For one cheesesteak, expect to pay $100. That is nearly 15 times more than the original.

"We made sure we had the best beef we could find, the best lobster and the right cheese," explains Locascio.

To get top of the line ingredients, Locascio says it costs $17 per pound for cheese, $21 per pound for Kobe beef and $900 per pound for summer truffles.

So who buys the costly sandwich?

On average, five or six customers order it per night and many share it as an appetizer.

I think I'd rather have 14 of the $7 kind than 1 of the $100 ones.]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/mmmmmmmcheesesteaks_1.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/mmmmmmmcheesesteaks_1.html Thu, 15 May 2008 14:29:29 -0800 Wikipedia, extreme baseball and regular baseball differ in that "both teams are on the field at the same time. Pitchers from each team take turns pitching to batters at two adjacent home plates. One team runs around the bases in the normal counter clockwise direction, while the other team runs around bases in a clockwise direction."

This sounds confusing. And dumb. One of the things that makes spectator sports great is that usually only 1 team has the ball - thereby giving fans an opportunity to root passionately for or against one side. The only sports that I can think of with this kind of simultaneous scoring are boxing and tennis - not exactly "can't miss" sports for the fans. And racing as well I guess - although competing against the field as opposed to only one other seems to distinguish that.

Anyway, extreme baseball sounds like it will fail. BUT, I started thinking, if I was to come up with a baseball variant to try and take on MLB, what would it look like? Well, it would be baseball, but, I'd market it as a faster, more exciting version. I'd make the following rules changes to try and re-enforce the brand:

1. No jogging. Walks, home runs, ground outs all require running. The first time someone on a team jogs, the team gets a delay of game warning. Everytime after it costs the team an out.
2. 15 seconds between pitches. If the pitcher doesn't throw the pitch by then, it's a ball. If the hitter isn't ready by then, tough - the pitch counts. How do you enforce? With a pitch clock of course. Just like a shot clock, except for, you know, pitches.
3. Max out the number of pitching subs. No more bringing a guy in to face just one batter. You get tow relief spots a game, including the closer. Every 3 extra innings, add an additional pitching sub.
4. No intentional walks. Strike that - intentional walks are ok, but you don't actually pitch them. Pitcher signals the ump its a walk and that's that. Kinda like conceding a hole in match play golf. No need to make the actual pitches.
5. Encourage exciting plays. Successful suicide squeezes = 2 runs. Same with tag ups from third base. Nothing better than a good play at the plate. Incentivize it to happen. Think of this as baseball's version of the three point shot.
6. No steroid testing. Leave that for the cops. This is baseball - let's the conversation revolve around the action on the field, not off of it.
7. No malcontents. You get arrested off the field (yes, including for steroids) regularly, you're fired. Just like a regular job - you know the kind the rest of us have. I don't care how fast you throw, you're out.

By the way, I'm not saying this would work - there are many, many, many reasons why MLB (players, press, distribution, brand, etc.) is almost impossible to knock off. My point though is that if someone was to take on baseball, this seems to me to be the top level strategic approach. Leaving the best parts of the game untouched, making some new rules to try to address the worst parts (it's too slow, etc.) and launching it as a newer version of an old classic. Seems like it makes more sense than just doubling up the existing game. ]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/extreme_baseball.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/extreme_baseball.html Thu, 15 May 2008 14:08:47 -0800 So what happens if the seller doesn't confirm in time? I find out about the non-confirmation on Tuesday night and then have 24 hours to find tickets? Well that sucks. I guess in the meantime, I could go buy tickets elsewhere to insure having a seat - but what happens if the seller does eventually confirm? Then I'd have two sets of tickets. This sucks.

I know - I should have just bought them off of Craig's list. Actually, yes and no. Before trying Stub Hub, I answered some Craigslist ads - and got responses like "I have tickets but live in Berkeley - if you drive out here I'll sell them to you." I don't want to drive out to Berkeley to buy tickets. Stub Hub offered Fed Ex to my door - a MUCH better alternative. That is until I found out about this 48 hour waiting period.

So for now I'm in Stub Hub hell - actually purgatory is a more apt description. 48 hours in purgatory is waaayy to long.

