UPDATE: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence sent customers a great reassuring email today. They won’t be bricking older devices and they will make sure mixed networks with old and new devices work. Like I said before, I’m optimistic. I love Sonos.

Oh @Sonos you’ve got about 24 hours to make a huge apology and reverse this decision. I’m not being overly dramatic to say that any other action is the death of your company

— Cass Crockatt (@casscrockatt) January 22, 2020

I have loved Sonos for years. They were one of our advertisers when my friends and I owned Engadget, but I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt working on my first big startup and I couldn’t afford their magical “music for every room” smart speakers. By the time we sold our company, the prices had come way down. How ironic. I could finally afford their fancy gear and now it didn’t cost as much.

Today we have them in every room: a big Playbar on our living room TV, two Play:5s, two Play:3s, a Sonos One in every kid’s room and a Connect:Amp bridge that lets us play music on our backyard speakers. From our phones we can play anything we want anywhere in our house. Our family bounces between Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandora, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, iHeartRadio, podcasts and local radio stations.

Sonos is magical. Their customers rave about them to anyone who’ll listen, the same way people rave about Air Pods, Tesla, In-N-Out, Instant Pot and DisneyWorld.

And right now, they’re screwed.

Continue reading “The Death of Sonos Has Been Delayed” →

Gary Vaynerchuk is known for many things. One of them is that he wants to buy the Jets. He often explains that he doesn’t expect to buy them and probably wouldn’t be happy as an NFL owner. But setting a goal of buying the Jets drives him.

So I picked a similar goal:

People who know I've done well in the past ask me how I stay motivated. They want to know what drives me.

Like, @GaryVee wants to make enough money to buy the @NYJets, so what's my goal?

Easy.

I want to make enough money to buy the @FooFighters.

— Brian Alvey 🎬 (@brianalvey) January 20, 2019

Gary kindly replied:

I just want to try to buy the Jets 🙂

— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) January 20, 2019

The Jets aren’t for sale. The Foo Fighters certainly aren’t for sale. And we don’t know what we’d do with them if we owned them. But man it’s going to be fun trying.

Tenacity. https://t.co/Ccdh44rQuj

— Brian Alvey 🎬 (@brianalvey) January 12, 2019

MTenacity.

I hadn’t seen the show Wynonna Earp, but obviously it has some passionate fans.

Check out how they’re using Clipisode to make group video shows with other fans.

If Facebook offered free or low cost health insurance to every active US member, it would solve their retention problem, give them even better user data for targeting and make them a trillion dollar company.

— Brian Alvey 🎬 (@brianalvey) January 4, 2019

I fixed the Verizon Media Group logo. pic.twitter.com/W4WjB3jao8

— Brian Alvey 🎬 (@brianalvey) December 19, 2018

Continue reading “I fixed the Verizon Media Group logo” →

When I visited the two LAUNCH Incubator classes in December, it was to allegedly to see if there were any interesting companies to advise. My real plan though was to soak up some of their weekly pitch practice. We were working on an iPhone app for Recurrency that we planned to debut at the LAUNCH Festival and I wanted our presentation to go as smoothly as our last one.

But watching other people pitch their startups isn’t a substitute for pitching your own. So when Jason told me that a spot had opened up, I jumped right in.

What a wild ride. Our first week of pitching went great. We won the most points. It felt like it was going to be a breeze.

Was I ever wrong.

Continue reading “LAUNCH Incubator 3: The Legend Continues” →

I love the new animated Recurrency home page design!

It depends. It’s not for everyone.

Only apply to the LAUNCH Incubator if you want to:

• get Jedi-level presentation training – which will help you…
• get a “yes” from every angel investor you talk to – which will help you…
• attract a world-class team – which will help you…
• build a world-class product – which is made better when you…
• get expert feedback on your product and presentation from Jason’s amazing weekly special guests.

I hope that helps you with your decision.

NOTE: If you live on the east coast, keep in mind that you will be spending three solid months in San Francisco — away from your family. They may come visit you for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but you will miss them like crazy. On the bright side, if your spouse is as supportive of you as Niki is of me, at some point during the Incubator they will decide that it’s time to sell your house and move across the country to a whole new life and all new schools in California.

Good luck!

Yesterday, Jonathan George and I launched Recurrency on stage at the LAUNCH Festival. Leading up to our debut, we spent 12 weeks in the LAUNCH Incubator doing pitch rehearsals. That training was invaluable and some of the other incubator entrepreneurs will surely be lifelong friends.

What is Recurrency? For supporters and super fans, it means giving money to creators they love each week on any social network* and becoming part of their inner circle. For creators and causes, it means “recurring currency.”

Check out the Recurrency FAQ to learn more.

* Currently this means Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, the ones with great APIs. Soon it will mean dozens more. If you’re not on one of those three services, let me know what you need us to add next.