Disqus - Latest Comments for mshafron

Re: The Robotic Taxi Driver

Michael Shafrir — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 15:18:13 -0000

Hailed an UberX this week from Jersey City. The building was on the Hudson River, with a clear view of 1 World Trade.

I get in the car and say "Grand Central please." The driver responded "Oh...That's in the city, right?" and then proceeded to enter it in his GPS. Note, this was not Waze which may have helped with traffic. This was entering it in the GPS because this driver did not know where Grand Central was.

Re: Tech Circle

Michael Shafrir — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:57:27 -0000

I miss the old Geocities webrings which brought you to random pages of similar topics (in my case, back in the day, Dave Matthews Band and Phish websites). Can't tell you how many amazing small, fan-run sites I discovered that way.

Re: Nobody Knows That I Use These Apps

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:28:15 -0000

Seems like Facebook Home had a similar thought?

Re: Kyoto, Day Two

Michael Shafrir — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:20:32 -0000

Have been to Tokyo / Kyoto twice, for more than a week each. The language barrier is challenging (and surprising, at least the first time). Being with native speakers helps, although that doesn't seem like it was much of an option.

in any case, the second time I was there, in spite of being surrounded by all sorts of amazing food, I broke down and got a Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwich. Sometimes you just crave something incredibly familiar. No shame in that!

One other thing I found about Tokyo in particular, is that if you search for it, you can find reasonable facsimiles of a lot of your comfort foods (although often doctored up in some unmistakably Japanese way).

Re: Fun Friday: Favorite Airline

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 15:00:30 -0000

Japan is all kinds of awesome. Of all the great perks I had working in my startup days, the best BY FAR were the two trips I took to Japan for customer-service immersion training.

Re: How bundling benefits sellers and buyers

Michael Shafrir — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:01:58 -0000

I also recall bundling being used as defense against commoditization, if the commodity good is bundled with the more differentiated good (in your example, it's ABC/NBC/CBS etc bundled with ESPN in the "basic" cable plan). Bundling-as-commodity-defense can fall apart though when all competitors respond by bundling making the bundle, in fact, a commodity.

Re: “Try not to embarrass yourself”

Michael Shafrir — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:43:14 -0000

One of the best parts of my MBA program was the recruiting process. I say "best" in the context of learning about interviews and how I performed in them. During internship recruiting season we would prep and prep and prep and then go through multiple rounds with multiple firms in the span of a few weeks. It was intense but it created a large enough data set from which to draw on so that there was a huge amount of improvement from my first year to my second year (and presumably in the rest of my career). A few tips I gleaned (and I had interviewed plenty before and given many interviews, especially during my career at TheLadders):

1) Know thy resume -- if it's on your resume, it's fair game. I think a lot of candidates assume that a minor point buried at the bottom of your resume won't be brought up, but I had multiple interviews where they started with "tell me about your time at the Heath School" which was my first job out of college, 10 years ago.

2) Write the headlines -- I learned to start all my answers with a succinct headline. "Tell me about your time at TheLadders?" "I spent five years at TheLadders and held multiple roles in sales, customer service, and business development." It sounds (too) short to answer the question like that, but that question is often a throwaway to start a more specific line of questioning, so why start rambling in directions the interviewer isn't interested in. In these cases. give the headline and MAYBE another line or two, then let the interviewer guide you into a deeper dive.

3) Seriously, write all the headlines -- It's important to not just have headlines for your resume bullet points, but also for the behaviorally-focused questions. I prepared headlines and short elaborations for the key questions that seem to come up in every interview: "What accomplishment in your career are you most proud of?" "Tell me about a time when you disagreed with someone and what the outcome was?" The headline gives the interviewer something to write down as notes so that they can then listen to the rest of your answer.

4) Quit while you're ahead -- you're nervous. you're excited. you're on a roll. But the more and more you talk, the more you start to stray from your headline. Watch the interviewer: when they look down at your resume to start formulating their next question, wrap your question up (ideally referencing your headline to really drive home your main point.)

