Recently I had the nice experience of being interviewed by the blogger / founder of http://www.easn.de or Everything A Startup Needs. He asked me to relate:

- how dw capital grew out of denkwerk

- what makes our positioning unique

- what are my criteria for investment

- and how much idealism a Founder can sustain

Of course, an [edited] video interview cannot convey all the things and remarkable people that shaped the rich history of 10 years of denkwerk, but maybe the interview gives anyone interested an impression of the philosophy behind our seed venture unit, dw capital. So, here goes:

Video Interview of Axel Schmiegelow

For the record, and because I also have an agency background:

I do believe in Branding, but I don’t believe Branding should be an excuse for bad conversion of a media campaign.

Frank Huber recently tackled my post about Monetization in his Blog

http://blog.firstmedia.de/?p=763 (in German)

and contradicted my views of the subject based on 2 reasons: in his opinion, YouTube has shown that “size does matter” and sevenload hasn’t followed my recommended strategy at all. Here’s my reply to his post:

1) It’s undeniable that the “natural market leader”, who’s the one that goes for reach first, is the one who can win the rat race for size. I did point this out myself in my own post. However, it would be wrong to believe that the YouTube strategy and more specifically the YouTube exit is something that can be replicated. Ex post, Google’s investment in YouTube makes a lot of sense for a company that gave up a fraction of it’s shares. But there is exactly one buyer fitting that profile, and that is Google. There’s always exactly one worldwide or www-wide dominant company per segment that can be successful with a sheer “reach” priorization and with such an Exit strategy - so it’s hardly good advice for startups to emulate that model unless the startup is entirely sure of being the first one in its category.

My argument wasn’t that reach or the number of users/clients won is irrelevant- in fact, it’s the opposite. I just think that it is healthier to achieve this reach or customer base with a working and efficient business model than without one. And XING is a good example of this: From its first day back in 2003, Lars Hinrichs (Founder of XING) was already charging 5- € in monthly membership fees, even though at the time subscription models were still widely perceived as unfeasable in the German internet market.

2) sevenload’s strategy is NOT that of gaining a gross increase in our reach at all costs. We’re following an approach of pure, organic growth (up to now we haven’t spent a single € for advertising) which allows us to best offer a differentiated platform and cover the “Long Tail” of content. This allows us to offer advertisers rates that are up to a factor of 10 greater than those of normal video portals - and of most most conventional internet portals as well. Because of this difference, we are the market leader as measured in:

- Unique Visitors (> 10 Mil real unique visitors per month),
- active registered users (> 300,000),
- average visit duration (> 25 min. per visit and registered users > 45 min),
- content volume and
- revenue (we will be the Web 2.0 company with the highest turnover in Germany this year and most likely the only one that will be profitable). We achieve all this thanks to a revolutionary advertising model that is highly effective for advertisers.

Interestingly, though gross reach was not a primary target, this strategy has led to an sustained increase in precisely our gross reach and has put us in second place in the German market in terms of gross reach, right ahead of Clipfish, despite Clipfish’s massive cross-media subsidisation by the leading German TV Channel, RTL, and a full integration in DSDS, Germany’s “American Idol” Format.

In my opinion this once again proves the wisdom of Al Ries’s main marketing theorem:

Create a new category, then dominate it

My post on monetization does nothing more than offer a methodic approach to defining the category a startup strives to dominate in business model terms rather than in media terms.

In seinem Media-Blog greift Frank Huber meinen Post zum Thema Monetarisierung auf.

http://blog.firstmedia.de/?p=763

und widerspricht meinen Ansichten mit zwei Begründungen: YouTube habe gezeigt, “size does matter” und sevenload verfolge ja nicht einmal die von mir empfohlene Strategie. Inhaltlich habe ich folgende Antworten:

1) Es ist zweifellos richtig, dass für den “natürlichen Marktführer”, der als erster auf Reichweite setzt, das Spiel aufgehen kann. Auf den Fall YouTube gehe ich ja selbst in meinem Post ein. Ich warne nur davor, die Transaktion von YouTube, die tatsächlich ex post durch die Marktmacht von Google zu einem sinnvollen Investment noch werden kann, als replizierbare Strategie zu beschreiben. Es gibt immer weltweit oder www-weit genau ein Unternehmen pro segment, dem dies als Exit gelingt. Hardly good general advice for startups.

