, sense of belonging, autonomy and meaning.[15] For more information, the Center for Nonviolent Communication has developed a needs inventory.[16] Requests: Requests are distinguished from demands in that one is open to hearing a response of "no" without this triggering an attempt to force the matter. If one makes a request and receives a "no" it is not recommended that one gives up, but that one empathizes with what is preventing the other person from saying "yes," before deciding how to continue the conversation. It is recommended that requests use clear, positive, concrete action language.
]]> relationships communication coaching psychology business conflict cooperation language https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:9070371e6da1/ 5 Things I Wish Somebody Told Me Before I Founded My SaaS - Stacking the Bricks 2024-11-25T04:46:34+00:00 https://stackingthebricks.com/5-things-i-wish-id-known-before-founding-saas/ earth2marshHere are five things I wish I’d known when I started Noko, things that would have made my life so much more profitable and pleasurable.]]> business entrepreneurship startups culture tips https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:1e75041f02fe/ The Shareholder Supremacy 2024-11-19T03:05:07+00:00 https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/ earth2marsh]]> business economics capitalism tech https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:869844746df8/ The Rot Economy - Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At 2024-11-13T22:15:13+00:00 https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-rot-economy/ earth2marshAt the center of everything I’ve written for the last few months (if not the last few years), sits a cancerous problem with the fabric of how capital is deployed in modern business. Public and private investors, along with the markets themselves, have become entirely decoupled from the concept of what “good” business truly is, focusing on one metric — one truly noxious metric — over all else: growth.]]> business tech capital capitalism growth enshittification https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:85fe0e49d059/ The mainstream media was 2024’s other big loser. Is there any path forward? |Opinion 2024-11-11T17:06:33+00:00 https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/trust-mainstream-media-2024-election-20241110.html earth2marshThe American mainstream media, and its vital watchdog role that once made it a trusted, major institution in a flawed yet functioning democracy, imploded in 2024, and it happened in two ways — gradually and then suddenly.]]> history media politics newspapers journalism business billionaires usability https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:811eaf039613/ Democratising publishing 2024-10-30T20:50:11+00:00 https://john.onolan.org/democratising-publishing/ earth2marshGhost is a distributed non-profit foundation which gives away all of its intellectual property under a permissive MIT license. The company has no investors and, in fact, no owners of any kind. I don't own any part of Ghost, and neither does my co-founder Hannah. We currently generate around $7.5M in annual revenue, and have been profitable and sustainable for the past 12 years. "Wait, what?" I'm glad you asked.]]> business opensource cms licensing https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ff69d8553286/ How Bad Entrepreneurs Reveal Themselves in the First 5 Seconds of a Pitch | by Aaron Dinin, PhD | Sep, 2024 | Entrepreneurship Handbook 2024-10-08T19:59:38+00:00 https://ehandbook.com/how-bad-entrepreneurs-reveal-themselves-in-the-first-5-seconds-of-a-pitch-3238835c5486 earth2marshFor example, instead of saying, “We’re building a platform that connects X with Y,” say, “Right now, people who do X struggle with Y because of Z. It’s a huge pain point, and it’s costing them time and money.” Now, you’re leading with the problem. You’re speaking to the pain that your potential customers are feeling. You’re making them the center of the story, not your product.]]> business entrepreneurship productmanagement startups https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d6bb9b6bbb3a/ Private Equity Ruins Tech Companies | Zachary Hamed 2024-10-07T23:50:44+00:00 https://blog.zmh.org/2024/10/07/private-equity-ruins.html earth2marshPE firms raise money from institutional investors and high net worth individuals to buy companies, restructure them, and sell them later for a profit. They’re all about maximizing returns ASAP, usually in a 3-7 year window. That’s a shorter timeframe than the typical founder or public company shareholder, and far shorter than Matt’s time horizon: I would like future generations to grow up with a web that is more open, more free, gives more liberty, and so open source is really my life’s work, even above WordPress and anything else. I hope to work on it the rest of my life.]]> finance equity opensource business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:7629096e1ce8/ When Open Source goes proprietary, or starts thinking about the law... 2024-10-05T18:43:22+00:00 https://cdibona.substack.com/p/when-open-source-goes-proprietary?triedRedirect=true earth2marshThese often come down to confusing open source software development with a business model. It’s almost banal to say it, but releasing your software under an open source license means, simply, you will not be able to make per copy software revenue from it. Your points of control are constrained in ways that proprietary software licensing does not.]]