Entrepreneurship Advice: Growing a Consumer Web Business

A friend of mine who recently took the entrepreneurial plunge and launched a consumer web business recently asked me for some advice. Aiming to serve more people than just him with what is hopefully useful advice, I am posting my response here.

This was my friend’s request:

“I believe the greatest challenge my company will face in the near future is how to manage anticipated rapid growth. We have a marketing strategy that will be capable of producing an extremely fast growth rate in users of our website, leveraging the power of social media and highly targeted and well-categorized content on a site that is designed to serve the everyday reading needs of all segments of the general public. I would like to be able to make management decisions based not on fears of scarce resources but on confidence that additional capital will become available to continue paying existing staff and to hire the new staff we will soon need after our website goes live. I believe it will be necessary to secure a large amount of capital investment soon after launch, from investors who are interested and capable of assisting the company in various ways to navigate the challenges of explosive growth — both financially and in terms of business experience, advice, and connections — or else we run the risk of growing ahead of our ability to run the business in practical terms.”

My Response:

“It is interesting to see you anticipate that your greatest challenge will be keeping up with growth. Historically this is not the challenge of most entrepreneurs. The challenge of most entrepreneurs is to provide a product that people really want. Then their challenge is to provide a product that people want enough to pay for – or that so many people want for free that advertisers will pay to reach them. With one of those two scenarios emphatically proven, then their challenge is to grow the business sustainably. Sometimes this involves raising capital, which is a very unique process/skillset.

It is getting harder and harder to “make it” with this second type of if-you-build-it-the-advertisers-will-come model and, if you seek additional investment, you will need to show traction with advertisers or at least user numbers (especially high-value users) that are so massive as to convince any investor that SURELY some advertisers would want to reach them. Recently some very public flops of advertising-driven consumer web companies (e.g., Facebook’s IPO and Digg’s acquisition) have made investors in this space particularly wary.

Generally the two metrics that an investor will focus on are your Cost of Customer Acquisition (How many marketing dollars do you have to spend for each new customer to join your site?) and Lifetime Customer Value (How much revenue will that customer make you either through paying you directly or through advertising dollars over the entire time that you expect that customer to continue using your site?). If LCV is significantly higher than CCA, it allows an investor to think, “If I invest X, it will generate a return of more-than-X” with high probability. Do you have convincing data to quantify your CCA and LCV – both today and how you believe these numbers will evolve in the future?

Almost every startup that becomes “successful” – that is, grows into a big company with sustainable profits – looks very different by the time it achieves “success” than it did at the time of founding. The key success attributes for entrepreneurs these days are not “great vision” or even “incredible execution to achieve that vision.” Rather the most successful entrepreneurs exhibit outstanding ability to test products with their target markets, rapidly collect feedback, interpret it, and adapt or pivot the company’s business model based on that learning and/or based on partnerships or other new means that the entrepreneurs are able to bring to their ventures. This has been the case for a long time but recently it has gained traction under the buzz categorization of “lean startup” principles. My favorite book that espouses these principles and provides a step-by-step guide to implementing them in your startup is The Startup Owner’s Manual and I would highly recommend that you read it. It is unfortunately only available as a big, heavy hardback, but the process diagrams and writing inside are very valuable.

Another challenge you might face IF you seek additional investment will be your team. Investors tend to invest in teams before they invest in ideas. There is nothing wrong with you being a first-time entrepreneur, but it would be ideal if you could strengthen your team with other experienced entrepreneurs (Previous startup experience – success or failure – of the founding team has the highest correlation with the success rate of entrepreneurial ventures and investors know that.), especially those who would complement your skillsets / fill your skill gaps.

Finally, from a cost perspective, I wanted to check with you on your technology infrastructure. I believe I saw you post on facebook before about costs for servers. Are you familiar with cloud computing options? Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, and many others offer virtual servers with ~infinite scalability to entrepreneurs. This helps you avoid some of the costs/risks/concerns of growing your venture on the technical side such that you can focus on the commercial side.”

