• if it’s more than 3 clicks away you can’t monetize it

Endeca: how do you get to a 1.1 Billion aquisition?

• they became a platform kind of by accident, after tech crash they were simply solving any problem clients could throw at them
• painkiller or vitamin?
• Macro-economic issues make a big difference for small businesses.
• “our success in ecommerce clouded our ability to see how we could be successful outside of that”
• in e-commerce you sell to businesses and developers
• IT doesn’t want to be in the business of software development
• One of the challenges of product management: you’re always thinking of the customers you have, but we need to really think of the ones we don’t have!

main lessons:

• ideas are not in short supply, ideas vs execution
• there is a middle ground: “figuring it out” is the fulcrum between those two
  • early customers might not alwyas be right
  • experience must be placed in context: success in one contest doesn’t ncessarily translate into success in another
  • timing, territory, and talent
• the process of starting a business is summarized by “the relentless pursuit of credibility”

general principles taught, learned, and earned

• pursue markets you are passionate about
• sidestory: lol “pinterest of interior designers”
• on the current bubble
  • “the crash will be painful”
  • “early 90’s same thing happened with hardware”
  • “the best measure is when you drive on 101, look at how much traffic there is”
  • “do busines in Boston, silicon valley is toxic for anything long term”

Product Development in the Real World

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Product Managing/Architecting a “business”

• culture doesn’t just happen
• credibility doesn’t just happen

Thinking about careers

• Macro trends matter: “plastics” vs aerospace vs internet bubble
• Princeton in the Nation’s Service