One of our investors, Larry Kubal gave me a book a few weeks ago called Brand Hijack, written by Alex Wipperfurth. There is a quote in this book by Entertainment Insider Bob Lefsetz that reads "The key is not to do a John Mayer." (Now, I'm actually a fan of Mayer, but I get the point). The context of this was that companies starting out need to be patient as they launch, not going mainstream too early, or they'll ruin their good work. He says that as many people love Mayer, hate him.
There is lots of fodder for being patient and keeping your market focus on your early adopters in the early days-something we've been doing lots of since Susan showed up with her steak purse. As entrepreneurs we starve for that consumer phenomenon, but the winners know how to prod the likely early adopters, and then grow on that basis.
Why am I saying any of this?
Well, I've received some e-mails from folks interested in more details on what we're doing. I thought by now we would have unleashed a bit more, but as a team we agreed to keep it stealthy yet. That said, we have chosen the first group of beta testers for our initial offering. If that's you, we'll contact you next week. If that's not you, but you signed up, we'll get you in once we broaden the beta. If that's not you and you're snooping from a would-be competitor than you won't likely hear from us:)
We'll see some of you at CES. Happy New Year. (And Mayer's trio stuff rocks).
-MC
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