Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

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Graeme Thickins Christmas avatar

I Couldn’t Help Myself – I Did It Again

December 29, 2022 / / 1 Comment

When you sign up for a one-year subscription to the Lensa App (yes, I got sucked into that), you are naturally gonna want to have them fire up their generative AI technology more than once to create additional avatars — at least when you have some down time. (See my last blog post, Generative AI Made Me Do It.)

After all, Lensa says every batch of headshots or selfies you send in will get you different results — even from the same set of photos! So, what the heck, when I had an idle moment during Christmas week, I dug out some additional shots of me, myself, and I, then hit the button to upload them. And, ta-dah, the results are below — which seemed to come through faster this time, by the way.

Note I did not submit any shots that had a Christmas or winter theme, but the smarty-pants AI at Lensa found a way to get into the spirit of the season. Pretty fun. (But then I’m easily amused.)

I hope this second post shows you more of what this amazing technology is capable of doing,  in this wild new realm of generative art. And just think, what will the next version of the technology behind this app (GPT-4) bring us when it comes out?

By the way, a belated Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you!

Nine avatars of Graeme

Graeme avatar 1 of 6

Generative AI Made Me Do it

December 6, 2022 / / 3 Comments

Having lived through countless cycles of artificial intelligence hype (I mean promise) over the last few decades, I naturally couldn’t avoid getting sucked into the latest hotness: generative AI. The attention this new flavor is getting lately is almost deafening. And that includes tons of startup funding and rich valuations in recent months, both of which have been declining in other sectors of the technology industry (to say the least).

With my insatiable curiosity for all things tech, I’ve been seeing and reading a lot about generative AI, both as it applies to written content and to art. (You can read some  articles I curate regularly on this topic here.) In particular, I was struck by what the latest version of the popular  Lensa app was doing — specifically, offering AI-generated avatars for anyone willing to sign up on its app and pay a nominal fee. You just submit 10-20 selfie or portrait shots of your mug, and — voila! — get back a whole bunch of AI-generated avatars. Most are what I’d call photo-like illustrations. Actually, it wasn’t all that “voila” — it takes a while for Lensa’s computers to generate these things. Hours for me. I suppose it greatly depends on how many people are signing up on a given day.

Anyway, most of the 200 that I got back were… well, the word crap comes to mind. But I pulled out six that were kinda nice. And, ta-dah, here they are — how generative AI sees Graeme. (Yes, this is an entirely self-absorbed post!) Continue reading

This ‘Office Is Over’ Thing Has Been Coming for a Long Time

May 9, 2022 / / 0 Comments
Marketwatch article headline

Article headline today (a recurring theme).

The media wants to make a huge deal about how going to work in an office is suddenly becoming passé — the media being mostly centered in New York City, I might add, which also happens to be the largest commercial real estate market in the U.S. But like many things the media gets wrong (or gets late), this trend has been going on for years. Especially for knowledge workers and those who work in the tech industry. They may try to pin it on “upstarts” like Airbnb and its cheeky CEO, Brian Chesky, in articles like this.

photo of Brian CheskyBut we all know this mentality, if you will, has been reality for millions of people for a decade or more.

I’ve been saying for years — ask my friends — that “my office is wherever my MacBook Pro is.” I don’t say it to be funny. It’s simply the truth.

Apple MacBook Pro M1

MacBook Pro M1 by Martin Katler via Unsplash

It’s a prime reason I’ve been an active investor in $AAPL for decades. That was even before it produced its first laptop — which, for you younger types, was called the PowerBook. It was life-altering.

That was my first Apple laptop, and I’ve owned more laptops from my favorite company than I can count since then. (Yes, I keep upgrading to the latest and best.) So, as a self-employed business

Apple Powerbook photo

Apple Powerbook, early 1990s – photo by Everyday Basics via Unsplash

owner, I’ve been doing this “office is anywhere” thing for a long, long time. Which makes me find this latest lament about the demise of the office to be quite amusing.

And who doesn’t get that this mentality/reality is hugely less costly than an office lease?

——-

p.s. To those of you who were smart enough to invest in $ABNB early on, my hat is off to you. Because it has certainly enabled a large part of the movement away from the traditional office, as it continues to do. And it has created no less than an industry of its own at the same time, enriching legions of property entrepreneurs.

Who Knew? Airbnb for Boats!

