The Paintbrush and the Canvas – The Story of the Next Gen of .com

If you’ve known me for a while, you probably would have realized that I’m not the kind of person who sits back and sulks on and regret the “mistakes” or “accidents” of the past.  It’s so cliché to say this, but I’ve always been the kind of person to use that mistake and “turn it for the better” – so to say.

But there is one action that I wish I would have considered and followed through with it – majoring in Computer Science/Programming.  Several tech entrepreneurs like Chris Dixon have said it before.  It seriously is – should I dare say it – the only college that matters.  Since I only know enough bit of PHP to minutely alter coding and scripts, without having a very deep computer programming background, I feel like – as I always like to say – an artist without a paintbrush to paint onto the canvas. My creative mind of internet and software start-up ideas is severely limited by my lack of ability to transcript my vision onto the canvas. The vision I have cannot ever be perfectly and directly translated into scripts and coding, thus I have to work harder and efficiently to carry out my vision and communicate it to another person who has the ability to paint their own picture.

Now, I am well aware that a strong foundation of a start-up team should be composed of at least one business-savvy individual and one technology-savvy individual and that the technology-savvy individual either 1) wishes that he or she was business-savvy also so that their “painting” can be utilized to its full potential in the marketplace or 2) thinks that they have enough talent in business to carry out by themselves or 3) actually is both technologically and business-savvy in every sense of the word (see Bill Gates).  Let me try to state my claims to those three possibilities above:

If you are the technology-savvy individual who relates to #1: Those are the type of people that I would get matched up well with.  Both being somewhat jealous of other’s skill set and the necessity to clearly carry out their own thoughts to the other individual is in all sense of the words – ideal and effective in a type of team you want to have.

If you are #2: First of all, let me say this, I mean no harm or accusations of any tech guy who thinks they have the business-savvy.  Because after all, I don’t know you and you definitely could have the business mind.  I mean if I had the tech skills, I would be thinking the same that I have enough technology-savvy to be out on my own conquering my busines ideas solo.  But there is a difference between being “entrepreneurial” (that word is overused so often nowadays…) in coming up with a cool idea and trying to develop a site that generates enough traffic to sell ad spaces to make $ on and being commerce-focused and business-minded in coming up with a product that has a clear revenue in mind (not from ads) and carrying out the development of the business development, the business plan, the pitch for funding, the direction of the company from the start-up to its growth (good related read on the necessity of having both business and tech background in a startup).  Solely being focused on ad spaces for revenue therefore only focused on development, I believe, is many times more often than not business-like enough to be successful.  There are definitely exceptions though, look at Facebook and Twitter.  But rumor has it that none of those companies have been profitable ever in their multiple years in operation.  Why?  Because of the foundation of how the company itself was founded on its ad space selling revenue model.  Now they are hiring skilled business development experts to join their team as VP of Business Development and etc. to try to come up with a different revenue model to utilize their massive userbase!  It’s been 6 years since Facebook has launched but they haven’t been able to strike that gold mine of utilizing their userbase for monetary returns – but if it wasn’t for investors gambling that Facebook and Twitter will find a way to utilize their hundreds of million users and pouring in their hundreds of millions of dollars into funding the company, Facebook would not be the Facebook we know it as today and Twitter would not be Twitter.

I believe that a new generation of something like a “hybrid internet start-up” is looming ahead and I know that nuSage is riding shotgun.  If you have a truly business-savvy individual with a business-mind background paired up with a developer to create a product that is founded with the notion to make incredible amounts of money from selling its product and service and utilizing the social network aspect (userbase), you have a company that doesn’t turn up in the red after every fiscal year, that doesn’t have to depend on outside funding to survive (although outside funding always usually helps a company grow very quickly – see Steroids for Business), and a company that doesn’t feel nervous and the pressure – so to say – of hundreds of millions of dollars from investors counting on you to develop something to make a $ product.  A company with a solid foundation of this revenue-model focused business doesn’t have to rely on “valuations” of new rounds for past investors to return profit.  I believe that the hybrid internet start-up will be the next generation of “.com” businesses once people realize that it’s near impossible to expect something else of a company’s core and mission if it was founded on trying to make a product that people use for free to build a ad-revenue worthy traffic and they stop valuating these companies the way they do now.  A hybrid internet start-up may even allow for free users but another group of users need to pay for a feature of the product, for example, with Facebook’s massive userbase and the time that users spend on it so much why not just have made the company “Pages” required to be a paid service?  Users can connect with the companies and companies can connect with their users.  I know that absolutely almost all legitimate company pages on Facebook right now would have paid handsome money to create a company Page, get information of their customers’/clients’ such as emails, birthdays to send specials/coupons/discounts/e-cards on (to build customer loyalty and even form a healthy customer/company relationship), I don’t know, I don’t want to think and list them all here but as long as the Facebook users were aware that each Facebook Page they “Liked” they were giving their information to the company there wouldn’t be any fuss and that in return would create a better “lead generation” of the company Facebook Pages “Fans”.

By the way, I am NOT hating on or mocking people like Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerbergs and the like.  They are by far the most creative people in the business-atmosphere in terms of product ideas – who would have thought that there was a market for people to “tweet” about what they’re doing?  What I am saying is that these tech-guys-turned-CEOs (or ex-CEO), didn’t have the business-savvy to think about the business side of their tech entrepreneurial venture.  Tech scene has become “create a cool product then worry about a revenue model”.  It is bound to become “create a cool site (usability) with a creative way of generating revenue (product)”.  We all know now that usability is key in generation userbase (see MySpace vs. Facebook) thanks for internet companies such as Twitter and Facebook but now the product (not the site, there is a difference) meaning a direct trade for commerce is equally as important and it would be ideal if not perfect to base its product’s strength based on its userbase – again, like the revenue model of nuSage.  Business needs to be based on commerce – a monetary trade for product.  At one point or another, people will realize it’s not about the quantity but quality.

I know I drifted off and went into detail about those two mentioned companies (that I am a proud member of, remember no hate!), but going all the way around in a circle now, I am saying two things 1) that a truly business-savvy individual paired up with a tech-savvy individual would make an amazing team and an amazing and a strong company that doesn’t have to rely on any other funding then itself(although like I said, outside funding is crucial for speeding up a company’s growth and I will be looking for seed investments for nuSage also) and 2) at least in the entrepreneurial world of internet startups, a site is different than a product and when you try to sell a site (where ad is the revenue) it’s different than selling a product backed by a site that is strong and efficient in usability.

Now… if you are #3: All the power to you.  You are God among men.

In case any flaming starts: I understand there may be various counter arguments against my points especially those on #2.  It’s true that if Zuckerberg and Dorsey weren’t even looking to make money when they started the product, a lot of my argument goes out the roof.  Or if your claims are more personal, and compare my level of success to theirs, I think that is more than unfair to not consider my points rather disregard it solely based on my “credibility”.

Anyways, I think everyone’s goal as a tech-scene obsessed businessman or a technology-savvy guy is to be well versed and skilled in the other individual’s skill set to become #3 – God among men.  Who wouldn’t want to be able to be the solo founder of a successful company and a successful product line?  That is the reason I wished I majored in computer science so that I can add that talent set to my natural business-mind.

Disclaimer: I use both Twitter and Facebook and I absolutely love it.  The only reason I brought those companies and their founders up is because of the potential that those two companies have/had with their already-mentioned-massive-userbase and how I feel that it’s too late for their companies to utilize their full potential to bring in a large revenue stream outside of advertisements and even outside funding.