5) Acknowledge the negatives, but focus on the positives --No one is perfect. In response to a question about a time I had failed in a previous job, I used to tell a story about a time when I really failed at TheLadders. Fair enough. But I never spun it into a positive and told my interviewer what I had learned until my second year of interviewing. That is, after all, what that question is really asking. It's not disingenuous to say "I had a really bad experience doing X, Y, and Z which led to this, but the next time it came I applied what I had learned about A, B, and C which led to a positive outcome the next time around."

6) Finish with Marc's gold-star question -- "in my first year on the job, how do I help you, my new manager, get a gold star?" Practice saying it out loud a few times before your interview since it's a bit of an awkward question the first couple of times.

7) Have fun -- you get to talk about yourself for a half-hour or an hour. What's so bad about that??

Re: A VC: MBA Mondays: Where To Go Next?

Michael Shafrir — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:12:18 -0000

Moving into execution, one thing that is missing, at least in my MBA program, is a granular-level customer-acquisition class that isn't high-level corp. strategy or any of the MBA-level marketing classes. Would be interesting to hear from both the online side (especially consumer focusing on subscription or freemium businesses, not b2b lead-gen) but also the b2b side (thinking of something like what Dave Skok does on his blog).

Re: Feature Friday: Laptop Stickers

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:07:13 -0000

I haven't participated much (at all) in virtual economies/goods, so asking this from a position of ignorance in hopes that the AVC community can educate me:

For a company like Turntable, is this a viable tentpole of their business model? Or is it something tangential, hacked together in a weekend, and seeing if it can grab some incremental dollars to whatever music-based business model they put together?

I realize Zynga (and others) have built massive businesses on virtual goods, so not questioning whether this works conceptually, but I'm having trouble seeing if this is a major piece of business for a company like Turntable.

Thanks.

Re: P2P Mobile Payments and the Dinner Table Challenge

Michael Shafrir — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:36:45 -0000

Assbackwards and banks is a pretty fair bet, at least initially.

Re: P2P Mobile Payments and the Dinner Table Challenge

Michael Shafrir — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:33:59 -0000

If you believe that America is a late-adopter in this realm (as they were with SMS in general), the mobile banking activity in Africa suggests that SMS may be the ultimate winner here:

http://www.afdb.org/fileadm...

Unless Bump has improved their technology, their service is a bit too wonky to be trusted with payments (unscientifically -- their "bump" was actually both phones pinging the satellite then the satellite makes a best guess based on phones in proximity -- not too reliable or scalable for payments).

Re: Fun Friday: Where Do You Get Your News?

Michael Shafrir — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:56:40 -0000

I like to think of this as the dichotomy between information and knowledge.

Re: Fun Friday: Where Do You Get Your News?

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:11:12 -0000

This is a pet fascination of mine.

First thing in the morning, I check Twitter -- it's my breaking news, my CNN, my NYTimes, my morning crier in one neat curated package. I continue to check Twitter throughout the day, following about ~450 people or feeds. The links that I see sent out by multiple people catch my attention, but I also have a few trusted people that I generally read what they send they send out.

I also have a Google Reader (RSS) that has ~50 feeds that I check three or four times a day. I keep thinking that Twitter will eventually move me away from this habit but I have yet to really be able to replicate the speed and ease of reading multiple articles in one sitting on my phone (which is where I check Twitter mostly) like I can on a laptop (i like to go through all my RSS feeds at once, tabbing out articles I want to wholly consume).

I also check the homepage of cnn.com, cnnsi.com, espn.com, nytimes.com, boston.com, and maybe a few other sites a few times a day, but again, increasingly, I rarely find something I have already gotten a whiff of on Twitter (or, less frequently RSS). I also check rotoworld.com during fantasy basketball season.

News.me does a nice weekly feature of "how do you consume the news" but I've often dreamed of a voyeuristic site that shows me how others browse the web (I'm not talking heatmaps or eyetracking, I'm talking about consumption habits).