March 7, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Boat ownership in Minnesota is second only to Florida (despite our weather being, um, less than half as good!). But here’s a better stat: Minnesota leads the nation in most boats per capita as of 2021.

Example of boat type available on Lake MinnetonkaOf course, we are famously called the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” so it stands to reason. But Minnesota actually has 14,444 lakes of 10 acres or more, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. No wonder we love boating!

GetMyBoat is the world’s largest boat rental marketplace. Yes, it’s been called the GetMyBoat logoAirbnb of boats. Do people stay overnight in boats? Well, only the bigger ones that have such accommodations, I guess. But you can’t blame the company for liking the comparison. Most of their rentals, I’m suspecting, are a day at a time — though I’ve noticed week-long rentals are offered by some owners. But, surely, living on a big boat for a month while working remotely would be an intriguing escape for some digital nomads, no?

Big Money Can Float a Lot of Boats

chart of boat ownership by state

Top 10 States for Boat Ownership in 2020 – Source: Statista (click to enlarge)

It should come as no surprise that boat owners in Minnesota have discovered GetMyBoat. And I suspect many more will be, as expansion is definitely in the works for GetMyBoat. It just announced it has received $21 million in a Series B funding, with boat manufacturing company Yanmar Global, based on Osaka, Japan, taking a majority stake in the company. Yanmar has worked with GetMyBoat since 2018.

In the past two years alone, despite the challenges experienced by the travel and leisure industries worldwide, GetMyBoat says it has achieved 10X revenue growth and now “offers more than 150,000 boat rentals and water experiences across 9,300 destinations.”

Pontoon boat, Voyageurs Nat'l ParkGetMyBoat has a mobile app for iOS and Android that enables users to rent a boat right from their phones. In the news release, the company said, “Our mission is to make the joys of boating more affordable and accessible, and with this growth capital from Yanmar, we will be able to fully realize that dream.”

GetMyBoat is a fully remote company, with headquarters in Foster City, California. A large portion of its team is in South Africa, and it has employees in Toronto, North Carolina, Virginia Beach, and more.

The Local Connection

In Minnesota, the company currently has just one employee, but more than 85 watercraft owners are on the platform here as of March 2022. Of course, in the summer, I learned that number will increase a lot as owners “re-publish” their boats on the platform. SuperAirNautique boat“I’m in close contact with some of our owners here,” said Val Streif, marketing manager, based in Northeast Minneapolis. “Many of them have reported really great stories of growing their side hustle businesses, renting out their boats in the summer months or serving as full-time boat captains for their rentals.” Hmmm, is this a way to ease the payment pressure from those 15-year boat loans many have to take out to live their dreams on the water?

The only outside investor in GetMyBoat is Yanmar as of now. The company has been otherwise funded by the cofounders, serial entrepreneurs Sascha Mornell, CEO, and Example of houseboat available at some locationsRaf Collado. Quite the non-standard startup story! The company launched in 2013, and Yanmar invested for the first round in 2018.

All the Minnesota boats currently on the platform can be seen at this link. There’s a description for each listing saying what the owner/operator offers. The most popular listings in our state currently are on Lake Minnetonka, the St. Croix River, Prior Lake, and the greater Bemidji lakes area. (The photos in this post represent some of those offerings.)

The majority of GetMyBoat’s business is in the United States, but it has a large presence in the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and the Mediterranean, and Streif says the company is growing globally.Canoeing, somewhere in Minnesota

So what’s the range of watercraft sizes on the platform? I was told the smallest is a paddleboard (maybe I should rent mine?), and the largest are some superyachts (but none owned by Russian oligarchs, I have been assured!). And there are a whole lot of sizes in between — everything from kayaks and canoes to speedboats, cabin cruisers, pontoons, ski and wakesurfing boats, and even houseboats.

I asked Streif if all the larger boat rentals come with captain included. “No, people can choose boat listings based on this option,” she said. “I would say the vast majority of boat rentals on our platform are captained charters, but it’s not always the case. It will Big party on a Minnesota boatsay on the boat listing either ‘Captain is Included’, ‘Captain is Optional’, or ‘Captain is Not Included’.”

For those rentals with no captain, I asked if the cost is high because of insurance expense. “It’s not necessarily super expensive when it comes to insurance.” she said. “We have some insurance partners that offer bareboat, or non-captained, coverage at competitive rates. The key for boat owners is to make sure, for their own insurance policy, that it covers bareboat rentals when they’re renting out their boats to Ski boat on Gull Lake near Brainerd MNcustomers on the platform without a licensed captain.”

