hello friends and welcome back to case
studies with the biz doc today it’s all
about content as the product many of you
have asked about that I thought I’d put
together something on content as a
product and cover a very interesting
company that I think you should be
following because not only I think will
you get something out of it they will
send you free information which keeps
you up to speed and what’s going on in
the world of startups not just
technology startups in Silicon Valley
either startups all around the world and
it’s an example on how a company maybe
like the one you’re building can make
information into the product content
well there’s a couple things I’ll talk
about today the first is content can be
a product and it might even be part of
what you already offer like something
simple like if you sold barbecues or
barbecue accessories and you put
together a list of incredible recipes
you put it together you make a booklet
you give them that free that’s like a
little sugar on top it’s something
you’re providing for free that’s a
simple example of it there’s also more
complicated examples where you turn data
points into information and information
that’s actionable and useful people will
pay for a couple examples that are out
there is things like Angie’s List and
Yelp but they’re both very different
Yelp took a list of restaurants that you
could already find on OpenTable and any
number of directories that were kind of
like yellow pages and then you added
things to them such as pictures of the
food and very specific reviews by people
just like you and me
and you could see it going up and down
over time sometimes restaurants get new
ownership and kind of lose their pizzazz
and appeal so Yelp became useful for
that and then Yelp started showing up
for other things other types of
companies and other things in the city
might get Yelp as well the County Fair
talks about this exhibit or that exhibit
all kinds of stuff
then there’s Angie’s List which is very
useful Angie’s List has got two great
customers customers such as contractors
that want to be listed there and they
want you and me to give reviews so they
could be found more easily you can find
lists of restaurants
a lot of places that Angie’s list’s
created this forum for contractors and
helpful people and people that could
everything from a handyman for your
house to a plumber to completely repipe
the house all could be found on Angie’s
List with reviews that make it easy for
you to make an intelligent choice beyond
that there’s far more complicated data
turned into information and one of the
companies I really love is CB insights
CB in sizes in New York City it was
founded by a guy named uh nan son wall
he’s one of the cofounders along with a
guy named Jonathan sherry they were
working at American Express and they
were running an Innovation Fund and they
were getting along there and doing it
well when they looked around and they
said you know the stuff that Reuters
puts out and that Thompson puts out you
know we don’t think that actually
Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones that they
were looking at they said you know some
of this information could be so much
better it could be synthesis that’s
applied to it so that it’s not just data
points we can make it useful and
actionable and do so much more with it
and so they stepped out to create CB
insights and they start taking data from
the world of startup companies and not
just so it can valley tech companies and
not just you know really sizzle industry
segments they took boring segments like
the financial sector and things like
that
and when I say boring financial sector
financial sector is not like some hot
technology startup they’ve been around
they’re trading stocks selling insurance
doing things banking giving loans
providing capital for a hundred years so
that’s kind of a boring but very
necessary industry and nonetheless they
cover those industry segments as well
what if now is really interesting about
them it’s how they put together things
called market maps so you could take a
look at a map and they had organized the
logos of all sorts of companies so you
could really see what the map of that
market looked like it was incredibly
useful especially if you were thinking
of starting a company in that space or
if you’re an advisor or thinking of
being an investor or if you’re an
investor considering a company in that
space and you wanted to see where this
candidate company with these guys that
just showed you a business plan you know
what you do with that well
CB insights did that very well some of
the proof and how well they did was in
their media citations from 2012 to 2016
he went from 16 media citations all the
way up to 2,200 media citations meaning
Forbes fortune Wall Street Journal New
York Times Washington Post Wired
magazine you know we’re all using their
data points to talk about industries and
so they were turning to CB insights as
the credible source to add credibility
to the articles that they were writing
for you and me and those popular
magazines and those sorts of things is
where all that information data points
became incredibly useful now they turn
this into money because the very people
they’re writing about became their
customers a company that seeking funding
reaches into its pocket to buy a deep
market research report from them or
investors investing in a space pay maybe
up to $100,000 a year to CB insights to
get a constant river of information with
analysis that’s useful as they make
investment decisions in those market
sectors they also have a free newsletter
that keeps people informed in a general
basis and I really recommend that if you
are starting a company in any sector and
want to just keep abreast of how the
startup startups are going around the
world in many markets not just
technology I would go to dub dub dub CB
insights comm read a little bit about
the company and get their newsletter you
can also opt in for certain newsletters
