Matt Baril

Should You Quit Your Corporate Job for that New Startup?

Matt Baril — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 00:03:51 +0000

I left my corporate job and joined a startup of 13 people 2 months ago (we've now grown to 18) and before making the leap, I did a fair bit of thinking and research to decide what criteria I should use in determining if a startup was worth taking the risk. I used 3 main criteria, in order of importance, and here I describe my thought process. I'd like to know your opinion and if those criteria reflect your idea of what's essential to judge before joining a startup.

Management

Who manages the startup is, in my opinion, by far the most important thing anyone should look at. They will make or break the company with their decisions. A good management team will adapt in the face of adversity and will pivot the product or the service. As a matter of fact, I believe the product or the service the company actually offers could almost be ignored, as long as this is something you are passionate about… It's the early days and the product or idea you are looking at is probably completely different from what the final product will actually look like anyways.

Here are the qualities I particularly look for in management in order of importance: Experienced, realistic, straightforward (no politics), open, honest, humble (not afraid to call a screw up a screw up or to say things such as "I don't know").

I believe it's of utmost importance to be able to talk to the CEO before accepting an offer. If the CEO has no time, this should be your clue right there. It's a startup and if with only a handful of employees the CEO doesn't consider talking to potential new hires important enough, you know what the company will look like in a few months from now when it's grown substantially. Here are some hard questions I would recommend you ask to the CEO, make sure you do research and know the answers beforehand though:

What is your central value proposition?
- One trap is to work for a technical CEO who focuses on the product without ensuring his product solves a problem and that people will be willing to pay for it. If they haven't put any thoughts on what value they offer their customers, this is a sign of potential problems.
What are your main competitive advantages?
- If the CEO doesn't know how they are different from competition, then they are not different. Having the first widget or the best looking widget doesn't mean anything, someone else with more resources will copy you or do it better than you at one point or another. IPs (Intellectual Properties), high barriers to entry, or something that can help the company keep its advantage over competition should be in place.
Who are your main competitors?
- If the CEO says they have no competitors at all, this should also be a good clue not to join. You always have competitors even though you invented something first. E.g. you invented the first carbonated soft drink, no one offers this type of drinks, who are you competitors? Any company that offers drinks: milk, water, juice, etc. There are always substitutes available out there and not being aware of that is a recipe for failure.
What main challenges do you foresee in the short and medium terms?
- Time to see if they are planning ahead and if they are being realistic about the challenges they will be facing. There are things that all Startups will face: getting customers, having enough working capitals, pivoting, etc.
What's your market size estimate?
- I can't remember where I saw that, but I read that founders, on average, overestimate their market by 400%. This is one of the most important questions VCs ask before pitching money in.

Team

Once you are confident there is great management team in place, ensure that your future colleagues have at least as much experience as you or more. The best situation is to be in is working with people who are more intelligent and more experienced than you, but make sure you can get the job done before accepting that offer. You don't want to the guy who is always trailing behind… A few things you can do to check your future colleagues background:

If it's a true startup, you can probably drop by and talk to people, it's the best way to get a feel of the people and the culture
Use LinkedIn to check your future colleagues credentials, recommendations and personal website
Leverage your network to ask your connections for their opinion about people they know in the startup
Google your colleagues, check for previous accomplishments

Financing

This is probably an overlooked point that is critical, most startups die when the cash dries up and knowing how many months of working capital they have is important. Now, the CEO might tell you this is confidential, but they will most likely be very straight forward if an official offer was made to you. You're risking your current job after all and this is basic due diligence and most CEOs get that. Here are some questions to get a better picture of their financial situation if the CEO refuses to answer that question:

Have you had VC or Angels funding yet, or are you planning to get funding in the future?
Who are the major owners?
When do they expect to break-even if they're not already?
Fundings from VC and major investments are usually announced in PR releases and on blogs, so make sure you Google the startup for rounds of funding or public endorsements.

What are your main selection criteria? What are you looking for in a new career opportunity in a startup? Would you risk your corporate job for a startup if the right ingredients were there, or you would still find it too risky?

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Making the Leap

Matt Baril — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:11:43 +0000

Well, I've done it. After talking about, preaching it, blogging about it, encouraging people to do it, I finally did it. As you probably know, I've been working at SAP, the largest business software in the world, for almost a year and a half in the business development department at an entry level position. Ever since I had talked to Peter Tingling and wrote a post about working in a Zoo vs. the Wild, the idea of leaving the corporate world was with me. In December however, I had an interview at SAP for a better internal role and was told I should expect to be promoted before the new year. With this news, I wasn't planning on moving anywhere any time soon. Well I was planning on moving desk, but that was about it.

Unfortunately things didn't quite happened that way, but I started training sessions and mentoring sessions in February and was mostly trained by the end of March. Unfortunately bad timing and many layers of decision makers meant that by June, I was still in my old role and that was my breaking point. I know my more experienced readers and colleagues will say I'm a typical millennial who can't wait, and I guess they're right. Yes, thank you for your feedback… I know. Anyway, in June I started applying on jobs as I needed new challenges and something exciting, a job I could learn from, a job I could feel I was contributing something and making even a small difference. Here again you can detect my typical millennial's sense of naivety… So I decided I would be looking for jobs in new startups in Vancouver.

Sometimes it feels like if all the stars align at the right moment and one night I came back home and checked my LinkedIn and I had 3 job listings on the right panel (which was a BETA feature BTW, I think this is a great idea from LinkedIn). One of them was Inside Sales Executive (the same role I was desperately waiting for at SAP) for a company called Visier Inc., a company I had never heard of. I clicked on the link to discover it was exactly in the same industry as SAP BusinessObjects, it was literally a block away from my current job, it was a startup and most important of all: it was founded, managed and run by ex-SAP employees with one of the founder and CEO being the ex-CEO of BusinessObjects. For those of you who don't know, BusinessObjects was the leading Business Intelligence company in the world and was acquired by SAP a few years ago. And Visier was founded by BusinessObjects' CEO and literally all 14 employees were ex-SAP employees looking for new challenges. I just couldn't resist and applied right away.

So to make a long story short, I applied, went through 2 interviews and got the job. The only problem, if you can call that a problem, was that I actually had been promoted to my new role at SAP, finally. So I had an interesting dilemma, on 1 side I had SAP, a well-known and respected corporation who I knew was offering me a stable and certain future with the best pay, benefits and perks in the industry and the city. On the other side I had Visier, a highly promising startup with everything to be built from the ground up and a motivated and dynamic team.

I'm not going to lie, I lost sleep over this, but I ended up leaving SAP on my 2nd day in my new role, a record they told me. I joined the company a little over 1 week ago and I don't regret it at all! The challenge, the freedom, the opportunities, everything I missed so much in my corporate career Visier has. I've also found my inspiration to blog and will publish a few posts in the next weeks about making the leap based on my experience and my conversations with other people.

So here I am my friends, writing to you from the wild and looking forward to the journey!

What about you? Have you found your piece of Wilderness yet or leaving the Zoo seems too risky?

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Success Builds Networks, not the Other Way Around

Matt Baril — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:17:33 +0000

I haven't posted on my blog in quite a while and I won't blame anyone or anything for that, I've been involved in many projects for the last few months and decided to prioritize my projects and unfortunately the blog was put on the back burner. I still get comments and emails from people who use the job feed and I'm averaging 10-15 unique visitors a day, so I'm glad to see the blog hasn't died and some people find the job feed useful!

As some of you may know, my friend Evan Bleker and I started a small venture called Taste of Vancouver Tours about 2 months ago and I've invested most of my energy and time in our project. I have learned a great deal and faced many challenges already, but I enjoy every single step of it. It's finally time to apply what I've learned from school, books, case competitions, conferences, mentors, etc. And well as you probably expected, it's more difficult to execute than simply debate something in a classroom setting. You need some guts, good resistance to sleep deprivation, patience (which I lack), motivation, dedication when everything goes wrong, negotiation skills, marketing skills, project management skills, etc. The last 2 months have been very interesting to say the least.

