Disqus - Latest Comments for zackmans

Re: Some Thoughts On Twitter, Delivered As A Tweetstorm

zackmansfield — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 12:15:13 -0000

Twitter isn't hard to use as a lurker, as a follower. It's really quite easy if you are, say, interested in Washington Redskins football, to hop on twitter and find a dozen people (beat reporters, bloggers, players, etc) who also love Redskins football and tweet about it a ton every day.

What's hard, and you hit the nail on the head here Andy, is figuring out what voice to use on Twitter as a content creator. One aspect of this is your assertion that people don't want to speak out to strangers. Hugely true for the majority of people.

And also the power of the platform, that those whoe *are* willing to have a voice, are able to build a platform out of NOTHING and have a powerful powerful impact.

[and we're not even going to get into the real time part, which is obviously the most powerful part of twitter, and always has been]

Twitter's asymmetry has always been it's greatest source of power - what other platform allows you to interact directly and at scale with *anyone* in the world. Want to tweet at your fave athlete? Boom. They might even tweet back. You don't have to be facebook friends with them.

But the asymmetry is also the weakness - there will be I think an inherent bifurcation between mass content creators and mass content consumers. Whether this is sustainable long term (in terms of ability to continue to grow the service/users) I don't know.

Re: Giving Back

zackmansfield — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 11:47:22 -0000

all i know is Fred is absurdly wealthy and should be ashamed :)

Re: Giving Back

zackmansfield — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 11:29:04 -0000

who/what created the resources?

Re: Trying Something New Today

zackmansfield — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 10:08:12 -0000

"doesn't help anyone build an audience"???

there are many examples of individuals who have built twitter audiences of 100s, then 1000s then beyond by becoming "known" via Twitter for their voice, ideas, etc. You see this specifically in particular verticals - like I have a buddy who is a doctor but a diehard Redskins fan. He tweets maniacally about them and now has 15k+ followers, a podcast, has been to media day, etc - https://twitter.com/burgund.... Another friend is part of "financial twitter" where be opines on macro econonic trends/stocks etc - went from nothing to 21k followers, has been super valuable professionally.

It's analogous in some ways to etsy and the maker economy - the power of twitter is that *anyone* can be a maker of news, provider of opninions. And like all things, there is a long tail of noise and a fat tail of celebrity, but there is a big chunk in the middle that is the hard to surface but extremely valuable content - the key, IMO to this Twitter strategy is surfacing this content and making it easier to see. It's not about hiring creators - the creators are there - people are already curating. But they need to figure out how to surface this content so people can curate (as we all naturally do) to our tastes. But you can't curate what you can't find, which is why this is such an important play for Twitter.

Re: Thoughts on the Automated Insights Acquisition

zackmansfield — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 08:58:39 -0000

pumped for you man!

Re: Thoughts on the Automated Insights Acquisition

zackmansfield — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 14:56:51 -0000

haha, thanks @robbieallen - very happy for you

Re: The 40% Rule

zackmansfield — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 10:36:05 -0000

Agree totally that SaaS entrepreneurs are getting smarter about running via metrics; partially due to the depth of blog posts like this which demystify it all. In early days (call it 1-2MM in ARR) there is a danger in extrapolating the early data and believe you are ready to simply "pour gas on it" and expand to 10mm+, which is a big reason for your noted, and true, assertion that getting to 10mm ARR is the toughest.

Re: Figure1

zackmansfield — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 12:02:57 -0000

Forwarded this to a friend who is a practicing pediatric cardiologist. He responded "this is great, I do this all the time via text from the ER or clinic"

Taking an existing (imperfect) behavior and skinning it for the audience to make it better (while also adding value via the network). Love it. To quote my friend, "This will be huge, we ALL do this"

Re: The Scourge Of Zero Rating

zackmansfield — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 10:41:52 -0000

Republic Wireless (https://republicwireless.com/) is reducing the dependency on the cell network by leveraging the abundance of Wifi that is around most of us at all times. Is it perfect? No. But it's a different paradigm (granted, today they piggyback off Sprint spectrum for the cell part of their service). But i believe this WiFi centric model (or something tangential/derivative of it) will emerge in the next decade.

Re: The Dentist Office Software Story

zackmansfield — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 10:06:41 -0000

and one look at the internal core operating software banks use will tell you there's a ton of opportunity there too, but regulation, switching pain, etc make it difficult problem to solve.