that are in segments you know Patrick
and I would things that we do we get
newsletters in the financial services
segment very very useful so when you
look at things like this as you build
your company you need be assembling
information that’s amazingly useful and
someone would be willing to pay for and
it may be a value add that you can bring
when you
step back from this this is often
referred to nowadays one angle of it is
big data where you have all this useful
consumer data for your products and your
industry that maybe you can assimilate
and actually monetize that in addition
to the product you offer not just the
product but the consumer data not
personal data there’d be a little
sketchy to be selling that but the usage
data so people understand how when and
why people use things so when when I
look at all this I think that CB
insights is just done a phenomenal job
and their newsletter is must read for me
every day as well as their a FinTech
financial market newsletter one of the
things I think is very interesting is
these guys at the bottom of their
newsletter each day and on signs off
with I love you and he started doing
that years ago and it’s just really
funny you read this whole newsletter all
technical things and say that’s it for
today I love you and I think it just
became like a tagline for him and the
second thing I think he brought out very
very well is how data gets presented and
you’ll find tips in there that you can
use in your own business plans on
presenting your data in the best
possible way and one of the things he
rails against is the pie charts and when
you look at it and you step back there
are so many better ways to present data
than pie charts and he is famous for
picking on pie charts so in honor to him
I have a pie chart here today such as
you know bad weapons in North Korea on
this pie chart we would have very bad
extremely bad and damn bad so as you can
see pie charts when used in the wrong
way really tell you nothing and so
that’s one of things he talks about is
the best way to present data and he has
a lot of wonderful graphs and tricks
that you can bring into your investor
presentation regardless of the industry
or in to put yourself in the best
possible light and have data that’s easy
to understand because it better be
useful and actionable to your investors
as in they’re going to write a check so
this week that’s what I wanted to talk
about is the
ability to take information and turn it
into useful actionable on a simple level
like Yelp on a climatic Epogen
assimilated effort like the contractors
and Angie’s List and I’m even more
technical level the way CB insights does
it for markets around the world thank
you so much I need the pillow ah maybe
we should have like a pie-chart pillow
the pie-chart pillow anyhow thank you
for watching and please subscribe to
value tainment the best channel on the
internet for content for entrepreneurs
until next time i’m tom and i hope i
left you better than i found [Music]
studies with the biz doc today it’s all
about content as the product many of you
have asked about that I thought I’d put
together something on content as a
product and cover a very interesting
company that I think you should be
following because not only I think will
you get something out of it they will
send you free information which keeps
you up to speed and what’s going on in
the world of startups not just
technology startups in Silicon Valley
either startups all around the world and
it’s an example on how a company maybe
like the one you’re building can make
information into the product content
well there’s a couple things I’ll talk
about today the first is content can be
a product and it might even be part of
what you already offer like something
simple like if you sold barbecues or
barbecue accessories and you put
together a list of incredible recipes
you put it together you make a booklet
you give them that free that’s like a
little sugar on top it’s something
you’re providing for free that’s a
simple example of it there’s also more
complicated examples where you turn data
points into information and information
that’s actionable and useful people will
pay for a couple examples that are out
there is things like Angie’s List and
Yelp but they’re both very different
Yelp took a list of restaurants that you
could already find on OpenTable and any
number of directories that were kind of
like yellow pages and then you added
things to them such as pictures of the
food and very specific reviews by people
just like you and me
and you could see it going up and down
over time sometimes restaurants get new
ownership and kind of lose their pizzazz
and appeal so Yelp became useful for
that and then Yelp started showing up
for other things other types of
companies and other things in the city
might get Yelp as well the County Fair
talks about this exhibit or that exhibit
all kinds of stuff
then there’s Angie’s List which is very
useful Angie’s List has got two great
customers customers such as contractors
that want to be listed there and they
want you and me to give reviews so they
could be found more easily you can find
lists of restaurants
a lot of places that Angie’s list’s
created this forum for contractors and
helpful people and people that could
everything from a handyman for your
house to a plumber to completely repipe
the house all could be found on Angie’s
List with reviews that make it easy for
you to make an intelligent choice beyond
that there’s far more complicated data
turned into information and one of the
companies I really love is CB insights
CB in sizes in New York City it was
founded by a guy named uh nan son wall
he’s one of the cofounders along with a
guy named Jonathan sherry they were
working at American Express and they
were running an Innovation Fund and they
were getting along there and doing it
well when they looked around and they
said you know the stuff that Reuters
puts out and that Thompson puts out you
know we don’t think that actually
Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones that they
were looking at they said you know some
of this information could be so much
better it could be synthesis that’s
applied to it so that it’s not just data
points we can make it useful and
actionable and do so much more with it
and so they stepped out to create CB
insights and they start taking data from
the world of startup companies and not
just so it can valley tech companies and
not just you know really sizzle industry
segments they took boring segments like
the financial sector and things like
that
and when I say boring financial sector
financial sector is not like some hot
technology startup they’ve been around
they’re trading stocks selling insurance
doing things banking giving loans
providing capital for a hundred years so
that’s kind of a boring but very
necessary industry and nonetheless they
cover those industry segments as well
what if now is really interesting about
them it’s how they put together things
called market maps so you could take a
look at a map and they had organized the
logos of all sorts of companies so you
could really see what the map of that
market looked like it was incredibly
useful especially if you were thinking
of starting a company in that space or
if you’re an advisor or thinking of
being an investor or if you’re an
investor considering a company in that
space and you wanted to see where this
candidate company with these guys that
just showed you a business plan you know
what you do with that well
CB insights did that very well some of
the proof and how well they did was in
their media citations from 2012 to 2016
he went from 16 media citations all the
way up to 2,200 media citations meaning
Forbes fortune Wall Street Journal New
York Times Washington Post Wired
magazine you know we’re all using their
data points to talk about industries and
so they were turning to CB insights as
the credible source to add credibility
to the articles that they were writing
for you and me and those popular
magazines and those sorts of things is
where all that information data points
became incredibly useful now they turn
this into money because the very people
they’re writing about became their
customers a company that seeking funding
reaches into its pocket to buy a deep
market research report from them or
investors investing in a space pay maybe
up to $100,000 a year to CB insights to
get a constant river of information with
analysis that’s useful as they make
investment decisions in those market
sectors they also have a free newsletter
that keeps people informed in a general
basis and I really recommend that if you
are starting a company in any sector and
want to just keep abreast of how the
startup startups are going around the
world in many markets not just
technology I would go to dub dub dub CB
insights comm read a little bit about
the company and get their newsletter you
can also opt in for certain newsletters
that are in segments you know Patrick
and I would things that we do we get
newsletters in the financial services
segment very very useful so when you
look at things like this as you build
your company you need be assembling
information that’s amazingly useful and
someone would be willing to pay for and
it may be a value add that you can bring
when you
step back from this this is often
referred to nowadays one angle of it is
big data where you have all this useful
consumer data for your products and your
industry that maybe you can assimilate
and actually monetize that in addition
to the product you offer not just the
product but the consumer data not
personal data there’d be a little
sketchy to be selling that but the usage
data so people understand how when and
why people use things so when when I
look at all this I think that CB
insights is just done a phenomenal job
and their newsletter is must read for me
every day as well as their a FinTech
financial market newsletter one of the
things I think is very interesting is
these guys at the bottom of their
newsletter each day and on signs off
with I love you and he started doing
that years ago and it’s just really
funny you read this whole newsletter all
technical things and say that’s it for
today I love you and I think it just
became like a tagline for him and the
second thing I think he brought out very
very well is how data gets presented and
you’ll find tips in there that you can
use in your own business plans on
presenting your data in the best
possible way and one of the things he
rails against is the pie charts and when
you look at it and you step back there
are so many better ways to present data
than pie charts and he is famous for
picking on pie charts so in honor to him
I have a pie chart here today such as
you know bad weapons in North Korea on
this pie chart we would have very bad
extremely bad and damn bad so as you can
see pie charts when used in the wrong
way really tell you nothing and so
that’s one of things he talks about is
the best way to present data and he has
a lot of wonderful graphs and tricks
that you can bring into your investor
presentation regardless of the industry
or in to put yourself in the best
possible light and have data that’s easy
to understand because it better be
useful and actionable to your investors
as in they’re going to write a check so
this week that’s what I wanted to talk
about is the
ability to take information and turn it
into useful actionable on a simple level
like Yelp on a climatic Epogen
assimilated effort like the contractors
and Angie’s List and I’m even more
technical level the way CB insights does
it for markets around the world thank
you so much I need the pillow ah maybe
we should have like a pie-chart pillow
the pie-chart pillow anyhow thank you
for watching and please subscribe to
value tainment the best channel on the
internet for content for entrepreneurs
until next time i’m tom and i hope i
left you better than i found [Music]
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