Disqus - Latest Comments for shafqat

Re: Milestone Based Investing

shafqat — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:07:58 -0000

Interesting post - agreed that milestone based investing is not in the interest of the founders. However, I have some concerns over the idea of raising "smaller, more frequent rounds." Fundraising is a full-time job for the CEO, and it takes a lot of time, effort and serves as a distraction from developing the product/company. Of course, the upside is huge and being able to run a company while fundraising is a pre-requisite skill for a CEO.

But surely frequent rounds is a diversion of scarce resources away from the company? Can you expand on that - how frequent, what size rounds, different investors or the same?

We raised a seed round approximately a year ago, and now have built a compelling product (not public yet), have revenues coming in and are close to breakeven. We're considering another round, but worried about the distraction and loss of momentum it might bring.

Re: Monetize The Audience, Not The Content

shafqat — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:42:51 -0000

Fred - I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Media/news companies should focus on the content that they can do best. If you have a competitive advantage in world news, opinion or culture, then invest and focus on that. Get rid of the fat. That's the way successful businesses have been built for hundreds of years, and that's not about to change for newspapers.

Re: Monetize The Audience, Not The Content

shafqat — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:35:33 -0000

I agree that the FT has an elegant model, and they are one of the few newspapers that can effectively monetize their online audience/content. But the bottom line is that they have content that people want and that people are willing to pay for. That is more than I can say for a lot of newspapers out there. Niche content, or even content in a specific vertical like business, can be monetized if there is clear differentiation in terms of quality. But trying this model on generic news content is a disaster waiting to happen.

Another example of the freemium model used elegantly is ESPN. Most of the content is free, but there are tons of people who pay up for ESPN's Insider. Why? Because there is very limited other content on the web that can compete in terms of quality, timeliness or analysis of sports news. Presenting facts is a commodity, but it's the analysis that is precious.

Re: How breadpig made $30000 (for charity) in 2008 selling magnets with LOLspeak in our spare time

shafqat — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:25:59 -0000

Awesome, simply awesome. Can you talk more about your supplier and issues faced when getting the product made? Costs? This is fascinating.

Re: Hacker News and the NoSQL Movement

shafqat — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:53:20 -0000

Fred - no question about it. Hacker News is a must-read for every entrepreneur or even anyone thinking about dipping in. I'm a fanatic evangelist of the site here in Europe, where I think it's still not as big as in the US.

One small point worth mentioning is the value of the "ASK HN" posts - this is something no other news community offers. Entrepreneurs & hackers (even VCs) often post questions about anything related to technology or startups, and the quality of responses is amazing. People take a lot of time to write helpful and very well thought out responses in a genuine show of support. It still amazes me every time - we've used ASK HN posts for advice related to MySQL issues, sales, UI feedback and even where to stay in a new place!

Thanks for highlighting such an incredible resource.

Re: Building Successful Long Term Relationships

shafqat — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:23:53 -0000

To make a marriage work, there must be love, first and foremost. That's what gets people through the highs and lows of any relationship.

To make a business work, surely the founders must love their product/service and believe in it. Or atleast love building something or perhaps they love their customers.

A different type of love, but without it, neither business nor relationships can prosper.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/matthew-and-sarah-turn-one-year-old-12.html

shafqat — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:37:00 -0000

Congratulations Louis - what beautiful babies and a fantastic post to sum it all up!

Re: A Lesson From Morty

shafqat — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:25:54 -0000

Fred - would be awesome to see this explained point explained more in a post. I've debated this point with fellow entrepreneurs a lot, and would be good to hear from the other side of the table.

Re: What If Your Model Is Wrong?

shafqat — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:10:18 -0000

The key line in your post is "creating more value than you capture." This should be the motto that drives startups, big companies, organizations and even governments. Such a simple premise can dare all of us to dream bigger and better, but we see countless examples where value is being lost in the chain. Detroit is a good example - there are probably 30-40 brands of cars that don't have a product-market fit, that look terrible and have poor sales. Why are these cars still being produced? Toyota on the other hand almost always produces cars that provide a tremendous amount of value. Granted even the mighty Toyota is having problems. But companies that create more value than they capture will almost certainly make it through this crisis and not only survive, but thrive.

Re: Sony’s Strange Netbook Commercial

shafqat — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:42:56 -0000

The ad is surely very strange, but I loved the music! I'm a huge Wax Taylor fan.

Re: New news flows (Scripting News)

shafqat — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:05:52 -0000

Agreed wholeheartedly. Making sense of the "river of photos" if you will... The tool you saw in Denver, was that a web app? Is the tool in stealth or not released yet? Just wondering why the secrecy?

Re: Portfolio Screens

shafqat — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:41:25 -0000

I agree.. surprised no one else picked this up. Another great model by Fred, but this time with a one-liner for the ages.

