zonio

So much good stuff tumbling around up in the attic. Conversations have resumed and an opportunity...

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:07:38 -0400

So much good stuff tumbling around up in the attic. Conversations have resumed and an opportunity is manifest. To be ever more cryptic, I’ve isolated a beat, and hope it resonates… then there will be some very cool haps.

(via jacob)

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:10:19 -0400

(via jacob)

The idea-well springs eternal.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:08:00 -0400

For those who may be wondering what the story is with zonio at the moment, let me just say that my focus on new opportunities with zonio have ended up in a full time consulting arrangement that for the foreseeable future will keep me gainfully employed and working on applying platform integration strategies in hardware and software. The really exciting part for me is the I will be working on technologies that I love and that if executed correctly will have a direct, measurable impact and change what consumers think about one of the most successful brands in the market today.

A wonderful opportunity indeed.

In the meantime zonio will house my other hairbrained schemes. One never knows how and when with these things, but in this moment, the zonio endeavor has proven a success for me personally.

Quality of Service: open vs closed

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:48:15 -0400

bijan:

There is an interesting tension these days between open and closed services when it comes to quality of service (when I say “quality of service” i mean that in the broadest possible sense).

Consider the following:

1. Phone service. Compare skype vs landline or vonage vs comcast voip

2. Email. Consider gmail (ads, no techsupport etc) vs “pro email” from Exchange or ISP email.

3. Video. compare video from the open internet vs from a telco or cableco

4. Blogs or publishing. host it yourself with Moveable Type vs 3rd party hosting (ie hosted WP or Blogger)

5. Web services. Own your own hw vs managed hosting vs amazon s3/EC2.

(There are plenty of other examples)

On one end of the spectrum is a best efforts service quality and on the other end is something that approaches bulletproof status or carrier class. There is a price tradeoff. Quality tradeoff. And there is an innovation curve tradeoff.

In many cases in comes down a “quality of signal” vs speed/execution of features, functionality and user experience.

Why don’t more people use email from their ISP where there is tech support and no ads. Instead many of us prefer gmail. Same thing with web services that use Amazon’s infrastructure. Amazon may go down and it’s outside the control of the developer but the tradeoff is capital efficiency, time to market, etc. Amazon is working just fine for many of our portfolio companies.

On the other hand, Vonage never worked for me. But Comcast VOIP is rock solid.

The same is true for video. High def television from directv or comcast or verizon is stunning. Web video doesn’t look like that yet. But the convenience and user experience of web video trumps quality for some people. Not for others.

Here’s another example. WHen you pay Comcast you expect it to always work. If they don’t call you back you get upset. When Facebook goes down what is the user reaction? And what is the relative value?

Open platforms like the internet is bringing innovation faster than ever to new markets and applications. It is shrinking & disrupting many markets (ie telephony, newspapers, advertising, etc).

It also changes the quality of the signal.

At least for now.

Open platforms can always innovate faster than closed networks (think open internet vs the historically closed mobile network pre-iphone). But open platforms also bring along tradeoffs vs managed services.

The race is on. And the stakes are higher than ever. As our networking pipes get fatter and web applications get richer it will be interesting to watch it play out.

A small "f".

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:30:00 -0500

When I said “Fuckit” a few days ago, it really should have been a small “f.” I’ve received a few inquiries trying to understand if my skunk works had in fact been skunked, or not…

The cleats aren’t hung up, but the strategic focus is changing even as we speak. I went into this zonio experiment with a pressing need to get a particular product concept built. It was a cool product too. I am still a big believer in the design, but I am not sure there is the right kind of capital ready to be put to work in a fashion I am willing to move forward. Honestly speaking, there was such a temptation to build a product concept based on technologies that I knew intimately, but now I am finding that a lot of that desire came from the safety of it. I was also spending an awful lot of time and mental energy trying to move too many partners who did not share my urgency or risk assessment of the opportunity. Therefore it was a challenging nut to crack. Top it all off, and my largest competitive advantage was first-mover advantage… not terribly robust in the CE market.

Another confounding issue was that within the next month or so, the likelihood of getting an early 2010 product built and placed is prohibitively slim. Making this an even more weighty condition is the fact that there has been an incredible amount of movement and progress in enabling technologies for a competitive architecture that will be hard to compete against. I will talk more about this later. I am actually leaning towards documenting exactly what I believe the initial product concept should be based on these evermore market-ready technologies. It won’t seem groundbreaking to those who are familiar with the technologies, but it may prove to be a unique perspective on a set of technologies that are currently targeted at a totally different set of consumer use cases.

My recent learnings and acceptance of some harsh economic realities will weigh on what kind of marketing strategy and partnerships will need to exist to pull it off.

