//This post originally was published at Onstartups, where you can check out more of my writing
Everyone thinks that being a startup CEO is a glamorous job or one that has to be a ton of fun. That’s what I now refer to as the “glamour brain” speaking aka the startup life you hear about from the press. You know the press articles I’m talking about… the ones that talk about how easy it is to raise money, how many users the company is getting, and how great it is to be CEO. Very rarely do you hear about what a bitch it is to be CEO and how it’s not for every founder that wants to be an entrepreneur. I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about what it takes to be a great Startup CEO that is also a founder. Here are some of the traits I’ve found.

Be A Keeper Of The Company Vision

The CEO is the keeper of the company’s overall vision. I’m not talking about the vision for the next few months, but the larger road ahead. The CEO needs to be able to keep things on course for the current quarter to make sure that the large overarching vision of the company can be achieved. The takeover the world vision of a startup usually can’t be achieved in one year or even in some cases, like Google, in a decade. It takes a great startup CEO to keep the company on track to achieve that vision. A great startup CEO will often judge upcoming initiatives to see if they fit in as a piece of the large puzzle for the bigger vision.

Absorb The Pain For The Team

A startup CEO needs to be the personal voodoo doll for a startup. They need to be able to take on a strong burden of stress, pain, and torture all while making level headed decisions. You can’t have the troops stressing and worrying about the difficult challenges at hand. A good startup CEO will absorb the stress, so the rest of the team can carry on. He also needs to be able to mask this pain and stress. Not that he should hide or lie to the team- I’m not encouraging that. Most of the day to day nuances+stresses of a startup aren’t worth having the entire team worry about and the CEO needs to bear that pain.

Find The Smartest People And Defer On Domain Expertise

A startup CEO has a great knack for finding talent. The key is finding people that are smarter than you on specific topics. It might be technical team members/leaders or it might be a new VP of Biz Dev. A startup CEO has to have the ability to find these people and make relatively fast decisions to hire them. They also have to be able to show the fire and passion to convince them to leave what is most likely a better paying and more secure job to join the company. The real key to hiring as a startup CEO comes after the hire. A great startup CEO will be able to trust the hires that they make and defer to them on areas of domain expertise. It’s hard to let go, but you have to learn to, especially when the company grows.

Be A Good Link Between The Company + Investors

Whether you want to believe it or not, you are not an investor’s only portfolio company. Even if you are a superstar, they have a handful of other companies to help and a ton of incoming potential portfolio companies. A good investor will pick 2-3 new companies per year to work with. A good startup CEO will be a good link between progress, issues, and areas where they need help with investors. A good portion of early stage startups that raise money will have a board comprised of 3 people: the CEO founder, the investor, and an independent board member. You are the lone representative for your cofounder and other employees.

Be A Good Link Between The Company + Product

I have this unwavering belief that the best companies are those that keep a founder as CEO for the long haul. Not because the founders have the right to be CEO, but because the CEO needs to be close to the product vision of the company. Founding CEOs understand this the best and can carry out that same unified vision over time. To fill in the management gaps a great COO, other board members, and heads of divisions will come along. It’s a strategy that Facebook has employed and why Apple has had a great resurgence with Steve Jobs at the helm. It’s all about keeping the CEO as close as possibly linked to the product.

Be Able To Learn On The Job

Most startup CEOs didn’t start out with an MBA or some background in growing a company from nothing to something. The best have an ability to learn along the way and embrace their failures to become a better leader. Zuck started when he was 19 and now 7 years later, runs the most powerful internet company. Don’t worry about whether “you’re qualified” as it’s hard to put typical qualifications on the job. You’ll learn the really core stuff along the way. The best startup CEOs will surround themselves with smart mentors to be a sounding board along the way.

No Experience Almost Preferred

It’s almost better to have a blank slate of zero experience as a startup CEO. If you come in with preconceived notions and block out the scrappy methods of a startup founder, it actually hurts you. Traditional education often trains you to be CEO or manager for a much larger company, not for a startup of under 50 people. It’s a different kind of leadership and company.

Have An Uncanny Ability To Say No

You will be inundated with a list of requests from potential partners, investors, employees, and more. They will all sound absolutely wonderful. As you grow, you will also have the resources to execute more of them. Don’t. It’s easy to say yes, but so very hard to say no. By having an uncanny ability to say no, you can keep your company on track with the large vision you maintain. It will also keep your team members (notice I don’t like to use the word “employees”) laser focused and feel more rewarded as they are able to focus on one thing for a good chunk of time. I’ve seen too many startups sink because the CEO keeps changing what the head of product and engineering should be doing.

Have Some Technical Knowledge And Skillset

A good startup CEO shouldn’t be afraid of a little bit of code and a text editor. They don’t need to be diving into the source code on a daily basis, but they need to understand the technical requirements. It’s easy to say “go build this”, but it’s a whole other ball game to understand how to build it. What seems simple may be a huge mountain of a technical feat that just isn’t feasible with the given resources and deadlines. It can also help lend some street cred with hiring early technical team members too.

Be Able To Break Things Down Into Sizable Chunks + Milestones

Remember that huge unwavering vision that you are the keeper of? Odds are it only makes sense to you and your cofounder. You will need to break it up into sizable chunks and milestones for the rest of the team to understand it. You also need to be able to pick when and where to conquer things strategically. What is the past of least resistance so you can gain traction? What can you do first with your given resources?

Have The Ability To Call An Audible

Nothing goes according to plan. Things fall through, people quit, shit happens, servers crash, and other random things go bump in the night. You’re going to have to deal with it and fast. This is a football term:

“Seen when the quarterback goes up to the line of scrimmage, sees a defensive alignment he wasn’t expecting, and adjusts by yelling out a new play.”

You’re going to come up against things that you didn’t expect and just be able to call an audible. Launch faster, spend more money here, or even abandon a project.

Can Motivate The Team Through Despair

People love to talk in this business. People love to talk even more when you’re company isn’t fairing well. A great CEO will be able to take those moments of public despair and keep the company focused. They will be able to debunk the rumors or even approach them head on by keeping the members of the company focused on the bigger mission at hand. It can come in simple 5 minute talks or motivational emails. The worst thing you can do is avoid the situation and be passive aggressive. I repeat: DO NOT WUSS OUT.

Be A Great Communicator

You need to be able to portray the energy and passion that you feel into others…over and over and over and over and over and over again on a daily basis. As a startup founder you need to communicate the vision and hope for the future of your startup to the rest of the world. You need to be able to break down the overall vision of the company into something that mere mortals can understand. You can’t speak in crazy technical jargon or industry terms. It needs to be simple, clear, and compelling. You also need to be able to argue your point. Many will pick “fights” with you just to see how strong willed you are. Be respectful, but be very confident in your answer. Often wrong, but never in doubt my friend.

Don’t Be A “Fake CEO”

Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, makes a strong case for not being a fake ceo. In short, worry about things that produce results, not fame. If it’s between going to a conference/doing an interview or completing a deal, get the deal done. Don’t “leave it to someone else”. You need to get your hands dirty every single day.

By no means is this an exhaustive or definitive list. In some cases, the traits listed above might be counter-intuitive. What are some traits you’ve seen in great founding startup CEOs? Not the glamorous job you thought it was, eh?

You’re a junior or senior either majoring in english or PR and want to get a fast track into the publishing industry. My book, The Ultralight Startup , launches this spring. It’s published by Penguin Publishing, an imprint of Pearson, one of the world’s largest publishers in the world. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get fast tracked into the world of book publishing whether you are an aspiring editor, author, or publicist. More about the role and how to apply are below!

More About Myself And The Book…

Book Description From The Jacket

The Ultralight Startup is the book I wish I had when I was starting out five years ago. The Ultralight Startup offers a surefire plan for building an astoundingly successful tech startup for anyone with nothing more than a good idea and a lot of passion. It’s easier than ever before to launch a startup, but in a world where barriers to entry virtually nonexistent and everyone wants to be the next Facebook, competition is fierce. To win, you have to outsmart, outdo, and outshine everyone else. But if you’re just starting out and lack the money and clout to make an automatic splash, how do you differentiate yourself from all the rest?

My Bio

My Twitter

Responsibilities

Time commitment: 1-2 days a week working out of the Onswipe NYC offices. We’re one of the fastest growing startups in NYC, so you will learn a lot about business as well.

• Helping work with the media to promote the book.
• Helping liaison with Penguin on book promotion.
• Helping liaison with Penguin on any logistics of the book launch.
• Helping coordinate an east coast college tour.
• Helping schedule a launch event in New York City.
• Helping work with influential authors, entrepreneurs, and VCs.
• Managing social media and blog accounts for the book.
• Helping run contests and promotion such as “meeting the VCs”.

What I’m Looking For

• NYC Based.
• An English or PR major that is outgoing and well spoken.
• Very familiar with Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.
• You are a blogger and writer yourself.
• You are plugged into the NYC startup community in some fashion.
• More of a hustler than anything else.

We just announced that we raised a Series Awesome. Yes, the documents actually say that . Most people are probably wondering what prompted us to do this such a short while after we closed our seed round literally 5 months ago from today. Here’s why:

Bigger Opportunity Than We Thought

Andy at Betaworks put it the best: “Onswipe is a lot like Aol in 1995 in terms of opportunity.” The Internet was just a year old and if someone was able to own the space, they could build a massive company. We feel the same holds true with the tablet market. It’s growing faster than we ever thought and we realize that there’s a unique once in a generation opportunity to define the way the world interacts with the web. What you’re seeing and what’s talked about today is a small small part of our overall vision. The sky is the limit. We get a chance to rewrite all the rules and change everything.

Going for the big win

We’re not doing something small and we’re not interested in selling the company. We’re lucky and realize the opportunity ahead and found people to back us that believe in the same. We have money from investors behind companies like Twitter, Tumblr, Groupon, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, and more. We love what we do and we know that a monstrous opportunity is ahead, so we’re going to need a lot of capital to take advantage of it.

Secret Sauce

It seems we’ve found a secret sauce about how to develop relationships with publishers and brands. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but we believe we can own the market by elveraging this. We have a distinct philosophy of partnering with publishers instead of becoming YAV “Yet Another Vendor”. Part of it is tech and part of it is good ole’ relationship building.

Ability to recruit top engineers

We’ve been really lucky that we have been able to build a killer engineering team. Talent is hard to come by and we have a specific skillset we need. With $5 million in cash, we can really scale up our engineering team to build what is the best Front-end HTML5 team in the world.

More demand than we ever imagined

Apps are bullshit and publishers don’t want to be beholden to them. Advertisers want something more like print and less like bottom of the barrel CPM or Google Adwords. Our landing page has been and still really is pretty vague. People sort of know what we do, but the notions behind it have gotten a lot of people excited.

All in the family

We’re lucky, we have a great group of investors. Alex at Spark has been like a cofounder+board member to the team and there with us along the way. The best companies are built upon relationships and we’re happy to continue our relationship for the long haul with Spark. Everyone else involved is a close knit group of individuals that have been there for us along the way. We’re proud to say that 100% of investors with pro-rata rights took their pro-rata. We’re also welcoming new investors in the round. Paul from Lightbank tweeted out a ballsy quote at demo day and we quickly connected as Paul and the team at lightbank know how to build monstrous companies. Lerer Ventures, Yuri Milner, and Thrive Capital are also participating as new investors that we’re thrilled to have on board.

The time is now and the time is ours. A lot of people may tell us congratulations, which is nice, but in reality we have a lot of work ahead. No retreat, no surrender. Thank you everyone for believing in us.

Jason L. Baptiste
June, 2011

// This post originally appeared at Onstartups where I write about startup awesomeness with Dharmesh Shah.

There are over a hundred seed accelerators in the world and many more are popping up every year. In New York City, there are going to be 6 more this summer on top of TechStars NYC. The common thread amongst all of these programs is what is now known as “Demo Day”, which is a single day (sometimes days) where a number of investors are put in to a room to watch all of the participating companies present for 6-8 minutes. Recently, my company OnSwipe was a part of the inaugural Demo Day in NYC for TechStars. Everyone has been asking me how we prepared and put together our demo day presentation. Without further adieu, here’s how. You may want to watch the recording of my presentation below first: Actual Presentation

Put together slides with very few words

You should not have the audience focused on your slides, but your words during the presentation. Bullets are an absolute no-no throughout the presentation. My presentation had one sentence at most per slide with an accent color highlighting what was a really important word for the audience to understand. The slides should set the tone for what you are currently talking about to keep everyone on track. Stay away from transitions or overly flashy slides. They were cool when you were in junior high, but don’t add a lot when talking to a large crowd.

Slide Deck (some things might be out of place due to 2 animations)

Make Sure There Is A Screen In Front Of You On Stage

The worst thing you will ever do is look back at the screen. This makes you seem unprepared, especially during demos. It also makes everyone think you didn’t prepare with the person, usually your cofounder, that is controlling the slides. You don’t want to look down at it too much, but it’s there in case shit happens. In a split second you could be on the wrong slide or miss a beat. Instead of turning around to look back confused at the screen, you can properly pause and guide the presentation back to order while looking ahead. It’s a small subtle, yet useful prop. Make sure it’s there.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I practiced religiously before going on stage. Dave Tisch and Dave Cohen probably wanted to murder me when I skipped the public pitch practices with all the teams, but I was secretly practicing at home or late at night. I look at a presentation a lot like product. It just needs to be broken and tweaked a lot. It isnt’ ready for public consumption or scrutiny until you’ve fine tuned it enough. Make sure you practice until no end. It’s what makes you comfortable and confident.

Be bold

This might just be my style, but you need to be bold…very bold. You are going to be presenting with 10+ other companies or even more that day. Investors and press get antsy very fast. When was the last time you could sit through 5 hours of pitches easily? By being bold, you can give a great refreshing jolt to the crowd and pique their interest. It’s also great to stand out with a ton of press in the crowd as they will want to do an interview with you afterwards. “Be so good they cannot ignore you.”

Speak in tweetable soundbites

People love to tweet live events and demo days are no different. Inside of the room, you will have a great group of influential people that can send your message out to the right people. The thing is, they can’t send out the entire presentation, they can only send out 140 characters at a time. In our case, we had 3 tweetable soundbites that became well known afterwards. These weren’t by happenstance, but planned well in advance:

• “Apps Are Bullshit”- opening slide that set the tone for presentation.




@TechStars NYC Demo Day, OnSwipe CEO: “Apps are Bullsh*t.” [most tweeted QOTD?]less than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyMike Hirshland
VCMike

• “Tap the rocketship”- @fakedavetisch caused this to become some form of sexual inneuendo




Btw, the code phrase for the afterparty bouncer is “tap my rocketship”less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Favorite Retweet ReplyFake Dave Tisch
fakedavetisch

• “Series Awesome”- We didn’t announce that we were raising a Series A, but a Series Awesome.

The “Three Acts”

The best way to do a demo day type presentation is to put the entire delivery into three different acts. Entrepreneurship and delivering a presentation is absolutely no different than theater. You should look at your delivery as a spectacle that enlightens those in the audience, not a typical slide deck pitch.

Act I – The Setup Setup the enemy for the entire presentation, the elevator pitch, and the big vision business. It should be under 90 seconds and even that is something I found difficulty with. The goal here is to give context, hook the audience in, and get to a killer demo.

Act II- The Demo This is what really matters. Too many companies approach demo day as investor day, instead of showing what they’ve built off in-depth. Screenshots are a no-no and sadly, pre-recorded videos seem to be the way to go due to Wifi. Show off a logical progression of what your product does. Nothing gets someone ready to write a check like a great demo.

Act III- The Execution This is where you talk about what you have accomplished and where you are going. I usually like to talk about a few things: Press, current investors, business development deals, and the team you have been able to attract. This shows where you have been and how you are able to execute as a team. You should also make sure that you talk about what’s next. When are you launching? are you raising money? what is the big credo and philosophy behind the company? Tell the world why you exist and why you are going to take over the world.

Get to the demo as fast as possible

This was the biggest lesson we learned through practice. The first version of the presentation took 2:30 to get to the demo. That was an absolute eternity. Even now, I could have shortened things by a good 30 seconds or so. Make sure you get to the demo as fast as you can. The other side of it is, making sure that you give enough context to the audience.

Have an “enemy”

We set out to say app store apps for content publications like the Wall Street Journal and Wired were just complete bullshit. We were very bold in this statement, but we backed it up with undeniable fact. If you are going to make an enemy, make sure you have the weapons to combat them. You have to seem sure when declaring ane enemy and have a logical argument.

Make sure the big long term vision is known

Too many investors and potential partners will think about the present since that is mostly what you are showing. Spend time talking about the big vision in terms of product and in terms of business model. Your product is often different than your business model. ie-  Google’s product is search, but it really makes money through advertising. Sometimes you may not know what this big vision is, but if you do, make sure that is known. Most people thought our big vision was: be a WordPress plugin that makes things pretty. We made it clear that our goal is to power the advertising in a world where content is consumed with tablets, not point+click devices.

Be fashionable

I’m an outlier here, but the pink shirt went over well. It made me hard to ignore and ended up color coordinating the presentation. Trivia: The onswipe pink colors come from that shirt, not the other way around. Make yourself memorable with appearance. People will remember your ability to command an audience and that can often be done through how you dress. Once again, demos and presentations are not pitches, but theater.

Have an “ask”

Most companies go into a demo day with an intention of raising money. It might be something direct with an exact dollar amount or it might just be an announcement that you’re playing around in the waters. Either way, make sure you have an ask that lets the world know your fundraising plans. The biggest problem in entrepreneurship is the fact, that most entrepreneurs just don’t ask. If you have existing fundraising commits, let the world know who is in and for how much if possible. My buddies at thinknear did this by letting the world know IA Ventures was in for 400k of a 1.2 million round.

Show Off Social Proof

Social proof is one of the best things that you can portray during a presentation. Do not be arrogant or cocky, but certainly be confident. Show the world who is behind you and what you have accomplished. Nothing gets an investor more excited than tangible traction, social proof from their peers, and the ability to execute.

Things that didn’t work along the way

• We spent a lot of time getting to the demo. We originally had a lot of social proof and big vision talk before the demo. That got people antsy. Let the demo be your proving ground and then
• Don’t try to practice in full run throughs at first. Go act by act, screwing up along the way.
• Do not use anything from your investor slide deck. Even though we have never used a slide deck to raise money, we still sort of have one. I dusted it off from the Series Seed and tried to insert some slides. It just doesn’t work for demo day. Demo day pitches should be looked at a lot differently than your traditional investor pitch at the end of the day. Demo day pitches really appeal to three broad crowds, with some companies focusing in on one more than the other: press, investors, and potential partners.

In short, this was the most important day of my life and a huge success. The only downside, is that it meant TechStars is officially over. You should apply to the program , and if you get in, hopefully this post will be of use.

Have you presented at a “Demo Day” before?  Any tips of your own that you’d like to share?

//This post originally appeared on Boston Innovation as a guest post.

The tablet market is exploding and exceeding everyone’s wildest dreams. Apple is in the lead, but the Android tablets along with many others are on their way. In an interview back in January, I stated that “apps are bullshit for content”. I thought it would be good to clarify that statement and explain my reasoning why the future of content on tablet devices is not going to be delivered through apps, but through one killer app: the browser.

Referral Traffic Is Lost With Apps

The majority of a content owner’s traffic comes from referral traffic such as search, share, and email. That traffic has and always will go back to the website itself. Even if a link is opened in the twitter app, it is still showing that content in a UI web view. It’s close to impossible to have that traffic open up in a native app, which would require a user has it installed already. Sure, it could prompt the reader to download the app, but that is a painful experience. A reader wants instant gratification, not a friction filled process with a long download.

If publishers create apps instead of focusing on the web they throw out half of their traffic .

Readers Are Already Going To The Site

Readers are already trained to go to a publication’s website. Why should they be funneled through a website, told to download an app, and then navigate to an article. Larger publications may have readers search within an app store, but that only applies to larger media brands, not the type of influencers that are dominating the web now. This very article you are reading now is appearing on the web and not an app.

HTML5 Is Capable To Deliver App Like Experiences

Problem: Publishers want to deliver a great experience that can take advantage of what’s possible on tablet devices.
Solution (for the first 9 months): Create apps that are essentially glorified PDFs and cost a ton of money
Solution (now): Use HTML5 to provide the same type of experience and on the web.

HTML5 can’t do the crazy game enabled capabilities…yet (WebGL please?), but it certainly can do many of the fast + speedy content effects seen in native content apps. Transforms, fonts, and more make it possible that the web can be indistinguishable from native apps. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong, but it’s now possible.

Fixing The “Stuff To Do” Problem

When you buy a tablet, you’re given a new device and need “Stuff to do”. Apps clearly fill that void by allowing you to play games, consume content, and more. Sure you already browse the web, but you download apps because you know they are made for that device. Sadly, most of the web is not made for tablets…yet. By making the web tablet and touch friendly, it increases the value of tablets tremendously regardless whether it is iOs or Android based.

Scoble explains this well here . It’s simple, the iPad has a ton of stuff to do by having a lot of tablet apps. If Google and others focused on making the web a better place out the gate for tablet users, then they can strongly counter that argument.

Homescreen Fatigue

Readers will only keep so many apps on their homescreen at one given time. You’re also competing against apps that will never go away such as safari, youtube, mail, and more on a reader’s homescreen along with apps like angry birds+instagram, that aren’t even content apps. On the other hand, readers are used to navigating to your site or bookmark specific content within the browser.

Consistent Cross Device Experience

By focusing on the web, you can create a consistent cross device experience. It’s hard to create apps that will work across all touch devices, if not nearly impossible. By focusing on the web, you can know that a reader will have the same consistent experience whether they are on iPad, the Xoom, or a the PalmPad. The web is also a write once, deploy everywhere environment, where apps are not. Sure there are quirks for each browser+device, but they pale in comparison to developing native apps across all platforms.

The Web Was Meant For URLs

The web was meant to have each individual piece of content have a permanent place in history. With apps there is no foot in the ground for a piece of content. If you want to directly link to a piece of content inside of an app, how do you do that? You can’t. The web was built upon urls and people sharing+linking to them. If apps were to dominate the world, we’d lose that structure.

