Disqus - Latest Comments for lazerow

Re: Losing Money

lazerow — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 07:56:59 -0000

I find it is much easier to find the losers than the winners. And the corollary, I've gotten pretty good at writing checks. (My handwriting has improved and I'm now quite proud of my signature.) I'm still working on the part where you're supposed to get your money back.

Re: Product > Strategy > Business Model

lazerow — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 15:54:15 -0000

I would encourage entrepreneurs to try what makes most sense. Do more of what works. Do less, or none, of what doesn't work. This is what Marc Benioff refers to as "tactics dictate strategy" and not the other way around.

Re: My New Year’s Resolution for 2013

lazerow — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:26:02 -0000

So good. Happy new year! (BTW, you're not Jewish enough)

Re: SXSW PanelPicker

lazerow — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 22:08:31 -0000

Rachel is a firecracker and a legend. This is a must-have panel focused on a very important topic that is at the heart of our industry. Game on!!!!!

Re: BlogHer2012 Kicks Off: Buddy Media’s Kass Lazerow on Working Moms

lazerow — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 14:45:27 -0000

It's really about trusting your gut. Making decisions for the right reasons and feeling good about the process and the decisions. And, BTW, let me just say that Kass is the single best decision maker I have ever met. She is thoughtful and strategic and has conviction about her decisions. She's raw. It seems like your reaction was more about your expectation than Kass' answer. We don't think being with your kids at home all day or not being with them at home is either good or bad. I'm sure there are plenty of kids who would rather see their parents work instead of be at home with them. I know for sure that our kids feel a part of our daily lives and share in the success and failures.

Re: Disqus Themes Previewer

lazerow — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:08:35 -0000

This entire topic is a very first world issue. Just sayin'.

Re: Salesforce Buys Buddy Media…Inconceivable! …Not!

lazerow — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:49:00 -0000

Thx Howard! You were the first believer - crazy enough to believe in a crazy idea and a crazier founder. Thx Howard!

Here's an early picture ... I call it the "fat me" phase. The picture is from this actual blog. In the post, you write:

"It always pains me to see photos of myself which is why I rarely post them. When I saw this latest one, I could only think of the mass acreage of forehead between Mike , Jeff and I. We are smiling as if being pitched a cure :) .

I would also like a cure for forehead sweat."
That is funny on its own. And then you follow this with the following disclaimer. I would argue that the post was factual in nature and not an opinion. But I'll leave that for now.
"The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer."

Re: Buddy Media CEO Donates Birthday to Charity: Water - AgencySpy

lazerow — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:39:31 -0000

Quick comment ... I appreciate the coverage but feel a little weird to be highlighted in this way. Let me clarify one thing ... You report that Jonah was " initially apprehensive about donating to Lazerow’s cause." This actually couldn't be further from the truth. We were joking around on Twitter. I sent out the first tweet about it. He joked back saying what if he wasn't planning to buy me a present in the first place. He was gracious enough not only to let me use his celebrity to drive donations, but then to donate $3800 himself. Let me be clear on one thing ... there's no smarter or better man in the industry than Jonah. I appreciate his donation and friendship and great humor and look forward to supporting any cause he sends my way, provided it's not one of the crazy fringe groups he hangs out with.

Re: Trend: Social Media Agencies Turn to Advertising

lazerow — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:44:53 -0000

Jeremiah,

Great seeing you in NYC this week. You are on FIRE and you're spot on here. I've been seeing this for quite some time. As I mentioned when we spoke, we looked at the social ad space closely for about a year, evaluated 20 companies, and chose to acquire Brighter Option, because we think they have the best technology and the best team. The numbers are there. Nielsen recently revealed that social ads have 55% higher recall than non-social ads. And with the investment in social ads increasing - emarketer says $10b will be spent on social ads in 2013, up from $5.5B in 2011, we're confident many agencies, whatever we end up calling them, will be able to increase revenue. We're very much looking forward to your report!

Best,

MML
Buddy Media

Re: 3D Movies

lazerow — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:03:48 -0000

I couldn't agree more. I have crossed eyes and monocular vision (my two eyes work, just not together). So I can't sit through 3D movies.

Re: http://michaellazerow.com/#!/post/14066181225

lazerow — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:25:52 -0000

Thx! Happy holidays!

Re: I Hate Feeding My Kids

lazerow — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:43:03 -0000

I read this to my kids yesterday. They think you're a crazy man (they're right). And they now get what it feels like to be a pain in the ass.

Re: The Peculiar Marketing Trends Among The Social Software Industry

lazerow — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 16:27:47 -0000

And what are you saying, Dennis? Word of mouth has been critical. We have a net promoter score of 75 and won best vendor by the largest survey of brands (http://bddy.me/r9zKeD) and we've eaten our own dog food more than any other company. I wanted to make sure I didn't misunderstand you.

Re: The Peculiar Marketing Trends Among The Social Software Industry

lazerow — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:35:01 -0000

JD in the house! Wow. I've gotta hang out here more often. No joke. There's a meme out there that Buddy Media is wasting its money on marketing. And most of the people saying it are marketers. I find it ironic.

