All About the Marketing

I was driving down the street in my neighborhood the other day. There were two girls on the side of the road. They must have been selling something. They tried to get my attention and successed. One girl was waving. The other one did a kind of backflip. Seemed like some gymnastics move. Impressive. You don't see that enthusiasm often.

So these girls get an A for grabbing my attention. Where they failed was their signage. They both had signs which they made by hand. However they must have been written on 8 1/2 by 11 paper. There is no way I can read anything on such small paper when I am driving by in a car.

I actually thought about stopping, but I had no clue what they were selling. I did not want to stop if what they were selling was of no value to me. I would have wasted precious time. My recommendation? Grab a big cardboard box and write "Carwash $5" in big letters so they guy in an airplane can see what is going down.

Marketing. It is really tough. Capture your customers' attention, and communicate clearly for a win.

Advertising Gamble

I was reading some trade press rag. Spotted this weird ad from InstallAware. There was a superhero with his head falling off. This was an ad for an installation development platform. The top reason listed for buying the program was that the industry leader copied their features!

Another weird feature of the ad was that there was no information on how to get more info. There was no URL listed. No phone numbers. Nothing. I guess they figure I would Google them if I was interest. I did Google them.

I was happy that their web site was very transparent about how my costs would be computed. Factors such as using the competitors product, having previos versions of their product, and assorted options were all clearly marked.

Now this is some pricey software. Pricey as is in the cheapest version with no frills costs over $1000. If you add some bells and whistles like support, roving licenses, and consutling, the total bill might come out to $20k or so. Very gutsy advertising for such an expensive proposition.

The Value of Marketing

I was recently reading the transcript from a speech by Patrick McKenzie. It was a talk he gave at the MicroConf 2012 convention. He talks about a lot of things. But mainly he describes how he has gone on to do consulting for people who sell over the web. Previously his weekly consulting rate was $20k to $25k a week. But I think the price has gone up.

That's not the real kicker. He did so well for one customer that the CEO was talking about hiring him on full time for around $750k a year. Here is the shocker. He turned it down. LOLwut? Does he love working for himself? Maybe he wants to give all companies a chance to receive his advice. Or perhaps there is only so much he can do for any given company before the returns flatten out.

Whatever the reason, this seems odd on the surface. Wouldn't every developer love making $750k a year? I sure would. From a sheer economic perspective, Patrick has a good thing going with his consulting gigs. He appears to be making more and more money per week with that. Maybe this is not so crazy after all.

All I know is that you have to love a guy who can make money marketing a program called Bingo Card Creator.

Age Discrimination

Read a blurb on LinkedIn about the perils of age discrimination in the tech industry. Seems that companies do not want to pay a senior developer $150k if they can get a fresh college grad ofr $60k. There are multiple reasons behind this trend. The youngsters are thought of as possessing skills in the hot technologies. Plus they can be counted on to burn the midnight oil to get stuff done. Plus they cost a whole lot less, right?

What is an aging developer to do? Go into management. Gray beard in management is a benefit. Or you could try to stay current in your skills. That is tough. But you need to in order to stay competitive. You could also become a consultant. Or better yet, start up your own business. That way you are the boss. You would not discriminate against yourself, would you?

Return on Investment

Recently I needed to purchase four copies of a hardback book. Naturally I went to Amazon. The total cost was around $50. That seemed a bit pricey. I searched around and found that I could probably get the books for half that amount. You would think it would be a no brainer, right? Choose the less costly option.

But first I decided to think back on what Amazon had done for me recently. I surely had downloaded a lot of free books from them. Most of them I enjoyed immensely. Now these were electronic books. Then I also recalled that I had purchased some non-free electronic books by mistake. Amazon served me well by immediately crediting back the amounts, no questions asked.

So what was I to do? I definintely want Amazon to continue providing me with all this value. And though I did not actually owe them any money from all their goodwill, I did feel obligated to return the many favors they have done me. That's how business is done. Treat me right all the time, and I will give you my business, even if you are not the cheapest option in town.

17 Year Old Sells Company to Yahoo for $30M

Nick D'Aloisio just sold his company Summly to Yahoo for an alleged $30M. Nick is 17 years old. He previously had made the Trimit app when he was only 15. That grew into the Summly app. The app shortens long stories for smartphone users. The app will be shut down and integrated into the Yahoo platform.

Now Nick is no ordinary 17 year old. He started programming when he was 12. His dad works for Morgan Stanley, and his mom is a lawyer. His company Summly has a number of high profile investors such as Ashton Kutcher. Nick is the majority owner of the company. As such, he will be keeping most of the $30M proceeds.

Many are wondering why Yahoo paid such a high price for an app they are shutting down. Summly only had 5 employees. It seems that only 2 of them are making the move to Yahoo. One thing is certain. Yahoo will be getting a lot of press out of this acquisition.

The End of Google Reader

Google has announced that it is shutting down Google Reader. People are coming out complaining that they still use this tool. I find that I only occasionally use the product myself. I just manually visit the most important blogs I follow.

From a business perspective, this might make sense. Google Reader is probably not making Google much if any money. However Google must loose some good will when they shut the thing down. I bet there are many people who use it for their RSS viewing needs.

The only bright part of this shutdown is that people are rising up to create a Google Reader replacement. Just today I saw a post stating that Digg is on the mission of building a replacement. This might help Digg in other ways if they build some extra features in the product that highlight Digg.