App Stores Don’t Provide Real Distribution

Publishers think that app stores are the holy grail for traffic and distribution, when they are in reality driving very little “new distribution”. App stores have horrible discovery. The best way to discover new content apps is through a pure search query. Odds are though, that if you love a media property enough to search for it in an app store, you already visit the site. You are not a new reader.

Exercise: if you and two friends started a publication tomorrow, put it in the app store, and could not use any existing brand leverage, how many downloads would you get? Very very few, if any. There is no magical customer acquisition bullet here.

Apps like the New York Times also receive so many downloads since they are a centuries old brand that can drive downloads. The number of users of the app are still some # < their overall web usage.

What does provide real distribution? Social sharing and distribution. If sites take advantage of intelligent recommendations and build in sharing not as a bolt on to their application, they can

Follow The Money

Apps and the keepers of the platform ultimately decide what a publisher can or cannot do. How much can they take for subscriptions? What data can they collect? When can they push an update? Going through intermediary app stores puts the decisions they can make from a business perspective in the hands of others. Those decisions, especially around monetization are the lifeblood of any publisher. Putting that control in the hands of a select few is scary and literally gives away the power they have. The most alarming is Apple’s decision to take a 30% cut of all subscriptions and making that a mandatory option. On the web, publishers can choose the ads they want, display the content they want, and give up a much smaller peice of the pie.

So where do apps make sense in the tablet world? With applications that exist PRIMARILY as an app, not as a supplemental app to a website. Examples:

Flipboard and Angry Birds make total sense as apps. They take advantage of what can be done natively and don’t have web counterparts.

All content apps such as CNN, Huffington Post, and more are just extensions of a website, where there real traffic exists. They should not be apps. The same can be seen with SaaS apps such as basecamp and their recent HTML5 version of the site for touch devices.

It’s not a question of if after talking to publishers of all sizes, but a question of when.

//This article originally appeared at OnStartups, where all my writing appears exclusively.

If you know me personally, or even digitally , then you know that I am a physical fitness and athletic enthusiast. I find that there is a certain level of determination that is built up by being physically fit and sticking to a regimen. Athletics and exercise are the purest physical expression of true mental discipline that one can find. As an entrepreneur, I don’t think I would be able to do what I do without the mental preparedness a daily workout routine brings. With so many parallels between athletics and entrepreneurship, I asked myself “Who is the Steve Jobs of athletics?” This question can certainly be debated, but at the end of the day I arrived with an answer of Michael Jordan. A recent ad campaign by Nike with Michael Jordan is focused on the phrase “Be Legendary.” and the quotes that come from them are absolutely golden. In truth, some of the best entrepreneurial advice I have ever received has come from Michael Jordan and this campaign. Here are 23 insights that I’ve learned from Michael Jordan:

It’s About Knowing Where You’re Going

You have to have a clear path as to where you want to go. As a startup, things change along the way. Your execution might make you pivot or implement a different solution. At the end of the day, you need to stick to a clear vision and problem that you’re trying to solve. If you’re lucky enough to succeed, the road to where you’re going may look a lot different than it did when you first started. Take a look at Google- make the world’s information freely available. That has been the goal from day one, and despite solutions consisting of email, maps, video, operating systems, and more, that is still their goal at the end of the day. Never forget where you are going as an entrepreneur with your company.

Don’t Forget Where You Started/Came From

This holds true for you as a person as much as it holds true for the company itself. Though we do it for more than the money, money can often change people to forget their humble beginnings. Many great entrepreneurs came from absolutely nothing – just an idea that might change the world one day. Don’t ever forget that child like desire you had the first day you started. If you harness that essence, no money or fame can ever change you. Never forget your family and your close friends that were there before you started upon this journey. The best thing a company can do is keep a list/wiki of company lore that will remind them of their adventures. The long flights, the growth in employees, the launches, the failures, and more from the early days. Andres and I have been traveling the country with PadPressed. We’ve encountered some victories and many failures along the way, but we’re keeping a record of it through writing, tweets, and pictures.

Have the courage to fail

Failure is a part of anything in life, but having the courage to face it head on is what makes you stronger. We hear so much talk about “it’s okay to fail”, but I don’t think there’s enough clarification. You shouldn’t let your startup as a whole fail, that’s not something you should easily let happen. Startups are really a compilation of many small instances of victories and failures. It’s embracing those small instances of failures that will let you learn and adapt better. Think of embracing failure as the entrepreneurial equivalent of an immune system. By embracing failure, you learn what went wrong, what’s bad, and how to prevent it from happening again. You build up a resistance to that specific instance of failure.

Don’t break when broken

What goes up, must come down. Starting a company is a roller-coaster ride like none other. YCombinator actually has a graph here about this exact subject . You will feel broken inside and figure it’s time to give it all up. That might be quitting yourself, selling the company, taking a weak deal, or even calling it quits on a smaller scale. DON’T. Emotions are fleeting and cloud your judgment. For the most part, something that makes you feel broken, should not break you. The true also holds same for the opposite.

Take everything given to you and make something better

Society is all about evolution, especially in technology and software. The greatest technologies take the fundamentals of what already exists in some form, but improves them with the new pieces that have evolved. I wrote about this earlier in a piece called “Build What Was Previously Not Possible.” As an entrepreneur you will continually find new tools and innovations brought forth by other entrepreneurs. Take every single relevant thing you can find and bake it in to your product to make something better. For some that might be mobile, social, local,etc. Always ask yourself: “Am I using all the resources that are available and making something better?” We literally get nowhere with complacency, but get everywhere with advancement. Don’t change the game, evolve the game.

Work Before Glory

The best entrepreneurs are humble and don’t really care about the glory. One of the things that Dharmesh has taught me over the past few months is to keep a level head and be humble. Don’t worry about the next press article that comes out about your company. Eventually there will be too many of them that it won’t matter. It should be about the work you produce instead of the side benefit of glory. Your work will live on forever, but the glory will fade away when the next acquisition or rumor pops up. Legends are products of their work, NOT their glory.

Do what they say you can’t

The competitive nature of entrepreneurship is a fun one. Many people will tell you that it can’t be done or that it is too crazy. They will tell you that a better X can’t be built or you won’t be able to accomplish a small goal like fundraising or hiring. The people telling you this might not even be strangers, but close friends and family members. The only way to prove them wrong is to do it.

It’s not about the tech, it’s about what you do with it.

The tools and technology that is available to entrepeneurs just keeps on growing. Whether it’s social, HTML5, geolocation, node.js, cloud services, or whatever else, that’s not what this is about. Those tools by themselves are cool, but not that useful. The technology tools are like an artist’s paint brush or a baseball players bat. It’s about what you decide to create with those tools.

Be Scared Of What you won’t become.

As an entrepreneur, you probably have a very big long term vision that you want to accomplish. It can’t happen right now, but over time it eventually will. I always point out that Facebook started at one college, with one photo, no wall, and a mediocre design. Look at decisions as if they might compromise what you could become. If you take the easy route and make the wrong decision, you will not become what you should be. That should absolutely scare you. What if Zuck sold to Yahoo! many years ago? That has to be a scary thought as Facebook would not have become what it is today.

Make Others Scared Of What You Could Become

Entrepreneurs are often asked “So what if Google enters your market?” That’s a worthy question, but at the end of the day, your vision should be so mind numbingly amitious and huge, that it scares Google or someone else. Today you might be something small, but if you play your cards right, what you end up becoming is scary. The really smart entrepreneurs aren’t scared of the bigger guys as much as they are of the smaller, more nimble startups that COULD BECOME who they are now. At some point, everyone was no one.

Don’t finish where you began

Startups are all about momentum and forward moving progress. Every task, project, or new feature should be able to take you forward. It might even be okay if it took you backwards, as the journey backwards is still a journey. Spending a ton of time on something and just ending up where you began is something you should avoid as an entrepreneur.

Know what is within you, even if others can’t see it

Sadly, too many people in our industry disregard others that aren’t in the in crowd or very visible. They look at who an entrepreneur is now, but not at the true future potential of who that person will become. The same way a smart person knew that Facebook would be something big in 2004, is the same way a smart person knew that a 19 year old unknown kid from Harvard would change the world. Some people ask me why I put my phone number and other contact information out there publicly (fyi- it’s 201-305-0552). It’s simple- You never know who you might meet. They might not be somebody now, but over time they might become somebody legendary. If you can help them get there, it benefits everyone involved. By helping others, you eventually start to develop pattern recognition for finding great talent, which is a key component of being a leader.

Patience is more important than courage

We always want success now or even yesterday. It’s hard for us to realize that things won’t happen as fast as we want them to. Courage is certainly a very important trait, but more important is having the patience to see things through. When we look at the success of others, we only see the end result. Even if we see the journey along the way, it is still a small snapshot. Take in the whole picture and realize that there are no overnight successes.

Fulfill your destiny.

It takes a while to get to this point, but you eventually realize what your destiny is in life. You clearly know what you were meant to do with your life and what the end result will be. It takes a lot of trial by fire to get there, but once you do, you will become unstoppable. The real key to fulfilling your destiny is figuring out exactly what it is. Once you figure out what that specific destiny is, it’s a long journey, but the fire it generates inside, will put you on auto-pilot.

The press leads us to believe it is easier than it is

The press’ job is to write about stories that generate pageviews, since pageviews generate more advertising dollars. Failure and the grueling times don’t really get too many pageviews. Success, money, glory, and the end result of hard work certainly does get pageviews. This skews us to think that raising money, selling your company, or launching is just so easy. I’d wager a fair amount of money that you will almost never hear a story titled:”Startup X Fails To Raise $2,500,000 Dollars” unless there is some juicy gossip backstory attached to it. Get back to work and close the RSS reader.

The real work starts at the keyboard and with customers.

If you’re in a startup you’re either making something or selling something. If you haven’t made anything or sold anything, then I sincerely have no clue what you’re doing at a startup. Sure there are operational tasks that need to be handled, but all founders can bear that burden. As a whole, founders + early employees need to make sure their actions have a direct impact on something be made and/or something be sold.

Not every product or feature launch is a winner

Remember Beacon? Remember Google Buzz? Remember Yahoo! Live? Remember AppleTV V1? Well, you might, but not for good reasons. Not every feature or product launch is going to be a slam dunk. Even the giants in our industry like Apple can have products launch that don’t perform well. It’s impossible to shoot 100%, but what matters is that you take 100% of the shots that you should be taking.

Fire over flash

Pretty interface and nifty features are not the path to success. They are certainly a great advantage to have, but the product also has to have fire behind it. If you have a pretty application that provides no real “fire” aka utility to the user, then it won’t be used for long. Make sure you have fire before you have flash in your product.

Continue reading at OnStartups

//This originally appeared on the Onswipe company blog.

I love the notions of the daily and what they are trying to achieve. I think at it’s core they truly want to do something risky, innovative, and something that was not possible before. There’s a lot to love, but there’s also a lot to dislike in the execution.

It’s against the real time nature of the web

Even delivering an “update” daily is just too slow for the way the web works. Setting any sort of defined delivery period is just silly. The web isn’t on a set time schedule, but an always-on network of flowing information. That’s the real special sauce of what’s happening in the media industry. The flow of information is no longer constrained by time, it is instantaneous and transcends time itself. By fighting against that, we’re taking a step backward.  Many people claim that the initial wait to download is too long and I agree, but the biggest problem is the day long wait for an update of any size.  It’s the time period, not just the size that is bothersome.

The Daily and apps in general are also against the real time nature of software. If the team at The Daily wants to update their software, it should be available instantly whenever anyone visits the site again. It should not go through the app model of sending an update to Apple and eventually all platforms, then requiring a delay and new download from the user.

Read The HIG

The human interface doesn’t feel like something meant for the iPad. It’s just awkward and uses button controls, especially on the bottom that are out of place. Each content app should be different, but it should feel like it’s within a consistent human interface. The fullscreen feel of The Daily is just weird too. I get the point, but it just feels out of place.  Flipboard did a good job of “effects”, but keeping things elegant.  The Daily should try to do the same.  Instead, things don’t feel readable, but more like an old school CD-Rom.

Subscriptions Are The Solution To a Problem That No Longer Needs Solving

Subscriptions and paying for content are a solution to the old economic model of newspapers/content. It cost a lot to print and deliver content via traditional media methods. Every night a newspaper had to be printed and then physically delivered. In order to do this, it just cost a lot of money. In the digital world, delivery costs are minimal, eliminating the need to have subscriptions costs cover them. In short, the problem of covering the cost of physical delivery no longer exists, therefore its solution, paid subscriptions, no longer needs to exist.

Not Optimized For The Social Nature Of The Web

The Daily just isn’t optimized for the new nature of the web which is now all about social. Social is not a bolt on aka adding share buttons. The commenting included inside of the Daily is interesting, but I would take it another level to show the entire conversation around a piece of content and also add geolocation to it. It’s time to reinvent media completely, not slightly add something new.  Gawker has the right idea by keeping relevant/highly shared content surfaced over a chronological order of articles.  Social and the presentation of the daily should be one in the same.

Too Susceptible To Churn

The Daily has one main point of access, which is through the user’s home screen. If the daily fails to deliver, the app will get deleted off the home screen, and will never return. On the other hand, if it were web based it would be easy to navigate to a site directly later on. Going to the app store and re-downloading it? Very very difficult. Being 100% reliant upon the app model makes content providers highly susceptible to churn.

Images Of Text

The articles are designed for print first and the web as an afterthought. Essentially, the articles are exported from InDesign or something like it as images and put into a simple app builder. I don’t want intense interaction, but I want to feel like I’m doing more than interacting with a glorified PDF reader. The iPad and the shift we’re seeing in media isn’t about making incremental improvements, but rethinking the entire solution as a whole.

The Ads Are Its Best Example

The ads in the daily are absolutely awesome. They aren’t interruptive, have taste, and not “too interactive”. iAds are the world’s best Flash ads… done in HTML5. The Daily decided to not use iAds, which was really smart. They took the essence of print, but brought it to the web with something new.

May A Million Dailies Bloom

The Daily right now seems ahead of its time, but it will eventually be something we look back on as common place. Slate started out being forward thinking, but eventually the Slate model of content delivered over the web became a standard. The same thing will happen to the Daily. Delivering content and tailoring it primarily for tablet devices will become the standard, not something special.

My challenge to Rupert Murdoch and “The Daily”

Make a version of the daily that lives in the browser on tablet devices. Provide the same native like experience of an app and own your user.  See which version is the better business after 6 months. (I’m only suggesting tablet devices and their browsers, NOT the traditional desktop with browsers there such as Firefox).

Use the Onswipe platform to take care of all the digital aspects of The Daily in the browser- making it work, delivery, functionality, and everything. It will be browser based and work on all tablets + smart phones out of the box. This is what we do at Onswipe and the process works the same for publishers whether they are personal bloggers or ambitious enterprises like The Daily. It’s robust and fully customizable. All the Daily needs to do is produce awesome content, which it is already doing.

I’m not a huge favor of being a paid subscription only, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. We’re toying around with subscriptions paywalls. Outside of the processing fees, go ahead and keep way more than Apple will give you. Most importantly, get actual subscriber data. In the physical print world, having the data of your subscriber is very important. You get zero subscriber data with Apple’s solution. With Onswipe, you can get more data than you ever imagined on a subscriber.

What about the ads? The ads in the daily now are pretty awesome and a step in the right direction. We’re doing something even better that readers will love, advertisers will lust after, and The Daily will profit with. Ads have traditionally sucked on the web, especially compared with the beauty+elegance of print. Let’s combine that beauty/elegance with slight interactivity from the web.

I have an early early prototype of a web version of the Daily sitting in my hands as we speak and it rocks…

——

I don’t know what the future holds for The Daily. This is just the first version and there’s a fair chance they will overcome its shortcomings. Rupert is a smart guy, the content team at the daily is top notch, and I would not count them out.

Jason L. Baptiste
February 2011

//This article originally appeared at OnStartups, where all my writing appears exclusively.

This post has been ruminating with me for a while. It’s not a sudden “a-ha” moment that made it form, but a collective group of “a-has!” over the past few months. Consider this the uplifting post to counter last week’s “The 11 Harsh Realities Of Entrepreneurship”. Just because it’s a harsh reality, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur. The best time to start a startup is not tomorrow, not next week, and certainly not next year. The time is right now, at this very second.  Here’s why:

You Will Have The Time Of Your Life

I put this first, because it’s the reason that will motivate you the most to start a startup. Doing this may be hell at times, but boy is it fun. It’s an adventure that you will remember for the rest of your life whether things go very well or things go poorly. They used to say that everyone should try to be a rockstar at least once in their lifetime. I’m going to add to that and say that in-between being a rockstar and something else, you should be an entrepreneur at some point just for the adventure. Writing this article makes me realize how much I truly love doing this – the uncertainty, the victory, the failure, the connections with customers, the press,etc. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else and if this is truly for you, you will eventually feel the same.

You Have The Power To Create Something From Nothing

Few professions have the power to create something from absolutely nothing whatsoever. Right now, you may have some crazy idea in your head to bring into the world. It exists on some napkins, photoshop files, etc. right now, but eventually it will become reality. There’s a good chance it’s something that will have an impact on a large number of people… millions of people around the world. That wasn’t something many could achieve, even 20 years ago. Now, it’s possible for anyone, anywhere. I rarely use absolutes, since I know what that means, but I truly believe the ability to start a startup can happen anywhere. It’s certainly more difficult in poor countries, but it’s still possible. Look at Kiva.org or posts like this on HN.

A World Of Knowledge Is Available

It used to be a very old boys club or dark art, when it came to entrepreneurship. It used to cost a ton of money to go to seminars and buy books full of snake oil. It still exists, but people are starting to learn better. The experiences of previously successful and/or failed entrepreneurs are everywhere. They are on this very site, they are posted hourly on hacker news, daily on Mixergy, and found through smart people on Twitter. The blueprint to go from zero to paying customers and all the knowledge in between to guide you is out there in the open… for free.

Cloud Computing And Web Apps Make It Cheap To Start

Ten years ago it used to cost a lot to get started in terms of software+hardware. If you planned on doing anything with scale, you needed what equated to a front loaded CapEX of 500k to buy the equipment YOU might need. Software for internal collaboration costed a lot, with very few choices available. Software for actual development was even more costly. Now we have mature open source frameworks/databases and cloud apps. Startup Weekends occur every weekend and are possible due to this advancement in software. I almost feel weird writing this because we’ve taken what’s in front of us for granted. Amazon EC2 scales well, but now it’s even free to test out initially for your project. Of course, your time isn’t free, but even that is reduced with libraries+frameworks like JQuery and Ruby On Rails. Odds are, if there is something you need, it’s out there and available for free. If it’s not, there is probably someone to talk to.

Location Isn’t Important At First

I still think certain geographical areas have their place once you reach certain scale along with what type of business you are building (lifestyle vs. venture backed). In today’s day and age, you can START your company anywhere in the world and get great visibility. I’m seeing more and more companies come from random spots in the US along with international waters. Take a look at Balsamiq, WooThemes, or where Backupify originted (Kentucky!). The ability to access customers is available globally and you can run a distributed team due to the previous point listed above (cloud apps). Face to face time is always a good thing, but it’s a whole lot easier to book a flight once every 8 weeks than to pick up and move to 94306 right out the gate. If location is a worry for you, then don’t worry anymore. Don’t be pressured to race to the valley right away. If another geography makes sense, you will know in due time. You can start getting the most important thing right now, where you are… NOT funding… CUSTOMERS.

You Can Get Press And Attention Overnight

Getting press used to require an overpriced PR firm to the tune of $10,000 a month when getting started. Now a great product with a well crafted story can blow up overnight and get the attention of mainstream media+the tech elite. Take a look at Chat Roulette. Though it’s not a shining example of a great business, it is a shining example of the attention that a company can get press overnight.

There Are More Customer Acquisition Channels Than Ever Before

Getting customers used to be a really hard thing. It used to take a lot of money to make money. At scale, it certainly takes a lot of money to optimize an efficient sales machine with CAC, LTV,etc., but to get started, you can use a variety of customer acquisition channels. Public relations, inbound marketing, search engine marketing, in person events, platform distribution, direct sales, affiliate programs, and a ton more currently exist. They can be strategically used with little capital. Why does this matter? It’s like having more lives in a video game. Many of the channels won’t work out, that’s just life. If there are more channels, then you have more opportunities for success.

It’s Possible To Make A Living From A Startup Fairly Fast

It used to be that businesses would take years and years of losses to get to the point of making enough money to pay for you to live. If you wanted to do one, you had to raise a significant amount of capital up front, usually in the form of credit cards + savings from your job. In today’s day and age, it’s just completely different. You can start charging for software, increase your customers with a certain level of profitable scale, and get to the point that your barebones living is paid for. We also live in a subscription economy, where revenues are recurring. With things like churn aside, customers are now that gift that keep on giving. It won’t bring you riches right away, but it’s fairly reasonable for a team to create software and make a living within a 6 months period. Building a venture backed company is usually different, but lifestyle ISVs can sometimes morph into one. 37 Signals chose to stay independent, but if they wanted to do the raise money + grow fast show, they could have quite a while ago.

The Capital To Grow Is Widely Available If You Need It

The capital raising world is going through an interesting transitionary period. Since entrepreneurs need less to get to certain milestones, a new class of investors have sprung up, leading smaller and smaller deals. It used to be do a larger angel round or Series A, after having a lot of traction to get started. Deals took a while and the terms varied a lot. Now the spectrum varies heavily. You can get funding from YCombinator or TechStars at a ~18k level for just the idea+being a smart team, a $250-500k seed round in multiple flavors, a traditional larger angel round of $1,000,000, or the full Series A. I actually haven’t seen the full Series A as the first round of financing in a while, now that I come to think of it. A word of caution: many people think they should raise money, just because they see it in the press. That’s the wrong way to go about. You should raise money for a specific reason. In the case of the small ~18k YC round, it usually entails getting the first working version of the product out to get initial customer validation. Anything above that should be strategic to hit certain customer + traction milestones. If you don’t know what those are, don’t raise money yet.

Continue reading this awesome article at OnStartups

//This originally appeared on the Onswipe company blog
Most companies get asked: “So why should I join your startup?” It’s a very very valid question. I figured it would be good to take the time out to explain why Onswipe is a great startup to join and try to translate the exact reasons why I love leading this team.