What do you think? Did I provide some valuable feedback?

IMD Alumni Event in Boston

Last weekend was a wonderful trip to Boston, reconnecting with friends, classmates, colleagues, and professors!

I flew up Thursday night and spent Friday in business meetings downtown + catching up with a dear friend / former colleague in Somerville. Lacking a car was no problem because Boston has a very robust public transportation system.

Saturday I turned my attention to IMD, preparing and helping to set up for our opening dinner. We chose this particular weekend because it coincided with the opening weekend of the Academy Of Management‘s annual conference. I came up with the idea of hosting an IMD all-continent event last year when I presented at the AOM’s annual conference and realized that ~1/3 of IMD’s faculty were there as well. It is not often that we have so many IMD professors together in the US, so it seemed worth capitalizing on!

In all of North America we have the same number of alumni as there are in Switzerland – but we’re obviously much more spread out here! We weren’t certain how many people we could motivate to travel hundreds or thousands of miles for such an event but it was worth a try.

We were very pleased with the results: 60+ IMD alumni joined us at the opening dinner at The Top of the Hub, coming from the US, Canada, Mexico – and even some from Europe and Asia! Add to that number 12 IMD professors and some other honored guests and we had a nice group!

Dinner was very nice and a great chance to meet other IMD alumni in this part of the world. My class (2008) tied with 1982 for the most alumni in attendance (3) and it was fun reconnecting with my former classmates. Years go by but relationships pick up right where they left off! We shut down the restaurant, stopped in a bar for some Olympics watching, and then turned in way too late.

Sunday morning began very early. We had lined up seven excellent IMD faculty presentations at the Harvard Club of Boston so we needed plenty of time to squeeze them all in:

IMD President Dominique Turpin – Introduction to the day’s program
Professor Margaret Cording – Identifying, Valuing & Capturing Strategic Synergies
Professor Bala Chakravarthy – A New Type of Country Manager for Winning in Emerging Markets
Professor Martha Maznevski – Developing Responsible Leaders Through Action Learning
Professor Michael Watkins – Moving Up: The Seven Seismic Shifts
Professor George Kohlrieser – Care to Dare: Secure Base Leadership in Action
Professor Maury Peiperl – What Makes a Global Leader Global?
Professor Suzanne de Janasz – Beyond Juggling: Achieving a Sustainable Work-Life Balance

It was a long day but so packed full of great discussion and learning. It was like a shot in the arm, a reminder of what it was like to be at IMD, when every day covered so much ground that you felt almost like a completely new person by the end of it. As someone dedicated to constant self improvement I was grateful for such a “dense” opportunity to learn and grow. And besides, exhausted as we were by the end of it, several of us still found the energy reserves to go out for drinks and plenty of seafood afterward!

It was an excellent weekend and I hope we can build on the success to bring more IMD activity to North America.

Keys for US Job Creation

Last week I was honored to be asked to advise the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness about what we are doing here in Houston that has led to so much job creation while the rest of the country has been so economically stagnant. The meeting was held at Rice and was an informal roundtable discussion rather than a formal, public affair – a format which I found to be much more productive for meaningful discourse. Following is a summary of my recommendations in three key areas (the three “E”s) – what do you think of them?

ENERGY – One of the Council’s existing foci is to go “all in” on energy. Awesome. I can envision scenarios in the not-too-distant future when energy will be more strategic for national competitiveness than will be the strength of the military. As Rice’s own Nobel laureate Dick Smalley was fond of touting, if you take the top 10 challenges facing the world today and solve energy, most of the rest of them kind of take care of themselves. Rather than make big bets on individual initiatives like Solyndra, though, I think the government’s most effective role would be to create a stable energy policy that captures the *true* cost (including the cost to our environment) of energy production, transmission, storage, and use. Create a level playing field, ensure that it will be in place for a long time to encourage long-term investment, and watch innovation happen.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP – I just delivered a keynote Friday in which I showed how entrepreneurship not only creates jobs, but even more specifically it creates the right kinds of jobs. A timely article in The Economist illustrated how the US’s entrepreneur-oriented culture helped it evolve from the industrial age to the information age while Europe has largely been left lagging. In short, entrepreneurship is the engine of economic Darwinism. We can’t sit on our laurels, though, as Asia and even Africa are developing their own brands of entrepreneurial culture.

