Lessons of Flickr

Financial Times has a short story about the lessons of Flickr as a startup and "the rise of a new kind of Internet entrepreneur."

Dependence on outside funding seems to be waning, open-source tools lower "barriers to entry for aspiring web entrepreneurs," "start-ups do not need to break the bank to create an IT infrastructure," blogs and other social networks provide efficient out-bound marketing, and "the latest generation of internet entrepreneurs have plenty of exit options available."

Marsh's Harsh Review

Rob Marsh writes a harsh review of Paul Arden's Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite. I did read the book last week and found it had some redeeming qualities. Marsh may be expecting too much, and Arden may be delivering on something other than what Marsh seems to be expecting.

Mobile Ads

A recent Wall Street Journal article by Amol Sharma features AdMob's system for placing ads on content directed to mobile users. (Subscription may be required to view this article.)

AdMob connects content providers and advertisers. Since advertisers cannot negotiate with individual operators or content providers for ad placements, AdMob has a market position well-suited for growth.

Under AdMob's system, as with Google's on the Internet, advertisers pay
only when a user clicks on the link. Advertisers go to AdMob's Web
site, fill out a form, and make a bid for a click in one of several
categories, such as news, entertainment or communities. The bids for a
click generally range from five cents to a dollar.

Surveys show that reception to mobile ads remains mixed even when some benefits accompany an expressed willingness to view the ads. Consumer studies completed in August of 2006 show that some 51% of mobile users do not want to receive any ads at all even if they can get free applications for their mobile devices.

Where To Look For Business Issues In India?

If you are looking for scholarly work on business environment in India, you may want to turn to Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

India's Legal Environment for Businesses

Will India's legal environment improve for businesses?

Foreign Investment in Indian Property

Real estate investment in India begins to up to foreigners.

A couple of finance reports

A couple of finance reports this weekend are worth noting.

Mandarin in Bogota

Business opportunities bring Mandarin to Bogota.

Harvesting Market Chatter for Hedge Funds

Monitor110 harvests market chatter for hedge funds. "[I]t tickers the unstructured universe," according to Roger Ehrenberg, its chief operating officer. (See the related FT report.)

Mortgages to Credit Cards

Financial markets for consumer products from mortgages to credit cards are changing with the click-to-compare services. Comparison websites ("aggregators") can displaly hundreds of options. To provide these services, "screen scaping" techniques are used to take data from other websites.

Here are some samples:

Moneysupermarket.com
Peopleschampion.com
USwitch.com
Simplyswitch.co.uk

Shunning the IPO

An excellent Financial Times article tells us why many good Web 2.0 companies are shunning the venture capitalists and the IPOs:

Not only are they not turning on the taps of venture capital, the new companies are avoiding the stock market. Many of the entrepreneurs in the latest boom were around during Nasdaq’s collapse after 2000 when investor confidence in the technological sea change – which appeared to be coming from Silicon Valley and which had built up spectacularly in the late 1990s – suddenly evaporated.

Are Entrepreneurs Born or Bred

Guy Clapperton of the Guardian explores whether entrepreneurship is a born or bred trait.

Clapperton examines several real-life cases involving entrepreneurship in family lines and outside of family lines.

He also summarizes a recent study by Panasonic:

Panasonic recently commissioned research into what people who have the ability and motivation to turn themselves into businesspeople actually do with it. Brennan Peyton, head of sales for Panasonic Document Systems, says: "The key thing for us is what turns people who have the ability to be entrepreneurs into fully-fledged successful businesspeople."

The main conclusion that surprised Panasonic was how little planning went into the process. "About 54% of UK businesses start without any business planning at all, so they're often described as accidental entrepreneurs," he says. "Something forces a change in their life, normally it would appear to be in their 30s, prompting them from doing what they're doing to being an entrepreneur." These prompts can be redundancy, a geographical move, anything. "We found the spark that makes that happen doesn't necessarily leap from, 'I'm going to do this' to, 'I'm going to make a plan'."

The result is a lot of businesses that succeed without actually having an aim - presumably "doing well enough" is as good a measure of success as any for people in this position. Panasonic's main interest is in the fact that 64% of these entrepreneurs felt that technology was the thing that enabled their business to survive and compete. This is a little like saying Leonardo da Vinci did well for himself because he had the right paintbrushes, and Peyton freely confirms that the business idea has to work in the first place and the technology has to be deployed sensibly. "In terms of a startup making itself look like a larger concern and competing in that market, it makes a difference," he says.