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  • How to Use Video to Boost Traffic and Sales Faster Than SEO

    How to Use Video to Boost Traffic and Sales Faster Than SEO

    Marketing innovator Neil Patel says that video is better than most marketing channels out there for getting traffic fast. In his latest video Patel explains how anybody can drive traffic to their website, and more importantly, drive sales of products and services. Taking the video plunge should be on every entrepreneur’s priority list.

    Neil Patel, explains how video may be the best marketing channel for instant results:

    Tip 1 – Leverage Ubersuggest

    The cool thing about video is you can see results faster than traditional SEO or most marketing channels out there. Let’s go in order on what you need to do to get more sales and traffic from videos. The first thing you need to do is leverage Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest is a free tool that’ll show you what keywords are popular. If you don’t know what keywords and topics are popular within your space you will be creating video content that no one wants to watch or hear about.

    Tip 2 – Record Into Your Phone

    The second thing you need to do is just bust out your phone and start recording into it. Make sure you’re looking at the video. You don’t want to just do audio. You want to break down whatever topic is popular based on what you learn from Ubersuggest. When you’re doing the video, ask questions within your video. Make sure it’s engaging, be fun, laugh, and always smile. I always forget that one but that’s very important. My cameraman always tells me that one but that’s very important.

    In addition to that, at the very end, you want to have a call to action that drives people back to your website. For example, at the end of my videos, I tell people to check out my ad agency. When you do that you’ll at least start generating sales. If you don’t have that call to action that you say at the very end, I kid you not, it’s going to be very hard to get sales from that video.

    Tip 3 – Go to Rev.com and Get an SRT File

    Then I want you to go to Rev.com and get an SRT file. What this does is they’ll do a transcription of the video content after you recorded it and give you an SRT file that you can upload. You will then want to take the video and the SRT file and upload it to each and every single social network out there. You want to do Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, at the bare minimum.

    By uploading the SRT file, what you’ll find is a lot of the social sites autoplay the videos and people often don’t have their speakers on, especially when they’re at work. Then they can read the text and follow along. It’ll help boost the engagement.

    Tip 4 – Include the Right Keywords

    Now that you’ve uploaded this video, at the same time before you hit the publish button, you want to include the right keywords. So you already use Ubersuggest and they gave you ideas. By integrating these keywords within the copy, description, and title, it’ll help you get more traffic.

    Tip 5 – Promote the Video

    Then you want to promote the video. Go take your email list and send out an email blast and push it out to your list within the first hour. This will help you videos get more traction and make them go more viral. If you have a push notification list, through tools like Subscribers, send out a push about the video and push everyone to it within the first hour. Again, this will help the videos get more views and help them go more viral.

    Tip 6 – Respond to All Comments

    Last but not least, respond to all comments. The biggest thing when it comes to videos and getting more engagement and getting more sales is you need to engage with the community. When someone leaves a comment, you need to respond to it. By doing that they’re going to build a better connection with you. Then when you sell them products and services they’re more likely to buy.


  • Kevin David Reveals His Proven Method for Making Money With Facebook Ads

    Kevin David Reveals His Proven Method for Making Money With Facebook Ads

    One of the keys to making money with Facebook ads is to create and test 100 Facebook ad sets per day, says Kevin David who has become a successful entrepreneur by utilizing this strategy.

    David explains precisely how he increases spending on the profitable ad sets and shuts off the unprofitable ad sets using automation rules built right into Facebook. He says there is no need to use third-party tools, simply use the tools Facebook already has in place.

    Kevin David, who now trains others how to start a viral Amazon business selling everyday products, was recently interviewed by successful affiliate marketer Benjamin Yong at the Affiliate World Conference in Bangkok. Below is one strategy David revealed: (Video Interview Below)

    Create 100 Facebook Ad Sets Per Day

    Creating 100 Facebook ad sets per product for ecommerce is probably overkill. Realistically, $250 a day, which is 100 ad-sets times $2.50 per ad set a day is not that much money. So even if you’re spending $250 a day on ecommerce what’s that’s going to allow you to do is just get results faster. You could do ten ad sets a day but it’s gonna take you ten days. Or you can do 100 ad sets a day and it’s going to take you three days. You’re going to have your proven winners, so it’s just faster.

    If you can do it the lazy easy way, which is just images, by making some really sleek 3D-rendered beautiful images, you don’t even need to go crazy and create videos. Even if you do create videos, all you need is a basic video that has the ability to go viral, that appeals to emotion, is fun and funny, has one of those things. Then all you need is six images and one video.

    Use Facebook’s Automation Rules

    No third party tools are necessary. You can do all of this with Facebook’s automation rules. You don’t need to have external tools, you can use automation rules inside of Facebook. People just don’t know it exists. Everyone’s looking for that little hack but Facebook has it all available for you. People just don’t know how to do it.

    All you have to do is use the Create Multiple Ad Sets and then you just use automation rules to govern all of your different ad sets based on the criteria that you’ve set.

    Scale Ads With a Positive ROAS by 21% Every 3 Days

    The first rule is If an ad set has a positive ROAS, a positive return on ad spend of over one, I scale that ad by 21% every three days. With Facebook you can’t just scale something by 1000% because you just won’t spend the same, you’ll get penalized, you won’t have the same results. You won’t have profitable ad sets.

    What I’ve found through a lot of testing is the most you can scale is about 20% a day. I figured that the smartest people who’ve learned that are doing it by 20% and so I’m doing it by 21% to try and be one step ahead of them.

    When to Turn Unprofitable Ads Off

    The second rule is how I turn things off. Since I’m running $2.50 per ad set I set an automation rule that turns off all active ad sets if they meet two criteria. The first criteria is if they’ve spent more $7.50, which means they have been running for three days, three days of $2.50 a day. The second criteria are if they have less than one lead.

    It depends on what your business is. Maybe it’s less than one purchase or maybe it’s less than one lead, depending on how high ticket what you’re selling is. I know my funnel and I know that if I can get a lead for under $7.50 then it’s worth spending that money because I trust my funnel so well, but everyone has to know their own business. If it’s an ecommerce product, maybe you know it’s going to be different depending on how high ticket it is.

    https://youtu.be/I-VVV2JGY6o


  • The Moral of the Story is That Netflix Shifted Our Habits, Says Patrick Bet-David

    The Moral of the Story is That Netflix Shifted Our Habits, Says Patrick Bet-David

    Blockbuster was an $8.4 billion company that was taken down by a startup called Netflix that successfully shifted the habits of consumers. Blockbuster thought that people wanted the experience of picking out physical DVD’s and would not want to just download a movie. They were wrong and today Blockbuster is out of business and Netflix is valued at $147 million.

    Patrick Bet-David, successful startup entrepreneur, CEO of PHP Agency, Inc., emerging author and Creator of Valuetainment on Youtube, talks about Shifting Habits:

    Shifting Habits

    I want to tell you a story about a company that’s going to be a love story for some, a horror story for a few, a fantasy type of story for others, and then obviously a money-making story for the people that were involved. But before I tell you the story about this company I want you to be thinking about two words; shifting habits. I’ll come back to those two words in a minute.