The difference between a job “taker” and a job “maker” is often psychological. Someone who is laid off or whose company fails might file for unemployment benefits and complain about the lack of opportunities while someone else in the exact same situation with the exact same means might start a new business, launch a consulting practice, or use the transition as a time for a major career change. What can we do to “empower” the former to feel more like the latter?

One of the greatest barriers to would-be entrepreneurs taking the plunge is not having a “secure base.” As children we gain confidence to learn to walk, for example, because we have the secure base of our parents to pick us back up when we fall and this mentality stays with us for life. Secure bases for entrepreneurs can be personal finances, friends and loved-ones, or even missions/values. I proposed that the POTUS could be a secure base for potential and existent entrepreneurs alike, inciting them to take the plunge as part of a US “strategic imperative.” In much the same way as JFK inspired engineers in the 60s for the Space Race, the POTUS could inspire entrepreneurs today. I have to imagine that such visible support of entrepreneurship would be embraced by both sides of the aisle.

Thomas Friedman recently posted a piece on how the US should be THE destination for people of any country who want to launch a new venture. In fact, it was after reading Friedman’s book, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” that I left a lucrative job in Switzerland to return to the US and launch my current startup. I don’t believe I’m the only one with whom a message of “entrepreneurship as patriotic duty” would resonate.

EDUCATION – I also saw your recommendation to improve education to better prepare today’s and tomorrow’s workers for jobs. IF you believe me that entrepreneurship is critical to the future of America’s economy / competitiveness, then our system of education must be updated, especially K-12. I mentioned in our meeting the difference between convergent thinking (“What are the walls of this building made of?”) and divergent thinking (“How many different uses can you think of for a brick?”). The former is the focus of most education but the latter is significantly more useful in entrepreneurship (albeit perhaps harder to test with standardized exams). 

Add to that our changing world of ubiquitous information access (shifting the value from memorizing facts to efficient searching for answers and critical thinking/judgment) and the growing importance of cross-disciplinary . . . everything! Our world is too complex for people to learn in “silo’ed” environments. Reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic as separate areas of learning makes no sense in the business, academic, or public sectors anymore. The rate of change is so fast that employees must be able to perform in highly uncertain environments rather than closed, predictable, just-one-right-answer fantasies. In order to develop the new heuristics, mindsets, and skillsets to compete in this new world, we need much more integrated, experiential development rather than silo’ed, academic teaching.

More Sibling Bonding in Austin

Last weekend Katie and I headed to Austin to spend the weekend with my brother, Nick, and his family. As we were the chauffeurs, there wasn’t room for Max in the car, so we left him with friends.

We drove up to Austin Friday evening and crashed with a friend (a friend with a dog to help treat our Max withdrawal!). After a long drive, we were pooped, so we just went for a late dinner at 24 Diner then called it a night.

Saturday we picked up our three guests and spent the day at Austin’s Greenbelt. I’m a little embarrassed that this was my first time at the Greenbelt because it . . . is . . . awesome! Less than 10 minutes from downtown Austin (more like 5, depending on where you enter), it’s a huge park (800+ acres – roughly the same size as New York’s Central Park), full of woods, trails, 8 miles of Barton Creek, swimming spots, and all sorts of flora and fauna. Oh, and it’s all off-leash for dogs so we’ll have to bring Max the next time we’re in town!

