the labs @ laan thoughts and other ramblings

Getting started….

So people have been asking us what we are up to. The long and short answer: something in online video. As people who watch a lot of online video we see a market dominated by chaos. Online video is a vast market and if we can bring even a tiny bit of order to that chaos through some of our tools and products, we know there is success to be had.

This new venture is an interesting play for us. Most 2.0 startups take a very simple idea and translate it into a simple execution path (i.e. a dating site for people who love cupcakes) which is an attractive model because of its transparency, measurability and graduability (that’s my word for definable exit opportunities).

We are taking a different path. We are entering a very crowded and very chaotic space. Our intention is to develop micro-products and measure their market resonance while at the same time building an indexing/relevance engine with all the meta-information we collect. (Check out some of products [link].)

The key for us is having a philosophy behind our product development. Right now we are moving forward with three basic principles:

• Simple – If you can’t understand how to use something upon first glance, it’s unlikely you will invest the time later (unless a trusted source makes a good case for you to give it another shot).
• Social – Your friends are you best cultural filters. The phenomenon of social networks is not going away. We don’t want to create another social network, just use the API’s out there. This includes soft-signups and the like.
• Personal – It has to have immediate personal relevance to you. It has to feel like a place your friends (and like-minded people) are (#2) and the data there needs to become immediately personal (i.e. recommendations and psychographic filtering).

Unlike many startups, we don’t have a clear picture of what products to work on first. Being just two people we are looking at simple products that have an attainable development and support cycle.

This is why we chose to get started in an incubator (but that is another story).