Re: What is a startup? - Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

shafqat — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:05:04 -0000

Interesting discussion. It's difficult to define, but I would disagree (respectfully) with the first comment that taking funding means you are no longer in a startup. We just closed a seed investment round, but count ourselves very much as a startup - we work remotely, have two founders and just one full time employee, bootstrap etc. But I think what really defines a startup is that entrepreneurial spirit that runs through everything you do. When that stops, you are no longer a startup.

I can think of some startups that are making serious revenue and have millions of dollars of funding. They are still startups, just with substantial cashflow!

Re: Personal note: A job change for yours truly

shafqat — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:36:12 -0000

Congratulations Mathew - sounds like a fascinating new challenge! You've always stood out when it came to the online discourse and your commentary has always been excellent. But the small things count as well - the fact that you've individually thanked almost every commenter on this thread speaks a lot about your character. Keep up the great work.

Re: MyBlogLog - AWESOMENESS

shafqat — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:52:53 -0000

Love this conversation! Agree with others - there's something beautifully serendipitous about the MyBlogLog widget.

I found your blog via HackerNews, another site filled with much awesomeness.

Re: Going to India

shafqat — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:31:13 -0000

BTW, where are you going specifically? Would love to see a post about your travel plans. You could crowd-source helpful tips!

Re: Donors Choose Is My Tip Jar

shafqat — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:14:19 -0000

That's awesome. I'm not sure if you've been in Bangladesh, but I can tell you from my travels around the country that Grameen puts these funds to really good use. Starting from their management all the way down to the grassroots/field workers, its an amazing cause worth supporting. I've met many families who have directly benefited from the support of yourself and others like you, so well done!

By helping the poorest countries help themselves, we're enabling a better outcome not just for the people in those countries, but all of us in this ever-connected world.

Re: Going to India

shafqat — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:27:16 -0000

Visas are the bane of my existence. As a Bangladeshi citizen, I was required to get visas for EVERY single country I visited. The US Visa process was by far the most difficult and most expensive. It was a constant stress when it came to travel planning. Thankfully I now have a Swiss passport and am somehow 'above' the need to get visas! No one is exempt from India though... Very impressed by the SMS notification!

Re: The Survival Matrix

shafqat — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:22:20 -0000

Phew, we're top right!

Do the fictional burn rates actual mirror reality in any way? Specifically, do you have such a variance in burn rates (25K-750K) and can you share your median burn rate and runway? Understand if you can't for competitive reasons, but as an entrepreneur, it would be interesting to see those stats.

Re: Great Presentation From Saul Klein

shafqat — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:45:30 -0000

Loved it. He kept it very simple because at the end of the day, over-examining and over-analyzing is not going to do anyone any good. Just focus on product, cut costs and be smart and you'll get over it. With such a simple message, no need for a fancy presentation. Brilliant.

Re: New Business Models For News Summit

shafqat — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:30:59 -0000

I wish I was there in person, but it was still fascinating to follow via the live feed.

The love the philosophy of "do what you do best, link to the rest." Publishers are slowly starting to figure out that they have to keep the main thing, the main thing. Depending on who you ask, the main things is original, editorial content, or local news, or some variation of the theme. For everything else, outsource and keep costs low.

In a way, running a news business isn't very different from a startup in today's world. You have focus on ruthlessly on product and refine features down to the core, while keeping costs low. Capital efficiency is your friend. I'm not sure when the fundamental change in the journalism industry is going to appear, but I have a feeling its just around the corner. We're trying to position ourselves to be in the right place, in the right time ;-)

Re: Thoughts From The Eliptical Trainer

shafqat — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:42:19 -0000

Another fan of point 6. Paul Graham gave a great speech on being benevolent and building a business at the same time (http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html). Interesting that you have Google Translate there, but I can see your point. I think the tools that take the translate functionality and help people/cultures understand will be fascinating.

Of course, as a Bangladeshi, +1 for Grameen!!

Re: Google Translate

shafqat — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:34:56 -0000

I'm impressed at the improvement in quality that Google has managed with their translate tool. A couple years ago, it was mediocre at best. Today, the french translation of your site seems pretty natural and makes it difficult to tell that it's a machine translated page.

Given the quality is high, there are a lot of interesting applications - Disqus integration is one, but I can think of a few other exciting ones.

Re: The "Content" API

shafqat — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:40:48 -0000

We're trying to do exactly that at NewsCred. It's certainly challenging - I think the monetization has to come for a related service, not directly from the one that highlights bias or political leaning. You can leverage the latter, but its difficult to build a business around a feature.

Re: The "Content" API

shafqat — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:28:32 -0000

@tmcmh good points. do you have any examples of good trading/data platforms that are enabling others to build end user websites around theose APIs?