Never mind that this quote might not actually belong to Goethe…it is nevertheless the spirit with which I entered the Firecracker 50.

I’ve done this event for the last 2 years, and use it as a warm-up for the Laramie Enduro. I always register in the winter, well before serious training is underway., to avoid getting shut out because of a sell out. This year, it was only months later, in May, that I realized how uncommitted I was to preparing for this race, and I started looking for a partner so I’d only have to do ½ of the distance. Or, perhaps I’d sell my entry and bag out entirely.

A few days before the race, a friend of mine, damn him to hell, encouraged me – in the spirit of Goethe’s above quote – to just go for it. Go for it, he said, and you’ll have a ball! He was right, I erroneously thought, and I committed to do the race solo.

I noticed Goethe at work: instead of ambivalence, there was focus. I was not afraid, I was excited. I paid attention to my nutrition, rest, and sleep. I reviewed old race notes. I gained confidence: I was going to kick some ass. Commitment was cool.

The first 25 mile lap was good. I completed it in 2 hours 50 minutes, 10 minutes faster than my previous best. This was especially remarkable since I’d only put in about 10 hours on my mountain bike all season.

However, I knew I was in trouble, as not only had I not been training much, but also I’d thrown up a bit during the lap and just couldn’t force any nutrition down. Nutrition is the cornerstone of any endurance performance. And sure enough, I bonked at the beginning of the second lap, and spent the next three hours suffering. I thought only about some variation of one of the following themes: “I’m so bonked”; “Damn this is hard”; “I should just quit”; “If I were going any slower I’d be going backwards”. Not once on the second lap did a positive thought such as “this is fun” or “I feel strong” or “this sure is a pretty ride” enter into my head.

I’ve never been deeper into or more alone in the Cave of Pain. The second lap was the hardest 4 hours – yes 4 hours! – I’ve ever spent on a bike.

Perseverance is good, but it’s not so good to be the last one on a sinking ship. The morning after, I’m not sure if I’m a stud or an idiot for finishing.

In any case, for the rest of the weekend, I’m committing myself to eating pizza and ice cream. Bring it on, Mr. Goethe.

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I liked his comments on what makes a good entrepreneur:

• The ability to identify problems and come up with a solution. It’s an “innate gene”: it’s an unescapable, always-present way of life.
• Failure cannot be part of an entrepreneur’s vocabulary; even when it is unjustified, entrepreneurs are always confident.

Subsequently, Mr. Zell identified what separates good entrepreneurs from bad: the ability to execute. He called the ability to execute the most “underrated driver” of successful businesses.

More here and here.

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Given that:

• Twitter’s buzz is approaching the same stratosphere as Facebooks’;
• Bloggers’ number one pastime these days is pontificating what Twitter’s business model is/will/should be;
• The optimal business model for Twitter remains unclear;
• Growth is exploding and that Twitter is rapidly becoming mainstream, wherein both people and companies are relying on it every day as an integral part of their commercial communications;

It is hard to imagine a more fun and challenging job! The stakes are big, the way uncertain…this is such cool opportunity that I couldn’t help but spend my lunch hour thinking about what I think Twitter BizDev should do.

If I were Twitter BizDev, here is how I would start:

• Explore charging for commercial use of the service. For example, charge Dell to use the service; perhaps fixed costs for reserving a name, and variable costs for each tweet sent or read by followers. This is the most obvious revenue source, but it is also filled with landmines: introducing the friction of not being a costless system is hazardous to the explosive growth of Twitter and its “information wants to be free” culture, so such commercialization must be done cautiously and subtly.
• Continue to develop paid placement. What Twitter has done to date (recommend paid-placement followees) is perhaps just proof of concept. I can imagine very sophisticated follow recommendations, which usually would need to be voluntarily pulled by the user from Twitter, but could also very occasionally be pushed by Twitter. For example, if I ever tweet about pasta, Twitter has the opportunity to make me aware of time-sensitive and geo-proximal restaurant tweeters and tweets.
• Continue developing and offering free non-commercial use of a comprehensive API. Do everything possible to continue the explosive growth of the use of the API. Selectively begin to charge for commercial use of the API: extract only a small portion of the rent for a few of the most profitable users of the API. Do this slowly and un-aggressively as per above.
• Explore partnerships with anybody who realizes revenue from text messages. The adoption of Twitter increases those firms’ revenue, and there is no reason why Twitter shouldn’t attempt to capture some of that. I recognize that in many of those situations, Twitter has little leverage, so even though it is creating revenue for these companies, it will have a tough time capturing any portion of it. Perhaps there are ways to create leverage?
• Search, baby! Twitter is rapidly becoming the ultimate source of data for real time searches, and it is this data which is which is the most exciting and begets Twitter being used in the same sentence as Google. It is why Google and Microsoft are going head-to-head in their rumored fight over acquiring Twitter. Assuming Twitter chooses not to sell just yet, there are 2 tactics for monetizing search that should start to be developed:
  • Facilitate commercial 3rd party exploitation of the crown jewels, by allowing Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, OneRiot, Lijit, et al to fully index tweets, and charge them for use.
  • Develop an enterprise market awareness subscription business: for example, Dell could subscribe to a daily Dell report.

All of these directions must be explored with a light touch, learning as much as possible with each deal. This is because, as mentioned above, it is paramount that nothing is done to dampen Twitter’s explosive growth. Secondly, the perspective must be one of a very thin haircut across a broad audience: the network effects are so dominant for Twitter that pricing any entity out of the market really diminishes the value of the entire ecosphere (as well as enables competitors). There is a lot of organizational learning that must happen not just around how to maximize revenue, but also about what the optimal mix of revenue and resulting friction is.

If you were Twitter BizDev, what would you do?

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Today’s post-du-jour comes from Will Price, whose mentor has a great perspective on failure. The money quote:

“…the key is to get up in the that batter’s box and take a swing. And all you have to do is hit one single, a couple of doubles, and an occasional homerun out of every 10 at-bats and you’re going to be the best hitter or best leader around.” – John Donahoe, CEO eBay

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