> opensource licensing business productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:af49afc539da/ Our Android App is Frozen in Carbonite 2024-10-04T16:29:00+00:00 https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite earth2marshIn order to allow our users to access their Google Drive on their phones we had to rewrite privacy statements, update documents, and pass a series of security checks, all while facing a barrage of new, ever-shifting requirements.]]> android google business appstore enshittification https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:fbfc099410eb/ Forbes Marketplace: The Parasite SEO Company Trying to Devour Its Host 2024-09-24T05:51:07+00:00 https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/ earth2marsh google marketing seo forbes affiliate business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:8102b70c3fe6/ Some startups are going ‘fair source’ to avoid the pitfalls of open source licensing | TechCrunch 2024-09-23T06:21:06+00:00 https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/22/some-startups-are-going-fair-source-to-avoid-the-pitfalls-of-open-source-licensing/ earth2marshThe fair source concept is designed to help companies align themselves with the “open” software development sphere, without encroaching into existing licensing landscapes, be that open source, open core, or source-available, and while avoiding any negative associations that exist with “proprietary.” However, fair source is also a response to the growing sense that open source isn’t working out commercially. “Open source isn’t a business model — open source is a distribution model, it’s a software development model, primarily,” Chad Whitacre, Sentry’s head of open source, told TechCrunch. “And in fact, it places severe limits on what business models are available, because of the licensing terms.”]]> licensing opensource source business alternatives https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:207df2a732bd/ The Subprime AI Crisis 2024-09-19T02:15:20+00:00 https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/ earth2marshWell, it’s the natural result of a tech industry that’s become entirely focused on making each customer more valuable rather than providing more value to the customer. Or, for that matter, actually understand who their customers are and what they need.
Big tech has become thoroughly poisoned by management consultants — Amazon, Microsoft and Google are all run by MBAs — and in turn have surrounded them with similarly-specious ghouls like Google's Prabhakar Raghavan, who chased out the people that actually built Google Search so that he could run it.
]]> economics business ai llms https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:42f3dc83879f/ Open Charter gives open source users predictability amidst the licensing change trend | Open Core Ventures 2024-09-19T01:58:55+00:00 https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2024-05-open-charter-gives-open-source-users-predictability-admist-licensing-change-trend/ earth2marshFor users to trust commercial open-source software (COSS), companies can no longer simply say their code will be open source forever; they need to have a way to hold themselves accountable. One way to do this is to adopt OCV’s Open Charter, a legal statement of a company’s commitment to open source that protects open-source code as a public benefit. Open-source companies that adopt the Open Charter will be more predictable than those that don’t—users can feel assured that the company is committed to maintaining the open source for the long haul and won’t pull a bait and switch. ]]> opensource charters licenses oss business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:452bb78e5abb/ Why Yaak is not open source | Lobsters 2024-09-12T05:12:59+00:00 https://lobste.rs/s/qeqgiq/why_yaak_is_not_open_source#c_k7tr74 earth2marshI’ll put the bottom line up front: don’t conflate “open source”/“free software” with github’s specific social model of drive-by contributions, or even contributions at all. @gschier, if you reply only thinking about that, I’d be happy. I really don’t buy this as an explanation of why open source doesn’t work. Many of the points made are a false dichotomy - for example, “Features will be added - Difficult in reality […] often quicker for the maintainer to just implement the feature themselves.”. If you’re closed source, you’re making the decision to always do it yourself, but you can be open source and still do this, if that’s what you want. You aren’t obligated to accept anyone else’s contributions.]]> opensource licensing business productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:cc576d40ac6e/ Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong | WIRED 2024-09-02T23:24:28+00:00 https://www.wired.com/story/meredith-whittaker-signal/ earth2marshOver its past decade, no leader of Signal has embodied that iconoclasm as visibly as Meredith Whittaker. Signal’s president since 2022 is one of the world’s most prominent tech critics: When she worked at Google, she led walkouts to protest its discriminatory practices and spoke out against its military contracts. She cofounded the AI Now Institute to address ethical implications of artificial intelligence and has become a leading voice for the notion that AI and surveillance are inherently intertwined. Since she took on the presidency at the Signal Foundation, she has come to see her central task as working to find a long-term taproot of funding to keep Signal alive for decades to come—with zero compromises or corporate entanglements—so it can serve as a model for an entirely new kind of tech ecosystem.]]