Future Thoughts by Niklas Agevik

(I run a startup in the Wi-Fi offloading space but I’ll try to keep my bias away from this post)

Carriers have entered into a spiral where they are lowering the value of mobile data. It started with Apple’s App Store requiring Wi-Fi for downloads over 25 MB. Apple then avoided direct confrontation with the carriers and restricted FaceTime to Wi-Fi. Now carriers are talking about blocking Skype over 3G.

When my SIM-card stopped working (Thanks Telia!) and SMS failed me OTT apps like WhatsApp continued to work over Wi-Fi, undeterred by the lack of a SIM-card. 

I’m sure many carriers were happy to hear that Apple and Google were trying to limit mobile data usage. But why should they be happy about that?

Consumers are being taught that Wi-Fi is better: it supports more services and is more resilient - if your SIM-card stops working you can still use all your apps on Wi-Fi.

Any other company producing products or services would be happy if they could sell more of it. It’s like a farmer telling his customers to use soy milk cause it’s cheaper and healthier instead of buying more cows. Crazy!

If I was a carrier I would make damn sure all services my customers use worked great on my network and I would encourage consumers to use Wi-Fi, but not teach them that Wi-Fi is the better option.

This post is actually outdated since I already decided to start consulting and do Project 3 below. But let me know, did I make the right choice?

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As I’ve mentioned earlier I have a long (too long) list of ideas and projects that I want to do. Unfortunately, I will never have the time to do all of them. So I’ve finally narrowed it down to three projects that I’m choosing between.

So, here is a list of the things that I want to do in 2012.

Project 1: Framtiden.nu
I have been wanting to do this project since 2006. This project excites me in an Assimovesque way and builds upon my interest in futurism and short term future predictions. I really like this project as it has the potential to make a large positive contribution to the world. Unfortunately, this is more of an interest than an actual business as I can’t really see any way in making money with it.

Ranking:
Likelihood of making an impact: Very high
Likelihood of success: Very high
Likelihood of making me extremely rich: Extremely low

Project 2: Fabset.com
Not sure if I announced this before, but I recently bought back Fabset.com from the other founders. So now I own a fashion site with 1000 Swedish bloggers but with zero activity. Back in the hayday, Fabset was actually making great revenue based on the amount of traffic we had. So I know that it converts really, really well and that the business model is proven. But, we never managed to get the business model to scale as most members got tired of the site quickly and moved on. This meant that we constantly had to bring in new members as the old members were churning.

I have thought a LOT about how to solve this and have ran a few experiments that tell me I’m on to something big. I’m really eager to try the changes on a larger scale. The only problem is that I see some Zynga/Grouponesque parts in Fabset that I don’t like. Also, spending time with Fabset made me realize how boring the fashion industry is.

Ranking:
Likelihood of making me extremely rich: High
Likelihood of getting to work with exciting people: Extremely low
Likelihood of becoming the creepy Zynga of fashion: Extremely high

Project 3: Project IB

Now THIS is a project that gets me excited. While I can’t share any more details as we have several patent applications on the way I do think this project could go a long way. If it succeeds it has a high likelihood of making a positive contribution to peoples’ lives. The only problem is that I think this is an idea that could benefit from scaling fast without any revenue, which basically means being forced to work with VC money.

I also think this is the kind of idea that appeals to VCs. It’s the kind of disruptive-omg-if-this-really-works-it-changes-everything kind of project.

Ranking:
Likelihood of making me extremely rich: Unknown
Likelihood of making a VC rich: High
Likelihood of making a positive impact on the world: Extremely High
Likelihood of having to spend time with kids in expensive suits playing with their daddy’s VC money: Off the chart

So there you go! Do I go with my heart, my wallet or my brain?

Syncing of cookies
Why does no web browser sync my cookies between my smartphone and desktop? Wouldn’t it be awesome if I could log on to a site on my browser and still be logged on when I visit that same site on my smartphone?

Apple could implement it between Safari and Mobile Safari, Microsoft between IE and Mobile IE and Google with Chrome and Chrome on Android.
 

Basic semantic search
One of the major search engines needs to seriously implement some sort of basic semantic search. If I search for “Apple” it can’t be an unsolvable machine learning problem to distinguish between pages that talk about the fruit and pages that talk about the company?

Note that I’m not looking for anything fancy - just really basic semantic search. 