We hiked up past one swimming hole and hopped in the water at another: Sculpture Falls. It might have been a bit generous to call them “falls” – after all, this was a creek, not a raging river. Still, there was lots of room for swimming, from waist deep water to way over your head. In the deepest part there was a rope swing that we could use to launch ourselves out into the creek. Some people were chilling in the shallows, some were actively swimming around, and some were just playing with their dogs. What a blast – we could have stayed forever!

Eventually we left, though, and, after a workout on rings that we hung from one of the trees, we had a great dinner together. After watching the bats come out from underneath Congress Ave Bridge, we crashed and prepared for another busy day.

Sunday I woke up early and ran around Town Lake. The 10-mile trail is quite pretty, very barefoot/minimalist friendly, and packed with other runners – even around sunrise (maybe especially around sunrise, given how hot the day was likely to become!). After an epic breakfast at Kerbey Lane, we went and visited Inner Space Caverns. There we found even more bats, but this time clinging to stalactites instead of the underside of a bridge.

After two fun-filled days, we finally had to drop Nick et al. back off at the airport. Once again it was too short, but we’ll take what we can get when it comes to spending time with those we love!

Sibling Bonding in Chicago

Katie and I have traveled each of the last two weekends to spend time with her sister in Chicago and my brother in Austin respectively.

It was only my second time in Chicago, but the city struck me with some of its similarities to and differences from Houston. The two cities are around the same size in terms of population but have very different profiles. Chicago feels like a much “older” city than Houston, which is both good and bad. Some of the “old” feels dingy/grimy, but some of it is charming – e.g., many of the skyscrapers in downtown Chicago are much more interesting architecturally than are those of similar size in Houston. Chicago’s wide availability of public transportation is also a significant differentiator; we traveled all over the metro area and never had need of a car. Chicago and Houston both have huge medical centers, significant academic institutions (both private and public), and major international airports – but very different economies. Perhaps most important for our trip, we were pleased to discover that Chicago, like Houston, has a vibrant, thriving restaurant scene!

The trip was short, but we packed in a lot of fun (and a little business too, of course!). We stayed at a hotel downtown – where it turned out that Dan Akroyd was staying as well! Much of Friday was spent dodging torrential downpours as we walked around the Navy Pier or entertained ourselves indoors. Friday night we met up with some of Katie’s sister’s friends at India House, which provided not only dinner but enough leftovers for breakfast for the rest of the trip!

Saturday we made our way out to Wrigley Field for a Cubs game and, wow, I was really impressed by the team spirit on show! Everyone for miles around was in Cubs gear and the stadium was rocking as everyone cheered or boo’ed for even the smallest events. Fan spirit is clearly another area of differentiation from Houston!

Before the game we brunched at Uncommon Ground, which featured delicious, natural food and inventive drinks. Afterward we bar hopped a little in Wrigleyville, returned downtown, and readied ourselves for another night out. Instead of Indian we opted for Italian at Quartino, which was unfortunately unremarkable. We made up for it afterward, though, at Eno, a wine bar that offered flights of wine, cheese, and chocolate! One of my buddies from Rice football and his wife joined us, too, which only enhanced the experience.

Sunday morning we returned to Houston but soon we would be on the road again to Austin!

IMD: a Global Brand – a Global Bond

With four years now to reflect on the IMD network, I recently had two travel experiences that really cemented its value for me: Buenos Aires and Switzerland. When Katie and I went to Buenos Aires in May we were really helped along by my two IMD classmates there. They and their families met up with us, advised us on how best to experience the local scene, and even helped me make very valuable business connections while I was in town. Last month in Switzerland – where we need no advice on where to stay / what to do – it was the same: classmates came out of the woodwork to spend time with us and some were even incredibly helpful in business networking as well.

Before I discovered IMD I looked down my nose at MBAs, believing them to be people who were essentially paying for a new network of peers/colleagues. As I already had a nice network, this seemed of very little value to me. In my very first blog post ever I laid out my reasons for attending IMD, which happened also to be an MBA program. I joked often during that year that the IMD network would indeed be very valuable: with students from 45 countries we would surely be invited to weddings in fun destinations all over the world!

