31 Jul 2014
A few years ago there was a popular product known as OMGPop. A multiplayer platform I found to be entertaining and mildly addicting. No surprise it was acquired in 2012 for around $200 million, a modest profit for the founders and investors. However, after Zynga bought OMGPop in 2012, their stock plummeted, falling to-date approx. 80%. Zynga's Mark Pincus is viewed as one of the worst CEO's in 2012. Looking at Zynga's incredible growth and success prior to March 2012, how could this have happened? What went wrong?
However, I'm not here to rant about Zynga and OMGPop, rather explore the incident as a paradigm of the tech scene as a whole. After Zynga climaxed, investors lost an interest in online games, and the online-game bubble (omg)popped. The tech craze fueled massive growth, and once the sector became inundated with competitors, the market abruptly adjusted itself due to companies underperforming – revenues and profits failing to meet expectations. This pattern repeats itself – currently we're in the midst of a 3D printing flood, literally hundreds of models on the market, and we're about to experience smart-watch and virtual reality booms. We're going to see these patterns with every technology.
Everyone's been curious about whether there's a tech bubble or not. Come on, look at Snapchat's and Uber's multi-billion dollar valuations! However, the Tech Bubble® is a rumor – and even if does exist – we won't experience anything like 2000 any time soon, as long as there's new technology to fuel another "mini-bubble". Instead, we're going to see waves of growth and decay in different tech sectors. Whereas businessmen and entrepreneurs might ride these waves, as developers, it's our obligation to splash around the virtual ocean and spawn more waves.
That's why Mimoun and I are working on a legal startup – startups which only consist 0.1% of all startups on AngelList. A notoriously low-tech industry, after contacting lawyers and learning more about the field, we truly believe it's prone to disruption. Currently we're working on FirePact, and we want to innovate the way contracts are generated, analyzed and visualized.
02 Jun 2014
I'm impressed. Today Apple unveiled HomeKit at their notorious WWDC. Yet this isn't just a bold move to enter another market, they're attempting to eliminate competition, like Nest and other connected devices. The beauty is just like Google with their smart-watch SDK, they're not physically entering the "connected objects" realm, rather just fabricating a user-friendly interface for developers. This means Apple will be able to indirectly create a connected world for consumers, going above and beyond the rumors of an apple smart watch. The devices will be so integrated with Apple's ecosystem, we'll be seeing them triggered using Siri – which I personally look forward to! Stay tuned tomorrow for more news from WWDC.
26 Apr 2014
For 2.5 months, Gilad and I worked incredibly hard to build Spread, a search engine built into your spreadsheet. Imagine you are in Excel, and you type in "apartments in New York under $2,000/month." The rows and columns in front of you would get populated with search results.
We didn't get into YC. But we learned an incredibly valuable lesson that applies to all aspiring entrepreneurs out there: find a use case.
When we showed our product, most people said it was 'cool' and congratulated us for the technical feat. Unfortunately, no one would use it. If you want to start a company, don't build a product if you won't use it, or if you haven't spoken with anyone who said they would.
As an engineer, it is easy to stay at home writing software you think is 'cool' and useful to some hypothetical client out there.
That's not how it works. You need to be calling, emailing, meeting, speaking with people in different industries all the time. Ask them what they need and how technology can make their lives better.
Gilad and I have certainly been doing this, and it has been a very rewarding source of ideas and inspiration.
Mimoun, April 26, 2014
26 Apr 2014
I've been thinking about annotation and RapGenius, the startup that successfully took advantage of this trend. But it is not until recently that I realized that the most interesting example of annotation has been lying there, in front of me, my entire life.
The Talmud, or body of Jewish law, contains the most fascinating example of annotation, annotation on annotation, and annotation on annotation on annotation.
The chain of commentary-on-commentary in the Talmud traverses eras and languages. For those interested in annotation, the Talmud is an incredible source of awe and inspiration.
For those who are not familiar with this topic, the Talmud is the body of Jewish civil law. It is comprised of the Mishnah and the Guemarah. The Mishnah represents the oral tradition of the Torah, and the Guemarah consists of discussions about those laws.
Here's what a typical page of the Guemarah looks like:
- The text in blue is the Mishnah, written in 'Mishnaic Hebrew' circa 189 CE.
- The text in yellow is the Guemarah, annotations on the Mishnah. It was written in Aramaic in the 4th-6th centuries CE.
- The text in purple is called “Rashi” and was written several centuries later. It explains and clarifies ambiguities from the Guemarah. Though written in Hebrew, it often uses Latin and Medieval French words to designate objects that didn't have a proper Hebrew translation.
- The text in red is Tosafos, most of which were written in France in the middle ages. They represent further commentary on the Mishnah and Rashi.
I wonder if modern examples of annotation will ever reach the same level of complexity, depth and sophistication that is present in the Talmud.
26 Apr 2014
As an introduction, Gilad and I are both students in computer science at Columbia University, and close friends. When we are not building technology, we are talking about it. So we guessed we would share our thoughts and experiences with the world.
We realized that people are busy and attention spans continue to shrink. To keep things interesting and to-the-point, we are limiting each post to 512 words. This constraint will also help us become better writers.
We hope you finds the posts to follow exciting. We for sure look forward to it.
Mimoun, April 26, 2014