> business privacy tech productmanagement communication signal https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:eb4f47c48445/ MECE principle - Wikipedia 2024-08-28T19:00:59+00:00 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECE_principle earth2marshThe MECE principle (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) is a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets that are mutually exclusive (ME) and collectively exhaustive (CE).[1] It was developed in the late 1960s by Barbara Minto at McKinsey & Company and underlies her Minto Pyramid Principle,[2] and while she takes credit for MECE, according to her interview with McKinsey, she says the idea for MECE goes back as far as to Aristotle.[2] The MECE principle has been used in the business mapping process wherein the optimum arrangement of information is exhaustive and does not double count at any level of the hierarchy. Examples of MECE arrangements include categorizing people by year of birth (assuming all years are known), apartments by their building number, letters by postmark, and dice rolls. A non-MECE example would be categorization by nationality, because nationalities are neither mutually exclusive (some people have dual nationality) nor collectively exhaustive (some people have none).]]> ideas business productmanagement categorization https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a9ded49691df/ Software Licensing Changes and Their Impact on Financial Outcomes – Alt + E S V 2024-08-26T18:53:11+00:00 https://redmonk.com/rstephens/2024/08/26/software-licensing-changes-and-their-impact-on-financial-outcomes/ earth2marshWhile in our sample we see revenue grow post-license change, we don’t see a notable change in the rate of growth. We also see very mixed results in company valuation, and there does not seem to be a clear link between moving from an open source to proprietary license and increasing the company’s value.]]> licensing oss opensource changes revenue business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a9df8aa73d4e/ Contempt for the glue people – Surfing Complexity 2024-08-25T16:02:20+00:00 https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2021/08/28/contempt-for-the-glue-people/ earth2marshHere’s a transcript, emphasis mine. When I was at Novell, I had learned that there were people who I call “glue people”. The glue people are incredibly nice people who sit at interstitial boundaries between groups, and they assist in activity. And they are very, very loyal, and people love them, and you don’t need them at all.]]> business google glue https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:6e41e23abec4/ Roblox is Already the Biggest Game In The World. Why Can't It Make a Profit (And How Can It)? — MatthewBall.co 2024-08-20T01:00:34+00:00 https://www.matthewball.co/all/roblox2024 earth2marshBecause of Roblox’s high cost to serve per hour, users in lower-income or lower-propensity-to-spend markets typically reduce profitability, rather than just harm overall margins. For Facebook, Twitter, Snap, etc., low monetizing users are still accretive because however little revenue they generate, the marginal costs incurred are near zero. This issue is exacerbated on the revenue side, too. Unlike other social platforms, Roblox’s revenue is nearly all via user spending rather than advertising. As such, Roblox pays 25% of its revenue to Apple and Google (30% of transactions on those platforms) whereas Facebook, Snap, et al pay effectively 0. Note that Facebook, which has structurally lower costs to service users than Roblox and is far more mature, has an operating margin of roughly 40% — if the company had to pay out 25-30% first, it would never have “tech company” profit margins, let alone profit dollars (And if Facebook also paid 25% of revenues out to creator-users, well… then it would be in the red!). So to achieve overall profitability, Roblox needs to either increase its average bookings per DAU from $13 to at least $18 or achieve a level of revenue scale such that all fees other than developer payouts (currently $3.38 per $13) are effectively halved. In practice, both pushes will likely be needed; fortunately, there are a few mechanisms for each. First is App Store fees. The need for platforms such as Roblox to pay another platform (i.e. iOS or Android) 30% of all revenues generated on their devices is a fundamental, but not accidental problem. If, as an iOS or Android developer, Roblox only nets 70% of the revenue it generates then at best, it can provide 70% of its net revenue to its developers (thus matching the revenue share iOS and Android provide to their developers).]]> business games analysis profitability roblox https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:65f7c4576989/ The Two Laws Of Startup Physics 2024-07-19T06:00:06+00:00 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-laws-startup-physics-eric-paley-ekzxe earth2marshIf you lack confidence in the ROI of your investments, the best thing to do is pause and experiment with a new thesis – as inexpensively as possible. A pause might negatively impact your relationship with investors and your team. However, to win you must ensure your team invests capital wisely to create long-term intrinsic value. It is better to slow things down and reorient towards sustainable growth instead of pursuing an agenda that relies more on luck than logic.]]