Mein Argument war ja auch nicht, dass Reichweite oder die Anzahl an Nutzern oder Kunden, die man gewinnt, unerheblich sind - im Gegenteil. Ich denke nur, das es gesünder ist, diese Reichweite oder Kundenbasis mit einerm funktionierenden Business Modell zu erreichen als ohne. Ein gutes Beispiel Dafür ist übrigens XING. Lars hat schon am ersten Tag in 2003 5,- € monatliche Mitgliedschaftsgebühr verlangt, als Abo-Modelle noch in verruf waren.

2) Unsere Strategie bei sevenload ist genau nicht die einer Brutto-Reichweitensteigerung um jeden Preis. Wir verfolgen den Ansatz, aus rein organischem Wachstum (bislang nicht ein € für Werbung) die am besten differenzierte Plattform zu bieten und den “Long Tail” of content abzudecken. Dies führt dazu, dass wir für Werbekunden um einen Faktor 10 wertvoller sind als alle anderen videoportale und sogar als die meisten herkömmlichen Internet-Portale - gemessen an unseren Werbepreisen. Mit dieser Differenzierung sind wir heute Marktführer nach Unique Visitors (> 10 Mio echte Uniques pro Monat), aktiven registrierten Nutzern (> 300.000), Verweildauern (> 25 Min pro visit, bei registrierten Nutzern > 45 Min), Content-Menge und Einnahmen (wir werden das umsatzstärkste Web 2.0 Unternehmen in Deutschland in diesem Jahr und voraussichtlich das einzige, das profitabel ist. Wir erreichen dies durch ein Werbemodell, das überdurchschnittlich wirksam ist.

Interessanterweise hat diese Strategie zu einer nachhaltigen Steigerung unserer Brutto-Reichweite geführt, so dass wir inzwischen Platz zwei der deutschen Plattformen noch vor Clipfish belegen.

Ich würde also wagen zu behaupten, dass im Gegensatz zu dem Eindruck, den wir zumindest hier zu erwecken scheinen, der Lehrsatz von Al Ries:

Create a new category, then dominate it

immer noch der beste Rat ist. Mein Post sollte einen kleinen Beitrag zu einer Methode hierzu leisten.

Technical, economic and social developments, which are only inadequately described by IPTV, Web TV, Digital Special Interest Channels, and Web 2.0, are leading a fundamental structural change in the relationship between consumers/viewers and providers.

Until now, the value creation of television was geared towards offering content in order to gain the highest viewer attention percentage possible and to market a portion of this attention through advertising formats (e.g. TV commercials). As long as there were only a few TV stations available, this was a successful business model.

Today however, the viewer has the power to decide when and which media content he “consumes”. He/she can actively suppress advertising, zap or click to any media environment he prefers. At the same time, technology enables active navigation of media content, empowering the user even more:

- search,

- On-Demand streaming and download,

- and interactivity of content

These navigation tools offer viewers and consumers a completely new dimension of content relevance. The future belongs to

“Long Tail” specific, on-demand offerings, with context-relevant services and interactive ad formats that are targeted and relevant

These enhanced “program formats” are increasingly determined and - even outside the context of User Generated Content - “coproduced” by the users in increasingly differentiated clusters. This is the priciple that unifies the various new approaches from YouTube to Joost to sevenload.

Die technischen, wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Entwicklungen, die mit IPTV, Web TV, Digitales Spartenfernsehen und Web 2.0 nur ungenügend beschrieben werden, leiten einen fundamentalen Strukturwandel im Verhältnis von Konsumenten /Zuschauern zu Anbietern.

Bislang war die Wertschöpfung des Fernsehens darauf ausgerichtet, Inhalte anzubieten, um die Aufmerksamkeit eines möglichst hohen Anteils der Zuschauer zu gewinnen, und einen Teil dieser Aufmerksamkeit werblich zu vermarkten. In der Zeit nur weniger Sender war dies sogar ein erfolgreiches Geschäftsmodell.

Heute entscheidet der Zuschauer viel differenzierter, was er wann medial konsumiert. Er blendet auch aktiv die werbliche Vermarktung aus. Gleichzeitig bieten die technischen Möglichkeiten

- zur Suche,

- zum Angebot On-Demand,

- und zur Interaktivität

dem Zuschauer und Konsumenten eine völlig neue Dimension der Relevanz von Inhalten. Die Zukunft gehört dem

“Long Tail” spezialisierter, On-Demand angebotener, mit Zusatzservices und relevanten interaktiven Werbeformaten

angereicherter “Programmformate”, die überdies von den Nutzern in immer differenzierteren Clustern mitbestimmt werden. Das ist das Prinzip, das die unterschiedlichsten neuen Ansätze, von YouTube über Joost bis sevenload, vereint.