Data points to Android

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:16:00 -0500

I’m believing more in the power of Android. I suspect that in 5 years, there will be an android-enabled device in every room of my home.

The CE world as we’ve known it is gone. I actually think MS and Apple have lots of be concerned about.

"Fuck it."

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:13:00 -0500

“Fuck it.”

- Me

It's a strange place I'm in...

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:13:00 -0500

This week has been filled with a lot of out-of-box thinking… and I’ll tell you why.

I’ve gotten some very good feedback that has made me rethink how I should go about funding my idea. There are basically a few paths I can go down:

Raise an angel round from friends, family
Get funded as a work-for-hire by a company who wants to build my product
Get a trial investment from a company looking to “test” this product category. Seek a share of upside, and offer a downside protection.
Seek an alternative role within a similar value chain which might include various things like consult, go to work for one of my current partners, etc.

Without getting into too much detail and giving up too much irrelavent specifics, let’s just say I am leaning toward 2 and 3. I have a company in mind, and if we can agree on a deal that makes sense it is probably the best way to get a piece of hardware built. I think 4 could work, but it would obviously depend on the partner and their willingness to bring me into their house.

For completeness sake, option 1 would be problematic, as I am becoming less attracted to the prospects of trying to launch a new hardware brand that is going after the market I am focused on. The amount of investment and goodwill required to have an effective marketing channel is something that takes a long time and large amounts of capital to build. I am not sure this economy is ready to support such ventures. The alternative of self-funding and building a solo operation invariably means you will have a small direct channel and a niche market. While this is one path that I admire and have seen work for certan folks, I am not prepared to operate something like this at this stage… I would prefer doing so at a time where I could rely on fewer outside dollars, and have only myself to be held accountable to. These smaller types of operations are suited to labors of love, and I guess I am not entirely done with the larger rat race… for now.

Another fact of the matter is I am running out of runway. Certain developments will or will not occur in the next few weeks and if they don’t go their way to kicking me off, but rather kick me out… then I need my plan B lined up. So I am budgeting a certain amount of time to that end and have seen a couple paths that are indeed attractive. I was telling a friend tonight that I have 3 options… 2 in the CE industry, 1 in another industry, and I guess a 4th if you include moving to an island and becoming a bartender.

Walking the razor's edge...

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:59:00 -0500

Trying to create a startup venture can be a gut wrenching process. I remember in the founding days of Avnera, some VC we were courting came into the lunch room and wanted to speak to the entire team. A totally ego-maniacal thing to do in retrospect — more on that later — but it was his chance to tell us an anecdote that stuck with me, though it was put quite melodramatically… and it went a little something like this:

“in startups, you will experience life’s highest highs and lowest lows”

Let me add my take on this:

First, this resonated with me at the time. I definitely was living the roller-coaster that was Avnera those days. Days of good news, breakthroughs, or great ideas via collaboration were some great times… and days of frustration, toil, and failure were, conversely, quite rough and discouraging.
Second, it’s overstated. Life’s Highest highs? Lowest lows? Not really. It’s entirely possible to let these emotions color the rest of your life, but mature entrepreneurs (and in my experience, the serially successful ones) know that life goes on whether you fail or succeed in business… and personal happiness or despair beyond either are no guarantee. This VC who sat down to pontificate and tell us all how much he knew about “our pain” was either full of it, or needed to get a life. I hope he has. The roller coaster of the start-up life should be a manageable ride - something that can be sequestered to the “professional” part of one’s existence.
Third, for a critically-minded person, the start-up “highs” are far out-numbered by the “lows.” I think this comes about from the focus on finding shortcomings in things, striving for improving current conditions and being hyper-analytical — even paranoid — about what it is you are setting out to accomplish. And so…
Fourth, countering one’s own critical mindset (required to manage responsibly) with the hope and faith (required to embark down an entrepreneurial path) in one’s ability to achieve something new is how one walks the razor’s edge during a start-up process. Letting discouraging events result in abandonment of faith in the opportunity is how stillborn startups happen. The flipside is letting stubborn belief in a bad idea lead to a poor deployment of scarce resources.

Delicate, delicate.

Today, I had a chat with a very seasoned and accomplished guy in the space. He currently invests (VC-like), but realistically not at the stage and amounts I am currently seeking. His feedback was heartening and disheartening… but all fair and balanced, even if charted by his own battle scars. A stimulating event.

So today has become a day of digestion. My thoughts are finally coalescing to where I see more clearly the chunks of value that are out there to monetize. I am just trying to get my products built in a way that returns enough of that value to myself and my investors. A key part of this process is identifying and convincing the right investors. I have a pretty good of who that might be… now for the convincing…

A day of tag-you're-it

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:13:00 -0500

Today was a day of email and phone tagging. One investor, one design consultant, and one supplier. Hope tomorrow I have better luck connecting.

