I know that I’m a bit late to the game on this, but one thing that is starting to make noise here in Silicon Valley and elsewhere is the fact that Venture Capitalists are starting to pay less attention to so-called Vanity Metrics and starting to pay attention to metrics that are much more meaningful to growing successful long-term businesses.
What are vanity metrics you may ask? Back in the early days of the web, people used to brag about how many ‘hits’ their website received. I’m not sure that metric was ever truthfully defined, but it eventually evolved into things like visitors, unique visitors, and more modernly app downloads/installs and even sign-ups and registrations.
What’s the problem with these metrics? A quick side story - two years ago I was chatting with a partner from a top VC fund and I was showing him the (what I thought was impressive) spike in unique visitors from a start-up I was consulting at. He literally laughed at me and said “You know I can see right through that, right? I was in advertising once too.” The issue with these metrics is they are easily manipulated and they don’t necessarily produce revenue or long... Read more
Tagged 'start ups' 
You're (website/app is) So Vain…
Remember AOL! The Four Rules of Web Success
Things go in cycles. We all know that – from the dredging up of retro fashions, the inheritance of music, to the rapid cyclical nature of business; in particular online business. Everything seems to follow the same path.
As all tech believers know, when man invented the web: Saviour of the Geeks, Creator of Unnecessary Job Titles and Deliverer of LOLCats, like the Garden of Eden, at first things went jolly well – we all lived in peace, harmony and believed in universal access, freedom of information, net neutrality, and that when given the choice of publicising the bare truth on Wikipedia, we (from celebrities and companies to politicians and lobbying groups) of course would not seek to alter that... oh yes. Of course, our lovely new Netopia began to change to reflect the true realities of our world – i.e. capitalism.
Yet, even so – the level of change from open platforms, open source, open access mentality of the early days to the competitive, closed, fixed business model trend we now see, surprises me. When AOL (or America Online as it was then) first presented the world with the idea of a digital gated community – it was a unique step.... Read more
“Dot Anything” Domains: Gauging the Compass at SXSW and Mapping Important Deadlines
For anyone who walked the aisles of exhibitors at SXSW recently, it’s abundantly clear how much start-ups and established players alike have invested in building their brand around an important set of domain names.
