Brian Zafron: I Eat Web 2.0 for Breakfast

As an entrepreneur, whether you’re a one-man show or an established bigwig, you’re bound to run into considerable amounts of stress. The responsibilities and pressures of developing a business are endless – everything from making phone calls, to lunch meetings, to working against deadlines can take a toll on your emotional well-being. And sometimes, when the toll becomes great enough, you reach a boiling point and want to do something drastic – like throw your computer against a wall.

Personally, I probably think about throwing my computer against a wall three to four times a month, but due to reasons of finance and general practicality, I have never given into the urge. Not yet, anyway. However, I imagine many of you are in the same boat, struggling with the same urge, and perhaps closer to giving in than me. So, rather than write a post about stress management - there exist about a googabillion such articles across the blogosphere – I want to outline what you should do when your stress prevails and you prepare to throw your computer against a wall.

1. Concentrate on the grip. Your mind is probably racing with all sorts of anger and non-rational emotion, but if you’re going to throw your computer against the wall, make sure it’s a solid throw. I mean, this might not be a shining moment in your professional career, but nonetheless, it will certainly be a moment to remember. So make sure you wipe off your clammy palms before you pick up the computer, and grip the computer’s base firmly with both hands. You must maintain this firm grip as you rotate the computer towards your throwing side and propel the computer across your body towards the wall.
2. Clear the area. This one goes without saying: if you’re going to chuck a heavy metal object through the air, make sure no co-workers are standing in the way. Not only will they hinder the computer’s spectacular smash/explosion, but there’s also a pretty decent chance they could get hurt. At the very least, have the courtesy to yell “Four!”
3. Confirm the right people are watching. Throwing your computer against a wall is an act of epic proportions, something people often threaten to do, but in reality, never come close. Aside from immediate (and fleeting) moments of stress-relief, the single greatest benefit from throwing your computer against a wall will be the bravado you demonstrate to your co-workers. They may think you are a mildly crazed hot-head, but I’ll be damned if they’re not inspired by your decisiveness. Who knows? Maybe everybody will join in and throw their computers at the closest wall, as well. We all have stress, but we don’t all have leaders.
4. Milk the spectacle for all its worth. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but there’s this new, fun website that’s really taking off called youtube. Yeah, you know the one. Everyday over 100 million videos are watched on the site, the majority of which are created by no-name folks like you and me. So, if you’re going to throw your computer against a wall, why not cash in on some celebrity. People love watching others behave like jackasses, and by throwing your computer against a wall, yes, you immediately qualify as a jackass. Simply ask a co-worker to film you on his iphone, upload the video to youtube, and with a little luck (not to mention some effective word of mouth marketing), you could be a pop sensation before morning. Or conversely, maybe only a few people will watch the video, but your friends will thank you for sharing your insanity, and years down the line, when you’ve gained some perspective on your crippling stress issues, you’ll enjoy a hearty laugh.

All right, my friends. Those are the essential elements of throwing your computer against a wall. These elements, as I suspect some of you are wondering, apply to both laptop and desktop computers. Once again, I am not advocating such wild and crazy behavior, but if you must throw your computer against a wall, I implore you: please make the most of it.

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Don’t you hate unpleasant surprises?

Like the time you discovered that attractive woman was actually your best friend’s girlfriend? Or that fateful day you realized it wasn’t technically “cool” to listen to Phil Collins?

Well, I also hate unpleasant surprises. Thus, I hate these new “peel-away” ads that have cropped all over the glorious world wide web. Basically, these ads look like cute, snuggly bunny ears which, when you mouse over them, “peel away” to reveal an ad. Bunny fetish aside, I find these suckers irresistible to click. So naturally, when I noticed on Monday some peel-aways on ProgrammerMeetDesigner’s website (one of the start-ups in my shared incubator space; mentioned in this article), I found myself ready to click. And herein lies the unpleasant surprise: before even clicking the peel-aways, simply through mousing over them, I noticed they were disabling the site’s login button. I soon notified the PMD peeps about their advertising mishap, and they quickly took the ad down.