> programming business startups advice https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:289a1fb80a43/ How DevProd teams got funded: 20 real-world examples 2024-07-19T05:43:34+00:00 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-devprod-teams-got-funded-20-real-world-examples-abi-noda-qfbrc earth2marshKey takeaways The most common first projects are CI/CD tooling, cloud infrastructure, developer environments and developer productivity metrics. When starting out, it’s easiest to get buy-in for projects that solve acute pain points (e.g. slow build times) or that have clear value to executives (e.g. metrics). See if you can borrow engineers from other teams for a set period of time (see Lattice’s story). This can help kickstart a DevProd initiative.]]> platformengineering startups business funding examples https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:0639c186e0c4/ Moats: Durable competitive advantage 2024-07-19T05:25:14+00:00 https://longform.asmartbear.com/moats/ earth2marshMake sure your strategy is explicit about which moats are being constructed, and the major multi-year activities required to construct them.]]> moats strategy productmanagement business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a7157ca4c19a/ Excuse me, is there a problem? 2024-07-19T05:23:57+00:00 https://longform.asmartbear.com/problem/ earth2marshEvaluating startup viability This path of “problem” to “business model” is not the only factor that determines success. There are still questions like whether you can reach customers, get their attention in the noisy Internet and competitive space, can you do that cost-effectively, are company costs too high, do you have the skills, can you hire for skills, do you have enough time and money to do it, and so on. Still, we can evaluate the viability of this path with the following model. We’ll use Fermi Estimation to avoid the analysis-paralysis of deep research and arguing over details.]]> advice startups business productmanagement models pricing demand viability https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:667d30cd0696/ DevEx in Action – Communications of the ACM 2024-06-21T01:00:17+00:00 https://cacm.acm.org/practice/devex-in-action/ earth2marshKnowing intuitively the importance of DevEx, however, is not always enough to make a compelling case to upper management. When management rightfully asks if DevEx has an impact on business, this study can provide an answer, showing that DevEx affects the performance of individual developers, teams, and organizations. Further, our analysis clearly indicates which factors should be given priority for teams to achieve positive outcomes. This evidence can justify a DevEx initiative, as well as provide actionable insights to guide a DevEx intervention. Now that you are sold on improving DevEx, how can you convince your organization to buy in? First, have them read this article. Then, joke aside, here are five important steps that can help you advocate for continuous improvements by keeping your arguments grounded in data. Get data on the current developer experience. Understand what DevEx is like at your organization. For organizations]]> devex research business flow https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:57d97615379a/ ongoing by Tim Bray · Parable of the Sofa 2024-06-02T16:44:10+00:00 https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/06/01/Parable-of-the-Sofa earth2marshIn conversation with venture capitalists, you hear the phrase “lifestyle business”, meaning one that is doing nicely and rewarding the people who run it and which isn’t planning for unbounded growth. The words “lifestyle business” are always, of course, uttered in a voice dripping with contempt. Luxcious is a lifestyle business. It seems blindingly obvious that an economy with a higher proportion of lifestyle businesses is going to be more resilient, more humane, and immensely more pleasant than the one that the Leaders Of Industry are trying to build.]]> business economics furniture sofas capitalism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:b0e2ce861eb2/ Market Share & Profitability 2024-05-27T21:54:51+00:00 https://mailchi.mp/verdadcap/market-share-profitability earth2marshThis chart shows that market share is not a consistent indicator of firm performance. And this finding holds true across industries, with many illustrating a negative relationship between market share and profitability.]]> economics profit markets share business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ccc77362fe44/ Designer's Digest - Steve Jobs on the role of product and marketing people. - YouTube 2024-05-02T20:59:11+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4 earth2marsh business management videos steve_jobs xerox https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:138e37e24a5a/ The Man Who Killed Google Search 2024-04-24T03:13:36+00:00 https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/ earth2marshGomes, a Googler of 19 years that built the foundation of modern search engines, should go down as one of the few people in tech that actually fought for a real principle, destroyed by and replaced with Prabhakar Raghavan, a computer scientist class traitor that sided with the management consultancy sect. More confusingly, one of the problems was that there was insufficient growth in “queries,” as in the amount of things people were asking Google. It’s a bit like if Ford decided that things were going poorly because drivers weren’t putting enough miles on their trucks.]]