A cure for the Summertime Blues?

I think all entrepreneurs work pretty hard, also at times normal people might be on vacation (i.e. pretty much right now in Norway). Sometimes it can feel like being the last kid in the classroom, solving math problems while hearing the sounds of playing outside. In fact, I don't think I was ever that kid (I counted on the last minute stress to get me results), but I think I can claim to be the metaphorical one at times, working long nights and cutting a few days of holiday trying to build a product and a company.

When the results of the extra efforts are not evident and short term in nature, it is easy to get a bit of a Summertime Blues feeling. But then, even if things take longer than you hope, I still believe in one of my favorite sayings - often attributed to Bloomberg: The harder you work, the luckier you get. And this Saturday our TapBookAuthor.com company was featured, through an interview with me, in Finansavisen - one of our two major business newspapers in Norway. Below you can find a snap of the article.

So even if customers coming shuffling in (we got at least two new paying customers this summer!) is a stronger cure for the summertime blues, a bit of publicity does not hurt either. So Eddie Cochran was not right, there IS a cure for the summertime blues (playing the song also helps, in fact!).

And to prove I can be, or try to be at least, the cool kid not being stuck in the classroom; in a week I will go to Bali surfing. Almost offline.

All of Facebook's growth comes from mobile

Facebook had an earnings call, and Business Insider has put together a chart showing their composition of revenue sources:


Quite simply: Absolutely all their revenue growth the last few years comes from mobile. BI focuses on how well they have managed the transition into being mobile-centric, which is true. In any case it is stunning how important the mobile part is for Facebook in particular and ad revenue in general.

Imperfections of personalized advertising

I am pretty excited about the possibilities of blending online and physical traces to deliver more relevant content and ads. So Kjartan and the guys at Unacast are chasing a huge opportunity for sure.

That being said, there are certainly smaller fish to fry - so to speak - first, because even the current cutting edge personalization engines (of the likes of Google) are so far from perfect.  I would even say they are totally broken. A few samples from the last two weeks:

• I was on a day trip to a city in the south of our country last week. On the airport I briefly checked if it made sense to rent a car instead of jump into a taxi or bus (I was picked up in the customer's Tesla in the end...). Since then, there have been ads for car rental in that particular city all over the Internet. 
• The last thing I bought on DX.com is shown me all the time, and the same applies to my last MPX.no purchase. Since I just bought these things, the ads are less relevant than ever.
• My Google Apps CRM shows up in ads for me all over the place, even if I am already using it daily.

As an engineer, I have no problem understanding that it is difficult to know what is (still) relevant for me. Some of the cases would require deep integration into ecommerce systems connected to ad platforms, and possibly raise additional privacy issues. But as it is, I would say that personalization in these cases make the ads less valuable than if they were not personalized. 

So before having my browsing of cars in the physical world affect the ads I see online, I would like to see the more basic problem fixed. Maybe the solution will come from the same provider (and I am sure it will be bought by Google) that cracks the "beacon code"?

Running like a gazelle

I am proud that my company qualified for the so called gazelle list of Norway's main business newspaper, DN, based on 2013 numbers. Today I got the physical proof in house:

Out to buy a frame! :) And then on to make our product company behind TapBookAuthor.com a gazelle in 2017!

Singapore Sling(shot)

We are continuing our internationalization efforts with TapBookAuthor.com. Most recently with participation in Innovation Norway’s Tech Incubator program at JFDI in Singapore. So for the next three weeks, I am discussing with potential partners and collaborators in the South East Asian market.

I am old (or young?) enough to be truly amazed by how global the world has become (I wrote a separate post on the practicalities of this globalization for a small firm some time ago). Tomorrow I am meeting a potential partner that contacted me about two years ago and we have done several Skype demos and project discussions in the meantime. Still - even with all our electronic tools, there is nothing like meeting face to face, so exciting day tomorrow.

If you happen to read this and are in the area and want to meet for a coffee to discuss something interesting, give me a ping (+47 91741574, sbjorneb on Skype or on local cellphone +65 9166 5766).

Five Fine Years

Today it is five years since I quit my job to run my own company as a full time gig. It is quite different from doing some product development things on the side with the employer's blessing or in addition to studying as I did back in the days... You can't be half pregnant and it is hard to be a part-time entrepreneur as well.

Even if things may not have "taken off" by some measures (and some of the first products truly never got out of the phase with a few pilot customers), I am extremely proud of what we have been able to do with TapBookAuthor.com with no external funding since 2011. All the major publishers in Norway are customers and we also have customers in exotic, and less exotic such as San Francisco and London, places all over the world.

Today I met with an author that was so inspired by our tool that she was shivering from the opportunities it opened (we are working on our business model and technology to help indie and stand-alone publisher-authors, and are running a beta program to learn more). Such experiences makes it easy to find motivation for an extra long night of working (I've had my share of such late working nights, or to paraphrase Joey from good-ol' Friends: Actually, I've had a lot of people's share!).

If you read this and are considering to do the same and start your own company, should you do it? I will not claim it is easy and I am still not quite used to the insecurity of not knowing the economical situation just a few months into the future. That being said, I can honestly say I have never regretted jumping. So I would say jump, get the experience and find out for real if it is your thing. And unlike being pregnant, there is even a way back if it should not work out for you. Good luck!

Food for conspiracy theories

So, according to the WSJ Google is buying a maker of solar-powered drones. They are also talking to other companies in the sphere (pun semi-intended, semi-working).

It would not fit very well with the mantra of "Don't do evil" for Larry to go crazy and mount guns on these drones, but even without the craziest ideas it makes me a tiny bit uneasy knowing the same company may know where I am (GPS from mobile phone) and be able to record me from a drone with extremely sharp eyes. That company better have decent privacy policies and be strict with relevant governments and agencies...