You Get To ReWrite the Rules And Help Make The Web Beautiful

The web is inherently an ugly place. We’re getting there with design, but sites with great design are far and few between in the grand scheme of things. With tablets, we get to rewrite all of the rules for the first time in decades. Think about it: publishers and content owners know they can start from scratch with design. They know design can be a lot like what the world has grown up with print design – beautiful typography, photography, and a personal experience. We won’t have this chance again for a very long time. The work you do with us will define the way an entire generation experiences the news and content itself. Many startups talk about changing the world, but few do it. We are one of those rare examples.

The Technical And Design Challenges In Touch+HTML5 Are A Blast

Building for the touch web and tablets in the browser is new territory for most. New interfaces will be created, new code that people can actually touch, and more needs to be created. A year ago the technology we’re building could not have even been done. The iPad didn’t exist and HTML5 was still in its infancy. In reality it still is, but that’s the fun part. The web will be your playground and you will get to tackle the technical challenges of making it an awesome place again.

We’re Going After a Big Long Term Vision

We’re in this for the long haul. When you get to meet us, you’ll here our vision and how mind numbingly huge it is. It’s going to take time and a lot of smart people like yourself. Money is the by-product of doing great things, so we’re not worried about smaller offers or building for a quick flip. We’re going to build great things and the money to build for the long haul will come. Reinventing the web and the media world is not a small mission. So many talented individuals join companies that may be successful, but the hunger and passion hits a ceiling. There’s nothing else in the world we could see ourselves doing for the next decade and beyond. Come help us reach those goals together, we can’t go it alone.

We’re Backed By The Best Funds In The Game

So what about money now? We’re backed by the best funds in the game with a deep domain expertise of media meeting technology.

• Spark Capital, the original investors in Twitter, Tumblr, and Boxee.
• Betaworks, who is behind bit.ly, chartbeat, and tweetdeck.
• SV Angel, which is the fund where Ron Conway his investing. http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/
• Morado Ventures, which is a fund started by Ash Patel and Mike Marquez. Ash literally built most of Yahoo! and was Chief Product Officer. Mike ran M&A for Yahoo! and later CBS Interactive. Their LPs are all early Yahoo!
• ENIAC Ventures, which is a mobile focused fund. Nihal, their founding partner was an original angel in Admob, which sold to Google for 750 million
• Jennifer Lum (through Apricot Capital), who was a very early employee at Quattro wireless. Quattro was acquired by Apple and is now iAd
• Dharmesh Shah, the cofounder and CTO of hubspot. Dharmesh pioneered the use of content marketing and inbound marketing by
• Roy Rodenstein, who sold going.com to Aol and has a deep understanding of the startup market. He is a close mentor and friend.
• Wayne Chang, who cofounded i2hub, one of the world’s largest file sharing networks.
• Waikit Lau, a former VC at General Catalyst partners, serial entrepreneur, and recently cofounder of Scanscout that merged with Tremor Media.
• Techstars NYC, which took 11 out of 579 applications. That’s under 2%.

These smart folks gave us money so we could team up with smart people like yourself.

You Will Have The Time Of Your Life

We’re having the time of our lives. It’s a lot of hard work, but we love what we do everyday and do not take it for granted. We get to solve a fun new problem and have a great rapport. We work hard, but we also play hard. Working with us on a daily basis won’t really feel like work. We’re based in NYC, which is the city that never sleeps.

We’re An Experienced Team

There’s always a lot more to learn, but we’ve accomplished some cool stuff so far. Andres cofounded Grooveshark and I’m a professional author with the Penguin Group. We’ve also worked before on Cloudomatic, which was acquired. To be an entrepreneur, you have to love it and damn do we love this stuff. We’ve seen the early days of startup life before. We’re also surrounded by smart people that will help us along the way when we get stuck.

You Will Be Very Well Compensated in Cash and Equity

We are still a startup, but we know we need the smartest possible people in the game. People are the greatest investment a company can make. You will also have a long term vested interest in the company through equity. We’re building a large company and that equity will be worth something due to smart people like yourself. Also add in health benefits and Apple equipment you’ll need.

We Hope You Will Start Your Own Company One Day

The best companies in the world are those that foster entrepreneurship and create the next generation. PayPal is famous for the PayPal mafia. We hope that what you learn through working with us at OnSwipe will give you the knowledge and resources to start your own company afterwards. We have access to great people and we’re more than willing to share that with you. We sit next to you and we’re transparent. Our knowledge is your knowledge.

Help Shape A Great Culture

You will be one of the first ten at Onswipe. We are all going to shape a culture for the next thousand that join us over the coming years. We know it’s going to be a fun place and tackling great challenges, but in reality we need you to help shape it. You get to literally help build the place that you will be working at. Help us make a great environment, we can not do it alone.

Hiring is hard for startups right now and it’s clearly you who is in the position of power. I’m passionate about bringing in great people and writing is often the way for me to do it. Have more questions? Email me: j@onswipe.com or Call me: 772.801.1058

TAKE THE RED PILL AND CHECK OUT THE OPENINGS HERE

-Jason L. Baptiste
CEO of Onswipe

//This post originally appeared at OnStartups, where all my writing appears exclusively.

There’s always talk about the end game in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. Hollywood has even made a movie about the founding of Facebook that glamorizes startup life instead of showing what it really is: a day in day out marathon of work with very little glamor. We rarely hear about the harsh realities that entrepreneurs face and the journey that this entails. This isn’t meant to be a downbeat and negative article, but actually quite the opposite. By knowing the harsh realities that lie ahead, you can be prepared when they come about so you can solider on. Here are some of the harsh realities that come with the territory of being an entrepreneur.

Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong

The first iteration or implementation of your idea will often be wrong. That’s not because you’re not smart, not doing the right things, or some other reason to come down hard on yourself. As it turns out, this is actually a good sign. No idea survives its first interactions with its customers and requires you to synthesize feedback to adapt to the customer. You could be prideful, not listen to what your customers are telling you, and keep things the way they were. In the end, that just leaves you with no customers and a product you may not even use yourself. It’s okay if things change up a bit when it comes to your idea and its implementation.

Your Friends And Family Won’t Understand What You Do

“You’re an entrepreneur, so that means you’re un-employed?” or “Oh that’s nice.” are some of the many reactions you will get from close friends, family members, and others over the course of starting your company. Even if you achieve milestones that are worthy of praise (customers, fundraising, new traffic levels, press,etc.) and denote success in the entrepreneurial world, people still won’t understand what you do. Unless you build one of the few consumer success stories that come around every few years, things probably won’t change here. The b2b space is even more difficult to explain as most people aren’t your customer, especially if it’s a niche workflow. This is okay and sometimes even a relief to know there is more outside in the world than just techies and entrepreneurs. Just because they don’t understand it, doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or unacceptable. I doubt Larry Ellison can have most of his family understand Oracle (that database company that stores information), but things turned out pretty well for him at the end of the day.

You Will Make Less Than Normal Wages For A While

If you got into entrepreneurship first and foremost for the money, then you are in the wrong business. Sure you may one day sell your company, but that day is probably far far away. Even then, there are usually earn out clauses, vesting still in tact, and a whole lot more. Even if you raise a good chunk of cash, your money is better spent on hiring the best talent than paying yourself a higher wage. There’s nothing wrong wanting to make money, but in the beginning it’s going to be rough. You will make less than most of your friends, especially the ones doing the “normal” paths of things like finance. It’s a litmus test in its finest form though. If you truly love what you’re doing, the capacity to have a large bank account takes a back burner to completing your mission. Sure you need some basic creature comforts, but luxury items almost seem silly as you will not have the time to truly enjoy them.

Everything Takes Twice As Long…If It Even Happens

Multiply everything by two, including the things inside of your control. When things take longer, you sometimes think that you’re doing it wrong or no one really cares. In reality, everyone else has multiple deals and responsibilities on the table. By factoring this into the expectations of your startup, it makes a lot easier to prepare for launching products, closing deals, and more. Also, be persistent and get the other party what they need as soon as possible. On the flipside, most deals just never work out. It may be an acquisition all the way down to a simple business development deal. There are always many moving parts and excitement that can just fade. That’s okay though. If you’re building your company upon one deal or a silver bullet (more on that below), then you need to re-evaluate things. Don’t be depressed when a deal falls through as that is just the nature of the beast.

Titles Mean Nothing. You Will Be a Janitor

Hey there Mr. CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder! As a co-founder of a < 10 person company with a product that doesn’t have customers, titles really don’t mean much. Everyone will be doing a little bit of everything, including cleaning the toilets. Don’t try to mask the grind of being an entrepreneur with some superficial title. In reality, you should love and embrace the nitty gritty of those first days. Business cards are nice to hand out, but they really shouldn’t say more than co-founder or something else. Maybe someone inside the company plays more of the CEO role (speaking and being the face of the company), but that doesn’t really matter in the early days. You have to be humble and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes. You don’t have a staff of 50 to throw the task on to either. If you don’t do it, it won’t get done. Sure you could also try to optimize for efficiency, but that’s almost counter productive as the early days of a startup requiring doing so much, that it’s hard to just cut something out.

There Is No Silver Bullet

There shouldn’t be and usually never is a single deal that can make your company. Certain deals or customers can take you to another rung on the ladder, but there are still many more rungs to climb along the way. You shouldn’t look at a deal as the end game to the startup, but a means to a specific milestone that is in the near future. A deal can be taken away far faster than it can be given to you. By training yourself to diversify your risk and the milestones that advance your company, you control the destiny of your company, NOT one single partner. The success of a startup is the compilation of luck infused with many little wins along the way.

Customers Will Frustrate You

Having customers is a great thing, but dealing with support is a whole other ball game. If you’re in the consumer world, expect to deal with customers that don’t notice the obvious even with your fancy pants UI/UX in place. You will also get an influx of feedback that is often contradictory. One customer wants it in red, another wants it in blue, and a third wants it combined to become purple. The key to dealing with customers is to respond to everyone, but have a strong rule of authority. If you succumb to customers frustrating you and do everything you say, you quickly end up in a far worse position.

Continue reading this article at OnStartups…

/* The following is a repost from the blog of my startup, OnSwipe. We recently raised a million dollars from great funds such as Spark Capital, Betaworks, ENIAC Ventures, Apricot Capital, Dharmesh Shah, Roy Rodenstein, and Wayne Chang.
*/
The title of this post is inspired by a book I read as a ten year old in 1995 by Bill Gates called “The Road Ahead”. It was a book filled with hope about a new frontier due to the large coming shift about to be caused by the Internet. Here we are 16 years later where another large fundamental shift is happening of even bigger proportions due to touch enabled devices. Here’s why we believe the way we create, consume, and share media is undergoing the largest shift since the creation of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440.

Anyone can be a publisher

Publishing used to require a ton of capital and time. In today’s world, anyone with an internet connection can become a publisher. It doesn’t just mean blogging, but tools such as instragram, youtube, twitter, facebook, and more. It lets us give perspectives on a story that would not have been widely available before.

Publishing is way more than just articles in reverse chronological order

Blogging and publishing has often been about a reverse chronological list of articles. Time isn’t the deciding factor anymore, sharing and popularity is. Why should articles being shared thousands of times an article disappear off page due to a less important article?

Social is really a platform that was built for publishing

Social is a distribution channel that allows media and content to literally fly at the speed of light. One of the core philosophies of Facebook was information flow. Centuries ago it was measured in days, decades ago in hours, years ago in minutes, and today it is measured in seconds. The channels that exist due to Facebook and Twitter are the truly largest platform we have ever seen for publishing. We don’t need the paper delivery boy anymore, we have actual readers sharing and distributing content.

The new influencers

We look at the publishing market in three distinct slices. Personal publishing through Twitter or platforms of self expression like Tumblr, Large publishers such as the new york times, and most importantly a new breed of publishers – “The New Influencer”. They’re a group of individuals that are influencers on a specific topic tied to a valuable demographic. There is now a voice for every topic possible and it’s wonderful. It allows readers to engage with content specific to them, publishers to write on a topic they’re passionate about, and advertisers to target an audience that wants to hear from them. Our hypothesis is that we won’t see another large centralized news organization ever again, but a loosely coupled group of influencers across a broad range of topics. The next Hearst or New York Times will most likely look like the fusion of a media company with the heart of a well designed software company.

Serendipity as a recommendation engine

It’s not about articles that are similar, but articles that you may also enjoy. It’s about delivering an engine for content that provides that experience of bumping unexpectedly into content you’d enjoy, the same way you might find a great new cup of coffee while exploring New York City. You didn’t expect to get there, but you are sure happy you got there.

Design Is The Key To Winning

The key to winning on the web and content is beautiful design that is reminiscent of beautiful typography and design found in print magazines. The back-end is a commodity that the user will almost never see unless things fail. With touch enabled devices, the user experience and design is something we can touch. With great design, publishers can provide engagement levels that they’ve only dreamed about.

Touch Enabled Devices Are A Truly Personal Experience

We chose the name OnSwipe because the measure of interaction between computers and humans will no longer be measured by on click, but by on swipe. It’s just you and the device with a true one foot user experience. There are no barriers in the way such as a mouse or an extra two feet. The page itself responds to your emotion and excitement. The same bond that we’ve had with paper, we can have with our computing devices. It took us a while, but the “Personal Computer”, is actually personal.

Everything is mobile

Every device is connected and always on. Phones like the iPhone are connected everywhere and the 3G version of the iPad is outselling the wifi version. Our kids will grow up laughing at the fact we wouldn’t have Internet connectivity. What does this mean? It means there is zero delay in information flow. We can find out about news as it happens with zero delay and share that outwards. It also means content can be created from anywhere in the world. That is a double sided increase in the speed of information flow.

HTML5 Over Native For Content

Apps for content are a ponzi scheme, but they’re the only way right now to achieve beautiful design on tablet devices. The NY Times has so many app users because they’re using a centuries old brand to push traffic to multiple app stores. Why should publishers spend thousands upon thousands of dollars and time resources to develop across multiple platforms? It should just happen and with their existing traffic. With HTML5 and CSS3, we can deliver the beautiful experience of native apps using a publisher’s existing traffic. It’s time for publishers to have their cake and eat it too. This isn’t a geek argument of open platforms. It’s an argument of publishers being able to control their experience.

50 billion in media spend needs to shift

Mary Meeker estimates that 50 billion dollars of traditional media spend needs to shift online. Our belief is that it’s in a holding pattern and can’t. There’s a disconnect between award winning beautiful ads found in print and tasteless spam ads that litter the web. We think touch enabled devices can let this change by providing advertising people actually enjoy with the best of the web layered on- mobile, local, social, and more. The touch enabled web can let us create ads publishers want alongside their content, advertisers get returns for, and most importantly, that users will enjoy.

The rise of New York City as a collision point for media and technology

A lot has been happening in New York City over the past couple of years. There’s a great reason why we’re basing the company here and plan to be here for quite a while. Our belief is that design is the key to winning the web and the best design talent in the world is in NYC. It’s also an urban population with a ton of density where true use cases for mobile technology can be realized first. Ron Conway briefly hit on this with his belief in the urban entrepreneur. Lastly, the world of media is in this city and now colliding with the startup ecosystem. It’s a beautiful thing as media companies will start to absorb the innovation and fusion happening in this city. No city has to lose for the other to win. A city needs to find it’s specific strength and we think NYC has the strength of sitting at that huge intersection of media+technology.

The road ahead is a long one. One we’re dedicated to journey down over the next decade to transform the way publishers and advertisers deliver content to readers just like you. To help us along the way we’ve found great partners in Spark Capital, Betaworks, TechStars NYC, and a handful of angels that have been involved with companies like Quattro Wireless and AdMob since the beginning. It’s going to be a fun ride and one that we hope benefits everyone involved- publishers, advertisers, and readers.

Jason L.Baptiste
January, 2011

//This post originally appeared at OnStartups, where all my writing appears exclusively.

“The best part of blogging is the people you will meet”- Hugh MacLeod repeating wisdom from Loic Lemeur to me at the Big Pink at 2 am in South Beach after the Future of Web Apps 2008.

If you asked me to tell you a list of three of the best decisions in my life, I can certainly tell you that regularly writing is one of them. It’s the reason I’m an author here at OnStartups, made many new friends, had interesting opportunities cross my radar, and most importantly had the chance to share knowledge that has helped other entrepreneurs.

Why You Should Write

You Will Meet Other Smart People

Writing has allowed me to meet a slew of smart people. Some of these people are now virtual acquaintances and some are very close friends on a personal and professional level. Each article that you publish is a synthesized thought process that may click with other entrepreneurs instantly. Have you ever had a feeling when reading an article that “Wow, they are thinking exactly what I’m thinking”? By writing, you are likely to encounter a handful of people that experience the same thing. Occasionally one of those people will reach out to you via email or bump into you at an event. You might make a new acquaintance, a new co-founder for the future, potential investor, hire,etc. At the end of the day, being an entrepreneur is about finding other smart (hopefully smarter) people to collaborate with and writing frequently helps make this happen.

Example: I ended up becoming a writer here at OnStartups due to my own writing. A year ago, I put out an article called “Disruption and My Next Startup”. This is how I first met David Skok from Matrix Partners. David later introduced me to Dharmesh, who has become a good friend since moving to Boston. After talking about all things entrepreneurial, we realized we both had the same altruistic goals with writing: to meet other smart people and help share the lessons we’ve learned. Small piece of trivia: OnStartups was started in 2005 on Dharmesh’s birthday. I joined OnStartups on my birthday this year (September 8th).

Your Experiences Will Provide Insightful Knowledge To Other Entrepreneurs

Every entrepreneur has been through many of the same yet different experiences. We find co-founders, we all work at building a product/service, we all try to get customers, etc. Even though we’re doing the same thing at a high-level, we all have different experiences. We may have found great co-founders, built a great product, but fail to acquire customers. Each entrepreneur+startup mix is a unique permutation that varies from the rest of the world, hence providing a snowflake of experience. Through writing you can not only help share your successes, but also the pitfalls that lead to your failures. There’s no magic bullet to entrepreneurship, but the wealth of writing from experienced entrepreneurs out there such as Paul Graham, Dharmesh here at OnStartups, Jason Fried and Joel Spolsky have prevented young entrepreneurs from making mistakes that they might have made otherwise. Open source technology has helped entrepreneurs get started immediately with no capital while significantly reducing risk (you would have to raise a large amount of capital to launch anything with lines of code behind it a decade ago). I believe open source knowledge on entrepreneurship can help do the same when it comes to the business side of things. Getting as many entrepreneurs writing + sharing their insight is the very first start of this.

You Will Establish Domain Expertise

Every person is an expert in their own right at something. It might be user interface design, coding, leadership, raising money, investing, etc. By writing you get a chance to establish that domain expertise by sharing it with the world. Don’t worry about people stealing your secret sauce either. Famous chefs share their secrets and hints all the time without fear that it will cause their demise.

It Helps Build Dedication

Writing on a regular schedule takes a lot of discipline, just like going to the gym or practicing a new martial art. Nothing happens overnight, including building an audience and becoming a good writer. Like most things in life, writing takes time and strong dedication. Unwavering dedication is a valuable skill in startups that many seem to forget. If you keep yourself dedicated to writing on a consistent schedule, those important values will carry over to other facets of life including startups.

Your Communication Skills Will Get Exponentially Better

It takes a lot of work to become a great communicator as an entrepreneur. You have to break down complex problems, very technical solutions, and intricate details into soundbites that flow logically. By writing, you develop the ability to communicate more clearly to an audience of many, by providing a logical argument with a unique angle to your position. In some ways, you’ve been learning this skill your entire life through schooling, but writing as an entrepreneur in a public medium is something completely different. Through schooling you write for an audience of 1-2 people. Those people will usually judge you based not upon the content, but whether you agreed with their point of view. Writing as an entrepreneur in a public medium puts you in the spotlight of tens of thousands to millions of unique readers. If your writing isn’t cohesive, there are many that can call you out. I had some rough professors throughout my undergrad years, but no one will call you out like internet commenters, many of which may be trolls. By the third article, you start to subconsciously think “Is this cohesive/does it make sense?” as a gut reaction when writing in order to avoid negative feedback.

You Will Build An Audience That Will Give You Candid Feedback

If you’re really lucky, you will start to build an audience that isn’t full of trolls, but that consists of those that are genuine and honest. They may give you negative feedback, but it will be candid+honest. Don’t just look at the number of re-tweets on an article, look at the articles that get the audience to participate. You will eventually find a groove of what your audience enjoys and what they consider good writing. Try to reply to every comment as well, even if it is a simple “Thank you.”

It Is A Rapid Accelerator Of Serendipity

Startups are certainly impacted by luck, but I believe they are impacted just as much by serendipity. You never know who knows who or who you may run into at an event. By putting yourself out there and making yourself open to meeting as many people as possible, serendipity is much more likely to happen. Once you have even a minor audience, you are now likely to experience the effects of serendipity. One article might reach 500 or 50,000 people in a short span of time. Remember that we live in a world where content/information travels faster than ever before. Out of those 50,000 people, you never know who might be reading, who might reach out to you, or who might leave a comment. I can tell you this: The majority of good things that have happened to me in business can be traced back to my writing

9 Tips How To Get Started

Many think that writing is as simple as registering for a WordPress/Tumblr/Posterous account and all of a sudden they’re the next Seth Godin. Just like anything in life, it takes time, practice, and finding the formula that works well for you. I started writing almost 2 years ago, but didn’t get into it seriously until approximately 3-4 months ago. Here’s a list of some of the things that I’ve learned along the way that will hopefully be useful food for thought.

Keep It Simple And Worry About The Aesthetics Later On

Sign-up for Posterous, Tumblr, or WordPress. If you really want to customize things later on, host your own WordPress install. Find a good, simple/basic theme, set up some basic settings + SEO, and get to the races with writing. Try to use your own name as the domain name. If you have a popular first+last name combo and can’t own your exact name, try to get something similar. Last, but not least, try to have a picture of yourself somewhere on the site. It’s good to put a face to your writing and this will help people identify with you when meeting up in person. Besides the simple stuff above, just start writing. Insightful content is king and that’s where you should be focusing your efforts.

