(the) Inevitable Corp.

Kyle Bragger: I have a hard time believing this.

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:50:19 -0400

Kyle Bragger: I have a hard time believing this.:

I came across this Techcrunch article last night when a good friend mentioned it on Twitter.

I have a really hard time absorbing this at face value. Here’s the relevant quote from the article: (emphasis mine)
…
Alright, so if you’re looking to evaluate a startup’s chances of success,…

New Property: Done.io

Sat, 01 May 2010 16:30:00 -0400

Oh, dear. Teh Blog is still taking a backseat to the @inevitablecorp twitter acct.

Anyhoo, for those of you still in RSS land and such… we’ve purchased brilliant todo task app http://done.io, from @kylebragger, @forrst operator & former @garyvee CTO of cork’d.

updates...

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:56:25 -0400

twitter has killed the blog as we know it. you may want to follow @inevitablecorp instead of, or in addition to, this.

"You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns."

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:38:46 -0400

““You can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns.””

- The Human Equation

"The old 8 to 10 second rule has diverged into the haves and have nots. Broadband users expect faster..."

Fri, 30 May 2008 16:12:20 -0400

“The old 8 to 10 second rule has diverged into the haves and have nots. Broadband users expect faster response times, while narrowband users have been left behind. As broadband becomes more widespread the size of the average web page has increased to over 300KB and the average number of objects has increased to over 50 per page. Users experience psychological and physiological effects when interacting with web pages, experiencing frustration when not completing tasks and engagement at faster web sites. Narrowband users are suffering the most from the speed tax of objects that now dominates most web page delays. Increasing the speed of your site will improve your conversion rates, reduce shopping cart bailout rates, and make your site more appealing to users.”

- The Psychology of Web Performance

"The single easiest way to increase your fees (or ad revenue - Steve) is to get closer to the pain."

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:33:54 -0400

“The single easiest way to increase your fees (or ad revenue - Steve) is to get closer to the pain.”

- Seth

"The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees:..."

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:28:11 -0400

“

The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!

Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)

”

- Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You Should Too

the view

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:50:30 -0400

the view

Vid of (the) inevitable corp excalating interview process.

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:32:22 -0400

Vid of (the) inevitable corp excalating interview process.

Persistent Storage on AWS EC2

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:12:00 -0400

While hoping to get my invite to join the beta program Amazon Web Services has for persistent storage volumes for it’s EC2 instances I’m playing with and doing calculations of costs involved using PersistentFS.

PersistentFS mounts AWS S3 as a live file system you can read/write.

It was rediculously easy to get started (having AWS experience already) following their step-by-step.

I’m working on nailing down costs now and if that works out I’ll run some time trials, but I’ve read others are quite happy.

"Challenging the perception of American technology entrepreneurs as 20-something wunderkinds..."

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:13:05 -0400

“Challenging the perception of American technology entrepreneurs as 20-something wunderkinds launching businesses from college dorm rooms, a new study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and researchers at Duke and Harvard universities reveals most U.S.-born technology and engineering company founders are middle-aged, well-educated, and hold degrees from a wide assortment of universities.”

- Dobbs

"The Giffen good is a strange beast from economic theory. For most goods, demand decreases as price..."

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:05:01 -0400

“

The Giffen good is a strange beast from economic theory. For most goods, demand decreases as price increases. A Giffen good defies this normal market behavior — the demand for it increases even as its price increases.

Giffen goods have a very interesting history. They were postulated originally by Alfred Marshall in his 1895 book The Principles of Economics. The classic example is staple foods such as rice, wheat, and potatoes. As their price goes up, poor people on a tight budget actually consume more of them, because they are forced to cut back on luxuries such as meat, but still need the same number of calories to survive. Until recently, Giffen goods remained a theoretical beast, with no real documented examples — until 2007, when two Harvard economists demonstrated that rice and noodles behave as Giffen goods in certain poor parts of China.

Google’s recent results raise the possibility that search advertising might be a Giffen good. Here’s a simple model. Company X spends marketing dollars on two channels: search advertising and brand advertising (on the web or on TV and magazines). Search advertising drives customers directly to their site, resulting in immediate sales. Brand advertising drives organic traffic, albeit in a more unmeasurable way.

”

- Is Search Advertising a Giffen Good?

Google Trends Using OSDir News

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:25:00 -0400

Ok, this is seriously cool. Google Trends incorporates OSDir news as benchmarks. I knew google news uses OSDir as a source, but this seems much deeper in the Google Brain.

"Every incentive should have a counter-incentive to restrict gaming of the first incentive."

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:34:14 -0400

“Every incentive should have a counter-incentive to restrict gaming of the first incentive.”

- Marc Andreeson on fixing human mistakes made by entrepreneurs in Coles Notes version by Nivi? at Venture Hacks. Brilliant gems here.

OSDir on Alltop

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:44:13 -0400

Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop has OSDir as a linux news source. That’s cool.

"Dallas City Hall has idled more than one-fourth of the 62 cameras that monitor busy intersections..."

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:47:00 -0400

“Dallas City Hall has idled more than one-fourth of the 62 cameras that monitor busy intersections because many of them are failing to generate enough red-light-running fines to justify their operational costs, according to city documents.”

- In other words…. they work too well. The Law of Diminishing Returns in action. Link

"Users fell 5% to 8.5 million in January from 8.9 million in December, according to data from Nielsen..."

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:40:43 -0500

“Users fell 5% to 8.5 million in January from 8.9 million in December, according to data from Nielsen Online… “Social networking is as much about who isn’t on the site as who is - when Tory MPs and major corporations start profiles on Facebook, its brand is devalued, driving its core user base into the arms of newer and more credible alternatives,” he said.”

- So it begins when the uncool join.

"Entrepreneurs are, on average, significantly wealthier than people who work in paid employment...."

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:52:00 -0500

“Entrepreneurs are, on average, significantly wealthier than people who work in paid employment. Research shows that entrepreneurs comprise fewer than 9 percent of households in the United States but they hold 38 percent of household assets and 39 percent of the total net worth. This relationship between personal wealth and entrepreneurship has long been seen as evidence of market failure, meaning that talented but less wealthy individuals are precluded from entrepreneurship because they don’t have sufficient wealth to finance their new ventures. Nanda studied how changes in the cost of external finance affected the characteristics and likelihood of individuals becoming entrepreneurs. He finds that market failure accounts for only a small fraction of the relationship between personal wealth and entrepreneurship in advanced economies such as the U.S.”

- Harvard Business School

In otherwords if you aren’t wealthy or come from wealth, find someone who is successful & mine them for advice. Listen to their advice. Follow their advice.

My dad has worked for himself forever. I try to learn from his success and failures. I also absorb as much advice from people I emulate as I can. These folks are my mentors-by-proxy. It also helps to acknowledge that you don’t know shit. Everyone is smarter than you. Ok, well not everyone…. but people you’d like to emulate are.

R.O.M.

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:12:44 -0500

So, as a percentage of the time you spend at work, what percent would you say qualifies as “marketing”?…
I know some well-paid people who used to be world-class marketers who are now down in the single digits (less than 10%).

Ouch.

Seth

It doesn’t take a marketing guru to figure out that your Return on Marketing is paramount, but why does it take anyone to remind you of it?

What’s your ROI on filling out endless forms for various gov’t agencies, redecorating, chatting with pals, writing blog posts (ehem!), surfing the interwebs, etc…? Though all important what percentage of time are spent doing this vs marketing?

"Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us..."

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:52:22 -0500

“Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy.”

- The Atlantic