> business google history Search https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:c865159f0d3b/ 🌀🗞 The FLUX Review, Ep. 141 - by The FLUX Collective 2024-04-18T04:05:07+00:00 https://read.fluxcollective.org/p/141 earth2marshthe dynamic and nuanced interplay of value creation and value capture. Value creation occurs when someone produces something valuable to others (a concept straightforward on its own, but more nuanced when considering negative externalities). Value capture occurs when someone, not necessarily the creator, converts some of the finite value created into benefit for themselves, such as profit or claiming credit. At their best, value creation and value capture are complementary activities. In our entertainment example, creators and aggregators add value in different ways. Artists provide content. Aggregators suggest the right content to the right person at the right time. Artists can capture value more easily because aggregators add a value-capture channel from which both can profit. Yet there’s an underlying tension: aggregators may appear to profit at the expense of artists. This tension is not new; publishers and labels have long been accused of profiting from a similar dynamic. Look up “Hollywood accounting” as an example of the movie industry.]]> value creation capture business sustainability productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:0dd6d3d58e73/ OKRs are Bullshit - by drmorr 2024-04-06T14:39:21+00:00 https://blog.appliedcomputing.io/p/okrs-are-bullshit earth2marshthe biggest problem with OKR's laser focus on measurement, though, is that not everything should be measured, even if you can! Being "data-driven" is a huge buzzword in the industry. We want to improve, we want to see how much we improved by, and then we want to tell the world how much we improved by so our stock price goes up.]]> metrics business management process planning okrs criticism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ae16fbb4ef10/ the biggest threat facing your team, whether you’re a game developer or a tech founder or a CEO, is not what you think | by Doc Burford | Mar, 2024 | Medium 2024-04-02T03:22:19+00:00 https://docseuss.medium.com/the-biggest-threat-facing-your-team-whether-youre-a-game-developer-or-a-tech-founder-or-a-ceo-is-8cd1ad359508 earth2marshIf you are running a business, your goal, generally, is to make money. A lot of people go to business school to learn how to do it, and those people — maybe you’re one of them, takes those newly found lessons to work at large corporations]]> finance money business leadership exploration https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:9203cdb22da1/ What Is Perspective Taking? Examples and Tips for Leaders - Knowledge at Wharton 2024-03-31T02:40:44+00:00 https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/perspective-taking-brain-hack-can-help-make-better-decisions/ earth2marshWhen considering how often perspective taking appears in the problem-solving literature, it is surprising that so few leaders invest time and effort in developing this skill. Even though organizations frequently use the aforementioned tools and frameworks, including the well-known approach of Design Thinking, the results may be suboptimal if individuals are not skilled in perspective taking itself.]]> business psychology cognition perspectives thinking leadership techniques https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e74331b8d733/ Software vendors dump open source, go for the cash grab | Computerworld 2024-03-28T19:29:17+00:00 https://www-computerworld-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.computerworld.com/article/3714821/software-vendors-dump-open-source-go-for-the-cash-grab.amp.html?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17116539803021&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerworld.com%2Farticle%2F3714821%2Fsoftware-vendors-dump-open-source-go-for-the-cash-grab.html earth2marshopensource licensing business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:359d97f20d14/ Redis Adopts Dual Source-Available Licensing | Redis 2024-03-21T06:18:45+00:00 https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ earth2marshThe success of Redis has created a unique set of challenges. Redis has been sponsoring the bulk of development alongside a dynamic community of developers eager to contribute. However, the majority of Redis’ commercial sales are channeled through the largest cloud service providers, who commoditize Redis’ investments and its open source community. Despite efforts to support a community-led governance model, and our desire to maintain the BSD license, delivering multiple software distributions simultaneously – across open-source, source-available, and commercial software optimized for different on-premises and cloud platforms – is at odds with our ability to drive Redis successfully into the future]]> oss licensing redis business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:3b293fd6892d/ Starting an LLC - Step-by-Step Guides by LLC University® 2024-03-15T01:39:05+00:00 https://www.llcuniversity.com/ earth2marshStarting an LLC shouldn’t be complicated or expensive. Our free step-by-step guides will make the process easy. Read more about LLC University, or choose your state and start an LLC today]]> legal business startups https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:69ff2e6ee3d1/ Understanding the Key Differences Between B2B, B2C, and B2E Systems - Portal People 2024-02-26T20:20:52+00:00 https://www.portalpeople.uk/blog/understanding-the-key-differences-between-b2b-b2c-and-b2e-systems/ earth2marshTarget Audience B2B: The primary audience for B2B systems is other businesses or organizations. These systems are used to facilitate transactions and collaborations between companies. B2C: B2C systems target individual consumers. They aim to provide a user-friendly and engaging shopping experience to encourage sales directly to end-users. B2E: B2E systems are meant exclusively for employees within an organization. They support internal processes and help manage the workforce effectively. Nature of Transactions B2B: Transactions in B2B systems often involve larger quantities and higher values. They can include procurement, wholesale purchases, and partnerships. B2C: B2C transactions are typically smaller in scale and involve individual product purchases. They focus on meeting the preferences and needs of individual customers. B2E: B2E transactions encompass various internal processes, such as employee on-boarding, benefits administration, and performance evaluations.]]> b2b b2c business models https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:43f75466dcd8/ Deciphering Glyph :: Let Me Tell You A Secret 2024-02-13T06:13:14+00:00 https://blog.glyph.im/2024/02/let-me-tell-you-a-secret.html earth2marshI am going to go get a pen and a pad of paper, then schedule a 90-minute meeting with the most senior IC3 engineer that you have on your team. I will bring that pen and paper to the meeting. I will then ask one question: What is fucked up about this place? I will then write down their response in as much detail as I can manage. If I have begun to suspect that this meeting is necessary, 90 minutes is typically not enough time, and I will struggle to keep up. Even so, I will usually manage to capture the highlights. One week later, I will schedule a meeting with executive leadership, and during that meeting, I will read back a very lightly edited4 version of the transcript of the previous meeting. This is then routinely praised as a keen strategic insight.]]> business interesting consultant consulting listening https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e8eaa79ccdae/ Introducing our Open Salary System: Reflecting on a Decade of Transparent Salaries at Buffer 2024-01-29T17:01:36+00:00 https://buffer.com/resources/salary-system/ earth2marsh salary work business compensation reference open culture salaries https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:012170044de2/ Willingness-to-pay: Creating permanent competitive advantage, for the right reasons 2024-01-28T01:43:39+00:00 https://longform.asmartbear.com/willingness-to-pay/ earth2marshWillingness-to-pay (WTP) is the maximum price the customer would have paid for the product, which the economist claims is how much the customer values the product. “Value” could come from anything—utility, pleasure, status, even irrational confusion. The economist claims that any transaction is evidence that WTP > Price, and the difference between those numbers is “Consumer Surplus.” It looks trivial at a first glance, but I’ve come to believe that analyzing “WTP” is not only non-trivial, but also leads to very different strategies, business models, and outcomes.]]> productmanagement pricing differentiation competition advantage business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:121ea29ed559/ The Quiet Death of Ello's Big Dreams - Waxy.org 2024-01-27T16:33:39+00:00 https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/ earth2marshFrom its launch, Ello defined itself as an alternative to ad-driven social networks like Twitter and Facebook. “You are not a product.” (The “I Disagree” button linked to Facebook’s privacy page.) I’d link to that manifesto on Ello’s site, but I can’t, because Ello is dead. In June 2023, the servers just started returning errors, making nine years of member contributions inaccessible, apparently forever — every post, artwork, song, portfolio, and the community built there was gone in an instant. How did this happen? What happened between the idealistic manifesto above and the sudden shutdown? It’s a story so old and familiar, I predicted it shortly after Ello launched.]]> history internet socialmedia startups vc capital business failure https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:0b19a7ea6853/ The Rise of the Silicon Valley Small Business 2024-01-17T05:48:57+00:00 https://every.to/p/rise-of-the-silicon-valley-small-business?ref=refind earth2marshThe Silicon Valley Small Business, the SVSB, is a hybrid of sorts—it intertwines small business values and discipline with big-tech know-how and ambition. Founding teams may look like that of a “traditional” Silicon Valley startup. They’re native to Silicon Valley ethos, skills, and playbooks. But beneath the surface, they’re different. They value autonomy and flexibility. You might see more solopreneurs and studios (and LLCs instead of C-corps) taking multiple shots. They envision a range of potentially good outcomes—not binary, all-or-nothing scenarios. Many peers who’ve founded or worked at high-growth VC-backed startups are now considering starting an SVSB. Teams stay small and run fast for as long as they can. I define a Silicon Valley Small Business as having 20 or fewer employees (and often fewer than 10). In my experience, startup teams above this size are forced to operate very differently—much slower, with more bureaucracy and less alignment. Below this threshold, there’s little hierarchy, redundancy, or purely managerial roles. And a savvy, small team can still create leverage and punch above its size. They’re growth-oriented and going for efficient scale. Unlike small businesses (and contrary to the common characterization of teams that bootstrap), SVSBs aren’t just trying to build “lifestyle” businesses or modest passive income streams. They want to scale as quickly and efficiently as possible. Many of them know how to scale businesses, and their desire to do so separates them from traditional small businesses. Their focus on profitability and efficiency while scaling separates them from the traditional SV startup.]]