Here’s the thing about SXSW or “South By” as it is affectionately known. It is full on for almost 24 hours a day and when you think you are about to relax and just have some fun beacuse you taken in or given as much information as you possibly can, then at that exact moment something or someone else happens and you start all over again.
Yesterday (Saturday) was another full day of selling, networking and information upload. I discovered that BcToolkit is well liked and has merit, even the chaps at AKQA thought is was great and are going to give it a whirl. Thanks guys
There is a lot of talk from service-based companies trying to move away from services and into products because of the revenue visibility, IP and low direct costs. This is another notion that satisfies me seeing as as that is where we have been for the last 12-18 months with Ackura and Bctoolkit. The other thing that I learn’t is that unless you are trying to build a billion dollar corporation fast, then your product doesn’t have to be that staggering or innovative because there is space in the market. What is important is that your product has to do what you say it will, and do it well. Focus on those core issues. A good analagy I heard was if you are going to open up a hot dog stand, focus on the hot dog not the stand or the mustard or the bun because without the hot dog you just have a “Stand”. There are tonnes of small business owners with one or two “me-too” tech products sold SaaS style that make a nice living thank you very much. The differentiator is often the niche markets that they are being sold into. I met a guy whose name I didn’t catch, he had a CMS for car retailers. The only unique thing about it was that he had packaged it as “The” CMS for car retailers. The web is the small guys friend in this respect because it allows them to compete in a way that wasn’t there 10 years ago.
Last night was the official opening party for SXSW as the film buffs have all started to arrive. It was held at The MACC (Mexican and American CulturalCentre) and it was an outdoor extravaganza which was basically a one night festival type gathering. One entertaining point in the evening was when a budding script writer approached myself and my partner in crime Miles Galliford @subhub and asked us if we would give him feedback on his script synopsis. Hmm maybe we shouldn’t have been so straight forward, anyway I hope they got him down from the roof OK.
Crowdsourced car from Local Motors
On the way to the event Miles and I happened across the latest crowd-sourced car from Local Motors, the car manufacturer aiming to turn the car industry up side down by building cars based on the most popular suggestions and ideas from the likes of you and I. So if you fancy a car like this then sign up because the top voted contributors all get to buy one.
At these places you bump into interesting entreprenurial people who otherwise, let’s be honest, you would probabaly never meet. For example I enjoyed conversations with Alicia Navarro co-founder of Skimlinks, the simplified affiliate marketing company (which by the way is a great concept), Michael Smith co-founder of Hotbox which went on to become Firebox and Charlie Osmond from SM people Fresh Networks.
Finally I’ll sign off with some short iphone video of Natal ( this is a link to an official Microsoft video), which was well used at the event. It is, if you want my humble opinion, going to revolutionise the way we decorate or build houses because in a couple of years time every house will include in it somewhere a massive plain white wall. Enjoy