    Let me tell you this story about this company. It’s 1984, a company gets started, it has got a yellow and a blue logo and it’s called Blockbuster. Blockbuster is a great story. You’d go to Blockbuster with your girlfriend or your husband or your wife and say, “Do you want to go to the horror section?” “Oh no, maybe comedy. I’m almost certain this movie’s not going to be available.”

    Blockbuster: Nobody Wants to Download Movies

    That’s 1984, the year got started. Blockbuster after only nine years was worth $8.4 billion in 1993. By 1997, a company got started called Netflix and it’s only worth $50 million dollars three years later. At one point Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for $50 million. But they said, “I just don’t think that’s the direction the consumer is going. I don’t think they’re going to shift their habits to this area because people like the experience of coming to Blockbuster and actually seeing the DVDs they pick up. Nobody wants to just download the movies. It’s not going to be taking place. People are smarter than that,”

    Well, 149 million users worldwide disagreed with them. Netflix went from being a $50 million company in 2002 to today it’s a $147 billion company. By the way, Blockbuster on September 23rd, 2010, went out of business. They filed bankruptcy for $930 million and they’re gone. What’s the moral the story? Netflix since Christmas their stock is up 50 percent. Just in 2019, in the first 19 days of the year, Netflix is up 35 percent.

    The Moral of the Story is That Netflix Shifted Our Habits

    Netflix is up. That’s a love story for some, a horror story for a few, a fantasy type of story for others, and an obviously money-making story for those of us that were involved. Now having said that, what do you mean by shifting habits? So many people want to be innovators and shift their industry. I want to be in there, but I want to be disrupting my industry.

    Bezos shifted our habits and we stopped going to bookstores to buy books. He said I’m going to shift your habit of the way you buy books. That’s why Walmart is afraid of Amazon. Instagram shifted our habits of the way we looked at albums. When’s the last time you bought an album? The list goes on. Wikipedia put encyclopedia companies out of business. How many times have you gone to Wikipedia to find out about different things? All the time. The moral of the story is that Netflix shifted our habits.

    Disney is about to come out with Disney Flicks or whatever they want to call it. I know one of the Disney executives said, “We’re not really trying to compete with Netflix. We like Netflix. I use Netflix. We are just going to put out our Marvel products and Star Wars products and all this other stuff.” But Netflix becomes the one that led the way.

    No one even thinks about Red Box anymore because Red Box at first made sense. By the way, if you say I still use Red Box, you’re probably over 40 years old. I’m not trying to offend you, but if you still use Red Box you’re over 40. You go to Kroger or Ralph’s to get your movies.

    Start Thinking About Shifting Habits

    Stop trying to come up with a great idea. Starts thinking about shifting habits. Not Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Shifting habits. How do people buy your product? How can you shift that habit? How do people buy the product from you? How can you shift that habit? Those who can become the Bezos, become the Zucks, become whatever you want to call it of their industry because they shifted someone’s habit.

    That’s all you got to be looking at. Not all this other crazy fancy stuff. So by the way, well Facebook ever be put out of business? Yes, by somebody who shifts our habit. Zuck says, “There’s no way in the world that’s the direction people are going to go to.” The will go that direction. That could also happen to Amazon and other companies as long as a new innovator is able to shift our habit.


  • Howie Mandel Says ‘Deal or No Deal’ is Risk Vs. Reward, Just Like NYSE

    Howie Mandel Says ‘Deal or No Deal’ is Risk Vs. Reward, Just Like NYSE

    Howie Mandel says that ‘Deal or No Deal’ is risk versus reward, just like the New York Stock Exchange. He says the decision process is the same. “That’s ultimately what the stock exchange is about,” says Mandel. “How do you divvy up your portfolio? By the same token, when there is somebody sitting on our floor what do they do?”

    Mandel rang the stock exchange bell this morning in honor of “Deal or No Deal” being revived on the popular financial network CNBC. Mandel is both the star and the producer of the show.

    Howie Mandel, host and executive producer of CNBC’s ‘Deal or No Deal,’ discussed on CNBC how his show and investing on the New York Stock Exchange are very similar:

    Deal or No Deal – It’s Risk Vs. Reward

    It’s real. That’s why I’m so thrilled to be a small part of CNBC. When we first did it in 2005 there are books on investment that have quoted, talked about, and studied what Deal or No Deal is. It’s risk versus reward. That’s ultimately what the stock exchange is about. How do you divvy up your portfolio? By the same token, when there is somebody sitting on our floor what do they do?

    How do you walk away? I said that Wednesday night. The guy said that on the first offer, “That’s half of what I make a year.” Would you invest half of your earnings in the stock market right now and go for it? Ultimately, there is no divine answer. What’s the big strategy on Deal or No Deal? What’s the big strategy on the New York Stock Exchange floor? Taking the big risk or playing it safe? It’s somewhere in between. But it’s also where you are in your life and what your needs are. With more risk, there is probably more reward, but can you afford to do that? What are you putting at stake for doing that?

    So when people walk away, like the first episode that actually aired during Christmas, there was a young man who had a wife and a baby and he played it risking it. All the way to the end he risked it. Two cases were left of $5 and $750,000, and an offer of $350,000 was on the board. There was an opportunity to negotiate. He said, “No Deal” and went All In and walked out with just $5. How many people have done this on this New York Stock Exchange floor right here?

    Trend with Media is to be Aware It’s Always Changing

    The trend with media is to be aware that it’s always changing. Whether it’s with Netflix, or whether it’s with some other digital or Facebook, how people and different sectors of our population are ingesting and buying into this there is not one answer. There may be an answer right this minute. Right now people are binge-watching on Netflix. Next year it could be Facebook or YouTube or ten-minute bites. I think we have to be kind of fluid and open.


  • Founder Ron Shaich Tells the Inside Story of Panera’s Amazing Success

    Founder Ron Shaich Tells the Inside Story of Panera’s Amazing Success

    Making the decision in 1998 to sell the main divisions of Au Bon Pain and focus all resources on the company’s lowly Panera brand became the most stressful year and a half ever for Panera founder and former CEO Ron Shaich.

    The lesson is to stand up against the pressure when you know your decision is right. Ultimately, Shaich says, even though there was “blood on the floor” initially, the stock is up a hundredfold.

    Ron Shaich, founder and former CEO of Panera Bread, tells the inside story of Panera’s amazing success in an Inc. profile:

    The Moment of Truth and Self-Reflection

    Along the way, I had many moments of truth and many moments of self-reflection. But one of the most powerful moments was the moment when I made the decision to ultimately sell all of our original businesses. It was 1998 and I was in the Caribbean. It was Christmas time and I was kind of bummed.