Re: The Peculiar Marketing Trends Among The Social Software Industry

lazerow — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:07:03 -0000

Agree 100%. The space is early and companies have to make decisions about where to focus. Global and security has been a huge focus for us. We don't do multi-language listening. Who do you like best for listening platforms?

Re: The Peculiar Marketing Trends Among The Social Software Industry

lazerow — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:02:41 -0000

Hi Jeremiah-

You know our space has come a long way when we're talking about how we're advertising our products and services! In order to create a great software company (delivered as a service in our case), you need to build the best product, sell and market it with excellence and support it with excellence. None of these are easy. Doing them all is even harder.

Our tools are collaborative tools used across the organization. But we're usually purchased by the marketing team. We think how we market the software is critical.

Buddy Media has often taken the road less traveled. We were the first to launch a social management system on Facebook. We were the first to integrate a Facebook Page solution with Twitter. We were in the first preferred group for LinkedIn. And most recently were named to Google+'s beta list.

We have truly walked the walk when it comes to how we have marketed the business. The airport ads are important because many business people don't know that our space exists, let alone our company. So we're bringing attention to both the sector and our business. But these ads are just one piece of the equation. We run our own user conferences, support many of the larger events and run print and digital ads that drive awareness and leads, and, of course, we have a robust social media offering that starts with my own personal social media efforts (is there another CEO of a social management system who exposes him or herself more than I do???). Our social media efforts include putting out some of the best research in the marketplace, from our popular data reports to best practices for global Facebook rollouts, stream management and more.

While we have raised $90M, we have only spent a very small fraction of it and the vast majority is still in the bank. The marketing we do, from the airports to the white papers, have been extremely profitable for us. And it has helped us understand our clients' needs better. It's ironic to hear that your analyst says he has heard brands say they don't want to see us market this way. I'd love to know how we can grow our business faster and if your team has any other ideas about what we should be doing differently to drive real results. I'm all ears.

Buddy Media is one of the top companies in this emerging sector. I can't tell you that it's 100% related to any one of our marketing techniques. But I can tell you that we feel like our marketing mix is working rather well and helping us start many conversations (like this one, after all). And we have a very nice business that we hope to grow in the future.

Thx!

Michael Lazerow
CEO, Buddy Media

Re: Users First, Brands Second

lazerow — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:28:53 -0000

There's a big shift to SaaS underway and companies are unlocking larger and larger budgets. Businesses are demanding "consumer" software — software that helps their employees do more with less AND is as easy to use as Facebook and Twitter. Business software and usability are not mutually exclusive (despite what Oracle, SAP and others ingrained into us.) This next phase of the internet will be post PC for sure. But it will also be the merging of all the great aspects of consumer software and the benefits of robust enterprise software. It's the rise of a new "user" -- the business software user who isn't in IT but is being asked to use web-based software products to get their job done. No one is writing about this but it's an important shift and companies that know how to build, sell and support cost effect usable business software will create nice businesses. And I'd argue it will be easier to build a $1B business selling easy-to-use but powerful business software than trying to please the fickle internet user and deliver him or her to brands and retailers (also known as advertisers!).

Re: Users First, Brands Second

lazerow — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:12:07 -0000

No worries, Fred. You do more for entrepreneurs in most weeks through this blog than most VCs do in their lifetime. You rock and I'm excited to read you daily and know you.

I understand that the post was focused on USV and your investment focus. However, you are a "public figure" when it comes to starting companies and venture investing. So your thoughts drive markets and drive entrepreneurs to make decisions and much of the post had to do with building your product and generalizing about how to think about it.

My comments were more to address sentences like this one, which is broader than your investment thesis.

"The biggest problem with a Brands First, Users Second approach is you can get caught up in product development efforts to satisfy the brands and as a result you can't put enough energy into satisfying the users. And if that happens too much, you end up servicing the needs of the brands over the needs of the users and then you are a service business not a platform."

Nonetheless, I appreciate being called a "great business" on A VC! Means a lot coming from you! And I don't take that lightly. (Even if we're one of "those" companies that need to actually sell something into enterprise versus scale, scale, scale and figure out our business model later.)

Have a great weekend and stay out of the hurricane's path. The latest map has it going right over my apt on the UWS!

Re: Users First, Brands Second

lazerow — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:32:00 -0000

Fred ... you know I'm a big fan. This post wasn't your strongest. Just saying.

There are three different business models at play in the companies you mention -- specifically advertising (aggregation of an audience and delivering that audience to advertisers), ecommerce (selling products, services, offers, etc. to consumers) and SaaS (multi-tenant platform that is licensed for a monthly fee to businesses, consumers or prosumers). I can list a few others but won't focus there (virtual currency, research, etc.)

You need to apply your thinking to all three and you'll see they are different and your generalization doesn't work across all three. I think the point you were trying to make is that you like to invest in highly scalable businesses that put consumers at the center rather than businesses.