The fact that my blog hasn't been updated for a few months and the creation of Taste of Vancouver Tours are actually related, but not because of a time constraint, it was a thought that was the catalyst.

I believe we, in the western world at least, live in a "container" world. We're more concerned about the container: what things look like and how people talk and present themselves than the "content" in that container: what we actually know and the quality of our thought process. Take this quote as an example, you've probably heard it 1000 times by now: "It's not about what you know, it's about who you know". I actually have a problem with that and I think it's fundamentally wrong. Why would you hire someone based on the people he or she knows rather than what he or she knows. The answer is you wouldn't. This quote misses the point: success attracts people and successful people will have broad networks. It doesn't mean that having a broad network wil make you successful though. You can know a lot of people in your field, if you're not successful at what you do, it's not going to be of any help.

So, a few months ago, I decided I would stop "shouting" in the blogsphere, hoping someone would hear me. I decided to spend my resources to act, execute and deliver. It's not that easy, but it's a lot more fun and I figured there are already many people shouting hoping for your attention, hoping to convince you they're worth listening to. I rather spend my time building something, filling up the container. If I'm successful, the rest will follow.

I will end with this quote I found on The Economist website this morning: "Also, they [potential MBA candidates] will recall that the most effective way to build a network is not to go to school, but to be successful".

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Do You Work in a Zoo or in The Wild?

Matt Baril — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:02:01 +0000

Last Friday, I had a beer with Peter, a friend of mine who teaches at SFU and started his own company called Octothorpe Software which makes software to help anyone from individuals to Fortune 500 make better decisions. We were talking career path when Peter asked me: "If you had the choice, would you rather work in a zoo or in the wild?" Now, that got me thinking. Every time you meet Peter, you can be sure to be intellectually challenged and learn… a lot.

The Zoo

The zoo, on one hand, is this place where you're fed, pet, washed, and treated well just for being there. You're not asked to do much except for being there and doing that one show every day to impress the visitors. You're not asked to make any decisions or take any risks and will not be put down unless you do something absolutely stupid like biting the hand that feeds you… The staff in the zoo expects loyalty and will, in return, make sure you have all you possibly need.

The Wild

The wild, on the other hand, is a different story. Living from one kill to another, being emaciated during the hard months, feasting during the good ones. You can get killed at any time, but developing and relying on your peers and making up your own pride will increase your odds of you surviving. You enjoy your freedom and the fact that you don't report to anyone, but yourself. You also know you have to stay on top of the game, always keep a sharp eye open and plan for the next day. Having cubs to feed increases the consequences of your potential failure and keeps you up at night.

As Peter pointed out, there is nothing wrong in working in a zoo and it actually fulfills many people's aspirations. The only thing I would warn you against though, is to be careful not to be let loose after many years in a zoo. Your chances of surviving in the wild are decreased, a lot. You'll be fat, your reflexes slow, your natural instinct vanished, and your enthusiasm to run after big games dead. Even more important, you won't have anyone to rely upon to come to your help. It must feel quite lonely out there in such conditions. If you can have a plan, or multiple backup plans to ensure you do not end up in the wild after many years in a zoo, then you're safe. Otherwise, if you're like the rest of us and don't have a bulletproof position in a zoo, make sure you keep your eyesight clear, your instinct alert, your body fit, your claws and your fangs sharp and most importantly, keep your passion unaltered. Retiring in a zoo as opposed to starting your adult life in a zoo might also help you develop the necessary skills to survive in the wild and then enjoy the zoo.

So, do you work in a zoo or in the wild?

I found Peter's analogy very inspiring and thought I had to blog about it. If you like this, make sure you send a message to Peter to say thanks.