    We had four divisions in a large public company. I was looking at those four divisions and I understood that one of those divisions, the Panera division, had the potential to be a nationally dominant company. But it was the third largest of our divisions and it was really buried. This gem was buried under our three other divisions, Au Bon Pain, Au Bon Pain International, and Au Bon Pain manufacturing.

    There I was on the beach in the Caribbean and I thought about it for a second. If I had any guts, if I had any strength, I would monetize every other asset in the company so we could take the financial resources and put it against growing Panera the way it needed to be growing. I would take our limited human resources, most importantly myself, and make that Panera business grow into what it was meant to be, and what it had the destiny to be.

    Frankly, There Was Blood on the Floor

    What that led to is over the next year and a half, the worst year and a half of my life. I had a Board that was disagreeing with me. My Board said we invested in Au Bon Pain, why are you selling the old Au Bon Pain divisions to bet on Panera? There was a real challenge whether I would lose my job.

    One of our Board members looked at me and said, Ron, I think you’re crazy. I think you’re washed up. I think probably the problem is you and not what you perceive it to be. I had team members all of whom saw their careers affected. Frankly, there was blood on the floor in our corporate headquarters. Everybody was trying to figure out how it would affect them.

    You Must Have the Fortitude to Go Through With It

    That year and a half was the most stressful year and a half I’ve ever experienced. It was a stress in every sense of what stress meant. It was with me while I was sleeping. It was with me while I was driving. If I were honest with you, I would tell you there wasn’t a day I didn’t go in and say to myself is this really the right thing?

    The truth of the matter is nothing is proven until it’s done. But you need to have the fortitude to go through it. You need to have the strength to make those bold leadership decisions. You need to have the wisdom to be right about 80 percent of the time on those decisions.

    Ultimately, the Stock is Up a Hundredfold

    The result, in the end, was all good. Everybody who was on the Board ultimately saw this as a very positive thing. I didn’t lose my job. We completed the transactions. Ultimately, the stock is up in the range of a hundredfold since that time. The people that were sold with these Au Bon Pain divisions, many of them ultimately came back to Panera when their non-competes were over.

    I will tell you that in retrospect this may look brilliant. But when you’re going through it it’s so powerfully difficult and it’s so powerfully rooted in uncertainty. So much of it is about making the decision to go forward and to stick with it and to bring your organization along with it despite the uncertainty you may feel within you.


  • ‘Ninja’ Tyler Blevins Could be First $10 Million a Year Fortnite Gamer

    ‘Ninja’ Tyler Blevins Could be First $10 Million a Year Fortnite Gamer

    The best Fortnite player in the world, ‘Ninja’ Tyler Blevins, says he currently makes more than $500,000 a month and may just become the world’s first $10 million a year gamer. Ninja has over 20 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and a reported 200,000+ paying subscribers watching Blevins livestream on Twitch.

    ‘Ninja’ Tyler Blevins, coming off appearances on Ellen and Jimmy Fallon, discussed his Fortnite success and wealth in an interview on CNN Business:

    Blevins Makes More than $500,000 a Month

    Losing tens of thousands of dollars sitting for this interview is a perfect assumption. With Fortnite alone I’ve streamed 3,400 hours this past year. That’s 142 days of gaming and streaming. On a good month I make more than $500,000 a month.

    When I started making more than $80,000 a year streaming and gaming was the deciding factor in leaving college and quitting my job at Noodles & Company. That was the deciding factor by my Mom. By no means was she going to let me quit my job or drop out of school.

    I say “drop out of school,” I don’t even like that because I always had every intention of going back. I actually did go back when I had an eye issue thing and my stream took a dive. After hitting $80,000 a year I said Mom, I’m doing this until I make less and then I will go back.

    Could be the First $10 Million a Year Gamer

    I definitely could be the first $10 million a year gamer. It’s rare that I meet people that don’t know what I’m doing. But if I had a dollar every time I was at an airport and someone asks what I’m doing. I say I’m going to a tournament. I answer it’s a video game tournament. They are amazed I make money playing video games. The gaming tournament explanation is simple. A bunch of people buy a team pass. That money goes into the prize pool winner take all.

    70 Percent of Revenue Comes from Twitch and YouTube

    Streaming is the hardest part for people to understand. How do you make money streaming? The answer is ad revenue. There are going to be ads in commercial breaks. Those advertising companies pay the network and it’s the same way with streaming. However many people see the ads, you get money there. Also, people can subscribe.

    I make most of my money from Twitch and YouTube. It’s constant, it’s consistent, it’s monthly. About 70 percent of my money comes from Twitch and YouTube together. And then like brand deals with Red Bull and others make up the rest. It’s really simple, it’s like subscribing to a magazine, Spotify, or anything like that. It’s the same thing.

    My favorite reference is a guy on the street playing the violin. He’s not expected to get any money, maybe a couple of bucks. If you enjoy it a lot sometimes people will throw in twenty’s and five’s. It’s the same thing with me, but I absolutely have a big violin case.


  • Rumble Boxing Bringing the “Cool” Factor to Fitness

    Rumble Boxing Bringing the “Cool” Factor to Fitness

    The founding trainer of fitness startup Rumble Boxing says that we don’t consider ourselves cool but people are telling us we are cool. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Sylvester Stallone and Justin Bieber are early investors. Rumble, which launched in January 2017, is growing fast by making group fitness an experience where people are encouraged to take pictures and share Instagram Moments with their friends.

    The Rumble business model is very unique and creative, taking the fitness experience to a new level and making it so cool that it has become a viral sensation everywhere it launches.

    Andy Stern, Rumble Boxing Director of Talent, recently discussed the Rumble experience with legendary business guru Jon Taffer on Fox Business:

    We’ve Made Group Fitness Fun

    We’ve made it fun. In the group fitness world you have spin, you have a lot of running, we wanted to bring boxing to the masses and we wanted to have fun doing it. We’ve got 60 individuals in a room, loud music, projectors on the wall so it’s easy to follow. We wanted to take away the guesswork. We do five runs on the bag, five runs on the floor with dumbbells and strength, and it’s a blast. It’s so much fun.

    Rumble Launching in Trendy Locations First

    We are doing very well. We launched our first one in January 2017, so we are coming up on two years. We launched the second one in NoHo, the third one in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, and then came back to New York for a five story Upper East Side and then we just launched in the Financial District in San Francisco. During the hardest week of the year we had 600 paid customers day one.

    Rumble Customers Improve Physically and Mentally

    The biggest surprise to me is the people themself. It is not just a boxing world, it’s not just a professional athlete world. People want to feel good, they want to learn a skill. It’s also a little bit of a therapy session. As much as it is exciting for me to train athletes and celebrities I love seeing the average customer come back day in and day out and honestly not just improve them physically but mentally.

    Sylvester Stallone and Justin Bieber – Early Investors

    We’ve got some great names as investors. Sylvester Stallone and Justin Bieber are the first two that really fell in love with the concept. They’ve helped us really take this business to the next level. Equinox is our largest investor as well. They helped us with early growth and it is really just getting started for us which is really exciting.

