You Got My Time, Take My Money

I ran into Ben Wan at a recent Palo Alto Lunch 2.0. His company TheBroth created the enormously popular Barn Buddy facebook application. Over 3 million monthly active users for that app alone.

With the runaway success of Barn Buddy, TheBroth is taking off. People are buying virtual fertilizer, livestock and all the other virtual goods you need to run a kick-ass virtual farm.

The business model of selling virtual goods has existed for a number of years. The model is very popular in Korea where some of the largest Internet companies drive the majority of revenues through sales of virtual goods.

Initially, Facebook games and other online game communities were banking on ad revenues for monetization. With the success of social networking game companies such as TheBroth and Zynga, virtual goods seems to offer a superior path to profitability. Zynga has a number of hit apps on Facebook, and is expected to drive over $100 million in 2009 revenues.

People are spending hours a week Facebook, and have shown the willingness to pay real hard currency in order to enhance their game play. If the virtual goods monetization continues to thrive, it could save us all from being bombarded by ads while we are growing our virtual crops. This twist on the fremium model seems to be the breakout monetization strategy that social game companies are requiring to realize their full potential.

As these game providers grow their revenues, it will be interesting to see how Facebook and MySpace will respond. These platforms have had mixed success with targeted ads, and may want a piece of the action now that these app providers are making some serious dough.

A vibrant virtual goods market is good news for Silicon Valley and the VC community. VC's have boldly invested millions of dollars in companies with distribution and traffic long before a sound monetization strategy was discovered. The bet is that the entrepreuners they are investing in will rapidly experiment until a clear monetization formula develops.

GetQuik Rewards - July 1, 2009 - Dec 31, 2009

Back by popular demand, GetQuik rewards. http://getquik.com/Pages/Common/Rewards2.aspx

It is also time to cash in on your 1st half 2009 points. http://getquik.com/Pages/Common/Rewards1.aspx If you qualify for a reward, let us know what you want at support@getquik.com. You can use the title - "1st Half 2009 Rewards" for your claim.

As a result of Christina's lobbying, there is an opportunity for GetQuik customers to earn a Disneyland vacation. We also added a Southwest Airlines gift certificates for those needing to get away.

Thanks to all our customers and restaurants for helping to make the GetQuik rewards program a hit.

Enjoy!

GetQuik Team Pic

Manu was tasked with coming up with an idea for a team pic. Apparantly, Nickelodean broadcasts in New Delhi, India.

Although Manu has a super high end Nikon digital camera, he is still learning his way around on it. Rather than taking a ton of pictures, Manu did his best to get the color to work out on Photoshop. The results of the team photos can be viewed at http://getquik.com/Pages/Common/Team.aspx.

There is a problem with the scalability of this team photo concept, but for the time being it should suffice.

Nice work Mr. Mohan.

New Additions to GetQuik - June 2009

Here are some of the recent GetQuik additions. We will be actively adding restaurants in Milpitas/Fremont, Redwood City/San Mateo, and San Francisco.

Britannia Arms - Cupertino (British/Irish)

Cafe Renaissance - Palo Alto (Sandwiches/Persian/Mediterranean)

Chalet Ticino - Foster City (Italian/Swiss)

Checker's Pizza & BBQ - San Jose

Crouching Tiger Restaurant - Redwood City (Chinese)

Erik's DeliCafe - Fremont (Sandwiches/Salads)

Extreme Pizza - San Jose

Feng Shui - San Francisco (Chinese/Japanese)

Gaylords Indian Restaurant - San Francisco (Indian)

Hawaiian BBQ - San Jose

Janta Indian Restaurant - Palo Alto

JC's Famous BBQ - San Jose

Joe the Greek Cafe - Milpitas (Greek/Sandwiches)

Mantra Restaurant & Lounge - Palo Alto (Indian/Pakastani/Fusion)

Mexcal Taqueria - Menlo Park (Mexican)

Office Catering - San Francisco (American/Various)

Pasta Paradiso - San Francisco (Italian)

Pizza and Curry - Fremont

Ratcha Thai - San Francisco

Robee's Falafel - Sunnyvale (Mediterranean)

Serrano's Pizza - San Francisco

Spice Hut - Newark (Indian)

Thai House - Redwood City

Togo's - Sunnyvale (Sandwiches/Salads)

Togo's - Sunnyvale - Lawrence Expressway (Sandwiches/Salads)

Una Mas - Fremont (Mexican)

World Wrapps - Santa Clara (Wraps)

Don't see a restaurant you want? Email you request to sales@getquik.com and we'll do our best to add them to the network.

