
Max Levchin's favorite new startups - angstrom
http://www.businessinsider.com/max-levchins-favorite-startups-are-all-japanese-2009-2
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rokhayakebe
My new favorite startups are the ones with a "Pricing" link and without
"Share", "Collaborate", "Easy", "Friends".

~~~
axod
It's considered "HIP" to say that at the moment. That doesn't make it right
though. In the same way it's hip to hate Java right now. That doesn't mean
that Java isn't good at solving a set of problems in a good way - it clearly
is.

There's millions to be made from advertising revenue. If you can get people to
pay for something, great, but not every product is the type where paying would
make any sense at all. By charging consumers directly, you massively reduce
your audience to a small subset of users.

It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real"
revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay
directly.

You know what the most powerful marketing word in the world is? "FREE". The
clever thing is using that to your advantage and still making money. Tons of
industries do that though, loss leaders work, 'free cellphone (with contract)
works' etc etc.

~~~
adamhowell
> It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real"
> revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay
> directly.

As long as numbers like these hold true: "At the $1 RPM (CPM/CPA/CPC) level
achieved by most general sites, you need 4 billion page views/month ... to
[reach] $50M in revenue per year"
([http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_...](http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_of_o.html)),
charging money for a product that creates value is going to be a more viable
way of starting a successful company online

~~~
pg
The value of traffic rises very sharply when it becomes more targeted though.
The value of traffic on <http://bountii.com> is worth orders of magnitude more
than on a random Facebook page, because it's all people who are just about to
buy something.

~~~
adamhowell
But targeted content and user generated content are two different things.
Digg's Gaming category is more targeted than a random Facebook page, but that
still doesn't mean a company wants to attach their brand to any random topic a
user might come up with (something like, say, "[advertised game on this page]
sucks").

Getting big and targeted is a lot more expensive (and highly competitive, see
gadgets, etc.) than getting big and general, since it usually means non-user
generated content.

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markessien
Finally, someone is saying it. The ideas in silicon valley that are being
produced now are just so boring. I can't remember the last time I said : wow,
or even just thought - well, that's different.

Sure, it's great to make a better database examiner, but if you're young and
you have nothing to lose, why not try something really fresh. Something brand
new? That webcam figure is fresh, for example.

~~~
pg
Occam's razor suggests that the reason the current ideas seem boring is that
you don't understand yet which ones have big potential. Microprocessors seem a
great idea in retrospect, because we've seen now what they turned into, but
initially hardly anyone cared about them, even within Intel.

~~~
markessien
It may not be possible to understand what they can become, but one can look at
the industry and know roughly what will happen. Let's say some guy comes up
with some really great hubcaps.He can grow to become the best hubcap maker in
the world. But he's still just making hubcaps, and most people don't care
about them.

But the people who do stuff in media, for example music or tv, always have
potential to change the industry. Same with anything communication related.
These are core industries that are fundamental to human beings - so startups
in those areas always have huge potential. Like muxtape for example, or
justin.tv, those startups can change the world. They are not changing the
world yet, but I can see that with the right things in place, they can change
the world. It's the same with microprocessors, anyone who was in the field
knew that if size went down, price went down and so on, microprocessors would
make a huge difference. They did not predict the apps that would be enabled
because of them.

Why did they not? Microprocessors created a platform, and a platform opens a
brand new field for new people to create ideas within. When a startup works on
something that creates a new type of platform, then breakout ideas can happen
on the platform. Hubcaps are not a platform that others can build on. They're
the end of a line.

~~~
Shamiq
Hubcaps as platforms sounds like the most interesting idea I've heard in a
long time (I understand this was not the point you were trying to make).

\-- _Hubcap based games_ : Who can log the least number of hours? (if it
spins,we can measure distance traveled)

\-- _Hubcap based communications_ : My cars recognize and exchange information
(shopping lists, to-do lists, language courses)

\-- _Hubcap based entertainment_ : Quickly transfer songs/files/etc. -- hooks
into your audio system.

\-- _Hubcap based computing_ : Use those idle cycles while your sitting at the
light to help with gene folding.

\-- _Hubcap based energy_ : Spinners? Naw, they just charge my car's battery
(self-powered units).

Braindumps are fun!

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sofal
So... shun the superficial Web 2.0 social networks in favor of the new,
innovative technology with more substance: virtual sex toys.

It's absolutely inspiring.

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callmeed
So, he's unimpressed with silicon valley conventions like "friends lists" ...
but one of his favorite startups is a "mobile social network"?

I'm unimpressed with Max's shallow evaluation.

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igglepiggle
My favourite startup (if you could still call it that) is Telnic (British). I
think the .tel TLD will be revolutionary, but has so far received surprisingly
little attention from tech/entrepreneurial communities like this one and
TechCrunch - perhaps because it's not in the Valley? I guess this might change
when it launches next week, or on March 24th when general availability
begins..