Continue Reading at OnStartups

//This post originally appeared at OnStartups, where all my writing appears exclusively.

upport is often an after thought for many startups in terms of the impact it has on your time, sanity, and development resources. It’s usually a tedious chore that is a second class citizen. Or…Maybe it’s not. Maybe your startup worships at the altar of Zappos. If you do, odds are the influx of support hits you from out of nowhere like a sucker punch. Here’s what I’ve learned about preparing for support, how it decreases churn, and increases sales.

Pre Sales Support Will Bring Up Patterns Of Lost Sales

Everyone seems to think that their funnel and their website copy is absolutely awesome. In reality, it comes down to not knowing what you don’t know. There are usage patterns that will cause confusion amongst potential purchasers of your product, that you could have never imagined. By implementing a strong pre-sales support system, you will start to gain pattern recognition into what is causing you to lose sales. The best way to catch these issues is to implement live chat systems like Olark, a phone system like Grasshopper, or a simple pre-sales FAQ.

Example: With PadPressed, many potential customers wanted to see a working demo on their iPad. We thought we had this clearly stated on the Demo page. As it turns out, we didn’t. After five requests in a day, we realized that we needed to heavily emphasize the working demo portion in the copy. We modified buttons on the homepage and we highlighted the links to the live demos on the Demo page. It worked. There have been more clicks and more requests about this.

Build As If You Have To Support It

I’m stealing this quote from Kevin Hale of Wufoo, but it’s truly one of the most important product focused quotes I’ve heard over the past year. Whenever you want to add a feature, especially the nifty ones that may be confusing or buggy, think about the impact that will have on support. Also think about a feature’s implementation and how it plays into cross platform compatibility. For every feature you plan on adding, expect more of the following:

• Extra support ticket requests ie- Each feature will bring about way more support tickets that require more time, which is something you’re already strapped on.
• More pre-launch documentation ie- You will have to spend more time on Q&A, writing documentation, doing tutorial videos, etc.
• More complexity in your sales and/or fundraising pitch ie- Your cool new features have nothing to do with your simple problem/solution statement.

Triage Critical Requests Post Launch and Freeze New Dev

After every launch of PadPressed, there are usually one to two specific problems that are major issues. For our most recent launch, the timthumb library was being wonky with WordPress MU + external images. Instead of adding some of the new things we had planned, we had to focus solely on releasing a major update for this issue. The adrenaline from a successful launch will lure you into wanting to do more “cool stuff” for customers. In reality, if you don’t double down on getting past the critical bugs, they won’t be customers for long.

The Knowledge Of The Customer Community Will Save You

If there’s a way to create a customer support forum, I strongly suggest it. It could be something like GetSatisfaction or it could be a private forum. Most problems that customers would normally open up a ticket with you for, will have been solved in the past and publicly available in the forums. I suggest that all tickets are made public and viewable by users. Another benefit of having a great community is the fact, that other customers will help out new customers and give suggestions. The math adds up over time. Here’s some math:

1. Assume each support request takes an average of 15 minutes to deal with.
2. You have a total of 400 support requests per month.
3. 50% of those support requests could be solved by having past knowledge public. (200 total)
4. That’s a total of 50 hours a month, which adds up to a lot of saved time, energy, and frustration.

Support Is A Reason To Charge

Support is a reason to charge, especially when dealing with a freemium model. As geeks, we may be able to do everything ourselves, but in the real world, most normals love to have their hand held or have someone on call to help them. You could charge for premium support or you can even bake it into your price. Apple’s genius bar and training programs seem free to customers, but they’re actually a good reason why Apple products command such a premium. Look at Zappos as well. They spend good money on providing a first class support experience and it’s why they’re able to do so well. Once again, THEY SELL SHOES. The support experience has allowed them to command a dominate spot in the market and differentiate themselves by selling shoes. Apple and Zappos’ models are indirect ways to charge for support. Many open source and freemium companies charge directly for support and make big bucks doing it. Some may say that this model doesn’t scale, but I say baloney. We’re a connected and distributed world where there is an infinite amount of labor on demand to help with support.

Escalate With Discretion

As a startup with strapped development resources, escalating issues to the development team requires a certain graceful balance. Certain critical issues and larger customers require you to bring issues to the attention of the core dev team. The problem is, attending to these issues can slow down new development and an already large onslaught of bug fixes. This is also another area where you can charge for a more advanced level of support.

Continue Reading at OnStartups

I outlined 16 must have customer acquisitions techniques for startups in a post last month. One of the most important techniques comes in the form of Public Relations and I think it’s important enough to warrant its own article. PR is how you launch companies, build buzz, and get valuable attention that ranks well above the noise of buying advertising. For example Apple only aired the 1984 ad once, but received over five million dollars of free publicity due to everyone talking + airing the ad again on the news. Like anything worth striving for in life, getting attention from the press is hard, but if you attack it with the right approach, it becomes fairly easy to do. We’re launching a new version of Padpressed later this week and I thought I’d share some tips I’ve learned over the years.

A lot of entrepreneurs ask me how I got on TechCrunch with PadPressed, so I included the exact email I used to pitch and get on TechCrunch at the end of the article with some notes.

Tell a Story

The goal of a journalist and blogger is to engage readers and get more views/subscribers. Something boring certainly won’t entertain the readers, so why would they write about it? Journalists are also in a position of power. They have hundreds of startups pitching them everyday and vying for attention, so you need to stand out of the crowd. The best way to do this is to tell a story that will transfer from (a) your mouth to (b) the journalist’s keyboard to (c) the reader’s eyes. If you can tell a story that intrigues and grabs people, journalists are far more likely to write about you, as it will drive adoption of their product.

Be Prepared Technically

Things spread fast in this day and age. Even if you’re not actively pitching, once you’re out in the wild, anything can happen. Articles can’t be re-written and you only have one shot at first, so make sure your app can leave a good impression. Around the time of launch, allocate more resources than normal in terms of hardware. This is so much easier to do now vs. five years ago due to Rackspace and Amazon. Also be prepared the second you give the story to someone as embargoes will most likely be broken in this day and age. You don’t want major press coverage to give a negative impact to users.

Segment Your List

You need to segment your press list depending upon the exact angle and topic of the publication. For example, with PadPressed, we’re approaching all the following segments of publications

- Traditional Tech Blogs
- Well known bloggers who could use the tech
- WordPress Publications/Blogs
- Apple/iPad focused blogs
- Media/Publishing Trade Specific
- Traditional media looking for iPad stories

You also need to adapt the story you tell and the pitch that you give according to the outlet you pitch. A WordPress blog should be approached much differently than a traditional media publication like the Miami Herald or San Jose Mercury News. It’s the same way pitching different companies and departments on a sale vary.

Give A Taste Of The Future

So when we pitched TechCrunch, we didn’t pitch it as a WordPress plugin company. That’s just not big news and though it’s a very cool, it doesn’t provide excitement. We gave a taste of the future of being available to All CMS’s, a hosted platform, and helping pave the way for the future of media via tablet publishing. Don’t talk too much about the future, since you’re not there yet, but give a glimpse into it. It also makes setting up future stories a whole lot easier. Once you reach those milestones, it gives the journalist something to refer back to and segway into the next article.

Be Brief

Keep your pitches short and make sure the basic gist fits into the first glance of a GMail subject line. Bloggers get way too many pitches on a daily basis and they need to get the gist of what you’re trying to do almost immediately. If THEY can’t get it in a few sentences, how are there readers ever going to understand what the product does?

Give All Links To Detailed Resources

Not being contradictory here, but complimentary. Keep the actual pitch email very short and to the point with a call to action. For more detailed information, link to it inside the email and make it apparent. ie- not thrown as a random obscure link.

Founders > PR Firm

It’s always better to have founders pitch a product than a PR firm. Yes, at some point, you may have a corporate com department, but for the most part, you are a small company whether or not you have a track record. Journalists also get a bit of an ego stroke when they deal directly with a founder (in a good way). It means a lot to them when an actual founder reaches out and takes the time to answer questions/deliver a pitch.

“Speaking of that and a heads up, some of the major Hackers & Founders meetups will be hosting the first in a series on how to get PR for your startup – with panelists from the founders who’ve done it, the reporters who cover them as well as the agencies who work with early stage companies. Shout out to Dave Ambrose on the Hackers & Founders Twitter handle for more updates when we do the event in November.”

Give direct Contact info and be quick

Most stories will go from pitch to print fairly fast in online media. Traditional print takes a bit longer, but even then, it can happen fast. When a journalist is on a deadline, they need to get the story done on time. If you can’t deliver fast enough, then you’re cut out. Give your direct contact info and during the launch period, make sure you are always around to answer questions. You should also give priority to whatever they need to get the article out – screenshots, giveaways, further facts,etc.

Ride a Wave

The best way to get press attention is to ride the wave of an already big trend being talked about. In some cases, you get an article solely featuring you or you may be part of a larger article on the topic. This often happens with iPad and iPhone apps or the trend of cloud computing. When I launched my first project to the press, we specifically aimed it at eBay raising their fees. The Associated Press picked up on it, resulting in coverage in USA Today. Here’s a throwback to my past days in the press.

Try to Make A Connection Beforehand

If you’re in the tech sector, especially in Silicon Valley, odds are you spend a good amount of time at events and conferences. Bloggers/journalists get paid to go to these events and are often there as well. Don’t go into a full on pitch, since you’re probably not ready for press coverage. Do try to make a personal connection beforehand just so the intro is warm when you are finally making a pitch.

Exclusives Can Help But Are Tricky

TechCrunch and other blogs often like to get exclusives, but it also hurts your chances with other blogs. Certain launches have certain goals. Is it to reach a specific audience? Is it to have the widest distribution and buzz? Is it to cause potential partners/acquirers to jump? Exclusives are like the super power up that you can only use once per level in a video game to kill a specific boss or opponent. Make sure you use it for the right purpose and at the right time.

Don’t Copy/Paste

For the love of God, do not mail/merge or copy/paste a pitch to a journalist. Yes, you can re-use some parts of the pitch such as what you do, but keep things at a personal level. You may have to type 100 emails, 50% of which don’t even get a response. That’s called having to hustle. You would think it’s hard to tell if something is copy/paste, but a good journalist can see right through it. No personalization, vague statements, etc.

Follow Up

First off, don’t pester journalists if they don’t want to cover you. It’s nothing personal and everyone makes bad judgment calls. There’s just not enough time to properly cover all the startups. If they DO show interest, make sure you’re on top of the ball. If they forget to followup, make sure you get them the info they need and get the article to press. Getting a piece of press coverage is A LOT like making a sale. Not following up on a warm sales lead is foolish and so is the same with a journalist.

Offer Something To Readers

If you look at many of the successful launches on TechCrunch, they often offer some NONMONETARY giveaway, usually in the form of early invites to the service or a limited number of free premium accounts. This isn’t bribing, this is adding utility to the readers of the publication. One goal of a writer is to provide utility to their readers. By offering access to an app that is hard to come by elsewhere, the story certainly provides utility.

Stunts Can Be The FireStarter

Stunts aren’t a sustainable way to do press, but they can certainly get the momentum going for a company. One of the most famous examples to this day is Half.com renaming Halfway,Oregon to Half.com. AirBnb happened to do the same thing by selling cereal during the presidential elections of 2008 (Obama O’s and Cap’n McCains). You need to find a way to rise above the crowd and be a proverbial Purple Cow. Once you have the spotlight on you with massive attention it makes it a lot easier to get attention in the future for more mundane things such as product launches.

Leverage Your Contacts

Odds are someone you know, knows someone at a press outlet and can give you an endorsement. Being backed by the right angel or VC can be insanely useful as well. YCombinator companies are able to get tons of press due to the sheer network and validation of being part of YCombinator. Doing partnerships with other companies is also another way to leverage your contacts and network. By doing a partnership with an already recognizable brand, you increase the likelihood that a press outlet will take a liking to your pitch.

Example PR Pitch Email To TechCrunch

This is the exact email I sent to TechCrunch when we launched.  Nothing was omitted, including my personal info.  Feel free to say hi

——————-

Subject: Exclusive for TC: Launching Padpressed- make any blog feel like a native iPad app

Hey Mike,

Launching PadPressed tomorrow at noon EST and TC gets free reign on an exclusive before then. PadPressed makes any blog look and behave like a native iPad app. We’re talking accelerometer aware column resizing, swipe to advance articles, touch navigation, home screen icon support, and more. We’ve built some pretty cool tech to make this happen smoothly, and it works with your existing layout (iPad layout only activated when the blog is accessed from an iPad). Okay, I’ll shut up now and you can check out the demo links/feature pages below, which are much more interesting than my pitch.

PS- Would also be happy to do giveaways to TC readers. Thanks again and feel free to reach out if you have anymore questions (skype,phone,etc. listed below).

Video Demo: http://vimeo.com/13487300
Live demo site (if you’re on an iPad): jasonlbaptiste.com
Feature overviews: http://padpressed.com/features
My contact info: j@jasonlbaptiste.com , Phone: 772.801.1058, Twitter: @jasonlbaptiste, Skype: jasonlbaptiste

-jlb
772.801.1058
You Should Check Out JasonLBaptiste.com

———————

Some notes:

• Gave TC the exclusive due to the goal of getting a large reach and seeing if there was enough demand to further the project.
• Highlighted what it did in one sentence with key features following thereafter.
• Highlighted the tech behind it so this seemed special.
• Added in giveaways.
• Most important part:  direct links to the exact resources they would need, including my phone number.  Mike emailed back soon thereafter and Alexia called an hour after.  The article went from pitch to being live in < 5 hours.
• Update:  I added in the subject I used.  I literally spent close to an hour on it, email testing it.  I would send myself emails using the subject line to see how it would appear.

All of the above are important, but the one that will carry over to other aspects of your startup happens to be – “Tell A Story”. If your startup can tell a story, then you are far ahead of the curve. What PR tips have been the most effective for you over the years?

There’s a common question brought up in the entrepreneurial community that goes something like this: “Should I go to college?” or “Should I drop out of college?” It’s even the subject of a good analysis by Vivek Wadhwa over at Techcrunch. . I’ve seen the question pop up often enough, it’s certainly an important one, and a question that I have a lot of personal experience with (I went to college, started a company, “stopped/dropped out”, and eventually went back to finish my undergraduate degree). By no means am I 100% right on this subject, but hopefully this serves as some guidance to those struggling with the question themselves.

Short answer: Yes, you should go to college. Here’s why and some tips on how to maximize the experience + prepare yourself for a startup.

Meet As Many Smart People As Possible

The great part of going to college comes in the form of all the people you will meet from different and diverse backgrounds. There are always “How do I find a co-founder?” posts on Hacker News and across the internet. Going to college can usually result in finding a co-founder for your company on the technical and/or business side of things. It’s where Tony from Zappos met his co-founder along with numerous others. You will also make friends that might later make it into the startup game, and be useful for you to connect with. On top of it, you get to interact with people who have absolutely nothing at all to do with technology, but can give you insights into experiences you never knew existed (different backgrounds, career paths, countries,etc.) Go to college and meet as many people as possible.

Study Subjects That Are New And/Or Challenging

I think the biggest reason I wanted to leave college to do a startup full time was due to the fact that I just wasn’t excited by the subjects and courses being presented to me. Yes, it can’t always be fun,but there should be SOME enjoyment in it. Even when I went back to finish by undergraduate degree in CIS at UMiami, I just didn’t enjoy the subject matter. The Comp Sci courses used dated technology and the business courses had no appeal to the startup world. What course did I end up enjoying the most? A Caribbean Literature class. If I could go back, I probably would have studied something such as Journalism or writing, with a minor in Comp Sci just to get the core fundamentals down. You get four years to go learn as much as you want. Go find something challenging, otherwise you will gravitate towards leaving school.

It Shows An Ability To Finish Something

There’s something to be said about those that finish what they started. It shows an ability to see something through to the end and finish something you may not fully enjoy. I think that’s one of the primary reasons I decided to finish: “I wanted to finish what I started and build some character through doing that.” Startups are a marathon race and a good portion of them fail, just because the founders decide to give up / not finish what they started. That’s with something they ENJOY. Showing that you were able to finish a four year degree shows some ability to complete tasks and “sticktoitness”.

Start Projects, Not Companies While In School

This will probably be the subject of another post, but there is a huge difference between a project and a company. A company requires hiring a good amount of people, a fairly big long term vision, and scaling to meet customer demand. With projects, they start out as hobbies, get tested with the market, and might eventually make some good money with product/market fit. They also tend to be smaller and can be run by 1-2 people. It’s possible to manage a project and take a full course load. Look at it like a very serious extracurricular. Best of all, you can try a bunch of different things and learn a whole lot along the way. You won’t have to raise any capital either. A full blown company? It’s just not humanly possible. Running a startup takes 12-14 hour days, an insane amount of stress, and putting the well being of employees into your hands. You can’t manage that AND do well in school. You will most likely end up half assing most.

If Something Takes Off, Seriously Consider Stopping Out

So what if one of your projects really start to take off to the point that it’s not possible to contain growth? Consider what the Facebook founders called “stopping out”. It’s the equivalent of taking a sabbatical to focus on the company to see it through to an exit or failure. After that point, you can go back to school and finish what you started. This way, you’re able to fully focus on your startup and not let your grades drop. Great schools will usually give you a few year window where you do not have to re-apply. This is what I did with my first real startup and I still think it was the right move. Sadly, things ended up failing, and I returned to school to finish what I started.  Peter Thiel might even give you up to 100k to do this.

Use The “I’m A College Student” Card As Much As Possible

Want to go to conferences for free, get important people to pay attention to you, discounted software, and a whole lot more? Use the “I’m a college student card.” It gives you the ability to save money and get access to some people that want to just help you out. In some ways you may feel that it undermines your credibility. I often felt that way, but looking back, that was just foolish pride. If you’re good, you’re good. Some people will be even more impressed that you’re that good and a young college student.

Don’t Waste Money On An Overpriced College

Unless it’s a school that’s great for what you’re trying to study, has a great faculty, or one of the few schools worth their name, don’t rack up debt on an overpriced school. In California, UC Berkeley is a great school with low tuition. The same can be said of University of Florida in Florida and numerous other areas. I read that Stanford gives a full ride to families that make < 100k. Olin College also gives half scholarships to everybody and makes sure that the rest gets taken care of somehow. That’s how college should be. 50k+ a year tuition/room+board being covered by student loans is no way to live.  It’s also a huge burden to bear when you need to have a low personal burn rate when out of school.

Try To Go To College In a Startup Hub

It’s funny, I didn’t get into Startup culture until I transferred to UMiami from Boston College after my freshman year. All the resources I needed in a startup hub were ironically already in Boston. If I could go back, I would have stayed in Boston (either at BC or a more engineering focused school in the area). Going to a school in NYC or the SF Bay Area is also desirable. You get to go to college AND start making a name for yourself in the community early on. You also get access to all of the events (at a lower price due to student status), network with everyone, and build connections.

Organize Events With Other Students

If you really love startups, you should start organizing student events for other hackers+founders at your University. We’re a rare breed and bringing them together while at college is a good way to make new friends. It’s also a way to get important people to pay attention to you. Try doing something like this: Organize some group/club/event for students at your school, get some decent following, then invite important people to do roundtables/speak. You will now have a personal connection to them and I doubt they will say no. People love helping students.

Read As Many Blogs As Possible

Ever since I got into the startup scene, I started reading as many blogs/books/publications as possible. Everything from industry news to tech/business analysis. You should also spend a lot of time with communities such as hacker news as well. Consider this reading like “another course”, just without the tests and crappy lectures. There is a wealth of information out there and people willing to share what they’ve learned. If you’re a student and reading this article right now, this is just one example.

Ignore Edge Cases And Sensationalist Success Stories

The flipside to reading to many blogs happens to be this: “Everything seems like it’s so easy and you wonder why the f**k you’re in college, when you could be worth $60 million.” Ignore the sensationalist stories and the success that seems like it came overnight. It’s all difficult whether you are in college or not. It takes a lot of hard work and there’s a chance you will fail. Use college as a way to start projects and learn as much as possible. If for some reason, something takes off, then consider going full time with it. Don’t start trying to use college as a scapegoat for not being on the cover of businessweek.

Learn As Much About Product AND Customer Development As Possible

After my first project failed, I learned I needed to know more about tech + product development, so I set out to learn that over the next few years. I finally learned what makes a good product, how to code at a rudimentary level, ui/ux skills, scaling architecture, etc. It took a long time, but was well worth it. THEN I did my first real startup – Publictivity. We failed not because the product was bad or that people didn’t want it, but that we hadn’t built any sales/marketing channels. By the time we were ready to launch, the recession hit, we ran out of money, and things went down fast. I realized I needed to learn about marketing/sales channels just like I learned about product development. So I went back to school and spent as much time as possible learning about distribution channels+customer acquisition. If you can come out of college understanding how to make a great product that people want and the channels to distribute that product to customers, you’re in good shape.

A CS/CIS Degree Will Build A Good Foundation

Once I got into entrepreneurship, I changed by business degree focus from Entrepreneurship to Computer Information Systems after realizing entrepreneurship was best learned from practice. I decided against a full blown CS major since I was so far into the business core at the time. The CIS program seemed like a good compromise. I knew some programming at the time, but I didn’t have the academic fundamentals. I learned a lot about the basics of computer science, programming, database design, and other things you might not get from building your own products. I’m sure I’d be okay without them, but I’m really glad I have them.

Be Wary of Business Programs

If you’re into the startup scene, you’re probably going to want to avoid the business courses at your school. They’re usually designed for physical businesses or large fortune 500 companies. Some of the basics such as accounting/law are good, but there are other more efficient ways to learn the basics you need for a startup. I found that I’d often be frustrated and start saying to myself: “Why am I learning this stuff? It doesn’t apply to my specific sector of business.” It’s the same way Steve Blank says an MBA isn’t really useful for entrepreneurship/early stages of a company. MBAs were built for a different stage of a company than the startup phase. A lot of the education in undergraduate business programs are built for the same phase. Really dig in deep to the exact curriculum. Case studies are also a good way to learn in my opinion. Each school varies and some are great.