GetMyBoat sees itself as “the driving force in shaping the world of on-demand boating.” It says it’s on track to send 2,000,000 people boating before the end of 2022.

I have a feeling Minnesota will account for a growing number of those rentals as we get into the summer of 2022 — one we are all very much looking forward to, for obvious reasons.

See you on the lake!

 

I Told You We Were in a Startup Boom

January 22, 2022 / / 1 Comment
man standing in fireworks

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad via Pexels.

And it seems to be raging even more. Thank you, Great Resignation. You’ve started something big.

A new survey from Digital.com has found 43% of Americans plan to start a business in 2022. Whoa, that would be a big number! With findings like this, it certainly appears entrepreneurship is continuing to gain ground as a career choice. And this news comes on top of almost 5,000,000 new businesses having been launched between January and November of 2021, according to the Census Bureau. I call it a major (positive!) trend coming out of the pandemic.

[When I say I told you, you may recall I wrote about this topic some five months ago, but these latest numbers just drive the point home even more.]

Of the 1250 adults surveyed across the U.S., more than 2 of 5 – or four in ten, if you prefer – said they were planning to launch a new venture. What’s more, though some of these will surely be “side gigs,” 55% of these aspiring new business owners say they will leave their current jobs during the year. Yes, quitting is a hot thing. The number of job openings has gone ballistic nationwide. Time to feel even more sorry for your neighborhood job recruiter, I guess.

Taking the Leap

It seems the decision to go it alone is just not as daunting as it used to be. People are increasingly looking to be masters of their own fate, this data is showing us. They are emboldened. And you know what’s especially surprising in the results of this survey? One-third of these planned new startups in 2022 will be launched by first time entrepreneurs.

What kinds of businesses will these founders be pursuing? The survey said the most popular categories are these: “retail” (presumably including ecommerce), which came in at 14.6%. followed by “business & finance” at 10.91%, and “computer & IT” at 10.17%.

“One of the drivers for The Great Resignation is that people want to feel a sense of purpose,” said Dennis Consorte, Digital.com’s small business expert. “Business ownership can give you the flexibility to pursue what matters to you in a way you believe will be most meaningful and impactful.”

Having It Both Ways

What about launching a new business without quitting one’s current job? Yes, it happens – a lot, traditionally. (I did it early in my career.) And this new survey finds that practice will likely be continuing this year. In fact, I daresay it will become more common. Some 29% of survey respondents don’t plan to leave their current job during 2022.

What’s one big factor at play here? It’s this: 26% of the employed and self-employed individuals who responded to the survey currently work fully-remotely, and 40% more work both remotely and in-person. As the survey sponsor so astutely notes: “Remote work may allow for more flexibility to simultaneously continue current work while beginning a new endeavor.”

Thank you Covid, I guess? It’s making entrepreneurship easier! Especially when that new business can be run totally online. And the survey found 32% percent of these planned new businesses intend to operate that way.

Why Start a New Business?

The survey asked respondents who plan to launch a new venture what is motivating them. The chart below tells the story.

chart showing reasons to start a business

How to Finance It?

It’s easy saying you’ll start a business, but a little thing like money always comes up. Well, get this: 13% of the entrepreneurs who responded to this survey reported having raised more than $100k for their planned new venture! Twenty-nine percent said they’ve raised more than $50k, 57% raised more than $25k, and 87% raised at least some amount of money. Female entrepreneurs reported raising slightly less money than men. What about investing some of one’s own money? That matters, too – and 34% of these entrepreneurs said they’ve invested between $6k and $50k of their own cash.

“If you want to pursue a startup full-time, then it’s a good idea to have at least 6 months’ savings and to adopt a frugal lifestyle,” said Digital.com’s Consorte. “Raising money can often help you move faster, but it can come at a high cost. Start with friends and family, and opt for models where you don’t have to give up too much equity in the beginning. You’re going to need it if you get to a point where you want to bring in institutional investors.”

Great advice there! Read more about this eye-opening survey here and here.

A final note: As the survey sponsor says, “Whether or not these plans turn to action remains to be seen. But what’s clear is the exploding interest in entrepreneurship.”

Amen! I, for one, will plan to follow up with some yearend data. Meantime, as 2022 gets underway – likely a strong recovery year for workers as the pandemic eases — be sure to support your local entrepreneurs!

 

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