December 2011
4 posts
5 tags
The Long Game of Chess
For the last 30 years of my life I’ve studied deeply various areas of academics and their application.
From highly theoretical proofs of mathematics to subconscious emotional drivers of consumer behavior. From econometrics and pricing theory to the art of writing for both business and literature. From computer engineering to the minimal aesthetics of design and art.
To be called a jack...
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Branding
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. And I think I may be circling in on something, but it’s going to take some deeper thought.
I think you start with figuring out an emotion or a feeling you want your brand to stand for. For example, Apple was all about creativity and thinking different. I’m sure you’ve seen the video by now. The entire thing was about a feeling....
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Animation Is...
…expressing a character’s moment of change.
Like when Eve saw WALL-E in a new light and fell in love.
Via my boy Tragnark
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(e)Motion in Apps: Path Case Study
I’ve been extolling the virtues of what I call (e)motion (i.e., motion + emotion) for a bit now and finally, we have a company who gets it. The chart below is from this 40-page deck on Consumer Behavior & Virality that I wrote, and represents a concept similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
The startup that gets it, and incorporated it into it’s complete redesign of their...
November 2011
27 posts
4 tags
Tumblr Versus Other Blogging Platforms
I’ve used ‘em all: WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous, Squarespace, etc. So why did I choose to use Tumblr for this, my latest blog?
Simple. It’s more social.
This blog’s only been up for a month or so, with completely new and fresh content, and I already have about the same number of followers as blog posts I’ve written. There’s no other platform that could have...
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To The Two
This one is for two people who saw something in me that I saw in myself, when everyone else dismissed me as just “some farm boy from Iowa”. The first is Beau Burgess. After graduating with two internships from a premiere Fortune 500 consulting company, and two of the hardest degrees from one of the hardest schools, I had no job. Feeling hopeless I fled home to live with parents...
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My Favorite Designs
I spend a lot of time writing about software and the mechanics of how (I think) things should work.
But what I haven’t done is share all the time I spend looking at analyzing designs, down to the pixel, which is inherently more subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?
So here are my favorite designs, by element, over the last few months or so (I’ve excluded all our...
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Communicating With Analogies
I follow startups and technology like most men follow sports. The only difference is we don’t have ESPN, so it’s harder.
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Funding Now Or Later & When To Launch?
First A Few Disclaimers
One of the readers of this blog, who shall remain anonymous for confidentiality purposes, emailed me questions similar to the title of this post yesterday. He’s building social software that some investors have shown interest in. Part of this post was my reply to him.
Also, while I’ve raised six figures in Angel funding, that was in an entirely different...
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Friction
What Is Friction?
First let me clarify that I’m talking about Friction related to software, not the “real world” even though the concepts are the same.
With apps or software, friction refers to the amount of work or difficulty of doing things. For instance, how many steps does it take to sign up for a new app? Do I have to enter every last piece of information about myself,...
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I Made an iPhone App To Make a Point About Apps
The app is affectionately called EvoMotion (TM).
Caveats
Watch the short screencast above that talks through the point I’m trying to make
Obviously this is an extremely basic app, but does use complex animations (one of the animations you see is actually a time-series of 25 separate images)
Additionally, the animations and graphics are most definitely not subtle, and a bit...
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Coolest Thing of the Week #3: Simpsons Simplified
Simplicity is hard.
As the iconic Dieter Rams says, “Good design is as little design as possible”.
Designed by musHo
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App Idea of the Day #10: SpyTap
Everyone wants to be a spy, a la Mission Impossible, right? Why not give it to them?
Concept: real world spy game, ghost protocol style. Use your mobile phone to:
recruit
reveal
reward
And I’m not talking about the janky orienteering augmented reality apps where you walk around your city and find stuff. I’m talking about making it super cold war.
You’d have to recruit...
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It's What You Hate About Your Work...
…that makes you great at what you do. The gap between what you did and what you admire is what makes you better.