    Rumble Boxing Bringing the “Cool” Factor to Fitness

    It’s an experience. People want to go out and do things, especially clients bringing in clients. They don’t want to go out to dinner and spend $400 on steaks and drinks. Instead they bring them to Rumble. They work out together, they get a great sweat, have a great time, and listen to great music.

    They take pictures and share them on social media. It’s really just this fun experience. Young millennials are spending good money, $32 to $36 a 45 minute class. We are giving them a good workout but we’re also giving them a fun experience and that’s really the big part of it all.

    They want to come and take pictures with our Instagram Moments, they want to tell their friends, they want to buy the swag. It’s become a thing. We don’t consider Rumble Boxing cool, but the people are telling us we are cool. We are loving every moment of it. We love the people coming and taking photos, sharing them, and working out with us.


  • Netflix Must Create Ad Model or Raise Prices

    Netflix Must Create Ad Model or Raise Prices

    Netflix announced that their original movie ‘Bird Box’ generated over 45 million streams in just the first week making it the best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film. However, some analysts say that their $12 billion in debt and mounting costs will require Netflix to either raise subscription prices again or create an advertising model.

    Porter Bibb of Mediatech Capital Partners recently discussed the future of Netflix on CNBC:

    Netflix Is Going to Soon Hit the Wall

    Long-term Disney and the other major content producers are pulling their content off of Netflix and going it on their own. There’s no question that if you have a library of immensely popular content you’re going to draw a crowd no matter what. Everybody’s looking today at Netflix and the 45 million people who supposedly streamed Bird Box. If it had gone out as a theatrical feature it would have been the biggest box-office hit in the history of motion pictures.

    Netflix Must Create Ad Model or Raise Prices

    It can’t continue. Netflix reported for its last quarter a $3 billion negative cash flow. Their off-balance-sheet debt is mounting. It’s well over $12 billion right now. When they have to go out and continue to pay huge amounts for top talent they’re going to soon hit the wall. Netflix is going to have to do one of two things. They’re either going to have to create an advertising revenue stream or they’re going to have to raise their prices.

    However, in the past when they’ve tried to raise their subscription prices their membership and subscriber lists have just plummeted right through the floor. They’re in a very tight corner right now and the major content producers and the major talent that has been giving them a lot of headlines is not a sustainable business model.

    Verizon FiOS Has to Have ESPN

    Verizon FiOS has to have the ESPN if they expect anybody to watch. It’s really curious that Verizon which has with the new CEO this year advertised heavily the fact that they don’t have any real interest in content. They want to be a distributor and stick with the dumb pipes while their competitors at AT&T and elsewhere are loading up on content.

    With a single revenue stream, it’s not really the way to go. It’s taking a little while for the whole media market to shake itself out. It’s all going mobile, it’s all going streaming, digital, and video, so Verizon is going to be left at the gate. I think they’ll change their tune and come back to content. They made some overtures last year about acquiring both CBS and Viacom. It’s not out of the question that they come back and knock both of those into the Verizon pool.


  • You Haven’t Seen a Mass Social Media User Revolt

    You Haven’t Seen a Mass Social Media User Revolt

    The social media space is pretty ripe for disruption says tech investor Geoff Lewis. Lewis likes to invest against the grain, what he calls counter-narrative, and is actively looking at startups in that sector. Lewis says that there has been a lot of noise from regulators but that users are still using social media products. He says that thus far you haven’t seen any sort of mass user revolt.

    Geoff Lewis, the founder of Bedrock Capital and an early tech investor in many companies including Lyft, recently discussed the future of social media and more on CNBC:

    You Haven’t Seen a Mass Social Media User Revolt

    The social media space is pretty ripe for disruption. There’s always this trade-off between privacy and communications and so we want as users and consumers to be able to communicate with our friends and to be connected, but we also want our privacy.

    Then there’s this question of does the privacy thing ever get shifted too far to a point where people revolt? Thus far you haven’t seen any sort of mass user revolt. A lot of the noise has been in the markets with regulators, but the users are still using the product.

    It’s a Narrative Violation to Invest in Social Media

    I actually think it’s a narrative violation to be doing things in social media today as a start-up and what we’re focused on at Bedrock is investing in these companies that are counter-narrative. So I think the idea of investing in a social media business today, especially early stage as a venture capitalist, is very unfashionable.

    So it’s something that we’d be very up for and have been looking at some new companies in that sector.


  • Entrepreneur Jon Taffer: The Common Denominator of Failure is Excuses

    Entrepreneur Jon Taffer: The Common Denominator of Failure is Excuses

    Prolific entrepreneur Jon Taffer who is the producer and host of the popular TV show Bar Rescue says that the most common denominator of failure is excuses.

    “The common denominator of failure is excuses,” says Jon Taffer on an episode of Business Rockstars. “Years ago when I had all my restaurants, we had a line on my daily revenue report for comments. They would write, snowing no business. Then the next day they would write, cold no business. Then the next day they would write, first nice day no business.”

    “I learned that if you give somebody a line for an excuse they will use it every time,” explained Taffer. “So I took the line off the piece of paper because there are no excuses in business. Fact of the matter is when we fail it’s because of us and the choices we make, the decisions we make, the people we hire, and the things we do and don’t do. Passing blame to me is the most influential element of causing failure.”


  • Lance Armstrong Invested Early in Uber and May Now be a Billionaire

    Lance Armstrong Invested Early in Uber and May Now be a Billionaire

    Lance Armstrong says that he was one of the original Uber investors staking them $100,000 at a valuation of just $3.7 million. There are reports that Uber’s projected IPO will value the company at $120 billion. Armstrong wouldn’t say what percent of Uber he still owns but it is conceivable that his stake could be worth $1 billion or more today. Armstrong has battled many lawsuits after his doping admission on Oprah and the Uber investment was key for his family. “It’s worth a lot. It’s saved our family,” he says.

    Lance Armstrong discussed his massive Uber success story in an interview on CNBC:

    Lance Armstrong an Uber Billionaire?

    When I met Chris Sacca he was at either Google or Twitter and Sacca’s personality is larger than life, we were having fun and we kept in touch and then some years later, probably around 2008 or 2009, he left to start his own venture capital fund called Lowercase Capital. He called me said looking for investors, would you invest. I’m thinking to myself this guy has a huge personality but he’s also very smart, very well-connected. Why not?

    Invested $100,000 in Uber at a Valuation of $3.7 Million

    So I invested in Chris Sacca. I didn’t even know that he did Uber. I thought he was buying up a bunch of Twitter shares from employees or former employees and the biggest investment in the Lowercase Fund One was Uber. It had a valuation of $3.7 million. I gave them a hundred thousand bucks. It’s worth a lot. It’s saved our family. I follow Uber very closely.

