Conferintele Nationale de eCommerce 2012

Maine incep Conferintele Nationale de eCommerce 2012, unul dintre putinele evenimente care se focuseaza exclusiv pe zona de comert electronic in Romania.

Evenimentul pune la un loc participanti din toate zonele implicate in comertul electronic: magazine online; antreprenori; banci; procesatori de plati; dezvoltatori, programatori si specialisti SEO; furnizori de servicii si solutii e-commerce; advertiseri; retele de marketing afiliat; site-uri de reduceri colective; consultanti; agentii de comunicare si marketing online.

Experienta solida a organizatorilor in zona de ecommerce recomanda Conferintele Nationale de eCommerce drept evenimentul de referinta al comertului electronic din Romania – alaturi de Gala Premiilor in eCommerce. Un motiv in plus ca, daca esti implicat la vreun nivel in ecommerce, sa nu ratezi participarea.

Ce ar trebui sa te astepti sa gasesti la Conferinte:

Normalitate in blogosfera din RO?

Am prins de la Manafu  o intamplare  si am fost curios sa vad despre ce este vorba: un blogger din .RO si-a spalat rufele in public pe Twitter. Pana aici nimic nou/grav, suntem cu totii oameni si avem cu totii momente; si stim cu totii ca pe Internet este foarte usor sa dai frau liber sentimentelor. Respectivul blogger insa facea parte dintr-o echipa ce endorsa un brand puternic in zona de mobile, Samsung.

Aici lucrurile merg in zona gri/neagra din motive evidente: ca brand nu doresti/poti sa te asociezi cu elemente care nu se aliniaza principiilor tale, misiunii si viziunii pe care ti-ai setat-o. Ca urmare, a venit si decizia (logica!) a brandului de a renunta la parteneriatul cu bloggerul respectiv. Cam asta ar fi INTRIGA din povestea asta.

Desfasurarea actiunii consta in argumente pro si contra aduse pe aceasta tema din partea sustinatorilor ambelor tabere: e normal ca un brand ce se respecta sa denunte un astfel de comportament? Eu cred ca da. Este simplu: hai sa ne uitam la ce i s-a intamplat lui Tiger Woods in momentul in care a dat-o in bara – a fost pur si simplu crucificat in media si partenerii sai si-au retras sprijinul si s-au departat de jucator. Si, vb ceea, nu era neica nimeni, era Tiger Woods!

Toata intamplarea mi se pare cruciala in contextul blogosferei romanesti: denota o maturizare din partea clientilor de social media din Romania si o evolutie clara in acest mediu de comunicare.

E un semnal ca brandurile nu mai sunt dispuse sa suporte orice din partea persoanelor cu influenta puternica online, doar de teama ca vor suporta repercursiunile specifice (postari negative la adresa brandului, crearea de hate-groups, etc). Inca un mare plus este ca aceste “intepaturi” n-au venit in acest conflict, lucru care denota o oarecare maturitate si profesionalism din partea bloggerului vizat (asta in ciuda derapajului anterior).

Felicitari Samsung pentru atitudine, avem nevoie ca brandurile sa isi pastreze verticalitatea daca vrem ca blogosfera romaneasca sa creasca.

PS: ce mi se pare usor ciudat este indignarea unor colegi de breasla a bloggerului respectiv vizavi de masura luata; trebuie sa intelegeti ca problema de baza NU ESTE ca Samsung a plecat urechea la ce a spus un “grup vesel” ci problema adevarata ESTE ca un endorser al unui brand a ignorat valorile acelui brand.

PS2: cu tot respectul pentru Cristi (Manafu), n-am inteles din  postarea lui  care ii este pozitia. Mai ales ca el este unul dintre cei care nu a avut astfel de derapaje de-a lungul timpului.

Rezultatele Apple Q2 2012

Tocmai am aflat via BusinessInsider:

VENITURI: 39.2 miliarde USD (fata de asteptari care erau la 36.81 miliarde)

EPS (earnings per share): 12.3 USD (fata de 10.06)

VANZARI IPHONE: 35.1 milioane  (fata de 30.5 milioane)

VANZARI IPAD: 11.8 milioane  (fata de 13 milioane)

VANZARI MAC: 4 milioane  (fata de 4.4 milioane)

Daca inca n-ati cascat gura la cifrele de mai sus (asa cum am facut eu), o veti face la urmatoarele cifre:

GROSS MARGIN: 47.4%

TOTAL CASH: 110 miliarde USD 

PROFIT: +94% 

VANZARI IPHONE: +88% 

INTERNATIONAL SALES = 64% DIN VENITURI  (deci Apple nu mai e un “moft” al americanilor)

Dupa postul asta si precedentul parca iti vine sa te apuci de crescut vaci pe plaja, nu?