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To the Ten & the Two
I haven’t seen my parents since March when I graduated from business school. It’s the longest we’ve ever gone. Since then much has happened in my life, including a move to New York. It’s funny, the older you get, the more you start replacing things with experiences. I don’t want another shirt or some fresh denim. I’d rather use that money on dinners with my...
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Get Paid To Be You
I can’t remember who said it first, but that phrase continues to stick with me. Find something you’re fascinated by, and then find someone who’ll pay you to continue to be fascinated by it.
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What I Learned Meeting With The Founder of Siri
My business partner (@jeffreyryanwho) and I were lucky enough to sit down with the founder of Siri (yes, that Siri) today for an hour and talk about the state of tech, the future, and growing the Chicago tech community this afternoon.
He couldn’t say anything about Apple or his work there as I’m sure you’re obviously aware, if you’ve ever known anyone who’s ever...
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Triple Entendre
The most coveted word play a rapper can produce is the elusive triple entendre.
Double entendres, however, are written often. The definition of a double entendre is somewhat complex, but the phrase, “layered meaning” is one concise way to define it.
Since Drake’s new album drops tomorrow, I’ll give you a double entendre from one of his songs with Rihanna,...
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Coolest Thing of the Week #2: Online Pitch Deck
This one comes in from the startup side of the interwebs.
This is a great-looking pitch deck that Dress Rush put online to help get investor traction through Angellist. It’s a great way to stand out when most startups throw together the same old powerpoint deck:
http://investors.dressrush.com/
We thought about doing this as a show piece this summer but as a weekend project never made it...
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3 Must Haves of Any Web App
1. Description — Don’t make me think about it, it should scream off the page in a phrase and picture. For example, “Share pictures with friends”.
2. Memorable — There should be something unique about your app that I remember. Turntable.fm has a pretty memorable look and feel.
3. Demo — Don’t make me decipher screenshots out of context or watch a...
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App Idea of the Day #9: Automatic Project...
Problem: keeping project management software up-to-date is almost as much work as doing the actual work.
Solution: let software do this work for you by analyzing your email conversations and reminding you if you haven’t replied to someone
It’s about getting things done, not adding more work to your plate.
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The Greatest Challenge
I think the greatest challenge in the world is nudging people, in aggregate, to have them do what you want. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but in helping solve their problems when they may be fearful of change. Applying this to technology, it’s understanding how people interact with both software and hardware. Technology is the future, but it’s also today.
It’s sort of...
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The Simplest Way to Test Your App's UI/UX
Give it to a bunch of novices and “normal” people, then watch them use it. You can find them walking the streets, your less tech savvy friends, or even waiting in line at Starbucks.
Whatever you do, resist your urge to talk or walk them through the app. Just watch over their shoulder as they use your app. It will be the most enlightening thing you’ve ever done, I guarantee...
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Startup Marketing: (E)Motion, Virality, Consumer...
I put together a deck explaining some lesser known information on consumer behavior and viral marketing, with a bent towards startups (since that’s what I know).
I’ve also introduced a new concept that I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of in 2012 and beyond.
I call it (E)motion.
Startup Marketing: (E)motion, Virality, Consumer Behavior View more presentations from Sean...
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Today, I Never Left My Home
And never spoke to anyone, but I made part of an iPhone app, purchased and listened to a new Christmas album, had Sushi delivered, created a deck on Consumer Behavior, and communicated with a 20-year Apple veteran.
That’s the power of technology.
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Coolest Thing of the Week #1: Looking Back
I do a lot of traveling on the internet and see a lot of amazing people creating a lot of amazing things. I figured why not share some of that amazement with you and give the creators the kudos they deserve.
For this first post, I’m going to grab a few things that have amazed me so much that they’ve stayed front-of-mind for a long time.
Ben The Bodyguard
Originally, this was a...
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App Idea of the Day #8: About.me With Social...
