Dinosaur: Bank of America

Today I sent two wire transfers. One to our web team in New York and the other to an employee who had won a bonus at our center in the Philippines. Which cost me more?

The transfer from one Bank of America account in California to another in New York?
Or the transfer half way across the globe?Bank of America gives us another opportunity to examine the behavior of the dinosaurs. As an established business they are comfortable and lazy. They charge their own customers $25 to send money inside the bank! This is an activity that costs BofA zero dollars.

Now, let's look at the upstart. Xoom is hands down the easiest and cheapest way to send money. There online money transfer system is integral to running my business. They are miles ahead of their major competitor Western Union, who makes it virtually impossible to transfer money without going, cash in hand, to a kiosk.

Unfortunately Xoom does not do money transfers inside the U.S. and I want to know why?!

Where I Was, Where I Am, Where I'm Going...

An old friend wrote me an email this weekend. The questions raised remind me how important it is to constantly evaluate where we are, where we were and where we want to be. Here are the questions and my response...

Hey Bryce,
I was reading your post about you and this line in particular hit me hard:
"Since coming back to LA on Tuesday, April 29th (2008) I have been overcome by an uneasy calm. Neither Jaspar nor I know what’s next. He’s got graduation and trip to Israel to at least delay the inevitable nothingness. But I am smack dab in the middle of it now. I keep hoping that another idea will hit me."

This is me now...
I identify entirely with the uneasy calm, inevitable nothingness, being in the middle of it, just hoping...
What next? This question plagues me, but I need to turn the tables and create my future.
I was wondering...what did it for you?
How did you breakthrough and create the opportunities for you to pursue the life you envision?
Because I have had a vision for my life and purpose for some time... and for the life of me, I can't figure out where to begin.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this, if you would oblige...
Speak soon
XXXXXXXX

Hey XXXXXXX,

Great to hear from you. The power of Facebook continues to blow me away. Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm happy you called my attention to that old post. It's been a little more than a year since I wrote it and a lot has changed, but a lot has also stayed the same. Jaspar and I charged head first into a business idea - TaskUs. Which has taken us on quite a journey. We now have our own call center in the Philippines and a functioning business. But the business hasn't taken off in the way we hoped...like taking us out of our parent's houses for instance. So we have since launched another business - Smarter Social Media. We did a huge campaign this summer for Design Your Dorm across Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. And we are now facing the arduous challenge of landing more high paying clients.

This is all to say that the way I got going was to do just that: GO! We didn't write a business plan for TaskUs or for Smarter Social Media. And while neither has put a roof over our heads yet, we are close, very close. We gave a talk to a class on Entrepreneurship at USC this week, and the professor asked me at the end: "What inspires you? What keeps you going?" My answer is simple: I worked for fourteen months in the corporate world - investment banking to be specific. And during this time I dreaded the sound of my alarm clock, bringing me back to consciousness at 5:30 a.m each morning. For the past fourteen months I have been pursuing my dream of being a wildly successful multi-preneur. And, I love getting up in the morning. I love going to work. I love the team I've built. While, the challenges can be tiresome, I love journey. For me this is what is most important.

A few points:

1) Get clear on what your dream is. Do this exercise: Write down where you want to be in 5 years. Write down EVERYTHING. Make is wild and crazy. Do you have a family? Where do you live? What do you drive? What do you wear? Are you working? If so what are you doing? EVERYTHING. Write this is present tense, "I am living in a mansion in the Malibu colony." Then write down where you need to be in 3 years to accomplish your 5 year dream. Same thing, write every detail. Then write where you need to be in 1 year to accomplish your 3 year goal. Then write where you need to be in 6 months to accomplish your 1 year goal. Here is where you stop. Look at where you need to be in 6 months. And visualize what that looks like. Then plan (yes some planning is essential) how you are going to accomplish this 6 month goal. At the end of 6 months evaluate where you are and do the exercise again.
2) Do, don't plan. Once you have a clear vision of where you want to get to just start doing.
3) Confront your fears! The number one thing that prevents people from being where they think they want to be is fear. To do this you have to first define your fears. Then challenge yourself to put yourself in awkward, uncomfortable and sometimes terrifying situations. I think I want to be the most popular person, but I have social anxiety. Only by confronting this fear, by approaching random girls, forcing myself to be outgoing and social, will I get to where I need to be. The irony is that in the process I will probably realize that I don't want to be the most popular person. But if I don't confront the fear I will just be left resentful and depressed.

