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October 01, 2006
With Some Startups, "Parents Just Don't Understand"
After spending the past week reading various perspectives on some of the recently funded (mostly) mobile focused VoIP startups, I find it amazing how some members of the Blogosphere feel as if they have an inside track to the future success of one or more of these startups. As if what they have to say about a company actually meant something more than just words. Now while I am sure the marketing and PR folks at these startups are now more than ever concerned about getting to the "right side" of whom they believe are the opinion leaders in certain parts of the Blogosphere, at the end of the day it is up to the customers of the company to determine whether or not the product or service is a success and not a blogger.
If members of the Blogosphere are interested in having their opinion mean something significant, may I suggest they apply for a job at their local VC firm and see what happens? Or even better, if they discover a better way at solving a problem than currently exists, why not start a company that solves that problem and then go out and raise some money themselves? Turns out that criticizing a vision is easy if you don't have one to share yourself and but even more challenging if you do.
Given that we are now living in the "second wave" of the IP Communications industry, I have to believe there are reasons why some of these companies got funded. Given the relative size of the fundings, there were some "very smart people" working in the background in each of these cases that helped make this happen. And to be venture backed means the investor is willing to take significant risk for a significant reward. Just remember, if these companies where all so clearly winners from the start, they would not be funded with “Venture Capital.”
Tags: Jeff Pulver, VoIP
Posted by jeff on October 1, 2006 09:24 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: #140conf events | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
So true. Bloggers are also customers and their opinions should count as such. They can play an influential role when a potential customer reads their reviews to determine whether or not they should bother with a new startup.
Posted by: VoIP Service at October 7, 2006 11:44 AM
"it is up to the customers of the company to determine whether or not the product or service is a success and not a blogger."
Today blogger (especially who are popular and have status of opinion leaders) very much influence the initial bubble or spark required for the product. Agreed, what matters is the benefit / ROI the product offers to its customer. But at the same time getting the more eyeballs looking at your product matters a lot (at least in initial stages).
Posted by: KK at October 3, 2006 09:06 AM
Very good points. Even if sometimes bloggers play as customers and offer their opinion as if they were potential customers. Me and others who arised some legitim questions about those services, were firstly thinking like customers. So it's one opinion among other opinions and, moreover, I believe that this "criticism", if they take it in the right way, can be considered a great help in order to perform a fine tuning of their services. So, I hope it has helped them, really.
Posted by: luca at October 1, 2006 05:14 PM
"... at the end of the day it is up to the customers of the company to determine whether or not the product or service is a success and not a blogger."
At the beginning of the day, one of the ways the company gets noticed -- in tech at least -- is with early word-of-mouth from bloggers. I'm surprised to see you dismiss it.
Posted by: Rogers Cadenhead at October 1, 2006 05:05 PM
I responded to this here:
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3337172534
Posted by: James Robertson at October 1, 2006 04:14 PM
Good points all around. The opinions of the customers or audience will always outweigh those of the experts, as film criticism has shown us almost since the dawn of... um, film criticism. However, there are some "armchair critics" in all disciplines who have legitimately valid points to make. The wisest among us will be able to discern the meaningful from the meaningless a hair faster than all the rest and benefit as a result. (For the other 99% of us, our genius will be found in retrospect.)
Posted by: Justin Kownacki at October 1, 2006 11:04 AM