UPDATE: Just got an email saying my tickets are shipping! Excellent. So only about 24 hours in Stub Hub purgatory. Still too long, but much better than 2 days. Looking forward to Wednesday at the Warfield! ]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/stub_hub_limbo.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/stub_hub_limbo.html Thu, 15 May 2008 14:07:19 -0800 old fashioned kind:

At the company's JavaOne conference this week in San Francisco, 70 people came down with what officials believe is norovirus, a type of medical virus easily spread by touching dirty surfaces. The city's Department of Public Health started receiving reports on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, the department warned people who felt they had been infected to stay home. Shawn Dainas, a spokesman for Santa Clara-based Sun Microsystems, which makes servers and software and is accustomed to protecting against viruses of the digital variety, said the company also alerted attendees about the illness by e-mail.

A spokesperson for Mac World went on to note that the Apple conference is still virus free.... ]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/sun_virus.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/sun_virus.html Fri, 09 May 2008 16:45:14 -0800

Thanks to Blair for pointing me to it.]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/funniest_ad_ever.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/funniest_ad_ever.html Thu, 08 May 2008 15:58:41 -0800 Check. Scuba training? Check. Auto repair? Check. Heck, there's even instructional video on how to annoy your co-workers. In other words it's all there.

My favorite how to vid's are usually involve guitar. There are loads of great instructional videos ranging from how to play specific songs to how to play specific styles. I've been spending a lot of time lately on this guys blues instructional page. Really cool stuff. Now, I figure the logical next step is to bring my guitar to work, tape it and, voila, a new addition to the "how to annoy your co-worker" series. (Hint, hint Greg and your bladder pipe). Anyway, some cool, easy blues licks in this embed:

]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/you_tube_how_to_play_blues.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/you_tube_how_to_play_blues.html Wed, 07 May 2008 12:51:01 -0800 Buzz Bissinger - a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist - put on quite a display. The setting was a panel discussion on sports blogs and society and featured Bissinger, the editor of Dead Spin and Braylon Edwards (naturally). What transpired was Bissinger not only throwing an inappropriate tantrum, but also showing why newspapers are in the position that they are - i.e. the brink of distinction.

Here's a link to the clip - it's long but worth watching.

His basic beef is that people write stuff on the internet that (a) he doesn't like and (b) other people can see/ read. His parting quip that he "feared for the future" made me laugh. People were predicting the end of society when Elvis Presley shook his hips on TV, the Beatles wore mop-tops and countless other things. The more things change the more they stay the same.

If he's really this upset about the online world, he should do something about it other than ranting on TV. He should go out and produce a site that has a what he considers to be a palatable online experience and go sell it. In other words go out and compete and try to put your competitors out of business. That's what every other business does. He has the same access to distribution that Deadspin does. Nobody is stopping him. Go change the world.

What journlaists and newspapers have yet to figure out is that news is a product. It needs to be produced and packaged in a way that elicits demand. If nobody wants what your making, re-tool it, re-think it, re-market it or come up with something new. Whining about it, while easy, is not the answer....

Last thought here - I actually find the whole idea of sports journalism to be kind of ridiculous now. People being paid to go to a game and write it up when the stadium is full of people who actually paid money to be there and can go home and write it up for free. Its absurd. Worried about the quality of their work? Great. Go fix that - i.e. see the previous two paragraphs.]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/sports_blogs_are_the_new_elvis.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/05/sports_blogs_are_the_new_elvis.html Thu, 01 May 2008 11:42:31 -0800

At some point, we'll look back at these robots nostalgically. By then, the 600 Series - you know the easy one to spot with the rubber skin - will be obsolete too. Let's just hope he never finds that Plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/the_500_series.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/the_500_series.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:25:38 -0800

Do I even need to say that the drone should have hit the brakes and watched the MiG fly right by?]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/not_switching_to_guns_goose.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/not_switching_to_guns_goose.html Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:20:08 -0800 first is here) in what I hope is a continuing series....

You know how when you go to a foreign country, where English is not the native language, how general living becomes simultaneously adventurous and uneasy. This is especially true when you go to buy something. Usually the store owner speaks “some” English, so you can get through the transaction, but you end up getting less information than you would at home. The result of this is that often times you feel like you got ripped off. This is because often times you have been ripped off.

Now same situation, but this time your old college roommate happens to live in the country your visiting. He’s not a native, but he speaks the language fluently and knows the area well. When he comes with you into the store, he brokers the transaction – i.e. he does the talking. When you walk out of the store this time, you feel just like you did at home. Much better.

What’s this have to do with start-ups? This is exactly the dynamic of the funding process. Think of the conference room at the VC’s office as the store in the foreign country. There are people in their selling stuff (money). You are not fluent in the language they speak. You are not a native. You do not know the local customs. Be smart, bring your local guy to broker the deal.