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Poll of the Month – What Has Helped You the Most?

Matt Baril — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:18:11 +0000

I'm curious to see what has been the most helpful for you so far in your career to get a job. Feel free to add more details in the comment section if you want to explain your choice.

The poll has been closed. See the poll archive to see the results of this poll.

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Be a Sexy Job Seeker and Increase your Odds of Getting the Perfect Job

Matt Baril — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:51:25 +0000

All my life, I've been extremely lucky in my job hunts and career opportunities. Unfortunately, I have many friends who are not so lucky and are currently looking for a job, it actually seems like most of my friends are looking for jobs in the Vancouver area right now. Luck, determination and hard work have been the main factors of my career opportunities, but I think everybody works hard and is determined, but there are ways to put odds on your side and increase your luck. I thought I would share resources and tricks that have helped me and some of my friends to put odds on our side.

1. Be resourceful. There are some really nice tools out there that can keep you on top of things really easily without much effort. Use them! The first thing you need is a good way to know about the relevant jobs available in your area, and in 2010 there are 3 websites you cannot leave without for job hunting:

These 3 websites are what we call aggregators (read this post to understand why you should love them) and a search will fetch and provide you with results from many different websites. If you're looking for tech jobs in Vancouver for example, they will go on many job boards in Vancouver and do a search based on the keywords and the area you entered. That means you don't have to do and redo all these searches on all these website everyday. You can also save your searches and subscribe to the RSS feed, so you don't even have to go back on the website at all, the job postings are just delivered to your RSS feed reader. If you don't have an RSS feed reader, I would recommend Google Reader. You can even make the RSS feeds to be emailed to you on a regular basis with free services such as feedmyinbox. For instance, you could get up in the morning, open up your email client and apply on all the relevant jobs posted within the last 24 hours while having your breakfast. Cool eh?

If you're more into technology, you can use Yahoo! Pipes. That's like the Lamborghini of all the tools you can possibly have. It lets you make your own feed instead of using on of the web sites mentioned above. You can aggregate your own feeds, search, filter, sort, etc. That’s the tool I use for my job posting on this blog which displays the 150 most recent tech jobs in Vancouver in real-time. Yahoo! Pipes is free.

2. 2. Use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is just the most awesome social networking tool for jobs. I know many people who complain about it, but I think they just don't know how to use it. I've had 3 job offers since January through LinkedIn. Jobs I did not ask for, the companies came forward and offered me a job or an interview. There are also a lot of jobs available on LinkedIn (you can find them through simplyhired.ca as well) and now you can follow companies (brand new of a few days). So if you're interested by one company you can follow them, and when they open a position or when someone leaves, you can apply on the job even before the company advertises for the job. Having a complete profile on LinkedIn also adds credibility to your application, especially if you can get a few recommendations. Anyways, my point is that LinkedIn is just great! If you decide to join, add me: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/mattbaril.

3. 3. Own and use your dot com. This might be pushing it a bit, but having a website helps as well. My website is a blog and there is quite a bit of content, which means that potential employers can surf through it and read bits and pieces to see my English proficiency, my capacity to write, think and how disciplined I am to keep the blog up-to-date. It helps in two ways: an employer can find you through your blog, but it can also add credibility to your application. In my interview at Elastic Path, a company I worked for during the Olympics, the HR person kept talking about my blog and she asked me only one interview question, the rest of the 45 minutes were spent talking about my blog which she pulled up on her screen. But, a personal blog is a lot of work and I know people who have used their website differently and have had some success as well. I went to school with this guy called Cody Watson and I like what he has done with his dot com. It's pretty simple, it takes few hours to put together, but it looks really professional and helps for the first impression.