Fast forward to yesterday: I’m checking out John Chow and I noticed his peel-away ads, served up by his company, TTZ media. Low and behold, his ads made it impossible for visitors to both a) hit the search button and b) close that annoying yellow, top bar (ad) without scrolling away from the ad unit.

Next, I cruised over to TheTechZone (Chow’s other site) on a hunch he was probably running the TTZ unit there, as well.  Hunch confirmed, I noticed some more bugginess: after mousing over an ad, the links on the page covered by the larger hit area (a 500 x 500 px box) stopped working until I removed the mouse from the area all together - even after the ad had “peeled back.”

To surmise everything I’ve said thus far: peel-aways totally suck. Every peel-away ad I’ve seen is riddled with problems, small and large.

This phenomenon validates several points I’ve always found to be true. First, web 2.0 is always in search of the “next thing” - and we often rush to implement this “next thing” prematurely, without adequate test-runs. It’s like auditioning for a Shakespearian play the day after you overcome a major speech impediment: simply not practical. T-t-t-t-to be nor not to be. Definitely not to be.

Secondly, our tendency to rush into half-baked ideas is commonly driven by monetization goals. Most peeps in the 2.0 sphere – and John Chow is definitely an exception - are so abysmal at monetizing their traffic/users that they’ll jump on any bandwagon ad-scheme that comes their way.  Money, in other words, supercedes care and content- and in the end, poop gets rained over everybody. Dirty, stinking poop. Additionally, at the end of the day, as my friends at PMD confirmed, none of these new schemes monetize with vastly more success than the old ones.

As a corollary to this article, mark my words: the first ad company to make a bug-free peel-away unit is going to make good money. Private jet and house in the Hills money. Even enough money – sorry, John Lennon - to buy love. So, if any of you programmers/wizards out there can fill this need in the www, please contact me. I’ll find you funding tomorrow.

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Finding a business partner, temporary or permanent, is like taking home a girl from a bar. Certainly, she might seem attractive from a distance, and perhaps the chemistry is flowing, as well, but what happens when one thing leads to the next and you purchase your non-refundable ticket to Funky Town: what are the chances, you will need to ask yourself, that this girl has an STD?

The majority of my experience with freelancing, apart from my undergraduate journalism days at Northwestern, has come from the client standpoint. In this experience, I have endured a handful of nightmarish relationships that, in hindsight, should have ended at the bar, or certainly in the taxi ride back to my apartment. The following is a favorite/least favorite example.

My old company - which I founded sophomore year and sold shortly after graduation - had begun a project through a large outsourcing site and selected a very active freelancer with verified credentials. We drew up a contract and put all project money into escrow – to alleviate any potential concerns about receiving payment.

Despite our accommodation, the freelancer asked for more money before the project had demonstrated any meaningful headway. A mountain of problems soon amassed - which I won’t delve into because I might summon up dormant rage and end up strangling an adorable and innocent puppy – and even after we placed several additional thousand dollars into escrow, the freelancer refused to finish the project.

At this point, we attempted to backup any completed work - to ensure the freelancer wouldn’t take the money and leave us with nothing but a punch in the balls. But in the end, the punch landed on both our balls and our wallets: we soon discovered that there was a decoy connection script that was pointed at our databases (the MySQL queries were all being pulled from their servers) and that the freelancer created a malicious script with the sole purpose of destroying the rest of the files (executed remotely, of course). We ostensibly threw $8,000 down the drain and on a personal level, I aged about ten years in the span of two months. That’s faster than dog years, my friends.

In today’s world of interconnectivity, outsourcing is only becoming more popular. And naturally, everyone, whether they reside on the client or service end of the spectrum, is bound to run into someone who takes their trust and spreads Vegemite and raccoon poop all over it. However, I firmly believe, and my overarching experience supports, that most people are not seeking selfish, short-term gains. Most people strive to create cathartic working relationships that will transition from one project to the next, picking up a solid reputation and a slew of referrals in the process.