> startups tech productmanagement business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:4557bcdc689e/ (1) Matt Slotnick on X: "seeing a lot of confusion around why layoffs are happening at companies with a lot of cash on the balance sheet. at the risk of getting roasted... here's a TLDR, for both public and private companies" / X 2024-01-12T05:31:14+00:00 https://twitter.com/matt_slotnick/status/1617591860305793024 earth2marsh finance startups capital revenue business productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:be3206490bee/ Why We're Dropping Basecamp - Duke University Libraries Blogs 2023-12-01T00:04:26+00:00 https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/11/30/why-were-dropping-basecamp/ earth2marshterconnectedness of the world while refusing to do the work. They may even taunt, from their blogs, those who try. Their paths are going to intersect with ours; that’s just the way it works. Often, we’re not in a position to choose not to deal with them. But occasionally, we are. Not because we want to eliminate anyone’s livelihood, or harry executives, or because we imagine our subscription fee makes much of a difference. But just because we can. In this case, there are other productivity tools that can fill the space. In this case, we have options. And we’ve chosen to end our subscription with Basecamp.]]> libraries Basecamp business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:f1d82baa60b3/ Chamberlain Group | A Message About our Decision to Prevent… 2023-11-09T21:07:31+00:00 https://chamberlaingroup.com/press/a-message-about-our-decision-to-prevent-unauthorized-usage-of-myq earth2marshOur customers rely on us to make access simple without sacrificing quality and reliability. Unauthorized app integrations, stemming from only 0.2% of myQ users, previously accounted for more than half of the traffic to and from the myQ system, and at times constituted a substantial DDOS event that consumed high quantities of resources. Our approved smart home integrations also remain in place. While myQ Home Bridge was discontinued in 2022, the product is still supported and our IFTTT integration* continues to be an option for myQ users. See also: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/chamberlain-blocks-smart-garage-door-opener-from-working-with-smart-homes/]]> apis business users https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:f94ba0ed4db7/ The Six Moats of Data Businesses. There are thousands of data businesses… | by Travis May | Oct, 2023 | Medium 2023-11-07T20:20:37+00:00 https://travismay.medium.com/the-six-moats-of-data-businesses-01a69638c8f8 earth2marshThere are thousands of data businesses across industries, across a complex value chain. Some companies advertise that they curate data better than others, some advertise that they have exclusive access to X data set, some advertise that they offer the best analytics, and some advertise that they are the easiest to use. The vast majority of these businesses do not go on to become large successes — even if they execute well and build a great data set — because they do not have a defensible moat. This post walks through the different moats that exist in data businesses — and how a few dozen companies found defensibility and became $1+ billion data businesses over time.]]> moats differentiation data business models productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:fb4a9a5352a2/ Removal of MyQ integration - Home Assistant 2023-11-07T00:35:17+00:00 https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/11/06/removal-of-myq-integration/ earth2marshYou may wonder if Home Assistant could become an authorized partner. In their partner program, the partner companies pay Chamberlain Group for the privilege of letting MyQ owners control their own garage doors. We are open to working together with Chamberlain Group, but as Home Assistant is an open-source project, we cannot pay a partnership fee. Not only is this financially not viable, it also goes against our values. MyQ users should be able to access the devices they paid for and the data they own in any way they want, without a third party having to pay an additional fee.]]