4. 4. Always apply on all jobs, even those you’re not too fond of. This is probably the most important mistake people make, not applying on all kind of jobs. Don’t be picky, you don’t have a job for god sake, just apply on everything you think is related to your area even though it’s not the dream job. There are many reasons to do so:

You can practice your interview skills and will not have the pressure you would usually have if you really wanted the job.
You will have feedback on your resume and the experience you have that is most appreciated by employers. If you don’t get the job you can even ask why and know where you’re falling short.
And most importantly, you’re much sexier when you have a job. People are people and hiring someone who doesn’t have a job seems like a risk. If that person was that great he or she would have a job right? Right… so get a job to make yourself more attractive. It also shows you are motivated, ambitious and driven. Once you have a job, you can say things such as: “I love working for company ABC, they have provided me with XYZ kind of experience and treat their employees very well. However, I feel that with my background and experience I could add more value and be more useful to a company like yours by doing ABC. As you can see from my resume I have already worked on projects similar in scope and have had great success.” Well now you are lot sexier than by saying: “I’ve been spending the last 2 months looking for a job, but couldn’t find the right fit.”

5. 5. Spend 8 hours a day looking for jobs. Finding a full time job is a full time job. You should set targets for yourself such as sending 10 resumes a day. Once you have the right tools set up for you, you can easily get 100 jobs per day into your inbox or RSS feed reader. Pick the 10 most interesting and apply. Make a couple of cover letters for different kind of roles you are interested in and tweak them to make it sound personal. It will take you less than 10 minutes to apply on a job with a “personal” cover letter. Count about 3 hours to do so and applying on 50 jobs per week should get you anywhere between 1 and 5 interviews per week. You can then spend the next 5 hours of your day for sharpening your interview skills (free job centre resources), having real interviews, tweaking your website, making new connections on LinkedIn, joining new groups on LinkedIn, networking at different events, blogging, volunteering, taking courses/classes/certifications. Every single hour should be an investment in your career and a step forward, something that will lead you to a job or will enrich your resume.

There is definitely a big part of chance in the process, but you can improve your odds of finding a great job if you do the above. You will also need someone to support you, a wife, a husband, a friend, a parent for the times when everything goes wrong. The week you will have sent 50 resumes and went to 3 interviews and get nothing in return will be a tough week, but it’s not the end of it. Keep working at it and you’re putting the odds in your favor and sharpening the saw.

What are your tricks and tips to become a sexy job seeker and increase your odds of getting the perfect jobs? What do you think doesn't work versus what really works?

Good luck all!

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Using Social Media the Borat Way

Matt Baril — Sun, 30 May 2010 05:15:15 +0000

I've published a post on 5 of the 10 Social Media rules I find the most ridiculous and I've received some comments, feedbacks and questions via this blog as well as emails and facebook messages. One point in particular seems to be more controversial: Add Value. I thought I would shed some light on what I meant and why I'm finding this point to be even more ridiculous than when I first put it on the list.

The first problem we run into, is that it's very difficult to define value. I looked up the word "value" on the online Merriam-Webster dictionary and here are the 2 definitions that seem the most appropriate:

Relative worth, utility, or importance

Something (as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable

I used the word "value" as define by the first point and I meant that you don't necessarily have to blog about things that have an utility or are important and I gave PostSecret and The Onion as examples. I would even go further and argue that you should not focus on adding value if you want to grow an audience or your followership. The first reason being that you cannot compete against 10,000 other blogs or the NT Times, and no matter what you blog about, odds are that a hundred blogs have already posted something about it. Another reason would be the ridiculous amount of information available out there makes content a commodity. Why do you fill up the tank at Shell instead of Husky or vice versa? Proximity? Coincidence? Why are you reading this blog rather than another one? Proximity (we're friends)? Coincidence (Google search)?

What We Can Learn From Borat

To me, Borat is the ultimate experience: stupid, disturbing, awkward, pointless, but dangerously funny and definitely memorable! I'm sure you've heard people quoting him on an almost daily basis with "Very nice! How much?" Or maybe it's Bruno, the main character of his latest movie: "Dolce Gabbana, Hallo?" Borat has had a big success and can count many fans and followers, yet I would not say that its success comes from its content. There is no real content: no script, not real story line, no actors except Sasha Baron (the actor for Borat and Bruno). You don't learn anything nor do you feel a better person when finished watching the movie. Yet Borat is amazing.