If you are an advertising-supported company (Foursquare), you want to focus exclusively on the user. The user is critical to everything. Do right by the user and you have a chance of creating a business. If you don't have the user engaged, your business is toast. This is a tough model to pull off at scale these days. Only a few have done it online at scale (Yahoo, Facebook, Google, etc.). Twitter is getting there. Foursquare is more of a work in progress. The other million web services depending on the almighty ad dollar are screwed as they can't build their audience.

If you're an commerce company, you have to focus on the user. But part of that user experience is the product mix you offer. Nordstroms sells shoes and other stuff you wear (breaking news!). Remove the brands from the commerce site and you wreck the user experience. Think about Gilt Groupe as a great example — they have created an amazing shopping experience by working with brands. Without the brands, there is no user experience, right. So saying users first and brands second doesn't make sense. You need the brands to get the users and then the users to keep scaling to get more brands. Groupon is a hybrid of both advertising and commerce — they sell digital coupons, which is really a form of advertising that people pay for. Groupon's shoes are local deals and businesses. So they need to focus on both the user and businesses that want to sell to those users. Without the brands/businesses, there is no Groupon.

Now let's get to SaaS (think Buddy Media). We have built a software product that helps companies market on Facebook and other social destinations. Our "user" IS the business. We sell TO the business. So there's no difference for many SaaS companies between "user" and "brand" -- they are one in the same. People buy our product to accomplish a BUSINESS goal. One of those goals is to engage users through Facebook. But another is to be able to roll out the effort using a secure platform that has granular rights provisioning, auditing and content optimization. Consumers on Facebook don't care about granular rights provisioning that the brands need. But if you are rolling out a global program on Facebook as a business, you care very deeply about this. So this feature is putting our users first, even though most reading your blog wouldn't think of it as a very user-first engaging service.

Fred, I'd be more than happy to write a regular SaaS column for the blog that has to do with building products that you sell into the enterprise. I imagine many businesses will give up the dream of finding the almighty ad dollar and try to actually build something that businesses (or people) pay for.

Love,

Mike

Re: Facebook Pal Buddy Media Raises $54 Million

lazerow — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:33:57 -0000

Hi Eric! I assume you are referring to the Wendy's work when you were at Kaplan Thaler Group, right? To be clear, we are no longer in the custom application development space. We build, sell and support social media tools and technologies. So your comment is not at all indicative of our business today. We had about 25 people then. We're up to 200 with a much more evolved business (and a much more scalable one at that!). The entire social media space has moved very fast and we've innovated more than any other company. Email me at michael at buddymedia dot com if you want to talk further but I think we both can agree that the early work we did experimenting on the FB and Twitter platforms can't be indicative of our current capabilities.

Re: How Much Money To Raise

lazerow — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:26:56 -0000

Love the picture, Fred. I assume you're suggesting raise each round in wads of $100 bills, right? This is a great guide. The market and your needs typically dictate the structure of the round. If you need money and there aren't many investors (i.e. non competive process), you'll be giving away 30%+ of the company. If you have a ton of investors banging down your door, you give away 10% or less. (This is all before talking option plans, etc.) If you are one of the select few Baby Jesus companies (FBOOK, Twitter, etc.) you can raise money and take less than 5% dilution. Now back to my grill ...

Re: Save the Date! Fred + Joanne's 50th

lazerow — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:21:09 -0000

Fred and Joanne ... Kass and I are bummed we can't make it. We will be picking up our oldest son from camp that day. Regardless, happy birthday to you both! You are officially the oldest people I know! :)

Re: 140Love – the Ultimate Dating Service

lazerow — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 23:07:19 -0000

nice photo! the only dating site i have ever used!

Re: Paperless Financing Docs

lazerow — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:18:23 -0000

Wow. This must be a bug w/ Disqus. I posted this comment from my Blackberry on this story and it was posted to this Techcrunch story (http://tcrn.ch/lVbJVd). I didn't delete it from Techcrunch just in case the Disqus team wants to check it out ...

Nice post fred. Agree 100 pct, but as natalie stein, our general
counsel, will attest, I have an innate loathing of all legal waste. I'm
shocked ed zimmerman or one of the leading tech firms hasn't taken the
lead here. They should offer zero-cost financings using the standard docs
(take a pick re: which ones to use). This would be the most cost
effective marketing they could do as they would lock up all future work
(subsequent financings, m&a, etc). I'm sure a few entrepreneurs
would even give the firm a few options for the help and advice.

Re: First Time vs Serial Entrepreneurs

lazerow — Sun, 01 May 2011 14:41:15 -0000

I imagine the same can be said of first timers and second+ timers in many areas. Take marriage, for instance. First marriage is all passion. You've been stewing on the idea of getting married for a while. You jump in. It feels right. But you really don't know how to get it right and the skills that got you married are not the same as the skills to stay married and grow the marriage. The next marriage is less about passion but more about finding the right fit and working at it.

I post this as a 4-time entrepreneur and a first-time husband married to my 3-time cofounder. So please disregard the comment above.