Last week, a really smart girl said the following to me while watching “Three Days in the Valley,” a special report from Fox Business about buzz-worthy companies in Silicon Valley: “You can be like them. No, be better than them. It doesn’t matter where you are. You just need to be smart.”
Amanda was referencing the notion that if you’re an entrepreneur and building a web startup from the ground up, you need to be in the Valley. I looked at her and said, “You’re right.”
***
Two years ago, I graduated from Georgetown with a German degree in hand and a thesis I poured my senior year into. I was coming off a mental “high” of building something. Sure, it’s arguably plain text and imagery laid out via Apple’s Pages program, but the thesis was my first foray into “building what people want.” That thesis (and a few other things) got me my first job at Burson-Marsteller, a public-relations firm that was forming its global digital practice. At the time, companies akin to B-M’s Fortune 500 roster were wondering how to apply the web to their branding efforts and simultaneously, their PR efforts. The practice, as I like to think of it, helps clients navigate these new “new media” waters but more importantly, tries to answer the question: “What’s next in the evolution of the web, particularly today’s social web?” I’ve been fortunate to ponder an answer or answer to this question with a breadth of access almost unparalleled to my peers.
The answer, unsurprisingly, isn’t one-dimensional. Are we moving towards more community-based and community-driven activities? Check. Can we take our actions from one place to another, in a manner that’s easiest for you and the community? Hopefully. Is the next evolution of the social web a reflection of actions that have no relation (no, not even the slightest connection to a computer or mobile screen) to how we act online? I think so. Here’s why.
When I started studying how users across the world were communicating with their contacts within social networks in 2007, I realized the modes of communication and the channels to facilitate contact were almost identical to offline relationships. I have no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg realized this in 2004 (just like many of his predecessors in the space), yet he understood that it’s about incremental success to map our offline behavior to that of the web. Small steps on the road to ubiquity.
***
I’ve always asked myself, “Could I do that? Could I make it better? Could I make it faster?” There was never a clear answer but there was always a clear thought: go after it and succeed. And so I did (or at least tried to).
It was a small step in a tiny Italian restaurant in the Lower East Side with my former roommate from Georgetown, Justin Tsang, that led me to a path where I turn to today: my first, full-time day on a company that looks to make its footprint in the next generation of the social web - particularly, the first phase of ecommerce. The question Justin and I sought to answer: “How do we bring ecommerce to a level that not only facilitates consumer interaction but also immediate consumer demand in 2009?” We looked back at our respective experiences to find an answer: group buying.
For us, group buying (where like-minded consumers band together around purchasing a product, utilizing economies of scale) was our means of shopping. We understood the power this buying mechanism had in our own lives: from spending countless hours on Audi forums in college, looking for parts that ranged from full exhaust system to new tires, I participated in group buys to save thousands of dollars. Justin experienced tuangou while growing up in China, seeing the opportunity for buyers to flash mob a retail store in hopes of better deals, together. The possibilities for consumers to save money in an environment like this has never been greater.
Although I’ve been working on this company for some months now with Justin, today is my first day, officially full-time on what has become my DNA of a soon-to-be launched product. I’d like to formally introduce you to Salescoop.
We have some exciting news to share with you, so please sign-up for updates and follow Salescoop on Twitter.
To Better Deals, Together
- Dave
June 18, 2009, 2:14pm
