Instead, I'll talk about what Notion Ink stands for. Or let's make it simple - what do they do? Let's see...hmm... I'll pick a few examples of companies that are doing pretty well / are on path to, and started out small, and write their tagline (from their website). 2 hardware, 2 software.
Roku - "Roku is a little box that allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV. Watch movies and TV shows from Netflix,Hulu Plus or Amazon Instant Video, listen to music on Pandora, catch the latest ballgame, and more — it's all available whenever you want it."
Boxee - "A lot of your favorite shows and movies are already available on the Internet. Boxee is a device that finds them and puts them on your TV. It’s easy to use and even better, there’s no monthly fee"
Zendesk - "Web based help desk software with an elegant support ticket system and a self service customer support platform"
Tripit - "tripit turns all your hotel, flight and rental car confirmation emails into simple, mobile travel itineraries just by hitting forward"
When you read the tagline, you kind of already know what they do.
These taglines are focused - and there's a good reason. Small companies cannot do everything. Notion Ink cannot be a hardware, firmware, software, research lab, social collaboration expert, trainer (yes, I read an article where Rohan Shravan mentioned they got 50 students from a local engineering school and trained them in 2 months to create 'professional' applications!) company. Let's visit their website - OK, I can't go through minutes of flash to figure out what they do, so let's head out to 'About', you know - what does this company do?!
So here's what we have: (bold emphasis mine) source: http://www.notionink.com/about.php
Notion Ink is a firm dedicated to pushing computing devices towards singularity; Adam is just the beginning of that dream set in motion. We're out to challenge the norm, question existing ideologies of function and form, tochange the curve of our conversation with technology, be it by redefining the species or creating a new breed of intelligent, intuitive devices to reckon with.
Let's take a deep breath. What the fuck does that even mean? WHAT DO THEY DO?!
I WANT TO PUT MONEY IN THE COMPANY BUT WHAT THE **** DO THEY DO?
I WANT TO WORK FOR THEM BUT WHAT THE **** DO THEY DO?
I WORK THERE WHAT THE **** ARE WE TRYING TO DO?!
Push computing devices to singularity? change curve of conversation with technology?Redefine species (what species?). I mean, I'm an MBA and I don't write stuff like this. Who came up with this priceless junk?
Simple messaging is powerful because it tells the customers what they can expect to get, it tells investors what space the company plays in, it tells potential employees what kind of company domain they can work in, and it keeps current employees focused on doing a great job to fulfill that promise.
It also makes it easy to keep a consistent message wherever the company speaks, presents, discusses or advertises. As a small company it's important to be focused and know what not to do. Notion Ink is all over the place. Read the CEO's blog. They're talking about some major project in Bangalore. So here is the text from the blog post
source:
http://notionink.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/closer-to-the-blue/ - see the last paragraph.
"This summer Notion Ink is starting a unique (but mostly concealed, though we will open it for a small number of people in different domains who match the criterion set forth by the team) project which will run in-n-around Bangalore area for next 5-6 months. We’re hiring a very large number of contributors from colleges, clubs, various groups and, from diverse fields. The aim of this project is to create a mature “front and back end” system before we open it for the world. Design and develop a scalable model which is optimized for the goal and comprehensive enough to cover a majority of creative domains. We’re be working on the fascinating fields of the natural language processing, relationship extractions, algorithms like YAGO and snow-ball, and the dream behind all our efforts, the BLISS system.
It’s time OS’s move away from static content and embrace the dynamic, ever evolving state"
Holy crap. Tablet design. hardware, supply chain, mumbo jumbo BLISS system, OS design, natural language, relationship extractions blah blah wah wah dah dah. WHAT DOES NOTION INK ACTUALLY DO?
NI - go back to your drawing board, and try to write a single sentence to explain what your little company does. I'm not joking. Seriously. It is a powerful way to focus the management (because the investors are clueless, going by lack of any progress in changing perception).
Write down one sentence that explains to casual observers what you do. For e.g. "We make great Android tablets that cost less" OR "We design beautiful interfaces for Android" OR "We are a research lab that provides manufacturers with great tablet designs" OR "We are an education company creating intuitive applications for the tablet market" You know, whatever it is. Write it. Fight over it. Decide where you want to play and what your audience is.
In the end, decide what you want to be to the world. Then organize your company - budgets, operating structures, marketing, hiring practices, supply chain around it. Do one thing. If it means killing off Adam, do it. Do well what you do, even if you do little. Just head over to your latest blog post today, Rohan, even your die-hardest fans are beginning to give up. Your customer base is reducing to all of ... maybe 20 people.
Yes we know you're all young and super bright but don't let your hubris and arrogance run you over.
Unless, of course, you have a super duper secret mega million deal cooking somewhere you're not telling us.
Unless, of course, you have a super duper secret mega million deal cooking somewhere you're not telling us.
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