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December 15, 2006

The First Quarter - 4 Months In AOL.

Today rounds out our first 4 months as a division of AOL. To say the least it has been a busy last 4 months - with lots of change all around for Userplane and AOL. As a tribute to some of the impressive and unexpected events that have occurred - here is the highlight list:

  1. Userplane acquired by AOL
  2. AOL doors open - warm welcome by Marcien Jenckes (the only man that can make an acquisition happen in 60 days within AOL)
  3. Userplane traffic grows
  4. Userplane released free-integrated offering – sees substantial pick up
  5. Unexpected support and camaraderie from SVP Tina Sharkey
  6. Direct exposure and strategy brainstorming with Jon Miller + handsome strategist Jorge
  7. We hit 55m ads daily delivered
  8. Corp dev research
  9. “Becoming part of the legacy of AOL”
  10. Userplane hires 5 more genius staffers (still a small team at only 14 : )
  11. “What about widgets” - a Bankoff commissioned research project
  12. Discussion, research and finally comprehension of AOL as a business (model built, finally visually understandable for me)
  13. Seeing pieces of the soul of AOL - meeting with Ted Leonsis
  14. Evaluation of AOL's future, establishment of directional decision for Userplane
  15. Tina Sharkey resigns - Halloween
  16. Strategic direction "commitment" by Jim Bankoff, Publisher Services
  17. Exposure to Ad sales group, comprehension of strengths and short comings
  18. Exposure to Jon Millers executive strategy meeting
  19. Jon MIller fired.
  20. Additional support of vision via Jim Bankoff and Marcien Jenckes
  21. AMN starts rolling in our ad inventory!
  22. Commitment of additional internal technology for vision realization
  23. Build, build, build.
  24. New Userplane’ers come aboard!
  25. Userplane Webchat release- SNS support
  26. Userplane gets up on AOL Beta! Yeah!
  27. Jim Bankoff quits.
  28. Time to meet Ron + Randy.. Next week maybe : )

Overall – we have met a lot of smart people within AOL- and I have personally discovered and and love the legacy of AOL – the company that brought the internet, email and IM to the masses.

The cuts although deep are by all means necessary – we are losing some fantastic minds and spirits around AOL – but it is a necessary step for us to transition from a access based business with content as an ancillary offering – to a content / ad driven free business. “Lean team, clear direction”.

Userplane internally gains inspiration from the mission we set upon 5 years ago and are still on – supporting millions of publishers with applications that enhance online community! I believe that mission fits in with the long term success of AOL and continues the AOL legacy as the largest online community platform in the world.

Posted by Michael Jones at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2006

The new Business Plan..

My partners and I were fortunate enough to be asked to present at OSU and my alma mater University of Oregon this week. We spoke to a few entreprenurial undergrad and masters classes- all of which were focused around building business plans. Considering Userplane never really had a traditional business plan and none of us had masters degrees - it seemed ironic. Regardless it allowed us to take look back over the past few years.

Userplane grew organically with guiding principals, a financial forecast and a product plan - not really a traditional business plan. As I look at more and more internet businesses - it seems the traditional business plan format often does not support the dynamic and often unknown aspects of a .com business. Planning of course is critical to any venture, but a traditionally formatted business plan I think fails to capture the potential value, success and failure in a .com business.

I would propose the following structure for .com startups:

1. Business Overview (simple)
2. Wireframes + product walk through
3. Revenue model (and lets keep the CPM's realistic ok)
4. Technical development plan including timeline / scaling for the first rebuild
5. Key Staff and equity distribution
6. Competitors
7. "How you get your first X users"
8. Exit or Maintenance Strategy

And if you add in Web 2.0 theory:

9. Widget distribution strategy including:

API strategy
MySpace integration

10. 3rd Party mashups
11. Coopatition

Posted by Michael Jones at 01:57 AM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2006

Startup Review Profiles Userplane

Nisan performed a full review of Userplane, its growth from inception through acquisition. You can read it here:

Userplane Case Study: Vertical market entry strategy pays off

Posted by Michael Jones at 05:13 AM | Comments (0)