> apis business models home automation https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:5ed430b5b872/ Is the Magic Number a bad party trick? - by CJ Gustafson 2023-10-26T21:54:38+00:00 https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/is-the-magic-number-a-bad-party-trick earth2marshSo first ask yourself what you want to accomplish. Then peep the list below: Efficiency of New Customer Acquisition: CAC Payback Period Blended CAC Ratio New CAC Ratio S&M as a Percentage of Revenue Quality of Customers: LTV to CAC Net Dollar Retention Rate Customer Expansion: Net Dollar Retention Rate Expansion ARR to Expansion ARR + New ARR Ratio Customer Retention: Gross Dollar Retention Rate Gross Account Retention Rate Account Renewal Rate Spend Burn ratio Months of cash runway]]> metrics business health productmanagement revenue https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:9fd08ce90b54/ Open Source does not win by being cheaper · getlago/lago Wiki · GitHub 2023-10-03T16:06:22+00:00 https://github.com/getlago/lago/wiki/Open-Source-does-not-win-by-being-cheaper earth2marshA great case for an open-source solution is when a transparency problem is present. What is a transparency problem? It’s when a solution being closed source creates distrust between the client and vendor.]]> oss business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e1f4d85b90c3/ Amazon.com: Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy: 9781422160596: Magretta, Joan: Books 2023-09-16T20:31:14+00:00 https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Michael-Porter-Essential-Competition/dp/1422160599/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=understanding+michael+porter&qid=1694896223&sr=8-1 earth2marshCompetitive advantage. The value chain. Five forces. Industry structure. Differentiation. Relative cost. If you want to understand how companies achieve and sustain competitive success, Michael Porter’s frameworks are the foundation. But while everyone in business may know Porter’s name, many managers misunderstand and misuse his concepts. Understanding Michael Porter sets the record straight, providing the first concise, accessible summary of Porter’s revolutionary thinking. Written with Porter’s full cooperation by Joan Magretta, his former editor at Harvard Business Review, this new book delivers fresh, clear examples to illustrate and update Porter’s ideas. Magretta uses her wide business experience to translate Porter’s powerful insights into practice and to correct the most common misconceptions about them—for instance, that competition is about being unique, not being the best; that it is a contest over profits, not a battle between rivals; that strategy is about choosing to make some customers unhappy, not being all things to all customers.]]> productmanagement books competition advantage strategy business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:686c7a80880b/ For years the media has made it seem the greatest privacy scandal in America is targeted ads on social media. 2023-08-22T18:18:44+00:00 https://elk.zone/@hachyderm.io/@carnage4life@mas.to/110934500872572497 earth2marsh privacy ads data business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:bafbc26f9872/ Befriending the Goon Squad · Applied Cartography 2023-07-21T05:09:10+00:00 https://www.applied-cartography.com/goon-squad?t=4 earth2marshThis is an important message for independent developers to internalize: especially in crowded markets, survival, not victory, is the success condition. I run Buttondown, a newsletter platform. Buttondown shares very little with Blot, but they are both in very crowded spaces — awash with competitors, some of whom are amateurish, some of whom are quite well-funded. I've been asked many times some variation of the question "how do you deal with the competition?" There are many answers to this question; in this essay, I want to give one: wait until they die.]]> startups lifestyle business essay competition survival https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:52382e22c057/ Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy | TechCrunch 2023-06-02T17:00:10+00:00 https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/18/why-big-companies-keep-failing-the-stack-fallacy/ earth2marshThe stack fallacy is a result of human nature  — we (over) value what we know. In real terms, imagine you work for a large database company  and the CEO asks , “Can we compete with Intel or SAP?” Very few people will imagine they can build a computer chip just because they can build relational database software, but because of our familiarity with building blocks of the layer up,  it is easy to believe you can build the ERP app. After all, we know tables and workflows. The bottleneck for success often is not knowledge of the tools, but lack of understanding of the customer needs. Database engineers know almost nothing about what supply chain software customers want or need. They can hire for that, but it is not a core competency. Product management is the art of knowing what to build. In a surprising way, it is far easier to innovate down the stack than up the stack. The reason for this is that you are yourself a natural customer of the lower layers. Apple knew what it wanted from an ideal future microprocessor. It did not have the skills necessary to build it, but the customer needs were well understood. Technical skills can be bought/acquired, whereas it is very hard to buy a deep understanding of market needs. It is therefore no surprise that Apple had an easier time building semiconductor chips than building Apple Maps.]]> productmanagement stack fallacies fallacy stacks business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:f9ce68f2e8b9/ Govity / Trusted Family Public Product Roadmap | Product Roadmap 2023-05-23T15:57:21+00:00 https://younited.notion.site/younited/6136043f27aa458385b783efca9cda31?v=23d7cc374b604c2490cb54ba23cddc6b earth2marshservice family business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:5b2f5a0f87d0/