Spend Senior Year Preparing For a Full Time Startup Once Graduating

Spend the last year of college really thinking about what problem you might want to solve with a startup, full-time once you graduate. If you’ve been doing projects along the way that have been profitable, start hoarding cash like none other so you can sustain yourself for 6 months+ after graduation. Start talking with all of the connections you’ve made and start doing customer development once you know the problem you want to solve. So to re-iterate, here’s how I would go about senior year if you know you want to do a startup full-time afterwards:

1) Start making a list of big problems that you want to solve and think need solving.
2) Start narrowing them down by talking to smart people.
3) Start doing an MVP + customer development around the idea.
4) Make sure you’ve been hoarding cash from any consulting, jobs, projects,etc. that you have coming in. Prepare to live like a college student afterwards too. 6+ months is usually a good amount to have in the bank.
5) Towards the spring, start applying to YCombinator and programs like it with the concept you’ve narrowed down to. It’s hard to get in, but if you do it helps. If not, continue onwards. If failing to get into one of these programs “stops you”, then you weren’t meant to be doing the startup in the first place. You will get rejected many many many many more times, so get used to it.
6) Prepare to have a hard-working yet fun summer. Welcome to startup life.

Have Fun. You Won’t Realize What You Had Until It’s Gone

Life is so much easier as a college student. I wish I could go back and do it all again from the start, following a lot of the things I’ve outlined in this article. I jumped into startups at an early age and lost a lot of the “normal college social life” aspect too. When I went back to finish undergrad, I also had nothing, but the boring courses left. Go have fun, meet as many people as possible, learn new things, and prepare yourself to do a startup full time after you graduate. Just because you went to college doesn’t mean you won’t be Mark Zuckerberg. He just happened to start Facebook when he was in college. If he started it his senior year or a year out of school, he still might have done just as well.

Three years ago, I may have had a completely different perspective on this question. The education from mundane subjects and getting a piece of paper are the least important parts about college. It’s the combination of smaller, more important details that matter. At the end of the day, you can still be a successful entrepreneur without a college degree. There is zero doubt in my mind about that. It’s really about life chances and giving yourself as many advantages as possible. The college experience is one of them and you should at least give it a try. If you’re a current college student or thinking about whether you should go, feel free to email me . I would love to provide any help/advice/more insight that I can.

Quick Personal Update: I just started writing with Dharmesh at OnStartups.  I’m completely honored to be contributing there.  You can check out my first post: Lessons Learned From Startup Bootcamp 2010. A good portion of my writing will be going on there along with the awesome posts that Dharmesh has been delivering to a great community over the past 5 years.  You should subscribe via RSS as I’m already writing an awesome article to be released there next week.  I’m also now based in Boston and you should say hi if you live here or plan on being in town.

Real entrepreneurs ship, don’t ever forget that. An idea is worthless until it has been translated and executed into a tangible product that your potential customers can use. Getting from inception of an idea all the way to shipping it seems like a pretty straight forward process, but so is war- get guns, tanks, draw a strategy, invade, and take over. When you get caught up in the heat of a battle, I’m sure what seemed simple on the surface, isn’t so simple after all. Gunfire has a way of doing that. Shipping a product that customers want is kind of the same thing. The gunfire of confusion, resisting feature creep, and not having a defined process can make taking an idea from inception to shipping it terribly difficult. I was guilty of this with my first startup, Publictivity. Never ever again. I often get asked about the topic, so here’s the exact blueprint I follow. This is how I go about taking a product from inception all the way to shipping it as well as having paying customers lined up. I will use examples from two products I’m currently working on PadPressed (shipped, profitable, 100+ customers, and version two on its way) and Cloudomatic(flow) (early alpha testing, shipping soon for mass consumption, 150+ customers lined up for launch).

Step 1: Define The Problem

The biggest problem with ideas is the fact that they don’t really solve a problem. All too often entrepreneurs go about creating cool things that don’t solve a real problem. By defining the problem, it helps you clarify what you’re building and why. Defining the problem gives you constraints around feature creep. It lets you say “Does this feature or functionality add anything that is core to solving the problem?” You would be surprised how many features make it into products that have absolutely nothing to do with solving the problem.

Example 1: I just bought my iPad, started blogging more heavily, and wanted to make sure my blog was optimized for the tablet format. I certainly wasn’t going to make a native iPad app. At first I thought I would just modify my existing theme by removing dropdowns, increasing the size of the font,etc. Well yeah, that did not work out too well. Problem: No easy way for publishers to make their content Tablet friendly using their existing CMS (in my case WordPress).

Example 2: We created Cloudomatic.com in a weekend. Revenue model was simple: drive traffic, integrate affiliate links, make a very nice commission as SaaS has a very nice ARPU. It turns out that very few SaaS developers had an affiliate program. As former SaaS guys ourselves, we looked around and understood why: existing stuff was too complex, didn’t work with subscription services, and devs were too busy to build it themselves. Problem: No easy way for web app developers to get setup with a simple affiliate program in under an hour.

Step 2: High Level Overview Specifications and Mockups

At this point you probably know what you want to build and specifically what problem the app is meant to solve. From here you start to define the solution to the problem stated above. How will the app specifically solve this problem? What is the secret sauce? The high level specifications should be 1-2 pages at MOST. This is something that a normal human being should be able to read and define specific important features. It’s really the skeleton for the technical outline of your app. In short, it should be enough for photoshop mockups or even just wireframes created with Balsamiq.

When creating mockups and wireframes don’t focus on fleshing out every last detail or every last little screen ie- the reset password screen or some obscure settings page. Instead, pick maybe 4-5 different screens that show the key functionality of the app. You’re prepping yourself for initial customer feedback and validation, so pick the screens that are going to convince them and get the point across that your solution is solving the problem you have defined.

Example 1: With PadPressed , I spent a fair amount of time looking at the native iPad applications major publishers had put out such as USA Today, BBC, Financial Times,etc. I also had a list of specific functionality that I knew was crucial. Simple page design, large fonts, accelerometer aware, touch navigation, swiping to advance were some of them. I also defined the way that integration should work with WordPress. This was more of a technical issue, but it was also key to adoption. For mockups I basically screenshotted from my iPad, photoshopped a bunch of different things together, and also took videos of the touch interactions that were key.

Example 2: With Cloudomatic(flow) we basically locked ourselves down for an entire weekend to get through steps 1-3. I defined everything that was needed from the both the developer standpoint and the affiliate end. From there we translated that into the 4 most important separate screens that had an overview of what the app would do- overview dashboard, define payment plans coordinated with your app, and what the interface looks like for an actual affiliate.

Step 3: Initial Customer Feedback and Validation

This is a really crucial step and it might be a really depressing or exciting step. At this point you now have something that you can show potential customers to have them say: “This is interesting, I would use it and/or would pay you for it.” You should probably synthesize the simple specs into some type of sales literature or at least something a normal person can read. The mockups should be fine as is. If you’re using wireframes, just explain that this is for feedback purposes only and a very rough idea of what is being built.

Example 1: With PadPressed we kept things really rough and also took a risk by playing things close to the chest. We basically explained what the app would do in simple terms: Take your existing WordPress install, if a user accesses your blog from their iPad web browser, it behaves like a native iPad app. We highlighted major features that drove this point home and showed what were some God awful mockups. They were frankshops of many different apps we thought made sense, but it got the point across. Enough bloggers told us this would be useful and that they would pay for it. So we soldiered on.

Example 2: Cloudomatic(flow) was an interesting beast from this perspective. It went way better than we thought it would. This was a very public customer feedback/validation phase using what’s called an MVP smoke test ie- the product isn’t fully built, but gauge consumer feedback as if it is there. The goal was to see if we would get sign-ups, but we also indicated in the confirmation email that if you wanted to be fast tracked into the beta that you could email us indicating so. This let us do a few things a) see how badly some people wanted the product b) have some initial individuals we could reach out to in order to make sure we were building the most critical features first c) set priorities for sending out actual invites when the time came. The site at flow.cloudomatic.com is the same exact site, screenshots,etc. that we used for this phase if you want to see what was actually there.

Step 4: Be An Axe Murderer

Guess what? You’re probably doing too much even with the simple initial spec and mockups that you put together. Besides validating the problem and your specific solution, talking to potential customers allows you to find out which features are really crucial and which ones are nice to have. Start killing off things you don’t need right away and leave them to Version 1.1,etc., but also make sure the really important ones have a very high priority. By doing this, your app will be left to the most core and essential features. This will make it easier to get the product in the hands of your customers AND it will also make you laser focused on the things that truly matter to your customers.

Example 1: With PadPressed we kept the features that stuck with the core vision of making the app feel native as opposed to adding things that would have been publisher/blogging specific. We don’t have comments right now and probably won’t until we can do them right to integrate with the experience. We could have easily just included the comment div, but it wasn’t worth keeping a half assed feature.

Example 2: Cloudomatic(flow) is really really simple. We reduced it down to a few API calls and a Javascript embed. There are a lot of features we’ll add in the future for conversions, advanced affiliate management, reseller management,etc. We basically only went with features that focused on the core problem at hand: a) Specifically working with recurring subscriptions for SaaS b) Making integration take less than an hour for SaaS developers by reducing things to a few simple API calls. We also reduced the payout options from every provider under the sun to the most requested one: PayPal

Step 5: Detailed Specifications

Detailed specs are like your blueprint for the app, and shouldn’t be rushed. You can’t think of every scenario until you start building + testing it, but you can certainly try. When you’re working with a multiperson team, you don’t have time to wait for email responses, second guess, or hold things up. If it’s in the specs, you know where to go. It also helps keep scope creep away. My specs also include the database structure and design as well.

Example 1: PadPressed’s specs were pretty straight forward and were more of a design spec than a technical spec. The really hard part was figuring out how to make it extensible as we plan to release more themes and keep it as a plugin.

Example 2: As we’ve been building Cloudomatic(flow), we haven’t strayed a one bit from the specs or added a single feature. If there’s something we think that’s cool or should be there, we add it to the queue after we get feedback from our first customers. I divided the specs for Cloudomatic(flow) into three parts:

a) General app – this is where users/SaaS developers login to see stats, add plans,etc.
b) API Integration- how do devs integrate and how does the API work? It’s a beautiful and simple REST API.
c) Database Design- What does the data architecture look like?

Step 6: Build It

This is the fun part as things start getting built. From here, it should be pretty straight forward as you know what the app looks like and what all of the functionality looks like. The goal at this point is to have the war won before you ever fight/code it. Yes yes, there are things you cannot forsee, but for the most part, you will know what to do. You’ve also spent so much time thinking and noodling on how to build the app, that a lot of pseudocode is subconsciously in your brain.

Example 1: PadPressed went to the building phase really fast. It took about 40 days to go from 1 LOC to finished with Armando. The hardest part was redoing the touch interfaces. We originally set out to use JQTouch, but it just didn’t work well enough. Instead, we created our own JS libraries for most of the interactions.

Example 2: We’ve spent a ton of time building Cloudomatic(flow) . Honest truth? More time than I’d like. The problem with developing something that is infrastructure, especially infrastructure that deals with money comes in the form of the small minute details. Yes, you know they’re there in the specs, but actually building for them is really hard. Your API has to be designed right from the start. We thought we’d be done in 60 days, when it’s more like 150 days. Lesson learned: Make sure you keep things in the earlier steps, because they always take longer. If we had a more complicated spec and didn’t throw things out, I can guarantee you, the product would be dead in the water due to bloat creep.

Step 7: Test For Critical Mishaps Internally and With Confidants

There are bugs, then there are “holy shit this is a critical error”! It’s the difference between handing in a paper to your teacher with a spelling mistake or two and leaving out the answer to 2 out of 5 questions. Find people you trust as well as your internal team to give the app a good run for critical bugs.

Example 1: PadPressed was in testing for a good two weeks on my blog and a few other WordPress installs and only accessible if you were logged in. I just sent a tweet out and had people willing to test. People love to test iOS stuff and it usually isn’t hard to get your network to reach out. We found a major bug through this that the swipe to advance feature didn’t work in portrait mode.

Example 2: This is where we’re at with Cloudomatic(flow) right now. We’re really testing the following two things heavily: the tracking works well AND that the API integration is easy/works well. If we nail those two things town, we have the most critical things taken care of. Kevin Hale said: build as if you had to support that shit. I say: build as if you had to test that shit hardcore. The more stuff you add, the more stuff you have to test. The more stuff you have to test, the longer it takes to get to market.

Step 8: Launch It

This is where the t’s get crossed and the i’s get dotted. Make sure all the documentation is there, support is setup, and the marketing front end is good to go. If you did an MVP, you can actually use a large portion of that site as your marketing site for copy. Step 3 was all about customer feedback and validation. You should have been keeping in touch with your customers throughout re: pricing and updates. Make sure you have the merchant processing in place too. Also be ready to transition from what is most likely a development server to a production server. For more press, marketing, sales,etc. launch related/non-product stuff, I suggest reading: If you have been doing customer development along the way and planning for a launch, you will have customers on your first day.

Example 1: PadPressed was a fairly easy launch since it wasn’t a SaaS product. It was setting up the merchant account and the digital delivery that took a lot of time. The demo videos also took a couple of days as well. We had 30+ customers pay us on our first day.

Example 2: Cloudomatic(flow) will launch in the next 30 days. We have a list of 150+ interested customers and another 250 SaaS developers we’ve built relationships up with. We’re planning on modifying the existing site copy, adding in more concrete pricing details, and that’s it. Out of that list of 150+ “interested” customers, we have a handful who have already given us their billing information.

By all means this isn’t a definitive list or some sacred cannon like many people try to preach. It’s what I’ve found works really well for me as an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, I hope it serves as a nice point of reference for those technical AND non-technical who want to bring a product into the world with paying customers.  You can also follow these steps with or without funding.  We’ve gotten to where we are today without a cent of outside money, though having a little bit more manpower could have been a help once we started building the product.

Earlier this week there was a post about an entrepreneur losing 4 million dollars in sales due to his reliance upon Google as their primary sales+distribution channel.

The same problem faces Demand Media with their IPO, Zynga with diversifying beyond Facebook, and many other startups that are primarily platform plays dependent upon the mercy of the platform overlords. As an entrepreneur I find it very important to have a large diversified distribution channel for customer acquisition. The goal of this article is to outline the plethora of distribution channels that exist for startups.

Public Relations

Public Relations is a strong distribution channel due to its low cost and repeatable nature. PR certainly has a human capital cost, but can be fairly easy to execute with the right story. It can also be highly segmented ie- verticals, industries, and audiences. It can also help bring forth social proof. As seen on CNN, TechCrunch, and the New York Times will always be a seller.

Organic Search Traffic

Organic search traffic is the gift that keeps on giving. It can go away due to an algorithm tweak by Google or a simple drop in rankings. For the most part, the traffic generated by organic search traffic will stay generally the same. It may increase due to a demand for the product you’re offering, seasonality,etc. Optimizing for organic search is also a smart move as it can benefit future content that is created. Once you’re “trusted” by Google, it can help with new content you produce. Organic search traffic has a “cost” in terms of time, proper optimization, human capital,etc. but the cash outlay is much much smaller than paid search traffic.

Content Marketing

I believe content marketing is the future of customer acquisition and a cost effective, scaleable, and brandable way to acquire customers. One method of content marketing might include educational and analytical blog posts on topics related to your market. Another method might include putting together infographics and white papers that also educate your prospective customers.  Content marketing can be further enhanced with Organic Search Traffic and Social Media Marketing. Make sure you are capturing as many email addresses as possible when educating your audience for lead prospecting. Here’s why I feel content marketing is important

The content should be: educational, actionable, and full of utility. A reader should learn something and be prompted to do something they could not before.

This video from Jason Fried re: education as a customer acquisition strategy is gold.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs can be major drivers of distribution for certain products. Information products tend to do the best here, but they can be effective for all types of commerce. There are hundreds of affiliate networks to sign-up with as well as running your own. The key to many of these networks for larger scale companies is not the software itself, but the affiliates and affiliate managers. In order to attract top tier affiliates also be prepared to be flexible on your terms. Smaller affiliates will be okay with net30 payouts, but top tier affiliates may want direct wire transfers with weekly payments.

Lead Gen Programs

I can’t find the exact link, but I distinctly remember Tony Wright, Founder of RescueTime saying, “The internet was made for lead gen”. The lifeblood of any company is generating new leads and new potential customers. Once you’ve experienced it, you will be a fiend for it. Lead Gen programs allow you to pay for each qualified lead brought your way. A lead can usually be in the form of email addresses and names. If the numbers are calculated right, it can be gold

Events and Conferences

Events and Conferences are great ways to not only generate some auxiliary revenue, but they are a great way to gather + educate your prospective customers. Simple meetups with refreshments that gather your customers is one way to go about things. Another more grandiose way of going about things is throwing your own conference. Alain from Fair Software did this with Founder’s Conference . Other examples include FastCompany article

3rd Party Social Platforms

I find 3rd party social platforms to be different than a basic Twitter or Facebook implementation. 3rd party social platform usage examples include games from Zynga or Geni.com integrating as an app inside Facebook.com. Another example would be HubSpot with TwitterGrader. Integrating social platforms inside your destination is one thing, but making stand alone apps inside of sites such as Facebook is a whole other form of distribution.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing examples include personal RFPs and using Twitter for permission based promotions. A personal RFP might look something like “I need good WordPress hosting”. From this message a representative from WpEngine might reach out. Companies such as DELL have done millions of dollars in sales via Twitter with deals. Other companies including local businesses and tech startups use social media marketing as another permission based marketing channel.

Mobile Platform Distribution

Pandora increased it’s usage exponentially after the app store appeared. It almost doubled their growth overnight Don’t just think iPhone either, though that is probably the best place to start. The best companies such as Dropbox or Evernote have mobile applications across all different platforms. Android, blackberry, WinPhone7, iPad, and mobile web are all important. Every user counts and app stores are a chance to reach new users.

APIs

APIs are the new business development for the 21st century. Integrating with other companies used to require a lot of time, negotiations, and often money. Now? It just requires an API key and some imagination. Not all APIs allow for commercial access and some have a limit, but that’s a problem that can be dealt with. Dropbox just introduced their API and I’ve seen it popping up in almost every work related iPad app. I’m not sure what effect this has had on sales, but I’m almost certain it will be a big one. If I wasn’t already a Dropbox user, I would certainly check their service out.

Paid Online Advertising

Online advertising can come in three flavors: CPM, CPC, and CPA. CPM is your traditional pay per 1,000 impressions on a website. I’m not a huge fan of this and usually think it’s quite a spray+pray approach. It can be very useful when applied to the right niches and audience. CPC ads let you pay per click. This is primarily how Google makes money. You search with an intent, they show sponsored ads, and you end up clicking on one of those ads. The problem with CPC ads on Google and other sites comes in the form of click fraud. Lastly, CPA ads are billed on a Cost Per Acquisition basis. You pay the advertiser everytime a customer acquisition mechanism takes place. That usually includes a purchase, but it could also be a registration of some sort. My advice on online advertising if you are going to do it is this:

* Heavily track the funnel coming from online advertising so you know what does and doesn’t convert.
* Try to put custom landing pages in place.
* Go as niche as possible when buying ads. Find your audience. Buysellads, influads, thedeck, and federated media are great places to find very niche ads.
* Make sure the economics make sense. You can reduce anything down to cost per acquisition. ie- Buying 100,000 impressions at $2 CPM. If the lifetime value of your customer is $10, you will break even at 1 purchase per 5,000 impressions and be profitable at anything under.

Direct Sales

A direct sales channel can be very important in B2B plays where the cost of having a direct salesperson exceeds the lifetime value of the aggregate customers they can exceed. To many in the startup world, it might seem absurd to have a direct sales team, but in enterprise and b2b sales, it’s a viable channel when done right.

Business Development + Cross Sales Joint Ventures

Business development deals with similar companies that have the same customer base yet are not competitors are insanely lucrative for both sides, especially you. Find a business development partner that has the same customer base as yourself, but larger in size. By working with you they provide their customers new value and make more money as a super affiliate of sorts. Your benefit? Credibility and increased profits.

Referral Programs

Referral Programs are slightly different than affiliate programs. Referral programs are less about traditional affiliate channels and more about using your existing customers to spread word about your product. The reward can be cash, but it often comes in the form of in-app rewards. For example- Dropbox gives you 250MB for every user that signs up from your referrals. They also employ a two sided referral that rewarded the user that signed up with more storage. Gilt also has a referral program, but the reward is in cash when the user you refer makes their first purchase. Think about it like this: User X invites User Y. User Y now makes $75 purchase. User X now receives $25 free, but makes a $75 purchase themselves due to the referral reward. ($75+$75-$25)== Net win of $125 due to the reward loop even while giving away $25. This doesn’t take into account the lifetime value of User Y either.

Traditional Media

People still subscribe to cable, read newspapers, and listen to radio. If you’re trying to reach normals, not just early adopters, and establish some credibility, then traditional media is still a huge channel. Honest truth it’s bigger when it comes to PR and even ad dollars. Hard to believe, but it’s true. The problem comes down to the large up front spend that traditional media entails and the lack of true analytics that exist. If possible, I would do unique URL tracking and call tracking by building a simple app with Twilio.

New products and add-ons to existing customers

Once you have a large enough customer base, the goal should be about increasing the Lifetime Value of that customer by offering new products that make sense. Look at 37 Signals, their first products such as Basecamp and Backpack did really well. They used their existing customer base to expand their profit pools with new relevant products such as Highrise and Campfire. Don’t be afraid to look to your own customers as a source of distribution.

One distribution channel will most likely outweigh another – that’s fine. What isn’t fine is being able to answer yes to the question of: “If I lost distribution channel x, would my startup fail?” One last thing to make sure you evaluate as an entrepreneur is the customer acquisition costs and their quarterly increase/decrease. A growing, but cost ineffective distribution channel can be equally fatal. The equivalent of startup gold is a distribution channel that grows with a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) that is a very low number or zero (think viral). I will investigate these metrics more in depth in my next post “Metrics Every Startup Should Know”.

How many of these distribution channels can you check off as a startup?

If I forgot anything leave it in the comments below.

This is the second part of a two part series of posts. The first post was entitled What To Look For In A Business Co-Founder. It seems that potential technical cofounders are approached by business cofounders a lot more than business cofounders are approached by technical cofounders. I thought about why that was after writing the post. In essence, I think it comes down to the fact that it’s a lot easier to identify the tangible skills of a technical cofounder from a high level perspective. Do they code? Yes. Okay, they could be a technical cofounder. At the end of the day “being able to code” is a small piece of the technical cofounder puzzle. Here are the qualities that make sense to look for in a technical co-founder.

