iBeacons Beckon

December 16, 2013
 
Dan Katcher

By now we’ve mostly gotten used to Apple picking a word, sticking the letter “i” on it, and revolutionizing the way we look at technology. Witness, for example, iPods, iTunes, iPhones, iPads, and the iCloud.
Next up on the list might just be iBeacon, a low-powered Bluetooth transponder that can interact with iOS 7 devices in its range. It’s a little like GPS, but more fine-tuned. GPS can get you to the mall; iBeacon can follow you around the mall.
So how will it be used? Well, we’re still in early days, but there has been no shortage of ideas bandied about:

  • Hyper-targeted ads and discounts: earlier this month Apple began using the technology in it stores to send customers personalized messages and offers, depending on where they are in the store.  “Walking by an iPhone table? You may get a message asking if you want to upgrade, check your upgrade availability and see if you can get money for trading in your old phone,” the Associated Press notes.
  • Better ballgames: Major League Baseball has already announced its intention of deploying iBeacons in some of its stadiums. Fans will be able to download an app that can pull up ticket bar codes on their phones as they approach the entrance gates, then offer up a map guiding them to their seats. The app might also offer up videos with historical information about the stadium as visitors wander by important landmarks.
  • Shopping list navigation: No more wandering sprawling department stores to find the one little doohickey you need. iBeacon can turn your shopping list into in-store turn-by-turn navigation to help you find what you accomplish your shopping with ease.
  • Mobile payments: It is just a matter of time before apps allowing shoppers to authorize and send payments from their phones start cropping up in more places. In fact PayPal has already announced a wireless payment system using the same technology as iBeacon.

OK, so how does it do all this? The system uses Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE technology. BLE lets our phones talk to beacon hardware installed throughout stores or museums or wherever, and it also lets enabled phones talk to each other.
Though the iBeacon was quietly rolled out with the introduction of iOS7 earlier this year, Apple has been laying the groundwork for quite some time. If you have an iPhone 4S or later, you already have the capacity to interact with the system. iPod Touches made from 2012 on and iPads third-generation or later are also equipped for iBeacon usage. Google has started incorporating BLE capability in newer Android phones as well. There is, in short, a veritable army of sleeper devices out there ready to jump into iBeacon action.
Imagination and innovation may be the only limits to how the iBeacon system might change retail (and beyond). What would you like to do with this technology?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Playing Moneyball with your start-up

December 5, 2013
 
Dan Katcher

Playing moneyball worked for Billy Beane’s Oakland As, but will it work for start-ups? A growing number of investors and entrepreneurs think it might.
Last time, we took a look at some of the business-savvy and psychology that went into LinkedIn’s Series B pitch to Greylock Partners. Today, we focus on the cold, hard math.
In both business and baseball, it all comes down to the data.
First, the baseball: Beane was always skeptical about the ability of conventional wisdom and standard scouting reports to build the best team. So, with the help of some serious statisticians, he found new ways to parse the vast archives of baseball stats to figure out the best predictors of baseball success. Then he went out and found bargain-priced players who matched these profiles. Author Michael Lewis chronicled the success of this strategy in his bestselling 2003 book Moneyball.
Newly re-launched software tool Compass (formerly Startup Compass) applies this concept to the start-up world, letting entrepreneurs compare their growing companies to others on dozens of metrics including user growth, customer acquisition cost, and funding per employee. The tool, the company says, compares your numbers to data from thousands of other companies, letting you see what numbers really matter to enterprises like yours and where your stats fall against these crucial benchmarks.
Entrepreneur-academic Steve Blank (author of the must-read start-up classic The Four Steps to the Epiphany) also argues that this stats-driven baseball management approach is relevant in the business world, according to a recent article by PandoDaily’s Erin Griffith. Blank points to the Innovation Corps, an accelerator for companies arising from National Science Foundation-funded projects. NSF tracking data discovered that start-ups that came through the Innovation Corps program got funded five times as often than those that received grants but no incubator training.
Griffith says:

The data, which includes details like the number of hypotheses tested, the number of customers met with, and the number of “pivots” from 300 teams, proved that the Innovation Corps had figured out what to teach startup founders to get them to the next step of commercialization. It was the first time anyone had gathered quantitative evidence on the methods of accelerators, Blank says.

The numbers showed the “investors” what was working and what wasn’t; the NSF made the incubator program mandatory.
The Moneyball metaphor can also offer a useful way for investors to think about their funding strategy. Beane determined that home runs were less important that getting players on base as much as possible.
“The idea is that not every tech startup needs to have a billion-dollar IPO — a well-negotiated acquisition can yield a decent return,” writes Christina Farr at VentureBeat.
What do you think? Can data replace intuition or is there still room for gut feelings? Let us know in the comments.

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.