Re: Some Thoughts about Selling at Startups

Michael Shafrir — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:18:30 -0000

Thanks for linking to the post. I'm responding here instead of upstream because I wanted to also respond to Philip's post.

First, in regards to sales classes at MBA programs -- I see them as separate from the more entrepreneurial classes at MBA programs, but yes, it's all good. The sales class at Sloan actually spends 6 weeks running through scenarios where you are the startup so we really focus on the unbranded startup angle.

Second, the one thing that made me cringe at Erin's post, was when she said "sometimes reps just don't like the grunt work -- for me, creating proposals always felt like a huge waste of time compared to closing more deals."

That's a huge red flag for me and that's an attitude that I think comes from selling at a large company where you have a huge product marketing team, support staff, account managers, etc, and name recognition. When we started selling our recruiter product at theladders (and I really mean selling, as in revenue = $0), we hired three very experienced sales reps as our first salespeople that all came from very large, established, respected companies. Two of them last less than 3 months -- their first questions were "where are our sales materials?" (we had none), "who can help me put together this proposal" (you), and "I'd like to fly out to California to visit this client" (sure, just as soon as you close some deals). The one that made it was the one who knew the answers before she asked the questions and took care of her own business.

It's also really easy to say "well, just hire an account manager" but it just doesnt work that way in my experience.

Also to Philip's point, there is a huge, huge, huge difference in selling at TheLadders (or any other unknown startup) where the conversation ALWAYS started "Are you familiar with TheLadders?" "No." "OK, let me tell you about it." "Can you call me back later" and selling at American Express (which I also did, after TheLadders) where we had CMO's coming to see us to show them how we could help them! That was a real eye opener for me.

Lastly, would love to have you at MIT, but among our many quirks is out 6-7 week winter break. Let us know next time you're in Boston!

Re: Some Thoughts about Selling at Startups

Michael Shafrir — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:32:48 -0000

Is there a link to Erin's post? I didn't see it/missed it.

At MIT Sloan we have 15.387 -- Technology Sales and Sales Management. The professors are Howard Anderson (founder, Yankee Group, and co-founder Battery Ventures) and Lou Shipley, (CEO of VMTurbo) so they've fought the sales battles before, and the content is decidedly non-academic , focusing much more on solving practical sales situations and issues. There's a similar sales class at Stanford GSB -- co-taught by Peter Levine (Andreessen), a former 15.387 professor.

So yeah, there's not much in the typical MBA curriculum about sales, and as a pre-MBA salesperson myself, I understand that you have to sell to learn to sell, but there are small pockets of MBA curricula "teaching" sales (or at least getting students to think about sales).

I'm a TA for 15.387 at Sloan...it's a great class.

Re: Fun Friday: NBA Basketball

Michael Shafrir — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:35:37 -0000

Fred -- you would enjoy the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. It's going on today (Friday) and tomorrow. 2,200 sports freaks, geeks, and nerds, including Bill Simmons. And it's put on by your alma mater.

Check it out here: www.sloansportsconference.com or #ssac or @sloansportsconf -- there is a ton of awesome data and research that comes out of the conference.

Re: Facebook, It’s like Instagram for Birthdays

Michael Shafrir — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:45:07 -0000

"One network to seed them all..."

Hmm, perhaps that is where my thinking is moving.

Re: Understanding Kickstarter

Michael Shafrir — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:53:55 -0000

Check out 3Play Media

Re: Grinfucking

Michael Shafrir — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:24:46 -0000

I worked for a guy for about 4 months who had a lot of shortcomings and soon after left the company. But there was one moment that still sticks with me. I was meeting with him and we were talking about some numbers. I was sugarcoating things so I could get on to something more interesting (to me). He looked me straight in the eye and said "stop grinfucking me." I'll never forget that and think about it often, whether I'm giving or getting feedback.

Re: Building products from improvised user behaviors

Michael Shafrir — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:16:33 -0000

Prof. Eric Von Hippel at MIT Sloan has done a bunch of research on this idea -- he calls it "user-centered design". Had the chance to sit on a 3-hour lecture of his where he presented his research. Pretty interesting stuff:

His site is here:

http://web.mit.edu/evhippel...