A past record of building things

Potential technical cofounders should have a past record of building things. They may be very large projects with hundreds of people or they may just be very simple applications that never went anywhere. Learning how to code often happens best through practice exercises. The same can be said for building an entire company or large product as a technical cofounder. The more your potential technical cofounder has built things, the more pattern recognition they will have.

A past record of building things just for the fun of it

You have to love what you do, and the same should hold true for your technical cofounder. One good way to spot this is if their past record of building things includes products that were just built for the fun of it. It might be a dinky little app or some technology demo that does something completely new. Since startups are marathons, this is a key characteristic of technical cofounders as they will be more likely endure this marathon due to their love of the game.

An Understanding of The Intersection of Business and Technology Decisions

Some technical decisions are deeply rooted in business decisions. Need to switch the DB from MySQL to CouchDB? Need to add in more viral loops above other features to increase customer acquisition? Your potential technical cofounder should understand that their technical decisions will often have a strong impact on the overall health of the startup. My belief is that startups are cyborgs- half business decisions and half technical decisions. Your startup will die if you remove one part.

A strong expertise in a specific language

It seems most technical cofounders will dabble in different languages, especially if they have been around the block for quite some time. Your technical cofounder will set the foundation for the next few years on the language that is being used and the people that will be hired to work with that language. If they are experts in one specific language they are most likely well connected within the community and have access to more talent. They will also be able to deal with the most intricate solutions possible and optimize the hell out of the specific language being used. Facebook is now using many many different languages, but there is a very strong domain expertise in PHP. That strong domain expertise allowed them to build Hip Hop, which has significantly increased the speed of Facebook as a whole. The team behind this at Facebook may not have been co-founders, but finding individuals like the team behind Hip Hop would be ideal examples of those with domain expertise in a specific language.

Also, don’t try to force a language on them because you heard from someone that it was the “in thing” or “old shit”. Maybe they want to use PHP and maybe they want to use RoR, or maybe they want to use Python. You should trust in their decision and what they are comfortable with.

// The team there actually had to be experts in both PHP and C to make this happen, but for arguments sake I’m focusing on the PHP part here.

An expertise in solving problems relevant to the domain of your startup

Are you solving something in the payment space? Then fraud detection experience is key. Building another CRM? Then having past experience at a B2B/Enterprise startup makes a lot more sense than MySpace or Facebook. Non domain expertise does not make a person a bad technical cofounder, but it certainly makes them a better one. For example, Engine Yard was well served by having cofounders that had strong domain expertise in Ruby on Rails. Maybe a strong hacker without a strong domain expertise in RoR could have learned on the fly, but I would rather have had my cofounder possess the needed domain expertise.

An ability to meet deadlines

There are two points to this attribute. The first is the ability for your cofounder to be able to not flake out and keep to their actual deadline. This comes from having previously built things and understanding how longs it actually takes to finish something. It also comes from straight up work ethic and dedication. The second point is your cofounder’s ability to have a strict cutoff for features to implement and what to “refactor”. A good technical cofounder will be able to say no to many things and put a hard stop on adding features in order to meet a deadline. Even if a technical cofounder has the ability to finish on time, they may not be estimating what’s realistic due to their inability to say no + leave things be. Taking twice as long was not due to their lack of work ethic, but the fact that they added too many things causing it to take twice as long. Many of these ideas may have even been the business cofounder’s ideas. A great technical cofounder will have the ability to tell their business cofounder no for the sake of meeting a deadline.

An ability to keep things organized

Even with one person the technical architecture, staging/development environments, code itself, and specifications can get so unorganized that many mistakes happen. An almost OCD technical cofounder with a strong attention to organization will be great early on, but crucial later on when the technical team grows. A good technical cofounder should have the following things well organized from day one:

* Development, staging, and production servers.
* Subversion/Git setup
* Strict commenting and documentation that allows new hires to get started without too much confusion.
* A clear and organized product roadmap.

An ability to prioritize

You just launched and you are being slammed with paying customers. Great problem to have, right? Yes, as long as you dont f**k it up. With those paying customers are going to come problems, support requests, and feature requests. Now it’s up to your technical cofounder to balance everything. Which fixes are most crucial? Which fixes are most crucial and also easiest to get done?

An ability to balance taking the lead and also listening to feedback

A good technical cofounder will have the ability to interact with customers and listen to them, but also know how to take the lead. Most customers don’t know what they want, but at the core of their complaints lies the true essence of a problem. A good technical cofounder will listen, find that true essence, and then come up with something truly unique that solves this problem. The feedback may not even be direct feedback from customers themselves, but from metrics.

An ability to know their weaknesses

Some developers are great designers+front end coders, and vice versa. A good technical cofounder may have to bear the burden of doing everything technically from the beginning, but they will strive to have better technical hires take over their weaknesses. This advice can just as easily apply to business co-founders, but I feel it’s easier to distinguish technical weaknesses.

A formal CS degree is a nice to have

I have a CIS degree, which is sort of like a watered down CS degree. I was required to learn many of the fundamentals of programming, database design, etc. Any real technical skills have come from being involved in building things and working with other smart technical cofounders. I will say it is certainly nice to have the academic and formal foundation in basic programming concepts. A fair amount of great technical cofounders won’t have this, but it’s certainly a nice to have.

This is by no means a definitive list or even a fully correct list. In many ways finding the right technical co-founder is a chicken and egg problem. Can a business co-founder even understand how to properly identify these points? Yes, but they need to be fairly technical themselves. The best advice for finding a technical co-founder might be: “Be Semi-Technical Yourself”

This is the first part of a two part series. The second part will obviously be: what to look for in technical cofounders. This post is something that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but after reading two nonsense articles on Hacker News this evening I was immediately prompted to write this. A startup is a lot of work and no one skillset can handle it all. When you’re bootstrapped, with little funding, and working against the clock, each individual needs to be laser focused on what they are best at. A well trained technical cofounders should be handling the engineering side of things and a well trained business cofounder should be handling the business side of things. So if you’re a technical cofounder and you need a business cofounder or have been approached by a potential business cofounder, here are the things that I would look at.

A good level of technical understanding

Too many business co-founder types have no technical understanding at all. If you’re in the software business you should understand the technical end of things, just as if you’re in the biotech business, you should have a good understanding of science. They should have an idea of how products are built, not be afraid of code speak, specifications, and architectural decisions. Startups are like cyborgs, where the technology is so interwoven with the business side of things, that separating the two out would just kill it. Make sure your business cofounder has a strong grasp on technology. They will not be able to make the proper business decisions without this.

A strong ability to communicate in copywriting and presentation

While you are writing the code behind the app and working on a lot of the design, they will most likely be preparing the sales copy, the site copy, the ad copy, and presentations that will be given at conferences/to investors. Your business cofounder should be able to strategically set the message that will be displayed. Look at Steve Jobs. He’s actually the business co-founder of Apple. Find someone who can communicate clearly with an audience and bring a strong level of passion and enthusiasm into the room.

A clear grasp of how to execute PR campaigns

Public Relations is a funny dance in the startup world. It’s essentially a sales process that requires a certain skill of persuasion. They are selling the journalist on the fact that your startup is worth writing about and unique enough that it will bring them more pageviews/interest than the other 100 companies pitching them that day. This takes practice and in some cases an innate talent for storytelling. While you are putting the final touches on the actual engineering, your business cofounder should be putting together a PR plan along with the pitch materials for the journalists themselves. +1 if your business cofounder has done this before and has relationships with journalists.

A strong understanding of operational headaches such as legal, HR, etc.

Paperwork and mundane operational stuff is such a pain in the ass. Payroll? Incorporation? Founders agreements? Fundraising details? All of these things take time and are a distraction to technical cofounders. Yes, they should be aware of what’s going on and have input, but spending a ton of time on these items is not optimal.

An ability to walk the walk with investors

Fundraising is such a hellacious pain that eats a startup’s time like none other. All cofounders should be present at pitch meetings, but the negotiations behind the scenes, constant emailing back+forth, setting terms, paperwork,etc. eats time. A good business cofounder will have dealt with investors in the past and know how to go through the fundraising process from pitch to term sheet.

A clear ability to translate user feedback and support requests into product decisions

You just launched. You now have hundreds of customers and thousands of users. Things are breaking and people are sending in requests left + right. Some are important and some are just silly. A good business cofounder knows how to deal with support and how to prioritize what problems are truly worthy of immediate attention or just things to add to the roadmap. Your business cofounder must also once again put his communication skills to good use by dealing with most support inquiries. This is also another area where your business cofounder’s tech background should come into play. By understanding the way the software works, they can start to prioritize requests. That “easy” fix might actually require a huge underlying architectural change. Your business cofounder will know this and move it down the list due to its larger than meets the eye impact.

A great filter of potential opportunities

People are going to want to partner with you, give you ideas on product direction, and who knows what else. Hell, your investors, the people that gave you lots of money will start to throw ideas at you. You can’t do them all and if you try to do them all, no matter how much you have raised, you will just drown in a pool of unfocused sorrow. You and your business cofounder have set a distinct vision, and your business cofounder must have a vicious appetite for saying no to most things that come through the door in order to preserve that vision.

A great talent scout

One person was not enough and two people will most likely not be enough. Guess what? You’re going to have to hire people and that takes a lot of time. The initial recruiting and scouting takes a ton of time. Both cofounders should be very involved in the interviewing and hiring process, but it’s the initial scouting of talent that matters. You won’t have enough money for a recruiter, so you will have to do it yourself, which is better anyway. The DNA of your first 50 employees is too crucial to leave up to someone outside the company. Your business cofounder should be a great scout of talent to build out the rest of the marketing, biz dev, and technical team (another area where being technical as a business cofounder is crucial).

A clear vision on how to develop customer acquisition methods

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: if you build it they will not come. A lack of customer acquisition methods and points of distribution is the single largest killer of startups out there. Getting a product to market is certainly difficult, but acquiring customers is even more difficult. Your business cofounder should have a clear vision for how to acquire customers. SEO and viral stuff shouldn’t be their only answer. Many customer acquisition methods include business development deals and channel partners. Your business cofounder should know how to develop those relationships.

An understanding of metrics, pricing, and A/B testing

Knowing the important metrics of your business are so key from even the early days. I’m not talking revenue numbers. I’m talking customer acquisition costs, acceptable churn, lifetime value of the customer, etc. Pricing is also an important decision making process that your business co-founder should understand. Your business cofounder should also be comfortable performing a/b testing on all of the beautiful copy he has put together.

A level of domain expertise in the business of your specific sector

Developing an enterprise SaaS company is way different than an ad supported niche consumer product. Your business cofounder should be well versed in the actual sector you’re going in to. It’s like saying an athlete should just play baseball if they play basketball. Sure Michael Jordan is a gifted athlete, but we can both agree his talents are best served in basketball. The same should be true of your business co-founder. If they are a former SalesForce employee, they would most likely be a great business co-founder for a SaaS startup. Former Facebook employee? A consumer driven application would be a good fit.

An ability to think fast

Just like you can iterate quickly on the actual product through code, your business cofounder should be able to make decisions fast. Startups have a distinct by being able to move fast. Your business cofounder should be confident and have the ability to make decisions fast. This is as true for fun decisions such as “Which investor do we go with?” as it is for not fun decisions “Do we let this person go?”

It’s possible that a hacker could do all these things, and vice versa where the business cofounder could do all the things a technical cofounder could. The problem is you can’t buy time with stock options. Focus on what you’re best at (design+engineering) and let the business cofounder focus on what he’s good at (customer acquisition, communication, and operations).  Part two on what to look for in a technical co-founder will be coming sometime soon. (Either right before or after my next article, which I’ve already started writing).

I spent a few hours at Dogpatch Labs in NYC earlier this week to catch up with an old friend and also discuss the email space with a few members of the email mafia. I only brought my iPad and my friend, Joseph, wanted to see Flipboard in action. Of course it got the usual “oohs and ahhs!”. I ended the demo with a comment of: “Yeah, not sure on the revenue model, but it’s fine they raised 10 million dollars from Kleiner”. My friend was taken back and could not believe that an iPad app that just launched raised $10 million dollars. My answer: The co-founder sold TellMe to MSFT for $800 million and the other co-founder was an original engineer on the iPhone team. At that point pattern recognition kicked in, and hence the inspiration for this article was born. There are often fundraising announcements that bewilder entrepreneurs or even plant the seed that “Oh, they raised a ton of money just like that, holy shit, I can too!” Sadly, this is often not the case as there are a good list of reasons why they raised money. These reasons are beyond the usual Brilliant team in a huge market with a killer product. These reasons also apply primarily to the angel round to initial Series A round. If made public, the valuations may also be fairly high.

They Have A Strong Track Record

Entrepreneurs with a strong track record have what I like to call “the eternal checkbook”. They not only have money in their own bank account, but they now have the ability to raise funding for any startup they would like to found in the future. Look at the founders of Skype. They were also the founders of Joost, which bombed terribly after raising money from some of the best investors in the world. Guess what? They just raised a ton of money for RDIO, which only launched to the public a week ago. Look at this comment about Josh Schachter raising money in this TC article . “Even if the company fails, someone will buy it just to get Schachter. There’s no way we lose our money.” If you’re an entrepreneur and a good offer comes around to sell your company that’s more than an “acqui-hire”, I would suggest taking a further look not only at that dollar amount, but the implications that acquisition will have for the rest of your entrepreneurial career. Be honest with yourself, it will not be your last, we’re addicted to this game.

They Are In A Very Hot Market

Social gaming? Group buying? Cloud computing? Those are some of the hottest markets of the past 12-18 months. Throw in a little bit of location based mobile “something” for good measure and you get the idea. When a market is determined to be hot, each fund will want to make some type of bet in it. The top tier funds will get in on the best startups. The lower tier funds usually have a herd mentality and will want to make a bet on someone, so the odds of just being in the hot market make it a lot easier to get funding. VC investing is a funny business as most companies fail, but are eventually accounted for with the large homerun exits.  Getting into a hot market such as Group Buying makes it seem more likely that a homerun exit could occur.

They Have A Strong Reputation Amongst The Tech Community

If you have a reputation amongst the tech community it’s going to be easier to get past the point of social proof, get introductions, and have an audience to launch your product to. Kevin Rose is a prime example of this. He launched Digg on a shoe string budget, but was able to leverage his G4 celebrity status to give Digg a boost in traffic. It also gave him the ability to get hooked up with the right group of early investors. A large portion of the investor meetings I’ve taken in my life were solely due to writing on this blog or work I’ve done in the tech community as a whole. Get out there and write, hold meetups, and make a name for yourself. Moot, who has not made much money with 4Chan was able to deploy this method when raising money for Canvas Networks.

They Are Thought Leaders With Strong Domain Expertise

What do Clara Shih and Laura Fitton both have in common (besides being awesome women entrepreneurs)? They are thought leaders in their space. Laura was already a leading Twitter consultant as well as the author of Twitter for dummies. Clara wrote The Facebook Era along with developing Faceforce while at Salesforce. I also believe Dennis Crowley is the right horse to back in the LBS wars as an entrepreneur. He has been doing this for over 6 years along with intense research during his graduate studies. He understands location based services at a product and scientific level that very few others can match. This domain expertise can also come from working at a related company in the field. Ryan Merket used to work at Facebook and has now launched an app store for Facebook pages. I would certainly back Ryan due to his domain expertise in the field. Having domain expertise is also a great way to build attention around the company as it’s a transitive property. If the founder is a thought leader on a topic, then their company in the space must also be something fairly smart.

They Are Ex-Googlers/Facebookers/PayPal Mafiosos/Other Company

Quora raised 11 million dollars from Benchmark, Friendfeed raised a large amount, and PayPal is known for feeding its offspring of former employees with funding. One way to set yourself up for funding at a later date is to be an earlyish or standout employee from a startup that became one of the major leaguers. Your founders will most likely be rich at some point and the backers of those companies will be eager to talk to you. The other option is to do a good job at a normal company and then raise money from the well to do employees there who angel invest or have gone on to the nice life as VCs.

They Have Intense Growth

Formspring went from being a form builder SaaS tool like Wufoo, to having 8 million unique visitors in a matter of a few months. Facebook did the same by starting out as a simple dorm room project that spread at Harvard and continued onwards to other campuses. YouTube continued to raise money after its first round just based on the sheer growth it was having. If you have a consumer product with intense growth, there is a good chance raising money will not be a problem for you. It’s even become a cliche amongst entrepreneurs that so many of us try to predict hockey stick like growth. Having it already? Now that’s something. Traction and intense growth is like crack for investors.

They Were Vetted By a Pre-Seed Fund

YCombinator and all the other Pre-Seed funds show their value not only in the mentorship, but in their ability to help attract capital for companies afterwards. I was talking with a VC after the W10 class Demo Day, and he told me that close to half the companies had already closed their next round of financing. That blew my mind: before even launching to the public, most of these companies had closed their next large round of financing. There needs to be a good screening of dealflow and YC seems to have that nailed down well. They’ve done this enough with well over 100+ companies, some successful exits, and have trained the entrepreneurs for months through mentorship. Along with what’s shown as a product, that’s a fairly good basis for getting funding for the next round.

They Have Strong Customer Validation

If you can walk into an investor meeting with strong customer validation it’s an easy way to refute the most important question they will ask: “but will people pay for it?” It shows that you not only have a product that people want, but a product that people are willing to pay for. When things go to the due diligence stage this will let them easily talk to actual customers and see why your specific solution is the right horse for them to back.

They Nailed The Customer Acquisition Model aka Printing Money

Everyone thinks they should just raise money because all the cool kids are doing it. The cool kids are doing it for the reasons outlined above. Odds are you’re not one of the cool kids and you can’t just raise money like that. A real basis for raising capital comes from accelerating growth and adding fuel to the customer acquisition model. If your company has a profitable customer acquisition model down that’s proven along with a handle on churn then raising money becomes the equivalent of printing money. Put a dollar in, get some multiple of it back, and lock the market up. Rinse, repeat, profit, and exit.

They Have A Truly Unique Product Solution

Some products go above the call of duty. They are technical masterpieces with a secret sauce that makes them an obvious choice to back. I would say this point is often addressed in highly technical businesses. I look at companies like Cloudera as one example. Think of companies where you have said “holy crap, how do they do that?” and now you will understand why they were able to bag funding.

They Are Founders So Smart You Cannot Ignore Them

My friend Brian Wong was able to raise 200k from True Ventures a few weeks ago. Sam Altman did the same at a young age with Loopt. Throw in others like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. You get the picture. It’s hard to see this through press articles or even conference interviews, but some founders are so good you cannot ignore them. They are that bright and the type of individual that a VC/Angel will want to back. It might be part charisma and part technical chops.

Many founders meet multiple attributes on this list, so it’s often a combination of these attributes that become the reason why “they” got funded. I also hope this list serves as some type of water on the face effect for new entrepreneurs. Too often the tech press makes it seem like a piece of cake to get funding. It’s not. Most of the attributes listed above take time to develop, but any entrepreneur can develop them overtime (and should).

If you’re an entrepreneur looking to change the world it all seems to start with a simple little idea. It may seem as if the idea sprung up instantly, but it’s most likely a compilation of building blocks. Over the course of history new building blocks become available, which allow us to build companies that weren’t possible before. The crucial part to changing the world as an entrepreneur is to use these new building blocks to build what had previously not been possible. When looking at an idea it’s useful to ask yourself: “Would it have been possible to build this company 12-18 months ago?”

Over the past 18 months I’ve noticed an immense new set of building blocks emerge that will define the companies that shape our world over the next decade. In discussion with fellow entrepreneurs I’ve started to call these building blocks “The Future Stack”. Some may be obvious and some may be immature. The key is not to look at them alone, but look at them as pieces that can be put together to create something truly fascinating.

Location Aware

Not only will phones be location aware, but devices such as tablets and even laptops will be location aware. The introduction of HTML5 allows modern browsers to use location as contextual information. Most phones and 3G tablets will have built in GPS capabilities, which allow for pinpoint accuracy. Companies such as SimpleGEO or MixerLabs allow applications to now have access to rich location aware data at a reasonable price. Any application you build can now be aware of its location and most importantly the context around it: people, places, events,etc.

Synced Data

The Kindle app from Amazon and Dropbox are early parts of this vision. If I read a book on my actual Kindle, pick it up on my iPhone, and finish it on my desktop PC, it will have synced my location+bookmarks effortlessly. Dropbox also allows the same to occur with file storage. The “different data on different devices” syndrome is now a thing of the past as the ability to have synced data exists. When building an application, you should think across all screens (laptops, tablets, ereaders, phones, tvs,etc.), but most importantly you can now build the same data across all devices.

Social Context

Having Facebook Connect or seeing which Twitter users you follow on an app used to be something to tout as an innovation. Now this is becoming the standard. With 500 million users and growing, Facebook has built a very important part of the future stack. They allow applications to be built with an automatic social graph. If you think back to even three years ago, each new application would have to recreate your social graph. That was a huge barrier to entry and point of friction. Facebook isn’t the only player here. Messages from Twitter and professional information from LinkedIn provide additional insights into who a person is. If you combine the three together, you start to get the social context of who a person is. From day one, an application can have access to the full social context of who a person is and who resides within their social graph.

Two billion dollar+ companies, Zynga and GroupOn, may not have been possible without Facebook.  The same model as GroupOn had been tried with Mercata, but ultimately failed back in the Web 1.0 days.  GroupOn could still meet the same fate, but it doesn’t seem likely.  Their ability to get to where they are today can be heavily attributed to Facebook.

Touch Over Click

The world is moving towards touch interactions, even on the desktop with devices such as the Magic Mouse. This requires redefining the interfaces we build (ie- no dropdowns/hovering), but it’s certainly for the better. This is also a much more intimate form of interaction for a user as there is no boundaries between their physical action and what happens on screen. If I swipe a piece of content, it automatically transitions to the next article or if I touch a link on a page it automatically changes. It used to be the user’s physical presence => the mouse => the gui. Now there is a direct relationship between the user

Say Cheese!