Indeed it has proven itself in that regard but I’ve been really impressed by how much more it is as well. In Buenos Aires, in Switzerland, and everywhere else I have encountered my IMD classmates there is a sense of joy at our reunion that is really hard to describe. There were so few of us and we underwent such a very intense experience together that an incredible bond was forged between us. Now, four years and thousands of miles removed from most of these classmates, the bond has only grown stronger.

Whenever we get together we all immediately fall into patterns of catch up about ourselves / our families, updates about our classmates (For such an ambitious, globally mobile group of people, it’s almost like a competition to see who knows the the most recent update about each of us!), and earnest offers to help each other succeed in our professional and personal lives.

Having this extended team / family virtually anywhere we might hope to travel in the world is an incredibly comforting feeling. This is a very underanticipated, undermarketed aspect of the IMD MBA program: it’s not just a global brand; it’s a global bond!

Why I Donate to Rice Part 2

18 months ago I responded to a Thresher op-ed that advocated for withholding donations. Now I find myself doing the same. The original Thresher article is here. My initial response was as follows:

“As humans we fear change and we always long for our alma mater to remain the [often idealized] snapshot of our own amazing time there. I remain very closely connected to Rice and I view its current state much more positively than does this author. Regardless of differences in opinion, our beloved institution will transcend the roller coaster of yearly trends and successive presidents. The way to foster a better Rice is not to “take your toys and go home.” Rather it is to become more involved, make your voice heard, and help Rice grow/evolve in an ever more dynamic world.”

After more comments, some of which melodramatically contended that the Rice of today is unrecognizable, I added another response:

“I had the honor to teach at Rice last semester so had some very in depth interaction with 19 students of all disciplines, class years, and colleges. Additionally, as a very active associate at Lovett College, my wife and I have interaction throughout the year with tens of Lovetteers. Using this experience as data, I would not agree that Rice has morphed into anything we don’t recognize. When I was at Rice the student-faculty ratio was just over 5:1; it is now just under 6:1 and holding steady. It has gone from being the smallest institution of its kind to being . . . the smallest institution of its kind. Tuition is up – as it is up everywhere – and financial aid is way up as well. Most importantly, the students with whom I interact are smart, ambitious, humble, diverse, interesting, and often a bit “unique.” Rice remains “elite but not elitist.” The colleges are still the center of campus life but they are now supported by an amazing recreation center, outstanding food at serveries, and a nice central pavilion, all of which augment the on-campus experience and foster more interaction between students.”

Those of you who are Rice Owls, what do you think?

Selling Your Entrepreneurial Venture

In response to the news of Microsoft’s acquisition of Yammer, I was asked for my opinion on whether this kind of “selling out” is good thing. The asker of the question cited concerns that the “big, grey corporation” might stifle the product, slow innovation, or in other ways ruin a good thing. Following is my answer – what do you think?

I think about the pros and cons of selling my current venture to a “big, grey corporation” all the time. This is always a complex issue and even more so because mine is a mission-based startup. Our goals are not just about financial returns, but also about positively changing the way people use energy around the world. So the prospect of selling out has not only the risks identified above, but also the risk that the acquirer may not have values aligned with ours.

At the same time, acquisition by a “big, grey corporation” is the likeliest scenario by which we will be able to return value to our investors who have empowered us to develop this venture with their capital, expertise, and connections.

So does this mean that selling a venture is necessarily at odds with our values and goals? Not at all. Selling to a “big, grey corporation” with the resources (capital, personnel, distribution networks, partnerships, client relationships, etc.) to accelerate our business’s growth may actually be the fastest way for us to achieve the scale of impact that we believe is possible in our space.