I am no movie expert, so I will not attempt to explain why it's been a success, I'm sure you can find other blogs for that. But one thing I know is that value as define in the first point above (worth, utility or importance), is not part of Borat's movie. It could however fit the second definition and be "desirable" I guess, but then the problem is that everything can be desirable to anyone. And if used that way. the word "value" loses its sense since it can be anything to anyone.

My take on this, is that creating a unique experience, being memorable, being different, leaving your visitors flabbergasted is more important than adding value in its traditional definition. We can think of groups, singers, movies, tv shows, books, blogs that don't have a high quality content, but are still great and amazing. This doesn't mean your social media strategy should be to be pointless in your posts and publish junk. The point is to show that the experience is at least as important, if not more, than the mere content. In this era of over-information, people are not looking for more information or more value, but for a unique and memorable experience.

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10 Ridiculous So Called Social Media Rules – Part 1

Matt Baril — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:31:11 +0000

If you're interested in Social Media, you've most likely come across many blog posts on dos, don'ts, and "rules" about Social Media. I find these very interesting, because there seems to be a general consensus on some of these "rules" even though there are very successful blogs that don't follow any of them. Here's the first part of a two-part article of 10 rules that I think come up the most often in blog articles and which I hate the most. My point is not that all Social Media rules are ridiculous, but that rules are made to be broken, and you shouldn't pay too much attention to them.

1. Publish often

Publishing often has the advantage of giving your blog a better ranking on Google as well as giving you the edge as far as first impression goes. What it doesn't give you though, is high quality content. When you post an article every day, you can't have thought it through all the time. I followed high profile bloggers such as Chris Brogan and Seth Godin for a few months, and these people post every single day. Although these 2 bloggers deserve kudos for the hard work they do and everything they have contributed to their communities/tribes, they can't keep up with great articles indefinitely by publishing everyday. We could also mention the kind of sacrifices it requires on a personal level to write 7 articles a week, for free. You can also read an interesting comment from Mike who raised an interesting point about posting less being not so much of an issue with RSS feeds nowadays in a previous post here.

Famous counter example: As an example Dosh Dosh is a successful and influential blog that publishes rarely, but has top quality content and long articles.

2. Engage people in a conversation

Most people follow you or comment on your posts with the hope you'll follow back or that their comment will draw traffic to their blog. This is not true 100% of the time, but I'd say the 80/20 rule would apply here: 20% or less of your followers are real fans and create 80% or more of the valuable and relevant content such as questions, ideas, links, etc. Trying to engage a conversation is a noble cause, but it won't happen by itself and it's most likely to take a lot of time before you're having a real conversations with your "fans". Keep trying to get as much feedback as you can, but if you're like 80% of us, replying to your fans won't take you all day.

Famous counter example: Seth Godin doesn't even allow comments on his blog which basically kills the idea of having a conversation and he still runs the most read blog on marketing in the world.

3. Be available, all the time

Chris Brogan is a blogger I really admire and who has done a lot for his community and he's probably the most available person in the world, which means that he sleeps 4 hours a day. He will try to reply to all the emails, tweets, facebook, friendfeed, linkedin, etc, he can possibly receive. I can't imagine the burden of having to be available all the time and the different consequences it can have on your personal life. I'm a strong believer in First Things First (affiliate link) and the power of prioritizing your life based on your roles (parent, employee, friend, son/daughter, etc.). Not everything that is urgent is important, and if it's not important, it should not get your attention.

Famous counter example: Let me reuse the Seth Godin no comment example here and make sure your read this blog post about what happens when you unplug. Someone also brought up no-tech Sundays, an idea I love and that I sometimes do.

