Jeffrey Donenfeld

Tag: conference

  • How to position your startup for investors – GoViral KZ Interview

    How to position your startup for investors – GoViral KZ Interview

    I had a solid discussion about how to position your startup for investors during GoViral.kz in Almaty, Kazakhstan with U.S. Embassy Tashkent Information Officer Susannah Wood. Thanks for the awesome discussion!

    Go Viral is an international festival sponsored by the U.S. Mission to Kazakhstan that brings together innovators in media, culture, business, and technology to learn about the latest trends and big ideas from leading thinkers and influencers in various industries. Festival speakers are active, creative, and passionate professionals from the United States and Central Asia.

  • Notes from LeWeb Conference, London

    Notes from LeWeb Conference, London

    Today I virtually attended a couple of talks of the LeWeb conference in London. A few brief notes:

    Jason Goldberg, Founder & CEO & Bradford Shane Shellhammer, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Fab & Michael Arrington, General Partner, CrunchFund

    • Best selling item on Fab.com? A vibrator. They’ve sold “tens of thousands” of them, especially the colorful ones. “Never thought we’d be an art or jewelry store”
    • What was the pivot you had to take from transitioning from a social network to your current state? It took a while to make the decision, but once we made the decision we turned off the website immediately. On day one of switching to commerce model, sold a ton.
    • Fab UK launching today, with help from Lustre team

    Martin Varsavsky, Founder & CEO, Fon

    • “I don’t think that entrepreneurs need to work very hard. Here’s why.” How do I run Fon, and also take a 12 week vacation and work only in the morning? This is how:
      • Don’t watch television – only watch short things that keep your attention.
      • Into practicing sports, but not really into watching sports. If you’re not watching sports and you’re a guy, it’s like having your life free
      • Write a lot, don’t read a lot. Read just a little, and write more.
      • Fly your own plane and have a drive – save lots of time by having a driver. Elitist, but it helps maximize your time. Having a plane also helps even more. [ed – haha, douchebag.]
      • Almost never speak on the phone. Only talk on the phone to people you love, but rarely to get something out of somebody. Use apps and email to get stuff out of people. Phone sucks because it’s the last person you WANT to contact you is the first person who CAN contact you.
      • Don’t drink.
      • Don’t do business meals. Business meals are a waste of time and weird. It’s always awkward – business can be done in 10 minutes, not over a long awkward meeting.
      • Use social media.
      • GET ENOUGH SLEEP [ed – completely agree, sleep extremely important]
      • Go to conferences, but be selective about which ones you go to. Learn how to say no to certain things.
      • Take vacations, enjoy vacations.
      • Delegate intelligently – it’s the only way to buy your own time.

    Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Co-Founder & CEO, Klarna & Tim Bradshaw, Digitial Media Correspondent, Financial Times

    • We got the idea of Klarna from a deep look at online payments, and a realization that the whole system has never been solved. Checkout processes online are a pain in the ass. How can we simplify it?
    • Old generation was empty wallet, Klarna is the full wallet.
    • Last year did 6 billion dollars of business, next year much more hopefully.
    • Klarna vertically integrates entire merchant and consumer experience. By doing this, they can control the entire process and give a much better experience in all stages. Klarna is not just a portal like other services.
    • Only need to use name and address to purchase, no further registration necessary. Key is to identify risk in an online environment, that Klarna can do a risk assessment by assessing consumer behavior on a website – they don’t have to look at traditional credit score data. Klarna says they can predict who will pay and who wont.
    • Backed by Sequoia Capital
    • Distinguished from other payment companies because Klarna collects SKU level data on every transaction, so they can give merchants and 3rd parties very very detailed consumer behavior data.
    • Can launch in any EU country because they can “passport” their license.
  • Inside Social Apps 2012: Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Today and Tomorrow

    Inside Social Apps 2012: Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Today and Tomorrow

    Monetizing Social Games on Facebook: Today and Tomorrow

    Terry Angelos, Co-Founder and CPO, TrialPay
    Will Harbin, CEO, KIXEYE
    Lisa Marino, CEO, RockYou
    Rony Xu, CPO, Happy Elements

    With the requirement that Facebook Credits become the exclusive premium virtual currency in social games on Facebook starting last July, there was much debate in the developer community regarding what both the short and long term impact of the change would be on the health of the developer ecosystem. Now that developers have had six months of experience exclusively monetizing through Credits, what does the monetization roadmap hold for 2012? How will Credits evolve beyond its current form to meet the needs of social game and other digital media publishers? Find out what top developers think.

    • How’s Facebook credits working out for you? Will Harbin – It is what it is. Our original hypothesis is that it would makeup up for the 30% commission, but that hasn’t been true. Lisa Marino – From our perspective, it’s fair for Facebook to take their 30% share. The developers need to learn how to design around those kinds of executions, and to maximize what’s going on in your community.  Rony – We like credits, and see 10-20% higher revenue in our game, in the Taiwanese market. Consumers in Taiwan don’t like to connect their online banking accounts because of privacy concerns. People like prepaid cards. So using Facebook credits gives audiences confidence.
  • Inside Social Apps 2012: Trends in Social Game Product Development

    Inside Social Apps 2012: Trends in Social Game Product Development

    Brief notes from sitting in on the “Trends in Social Game Product Development” panel at Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco, CA.

    Trends in Social Game Product Development
    Brenda Garno Brathwaite, COO & Game Designer, Loot Drop, Inc.
    Bill Jackson, Creative Director, CastleVille, Zynga Dallas
    Sebastian Knutsson, Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder, King.com
    Mike Sego, CEO, Gaia Interactive

    While acquiring customers has become more expensive over the last couple of years, monetization rates from top developers have continued to substantially improve. Today, there are examples of developers large and small that are finding distribution, engagement, and monetization success, despite all the changes in the world of Facebook and social gaming over the last year. At the same time, genres and content are continuing to evolve with new mechanics and game play. How should developers be thinking about product development in 2012? Top developers will discuss.

    Inside Social Apps 2012 Conference

    •  Bill Jackson – Social is the next generation in gaming. Not a new direction, but the logical next step. I do believe there is an opportunity in the gaming space for networked, synchronous play. Right now the right game needs to come along that demands it. This is something that’s well developed in the console game space, but not yet very well seen in the social gaming realm. Also exciting is progressing the asynchronous play out there right now.
    • Mike Sego – Position that the only trend in game development is better graphics is wrong. The next step is naturally social. Lower cost to developing for social and mobile platforms – this allows for a much larger variety of games. Now, 3 developers working in a garage can open up a whole market of social and mobile. This is not as possible when you’re thinking only in terms of graphics and rendering improvements.  Building social features isn’t absolutely necessary for game development. It’s important to use social features appropriately, and use them to enhance the actual game, not just junk it up with social. Regarding synchnous play, I think the games that are most successful on Facebook are the games that mimic the usage pattern on Facebook – asynchronous. Games like Words With Friends work – people login and take their turn, and logoff – this is asynchronous.
    • Brenda Brathwaite – Now that we have this ridiculous culture of fast follow and mobile, games like parking wars and Farmville is possible.
    • Sebastian Knutsson – I see the the use of friends in the future of social development as moving more and more to collaborative gaming, and multiplayer gaming. I like Tetris Battles, organized and networked tournaments. Allowing people to connect with their friends is where it’s at.
    • What can we learn from Cow Clicker? Brenda – It distills down the core essence of a social game. The fact that it worked is a very interesting statement about the players. Burned to the ground in the Cowpocalypse. Ian would like to be known for something other than Cow Clicker.

    Related tweets: