The 4 Analytics Questions of Subscription Ecommerce

I have spent over 20 years building my own subscription based service (SportsCollectors.Net) and working for companies with subscription offerings (Dell, Jupiterimages, Weight Watchers, Rent the Runway, ElysiumHelath). While the business models, value propositions and customer segments of these companies may be very different, there are similarities I recognized as these companies (all with product market fit) looked to accelerate their growth. From this, there are 4 question... [More]

User Manual for Jay at Work

I thought it would be a fun exercise to write a short document about what I index on for my day job and folks I work with. What matters most to me in a role: Adding value to the world Building a sustainable business (legit P&L) Learning personally Growing others Working with great people   How I think manager relationship works best (from the manger perspective): You are responsible for your career progression! I want to know your goals (if you can't express them... [More]

Decorating sites with Browser Extensions

We’re big fans of internet grocer FreshDirect in my household. When we lived in Brooklyn and now in North Jersey, we place a delivery order about once a week. While there is a lot I like about the service offering, there are a few features that could improve the user experience. One of the big ones for me would be to associate WeightWatchers points values for each food on the site. It would save me a bunch of time and frustration if my wife and I would be able to see them while we were fi... [More]

Predicting eBay Auction Sales with Machine Learning

Abstract:  Online auctions are one the most popular methods to buy and sell items on the internet.  With more than 100 million active users globally (as of Q4 2011), eBay is the world's largest online marketplace, where practically anyone can buy and sell practically anything. The total value of goods sold on eBay was $68.6 billion, more than $2,100 every second. This kind of volume produces huge amounts of data that can be utilized to provide services to the buyers and sell... [More]

The Difference between a Good and Bad Place to Work.

I enjoy reading the insights I can find from Ben Horowitz (he was founder/CEO of Opsware and nowadays is founder/partner at Andreessen-Horowitz which manages near $3B). I recently read one of his blog posts where he provided a member of his team with his view of the difference between a good place to work and a bad place to work: “In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happe... [More]

My Willingness To Fail Gives Me The Ability To Succeed

I was watching the LiveStream from the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, and I heard  co-founder of Sun Microsystems and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla say the title of this post: My Willingness to Fail is what allows me to Succeed Khosla was referring to the high risk, high reward investments as part of his multibillion dollar fund. In his world, one really good exit can offset a hundred less successful ones - and he has been pretty successful in finding ambitious tech companies that have ... [More]

Are You Swimming in a Red or Blue Ocean?

I am quite fascinated how people/companies are able to innovate, make the most of their opportunities, and disrupt the established norms. It amazes me how some companies can tackle a small nuance differently than their competitors and win market share. I remember reading an interesting quote that stuck with me: play a different game on the same field as the competition. Last year a colleague introduced me to the concept of a Blue Ocean after hearing about it in as part of his MBA program ... [More]