john ndege

there have been some suggestions that the coming recession (depression?) is very bad news for startups. i say its very bad news for bad startups. bad startups being those whose whole business model is based on flipping the company in a few short years. those who thought some sort of “advertising” would be enough to carry them through to the sweet exit, without even thinking about a strategy. those who had no plans to build sustainable businesses. i said as much at a mini seedcamp in May 2008 after my own startup exploded. but then all this is old news.

i rarely write about startups these days because these guys say it so much better. but what i do want to say is that this downturn could be the creative destruction we need to fully witness the supremacy of online advertising over print, radio and tv.

in these conditions it only makes sense for advertisers to focus tightly on ROI for their advertising and print, radio and tv is just so damn difficult to measure. even on online adveritsing campaigns that are not driving direct purchases the brand awareness campaigns can and will target specific audiences who are acutually interested in their product.

what we need to see however is more innovation in online advertising. google has conquered search. facebook is pushing social advertising (full disclosure - i work for facebook). but i am left with the distinct feeling that there is a long way to go beyond search and social advertising alone. god knows banners don’t work in all cases. talk of behavioral targeting especially of the phorm/isp variety scare me. surely we can serve better ads without being invasive. or maybe we should just go the 37signals way and simply charge for things. I’d probably pay for most things offered freely on the web.