But - and this is a medium to medium/large butt - the risk of encountering the bad apple is very real. And, with this risk constantly looming in the background, it’s important to take whatever precautions possible.

First and foremost, you need to pay careful attention to how the other party responds to initial contractual negotiations. If you give them an inch, and right from the start they try to take a mile, then you’re probably entering into a problematic working relationship. Test the waters very cautiously, in other words, before you take off your clothes and dive into the pool.

Neither freelancers nor clients should tolerate adversarial relationships. Believe me: it’s dangerous to cater to people who neither initiate nor reciprocate efforts to build genuine trust. Along these lines, I ask: isn’t it great when someone, perhaps a friend, perhaps not, performs an unsolicited act of kindness for you? And don’t you, as the recipient, possess an urge to return the favor? If you answered no to either of these questions, then please quietly get up from your seat and exit at the back of the room.

Certainly, sometimes taking a blind chance on another person will pay dividends for current and future projects, but if you remain “blind” for too long, you’re playing with fire. Or, to return to this article’s initial analogy, you’re playing with a girl with some potentially nasty STDs.

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C’mon. We’ve all experienced it. At one point or another, whether channel surfing between E! and Skinemax, or trolling through the jungle of youtube, you discover a psychedelic ipod commercial and want to start dancing alongside the sexy/Rastafarian/Paul McCartney silhouetted figure. The commercial drips with funk, freedom, and fucking awesomeness and what’s more, it’s so close you can taste it. But then, like always, the commercial ends and your brief feeling of elation makes you feel like a complete jackass: “Did I really just piss my pants (metaphorically speaking) over an ipod commercial?,” you ask yourself.

Truth be told, Apple’s success is predicated equally on their consumer-friendly products and their kick-ass, balls-to-the-wall marketing. (If you don’t agree with me then… well, I’ll fight you.) Their TV commercials, in particular, always stand out from the rest of the crowd: media critics, professional and armchair alike, cite them for their sleekness, their catchiness, their uncanny ability to translate Apple’s simple/cool products into an emotion that seeps into customers’ bloodstreams.

Certainly, we could spend the next two and a half hours deconstructing Apple’s marketing campaigns (in which time we could watch approximately 275 ipod commercials on youtube), but instead, allow me to roll up my sleeves and simply put the spotlight on their campaigns’ common thread, their reason for success:  escapism.

We hear this term “escapism” thrown around more than Ike Turner threw around Tina, but it’s usually in reference to films, novels, and TV shows. However – and this where I let the cat out of the bag – the most effective marketing campaigns, regardless of the medium, embrace escapism. In other words, when consumers “interact” with these campaigns – in magazines, on billboards, through TV sets – they are able to leave the real world for a moment and step into the world of the campaign.

This transition of worlds can be an incredibly pleasant experience, as in the case of ipod commercials, or an extremely haunting one, as in the case of “The Truth” anti-smoking spots or horror film trailers. Regardless, the transition itself is a sign of meaningful engagement, essential in building brand awareness and loyalty.

In closing, boys and girls, don’t feel bad if you wish your life were more like an ipod commercial. Just appreciate the escape… and the brilliant marketing.

By the way, a shout out to my boy Tony who asked me the titular question the other day on gtalk, the inspiration for this post.  And yes, I just said titular.  Deal with it.

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Why do some of web 2.0’s biggest and best social networks have the absolute worst customer service reputations?

It’s beyond counter-intuitive. These networks rise from nothingness due to their ability to effectively integrate users into a highly interactive community, and then, once the community has reached a pinnacle of interactivity, the creators foresake the community, essentially leave members to their own devices.

For my money, the two most egregious offenders - although I love them both to death- are Facebook and MySpace. Time and time again, I hear horror stories about frustrated users and their inability to discuss their frustrations, never mind solve them, through customer service channels.

Facebook, for one, makes regular practice of banning users’ accounts without warning or subsequent justification. As they continue to rake in the dough from advertising partnerships and attempt to become the “end all be all” uber website, their concern for the customer is only dwindling. Facebook dissatisfaction forums, like the one at www.getsatisfaction.com/facebook, are becoming more populous, along with reasons to be frustrated. A December 2008 research paper from HP Labs, for example, reports that 43% of all Facebook messages are now spam.