I don’t think I’ve seen this before. Imagine a (well designed) “profile” website like About.me where you can select your top 3 used social media streams (e.g., Twitter, Instagram, Quora) and it shows 3 columns of only your most recent activity.
Why do I, as a stranger, want to comb through all 80 of the social sites you list in your email footer or on About.me? Instead,...
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Why Are There So Many Options In iPhone Apps?
Foursquare
I counted the number of potential actions you can take on the main screen of the Foursquare iPhone app (“Friends” tab). There’s 10 of them:
Radar - on/off button
Notifications - number of notifications badge plus link to notifications
Nearby/Worldwide - switch for timeline view (local or global)
Map - button to show an interactive Google map
Stream - scroll...
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If I Were Product Manager: Foursquare
People started using Foursquare for two reasons:
Unexpected gift at an unexpected time – you don’t know when, how, or if you’re going to unlock another badge, but you keep checking in to make sure you don’t miss one.
Social bragging – “look at me, I’m somewhere cool I either want you to be envious of or join me at”
People continue to use Foursquare for these two reasons, but in the future for...
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Crowdfunding
I’ll save you the political diatribe that’s being debated in Congress and the SEC.
Allowing startups to secure seed capital via crowdfunding would not only be a boon to founders who desperately need financing to support their development and growth efforts, but would also open the floodgates to layperson investing like mutual funds did decades ago. I’m all for it. The...
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What If You Looked at Time as an Investment?
Would it change the way you spend your time, live your life, and even who you hang out with? It seems that most of us work so we can entertain ourselves, whether it’s to pay for TV, dinner, drinks or things even more lavish like traveling. So my question is, if you call it work, then are you investing in yourself or just in entertaining yourself in the future? A recent academic study...
October 2011
45 posts
6 tags
App Idea of the Day #7: Platform for Social +...
Concept: create a drag-and-drop platform to make iPhone apps with social and location features. The current state of DIY iPhone app building platforms take the easy approach, add Twitter or RSS feeds, but nothing that an app needs to have in order to compete with other great startups.
Problem: this is an ongoing problem with us. Do we invest hundreds of man-hours, blood, sweat, and tears to...
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Marketing
I’ve come to the realization that the best methods of marketing look and feel nothing like marketing.
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Marketing Mobile Video
Introducing Shelby (Not the Car)
I recently became acquainted with the founder of a startup here in NYC, run by 5 guys who’ve been working on a mobile video project for months, raising $1.7 million in investment earlier this year. One of the founders is Reece Pacheco, who is the CEO of Shelby.tv, which is a website, iPhone app, and iPad app that pulls in videos shared on Facebook, Twitter,...
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The 1st Rule of Business
Businesses are run by people, so if you want to be great at it, don’t study business, study people.
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On Mobile
The Chicago Chamber of Commerce is hosting a search engine conference in mid November and I’ll be speaking about mobile, covering both current and future trends. This post is a preview of some thoughts I have in the area. This is a re-post of the article that appeared on the Chamber’s website.
During the iPhone 4S announcement a few weeks ago, Apple put up a slide with a pie chart...
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App Idea of the Day #6: Apartment Notifications
Again, using the concept of Invisible Software to notify you when you walk by an apartment building that’s in your price range and has the amenities you want. Or just alerts you when a new one comes on the market.
The difference is, this will have ACTUAL price information. The goal is to remove the middleman (something technology is great at) and put brokers out of a job.
Sorry to say,...
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How To Make A Dent In The Universe
First, it was Andrew Carnegie and steel (a building block) in the the late 19th century
Then it was Henry Ford and cars (a traveling mechanism) in the early 20th century
Then it was Steve Jobs and computers (a different kind of building block) in the late 20th century
And finally, Mark Zuckerberg and social networking (a different kind of traveling mechanism) in the early 21st century
So...
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Doctor's Take Chances When People Might Die, But...
Mmm, can you smell that? That fragrance wafting under your nose is good old fashioned behavioral decision making, just like mom used to make it.