Not only do phones have rear facing cameras, but they are now starting to have front facing cameras. Over the past three years webcams have become the standard on laptops allowing for cheap video conferencing and self expression via apps such as Daily Booth. My hunch is also that Microsoft Kinect type interactions will come to all devices in the next five years as well. Check out some of these demos to see what is possible today in that respect.

http://www.extendedreality.com/webcam_game_motion_bubbles.html
http://www.urdalen.com/lab/motiondetector/
http://nocreativity.com/blog/webcam-motion-detection-coolness

These are just simple demos. I’ve seen some more advanced ones as well. We may soon see Minority Report type interfaces much sooner than later.

Transactions <= .99

Microtransactions used to be a pain in the ass. The fees were high and it was often unprofitable for developers. Small transactions are now possible with the new PayPal X API, Mobile payments via Venmo, Amazon FPS, and many more. Virtual goods are one part of the micro-transaction trend, but content whether it is music, video, or text easily fit into this category. Users are now trained to pay .99 for something. Use that to your advantage.

Assume The Device Is Portable

Desktop computers will be around for a while, but my belief is to make a bet on what is emerging, not declining. If you are building an application, assume the device that they are on will change location and frequently. My phone changes location multiple times a day, with my iPad and laptop following. Portable also means able to last a long time due to low power consumption and better developed batteries.

Zero Delay Information Flow

The point in which a user would access information used to have a significant delay. Go back a century and it was measured in days due to the lack of widespread telephone usage. Go back a decade and it was measured in hours. Devices weren’t portable, email wasn’t always-on/always connected, and SMS did not have widespread adoption. Also throw in push notifications and real time updates from applications such as Twitter. The delay of information received by a user is almost impossible to measure and probably somewhere in the average range of seconds. Think of it like this: If 9/11 happened in 2010, how much different would it have been? The delay of information flow would have made it a completely different experience for the general public. I remember the day perfectly, as I lived 20 minutes outside NYC + my high school lost 8 alumni that day. It took forever to know what was going on as the channels of TV and Radio weren’t fast enough. The web wasn’t ubiquitous and the ability to publish as fast as today was not there.

Scaleable To Billions

1 million users used to be something to celebrate as if you were king of the world. It then became 10 million users. Now we’re at the point where many companies are making 100 million users the new 1 million users. Facebook is at 500 million ACTIVE users and I’m certain it will grow to cross 1 billion. Even if you’re a service with 50 million users, the amount of records and data per user will put you in the range of scaling “something” to billions. With computing resources such as AWS available as a utility and the NoSQL Movement it is entirely possible at a reasonable cost.

Always Connected

I remember the first day I had High Speed Internet in high school. It was a world of new possibilities. What took 20 minutes, now took a minute. Sadly, I was limited to my desktop computer. Then I remember my first smart phone type device. It was before the blackberry and called the AOL Communicator. I now had access to my email and ims anywhere. Sadly, I was limited to my ims and email. I remember May 16, 2010. That was the day I picked up my iPad 3G. I now had high speed access to anything, anywhere I went (ATT actually works well for me). With 4G popping up in various cities across the country, it’s fair to assume that the dream of ubiquitous high speed internet is not too far away. The phone in my pocket has infinitely faster Internet than my desktop computer from ten years ago. I know many people are still sadly stuck without broadband, but it’s coming and soon I hope. Regardless of that timeline, it is now possible for your app to follow your users wherever they go.

Zero Barrier Distribution

Getting initial traction used to be really hard and really costly. If you were a creative type you needed a record label and if you were an app developer, you need to cut deals with portals. All of that is gone now. Artists can do most things themselves and distribute with tools like tunecore and CDBaby. Writers can self publish to the Kindle or sell print copies via LuLu. App developers can place their mobile apps in the Android and/or iTunes app store.

Everyone can leverage the power of social. If something is good enough, it can be seen by hundreds of thousand of people for a cost of almost nothing due to the accelerant that is social sharing. In the past month, this site alone has been viewed by over 70,000 people. I haven’t spent a single dime on marketing and don’t plan to. Good content with the right distribution now makes it possible to be heard. You don’t need a record deal or a Series A round to be heard.

Anything As a Service

Recurring revenue through Subscriptions is a beautiful thing. Netflix has toppled Blockbuster with it, and it’s starting to change the software world as well. The thing is, it’s not limited to digital goods. https://www.bagborroworsteal.com/g/member PThe infrastructure for turning anything into a service is now possible due to the likes of companies such as Recurly, Chargify, and Zuora.

HD is the Standard, Not Exception

I remember when I first watched a DVD movie. It was ~1998 and I had just received a black Compaq Presario with a 17 inch CRT monitor + DVD drive. I was floored with excitement and bought the first DVD I could find, Scream 1 (Yes I know, horrible choice.). Now high definition video has become the standard. My phone can record 720p video and studio quality 1080p cameras are affordable for even the most amateur film maker. All major video sharing sites now support HD Video, with YouTube now supporting up to 1080p video. Two years ago I remember complaining that I couldn’t find a good provider to upload a 720p demo video to. All new monitors/TVs do 720p now, with most doing 1080p. Easy to create HD video, easy to deliver it, and easy to consume it.

Ala Carte

It used to be that you had to buy the entire album or the entire season on DVD. Now the great big bundle is being broken up and replaced with customers being able to choose what they want. Only want these features? Sure. Only want the three good songs? Sure. Only want the two episodes you missed? Sure!

Direct Access To Customers

It used to take a long time to get through the feedback loop with customers. Maybe you had their email addresses, otherwise you would have to conduct expensive research sessions. Now you can not only talk with existing customers, but with potential customers as well. Want to get feedback from 24-32 year old women that are single in NYC? Try targeting some facebook ads. Want to engage anyone talking about Django? @ message them. Want to talk to your existing customers? Skype them, send them Wufoo surveys, or even do an visual heatmap test for a fraction of the cost.

On the flipside, a shit storm can erupt very fast and you have to be even faster to respond to it. There’s certainly a downside, but if you’re built upon a culture of customer service, you can actually contain the outbreak way faster than you could before.

I have a certain sensation these points are just the ones scratching the surface. There are most likely a fair amount that I overlooked, and maybe even some that shouldn’t be on the list. Would you like to see me constantly update this piece/turn it into a short psuedo-book with more editing/examples/interviews with companies,etc.? If so, email me j@jasonlbaptiste.com

Use the building blocks above that make sense to you, stop building what was possible yesterday, and start building what wasn’t possible yesterday. It’s what moves society forward.

You’ve probably heard the cliched phrase “If you build it, they will come.” More importantly, I would like to counter that with an even more important cliched phrase “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” In the web and entrepreneurship community there’s this misconception that “launching” a product ensures long term success. It doesn’t. Launching is really just a small period of time where a lot of initial attention is drawn to the product. You should certainly be proud of getting yourself to the point of launching to the public, but the real battle is won before and most certainly continuing the marathon race for years after your initial launch.  Just because you’ve built an app does not mean they will simply come and keep on coming.  The following is a good overview of some of the things entrepreneurs should be doing before, during, and after their product launch.

Pre-Launch

Customer development - From the very first day that you decide the idea will become a reality you should immediately start doing initial customer development. This makes sense for building the right product, but it also gives you a strong list of customers to go to when the product launches. The early potential customers that you talk to will also be some of your warmest leads at first due to their input into the product, which means it may be a very good fit for them when it launches. Think about it this way: if you talk to 50 potential customers before you launch, that automatically gives you a close relationship of 50 people to talk to at launch who will also help spread the word.

Build in viral loops from line 1 - Most startups don’t have a large custom acquisition budget, if any at all. It usually amounts to PR, business development, and things with a dollar value that is close to zero. One of the greatest results of the social web is the ability for viral loops to transform customer acquisition to a dollar amount that approaches zero. Perfecting your viral coefficient and viral loops isn’t just adding in a few share or like buttons, it’s a pretty in-depth process that requires commitment from day one. It’s a significant multiplier to your other customer acquisition efforts such as PR. Think of it like this: X = initial users drawn in from your first press launch and other efforts and Y= your viral coefficient. By having the right viral hooks in place, you can heavily multiply your initial efforts. Note: this usually applies to consumer startups way more than SaaS.

Build a relevant audience- This might be through your company such as what Mint did with its Mint life blog + I want my mint badges. It might also be through the brand of one of the cofounders such as what Kevin Rose did with Digg by giving it a showoff on TechTV. Numerous other web personalities have done this such as Joel and Jeff from Stack Overflow. Even if you’re not thinking of doing a startup right now, start building an audience for yourself by writing and interacting. Odds are the domain expertise you build up over the years will translate into some startup in that sector, and the audience you’ve built will be highly relevant. If you are a current startup, you should be actively teaching+sharing some knowledge that is relevant to your market.

The slow reveal - Start showing off teasers of the product before you launch it. It might just be a piece of a screenshot, but it has to be something. If you’re building an audience up and talking to the world about your super wonderful startup, you need to keep the faith that the product isn’t just Vaporware. The slow reveal will help the world believe that you’re delivering on time and continue to get them excited. Bungie does this very well with their games by revealing levels, features, and more every few weeks.

Beta user testimonials- Aside from initial customer development, your product has hopefully had contact with a fair amount of beta testers. That number varies from startup to startup, but it should certainly be > 0. Hopefully, these beta testers will give you testimonials that you can use as social proof when launching.

Build an email list- You know my obsession with email from previous articles. Email is permission marketing in its greatest form. With all of the early customer development, blogging, product revealing, etc. that you do, always try your hardest to capture an email address. Don’t let it be an afterthought. Think of it this way:

-100 people talked to for customer development
-500 beta testers
-4 hot articles per month netting 100 email addresses each for 3 months before launch (1,200 total)
-Your design is inspiring, so the slow product reveals net 1,000 more email addresses
——————-
2,800 relevant users on day one without doing any press.

Actual Launch Period

Segment your press list - All pitches were not created equally. You can’t be lazy when it comes to pitching and what works for the tech press doesn’t work for the mainstream press. Your product probably has some additional niche aspect to it. It might be Apple press since it’s an iPhone app or it might be the education press since it’s an education application.  Spend time on your pitch emails, be personal, be concise, and send enough resources for the writer.  Videos are great.

Have a date nailed down in advance - You should have a date nailed down for when the app is a golden master and you should have a separate date that is a little bit further in the future for doing the actual press launch. Don’t just say: we’re done developing+testing, let’s pitch some press. Have a set day to work towards and give yourself enough breathing room to execute well. Also check your calendar for any other major upcoming events. New apple product launching? Major conference with 50 product launches? Wait a few more days.

Embargoes Will Be Broken - You have an embargo? Aren’t you special. Guess what? Bloggers have pageviews to earn and breaking the story gets them more of them. Once the embargo is broken by one, then it’s just an absolute free for all. Make sure you are rock solid and ready to flip things on before pitching journalists. The embargoes usually stay quiet enough in advance, but things are fair game 24 hours beforehand, especially a few hours beforehand. Embargo breaking highly depends on how important, special, and hyped the product is. If you did the things listed in the pre-launch section, bloggers will want to break your embargo.

Try to coordinate with an event- This could simply be a conference you’re speaking at or something bigger like a TC Disrupt, DEMO,etc. Hell it could simply be a tech meetup that 100 close people from the tech community will be at. Doing your launch on stage in front of as many people as possible creates way more attention than sitting by yourselves in a room. Just make sure the logistics of the team are taken care of beforehand. Whoever makes sure things stay stable through the influx of traffic, shouldn’t be worrying about delivering a talk.

Giveaways- People love free stuff and those with a hungry audience love to give stuff away even more. Identify key influencers and give them samples/invites/premium accounts/etc. for your product to give away. It’s a win win situation. You get users and they get to give their audience something valuable.

Post Launch

Release Often- Yay! You launched your product and things are going well. That Techcrunch bump and spike will start to die down though. Hopefully your attention to viral hooks have allowed the userbase to grow nicely since then though. Get prepared to go through the whole launch process all over again every quarter, but on a smaller scale. Keep releasing new improvements, features, and reasons for people to talk about you. Twitter is the extreme example here, but every little change they make is tracked by the press. If you listen heavily to your customers they will also heavily market your new releases ie- “OMG Widget Corp added that new feature we’ve been waiting forever for!” Apple does this almost to the point that it’s evil. They could have put Copy and Paste in version 1.0 or 2.0 of iOs. The hardware was capable of doing it and I’m sure the engineers knew exactly what the solution was. Why did they wait though? Simple. It gives them a major expected feature for their audience to anticipate and talk about when they launch it.

Analytics reveal new markets- Starting to notice your userbase consists of a lot of women between the ages of 24-32? Never expected that, eh? That’s okay and actually awesome. That means you should now start trying to gain some press and do some business development deals that attract more of that audience. It’s like a silver platter of growth. Your analytics show this market segment makes sense and now all you have to do is target them specifically.

Business Development- Biz dev can be the eternal sandtrap that never delivers anything. That’s best left for another post. What you should do is take the traction you’ve now hopefully gained to prove you’re legit and find those who have a similar audience yet not competitive. Keep the deals simple and easy to execute.  In short, find other companies that have users that you would like to also be users of your product.

Integrate Affiliate and Partner Programs-  Either build it yourself or use Cloudomatic(flow).  It’s not just a software problem, but also a time problem.  If you integrate an affiliate program along with a referral system, you need to constantly promote it and monitor it.  People will game it, try to cheat you, and more.  With that said, it can account for a serious amount of revenue.  Just ask GetClicky, which reveals the power of their affiliate program on Mixergy.

Platform Expansion- The iPhone has been the largest source of growth for Pandora, which was already a hot startup before then. Don’t worry about getting your app on all platforms before your first launch. Gradually start expanding how people can interact from your app on different platforms (iPhone, Android, iPad, Boxee, Blackberry, Desktop app, Facebook, Twitter,etc.)

API - If it makes sense, which I hope it does, making an API available for your app can do wonders for growing your userbase. People will start tying your application as a value add. If 100 apps each with 20,000 users integrate your app via API, you have now been exposed to 2 million new potential users. I’ve been seeing the dropbox API integrated into every iPad/iPhone productivity suite as of late. I have a hunch they are going to grow heavily with the introduction of their API.

SEO/SEM/Social Advertising is your friend- Advertising might not make any sense for your company. You might not be able to do it with the proper scale due to cashflow issues. With that said, your other argument might be “Oh, but my app is viral. Advertising is a waste” Zynga is viral, right? Guess what? They are one of Facebook’s largest advertisers. Groupon is viral right? They’re also another large advertiser on Facebook. Even if you’re not a content or consumer play, SEO is still your friend. Patrick explains this well in a recent presentation Bonus: Patrick left a great comment here on HN with more advice. Read it, he knows way more than I do on this specific topic.

When I started writing this post I had an intro, pre-launch, actual launch, post-launch, and closing h2 tags. I filled in the different points in between, and quickly realized the list for pre and post launch far outweighed those for the actual launch period, which seems to be about right. The real work isn’t that short launch period, but the work beforehand + continued work afterwards.  These are just some of my initial thoughts. I’m just over 2,000 words and only scratching the surface.  Someone could literally write a book on the topic.

ps- speaking of a launch, you should probably check back in here tomorrow afternoon for a small surprise.

“If you were the inventors of facebook, you would have invented Facebook”- Mark “Jesse Eisenberg” Zuckerberg

If you’re in the tech scene you have most likely seen the theatrical trailer for The Social Network, a movie with a semi-sensational edge on the founding of Facebook. The quote above really stuck out at me, and made me realize stealing an “idea” is a lot like stealing a snapshot. Even if someone steals your precious idea, they can’t steal the more important resources+skills that aren’t apparent in the context of that very small snapshot. Focus on the things unique to you that your competitors cannot steal:

They cannot steal your long term vision: Craigslist started in SF, Facebook at harvard, Google with only millions of pages, and Microsoft started as a basic interpreter. Everyone has a minimum viable market. The real question is: ” What is your long term vision?” Your long term vision and the path that gets you there cannot be stolen. When someone tries to steal your idea, they usually just steal the current market you’re going after. Could you have imagined ConnectU having a vision like that of the Facebook platform like Mark did? I doubt it.

They cannot steal your domain expertise: Truly great ideas are organic and usually come through your own experiences. Marc Benioff started salesforce after years of understanding the business software space by working at Oracle. Many other startups are born through founder’s frustrations with processes in areas they have domain expertise in. This deep understanding, especially in vertical and/or very specific engineering cases can only come through first hand experience.

They cannot steal your market failure driven pivots: The successful version of your product or eventually products will certainly look different than the idea someone stole, which was likely in the napkin phase at the time. After they steal your initial idea a fork in the road is formed by the pivots and failures that you go through. Someone who actually has the balls to “steal your idea” will be so blindly in love with it that they will most likely be closed to feedback which may alter it.

They cannot steal your talent (at this point): Do you think the Winkelvoss twins could have recruited the tech team that is in place at Facebook today? It takes a certain class of founder to attract top notch talent. Many think that they can just outsource the development work overseas or have someone write copy for $10 an hour to make things sell. That’s just foolish. If you surround yourself with insanely smart people you trust in the early days they cannot be stolen. If they can, then you picked the wrong people to be cofounders. Only when you’re beyond the idea stage does poaching from similar companies become a problem.

They cannot steal your analytical insights: The data you collect in your early days is so very important and for the most part so very unique to your exact concept. Track every click, every conversion, and every complaint from a user. Find out what is working and most importantly what isn’t working. People trying to steal your idea will think that pixels are there just because they look pretty in that place or that those exact words were there because they sounded smart. What they don’t know is that every pixel and every word in place has meaning through rigorous analytical insights.  Here’s a great post that scientifically explains a lot of the analytics and metrics you should be tracking.

They cannot steal your plans for generating revenue: You can break down most revenue models on the Internet down to their simplest form as either advertising based or charging for something. The real value comes from the details. Who are you charging? How much? What type of ads are you running? Why can you charge that rate? Why does it convert? The most someone can steal is your pricing page or your rate card. They can’t steal the endless testing, customer development, and insights behind those numbers. You should almost hope they play follow the leader here. When it comes time for your competitors to change these numbers, they won’t know what to do. You’ll be far far ahead before they realize what to do.

They cannot steal your passion for great service: Shoes. Fucking Shoes. No. Fucking great customer service. That’s what Zappos sells. If someone tried to steal the idea for Zappos over a decade ago they would have probably said: “Let’s set up an ecommerce shop for shoes. Those Zappos guys are making a killing. It’s a great idea!” What they would have missed is the passion for great customer service. Do you think someone trying to steal the idea for Wufoo would steal the concept to write thank you notes to customers? I doubt it.

They cannot steal your passion to make this idea a reality: People stealing ideas are often followers. They are a product of the passion and vision you have displayed to them. They may often get passionate about the idea for a few days, but that passion will surely fade almost instantly once they realize the difficulties that lie ahead. Since an idea is just a snapshot, they will often lose passion/energy once they find themselves lost as to what lies beyond that one snapshot.

They cannot steal your luck: Luck is a funny thing.  It’s a weird multiplier of success.  It just happens (or doesn’t happen) to startups.  It might be the difference between very little money or a whole lot of money.  When it hits, boy is it sweet.  You can’t steal luck.  It’s like a ghost that you can only faintly see in the photograph afterwards.  If someone tried to steal it, they would probably be grabbing at air.

Be open with your ideas (Chris Dixon gives good insight here).  I suggest sharing your ideas in a blog post to solicit feedback.  It worked well for me.  They will change by the time they become real businesses.   Don’t worry about someone stealing the idea, worry about the things they cannot steal.

/* First off, this is not a fanboy piece. Apple’s successes do not depend on others having to fail. The other companies mentioned below such as Microsoft, DELL, and Google are doing pretty well. I have no intentions of starting a flamewar or Android/PC/Google/etc. debate. */

Everyone seems to think Apple is superhuman with a magical business crystal ball. When they launch a new product (okay, iPod Hi-Fi not included), it’s usually a true hit amongst consumers. If you look at Apple’s strategy it’s actually pretty simple and straight forward. The real key is Apple’s ability to stick to this simple strategy with unwavering dedication. Here’s what I feel is the key to succeed like Apple with your own startup:

You don’t need to be the first: Apple lets others Fail first. The Diamond RIO and many others existed before the iPod, PC manufacturers have been doing tablets for years, and RIMM was worth tens of billions of dollars when the iPhone was just a rumor on Gizmodo. First mover advantage is great, but it can often be a detriment. It’s sort of like buying a new model of a car the first year its available. Its nice to have it first, but you will probably have to deal with all the unforeseen problems. Let someone else be the guinea pig.

Often the first to get it right: When Apple does release a new product or even feature they are usually the first to get it right in terms of usability. They let other companies fail first and listen in on why they failed with crystal clear clarity. Look at the original iPod. They knew other MP3 players existed, but they found the benefits that people really wanted (small form factor like a Diamond RIO with the storage space similar to that of a Nomad).  John Gruber explores this concept in-depth in what happens to be one of his best articles imho.

Speak in soundbites: “Thousands of Songs. In your pocket.” “A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price”  ”This changes everything. Again” Remember these phrases? Some are old and some are only months old, but they certainly stay with you over time. Apple makes sure that the message is delivered in a soundbite that a reporter or someone telling their mom can deliver in 5 seconds or less with extreme clarity. There’s always more to tell, but it’s a hell of an opener. It sets the tone for why the product matters.

Benefits are primary, features are secondary: Let’s go back to the Thousands of Songs in your pocket example.  That’s a benefit.  I now have all of my music in my pocket.  If Apple had used 5GB of space, that would be a feature.  Apple puts benefits before features and technical specs.  They emphasize the benefit of a technology.  Battery life in terms of work hours, storage in terms of music hours/total photos, etc.  Talk to your customers in terms of benefits.  Things like security, the ability to hold more stuff, work longer, and work faster are things they understand.  GHZ, MPs, GBs, and 48X are just confusing.

Keep the number products you offer low: Tim Cook said that every product Apple makes can fit on the small table at their annual shareholders meeting. Think about that: 200 billion dollar+ market cap company, which produces physical products can fit all of them on a small table. Could you imagine Asustek or HP fitting all of their products on one table? Doubtful.  They have a million different products with a million different configurations.  It’s overwhelming for the consumer.  Another way to look at apple’s simplicity in its product offerings can be seen with the introduction of the Original iMac. Steve used a 2×2 grid. Their computers are divided into laptops and desktops, each with a pro or consumer version. iMac, Mac Pro, Macbook, and Macbook Pro. That’s it. (They have since added the Mac Mini and Macbook Air. I don’t know where they exactly fit and that may be the reason why Apple sells less of these products than others). Before Steve returned to Apple, their computers used weird model numbers like Asian manufacturers. Things were a mess.

