Opinions & Ramblings on Tech, Media & Wine

Larry Page arriving incognito at LinkedIn HQ today :-) 

Check out Fred Wilson's post today on Content Marketing

www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/04/content-marketing-simplified.html

Fred himself is a great example of the power of content marketing in the digital era.

Fred has created a real "venue" there where he engages all of us around topics that are also relevant to both his personal and his business brands. Yes these two are increasingly connected and intertwined Fred as AVC and Fred as Partner of USV but are still somewhat different.

Ultimately what digital is allowing is the fostering of a lot more "personal" brands like Fred's. Fred's approach can indeed be labelled "content-marketing" as his/this community blog seems to be designed to be great "conversation" place where content is king.

When you think crazy, you think you've seen it all until you stumble on another crazier one like this guy... 

The new Thermodo in fabulous red - the ultimate thermometer for your mobile device. Very cool. 

Only a few days left to secure yours on Kickstarter!

Just about three years ago, I was living in the South East of France just outside Cannes on the French Riviera.

One evening talking with a good friend we decided that we had enough of being bitten by mosquitoes and why couldn't we provide a service to local residents based on fumigation (which is what most mosquitoes infested areas like Maldives, Florida etc us).

Well SOS Moustik (moustique is french for mosquitoes) was born a few weeks thereafter.

It's definitely been fun to set it up, launch it and grow it over two seasons. There is definitely value in the solution and a real demand. I will remember fondly our first attempts at starting the fogging machines - lots harder than it seems or working with a talent agency in Dublin to record our first radio commercials.

While I've been part of the better of many VC backed tech startups in Silicon Valley as early employee or all the way to founder/CEO, I must admit that starting a small business is yet again a complete different type of experience, scale etc. and probably will serve me well in the future. 

As an aside, for this type of local small business service Radio was by far the better marketing acquisition tool/channel. It outperformed all other channels from Print to all our online initiatives outside of our own Web site. Facebook and Google both delivered lots of reach, lots of cheap clicks but very little business that we could attribute! I will probably one day write a dedicated post on this topic. 

However this was just a side/fun business for us and now that my partner has recently moved out of France and that I personally moved back to San Francisco last summer we are not able to run the business.  

Unfortunately we were unable to find someone to take over the business so are in the process of winding it down.  It's a bit sad but c'est la vie as we say back home. 

For fun you can check out the Web site at www.sosmoustik.com

-Bernard