Simple file-sharing
In 2012, it still seems a challenge greater than drilling for oil in the mexican gulf to share a file between a laptop and a desktop. Apple launched AirDrop in OS X Lion but it requires the laptops to be on the same subnet and does not work between iPhone and OS X.

It boggles my mind that Microsoft still hasn’t included such a feature in Windows. With the array of connectivity options available in a modern computer (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB) it should be trivial to implement simple file sharing.

The only thing that comes close is DropBox, but that no OS vendor includes a file sharing feature by default is astonishing to say the least.
 

A decent text editor
Editing text is to this day and age an unsolved problem. The best option in Windows is Notepad and on OS X it is, wait for it… VIM. Surely any OS vendor must understand that a simple way to sell more software is to appeal to the geeks that get asked what computer they should buy?

That Apple or Microsoft hasn’t bought/cloned something like Notepad++ or Textmate is nothing less than an outrage.
 

Simple NFC pairing
Forget mobile payments. Why NFC is still not used for sharing information between devices is a failure of the industry. Some use-cases I would like to see (note that some of these were demoed back in 2006 and that they still aren’t commercially available is just weird):
- Hold up my phone towards my car handsfree and have the phone automatically configure the handsfree. Hold it against the handsfree again to disengage.
- Pair my phone with my computer to quickly transfer files
- And so on…
 

What else?
What else am I missing? 

(You can also ask why I’m not out solving these problems instead of just complaining. Actually I am! It’s just not announced yet, I promise!)

730 am: Wake up after a bad night’s sleep.

830 am: Phone conference with a potential big customer. We do our sales pitch but fail completely. He doesn’t understand the service and doesn’t see any point in continuing the discussion. Me and the CEO are frustrated but manage to secure a follow up call somehow. We walk away sad and tired. And it’s only 9am.

11am: A top manager for LargeCo gets back to me regarding a discussion we had last week. I’ve been chasing him over phone and email and started to give up on receiving a response. He is interested and wants to set up a meeting. Everyone in the office cheers.

2pm: A press photographer arrives to take photos of the team for an article. Everyone enjoys the spotlight.

3pm: I’m stressed out over a phone conference I’m about to have with a large potential client. I have a bad feeling about it. The customer hasn’t shown any interest in us.
The phone conference starts and before I can even say “hi” he says he read the info package I sent him and wants to proceed - he thinks the service is just what they have been looking for. We almost open up the champagne! High-fives all around!

4pm: A large customer we have been talking to sends an email to me saying he is not interested in continuing the discussion. Me and the CEO scream in agony. I quickly call the customer and push for a meeting with the people in his team that recommended to turn us down.

6pm: The CEO’s mom comes over to help with the new business plan to stop investors breathing down the company’s neck. She is awesome!
Note to self: don’t forget to eat dinner.

7pm: I sleep an hour on the sofa before continuing work on a business case that has to be ready by tomorrow. Can it really be 8pm already?

11pm: I come home and fall asleep exhausted. It feels like someone took my brain out, ran over it and put it back in. Personal note: why can’t I just be one of those normal people that are satisfied with a 9-5 job and a steady pay check at the end of the month?

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple after his brief stint at Pixar he said that “Apple was what he wanted to do with his 30s”.

I think this is an important quote in many regards. It highlights how Steve viewed Apple - not as something he could come in and “fix” in a a few years. He realized that really fixing Apple would require him to spend every minute of the next ten years.

To decide what to do after I left Payfone, I am using the same way of thinking. I realized what a profound impact it has on life to view commitments in ten year intervalls. I have the good fortune to being asked to be involved in quite a lot of different projects. And I really wanted to say YES to some of those opportunities in the past few months. But looking at things in intervals of ten years makes the decision process easier. If this is not something I could see myself doing the next ten years I have politely declined.

The downside is that there just aren’t that many things that I can see myself doing ten years from now. Steve had the good fortune of having something in front of him that he could see himself doing for the next ten years. Not all of us get that opportunity or find something in life that we feel so strongly for.

As someone noticed, I used the word “hacker” in my Twitter profile. I’m using the word in the same way as Facebook is. From their S1 filing:

“The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.”

Amen.

I sell a lot of my old stuff online. Mostly electronics: digital cameras, old game consoles, DVD players. This year alone I’ve sold a Kindle Fire, a DVD recorder, a Playstation 3, Playstation 2 and a GameCube.

