Claude Ritter

Zurich, the next startup epicenter, not.

Posted by claude - 12/05/09 at 01:05:41 pm

Paul Graham has an interesting blog post essay about startups and the idea that most successful startups are located in a startup epicenter, such as San Francisco. According to his article, all you need is a first-rate university and a place so nice that rich people would want to live there.

Being Swiss, I was always quite optimistic that Zurich could become one of these places. It’s a beautiful city, it’s home to the ETH, it has a nice lake, an international airport, nearby mountains to go skiing and, last but not least, a “flexible” tax system for high net worth individuals.

Unfortunately, my high hopes took somewhat of a hit a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to speak (video conference) at an event of the EPFL, the French speaking counterpart to the ETH. The event was dubbed “Managing Risk of/for New Ventures” and was a mix between presentations and shorts pitches from local entrepreneurs. The event being part of the university’s “Executive MBA in Management of Technology” program, I had quite high expectations and I was looking forward to seeing some good pitches.

Sadly, I thought that the presentations were quite disappointing and I was almost shocked by the way these entrepreneurs pitched their products and services. Out of 6 two minute pitches there was only one pitch where I understood what the company is doing and what their value proposition is that will help them succeed. The other 5 pitches all had the following “features”:

• Slides with so much size 12 Arial text that you could write a book out of it.
• Graphics that came straight out of the word art gallery.
• Speakers with very limited English skills.
• Inability to tell the audience what the company is doing within two minutes.

I do think that some companies might actually have a good product but I strongly recommend that they all start broadening their horizons, start reading some English blogs about entrepreneurship, get their pitches right and live up to international standards because Switzerland just isn’t that big of a market. Granted, Lausanne (EPFL) is not Zurich but I fear that the level at ETH isn’t really all that different.

Facebook Highlights: Algorithm developed by a 6 year old?

Posted by claude - 21/04/09 at 12:04:04 pm

I normally don’t join the “I want the old Facebook back” crowd but the latest redesign is really a bit hard to digest. The one thing that annoys me most, is the “Highlights” box. I’ve been observing the contents of this box for a while and I think it’s save to say that a good 75% of all items are nowhere near something I’d call a highlight.

So let’s looks at the highlights presented to me when I was logging in to Facebook this morning.

Awesome, thanks for telling me! First of all, Coco lives in Hamburg, which is about 10′000km West of my location. Second, I’ve never had any contact with here, never send messages, wall posts, nothing. And the most important thing, Facebook knows that I am in a relationship.

Really? Who? No contact over Facebook, ever.

All right, that might be interesting if this same album wouldn’t have been around for like a month already and constantly re-posted by the owner. Been there, done that, thanks.

Interesting group. I joined it, now stop showing me that damn thing.

Next item, the group owner posting a note for the group I’ve already joined. 7 people like it, aha.

Classical music. Not really my taste, and Facebook knows that.

A note withe _one_ photo. Never had any interaction with the poster (apart from adding him as a friend), none of my other friends commented on this etc.

And last but not least, a tagged photo of my girlfriend. Now that’s a highlight, there’s even a comment for this photo. Oh wait, this is MY own comment. Never mind.

I generally enjoy using Facebook, it’s free and I think they provide a lot of value. However, the latest changes appear to be a somewhat rushed reaction to the whole Twittermania and/or some Zuckerberg ego trip. The Highlights algorithm needs some serious work, otherwise it’s just a giant waste of screen estate or ad space.

Could someone please build the Paypal of mobile payments?

Posted by claude - 13/01/09 at 07:01:54 pm

I was just reading this article on TC about mobile payments. As the article appropriately describes, transaction fees of 30-40% are way too high for any merchant to seriously consider this as payment methods. Especially because mobile payments, as a quick and easy way to send money, would be best used for cheap articles (virtual gifts etc.). But giving away 40% of a low priced item isn’t really something you want to do. And what about adding mobile payments to existing website, shops or communities? Would you just charge members, who want to pay via mobile, 40% more or give up half of your margin?

So, why is there no Paypal for mobile payments where I can store my CC number and then simply use my mobile phone for payments? Depending on the country, there could even be an integration for direct bank billing and other country specific payment methods. Maybe I am missing something but I sure that even with all charges considered, the merchant transation fee would be way below the 30% that are currently charged. Zong, can you please add that?

About stealing someone’s attention

Posted by claude - 08/04/08 at 10:04:21 pm

The other day I was watching Merlin Mann’s talks about Time and Attention as well as Inbox Zero at Google. Basically it’s about the general topic of Getting Things Done and where your attention should go or what you want to spend your time on. He’s specifically talking about email and the fact that we make ourselves available around the clock by checking mail, IM etc. all the time. Switching off disturbing notifications, such as the new mail pop-up in Outlook , is one part of focusing on your current task without getting interrupted all the time. I’ve adopted many of these ideas and I’ve even gone so far that I stopped using MSN etc. because it’s just too easy for people to get to you.

So for me, it has been all about asynchronous communication lately, which allows me to check my emails (as an example) when I want, not when the notification pops up. What’s interesting though is, that although a lot of people seem to be annoyed be the constant availability, services like Twitter, which are all about fast communication and getting peoples attention, see staggering growth. There are also a variety of desktop clients for Twitter that immediately inform you when somebody you follow posts a new item. And Twitter is just the tip of the iceberg. Are people so addicted to other people’s news or are they just bored?

Just now I was coming home from the Shanghai Geek Dinner (that’s actually why I write this). We heard 3 presentations about products and all of the presenters mentioned that we could follow them on their Twitter feed. Now, not that I would say that any of these products were bad, why would I want to follow any of these products on Twitter? Yeah, they were interesting, but do I want to allow them to steal my attention and time with Twitter updates, maybe not.  Another thing is, that I wonder whether the Twitter audience really addresses the group of people these services target. But that’s maybe another story.

I guess in the end it’s all about choice and who do you want to allow to “steal” your time.

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