Fortunately, some social sites have elected to step up to the plate on the customer relations front. Even though Digg has taken much flack in recent weeks for their algorithm change, they have made a concerted effort to respond to their users, or at least their top users. This past Friday, moreover, Digg CEO Jay Adelson announced that he and Kevin Rose, Digg’s co-founder, were launching a series of “town hall” meetings to address users’ concerns. Of course, this initiative only comes after several of Digg’s power users raised hell and boycotted the site.

So what’s the lesson learned? Well, just like in high school, most of the big kids are assholes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. However, those assholes, at the end of the day, make us appreciate the nice kids a little bit more.

http://brianzafron.com/blog/?p=25

Put up your umbrellas, because I’m about to rain some truth on you: there exist only two types of men who’d I trust in a life or death situation. Any guesses?

Number one: medical professionals.

Number two: men with moustaches.

I know what you’re thinking. How is a man with a moustache, specifically because of his moustache, going to save a life? Moreover, shouldn’t a randomly positioned half-ounce of scraggly hair inspire suspicion rather than confidence?

In response, I’d like to direct you to exhibit A, exhibit B, and exhibit C, all listed below.

These three gentlemen are pillars of humanity, emblems of success, dukes of dharma: Tom Selleck, Daniel Day Lewis, and myself, your humble narrator, Brian Zafron. All of our accomplishments, and I’m sure Tom and Danny would concur, we owe to our moustaches.

Tom, for one, built a career out of his distinctively bristled bush, winning our hearts in Three Men and A Baby. He completely stole the film, and with all due to respect, overshadowed his co-stars. Maybe things would’ve been different for the two other men and that baby if they grew their own staches rather than rely on Tom’s facial prowess.

As for Danny, his amazing role in There Will Be Blood is not coincidentally his first stache-blessed adventure. He gave a stellar performance, without question, but word around town is that Oscar buzz will die the moment Danny takes the buzz to his face.

And lastly, there’s me. I’ve been rocking the moustache since my Junior year at Northwestern, which was the year I started making moves in the VC world. The initial moustache rocking was due to ironic urges, I confess, but after close observation of its ability to directly affect success, I now take my moustache very, very seriously. And correspondingly, I shit you not, people take me seriously.

Perhaps the most difficult obstacle in my entrepreneurialism is my age. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to get meetings or attempted to get a sit-down pitch in which wrinkled old executives squinted behind their glasses and asked, “How old are you, son?” My initial response, which I internalize of course, is that I’m old enough to take over your fucking company.

But since I began rocking the moustache, or entered “The Stache Age” as I fondly call it, people don’t ask me that question, they don’t see my age first and my ideas second. My moustache commands their respect, much like Tom Selleck’s and Daniel Day Lewis’s moustaches commanded the respect of theatrical audiences worldwide.

I am not trying to tell you that a moustache can guarantee VC funding. I am not even trying to tell you that a moustache will get you into the front door. All I’m saying is that if you can grow a moustache, or even buy one at a local novelty store, your life might witness some dramatic improvements.

backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=10

Today, I’m still kinda fuming about my VC buddy’s bogus “hot tip.”

I understand that his intentions were pure, but that doesn’t exactly kiss my blog boo boo and make everything all better. Although, truth be told, I was somewhat appeased watching him lose 2 Gs playing poker last night. I think he was trying to impress this chick, Juliette (she’s got knockers from here to Katmandu) who was at game. (More on Juliette in future posts. She’s a handful. Literally.)

Anyway, my anger has led me to our current topic, describing why VCs aren’t worth their weight in gold, or in fool’s gold, for that matter - and of course I speak of the people, not specific firms nor the greater idea of Venture Capital.

Without further ado, here I go:

It’s really not their fault, you see. For the Venture Capitalist is a rare bread of predator, sitting atop the business food chain, the lion of the finance world, the master of his domain.

