Author: Robert Schouwenburg

Analysis of credit card transactions

20% Of Customers Bring In 50%+ of Revenue

Second Measure analyzes credit card transactions. In their analysis they found that just 20% of customers were responsible for more than 50% of the revenue for the top 1000 companies they have transaction data available. The average top 20 customer spends 8x more than the average bottom 80% customer.

A tale of email

I won

Three years ago I started on a quest to get rid of all newsletters, retention emails and other commercial (to me) non-relevant emails. My inbox was overflowing with emails I did not care about and I noticed I was mostly idly swiping away to delete these emails without ever reading them. It was time to do something about it.

Market saturation on a different scale

Peak attention

We've reached peak attention on the internet. Time spent online is not significantly growing anymore. The internet has generated 4 champions (Google, Apple, Facebook & Amazon) who together dominate for the most part how you spent your time online. These companies are now at their peak and they have the momentum to buy, absorb or change their tactics to fend off any competitor. 

The Future of Free Expression

Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t.One of the better and more balanced articles written on this topic.Today, we're right and perhaps tomorrow we are self-righteous.

Future platforms

The major platforms emerging at the end of 20th century were computers and the internet. Both are approaching maturity levels. Each platform created new champions. Let's explore a bit on possible future platforms and what they could be.

Artificial scarcity in the broadband market

The broadband market is changing. Consumers — and especially the younger demographics — are ‘cord cutting’. The cable companies made lots of money with offering Triple Play packages (Internet, TV and telephony) but now they are confronted with changing behavior which leads to price erosion.The cable industry is fighting back by putting artificial data-caps in place so they've a way out to increase prices down the line.

The future battleground of internet access

Historically, cable companies have de facto monopolies or duopolies in the areas they serve. It gave them significant market power on consumers & broadcasters alike. There was little choice than to just deal with them.The market is slowly changing though. Phone services are not as important as they once were since consumers start to rely solely on their mobile phones. At the same time is television moving towards the internet. This leaves the cable companies with only a dumb data pipe towards the internet.

The post-finishing waste land

When you show a 3D printed product to someone who has not seen a 3D printed piece before, there is significant chance that the conversation will be about the material. And that is not surprising. 3D printed pieces look rough, show “printing lines”, and feel different than regular materials.

Copy. Download. Live Forever.

Download a human

I do not believe in a Star Trekian future. Seriously I do not think it is a plausible future that we space travel as humans beyond our solar system. I think even Mars is quite a stretch.Instead I think it makes much more sense to download our human brain into a computer and send that computer instead.

Growing startups

The hardest thing is giving away

You always end up with less when working at an early-stage startup. The company grows and you've to give away roles and responsibilities to others. It is inevitable for a growing company. But it's ok.