    I’m Actually Worried About Travis (Kalanick)

    I do know Travis Kalanick a little bit. Chris Sacca brought him to one of the tours. In hindsight, I think Dara has done a great job and with what they’re poised to do it is pretty impressive. I can’t like that (Kalanick’s firing) right, I mean I was that guy. Travis is Uber and Lance is LIVESTRONG. Is there not some hybrid solution here? You’re out of control, time-out? But again, in hindsight, they haven’t missed a beat.

    I’m actually worried about Travis. I’ll email him sometimes because he’ll say things and I’m like dude, I’ve seen this movie and it’s got a real shitty ending. Of course, his ending has a lot of zeros on it. But you can’t question their decision now. I get it man. I get that this is your baby and you want to fight for it and you want to protect it and you will do anything, say anything, do anything, go anywhere, confront anybody, but in this day and age, 2018, you can’t.

  • How to Figure Out What Your Potential Customers Really Want

    How to Figure Out What Your Potential Customers Really Want

    It doesn’t matter how good your product is or whether you offer the best service. Consumers will not purchase it or hire you if they don’t want or need what you’re offering. You also won’t be able to convince anyone of your product’s importance unless you’re clear on what your customers really want.

    A keen understanding of what the customer really wants is at the heart of every successful company. Once you figure out what that is, you can begin to utilize this knowledge to persuade current and prospective customers that buying from your company is their best option.

    Importance of Understanding Customer Needs

    It’s a sad fact that many entrepreneurs and company owners do not always know what their customers need in a product. And according to research conducted by a Fortune 500 consultant, 90 percent of companies are wrong when it comes to what their clients want. This presents a glaring problem since knowing what the customer wants is the first step to ensuring that your product best suits your market.

    Companies should also be able to give a reason as to why a prospect should buy from them and not their rival. This will become your Unique Sales Proposition (USP). For instance, your USP could be the same day delivery you are offering or the 15 percent discount clients who spend more than a certain amount per month in your store can avail. You won’t be able to establish your USP if you don’t know what the client desires.

    The information you have regarding your prospective client can also be used to customize user experience, content, and marketing campaigns.

    How to Figure Out What Potential Customers Want

    Business owners have to realize that they should know more about their target demographic than just the basics if they want to have an advantage over their competitors. So how do you go about this? Here are some suggestions:

    1. Determine Who Your Prospects Are

    Time is a valuable commodity in business and life in general. You don’t want to waste your time selling to someone who doesn’t need your product or service. You need to determine who your customers are so you’ll know who to target. Information like whether they need your product, how badly they need it, and whether they can afford it are crucial.

    2. Discover Their Feelings About the Product

    Once you have determined who your potential client is, you’ll then need to start learning if they’re happy about a particular product or service you offer, and what they want to change about it. You should also know what they want to see in the future with regards to the product. Ask your customer questions like how much they want to change things, what effect they think these changes will have on their lives, and what they’ll feel when they finally get what they want. Never discount your customer’s feelings. You have to appeal to their emotions since 95 percent of consumers make buying decisions based on emotion.

    3. Learn Their Pain Points

    Aside from learning your customer’s hopes and intentions, you also have to discover their pains and frustrations when it comes to products and services. You need to figure out what problem they want you to solve. Know these things:

    • What roadblocks are in the way of reaching their objective?
    • What paths have they taken to overcome these roadblocks?
    • How much do these obstacles frustrate them?
    • What can you do to help?

    It’s crucial that you understand what your customers’ problems are so you can provide the best solution.

    4. Get Customer Feedback Early and Test Often

    It’s always a good idea to get customer feedback quickly and to test your product or solution as early and as often as you can. Do this when you develop new products, upgrade features, or design a new ad campaign. Don’t wait until the product is released to get the customers’ reactions.

    Some companies would release a prototype or conduct a dry run. Having a small, controlled group test out your products early will make it easier to make changes or to realign your goals. Working alongside your customers will save you money since you don’t have to drastically revamp your design or do numerous A/B testing. Your team will also feel better knowing that they are making changes that real clients need.

    5. Pay Attention to Consumers Who Rejected You

    You should also pay attention to those consumers who chose to patronize your competitors. They can provide you with invaluable information on where your product or solution is lacking.

    Ask them for their feedback. Prospects who didn’t like your proposal can give candid answers regarding their reasons for choosing another company. Pay attention if the reason was the price. Was your expensive solution lacking the features your clients need or did it have what they want but the price was prohibitive?

    Understanding what your prospective customers want is a vital part of the sales flow. You’ll need to invest time and effort to really know your target market and what they think before you can even come up with the right solution. Ask your customers the right questions. It will provide you with the right information while also establishing consumer trust.

    [Featured image via Pexels.com]

  • Patrick Bet-David: Patriots and Entrepreneurs Make America Work

    Patrick Bet-David: Patriots and Entrepreneurs Make America Work

    Entrepreneur and successful motivational speaker Patrick Bet-David says that there are two groups who really make America work, Patriots who put their life on the line and entrepreneurs who put their salary on the line. He says that entrepreneurs choose choice over force and despite anxiety, they do it because they don’t want to live an average and ordinary life.

    Social Contacts: @patrickbetdavid / @ValuetainmentTV

    Patrick Bet-David recently posted this motivational speech on his 1 million subscriber YouTube channel Valuetainment: 

    Patriots and Entrepreneurs Make America Work

    You know who makes America work? Let me tell you who makes America work. I think the two people who are patriots in America are our Patriots who put their life on the line, but I think the second Patriots are entrepreneurs who put their salary on the line. You may not put your life on the line but let me tell you something you put your salary on the line. Any entrepreneur knows what I’m referencing when I say put your salary on the line.

    When you have a job and you’re making your three, four, five grand every month consistently. It’s security. You feel it’s security, it’s warm, it’s comfortable. You know you get to have your barbecue once a month, you get to have a decent life, you got some nice benefits. Somebody introduces you to an opportunity and you start working but most don’t, 80 percent don’t. They go back to protecting their salary.

    What Happens When an Entrepreneur Goes to Sleep?

    About 20 percent say man this is scary. They have a conversation with their wife and their family and their husband and they say… baby, I’m gonna make this decision. Babe this is scary, I know baby, and they go to sleep. You know what happens to an entrepreneur when he goes to sleep, he has a lot of anxiety attacks, he has worries, she stresses out, they think about their bills, they see savings deplete. They see all of us these things happen, but do you know why they do it? They do it because they have a dream because they don’t want to live an average and ordinary life and neither do you.

    You don’t have to be here today, you’re not an employee. You chose to be here today. It is your choice to be here today. You chose. Whether you get up and walk out right now we cannot fire you. You have chosen to be in this room today because we prefer CHOICE over FORCE. It is what we as human beings prefer is choice. I want to choose because I want what I want to do to.