Everyday – and I mean every day - thousands of little peons, such as myself, reach out to the VC community asking for mere peanuts and offering tireless work, dedication, and talent. All the while, these people twiddle their thumbs with very contemplative expressions, make sure they get 36 holes in at Spyglass over the weekend, and take three-week vacations to Marbella in off-holiday season.

Now, I’ll admit they receive 5,000+ proposals each month that are complete hogwash, business plans that are more accurately cheap catchphrases: “A better Ebay” or “Think Yahoo.com, but my domain totally kicks more ass.”

At the same time, however, there DO exist scores of legitimate entrepreneurs out there, with solid backgrounds, talent, and work ethic, plus real vision and ideas. But VCs are rarely able to delineate the gems from the garbage, the promising from the pitiful.

Why? Well, many reasons.

For one, it doesn’t help that they read only the topic sentence for every executive summary put on their desk. Or that they enter every conversation (non golf-related) assuming it’s going to be a time sink. Or that they believe, or at least consistently purport to believe in private conversations I’ve had with them over the years, that 99% of people are brain-dead when it comes to properly forecasting and performing any sort of quantitative analysis.

A classic example I hear over and over again is that many VCs, when looking at your revenue projections, will add a year and move a decimal place over. The assumption being that no entrepreneur can ever objectively gauge the success of his own company or industry, regardless of any extensive experience or resumé the entrepreneur brings to the table.

OK, fine. Maybe the entrepreneur isn’t a soothsayer. But is the VC? Caution is one thing, but hubris is another.

This connect-the-dots mentality is the reason Venture Capitalists are probably the worst source of news imaginable, as this blog illustrated first hand this past week. I should have known that when my VC buddy told me “Scrabulous is over,” what he meant was “Listen, I don’t have the time, patience, or care to follow this situation, but I read a foreboding report on TechCrunch, so it must be true. Now get out there and make me some money.”

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=5 

Did you know that Babe Ruth, in his first game in Major League Baseball (MLB), struck out four times and made three errors in the field?

Well, like Babe Ruth, in my first post in Major League Blogging (also MLB, for those of you keeping track), I totally boned it. It turns out that Scrabulous was up and down all day due to reported “maintenance issues” that are currently resolved. So Scrabulous lives to see one more day, perhaps many more, and I end up looking like a complete blunderguff. (In case you’re living under a rock, a blunderguff is a fart that’s deployed before a beautiful woman enters the vicinity.)

But I am not without people to point my fingers at, those blunderguffers who blunderguffed me into blunderguffdom. (That’s right. I said it.)

For one, my source: the VC friend who insisted on the authenticity of Scrabulous’ removal. As a result of his “hot tip,” I hurried my blog to a premature publication, trusting that this blunderguffer wouldn’t be working for a multi-million dollar firm because he was exceptionally unreliable. My faith in him soared when I witnessed, about tenish minutes after my post, other reputable blogs (ie Mashable) reporting the same story.

But then, at the end of day, when he called to confirm that Scrabulous was alive and well, that same faith was lying in my trashcan, right next to a couple discarded Starbuck’s cups and sticky pictures of Mary Kate Olson (long story). Fyi, I can bash this blunderguffer in my blog because he’s only 28 years old (a hot shot Stanford grad; only five years older than me) who professes that we’re not only business partners, but friends. Lets hope he doesn’t go back on his word, eh?

And the second person to whom I point my finger, drum roll please, is actually a collective of people, namely all those fellow bloggers who got my hopes up with their like-kind posts. I truly believed I had broke a frickin’ ginormous story in my first at bat, and that everyone else was scooping me – ME! – your humble narrator. But alas, to no avail. The higher they fly, the harder they fall.

A quick side note: the Babe Ruth anecdote is completely spurious. I pulled it from the top of my cap. For all I know, Babe Ruth hit three homers in his first game. But the point is, as the anecdote hopefully illustrates, we all make mistakes, or at least could conceivably make mistakes.

 backlink: http://www.brianzafron.com/blog/?p=4