If you have a venture worth buying, I think it likely that more than one potential acquirer would be interested. The key is to sell to a company that will help you achieve your goals rather than trade them for cash.

Rice Centennial Celebration in Istanbul, Turkey

Katie and I spent last weekend in Istanbul, Turkey as part of the Rice Centennial Celebration there. When Edgar Odell Lovett, Rice’s first president, traveled the world collecting ideas for the institution he was about to launch, Istanbul was an important stop on his journey. Therefore, as one of many celebrations Rice has organized this year in honor of its hundredth birthday, a weekend of festivities, fellowship, and learning was organized in Istanbul.

Katie and I arrived Friday just in time for the opening dinner, which was held at the Ritz-Carlton. This featured several speakers, including Rice’s current president, David Leebron, and several local dignataries and . . . a delicious buffet! Everything in the buffet was labeled as “Turkish” this or “Turkish” that. I have my doubts as to how authentic the “Turkish chocolate mousse,” was but it was all delicious.

This dinner was a fun opportunity to catch up with many people I knew from Houston in a very different local setting – something I have always enjoyed. Moreover, it was a great chance to meet several Turkish alumni. I reconnected with one of my classmates (who is Turkish) whom I haven’t seen since graduation – what fun! The trip was off to a good start.

Saturday morning began with an amazing breakfast at our own hotel. The buffet was set up on the top floor with 270 degrees of view overlooking the beautiful Bosphorus strait. The Bosphorus surprised me with how much traffic it supported; even early in the morning there were ferries, cargo ships, and huge barges crisscrossing all over the place.

We made our way back over to the Ritz where we were treated to a morning of lectures and panel discussion, including Ambassador Edward Djerejian (also a founder of Rice’s Baker Institute of Public Policy) on repercussions of the Arab Spring and David Leebron discussing the future of the university with the president of the American University in Cairo.

As a group we then took a bus to the Old Town, where we had lunch and toured two mosques. The first, the Blue Mosque, was really impressive with its very elaborate tile work (the rich colors of which give the mosque its name) and the second, Hagia Sophia, was equally impressive with its huge dome and frescoes and mosaics.

After a sunset cruise along the Bosphorus and Golden Horn, we were received by Ali Koç, a Rice alum whose family is very prominent in Turkey’s private sector. He hosted an al fresco gala dinner at his family’s industrial museum, which was a wonderful setting aided by continued wonderful weather.

Sunday we took an organized tour with several other weekend participants. We started at Topkapi Palace, home of the Sultan for centuries. It was a fascinating compound with an amazing view. Of particular interest was a collection of incredibly ornate jewelry and arms as well as a collection of relics including a bronzed footprint of the prophet Mohammed and the staff of Moses.

On our way back to the bus we stopped by an artist’s shop to see Ebru artwork in action. It was really cool and the artist produced a work specifically in celebration of Rice’s 100 years. Given that we had spent the previous 24 hours immersed in locations dating back multiple millenia, Rice’s centennial seemed a bit small by comparison! Still, the gesture was very well received and much appreciated.

Lunch was at a restaurant that specialized in traditional Ottoman cuisine. For the first time I felt like we might be dining on something pretty authentic. There was a great deal of cinnamon even on our savory courses, which is something I could REALLY get used to! My favorite dessert of the weekend, pistachio ice cream floating in sesame pudding, was here.

After lunch we visited the Chora Church, which has rich, beautiful frescoes on every wall and ceiling. We then wrapped up the day with my favorite destination by far: the Basilica Cistern. Many hundreds of years ago, this huge underground cavern was used to store water (transported by aquaducts for up to 19 km) in the event of water supplies being cut during a siege of the city. There was a network of hundreds of these cisterns, but this was the grand daddy of them all. Propped up by row after row of columns that had been repurposed from Greek and Roman temples, this “bat cave” was a truly impressive sight. I want one. As my wine cellar!