    People Come Here to Be Free

    The most honorable jobs any human being could take is being in the military and being an entrepreneur because both of them have a lot of risks. If you in the military you could get killed. If you’re an entrepreneur you could get killed. You don’t do it for the small little things. Both of them have the same outcome. You know what the outcome is for both of them? It starts with the letter F. What is it? Freedom. Why do 41 million immigrants come here and the number two country with 11 million coming here is Russia? Why do people come here? Because we want to be free.

    You Are Responsible for Feeling Special

    I think most companies are talking about whether you the hit your numbers or not. I think most companies are talking about the smaller stuff. What they don’t realize is they’re gonna live 80 years and then they’ll die. No one will remember them but a few people and within two generations they’re forgotten and history will not favor them. I mean, I don’t see a purpose in that. I really don’t think the Creator gave you all those unique gifts that you got just to go out and be a regular person. I don’t and I don’t think you do either.

    I think when you’re alone by yourself and you kind of talking to yourself in the car, in front of the mirror, and you think you really are special. Guess what you really are special. But you only believe that for a split second and then you go back to feeling like you’re not special. So we’ve got to get you to feel like you’re special more often. You are responsible for that.

  • How Will New USMCA Trade Agreement Affect Small Business?

    How Will New USMCA Trade Agreement Affect Small Business?

    The United States, Mexico, and Canada finally wrapped up months of negotiations and finalized a new trade deal a few hours short of its Oct. 1 deadline. The US Congress still has to approve the deal but all signs point to its ratification, with the USMCA set to take effect by January 1, 2020. But how will this new agreement affect small businesses?

    Key Changes Between USMCA and NAFTA

    Taking away all the comparisons being made about NAFTA and the USMCA, the bottom line is that the new trade agreement does have several key changes. The first one deals with the automobile industry. Under the USMCA, 75 percent of a vehicle’s content should come from North America in order to avoid tariffs. This will cut down on the number of parts being imported from Asia. The agreement also states that by 2023, 40 to 45 percent of production should be made by workers who are receiving an average of $16 or more an hour. That hourly wage is definitely higher than conventional salary levels in Mexico.

    There are also a number of vital agricultural concessions in the new deal. For instance, Canada will be giving American dairy producers access to 3.6 percent of its market. This change could potentially be worth around $70 million in trade. In return, the US will also give its neighbor increased access to its agricultural market, including peanuts and sugar and all its related products.

    The USMCA also introduces a sunset clause. According to this, the countries involved will renew the agreement every 16 years.

    How the New Agreement Will Affect Small Businesses and eCommerce

    Online retailers and small American businesses will be affected by the deal’s enhanced trade policies. One change that the three countries have agreed on is the increase in their “de minimis.” This refers to the level at which imported products are exempted from taxes, customs documentation, and duty collection.   

    Under the USMCA, Mexico will be doubling its de minimis from $50 to $100 and Canada from C$20 to C$40. The U.S’ threshold remains the same. This means Canadian consumers won’t have to pay duty for cross-border online orders that are less than C$150 while Mexican customers will enjoy duty-free online orders for products $117 or lower.

    A fact sheet provided by the Office of the U.S Trade Representative shows that the new agreement will also make the processing of shipment orders across the three states go faster, allowing small and medium-sized businesses to engage in more cross-border trading.

    SMEs usually don’t have the resources to pay for customs taxes and duties, but they shoulder the compliance costs that low de minimis have on low-value shipments. The policy changes will give SMEs and new traders to Canadian and Mexican markets the opportunity to reach more customers at lower costs. Express delivery carriers will also benefit since they carry the bulk of low-value shipments.

    Groups like the National Retail Federation are supportive of the raised de minimis threshold as it can improve sales across the borders. But eBay says that the USMCA’s customs provisions are not enough. It claims that it could lead to confusion among small businesses since express and postal shipments will be treated differently and there’ll be different collection rules based on the value levels.

    [Featured image via calendar.in.gov]

  • Amazon Makes a Serious Bid for Regional Sports Networks

    Amazon Makes a Serious Bid for Regional Sports Networks

    Despite Jeff Bezos’ recent admission that Amazon will eventually fail, the company plans to stave off its demise by investing in as many markets as possible. Aside from being the world’s largest eCommerce enterprise, Amazon also has its tentacles in sectors like on-demand cloud computing, pharmaceuticals, and even more recently, banking. Now it wants to venture into sports broadcasting. The retail giant has reportedly filed a bid to acquire the 22 sports television networks that Disney is offloading. The move is seen as Amazon’s attempt to further develop its live video offerings.

    CNBC reported several companies have placed bids for those sports networks, which were once under 21st Century Fox. Aside from Amazon, Apollo Global Management, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, KKR, Tegna, and The Blackstone Group also made offers.

    Surprisingly, New Fox was not among the first-round bidders. The company was founded after Disney shelled out $71.3 billion to acquire 21st Century Fox’s assets this year. The sports networks were initially among the assets Disney paid for. These assets included the YES Network, which shows games of the New York Yankees, as well as other channels that broadcast regional games from different professional leagues like the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball.

    According to reports, the House of Mouse allegedly wanted to partner these networks with their just launched ESPN+. However, the Justice Department ruling required the company to sell the networks before the Fox deal could be completed to avoid antitrust issues.

    New Fox was a strong contender to buy back the channels. Lachlan Murdoch, Fox’s CEO, had previously confirmed that he was keen on getting back the networks, which made the company’s absence in the bidding glaringly conspicuous. However, Fox might submit a bid in the next round, which is scheduled before the end of the year.

    Media companies will be keeping a close eye on Amazon though. The prospect of an additional 22 networks in Amazon’s Prime Video service will boost its live-streaming power and could potentially change the television landscape.

    More importantly, sports programming still has a strong viewership and brings in massive revenue. In fact, it generates the most revenue for the $70 billion television ad industry. The popularity of live sports also means that having major sports leagues like the MLB and NBA on the roster will enhance the value of the Amazon Prime Video service and could compel more people to subscribe.

    Jeff Bezos’ company hasn’t exactly been hiding its interest in incorporating live sports in its streaming offer. Amazon has already closed deals to broadcast Thursday Night Football and 20 of the United Kingdom’s Premier League soccer matches in 2019.

    If Amazon does go into sports broadcasting, tech companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google might also make a move on sporting rights just to remain competitive.

    Acquiring Disney’s sports channels also provides a number of opportunities for Amazon. The eCommerce giant can phase out these cable networks and offer the live games either exclusively to Prime subscribers or as an add-on to the Amazon Channel. It also gives Amazon a larger advertising playground. Moreover, they will have a wider market to showcase all their products and services.

    Amazon has not made any official comments regarding its foray into sports broadcasting. But it’s guaranteed that the traditional media companies and Amazon Prime subscribers will be watching closely to see if the company will emerge victorious.