Sursa: Business Insider

Investiile in tehnologie (si online)

De foarte multe ori de cand am pornit Digital4 m-am intrebat daca nu cumva noi, antreprenorii din online-ul romanesc, nu suntem niste visatori incurabili incapabili sa faca pasul catre lumea fantastica a Silicon Valley-ului (asa cum au facut Emi sau Vladimir sau alti cativa – foarte putini). Tranzactii de milioane miliarde de dolari, produse cu evolutii incredibile in 1-2 ani de zile, un Facebook cu 900 milioane de utilizatori pe luna – SFuri, nene!

Anyway, azi am dat peste un articol care m-a ajutat sa imi reamintesc de ce este online-ul o industrie infloritoare in US si care este principalul motiv pentru care se “arunca” sume fabuloase pe proiecte cvasi-incipiente. Comparatie:

Achizitia anului in online-ul romanesc 2012: Ringier achizitioneaza eJobs, se estimeaza un multiplicator 10-15 EBITDA care este pe la 1 milion de EUR pt 2010. Deci vorbim de un 15 milioane de EUR. Totul bine si frumos, estimam ca founderii au facut banuti frumosi, in zona milioanelor de EUR.

O investitie “random” in Instagram:  250 000 USD investiti acum 2 ani in seed round, evaluare actuala (dupa achizitia de catre Facebook): 78 000 000 USD. Sa calculam ROI? Multiplu de EBITDA? Mai simplu: au multiplicat investitia de 312 ori. Si asta in conditiile in care nu s-a mai  participat la  runda B din motive de ETICA (!!!).

In concluzie: cred ca va este clar si voua, ca si mie, de unde apare gap-ul intre investitiile in online/tech din Romania si Silicon Valley.

Two years ago we invested $250,000 in Instagram. Thanks to the spectacular vision and effort of Kevin Systrom and the Instagram team, the investment will be worth $78,000,000 when the Faceboook acquisition closes. The work that Kevin and team did will go down as legend in the industry and we thank them immensely. We also thank our co-investors Steve Anderson of Baseline and Matt Cohler of Benchmark.

Despite Instagram’s awesome performance and our monstrous return, a number of articles have come out criticizing us for not making even more money on our investment. Ordinarily, when someone criticizes me for only making 312 times my money, I let the logic of their statement speak for itself. However, in this case, the narrative that some critics put forth has the nasty side effect of casting two outstanding entrepreneurs—Kevin and Dalton Caldwell—in an unfair light and glosses over an important ethical issue that we faced. As a result, I will clarify what happened and why we didn’t make even more money.

When we invested in Instagram, it wasn’t actually Instagram. It was a company called Burbn, and the idea was roughly to build a mobile micro blogging service. Technologically, it was also different: an HTML 5 application rather than a native app. As Kevin iterated on Burbn, we made another investment in an excellent entrepreneur, Dalton Caldwell. Dalton’s company, Mixed Media Labs, initially built a product called PicPlz. PicPlz aimed to be a mobile photo sharing service built on its own social graph. Furthermore, the graph would be public like Twitter rather than private like Facebook.

Subsequently, Kevin noticed that while Burbn wasn’t taking off, the photo-sharing component of it was doing quite well. As a result, he pivoted Burbn into Instagram, which then competed directly with PicPlz. It’s important to note that Kevin did not steal Dalton’s idea—Kevin came to it organically based on the Burbn data.

Still, we needed to make a decision. Should we fund the venture round of PicPlz, Instagram, both or neither? We loved both entrepreneurs, but they were building the exact same product. Since we were less than a year old ourselves at the time, this kind of conflict—which happens frequently in the venture capital business as companies evolve—was brand new to us.

Here’s how it looked then:

• We liked both entrepreneurs very much, so there was no issue there—we would gladly back either.
• Instagram’s numbers were much better at the time as it had already begun its rocket run.
• From the perspective of the entrepreneurs, we’d invested in Dalton when he planned to build a photo sharing service, but we’d invested in a different initial product from Kevin.

After speaking with both entrepreneurs and much internal discussion, we concluded that funding Kevin to compete with Dalton would be a violation of the original implicit commitment we made to Dalton—to not fund competitors to PicPlz. On the other hand, funding Dalton did not violate our implicit agreement with Kevin because he changed his business—we’d funded Burbn not Instagram.

So our choices were: a) invest in Dalton b) invest in neither or c) invest in Kevin and violate our commitment to Dalton. As soon as we fully recognized those were the choices, we ruled out option c and elected option a.

However, we still had a problem: because we had invested in Kevin’s seed round, we had both information rights and pro rata rights to the series B. These are important and valuable rights, but it seemed completely unethical to us to exercise them since we funded a competitor. As a result, we unilaterally and without compensation or consideration gave Kevin back those rights and did not invest further in Instagram.

And that’s the thing that we did that many writers think was really stupid. Despite that, if we had to do it again, we would.

Apple si Samsung – singurii care conteaza pe smartphones

Excelenta imagine la zi a pietei de smartphones – se vede clar suprematia Samsung si Apple fata de ceilalti competitori.

De Asymco via SAI