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Why do VCs invest in people who smell bad? (Notes from Peter Thiel’s book,...
Why are most movies crap? Why do venture capitalists ask you whether your company can become a billion dollar business or not? And why do they invest in companies run by people in hoodies (Zuckerberg)...
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Is over-segmentation creeping back into Apple?
One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he came back to save Apple in the late 90s was reduce their PC product range to the “four product matrix”. Instead of having an offering for every single...
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Côte: How Excel ruined a great restaurant
I first discovered Côte back in 2010, three years after the first restaurant opened. My in-laws were in Brighton, and my wife and I met up with them and went out for a very successful meal which...
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A Chinese billionaire follows in Baugur Group’s footsteps
The ownership of Hamley’s, everyone’s favourite toy store (and my own personal hell – don’t blow those bubbles in my direction!) is changing hands. Yuan Yafei, the Chinese billionaire who bought House...
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Groom them or broom them
The folks at Seedcamp recommended I listen to one of their podcast episodes the other day, Daniel King on the Startup Sales Process & Scaling. People sometimes scoff at sales and salespeople. Even...
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Know your niche: Vegetarian shoes
Brighton is one of my favourite cities here in the UK. It’s one of the most colourful and vibrant cities in the country. Brighton is big in all things creative, digital, hippie, leftie and alternative...
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One chart that shows why Disney acquired Pixar (and how big Frozen is)
The above chart shows the sequence of movies released by Disney (blue) and Pixar (red) and their worldwide box office revenues. The chart starts with the release of Disney’s The Little Mermaid in 1990...
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London tube strike: Marketing from Uber and Hailo
The London Tube is not running today courtesy of a walkout by staff in protest of pay and conditions. I’m impressed that both Uber and Hailo got the obvious idea of sending out marketing material to...
View ArticleHe’s not even wrong: Business studies as a (pseudo) science
When a colleague of the nobel award winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli showed him a research paper by one of his students, asking for his opinion, Pauli is said to have given his legendary remark: Not...
View ArticleMapping the fortunes of Silicon Valley
The Economist did a great piece on Silicon Valley a couple of weeks ago and along with the article they posted an excellent interactive map on their website. The map shows the geographic location of...
View ArticleAirbnb is to hotels what low-cost airlines are to the airline industry
This summer we were fortunate enough to visit one of my favourite cities, Paris, on two separate occasions. In June we went for a holiday in Champagne and stayed in a hotel in Paris for two nights and...
View ArticleThe Economist on the problem with Clayton Christensen
The Economist’s Schumpter column published an article on Clayton Christensen last week called Disrupting Mr Disrupter. The author isn’t quite as harsh as I was the other day but is sceptical...
View ArticleThe democratisation of branding
I’ve discovered two restaurants recently via the food delivery service Deliveroo. Giving the founder of Deliveroo a hug is on my bucket list but that is another story. The two restaurants are achieving...
View ArticleDear Dropbox: Hire some web engineers
Yes, that is a giant Panda. #dropbox A photo posted by Malcolm (@ayeitsmalcolm) on Apr 12, 2016 at 4:22pm PDT Business insider had a story recently on how Dropbox is cutting costs. It involves a...
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