Re: Getting An Outside Lead – The Myth Of Third Party Validation

zackmansfield — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 09:50:30 -0000

Conviction and courage, balanced with the ability to work with the entrepreneur to find a common ground and the ability to step back and support a decision to go with an outside lead if that's where he/she & the board decide to go. It is simple in that breakdown (and beautiful, and true) and yet so difficult in its complexity in actuality. Just the conviction and courage part - sure, you have better information than anyone else but still a multitude of variables with unknowns not yet solved for - is a challenge enough. Then getting to a place of partnership where everyone feels that this (an inside led round) is the best way forward can be another mountain to climb. Wise words though and I agree that ability to scale these challenges successfully (being right, having the courage to act, then getting a deal done) can lead to superhero returns. Great post Fred.

Re: Who’s Meeting Up? Using Data to Find the Hottest Startup Cities in the World

zackmansfield — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 13:32:23 -0000

Tristan, this is really cool analysis. Nice work.

Re: Triangle Start-Up Bloggers

zackmansfield — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 14:33:48 -0000

thanks for the love Eric, i blog about VC/startup stuff at http://runwaytoexit.com - the other one is pretty much just instagrams of my kids :)

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Replacing Payday Lenders with The Post Office

zackmansfield — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 11:00:49 -0000

i guess i don't understand or appreciate the "traditional banks ignore this segment of the market". If one wants to go to any bank branch and open a personal deposit account there are very few barriers to actually doing this, no?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Replacing Payday Lenders with The Post Office

zackmansfield — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 10:55:18 -0000

The general assumption underlying this article is that the majority of unbanked are so because they don't have access to a physical bank branch...is this really true? They have access to check cashing/payday loan retail shops but not banks?

Re: The God of Joy and Grief

zackmansfield — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 10:50:26 -0000

dang girl. you did it again. awesome.

loved every word and feeling this in new and real ways this season too.

Re: Smartphone Screenshot - The Gong Show

zackmansfield — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:55:39 -0000

iphone 5
1-2 times a week
to share stuff where I can show highlighting or just what I want someone to notice on a link

Re: Bill De Blasio, the next Mayor of NYC

zackmansfield — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 10:32:34 -0000

Widgets! Feels so AVC circa 2004, Fred.

Re: Another Beginning - The Gong Show

zackmansfield — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 10:18:57 -0000

really pumped for you Andrew. Well deserved and appreciate knowing that the humility you show in your post is not false in any way. You really will continue business as usual. Congrats.

Re: Twitter's shady accounting - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet

zackmansfield — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:35:42 -0000

Isn't the flip side argument just as rational and thus it makes sense to look at both? If you just looked at net loss (without excluding the depreciation, stock based comp, etc) you could easily be fooled into not seeing the underlying trends in operating performance as they occur, as they could be masked by the large D&A and stock comp #s. It just makes sense to look at both.

Re: Turning Ten

zackmansfield — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 10:14:41 -0000

Nothing wrong with being sentimental Fred. You are clearly a visionary thinker and have a fantastic work ethic but it's always been your transparency which has been your biggest differentiator and greatest gift to us, the community. So the fact that this is so transparently sentimental is perfect, I think.

And like seemingly every other commenter here i have my own FredStory. Straight out of school in 2004 I was an early reader of AVC. back then it was kind of strange that you were a VC in NYC. Seems like everyone's a VC in NYC now :)

A few years back I had a dream that I might get to work directly with you and USV. It didn't work out (and by the way, I think rightfully so) but I remember during the process when you said that you knew me from your blog comments. And you did. It was a thrill and pretty inspiring for me to realize that you really do read and keep up with who all of us are who come here to hang out at the bar. Thanks for 10 years and hope to get that chance to work more closely together somehow, someway in the next 10.

Re: Fun Friday: Your Favorite Feature

zackmansfield — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 10:28:54 -0000

gmail -> "it looks like you meant to add an attachment" = so money

Re: Fun Friday: Fall Planning

zackmansfield — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 11:41:53 -0000

there's a new app launching (NYC focus) to tackle some of this problem. Flyer App: http://www.flyerapp.com/

(disclosure - not connected at all with them other than knowing the founder...who has no idea that I posted this here)

Re: FIFA Xbox

zackmansfield — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 10:49:22 -0000

no doubt FIFA has provided the context needed to allow you and your son to enjoy the Beautiful Game. Analog for many is how fantasy football has created insatiable appetite for NFL, even amongst those who didn't traditionally consider themselves big (american) football fans.

I think one of the more interesting trends is the growing communities of soccer die-hards who are supporting not only european teams but their local MLS side. Check out Seattle or Portland on a MLS gameday and you could just as easily think you are in London. Will be interesting to see if other markets take off in similar ways in the next 5-10 years

Re: Be A F---ing Pro - David B. Lerner

zackmansfield — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 15:58:30 -0000

great post dave. well said.