Comments on: Creating, funding and acquiring “skins of data”

By: Taylor Davidson

Taylor Davidson — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:23:29 +0000

There's probably a business model for investors to focus on platforms or skins, but they are different business models (financial and operational). I'm not really in a position to tell investors what they “should” focus on

By: Christopher Golda

Christopher Golda — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 05:57:04 +0000

Creating “skins of data” is more entrepreneur friendly than investor friendly. Micro-M&A deals are just glorified hiring bonuses. It follows that investors, in my opinion, should focus on platforms (markets) as they both create and capture the most value. Nevertheless, developing “skins” to help us understand the overwhelming amount of data available on the open web is still a noble cause. I just think it becomes much more meaningful at a larger scale than the word “skin” suggests.

By: Igniter

Igniter — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:22:09 +0000

Great!

I'm not sure about the need to plan for the exit... maybe more like rapidly
iterating product/service around user expressed needs in parallel with
concious reflection and frequent reconnection with the 'core ideology' or
DNA of the 'organization'. This is what I think then informs the type of
organization model that's necessary to be able to keep focus on those two
things and evolve to serve them in the context of a rapidly evolving
external environment. That's why I've been very interested in the Stafford
Beer vsm stuff and the notion of variety engineering in organization design.
Particularly in the context of social media and it's informational richess -
variety engineering of information and communication flows could produce
some powerful results I suspect.

Some other places I've played with this are in the 'venture vortex' model:
http://igniter.com/post33
Venturing on the frontiers: http://igniter.com/post61
Doing differently in the Great Remix: http://igniter.com/post66
And kind of in the influence of Open on venturing: http://igniter.com/post76

Glad to be in startup mode again and be able to bat this around while
actually in the game.

By: Taylor Davidson

Taylor Davidson — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:42:39 +0000

I wonder if "planing for the exit" is more important for a peer-produced organization than a more traditional organization; knowing that the parts will be more flexible during the value creation process, would it be harder to fix the foundation once you're ready for the exit? What would that entail?

Btw, this makes me feel more confident that working on innovating organizations is important: "new institutions demand new kinds of organizations to carry them" fav line from @umairh (58:50) http://tinyurl.com/c5tk37>...

Also: I've been toying with an idea for a compensation / equity structure based on the kudos model that I'm contemplating using for a couple ideas; writing the post at the moment and will ask for your (public) feedback...

By: Igniter

Igniter — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Great post again. I like the idea of building skins and extensions coupled with the small exits. Was just thinking about this and wondering what would be the right exit point for Shouldless should it have the opportunity. Might also work well with the peer-produced startup process and kudos equity model. Interesting…

By: Taylor Davidson

Taylor Davidson — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:42:24 +0000

thanks, and I would love to hear more about what you're creating…

By: distanlo

distanlo — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:31:10 +0000

great post man. i am building a 'skin' as you call it right now (on the side). it's actually targeted to be an add-on to three services that many people are using together now. could never exist on its own, but would fit well in that suite of products.