4. Publish short posts, or break a long one into many smaller posts

I think it really depends of the audience you're targeting. I find my "true fans" to read all my posts even the very long ones and I've actually had more success with my longest posts. I have short posts for new comers and longer posts for regular visitors who know me better and have read some of my previous posts. If you publish less often, but try to have a higher quality, then length becomes almost irrelevant.

Famous counter example: Let me use Dosh Dosh as an example again, you'll notice that the typical post is much longer than average blog post.

5. Add value

What does that mean anyways? It's by far the most overused expression in Social Media right now, there is no article you can possibly read without having the words "adding value". First of all, I wish I knew what they meant by value here, and second of all it seems to be derived from business value. I believe a blog is all about experience and no so much about the value you add, but the emotion you can create. That might be the new direction my blog will take… hhhmmm

Famous counter example: One blog that has been very successful and which doesn't, in my view, add value is PostSecret. It might be argued that it entertains, but I don't really see the value it adds. Another blog that could be arguably added to this list is the onion (22nd on Technorati ranking) who reports humorous fake news.

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Which One of These Social Media Rules Is the Most Ridiculous?

Matt Baril — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:00:42 +0000

As I'm working on a post that touches on 10 of the many based-on-nothing Social Media rules we can found all over the blogosphere, I was wondering what your take was on this. Which one, of the following 10 so called rules, do you think deserve the first place for the most irrelevant, ridiculous and wrong rule? Feel free to express your many feelings in the comment section.

The poll has been closed. See the poll archive to see the results of this poll.

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Why You Should Love Aggregators

Matt Baril — Thu, 20 May 2010 01:38:02 +0000

I'm finally reading The Long Tail, Revised And Updated (affiliate link), yes I know it was about time, and I realized Anderson explained very well, and in economic words, something I've been fascinated about and which I used a lot for my 28 business ideas: aggregators. After reading Anderson, I think I've come to a better understanding of the true power of aggreagtors for building communities, as well as its power for new potential ventures.

Aggregators are great for many reasons and they benefit everybody, people who create them, people who use them, and even people who get their content aggregated. Aggregators filter part of the junk out of the useful stuff and most importantly, they help build communities. But aggregators are only one part, and here is what I believe is a better overview of where aggregators fit in.

Anderson says 3 things have made long tail economies possible:

Better access: This is provided by new technologies such as Internet, cloud computing, cheap hosting, cheap Internet access, etc. New technologies have empowered your browser and it allows more people to easily reach out and connect with you.
More stuff: Here the aggregator comes in handy as it is its job to fetch the most relevant products/services/information and deliver them to you.
Filters: If you have no filters, it means you have an easy access to a great deal of stuff, which by definition will be mainly useless to you (it's an aggregate of niche products that don't appeal to the mass). You need tools to filter out what's not aligned with your tastes and a good CMS (Content Management System) will help you do just that.

What Anderson doesn't say however, is that once you have content, users and filters, you've created a platform. From a business perspective this is a very good news, because you can build a platform with little resources: a hosting contract, a domain name and a CMS (drupal, magento, joomla!, etc.) and you're good to go. The keys will be to find your niche and build up a community, two things that are easier said than done.

For the skeptics, there is definitely a strong business case for a platform, because you're adding value by offering a large selection of sorted products, connecting people with similar tastes to one another, and creating more value from the users through reviews, ratings, recommendations and word of mouth (free marketing). It also means that you are getting rid of the less profitable and more difficult part of creating innovative great content and focus on building a community around your platform and its products/services. It reduces risks in two ways, on one hand the initial cost is lower than a typical venture that creates content or goods, and on the other hand, a platform can adjust to new tastes much quicker since it can easily scale up its catalog.

To conclude, a good example of an international company who has been very successful doing just that is Amazon.com. They've even been a step further by offering what Anderson calls an Aggregator-for-hire. They basically offer other vendors to use their platform which means they don't even have to bother fetching content.

I've recently found my niche and I'm working hard at getting a platform up and running. Do you have yours?

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