Let’s compare two hypothetical situations, both posed to a group of doctors (via a New Yorker article:
The U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat ...
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App Idea of the Day #5: Email Notifications
This one comes from my friend @seiden, one of the guys who was in the jet of the battle for the first music website in the late 90s. Use the concept of Invisible Software and apply it to one of the biggest problems most people face on a daily basis: email.
The app would function like this: enter a few email addresses or keywords like the following:
Email address: importantclient@company.com
...
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Create More Than You Consume
I read this at about 5am this morning on Quora, and I have to tell you, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve been saying something close to this for awhile now, but I never quite gave it enough attention to put it quite as succinctly as this:
Effective people tend to create a lot of content. Content can mean a lot of things - but the rule is always the same, create more than you...
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App Idea of the Day #4: App for Ideas!
Concept: a mobile app where you input ideas you have with the following 3 pieces of information:
Problem being solved
Target market
Idea
The app would function like a cross being Twitter’s stream and Instagram’s social features (e.g., number of likes, following people) where people can “like” your ideas so you don’t waste time building something nobody wants. ...
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Speak to My Soul
Every time I watch the Apple “Think Different” 1-minute ad, I tear up. Not because I own nearly every Apple product, but because it reached into my soul with a calloused hand, yanked on it, and pulled it out of my body. It’s how I’ve felt since I was a child.
But I’ve done nothing to change the world in my 30 years on this planet. And sometimes I wonder if I ever...
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If I Were Product Manager: Weather Notifier
Ha. We are the ones who built Weather Notifier. I’ll be the first one to call my baby ugly. Let’s put some lipstick on this pig shall we?
Video
There’s no video explaining the benefit, only a slider with screen shots. Fail.
The ideal video, at least in my mind, would be a quick 15 second spot of someone just waking up in their down-covered bed, sun shining in brightly,...
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The App You Made Kinda Sucks
Why isn’t there a demo on your website? Instead, you’ve spent time explaining screenshots with dense text and a video of stick figures that has nothing to do with what your software looks like or the problem your software solves. If you want me to understand what your app does and how I’m supposed to use it, then let me just start USING it, immediately, without having to login...
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How To Get What You Want
First, The Science
Behavioral Science research states that any action you perform for someone else creates a “debt” in that person’s subconscious and, at least in aggregate, that person will feel compelled to pay you back in some way.
For example, do you remember the last time someone offered to buy your coffee at Starbucks or give you a piece of gum? Were you left with a good...
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How To Check In To Foursquare Using Siri
Do you love hacking? Do you love Siri? Boy do I have a deal for you!
3 Steps
Authorize your iPhone — text “foursquare” to the short-code number 368266 (it spells out DotCom)
Save the Short-Code — save the shortcode number 368266 as “Foursquare” in your iPhone’s contacts
Use Siri — say something like the following: “text foursquare,...
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Behavioral Decision Making
I wrote this in May of 2010, and after doing some Google Analytics research of what drove the most traffic to my personal website (seanmeverett.com), it was far and away this post. I’m actually ranked in the Top 10 on Google for the phrase “behavioral decision making”, so I thought I’d re-post without any edits to keep it front of mind, and also share with you.
I’ve been...
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On Entrepreneurship
I’m humbled that the University of Chicago (my MBA alma mater) asked me to do a brief write-up on entrepreneurship. What follows is directed towards the alumni of the University interested in becoming an entrepreneur. This will be written from the perspective of building a consumer internet startup (not a restaurant or other type of startup).
Don’t Be An Entrepreneur
I’m...
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App Idea of the Day #3: Oink Oink
I thought of the name last night. Sometimes I think you can tell whether an app would be interesting just by the name (shit Siri says, damn you autocorrect, texts from last night, OMGWTF!).
Anyways, I have no idea what the app would do, but I’m thinking it’s sort of the anti-Facebook like button.
So maybe you see a picture you don’t like: oink, oink. Or maybe you had a bad...