This idea now feels so obvious to me that I almost didn’t bother to write it down. But I keep having conversations with entrepreneurs who aren’t yet using the pattern and their eyes always light up when they see a way to apply it to their own business, so if this post turns on the continue…
I’m excited to announce that Founder’s Co-op just completed an investment in Urban Airship, a new mobile infrastructure company that’s making it radically easier for smartphone developers to implement core features like push messaging and in-app transactions. The deal is is a first for us in several ways: it’s our first significant investment outside Seattle continue…
In March of this year I speculated that – between Google Voice and Android – the era of the carrier-free cellphone might be upon us. Many of my mobile-savvy friends scoffed – the existing model was too entrenched, they argued, and the carriers would fight like hell to delay their transition from value-added service provider continue…
Sometimes it’s the obvious stuff that’s the hardest to see. The AppStoreHQ team has been hammering away on all kinds of hard technical problems on the topic of helping iPhone owners find iPhone apps. But a friend looked at the site the other day and said something that stopped me dead in my tracks. Instead continue…
I’ve always been kind of a word geek. One of my favorite games when I was a kid was “Mad Libs“, a notebook of short stories with blank spaces provided for strategically placed nouns, adjectives and verbs. Depending on the words you or your friends chose, the resulting story could be hilarious, obscene, or just continue…
Back in April I wrote up some parallels I was seeing between the current iPhone app explosion and the first big wave of mass adoption of the Web. One of the patterns I predicted at the time was a building rush of incumbent companies coming into the space: “Brands Rush In. In the late ’90s continue…
A few weeks ago VentureBeat emailed to tell me that AppStoreHQ had been selected as one of seven finalists for the Best Services Startup competition at their upcoming MobileBeat show. More than 100 companies had applied for the competition, so I was stoked to get picked but had no real expectation of winning. We just continue…
I love the New York Times – it’s one of the only publications I still read in paper form (every day, no less), so it’s always a good day when one of my projects gets a mention in the Gray Lady. Today was that day for AppStoreHQ. Roy Furchgott gave us a nice shout-out in continue…
Last week Ian reminded me about Joel Spolsky’s famous blog post on “Fire and Motion” – here’s a key excerpt: “When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards continue…
A while back I made a prediction that 2009 would be a breakout year for Google’s Android project. With the mid-year mark approaching and no new devices shipped that bet was looking a little shaky, but today’s announcements from the Google I/O conference put a little more weight behind my bullish view (phew). There’s been continue…