Christmas Letter 2009

Here I am with our annual Christmas letter. Sure, it’s a bit late, and not nearly as pretty as past efforts, but such is the life of a father/graduate student. I wrote last year about the big changes that were in store; this year has been all about the realization of those changes. After deciding to attend the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, we spent most of the late spring and summer preparing to move, well, back from Taiwan, from my prospective, and abroad, from Jasmine and Aliana’s. That move has been a good one, for which Jasmine and Aliana surely deserve the credit.

I am keeping extremely busy; I took five classes last quarter, and will take another four starting in January. Meanwhile, recruiting is starting to heat up; earlier this month I, along with several of my classmates, traveled to Silicon Valley to visit several prospective companies with an eye towards a summer internship with a technology company. Jasmine has been staying home with Aliana, a welcome change of pace for her. She is a tremendous cook and is adapting pretty well: we were both shocked when, after a trip to the store in -8°C (18°F) weather, she remarked, “It’s not too bad out!” Aliana is amazing. She loves to sing, dance, and draw, and already knows her ABC’s. Like all children, she is clearly above average. No matter how busy I may get, knowing she and Jasmine are waiting for me makes it an imperative to get home as soon as possible. Every day she learns something new, and if there is anything I myself have learned, it’s too not miss a single bit of that.

The coming year looks to be more of the same. In addition to classes, this spring I will (hopefully) finalize a summer internship; ideally, I will have the opportunity and desire to continue with that company in a full time capacity when I graduate in 2011. Regardless, there is a decent chance I will know where this part of the journey will end by the time I write you next year.

In that respect, this Christmas is a time for rest and reflection, both to recover from a momentous 2009, prepare for a defining 2010, and enjoy time spent with my extended family for the first time since 2002. Once again, here’s to you, our friends. May your year be similarly filled with appreciation for the past, anticipation for the future, and the joy that each individual day brings.

Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year!

Ben, Jasmine & Aliana

Dropbox and the Entrepreneur's Blindspot

I love Dropbox. Seriously, it may be my most essential app/service. When I save a document, it’s backed up instantly. No matter what happens, I will always have access to that file from any computer. I can even sync it to a second computer if I happen to have another. Of course most people don’t have two computers, but everyone is interested in protecting their files.

So why is Dropbox so focused on sync?

Dropbox’s homepage consists of little more than a video. The opening analogy, of a magic bag, is fine, but the kicker is 20 seconds in.

“The same thing is true for computers. If you have more than one…”

BAM! Dropbox just lost 90% of potential users. In fact, It’s not until the 1:36 mark that the video reveals Dropbox’s most marketable feature:

“He can still get to his files on the website, where they’re always backed up.”

Just about everyone who has worked with computers for any length of time has lost files. It sucks, and Dropbox fixes it. It even fixes corrupt files, or unintentional changes, as you always have access to previous versions (1). But instead the video, website, everything prattle on and on about sync (2).

Why?

I needed [Dropbox] badly. I worked on multiple desktops and a laptop, and could never remember to keep my USB drive with me. I was drowning in email attachments trying to share files for my previous startup.

That is Dropbox founder Jon Ying, explaining what was his inspiration for Dropbox. And here’s the thing - he has achieved his goal. Dropbox is an amazingly elegant solution for sync (and, to be clear, the company is doing very well for itself). But I don’t think Dropbox is doing as well as it could, because, as currently presented, it is not perceived as meeting the needs of the “normals.” And that’s where the money is.

Ultimately, this isn’t a post about Dropbox. I’m certainly not bagging on the company - I love the product (3), and by all accounts, the crew that works there is equally awesome. Rather, it’s about an all-to-common flaw that strikes even the most brilliant entrepreneurs: once you’ve developed a product that meets your needs - and many products start out this way - how do you market it to a population that is not like you at all? Dropbox has a product that is extremely appealing to the “normals,” but the current Dropbox message is tailor-made for the geeks.

And so it goes for all too many tech companies. Amazing technology is followed by lots of funding and backslapping in Silicon Valley, and far too few “normals” from the rest of world.

More later on what it takes to fill that gap, and why most traditional marketing types don’t cut it.

1 The number of old versions of a file is limited in the free service, but still useful

2 Make no mistake - sync is hard, and Dropbox does it better than anyone. At my last employer I built an entire update system across six locations and 30 classrooms using Dropbox, but I know I’m definitely in the minority.

3 I pay for the Pro 50 plan

That Internet Revolution? It's Not Here...Yet

The Internet will change everything. Not did, will. That’s what is going to make the next few years so interesting, and so pivotal.

Mentioned this to a friend today who gets it. And, well, he got it.

“You can see that with the iPhone maps application. 10 years ago, before I went somewhere, I looked at a map. Five years ago, I went to Mapquest or Google Maps. Now I just walk out the door, because I have the best map I’ve ever had in my pocket.”

Exactly. He lives his life differently because of the Internet (what makes the iPhone and other similar smartphones special is the ease with which they connect). Instead of planning, he just goes, and that’s a big difference.

That’s why, despite widespread assumptions to the contrary, the war to capitalize on the Internet revolution is only getting started. And as this post on the VentureBeat blog suggests, Microsoft is still very much in the game:

Many new Bing improvements, such as maps with interactive driving directions, are mere catch-up to what Google has done for years. But others, driven by heavy market research aimed at finding ways Google is missing the mark, show how very much the kind of people who use the Internet has changed since a few years ago.

In short, the people who use search engines today are nothing like the people who build them. Online, the normals have finally displaced the geeks.

Microsoft lost a lot of ground among the geeks over the last ten years, but not nearly so much among the normals. And that’s where the true prize lies (which is why Apple so assiduously ignore the geeks - XMac anyone? - while focusing like a laser on normals). Bing is more than just another search engine - it, and more importantly, it’s development process, is a harbinger of where the true action will be over the next ten years.

I think the blog post got one point not so much wrong but not quite right: the normals may have overtaken the geeks in terms of number of users on the Internet, but for them, the Internet is just a welcome addition to their lives. For geeks like my friend and I, the Internet is an essential component of our lives. The revolution will be the movement from addition to to essential component among the population as a whole.

Rupert Murdoch = Misguided Gas Station Owner

I’m not sure what would be more amusing: if a gas station owner thought that he was responsible for the superhighway outside his door, or if he thought drivers on that highway would care if he closed his driveway.

Winter Awaits