Selling is a bit of a hassle but the upsides outweigh the downsides.

Most importantly, owning stuff comes with a mental tax. It annoys me to have things I could be using but am not. If I have a Playstation 3 I feel I should be using it. Not owning one removes that mental tax.

Selling stuff also makes me feel good in a save the world kind of way. Most of the people I sell things to get a really good deal. I imagine that if I can sell my old GameCube to someone who can give it to their kids then the world becomes a better place.

Third of all, it saves space.

I find that there are so much stuff that we COULD use, but never do. Why not let someone else enjoy it instead? 

Influence by Robert Caldini

An amazing book about how to influence other people and a great insight into how the mind works. This book is so stuffed with information that it’s a must read. I really loved how everything in this book is based an actual research. Short, information packed and great writing.
Rating: 5/5

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

A true classic by Asimov. This is actually one of my favorites in the foundation series. I can’t believe this book is published in 1983. Must read if you like Sci-fi!

Rating: 5/5

Masters of Doom by David Kushner

The inside story on how ID Software revolutionized the gaming industry with classics such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake. A fun read, but probably not that much fun if you’re not into gaming.

Rating: 5/5

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingstone

This book was so hyped I had great expectations when reading it. But after a while I just got a “meh”-feeling. Reading page after page of anecdotes without any general conclusions becomes boring. The PayPal chapter was the most interesting one.

Rating 3/5

Steve Jobs by Walter Isacsson

I’m obviously biased since I’m a huge Steve Jobs fan. While it was obvious that the book was rushed, it’s still a must read book about one of the most influental persons in the tech indistury in our time.

Rating: 5/5

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

The Lean Startup describes a set of methods to build a startup without wasting unnecessary resources. This is a must read for budding entreprenurs. I wish I had read this book ten years ago! I already managed to make all the mistakes in it..

Rating: 5/5

Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything

This book is about the team that built Watson, the IBM computer that won Jeopardy against Ken Jennings, the american super-contenstant in Jeopardy. You can watch the video here. If you are interested in AI and the future of machine intelligence then you NEED to read this book. 

Rating 5/5

That’s pretty much it! I realize I gave a lot of 5/5 but what can I say, I choose my books wisely :)

What are our best and brightest entrepreneurs spending their time on today?

Kevin Rose is creating Oink, yet another “rate whatever” app. 
The bright Google engineers are busy buying daily deal companies (two bought so far this year) and making their own copy of Facebook. 
All this while budding entrepreneurs see Foursquare as the pinnacle of success with 15 M people having virtual pillow fights over who is the “mayor” of a venue. 

Yawn. 

The current batch of startups have one thing in common: they don’t require the entrepreneurs to leave the comfort of their keyboard. 

Hook up to the Facebook API. Combine it with data from a Foursquare API. Create an iOS app. Build your own ad placement software on top of the AdSense API. Boom! Sit back and watch your pre-revenue startup grow in Google Analytics.

To an entrepreneur this sounds great - no nasty supply chains to manage, no boring meetings with customers, no companies that needs to be convinced to be your partner. All you need is just a mouse click away!

In theory, I like the fact that you can build a company from the comfort of your favorite lounge chair. But the services that come out of it tends to be boring mash-ups or yet another bug tracking app that do little to further the state of art.

I’m getting more and more convinced that Apple’s success stems from the fact that they tackle nasty user experience trade-offs that no-one else cares to solve.

If you are calling yourself an entrepreneur then get out there and do the boring stuff that no one else wants to do. The world will thank you for it. 

As frequent readers of this blog are aware I’m a huge fan of the lean startup movement personified by Eric Ries. 

I get a lot of ideas for startups pitched to me and lately I’ve been trying to use the lean startup framework to dissect them. Unfortunately, for many of the proposals the methodology just doesn’t work.

Assume that I had the idea of creating a new, better version of Facebook. The new version would be pretty much like Facebook is today but with a heavier focus on privacy. Let’s call my new version Yahoo! Minus.

Exactly what hypothesis do I need to test to verify if my idea is good? What is the minimum viable product that I need to build?

Essentially, since my hypothesis is that a version of Facebook with more features would be more popular, the MVP is….wait for it…a complete rewrite of Facebook with more privacy featuers.

How’s that for an MVP?