Not sure this is a good idea? Well, look at the other side of the table. VC’s ALWAYS bring their guy. The VC knows that he or she doesn’t speak the same language as you. You’re a coder, an operator, not an investor. You speak in cryptic terms that they’ve heard of, but aren’t really sure about. But they want what your selling, maybe. So they bring their guy every time to broker the deal.

If you’re wondering who is who in the meeting, the VC’s guy is the one who has some experience in your area, is somewhat fluent in your language and asks you a lot of questions about your actual business. This opposed to questions about cap table, burn rate, etc. – the VC’s ask those things. They call this whole process due diligence, but this is just a fancy term for bringing your guy.

So who’s your guy? Could be lots of folks – a lawyer you retain, a business partner who’s been through the funding process before, an advisor who does this type of thing for a living. Could be anyone. But bring him. Don’t wait for the term sheet. Lots is said (implicitly or explicitly) in these meetings that will be used against you later in the process. One of your guy’s main jobs is to make sure this doesn’t happen.

But wait you say – I know start-ups. I worked for one. I know about venture capital. I don’t need to bring anyone. Uh huh. You also had three years of high school French. Let me know how things worked out when you bought that vase at the antique shop in Paris… ]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/startup_rule_2_when_pitching_b.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/startup_rule_2_when_pitching_b.html Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:36:53 -0800 Hacker news or any of the VC/ entrepreneur blogs, there are plenty of folks who talk about start-ups, the lifestyle, the dos and do-nots. All helpful stuff. I'm going to try to add to that list by providing actual examples of good and bad that I've seen in my three start-ups and gives some rules to live by. So, the first of many parts....

Marksonland Start-Up Rule #1: You Can Choose Your Family

Unlike growing up where you parents admonished that you can choose your friends but not your family, in the start-up world you actually do get to choose your family - they're your co-founders and co-workers. They're the ones you'll be laughing, crying, criticizing, celebrating, fighting, teasing, annoying, complementing, brainstorming, traveling, pitching, failing, succeeding, eating, etc. with during your tenure at your company.

Take another look at that list again carefully - take it from me, you will be doing all of that stuff with these people. So when choosing your family, choose carefully. Pick people you think you will be comfortable doing every one of those things with. Everyone has their quirks, but there are certain types of people that you can be on the look out for that, in my experience, are deleterious to a small company. If you see any of these folks, run:

Mr. Big Company: Beware of the person who has spent most of his career working thriving in the modern day bureaucracy known as the big company. Making decisions quickly and decisively is not his forte. (Spending his entire day going from internal meeting to internal meeting is, I think).

This is not to say that anyone who has spent time working in big companies is not a good start-up guy - that's not true. I'm saying stay away from those with big company mentality. Every decision requires a committee and consensus, covering your tracks is more important that moving forward. These folks are bad news for a start-up that has to hunt and kill every day in order to eat.

The Empire Builder: Often going hand in hand with Mr. Big Company, Mr. Empire Builder makes his mark with in the company predominantly by having an ever increasing reporting staff, regardless of need. If he does sales, he'll want to hire lots of territory sales people to manage - even if you have nothing to sell yet (got to pre-sell you know...). If he's in marketing, he'll want to hire lots of marketing minions - even if your in development and there's nothing to promote. He'll make weird claims like marketing should really own facilities since the facilities are.....Creating and owning a large organization is the goal - unfortunately, it's at the cost of the company.

Mr. Gone Native: Every company, big and small, loves to sell to a start-up - especially those flush with VC cash. Vendors will be coming in and out of the office all day trying to close deals. And sales people use all sorts of dirty tricks (they're heartless I tell you!) to do so - fancy dinners, baseball tickets, etc. The whole idea is to get into a personal relationship with the decision maker, because saying no to someone you have a relationship with becomes that much harder. Mr. Gone Native is a sucker for this every time. He mistakes the sales pitch for friendship and then fights hard for his friend come decision time - even at the expense of the Company.

Mr. Insecure: One of the best parts about working at a start-up is that everything is new. As a result, most of the time you get to make decisions that are above your pay-grade, because no one else is there to make them. But don't mistake doing a job with knowing everything about a job. They're very different things. One of the key characteristics of a successful entrepreneur is knowing when you don't know something and not being afraid to ask for help.

Mr. Insecure does not do this. He views asking questions and seeking help as signs of weakness. He'd rather make a bad decision on his own than a good one with help. Obviously, this is not a good thing. The tough part about Mr. Insecure is that he's at times tough to spot. Since he doesn't want people to know his weaknesses (and we all have them) he's very adept at talking out of his you know what. It takes time to sift through the BS and figure out what's happening. Hopefully, by the time you do it, it's not to late.

