Archive for March, 2007

Business Model 2.0, does it exist?!

Published by
silent
at March 29, 2007 in General. 0 

We, the Internet users, are accustomed to FREE stuff. The majority of us download MP3s, movies for free, and cannot imagine paying for email, MySpace, YouTube, Google, or various softwares etc. There are two ways to generate revenue and/or profit in this harsh reality: Advertising support and/or Flip. Personally, I am not a big fan of advertising support websites – it lacks sustainability, and it does not benefit a start up (with low traffic) like us. I have done some backhand calculation and it will be very hard for us to break even – mainly to the cost of bandwidth. Take YouTube or LastFM, for example, I doubt advertising as its sole revenue source will ever cover the cost of its operation.

So, where do we find the cash? (We need to eat, find shelter, and clothe ourselves after all)

A good friend of mine and I had this discussion yesterday evening, and he was trying to convince me to use the irrational VC to fund MuSMo’s ongoing development and operation. And, he does have a point – just look at the irrational amount of money given out (granted it is not easy to get VC money). With ample amount of cash in hand, like many, MuSMo can start up, scale and continue to develop at an incredible pace. However, without a sustainable business model, we can only look for an exit strategy of TO SELL OUT (or FLIP), i.e. wait for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc to buy us out. (Let’s put aside the question of why these rich companies would like to buy a company who cannot yet monetize a sustainable revenue stream or make a decent profit for another day)

Is this a reason why not many exist after the 3 year mark? So what should MuSMo do? Any suggestions, or is the stunt by Democracy Player the way forward? Will subscription model be enough to cover the operation expenses? Should we concentrate on building large scale, before worrying about making a decent profit? YouTube might not take a lot of money to develop (the last figure I heard was $35,000) but it takes much much more to operate it!

Does the King know what He/She wants?

Published by
silent
at March 26, 2007 in General. 0 

Every business mouths and knows this – “Customer is KING”. For start-ups like us this is especially true since we need to provide a product/service to which truly adds value. Yet, my brothers and I have been debating recently about whether the KING really knows what he/she wanted. What if the problem we are trying to solve with MuSMo does not exist?

A MBA class will teach us the benefits of market research – a focused group and survey. Yet, all this work will only point us to an incremental innovation, at worst, the results will scare us away off MuSMo. I draw encouragement from Xerox (Joe Wilson), Bill Gates (Microsoft) etc.

MuSMo strives to be the primary access to music! Free Music!

Until 10 years ago, we bought LPs, tapes and CDs. We paid with hard cash to purchase the music we like. Anyone with a collection of over 200 was considered a big music nut! Chances of experimenting different music artists or genres with these purchases – close to zero!

During the dial-up era, MP3s were freely available and FREE. During those days, I remember looking up sites to download the latest chart hits. Chances of experimenting different music artists or genres were higher but still close to zero. Why? The download speeds were slow and not much music were available except the latest hits!

In those years, we discovered music through friends or radios. (I am talking about the general public)

Now, with a combination of P2P technology widely used, and the speed of internet broadband high… we are now able to download music with much ease. No longer are we just downloading singles but venturing out to downloading albums. We are now able to experiment with different kinds of music by ourselves because of this convenience and the ease of locating different types of music.

This has also changed our music listening behaviour. We are now able to command a huge list of music on our PC and portable devices (iPod, mp3 player etc) literally at our finger tips. No longer do I need to select A CD, play it on a CD player! What a hassle! No shuffle feature, no mixture of songs in a “playlist”. With me, I have folders within my MP3 folder ordered by types not genre, language and artist. I also have a folder which consist of my most recent downloads. With a recent music collection in my laptop at over 10Gs, it is now difficult to plough into my collection to play my music. This results in an overused of the random and shuffle feature. So how will I listen to my music in the next 2 years?

Purely my own observation!

Choosing the Right Path - Software Development

Published by
KwangErn Liew
at March 14, 2007 in Development. 0 

MuSMo started nearly a year ago. Not the website, nor the name, but the concept. The dream of making your media come to live wherever you are. For us, we have a clear cut roles to play. My brother, TzeErn, who has the financial mind from his actuary background with the experience in China as the business development manager, he is no doubt the best candidate in the business area. As for me, there’s only one area left, the technical side of things. For a non-developer and non-engineer (not even having education that’s anywhere close to it), I had to spend much time in learning this new field.So where are we now? TzeErn has taken some serious time lately to iron out our business directions. And I have been working on developing the right infrastructure and right application platform for us all. The following questions remained in me as we continue, where do we start? How did we start? Which direction do we take? How do we take it? What do we choose? How do we choose? And the big question of “when”. For a startup business, these are important questions.

For nearly one year now, I’ve taken time out to learn what I need to learn. The overwhelming hype about Linux on server environmnent made me moved from Windows to Debian, to learn what it is all about, what developers use, to learn what is known as “best”, to learn what is the right tool to use and when, and how this can be applied to MuSMo. Debian was quite an easy choice, great package management system, good standing of documents and user-base, and don’t have a steep learning curve as Gentoo. Next was to scout around for available web tools that are essential to the business. Firstly, we took the step to find out which websites are similar to us. Naturally, the next step is to find out what sort of tools they use, what are their pitfalls, possible issues and solutions, and work on from there (see also Blog.WebApplication). In such, I come to list out what there are out there. A range of solutions are before us, we have Java-, Perl-, Ruby-, Python-, Erlang-, and even Flash-based. Where do we start?

This is where discernment is most important. How does one discern which is the right tool to do the job? Scouting around in the forums, mailing lists, and IRC channels are great places to start. Where people talk, people walked. And once you have sufficient knowledge to understand a fair amount, start talking to people in the industry, simple as that. Listen attentively, ask (stupid/irrelevant/smart/boggling) questions, break through the wall of unknown to see what’s beyond. It’s the only way to learn what you need. It is also complementary to read industry blogs and news sites. And equally important, Read The Fabulous Manual! It can be very technical, so what? Just try it out and ask succinctly. With the right amount of knowledge and understanding, it’ll be more comfortable to choose the right tools. It takes lots of time and patience, but it’s worth it.

This is only on the technical side of things. As for business, meh, I wouldn’t know. But I know this, to be in business, you must know your business. For me, I’m coming to the point of knowing which tools will be the right ones to build MuSMo. A project plan to be fulfilled. Hopefully at least. :)

Update: This was intended to be a series. But due to lack of time, and shift of priorities, I am unable to continue but will try my best to find time to share our knowledge, etc.

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