In my previous post, I tried to describe what I call viral social commerce as the commercial dimension to Web 2.0. This Blog entry will focus on the opportunities and strategic demands that viral social commerce presents to existing companies- especially such companies that have a dominant position in their market. If viral social commerce describes an increasingly commercial nature to the interaction presented by users on the web, then this has deep implications for a relationship between companies and their customers.

On the communication level, much has already been written about the need for companies to go from a broadcast model to an interactive/interaction model, and many companies have already experimented with blogging, viral marketing and other forms of “Web 2.0 marketing”. So far, these endeavors have been met with mixed success. This has a number of reasons- which I will try to sum up in 3 axioms:

1) A day still has only 24 hrs, and our wallets have not gotten fatter.

What this means, is that for all the novelty and increased value in communication that Web 2.0 methods can create in their relationship between customers and companies, engaging in these for more than a fleeting moment of curiosity will require any customer to make a sacrifice of both time and effort to the detriment of something else they’d rather be doing. What this means is that you need axiom number 2.

2) Real people seek real value.

Axiom number 2 is probably the central answer to any strategic or implementation question connected to any type of new technology. Technologies do not usually fail because of technical questions, in fact, the success of technologies is often independent of the quality of the technology involved or its implementation- in other words, abject products are sometimes more successful than perfect technologies (the old, if not entirely true, Microsoft - Apple adage).

Technologies do fail however, when they do not meet a market in a way that creates significant value for a significant value for a significant segment of potential customers. This is the Holy Grail of start-up and business success and it has often been described and is easily worded, but hard to execute.

So cutting back on Web 2.0 technology by seeking not a mash-up of all the functionalities that happen to be the talk of the town and instead looking for ways to create real value with Web 2.0 technologies requires, first, an analysis not of Web 2.0, of these technologies or even of the Web 2.0 early adopter crowd. Much rather, it requires a thorough analysis of the existing market, existing distribution communication channels in those markets and existing or potential customer segments. Then and only then, but then with the strongest impact, can the potential, use and value of a specific Web 2.0 technology be found. This is where competitive advantages are born. This leads me to axiom number 3.

3) Innovation begins with a thorough understanding of the existing weaknesses of the existing market.

This attitude best summarized and methodized in the book Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. This approach is at the core of most technological successes and I am more than certain that in the existing wave of new start-ups, those start-ups will succeed which have best understood this lesson.

For companies in existing markets, this means that hunting for the weaknesses of their own methods of communication, of production and sourcing, and of other interaction (for example, service interaction with their customers) and then hunting for solutions to these weaknesses which were before impossible, but can now be enabled by Web 2.0 technologies, is the key to success.

You may find that direct communication with customers or sourcing in of product or feature feedback from customers was, until now, on a snail mail or even E-mail or call center paradigm, impossible to manage efficiently and to link back to the production and design process for some products. In the environment of a web 2.0 community and / or user to user communication interface, this sourcing process, suddenly becomes manageable because of the combination of ratings, feedback and systematic analysis in a technology-enabled low-cost framework. At the very least, such a platform will bind your most active customers.

The task of sifting through all the feedback and identifying the most valuable feedback from customers now does not have to be preformed by the organization alone, but can be delegated at least in part to the community- and this can apply to almost any market.

In the following model, I’ve tried to sum up the paradigm shift that this entails for companies in existing markets. Until now, you had the classic paradigm of production and product identification followed by (retail) marketing and distribution, and the cherry on the top was communicating to customers through combined PR and advertising.

On all levels of that process, a redefinition can now take place by including interaction with customers. At the very least, the communication/advertising end of the classic model of value creation within the business organization can undergo a paradigm shift from communication to interaction that links back into the organization. This is exemplified in the drawing below- and creates a whole new set of requirements for the company including, for example, new tracking tools, new analysis tools and a new mindset in marketing. Marketing then becomes not just a communication task but becomes much more a framework for the company’s role as the

host of a community of customers.

These are the concepts that we’ve been working on for years now at denkwerk and which we try to reflect in our everyday work for our clients, such as Nokia, Obi and other retail giants. This paradigm shift leads to surprising successes each time the department of the company we are working with and we are mandated to not only think, but also act in a radically different way.

“Quo diata Diferenta”??- as Guy Kawasaki puts it.