Mr. Loyalty: Is it better ot be loyal to your co-workers or the company? Say you recruited someone in from another job - they've been working with you for a while and its just clear that they're not working out for any number of reasons? Firing them or demoting them to a proper level is the right answer for the company - easy one, right? Not for Mr. Loyalty. He is loyal to the person, not the organization and thus lets the weak link bring everyone down. Cold-heartedness is a trait of a successful entrepreneur.

Fonzie: That's right. Arthur Fonzarelli. The Fonz. No, no - it's not what you're thinking. Folks who ride motorcycles and wear leather jackets are fine. (And bonus points if they can turn on a juke box with a quick smack.) Fonzie is not welcome in a start-up because he was/ is incapable of uttering the following sentence: I was wrong. (I was wrrrr.....was all the fonz could muster).

All start-ups have one think in common - mistakes are made. Identifying them, owning up to them and moving on is what separates many of the successful ones from many of the failures. The Fonz can't do this. He'd rather bring down the entire organization that admit he made a mistake. So stay away from Fonzie - Ralph and Potsie too, but that's another blog post.

Mr. Needs A Hug. A smooth running start-up is like a well oiled machine - lots of parts moving simultaneously, independently and interdependently. Everyone within the company needs to be able to rely on the other to do his or her job. There is an expectation of competence. Now with that, not every job is going to garner the limelight. If engineering is releases a kick ass product, everyone in the company celebrates. When finance successfully closes the books for the month - usually no champagne.

Mr. Need a Hug's role, while important, is usually in the non-celebratory camp. Thus prompting Mr. Need A hug to, well, need a hug. Or at least a pat on the back. The majority of his or her day is spent making sure everyone in the company knows how important their job is, how good they do it - and, unfortunately, usually how they succeed at it in spite of (as opposed to because of) their co-workers. The real problem with Mr. Need a Hug is that one hug won't do it - they need lots of hugs. Regularly. It's never ending and they never seem happy.

So there you have it - 7 people to try to avoid when you are choosing your new family. There are plenty of others - Mr. Micromanager, Mr. Platitude, Mr. Lie on his Resume, etc., etc. but we all know to stay away from those folks.

Next time I'll post on some folks you DO want in your start-up. ]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/7_people_you_hope_you_dont_mee.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/7_people_you_hope_you_dont_mee.html Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:46:45 -0800 magazines are heading in the same direction:

Ad pages for BusinessWeek, which just went through its third round of cuts in three years, tumbled 19.4 percent in the quarter to 429.5 ad pages while rival Forbes dipped 13.2 percent to 504.8 ad pages, according to the latest figures reported to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Fortune looked like the best of the lot, with only a 1 percent drop in the quarter to 429.4.

The newsweeklies are also taking it hard. Newsweek, which recently unveiled plans to downsize 111 people, saw ad pages drop 13.9 percent to 339.

Ad pages for Time, which also continues to prune staffers, skidded 17.8 percent to 371.

U.S News & World Report dropped even further, with its ad pages tumbling 37.5 percent to 229.46 pages.

The only time I buy magazines anymore is we travel - they make good plane reading - and the choice is usually one of the news weeklies, Sports Illustrated or the gossip rags. I'm actually always amazed that anyone buys one of the big, full page glossy ads in any of them. The common characteristic of 99.9% of these ads is that they disappear in the readers hands - no one notices them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to me to be a bad ad purchase then....

Now with that, there are still some viable magazine ads. Women's magazines on fashion and clothes - those seem like reasonable ad buys. Women buy them to learn about the latest styles and trends - seems like a perfect opportunity for those who make the latest styles and trends to advertise. Lucky magazine is the top of this format - it consists entirely of ads. Its 300 plus pages every month and has no articles, just ads. This is a good business. Same with the verticals. Skiiing magazine is probably a great place to advertise skis, ski wear, etc. Not sure its a huge business, but its a reasonable ad platform.

The rest of the magazine rack - the general purpose weeklies - they seem like they're in trouble. They sell an ineffective product in a shrinking market. Not good. Now, if only they had a plan....]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/look_out_newspapers_make_room.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/look_out_newspapers_make_room.html Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:20:30 -0800

A clear, concise vision is always helpful. (via LAObserved)]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/the_future_of_the_la_times_in.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/the_future_of_the_la_times_in.html Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:29:16 -0800 Pulitzer Prize were announced. Not that I ever followed particularly closely, but I do remember a time when people actually cared about the Pulitzers. Their Pulitzer award the Washington Post won in 1973 for Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate work was notable. This year the Washington Post won six Pulitzers and sadly no one seems to have noticed.