Laughing with You

Who says that former Soviet Union comrades aren't funny?  Here's the best of Irina for the week.  One is classic, so we wanted to share.  You are welcome.

#3.  "$45 dollars for a vax?" - (female Count Dracula voice).  

Car not hair.  Stay with us it gets better.

#2.  Irina - "Some person from the fire marshall came to office and wanted to know if we have business license.  They also wanted to know how close we are to the nearest fire distinguisher."

Christina - "Aaaah.  You mean fire extinguisher?"

Everyone - laugh, laugh, laugh.

#1.  LJ - "Umm, what are you doing?"

Irina - "What?"

LJ - "Your banana."

Irina - "What?"

LJ - "I think you are eating it upside down."

Irina - "Really."

(everyone look over at LJ and Irina.  Pan into the banana.  View half-eaten upside-down banana in Irina's hand.)

Everyone - laugh, laugh, laugh.

Apparantly this is a former Soviet Bloc thing.  In case you are wondering how to eat a banana upside down, here is the procedure.  

1)  Grab banana upside down.

2)  Bite the tip of the banana to create a crease.

3)  Peal banana.

4)  Enjoy your upside-down banana.

Practicing Positivity

Hanging around positive people is conducive to success.  The converse is equally true.  Yet it is clear that humans are fascinated by drama, accidents, and misfortune.  Watching the news is a highlight show of the most disturbing and tragic events of the day.  I have taken a break from watching the news for this reason.

Despite the quirky oddities and methods, the The Laws of Attraction by Jerry and Esther Hicks is an interesting book.  The basic premise is that positive thinking directly leads to positive results.  

Positive Event of the Day:

Today we had a nice email from one of our first customers.  She had taken a break from ordering for her company at the beginning of the year.  The recession lead to a cutback in expense spending.  Due to improvements in their business, she is once again ordering through GetQuik.  Welcome back Kathleen.

Being the Right First

Today was a historic day for the automotive industry.  GM has entered into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  As recent as 2007, GM was the largest automotive company in the world.  Yes, not just in the US, but the world.  In 2008, Toyota finally dethroned perrenial largest automotive manufacturer GM for the top spot.  

The focus on unit sales and top line revenues is a cautionary tale of driving towards the wrong metrics.  In better times, GM entered into ruinous labor agreements.  As global competition intensified, GM's decades of subpar products were exposed.  To make matters worse, GM's cost of production were higher than its Japanese competitors.  Despite its position as top unit sales leader, GM was unable to translate those economies of scale into superior production efficiencies.  The decentralized approach towards GM's product offerings are much to blame.  GM's various divisons including Chevy, Cadillac, Pontiac, and Buick did not have collaborate well.  Much smaller competitors Honda and Toyota with their streamlined product offerings could outscale GM with mega hits such as the Accord, Corolla, and Camry product lines. 

By the 90's, it was clear that GM had too many brands and product lines for their market demand.  Instead of drastically reducing the number of brands and focusing on high volume products, GM took the other course.  They decided to die a slow death.  They were able to hold of Toyota as the largest automotive company for many years, but collectively their brands were losing ground and their cash position was deteriorating as foreign competitors steadily ate away at GM's sales volume.  They took one positive step in 2004 when they pulled the plug on the Oldsmobile line.  The move was too little, too late.  Another American icon, Apple Computer was considered on death's door when Steve Jobs made his triumphant comeback.  He introduced some innovative and cool new products (remember the candy-colored iMac's); while greatly simplifying the number of different products Apple offered.  This was well before the iPod, iTunes or iPhone for that matter.  By reducing the product line complexity and offering a product that people wanted, Apple was able to stop hemoraging cash.  Once they got on better financial footing, they were able to focus on innovation new products and service.  The rest is history.

With the $30 billion in federal investment, GM has a second chance to get it right.  Now that they have finally ceded the position as top sales leader, perhaps they should focus on the metric that matters most - positive cash flow.  Now that much of the union contracts have been revised, and the expected sales volume are significantly lower, there is reason to believe it can be done.  The many missteps that GM has taken do not provide much comfort.  Yet, if GM had the right leadership, they could make a revival.  Too bad Steve Jobs is busy already.