    [Featured image via Amazon]

  • LendingClub CEO Working to Turn It Into a Financial Health Club

    LendingClub CEO Working to Turn It Into a Financial Health Club

    The CEO of LendingClub, Scott Sanborn, says that they are really looking to make membership in the club mean something and are working to take Lending Club and turn it into a ‘financial health club’ that will help people successfully manage expenses. He says that LendingClub helps by shining a spotlight on credit card debt which is the first step to doing something about it.

    Scott Sanborn, LendingClub CEO, discussed the business with Investor’s Business Daily:

    A Looming Crisis in People’s Overall Financial Health

    We are seeing really an epidemic happening which is incomes have been stagnant for more than 20 years. All of people’s major expenses, healthcare, college, housing, is going up and it’s creating a real looming crisis in people’s overall financial health and it’s something that people just aren’t talking about. Close to half of Americans have credit card debts and they are more than twice as likely to talk about spousal infidelity than they are about the fact that they have credit card debt that they need to manage. We believe that by shining a spotlight on the problem it’s the first step to helping people do something about it.

    The first core thing we’re doing is we help people who have credit card debts pay that off with a healthier form of debt. Credit cards are now at a record high-interest rate average of about 19 percent. We allow them to pay that off with a fixed rate, fixed payment installment loan that will be paid off in a defined period of time so that they’re not caught in the minimum payment trap. It’s healthier for their overall credit profile.

    Turning Lending Club Into a Financial Health Club

    As we’ve been working with consumers to solve this problem we’ve increasingly been finding ways to actually do it even better. We launched last year the ability as part of the loan application to directly pay off the credit cards through the process. Instead of giving you the money, asking you to turn around and take care of it, we do it directly. In exchange, if you elect to do that we’ll give you a lower rate, essentially incent you to do it and make it easy for you to do it.

    The bigger picture in the course of time is we’re really looking to make membership in the club mean something and take Lending Club and turn it into really a financial health club and do more for people to help them manage these expenses.

  • Amazon is Destined to Fail, Says Company CEO Jeff Bezos

    Amazon is Destined to Fail, Says Company CEO Jeff Bezos

    Amazon will fail. That is the surprising admission that Jeff Bezos made to his employees last week during an all-hands meeting. However, Amazon’s CEO isn’t ready to see that happening anytime soon.

    In a recording that CNBC was privy too, 54-year-old business mogul Bezos said that “Amazon is not too big to fail.” He even made a prediction that his company will inevitably fail after an employee asked about his thoughts on the Sears bankruptcy.

    “Amazon will go bankrupt,” Bezos said. “If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years.”

    It’s a little hard to imagine Amazon going under, especially when you consider that it’s valued at almost $3 trillion. However, retail history is against the company. One investor posited that all retailers would eventually go bankrupt. And while certain companies become popular, they would eventually fail to adapt, causing the business to decline and fold. Retailers that have been able to adjust and change with the times are considered exceptions.

    Amazon has so far shown its adaptability. It has given consumers what they wanted by effectively utilizing logistics and technology. But as it exceeds its revenue threshold, it will have a harder time finding alternative profit sources. At this point, there aren’t enough people or subscribers left to double their Prime membership. It has to find other avenues that it can bring online instead, like grocery or banking.

    Don’t expect Bezos to throw in the towel anytime soon, though. The investor said that Amazon’s goal now is to put off that failure for as long as possible by focusing on the consumers. According to Bezos, if the company starts to “focus on ourselves, instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end.”

    But customer focus is the least of Amazon’s worries, as the company is renowned for their obsession with keeping their clients happy. However, possible antitrust violations and government regulations are fast becoming a concern for Amazon.

    Bezos understands this but acknowledges that with Amazon’s size, it’s reasonable to expect that it will be closely scrutinized.

    Despite the scrutiny, Amazon’s expansion still continues. The company recently announced the two new locations it has chosen for secondary headquarters. The new “H2s,” as people have dubbed it, will be built in Queens, NY, and in Arlington, VA, with Amazon expected to hire about 50,000 employees.

    [Featured image via YouTube]

  • Booster Brings On-Demand Business Model to Gasoline

    Booster Brings On-Demand Business Model to Gasoline

    Imagine just clicking a button on an app and having your cars gas tank filled while you are working at the office. That’s what Booster Fuels is currently doing. Booster has brought the on-demand business model to fuel and it’s extremely popular in its launch markets of SF Bay, San Diego, and Dallas-Fort Worth areas. Booster Fuels co-founder and CEO Frank Maycroft says that they are selling over $180,000 per day in just those three markets and have plans to expand nationwide.

    Frank Maycroft, CEO and co-founder of Booster Fuels, talked about the companies business model and technology on CNBC:

    Push a Button for Same-Day Free Delivery Gasoline

    Amazon set a new expectation for retail. People want to push a button and get same-day free delivery. What we are able to do now is the same thing for gasoline. When you think about a gas station it hasn’t changed much in 50 years. The concept is really taking the old-world industry and leveraging mobile technology, machine learning technology to allow us to deliver gas to people without any of the inconvenience.

    We are the only company quietly roaming through parking lots looking for cars. The truck that does that has to fit within a single parking spot, has to maneuver as well as a small car, has to be connected to the cloud and communicating with all of the other mobile distributed gas stations in the Booster fleet.

    A Million Deliveries and $180,000 a Day in Revenue

    We’ve done more than a million deliveries company-wide and we will do about $180,000 of revenue in a single day. Anybody can make it so that you can push a button and get gas, but doing that in a way that doesn’t cost more than the gas station is incredibly hard. We didn’t want to have to build a subscription service. We didn’t want to have to charge fees. Our belief is service everyone by charging the same price and focus on where cars go all the time, parking lots.

    To really be inventive today you have to start from scratch with the context of what would this have looked like if you started it in the 21st Century? It’s hardware with embedded systems with software that’s communicating to the cloud, it’s procurement of fuel, it’s pricing to customers. When it all comes together that’s where the magic is.

    People Spend More on Gasoline Than They Do For All of Ecommerce.

    We like to be realists that when you look out your window there are gas-powered vehicles and that’s going to be here for a very long time. Let’s make them 3-5 percent better by improving the supply chain, reducing emissions, and reducing miles traveled.

    People spend more on gasoline than they do for all of ecommerce. People spend almost as much on gasoline as they do on groceries as a category. At the same time, we do look at alternative energy solutions. Nothing stops us from doing the same service for electric vehicles or other alternatives. It’s all based on the same technology investment, software, routing, logistics, that works for fuel.

    Nine out of ten Americans still drive to work and are either going to or coming from suburbs. Imagine ten years from now not having to think about gasoline or energy in general or things in general just getting to you where it’s most convenient for us to deliver to, most convenient for you to get it, and most cost-effective for the entire ecosystem. I think that is the way that the world is moving.