Re: Some Thoughts On The Louis CK "Experiment"

Michael Shafrir — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:23:13 -0000

Sounds very much like how Phish (the band) and before them the Grateful Dead thought about how to best distribute their works to their rabid fanbase and make gobs of money in the process.

http://www.billboard.com/fe...

Re: Program Or Be Programmed

Michael Shafrir — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:40:48 -0000

Good point/question Paul. I was the lead organizer of the Sloan trek and the message Fred gave us was one we heard throughout New York City. I don't think (hope) anyone on the trek was surprised by the message, but the point was clear.

The general sense I got from Fred and others was not that you need to learn to program and build the prototype yourself and then never write code again. But there has to be some level of proficiency (French language in Fred's example) to a) start the conversation and b) be able to credibly have meaningful and useful conversations with the group of employees that you will be working with 24/7 for the first 6 months. It was the same message we got from John Borthwick at Betaworks who said "who here knows what the LAMP stack is and what it means for your business?" I will never be able to put together the stack but at least I know what it means and the basic ramifications and some of the tradeoffs of using it.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who is looking to bring a jewelry distribution company online in a B2B or B2C e-commerce capacity. I told him that since he already had inventory/fulfillment, he needed to get up to speed in the online marketing/e-commerce channels of the world, meaning he should be buying AdWords, understanding cost-per-acquisition, exploring the Amazon platform, etc. Not so much so that he would one day be the best online marketer in the world (or even generally proficient), but so that when he went to hire the best online marketer in the world he at least was speaking the same language.

Paul -- your point is extremely well taken. Especially in a condensed and intense time period like an MBA program where you may not have 6 months to devote singularly to one specific skill. I didn't get the idea though from the people we met on our trip that that was the exact message they were trying to deliver. Fred made it clear to us that he knows not everyone is technical and not everyone is a coder. But you have to start somewhere and that somewhere is being able to credibly talk with the people who are building your first product (as you order dinner, write product specs, mop the floor, and do the Quickbooks) Maybe Fred can chime in here for a clarification.

And Fred, thanks again for having us. We had a blast!

Re: What the NYC startup world needs (and doesn’t need)

Michael Shafrir — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:18:59 -0000

MIT Sloan Entrepreneurship and Innovation club brought 40 students last year to visit NYC tech companies in October (the second year in a row of the trip). We are already planning this year's trip. We visited Gilt, Gawker, Etsy, Foursquare, Dogpatch Labs (met with a pre-turntable.fm Stickybits), Knewton, and a bunch more. Almost everyone we reached out to was really welcoming and gave us over an hour of their time. HBS does a similar trip. Most of us aren't devs though...

Re: These recruiters need you

Michael Shafrir — Mon, 23 May 2011 09:55:05 -0000

Very, very gratifying to see some of the same recruiters we cold-called back in 2004 still using TheLadders to fill positions; that's 7 years of talent wrangling!!! Really impressive, keep up the great customer service. Funny story -- it was the first or second day of a class at school this semester and we were talking about corporate mottos. I proudly said that ours was (is) "Love the Customer." Our professor scoffed and said "cmon, no company actually loves their customers." I knew I was in the wrong class and dropped it :-).

Re: Who are the top recruiters on TheLadders in the Mid-Atlantic this week?

Michael Shafrir — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:37:30 -0000

This scoreboard is great -- everyone loves seeing their names in lights. It must have been 2007 or 2008 when we focus-grouped the idea of the negative scoreboard (which recruiters were the worst responders?) or allowing jobseekers to vote down/ding/rank recruiters. That didn't go over so well! That could be fodder for another post -- the psychology of ranking and how a ranking system influences behavior, along with online to offline implications -- as there are examples of platforms where the end-users rank the sellers (ebay being the prime example) and Yelp being another (although in a slightly different form in that the merchant didn't necessarily ask to participate.)