~~~
unalone
What's so revolutionary about it?

~~~
igglepiggle
Well, there is _plenty_ of friction in the world of telecoms, and its tangent
with media - .tel solves many of these problems.

Check out the DEMOfall 08 presentation for a brief 5 minute overview, or their
in-house "Tell The World" interview for a lengthier discussion:

<http://www.telnic.org/media-resources.html>

The best blog writeup I found is here:

[http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2008/12/is-the-new-tel-
do...](http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2008/12/is-the-new-tel-domain-more-
than-just-a-pretty-face-on-top-of-dns.html)

If you want to get into a discussion then let me know and I'll pitch some
thoughts at you, but wanted to introduce you to the subject first, in case you
hadn't already looked into it.

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immad
That doll is awesome. Watch the video.

~~~
SwellJoe
It's awesome technology, but I'm disturbed by the seeming purpose of it.
There's a whole section of the video devoted to molesting, and taking clothes
off of, the teenage girl figure until she's crying in a corner...and then
giving her a teddy bear to make her happy again.

The Japanese sexual culture is deeply disturbing is what I'm trying to say
here.

~~~
sho
Won't somebody think of the virtual children!

~~~
SwellJoe
I just don't understand what kind of person gets their jollies by molesting a
virtual child until they are crying in a corner. I'm not suggesting there
ought to be a law against molesting virtual children.

~~~
unalone
From what I understand of Japanese culture, there are few sexual taboos.
People are much more open and honest about sex than they are here.

In America, anything beyond missionary position is considered weird. Anal sex
is a little edgy. BDSM and roleplaying are considered weird and freaky by
pretty much everybody. Which is odd, because sex really should be one of the
most individual, unique things for people. Each person has different standards
for what they find hot. Why shouldn't that play out during sex?

Those fantasies go far and wide. I'm sure every single person reading this has
had bizarre sexual thoughts and ideas. Perhaps not for long, perhaps you've
denied the thoughts to yourself as wrong, but the thoughts have crossed your
mind. So the concept of a robot like this is, why not let people indulge in
these fantasies? Some things you cannot achieve unless you do it virtually.
That means either you suppress those fantasies, which is unhealthy, or you
find some other outlet - virtual, which is fine, or real, which is certainly
not.

My opinion is that having a sexual fantasy about beating and molesting a child
is perfectly natural. That's not my _personal_ perverted fantasy, but if it's
somebody else's I'm not going to call that strange. So if they've found a way
to have that fantasy that doesn't involve harming a child, then props to them!
If America had such an open nature to sex, we'd have fewer cultural problems
than we do (and we have a lot).

~~~
SwellJoe
_In America, anything beyond missionary position is considered weird. Anal sex
is a little edgy. BDSM and roleplaying are considered weird and freaky by
pretty much everybody._

Really? I guess living in or near large cities all these years has warped my
perspective of what "in America" means. None of these things seems
particularly weird or taboo amongst my social set.

 _If America had such an open nature to sex, we'd have fewer cultural problems
than we do (and we have a lot)._

And Japan doesn't have problems? I think you're giving the culture a huge
pass. If you wanted to hold up the Netherlands as an example of a very healthy
and very open sexual culture (including a societal understanding that
teenagers have an interest in sex, and will have sex), then I'd be on board
with you. But, we're talking about Japan here...The land of "Christmas cake",
"kawaii", etc. Infantilization of women is the norm. That's not healthy or
merely open...that's just broken in a different direction than America's
protestant zeal.

I wasn't trying to suggest that America has a healthy approach to sex. We, on
the whole, don't, particularly with regard to teenagers and sex (some of our
child protection laws are bizarre and have horrific consequences, like
labeling a 17 year old that has sex with a consenting 15 year old as a sexual
predator and a child abuser). But I said nothing about America in my comments.
This wasn't a "Go USA! Japan sucks!" conversation, and I don't think there's
really anything interesting about such a conversation.

Again, I'm not suggesting it should be illegal...just that I'm rather stunned
that the market for a "molest a child" game is large enough such that that is
how they market this product. It is, to me, a disturbing indicator of the way
a reasonably large segment of Japanese men feel about women (large enough to
be the market they've chosen to target with this really clever new toy).

~~~
unalone
_Again, I'm not suggesting it should be illegal...just that I'm rather stunned
that the market for a "molest a child" game is large enough such that that is
how they market this product._

Phrased like that, it seems more bizarre than it did when I first thought
about it.

 _Really? I guess living in or near large cities all these years has warped my
perspective of what "in America" means. None of these things seems
particularly weird or taboo amongst my social set._

Possibly this is just youth speaking. Those things are absolutely viewed as
freak attitudes in college.

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jmtame
wow! counted as the second time i saw a photo of max without his slide shirt
on.

~~~
matt1
That actually is kind of funny:

<http://images.google.com/images?q=max%20levchin>

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jmtame
max is a marketing GENIUS. searching for someone's name and it inevitably
turns up x*results of advertisements for his company ;)

i say this is a predictor of success. if you search someone's full name, count
how many times you see their shirt with their company logo. until i have
enough money as max to throw around, i'll pose with a 8.5x11 sheet of paper
with my logo written or printed on it.

~~~
matt1
If he is such a marketing genius why am I still so unsure about what Slide
actually does? :)