    How Booster Works:

  • Jason Calacanis: This Could Be Facebook’s AOL Peak, Their Yahoo Peak

    Jason Calacanis: This Could Be Facebook’s AOL Peak, Their Yahoo Peak

    Internet entrepreneur and investor Jason Calacanis suggests that Facebook may go the way of AOL and Yahoo. “This could be, it’s possible, maybe not probable but possible, this could be their AOL peak, their Yahoo peak,” said Calacanis. “I think this could be peak Facebook right now.”

    Jason Calacanis, Internet entrepreneur and angel investor in over 150 startups including Uber, Evernote, and Tumblr, discussed the current Facebook crisis on CNBC:

    This is a Pretty Serious Crisis

    This is a pretty serious crisis. If you look at the stakeholders involved, shareholders obviously no longer want to hold the stock and you’re seeing the stock collapse. If you look at employee morale it’s incredibly low. Founders who sold their company to Facebook, to Zuckerberg, and made billions of dollars have been incredibly critical of Mark Zuckerberg, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. You give somebody a couple of billion dollars and then they criticize you on the way out the door, it’s pretty unheard of.

    Advertisers Still Love the Platform

    But advertisers still love the platform. Anecdotally, the companies I work with, private companies, it is the only game in town to reach users at this level of scale. One has to wonder if the fourth constituent, which is governments around the world, are going to put up with their democracies being compromised. You put those four stakeholders together and this is a true crisis for Facebook.

    This could be, it’s possible, maybe not probable but possible, this could be their AOL peak, their Yahoo peak. Those companies peaked with hundreds of millions of users, and in AOL’s case 30 million plus paid users, and it took a decade or two for those companies to deprecate.

    People Are Realizing That This is Not a Positive for Society

    Facebook’s on a whole different scale with two and a half billion people, so I don’t think they’re going anywhere anytime soon. The advertisers still love it and the advertisers are going to always go to the platform that has the lowest customer acquisition cost. But this is a crisis amongst the executives and the people who work there and I think people are starting to realize that net-net this is not a positive for society. Put it all together and you don’t want to own the stock and you don’t want to work at the company, so that’s pretty dark when you think about it.

    This Could Be Peak Facebook Right Now

    I don’t know that there’s an easy solution other than grinding it out for the next three or four years just like they did with the mobile problem. They couldn’t figure out mobile advertising and they figured that out so maybe they’ll figure this out. But I think this could be peak Facebook right now.

  • Steve Case: Facebook Needs to Pivot and Recognize They’re Not in the Garage Anymore

    Steve Case: Facebook Needs to Pivot and Recognize They’re Not in the Garage Anymore

    AOL co-founder Steve Case says that Facebook needs to pivot and recognize that they are not in the garage anymore. Case sees some of this as a backlash against big tech, which he predicted a few years ago in his book The Third Wave. As companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon become more important it is critical for them to engage more at the policy level.

    Steve Case, CEO of Revolution and AOL co-founder, talked about Facebook’s response to the explosive New York Times article on CNBC:

    People Are Looking for the Actions to Follow the Intent

    The New York Times report was obviously very troubling. It’s a great company and I know Mark and Sheryl have done a fabulous job of building not only one of the most valuable companies in the world but also one of the most impactful companies the world. It has had a significant impact not just on business but on society, even in terms of politics. They have to understand that they do shoulder a great responsibility and hopefully they will make the moves necessary. They have the right intent, they’ve been clear about the intent. I think a lot of people are looking for the actions now to follow the intent and hopefully, in the coming weeks and months, we’ll see more of that.

    Expected This Backlash Against Big Tech

    Some of this backlash against big tech, backlash against Silicon Valley, I frankly expected that for several years. I wrote a book a couple years ago that’s called The Third Wave and talked about it. As these companies become more and more important and have more and more impact, engaging more on the policy level is going to be critical.

    In the next wave of innovation, the policy issues, the regulatory issues, whether it be on the platform side of the internet or in healthcare or other other sectors of our economy, the entrepreneurs, the innovators need to engage with the policy makers and the regulators. Entrepreneurs don’t like to do that because they just like to have the freedom of action to move quickly, and that’s understandable. But the nature of the kind of issues we’re now dealing with, the opportunities we’re trying to deal with does require more of that engagement. Facebook is seeing that and Google’s seeing that and other companies will see that as well.

    That’s going to do really define the winners in this next 10 or 20 years, the ones that are innovating and moving quickly but doing it in a way that is understanding they’re living in a broader context and are more respectful of the role of policy.

    Facebook Needs to Pivot and Recognize They’re Not in the Garage Anymore

    Facebook’s a great company, Google is a great company, Amazon’s a great company, they’re a lot of great companies out there. They’re going to still be a magnet for talent but it does become more difficult as you get larger. It does become more difficult when your company is attacked.

    A few years ago everybody felt proud to be associated with Facebook and now some at the company, so the reports suggest, are a little more anxious. We’ve seen that in other large companies as well. Some of that this comes with the scale of going from a startup to a speed up to one of the most important companies in the world.

    This is one of the reasons, but not the only reason, that they need to pivot and recognize they’re not in the garage anymore, it’s not a startup anymore. They have significant civic responsibilities and if they implement those appropriately they’ll be able to attract and keep people and attract and keep customers and that’s a key part of what they need to focus on.

  • Microsoft Rolls Out Tool for Brands to Build Their Own AI-Powered Virtual Assistant

    Microsoft Rolls Out Tool for Brands to Build Their Own AI-Powered Virtual Assistant

    It’s been a busy week for Microsoft. The company launched an open source system for designing virtual assistants and also revealed several updates to its conversational AI solutions.

    Microsoft showed several realistic ways that customers can use artificial intelligence in a just-concluded event in San Francisco. The company also spoke about how brands should integrate AI into their business processes and touched on the obstacles that come with adopting AI technology. Citing a Gartner report, the Redmond-based company pointed out that only four percent of CIOs are using AI technology while 70 percent of businesses lack the skills and support to do so.

    In order to make AI accessible and easier to use, Microsoft has launched its virtual assistant accelerator on Github. This is basically a template with integrated pre-made skills that can be utilized to answer basic questions or locate local services by using conversational AI and the Microsoft Bot framework. The solutions accelerator also comes with a calendar, linked accounts, a to-do skill, and points of interest feature.

    In a blog post, Lili Cheng, Corporate VP of AI, explained that the company believes that their “virtual assistant solution accelerator simplifies the creation of your own assistant enabling you to get started in minutes.” Cheng also emphasized the control their customers will have and how even the VA’s “name, voice, and personality can be changed to suit the organization’s needs.”

    Cheng also admitted in an interview that the company has “reworked a lot of the tooling” to provide companies with better solutions and support. To that end, Microsoft has upgraded the Translator API and Azure Cognitive Services‘ text-to-speech synthesis. It has also rolled out container support for the latter, which will enable developers to add capabilities like object detection and language understanding in their applications even without having any data science skills.

    Microsoft also announced its acquisition of Botkit creator XOXCO and an Azure Machine Learning Integration for the Power BI software.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]