Okay, that's all for now. But if you have any other questions whatsover, just write.

Bryce

AT&T, Verizon and the Dinosaurs

After my morning workout today, I sat down for a quick protein shake and peeled open the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed section. I came across a piece that literally took my words of the last week out of my mouth. Andy Kessler's, Why Apple Killed Google Voice is a brilliant explanation of the future of telecom. The bottom line is simple: over the next decade or so, telecom will transform and the result will spell extinction for the giants of the industry that have comfortably sat on their grid for years, charging monopolistic prices and delivering sub-par service.

Over the past week I have been begging Verizon to give me FiOS so I can run my business a bit faster than the 1 mbps download the office is sharing currently. I also decided to cancel my Verizon phone service for a simple reason - Skype. With two lines on Verizon, I was paying $85 per month, plus taxes. I now have four lines on Skype, that do EVERYTHING the old phone used to, except take up space on my desk, and I pay $10 per month.

The math spells the end for telecom dinosaurs. But the cruel irony is I am still left begging them for broadband bandwidth, and praying for a national wireless network sometime before I retire.

Paid in Part

Here is a post I did for Smarter Social Media yesterday.



Jordan and I have been arguing a lot lately. But one of more interesting disagreements is about the future of journalism. Rupert Murdoch’s plan has caused a rift. Jordan voiced his thoughts in his great post Can Rupert Murdoch Save Newspapers? Here is my reply:

I applaud Murdoch for being brave enough to address a growing problem – Newspapers don’t make money. It is a forgone conclusion that the end of printed news is near. Today I have subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, LA Times, NY Times, The New Yorker, BusinessWeek and The Economist (the single greatest publication in journalism today). I read all of these in print. Yet, with in the decade I am confident that I will get all of my news online, either through the computer or a Kindle like device.

With the recent drop in ad dollars being spent both in newspapers and online, the media is being forced to look elsewhere for revenue. Murdoch is logically looking to the people who enjoy the fruits of his journalistic labors – the readership. Yet, my generation is not prepared to fork over cash in exchange for news, because news is available for free somewhere be it another newspaper or on the blogosphere or even (as I’ve written in the past) on trending topics of Twitter.

But here’s the catch, not all journalism is created equal. The report I read in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times or the Economist is better researched, more timely and written in a style far superior to most of the blogosphere. The blogosphere mostly recycles the journalism from these established outlets. And, I for one would pay (a small, but reasonable) amount for access to this truly premium content.

With this said, specialization and expertise, or in other words value are essential. I would pay for The Economist because of their free market, well educated take on every political issue imaginable. But this doesn’t just apply to print media, as I would happily pay for TechCrunch for their one of a kind scoop on the world of start ups and social media.

While, I admire Murdoch, I do not think his move will change the current calculus. The game changer will be Kindle-like digital readers. Much like the iTunes store recreated the market for paid music, wireless subscriptions via digital readers will reinvigorate the world of journalism. And while I am keeping myself informed on the go, Jordan will have to sift through the recycled mess when Ethernet access allows.

Information vs. Insight

I did a post for Smarter Social Media today. Where I argue that the future of the web will hold a place for paid content. I firmly believe that people will pay for premium information. That said, I just finished ready Brad Burnham's brilliant post about the future of free online. Brad points out that information is no longer scarce, but attention is. As a result:

"Raw information will become not just a commodity, it will be a nuisance. In that world, consumers will value scarce, relevant insight over abundant facts."

Brad goes on to discuss the valuable exchange between users and social networks, in which user behavior is leveraged by the algorithms of social networks to produce a more valuable, insightful experience for those users.

But in relation to my previous post, I think Brad has proven my point. Instead of calling it premium information, I should have called it insight. The future of the net holds a place for the insightful digestion of information. People will not be paying to content, they will be paying to quiet the thousands of tweets, newstreams and blogrolls from yelling at them. Paying for a single reliable source of insight.

International Politics of Social Media

Here is a post I did for Smarter Social Media today....

First Twitter went down. Then Facebook. Next LiveJournal and YouTube were struck. Social media addicts everywhere quivered in cold sweats of withdrawal, as the rumor mill began to churn. But no one expected that the DoS attacks and (mislabeled everywhere DDoS) were the result of international conflict.