Industry awards, while handed out under the guise of critical merit, actually serve the primary function of building buzz about the underlying product. In other words, its all about increasing commercial appeal - a/k/a sales. It is certainly why the movie industry spends so much time promoting the importance of the Oscars - if a studio wins one, the picture is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit commercially. Sure they have to throw off some of those winnings to the actors/ directors, but by then, who cares? There's plenty to go around.

The Grammy's used to be important too and heavily promoted by the industry too. But then something happened - the music industry stopped making money. Even if an album/ CD won a Grammy, it wouldn't sell more because, well, no one buys any albums or cds any more, Grammy winning or not. No commercial boost = no one cares about the award. As a result, the industry (and everyone else) stopped caring about the Grammy's.

So back to the Pulitzer. There used to be a time when distribution capabilities of content were limited. That barrier to entry to news and media kept the playing field small and let newspapers make tons of dough. Awards like the Pulitzers mattered in that they were good promotional devices for the newspaper brand, thereby increasing distribution and ad rates. Journalists never figured out how to cash in on them like actors did on the Oscars, but that was even more reason for the papers to promote it.

No more though. Distributing content is open season - it's cheap and easy. Since no one buys the print paper or goes to the newspaper web site, nobody is buying the ads they sell. As a result, the industry's revenue is in a free fall. These days having "Pulitzer Award winning" on the by-line adds exactly zero value. As a result, no one bothers spending any money promoting the award. Just another victim of the problems of the news industry.

To this end, the Pulitzers look a lot more like the Grammy's, the Tony's and probably pretty soon the Emmy's, than the Oscars.]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/pulitzers_are_the_new_tony.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/pulitzers_are_the_new_tony.html Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:18:45 -0800 Fred Wilson's post calling for "A New Path to Liquidity." Fred is describing, in broad terms, how he and many other VC's are faced with a dilemma with respect to their portfolio companies. Many of these companies are not strong enough financially to withstand the scrutiny of the public markets so the only monetization alternative for investors is to sell out to larger companies. These big companies, shockingly, tend not to be such good stewards. As a result, often the product denigrates in their hands.

There are plenty of obvious responses that you could make to this post. For instance, the easiest response would be, so why don't you focus your investments on companies that do make money? Or you could ask why, if you loved the product so much, did you sell it? You know how once you sell your car you kind of lose all rights to complain about whether the new owner keeps it clean? The same goes here. You might also comment on the issue of whether all businesses need to be big businesses. Perhaps some of these companies aren't destined to be huge money earners and as a result aren't good early stage capital investments (kinda like a dry cleaner or a deli - good small businesses, but not a VC profile investment). Those are easy and legitimate questions.

But, in my best passive aggressive manner I will ignore those and focus on the real issue: why aren't these businesses profitable? As anyone who reads this blog knows, for many ad supported Web 2.0 companies its because the CPM rate for ads pretty much blows for everyone other than search companies. Don't believe me? Go ask the newspaper companies.

The white knight that everyone seems to be banking on to fix this dilemma are brand advertisers, who because of increase and web usage and decrease of other media, will be shifting their budget online. But they're not here yet and, as I wrote the other day, I wouldn't be surprised if they never fully made the transition. My argument is that the web does not provide a contextual experience for brand ads. TV is an entertainment experience - is it a shocker that most effective brand ads on TV are also entertaining? The web, on the other hand, is an information experience. So is it a shocker that the only ads that actually work online are informational, i.e. search ads? So how do you move one to the other?

A commenter to that post correctly added this insight:

[T]he real challenge in terms of contextualizing for the web is for ad supported destinations (and the ad networks that power many of them) to get more creative about how to do promotion beyond simple IAB-standard units.

He's 100% right. Online publishing needs something to sell that actually allows people to pay the bills if it is going to survive as a stand-alone business (as opposed to a hobby). In my mind, this is real opportunity: find and fund that model. Yes, its harder than coming up with a new Facebook application that can be pumped out in a weekend of coding, but that's why it will be so rewarding if you can figure it out.

My advice to Fred and other VC's who want to both make money and a difference for lots of people, focus on cracking the nut of the publishing ad model. If your successful, we won't need to ask for a new path to liquidity. ]]> http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/the_road_to_liquidity.html http://www.marksonland.com/2008/04/the_road_to_liquidity.html Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:38:18 -0800