I sent on my financial forecast and investment requirements to my lawyer who is helping me draft a term sheet to offer potential investors. Basically there are two capital raising options, one which is more equity up front, with no need for any trade credit or short term debt in year one, or less equity up front, with some need for ST debt. We’ll see what the venture capital markets are willing to bare.

I also had some fun tweaking my logo a bit. I am no graphic artist, but every now and then I stumble onto something that serves the purpose. Right now, I like my little alien for the more ethereal applications of zonio’s brand identity. For professional purposes I have a cleaner, simpler, and perhaps more sustainable logo.. to be shared another time.

A varied day...

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:37:00 -0500

I really can’t tell if all the news of the markets emanating from CNN and CNBC as I work is helpful, or deflating… at the very least it reaffirms the situation and if I believe the re-blogged quotes made earlier today, then it should be encouraging, or motivating. I’ll go with that…

Today I am trying to put the “finishing” touches on my financial forecast for zonio. The point is to have a basis for how much I am asking the early investors for… of course I don’t want to ask for too much, but perhaps worse, is not asking for enough. ;-)

I’m also perusing my savings accounts, both retirement and otherwise, to determine where my next tranche of personal investment is going to come from, i.e. how I should pay the bills.

I am also sending out some pings and re-pings to those who may serve to help me bootstrap this opportunity via consulting work.

There are also some re-pings needed for a couple very busy people who may need to see me at the top of their in-boxes again after the long weekend and public distractions of yesterday.

I am also “organizing” my blog properties. Making sure my voice for each one is segmented properly. As it is:

wirelessaudioblog: is my technical, consumer audio, and industry-watch blog
hapa.tumblr: is my personal blog, whatever is fit to print I suppose. It’s also the chief aggregator for my other web 2-ish things like twitter, youtube, flickr, etc.
zonio.tumblr: this particular adventure of mine, being a entrepreneur at a strange time…

If the start-up activity is successful, the zonio blog project will probably morph gradually into my company’s blog where my community will have seen the start-up process much earlier than is typical for a community-connected company these days. If the start-up takes another route, doesn’t get funded, gets absorbed by another company, etc… the zonio blog project will probably then be “complete” in that the story will have its end.

Either outcome, this blog will prove to be a success in my mind, and it will stand as a unique witness to this odd little professional phase I find myself in.

How it's gonna go down...

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:41:00 -0500

I’ve decided to start this new blog, zonio. Named after an “idea” I have, it will be a holding plot, my stake of real estate on this burgeoning tumblr landscape. My immediate purpose, or theme, will be to chrono-log my current adventure, which for the time being is that of being for lack of a more appropos term, unemployed.

Let me outline my profile:

I have no paycheck. I left my full time job at Avnera in December 2008.
I have 6 figures of school loans
I have less than a 50% debt/savings ratio. Considerably less so.
I recently moved into a condo in NYC and for the first time I have a mortgage, and thankfully a bona fide tax deduction.
I am single. I am in a relationship.
I am 33.
I have an ivy league undergraduate education from Penn in engineering.
I have a masters degree from MIT in engineering
I have a MBA from Harvard

I am currently trying to raise seed capital for my new business. It is a hardware business opportunity in consumer electronics, audio specifically. Now I know what you’re thinking - I have no chance. Too much competition, hardware business models are too risky… Well I of course beg to differ.

I am working on making sure potential investors know that it is not merely a hardware business model. Yes I will be building hardware. But like many successful hardware devices, they rely heavily on the software that gives them life. Much of this software will be owned by me, dispensed by me and partners, and if all goes according to plan and design, a source of revenue for myself and my partners. Like any innovative product, there is disruption to be made, and new ways of thinking about business to grok…

In fact, I do not enter this space blindly. I have spent the last 5 years helping Avnera bring reallyl innovative, market ready technology to end-users by working on marketing our solutions to device makers and in many instances helping them build devices. After helping more than 25 devices reach the market, delivering new user experiences, I’ve confirmed that I (at least in the past) had the ability to discern what would work in today’s market. I also consistantly make good calls about what’s a fanciful leap and what’s a practical baby step, and most importanly, I am confident I have an idea of what the market will want somewhere in between those bounds, within the next couple years - where venture capital can be put to work to deliver something incumbants cannot/will not, and where the opportunity is devoid of prohibitive risk to make such an investment foolhardy.

Myself, well, I’ve already made my investment, and continue to do so. I’m hoping I can pull this effort together, raise the capital, and build this product, as it will fundamentally change the way consumers consume their digital audio. But this is the most I will talk about the business itself.

In the meantime, zonio blog will be about what it means to be a entrepreneur in this economy, in America, in “hardware.” It will be about the personal process of being out on the limb in blustering stormy weather. Stay tuned…