For dinner several of us headed to a restaurant with a 360-degree view. We watched the sun set as we drank local wine and dined on local fish. It was an excellent ending to a short, but really wonderful, trip.

When Mom and I traveled to Egypt 17 years ago, some of my biggest take-aways came not from the Pyramids and ancient temples, but rather from immersion for the first time in Muslim culture. This trip to Istanbul was my first time really back in a Muslim setting since then and was the first time I ever set foot inside a mosque.

After spending time in several mosques and learning a bit about the teachings of the Quran, I couldn’t help but be impressed by just how similar Islam and Christianity – or at least Catholicism – are. Between the big, domed houses of worship, the prayer beads, the artwork on the walls and in stained glass, the relics of significant people, I was just left with such a sense of, “Are we so different, you and I?”

This point was particularly driven home in the church-mosques we visited – former churches that were now in use as mosques. In each mosque there is a mihrab that shows the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. In Istanbul, this points southeast. It turns out that the churches had been set up to face southeast already to capture the sun’s rise and much of its daily journey. So the mihrab in these church-mosques was barely off center from where the original alter had been! Converting a church to a mosque had required very little change at all!

Surely someone much more learned than I might point out all the differences but to me this served as a poignant reminder that ISLAM is not our enemy. EXTREMISTS are the ones who have attacked and terrorized us (and others) and EXTREMISTS exist in Christianity and Judaism (and probably most other faiths – or non-faiths) as well. I’ve known that distinction rationally, of course, but you really FEEL it when you’re on the ground, soaking up the culture.

The trip was too short and we will have to return to spend more time. In the meantime we are in the suspended reality of summertime Switzerland (or “Paradise” as I like to call it) where I have some IMD-related meetings over the next couple of weeks. More on that soon!

Traveling Recommendations for Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland

Recently, I’ve had several requests from friends who have been traveling to Geneva on what to see/do. To avoid repeating myself, I’ve coalesced my responses into the following recommendations:

Geneva

Geneva frankly isn’t that much of a destination – it’s more of a place to live than it is to visit. While you’re there make sure to walk around and see the jet d’eau, some old/important churches, etc. but I think your best bet is to get out of town.

Lausanne

Lausanne is awesome. Check out the Olympic Museum along the lake, the Chateau d’Ouchy nearby, Place St-Francois further up the mountainside, and the cathedral / canton hall (an old castle) even further up.  The train from Geneva to Lausanne is only ~45 minutes. Ouchy, at the shore of the lake, is a former fishing village that is now the summer destination of many of Europe’s and the Middle East’s rich and famous. Featuring a long promenade, this area is great for strolling and people-watching.

For night life the major hub is the Flon district, a filled-in river full of restaurants, bars, and clubs. For good food my absolute favorite is Beau Rivage along the lake – the cafe, not the full restaurant. The full restaurant is Michelin starred and obscenely expensive. The cafe offers the same food and costs 1/3 as much – still not cheap given the damned exchange rate. Further up from Beau Rivage is the Croix d’Ouchy, a little less elegant but just as nice. For authentic Swiss fondue, I recommend Cafe Romand near St-Francois or Cafe du Vieil Ouchy on the water. 

Other Ideas

Take the ferry across the lake to Evian.
Take a day trip to Gruyeres and see how cheese and chocolate are made.
Take the train or bus to Lutry and hop on the Lavaux Express, a mini-train that winds through the vineyards and stops for several tastings. Swiss wine is so-so and overpriced, but, when the weather is nice, this makes for a lovely outing.
Nyons and Montreux are particularly scenic with their chateaux right along the lake.  If you go all the way to Montreux (another 15 minutes by train beyond Lausanne), you can see the iconic Freddy Mercury statue near the Jazz Festival location. He, Audrey Hepburn, and some others are buried there.
If you really want to take in many of the towns/chateaux along the lake, take a sunset dinner cruise, which will take you by each one.

What do you think, have I captured it or missed the mark? Any other recommendations to add?