20 years 20 mistakes I've made as an entrepreneur

20 years 20 important mistakesI’ve made as an entrepreneur

David Rosedrose@media.mit.edudrose@vitality.net

A presentation to the MIT Media Lab Ventures Class, 2/18/10

Don’t sell the right bike,Sell the bikes in the basement

You ≠ your company Commitment is critical. Obsession may be regrettable.

Enchanted ObjectsMindstorms

Select your customers carefully Museums, educational publishers, and toy companies have little spending power.

Ignore 90% of potential opportunities Prioritize low-hanging fruit that ripen quickly

Babson

Don’t confuse a clear view with a short distance Vision is easy, market timing is the challenge

Starve together. Feast together.

Listen to early customersDon’t be afraid to throw out the bplan

How can the web help people tell stories with pictures, and co-create photo albums?

– Create Construct Pholios based around a life event,

wedding, birthday party, trip to Europe or just a collection of

pictures of old school friends

– Personalize Follow an easy-to-use process to build well-

designed personal, customized area to share stories

– Communicate Stay in touch with family and friends

– Collaborate Add captions, thought balloons and sound

effects

– Protect Password-protect or make public

– Organize and Archive Sort, categorize and preserve

Don’t just work on the productYour job is to make 4 bridges meet

Product Customers

Team

Investors

Site X-ray: visualizing online traffic patterns on ecommerce sites

What if connectivity and computation could be baked into any object?

We envision that the architectural spaces we inhabit will become an interface between humans and online digital information. We have been designing ambient information displays to explore the use of kinetic physical objects to present information at the periphery of human perception.

Press and sales may be inversely proportional Novelty generates headlines. Incrementalism makes an easy buying decision.

Fishing

Fishing

Fishing

Ambient Devices CONFIDENTIAL

eBay

Auctions

Frequent

Flyer Miles

Team

Standings

Ambient Channel Line-Up Preview - Spring 2004

Weather

Forecast

Ski

Surf

Sailing

Air Quality

Pollen

Forecast

Golf

Game

Score

Web Traffic

Online

Transactions

Election

Polls

NewsFutures Homeland

Security

Wedding

Registry

Sales

Trends

Customer

satisfaction

Inventory

Levels

Profit

Margins

Employee

Utilization

Competition

Email

Waiting

IM Buddy

Status

Mobile plan

minutes

Meeting

Countdown

Traffic

Congestion

Messaging EnterpriseTravel Outdoors Sports News Other Shopping

Game

Countdown

Betting

Odds

Developer*

DOW

FTSE

NASDAQ

My Portfolio

Bank

Balance

Credit Card

Balance

Net Worth

Finance

Opinion

Polls

Blogshares

Commute

Time

A single pixel browser is only interesting at MIT You can own one idea in people’s minds

Ambient Umbrella

Compensation isn’t about the money,Pay your best people more than you

ambient

Beware of group-think If everyone on your team likes it, expand the circle.

ambient

Ambient Dashboard

ambient

Smart-swappable faces. Insertion instantly reprograms the device.

ambientWeather Wizard

Startups shouldn’t partner with startups

Energy Joule

Startups shouldn’t partner with startups

5-Day Forecaster

ambient

LG Refrigerator

Exclusivity is a type of currency It can beget larger orders, marketing support, ...

ambient

Ambient Bus Pole

Temper your entrepreneurial optimismarticulating risks garners credibility

Your board is not your strategy teamExceeding expectations may shorten your lifespan

CEO 1.0 cannot co-exist with CEO 2.0

V I T A L I T YVITALITY INC. ©2005 PATENTS PENDING

V I T A L I T Y

Flower Power

Persona: Jill, age 34

Lifestyle: Working mother, travels often for work

Motivators: Fashion, style, convenience

Condition: Depression

Prescribed: Cymbalta (Lilly)

For Jill the Flower Pillbox lets her

manage her depression with security

and ease. The stylish circular case

holds a week’s worth of pills. She

puts the Flower night-light discretely

in her bathroom. Each filled pedal

represents a compliant day of the

week. It provides Jill and her

husband peace of mind each day

that she is taking important steps to

improve her condition.

Don’t design the right product for the customer

V I T A L I T YVITALITY INC. ©2005 PATENTS PENDING

V I T A L I T Y

Match Book

Persona: Mel, age 72

Lifestyle: Sedentary, retired Construction Manager,

Motivators: Coupons and Rebates

Condition: Hypercholesterolemia, Hypertension

Prescribed: Lipitor® (Pfizer), Toprol-XL® (AstraZeneca)

Nowadays Mel is managing heart

disease, not ironworkers. At the last

office visit his physician gave him a

handsome new smart pillbox to manage

his once a day Statin and

Antihypertensive pills in a consistent,

convenient way. Each Sunday morning

Mel loads it up…at the end of each

month he receives coupons for being

compliant. He values the coupons

because they offset his out of pocket

cost. He has already saved $15 since

starting on the program. He knows that

if he keeps his medication compliance

over 75% for 6 months, he will receive a

reward bonus for $20 in the mail.

Don’t design the right product for the customer

instead, design the right product for the channel

Now data streams in daily. We know exactly which people are taking their medication when. Here each box is one day. Rows are people, columns are days. Shades of green show when medication was taken relative to dose times. Glyphs represent reminder calls. Pink indicates a missed dose. These results far exceed our expectation.

6 months of GlowCaps data shows over 95% adherence.

Invert the sequencedevelop final product > get paid by a customer > promote > launch

Attribution is a currencyPrivate label deals often reduce risk and accelerate adoption

Simplify until is hurtsTry to fall out of love quickly with your favorite ideas

43

Oscillation between poles is healthy

drose@media.mi

Design

Critique

Learn

Fund

MentorTeach

Fund Raise

Mentored

Don’t tell your girlfriend, spouse, family, friends that you’re on the verge of a deal....until the funds are wired into your account

Connected Syringes

• Looks like a high-tech sunglasses case• Insulated case slides open to expose syringes• Glows, vibrates, and plays ring tones to subtly

get your attention• Wireless connection to pharmacy and caregivers• Distributed by specialty pharmacy as part of

adherence programs

Don’t stop sketchingSketching doesn’t defocus your engineering team

Salt Sentinel

• Dispenses salt and grinds pepper• 360 degree camera uploads images

to offshore nutritionist for realtime analysis

• Mini-projector displays information adjacent to each item: calories against a budget, ecological footprint, transportation modality.

• Press the “i” for more information.

Spirometer Kazoo

• Makes spirometry fun using sound and projection

• Spirograph projection shows visual feedback to anticipate an asthma attack

• Wireless connection to the web permits realtime data analysis and graphing on smart phone.

20 years 20 important mistakes

David Rosedrose@media.mit.edudrose@vitality.net