Let me introduce you to George, better known by his Twitter name cyxymu. George is from Georgia, and a fierce critic of his ex-communist oppressor – Mother Russia. In what is only now becoming clear, it appears that the Kremlin launched a massive DoS attack aimed at George’s LiveJournal and Twitter accounts. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Russian government launched these attacks on Thursday, causing Twitter to fail and LiveJoural to overload. While, conflicting reports have appeared pointing out that these attacks were nothing like the Russian web attacks of the past, their massive scale indicates that a country or very large criminal operation must have been behind them.

Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal quickly fixed the problem. But Biz Stone reported that the attacks increased ten fold on Friday. This point is so important that TechCrunch did a post highlighting just this statement. The question here is WHY? Why did the attacks increase by a factor of ten?

I see two plausible, but only one realistic, answers. Either, Thursday’s Russian launched attack led to a massive string of copycats that decided to get in on the action. Or, Russia’s success on Thursday inspired it, and perhaps other unfriendly regimes, to intensify their aggression on Friday. Countries from Iran to North Korea have felt the power of Tweet - the masses given voice by cell phone based micro-blogging, and would like nothing more than to eliminate this powerful promoter of free speech from the planet altogether.

Brilliant

Came across this post on Cody Brown's blog:

This post compares Twitter and MySpace in a brilliant fashion. I completely agree with Cody's point that Twitter has peaked, because it is too many things to too many people (kind of like Barack Obama).

August Alone

First Tom went to Asia, then Preston left for Hawaii, and today Jaspar is off to Tahoe. August has brought in summer vacations for everyone but me! Before I start sounding sorry for myself, I want to make clear that I am looking forward to spending sometime alone.

Loneliness is a fascinating experience, as it seems to leave me with the clearest perspective and yet also leads to longing and pain. I have long feared being alone, viewing it as a pitiful state of existence, meaning that no one wanted to hang out with me. But this view has transformed of late.

Over the past year I have made a number of crucial decisions that will determine the future of my life. Each of these decisions was made only after the console of the wisest people I know. However, I have come to see that the best decisions are made by quieting these, often conflicting, voices and listening to my own instincts. This is not always the case. But more often than not I lead myself in the right direction.

So this August, as I face the most crucial decision to date, I will sit alone under the tree in my backyard, plotting the strategy that will lead me to life I have long envisioned.

Viva

I spent last weekend in Vegas. I have never enjoyed my time in Vegas, having never visited the city since turning 21. So I naturally tempered my expectations for this visit. While, I can’t say I was totally blown away, I was definitely pleasantly surprised by my experience.

Jaspar, Justin, Dave and a crew of USC alum and I hit the strip Friday night. We stayed at Encore, which is a world class hotel – 750 square foot rooms, the most incredible spa I’ve ever seen, and access to all the Wynn’s wonders ran us $160 a night on the weekend and $109 on Sunday night. Anywhere, but Vegas it would have cost well over $500, but Nevada gaming laws subsidized our stay.

Following Jaspar’s frugal instruction, we did not gamble, and invested instead in three amazing nights – one at Lavo and two at XS. Saturday was the pinnacle of the experience, as we sat down to a table between NBA super star Joe Johnson and Beyoncé. With over 7,500 people in attendance at $30 a head, plus over a hundred tables, an source that request anonymity confirmed that XS does $700,000 on it’s best nights…Makes me miss the club industry.

The rest of the trip was spent sneaking sandwiches and cocktails from the Wynn’s two VIP rooms, fruitlessly attempting to add color to my creamy skin and applying Tylenol to a perpetual headache, the result of Vega debauchery. I’m glad I gave Vegas a second chance, but my next trip will be a vacation, which means relaxation, something neither of my recent trip to New York and Vegas were able to provide.

Brotherly Love

A couple months ago my brother Preston has another, self-proclaimed, "stroke of genius." What he called the Facebook Lock Box would be a way for Facebook users to store away videos, pictures, wall posts and other valuable data that currently only resides on the Facebook servers. I brushed his idea off saying that Facebook would make it damn near impossible to remove that kind of data from their notorious walled garden.

But alas someone has figured out how to make it work. SocialSafe is an effective, fun new application enabling Facebook users to manage their Facebook data offline on their home computer. Jennifer Van Grove wrote a great article about it for Mashable.

I for one will be eagerly watching the reaction of the Facebook crew to this application, and listening intently for my brother's next business ideas:

SocialSafe Intro Video from Pascal Wheeler on Vimeo.