Be as proud of what you say no to than what you say yes to: Everyone wanted a Newton2 or a Netbook, but Apple wouldn’t give it to them. It just didn’t fit into their vision or where they were going.  As an entrepreneur, your customers, investors, friends, and even random strangers will want you to do things that may sound exciting and even lucrative.  That doesn’t mean you should do them. It’s hard and it’s tempting, but learn to say no way more than you say yes.  It will keep you focused and within the confines of your vision.  Here’s one of the many examples Steve exercises this belief too.

Have a consistent and polished style/user interface: Applications on the Mac or the iPhone are just a pleasure to use. Mac devs might be more UI/Designer centric than Windows devs, but I don’t have any data to back it up. Instead I’d like to attribute it to Apple’s strict human interface guidelines. You know how an iPhone app should act or how a Mac app will work. Many of the icons are similar, the interaction gestures work consistently, and the overall look of the app makes you say: “This is an application made for an Apple device.”

Don’t Design By Committee: Another interesting tidbit from the most recent D Conference was Steve Jobs’ comment that Apple was the largest startup on the planet and that there were no committee. Apple puts the company first and foremost, not individual people.  No one person, even Steve himself, is above Apple.

Don’t compete on price: Apple has never been one to compete on price. The recent low pricing of the iPad seemed to shock people, but starting at $499 for the lowest spec’d version makes it a very high priced netbook (My belief is that the iPad does what Netbook were set out to do: portable, web centric, and always on internet). When you talk Apple with others there’s a good chance you’ll hear: “BUT THEY ONLY HAVE < 10% OF THE MARKET.” That thinking is short sighted. Apple has 90%+ of the premium computer market (machines costing >$999). They make BMWs, not Fords.

Have a Clearly Defined Leader: Everyone knows Steve Jobs is the leader of Apple in the same way everyone knows Mark Zuckerberg is the leader of Facebook and Tony Hsieh is the leader of Zappos  It’s a face and a personality that people can associate with your brand.  It keeps things personal.  People want to know that someone is calling the shots and can be identified with inside of the organization.  Do you know who the CEO of AT&T or Comcast is?  I didn’t for quite a while, and I think that reflects back on to their culture.

Always recognize Your Team: Take a look at any major product announcement.  At the end of the announcement, Steve always thanks the team leaders and usually asks those who worked on the product to stand up.  Believe it or not, but you know many of Apple’s supporting cast of leaders quite well:  Phil Schiller, Jonathan Ive, Tim Cook, etc.

Deliver exceptional service: Everyone always asks me why I pay so much more for a Mac.  The main reason beyond the quality of the software and hardware?  The service.  I’ve had products break that were out of warranty or things just go wrong.  Every single time Apple has replaced them or done well by me.  They certainly didn’t have to.

Educate Your Users: Apple also spends a ton of time making sure users are educated.  Whether it’s why you should switch from a PC or how to use iPhoto, they make sure that you have a way to get educated.  It might be through the 1to1 service for only $99 or showing up for a free class in the Apple Store.  I can’t think of a single OEM that does that for their user in a clear and concise way.  Maybe it’s the lack of a dedicated retail presence from guys like DELL or HP, but there would be other ways to accomplish this.  They could easily replace some of the crapware with a free trial to Lynda.com with a dedicated HP section.

Real artists ship: Apple is a culture of shipping products out the door. The routine is pretty clear now: January is iPad/completely new product reveals (formerly Macworld time), later Winter is iOS preview, June/WWDC is new iPhone reveal with a launch a few weeks later, and Fall is iPod/iTunes update time. They usually don’t waver and they don’t stray from this schedule.

Only make a product you would give your friends+family: For a while everyone kept asking: “When is Apple making a Netbook?” The constant response would be: We don’t know how to make a computer for the price of a netbook we would be proud of. It’s just not in our DNA. It’s not something we would give to our friends and family. That’s a great rule of thumb for building a product: Is this something you would be proud enough to give to your friends+family as a Christmas gift?

Evolutionary “Porsche like” improvements: Look at this photo. It shows all four versions of the iPhone. Even the iPhone4, which is considered a huge leap forward, is still an evolutionary improvement. Take a look at the original Macbook Pro from many years ago. It still resembles the current unibody model. This reminds me of the Porsche strategy. You know a Porsche when you see it, and its design is still very similar to Porsches from over 50 years ago. The design is timeless due to evolutionary improvements.

Throw events: Marc Benioff likes to use this strategy with Salesforce in order to create buzz and it obviously works well for Apple.  The world has grown accustomed to watching Apple events and can expect products to be delivered there.  Apple funnels everyone’s emotions into one high impact event that is well thought out and coordinated.  Facebook has started to do this with F8 along with SalesForce’s annual dreamforce conference.  Throwing events lets you connect with developers and your customers, along with coordinating launches to the public.

Build mystery: Apple has been cultivating the press and building a culture of mystery with PR since its early days with Regis McKenna.  A leak is akin to a black swan event that could have never been expected and usually attributed to shit just happening (or leaving a phone at a bar while drunk).  Rumors fly rapidly for months before and Apple goes to great lengths to keep its products secret.  Build mystery and let your customers+the press anticipate what you’re about to deliver.  Business should be part showmanship.

Every pixel is guilty until proven innocent: Less is certainly more and every last design cue and pixel should have meaning.  Unless it adds something and fits in, it should not be there.  Start removing things from your product and ask yourself and your users:  ”Without this, does the product lose value?”  You will be surprised at how much just doesn’t matter.

In late 2009, I wrote an article about the fascinating and very lucrative business behind email newsletters.  In the world of Twitter, Foursquare, and Tumblr, it’s not the sexiest of businesses.  In the past 9 months, a ton has happened in the space.  New entrants have emerged and past entrants are doing even better.  Let’s take a look:

Help A Reporter Out (HARO)-  A few weeks ago HARO sold to Vocus for a reported 8 figure sum (I’ve heard 20 million).  That’s right, a boostrapped email newsletter went from starting out as a facebook group, to email newsletter, to $1 million+ in revenue, and then a huge acquisition.

Thrillist-  This is my favorite out of the group due to their new strategy: mixing commerce with content.  Thrillist purchased JackThreads a couple of months ago in order to further monetize their audience and provide value.  More importantly, Thrillist is officially on record to be doing $10 million+ in sales this year along with 2 million+ subscribers.

Since then a few new and interesting players have come into the field, including many that have been funded by Bob Pittman:

GeekChicDaily-  GeekChicDaily was founded by the original founder of Wizard magazine and other publishing vets.  It caters to a crowd I’m familiar with: Geeks.  I have a list of verticals that I felt needed to be tackled, and this was one of them.  They’re doing well with a claimed 425,000+ opt-in readers, along with a nice round of funding from Bob Pittman and others that totals 1.5 million dollars.

DailyWorth-  I found out about Daily Worth from its founder, Amanda Steinberg, when I asked Quora for other verticals for email newsletters.  It is a daily email newsletter for women focused on the topic of personal finance (talk about lucrative market).  Forbes even called it one of the top 100 sites for women on the net. She already has 40k+ subs (and growing), along with an angel round of 250k.

Letter.ly-  Letter.ly is a new service from the founder of Drop.io, Sam Lessin.  The point is simple:  create a premium subscription newsletter.  Letter.ly is somewhat different from the daily content based newsletters without a price attached, but it still has the same belief:  email is a lucrative and focused channel to distribute content on.  Sam explains a lot of this on his last “blog post“.  Darren Herman makes an interesting argument against Sam’s move, but also brings up another interesting point:  Since I pay for the content, I find it to be more valuable.

Daily Deal Sites-  This would have to be the huge elephant in the room.  This space is absolutely killing it.  Groupon has gone from 0-1 billion dollars+ in valuation in under 3 years.  Other sites such as ScoopSt are also dominating it.  Though I believe the use of Facebook is a primary driver of customer acquisition, the main driver of customer retention and repeat purchasing would have to be: daily emails.

/* This was originally a comment made in response to a hacker news thread titled:  Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years? .  The comment has over 200 upvotes, which means people found it useful. I decided to add more thoughts, refine existing ones, and put it in a permanent place. This is just my own humble advice and I hope it’s useful for entrepreneurs.  */

I move forward the only direction
Cant be scared to fail in Search of perfection

-Jay-Z, On To The Next One

I’m going to go and replace 3 years with a “short time frame”. Some things to focus on:

Market opportunity- A million dollars is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely changing the business (ie- failing).

Inequality of information- Find a place where you know something that many undervalue. Having this inequality of information can give you, your first piece of leverage.

Leverage skills you know- You can go into new fields such as say Finance, but make sure you’re leveraging something you already know such as technology and/or product. Someone wanted to start a documentary with me. I said that would be fun, but it would be my first documentary regardless of what happened. There was a glass ceiling due to that. If I do something leveraging a skill I know, I’m already ahead of the game.

Look in obscure places- We’re often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don’t make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy.  One example would be email newsletters, which I’ve profiled before.

Surround yourself with smart people- Smart people whom are successful usually got there by doing the same and have an innate desire to help those do the same. It’s the ecosystem that’s currently happening with the paypal mafia and can be traced all the way back to fairchild semiconductor.

Charge for something- Building a consumer property dependent upon advertising has easily made many millionaires, but it isn’t the surest path. It takes a lot of time and scale, which due to cashflow issues will require large outside investment probably before you are a millionaire. Build something that you can charge for.  That’s how business has worked for thousands of years prior to the 1990s.  Make something, charge for it, repeat it.  DHH explains this really well at Startup School 08.

Information Products Are Valuable- E-Books, screencasts, And anything that can teach others to be good at something is a very lucrative business.  Look at guys like peepcode… they’re killing it.  There are also things like Parrot Secrets, which make 400k a year.  Bonus points if the information helps a person make money (directly or indirectly) or improves their self image.  Fyi, this doesn’t mean sell snake oil ebooks.  That may get you a somewhere in the 5 figures, but word will spread that your shit smells.

Your primary metric shouldn’t be dollars- If you’re going after a big enough market and charging a reasonable amount, you can hit a million dollars. Focus on growth, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value of the customer, and churn.

Get as many distribution channels as possible- There is some weird sense that if you build something they will just come. That a few “like”+retweet buttons and emails to editor@techcrunch.com will make your traffic explode + grow consistently. It fucking won’t. Get as many distribution channels as possible. Each one by itself may not be large, but if you have many it starts to add up. It also diversifies your risk. If you’re a 100% SEO play, you’re playing a dangerous dangerous game. You’re fully dependent upon someone else’s rules. If Google bans you, you will be done. You could easily replace the SEO example with: App store, facebook, etc.

Go with your gut and do not care about fameballing- Go with what your gut says, regardless of how it might look to the rest of the world. Too often we (I) get lost in caring about what people think. It usually leads to a wrong decision. Don’t worry about becoming internet famous or appearing on teh maj0r blogz. Fame is fleeting in the traditional sense. Become famous with your customers. They’re the ones that truly matter. What they think matters and they will ultimately put their money where their mouth is.

Be an unrelenting machine- Brick walls are there to show you how bad you want something. Commit to your goals and do not waver from them a one bit regardless of what else is there. I took this approach to losing weight and fitness.  I have not missed a single 5k run in over a year. (Here’s how I lost 50 pounds btw). It did not matter if I had not slept for two days, traveling across the country, or whatever else. If your goal is to become a millionaire, you need to be an unrelenting machine that does not let emotions make you give up / stop. You either get it done with 100% commitment or you don’t. Be a machine.

If it’s a mass market “trend” that’s all over the news, it’s too late- This means the barriers to entry are usually too high at this point to have the greatest possible chance of success. Sure you could still make a lot of money in something like the app store or the facebook platform, but the chances are significantly less than they were in the summer of 08 or spring of 2007. You can always revisit past trends though.  Peter Cooper and I clarified some of the semantics about what is a trend over here.

If you do focus on a dollar amount, focus on the first $10,000- This usually means you’ve found some repeatable process / minimal traction. ie- if you’re selling a $100 product, you’ve already encountered 100 people who have paid you. From here you can scale up. It’s also a lot easier to take in when you’re looking at numbers. Making 1 million seems hard, but making $10,000 doesn’t seem so hard, right?

Be a master of information- Many think it might be wasteful that I spent so much time on newsyc or read so many tech information sites. It’s not, it’s what gives me an edge. I feel engulfed.

Get out and be social- Even if you’re an introvert, being around people will give you energy. I’m at my worst when I’m isolated from people and at my best when I’ve at least spent some time with close friends (usually who I don’t know from business.)

Make waves, don’t ride them- There was a famous talk Jawed Karim gave from youtube. He described the factors that made youtube take off in terms of secondary/enabling technologies. I think they included (1- broadband in the home 2- emergence of flash, so no codecs required 3- proliferation of digital cameras 4- cheap hosting 5- one click upload 6- ability to share embed). Find those small pieces and put them together to make the wave. That’s what youtube did imho. The other guys really just rode the wave they created (which is okay).

Say no way more than you say yes- I bet almost every web entrepreneur has encountered this: You demo your product / explain what you’re doing and someone suggests that you do “X feature/idea”. X is a really good idea and maybe even fits in with what you’re doing, but it would take you SO FAR off the path you’re on. If you implemented X it would take a ton of time and morph what you’re doing. It’s also really really hard to say no when it comes from someone well respected like a VC or famous entrepreneur. I mean how the fuck could they be wrong? Hell, they might even write me a check if I do what they say!!!!! Don’t fall for that trap. Instead write the feedback down somewhere as one single data point to consider amongst others. If that same piece of feedback keeps coming up AND it fits within the guidelines of your vision, then you should consider it more seriously. Weight suggestions from paying customers a bit more, since their vote is weighted by dollars.

Be so good they can’t ignore you- I first heard this quote from Marc Andreessen, but he stole it from Steve Martin. Just be so good with what you do that you can’t be ignored. You can surely get away with a boring product with no soul, but being so good you can’t ignore is much more powerful.

Always keep your door/inbox open- You never know who is going to walk through your door + contact you. Serendipity is a beautiful thing. At one point Bill Gates was just a random college kid calling an Albuquerque computer company.

Give yourself every opportunity you can- I use this as a reason why starting a company in silicon valley when it comes to tech is a good idea. You can succeed anywhere in the world, but you certainly have a better chance in the valley. You should give yourself every opportunity possible, especially as an entrepreneur where every advantage counts.

Give yourself credit- This is the thing I do the least of and I’m trying to work on it. What may seem simple+not that revolutionary to anyone ahead of the curve can usually be pure wizardry to the general public, whom is often your customer. Give yourself more credit.

Look for the accessory ecosystem- iPod/iPhone/iPad case manufacturers are making a fortune. Armormount is also making a killing by making flat panel wall mounts. Woothemes makes millions of dollars a year (and growing) selling WordPress themes. There are tons of other areas here, but these are the ones that come to mind first. If there’s a huge new product/shift, there’s usually money to be made in the accessory ecosystem.

Stick with it- Don’t give up too fast. Being broke and not making any money sucks + can often make you think nothing will ever work. Don’t quit when you’re down. If this was easy then everyone would be a millionaire and being a millionaire wouldn’t be anything special. Certainly learn from your mistakes + pivot, but don’t quit just because it didn’t work right away.

Make the illiquid, liquid- I realized this after talking to a friend who helps trade illiquid real estate securities. A bank may have hundreds of millions of assets, but they’re actually worth substantially less if they cannot be moved. If you can help people make something that is illiquid, liquid they will pay you a great deal of money. Giving you a 20-30% cut is worth it, when the opposite is making no money at all.

Productize a service- If you can make what might normally be considered a service into a scaleable, repeatable, and efficient process that makes it seem like a product you can make a good amount of money. In some ways, I feel this is what Michael Dell did with DELL in the early days. Putting together a computer is essentially a service, but he put together a streamlined method of doing things that it really turned it into a product. On a much smaller scale, PSD2XHTML services did this. It’s a service, but the end result + what you pay for really feels like a product.

Look For Something That Is Required Or Subsidized By Law-  Motorists are required to have insurance, public companies have to go through sarbox laws, doctors get tens of thousands of dollars for EHR systems, etc.  Look for something that is required by law and capitalize on that.  Usually things that are required and/or subsidized by law are mind numbing with complexities.  Find a way to simplify that process.

Make Sure You’re Robbing A Bank- When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said because that’s where the money is (Thanks to edw519 for this phrase).  Make sure whatever you’re going after is where the money actually is ie- a customer that will pay you.  Consumer markets are tough, especially with web based products.  People expect everything to be free.  Businesses are usually your best bet.

Don’t Be Emotional- Emotions can let you make stupid decisions.  It can make you not walk away because you’re attached to something.  Most importantly it will lead to indecision and a loss of confidence.  Put your emotions into your product or save them for your lover, family, friends,etc.

Don’t Leave Things Up to Chance- People feel that things will just work out due to carpe diem.  They usually don’t  People can be unreliable, deals can fall through, and shit will always happen.  Prepare for multiple scenarios and contingencies.  You can mitigate this by working with smart AND reliable people.

Raise Revenue, Not Funding- Everyone is always so damn fixated on getting funded because it’s the cool thing to do.  Focus on getting people to pay you at first and then scale things outwards with funding IF and WHEN you need it.  If your goal is to make a million dollars in three years, funding probably isn’t the way to go.  VCs won’t let you take a salary of ~300k per year.  Selling a company in < 3 years is a crapshoot.  The lifespan of an investment is usually about 7 years from what I’ve read.

Don’t Get Comfortable- You will probably get comfortable somewhere around 200k, maybe less or more, but it will certainly be before 1 million dollars.  If you get comfortable you start getting off balance and having the hunger to move forward.  Reward yourself a little bit, but live as frugally as possible.  I have friends who have made some okay money, but blow it all away on stupid shit because they got comfortable.

Look For Those Who Are Comfortable-  Who is comfortable in a certain industry?  Go in and knock them off their hammock so they spill their mojitos on themselves.  This can also be considered stagnation.  Industries often mature and people get comfortable keeping the status quo.  Stagnation is the mid-life crisis for a former trend. This is usually a good point to come in with something.

Don’t Skimp on the Important Things- When it comes to things that need to be reliable such as infrastructure, delivery, or even your own personal tech equipment – don’t skimp out.  These are the tools that ensure reliability and your product being delivered.  You can skimp on the office space, the desks, coach airfare, budget motel in mountain view,etc.

Companies Spend Just as Much or More On Services as they do On Software-  Paying for the ERP, CRM, or custom built system is just the first step.  There’s the maintenance, training, and service contracts.

Keep The Momentum Going-  I’ve had projects where things were moving a million miles an hour, then BOOM, they just lost a lot of momentum.  That is the worst possible thing you can have happen.  Keep moving the ball everyday.

Listen (or read the transcriptions of) to Every Mixergy Interview You Can- Most of my audience will probably know about Mixergy, but I can’t let a single reader leave without making sure they know it exists.  It is by far the most practical resource on the Internet if your goal is to do well.  Andrew has interviewed entrepreneurs from all walks of life with varying levels of success.  Most of them had real business models and bootstrapped.  Most importantly, he finds out what specifically led to their success. Link to Mixergy.

Last, but not least:  Learn How To Filter- I just wrote upwards of 2,200 words.  Some of the points are even contradictitory.  Start adding in other sources of information and you will feel like you’re being pulled in a five million directions.  You then become indecisive.  Take in information and then filter the good bits while synthesizing them to be a part of your overall plan.  What works for person A doesn’t always work for person B.

If you haven’t heard of Quora, you should certainly try to get an invite and check it out (I’ll give one away in the comments).  It’s a social Q&A site from a bunch of early Facebook employees.  Crunchbase has a better explanation here, but the best way to experience Quora is to use the product itself.  In my mind, Quora has already crossed the threshold of being what I refer to as “Google Useful”.  Google’s obviously good at performing searches that are routine and really popular like: What is the population of Miami or who is Paul Graham?  The real value of Google is throwing it a long term search term, one which it may have never even experienced before, and getting back useful information.  This is what I call “Google Useful”: Getting back relevant results for a random real life scenario that may not be frequently be asked or documented.  Here’s my story on how I’ve found Quora to be “Google Useful”.

Two weekends ago I went out with my roommate whom happens to be female.  She’s newly single, and I’m also single as well.  Raina said to me: “So now I can be your wingwoman!”  My response?  Yeah, not sure how that one works, since you’re female and all.  Usually guys have a wingman.  At this point, I had the option of using Google to search for: “How does a girl become a wingman for a guy” hoping to get some good results.  Then I had an epiphany due to the fact that I was at the optimal point in the Ballmer peak-  Try using Quora.  So from my iPhone I typed in on Quora: What is the best way for a female to act as a “wingwoman” to a male?  [View actual question here] Here’s what happened after:

• Within 1-2 minutes I automatically had an in-depth response that far outweighed anything Google could have given me.

I have a couple male friends who I deeply respect and go way back with. Whenever I act the wingwoman to any of my newer male buddies I usually try to act just like I do with my older friends. Giving off a sisterly, platonic, comfortable vibe with the guys you’re backing up is important so you don’t unintentionally scare off other women.

Other than that, just be super sociable. Use your womanly conversational charms to draw in other females or mixed groups and create a fun, chatty atmosphere. Girls are more likely to feel comfortable talking to other girls than strange men, so lead the conversation when you must and create opportunities for your guy friends to speak up and show off. Make them sound good without being obvious, that sort of thing.

Other than that- it usually works better for a guy when things are going well if youskip out first (at the right time of course, when everyone’s comfortable & flirty). Then he doesn’t have to separate the girl from the herd, and things don’t seem so planned and predatory. It’s just “Oh no, look at the time, gotta go!” and your guy friend is left conveniently with the full attention of his object of desire.

• Within 10 minutes I had a second response, though that has since been deleted.

This truly amazed me.  A service that does not have widespread adoption yet due to its invite only nature/early testing is able to return me something that I don’t feel Google could have.  I even parsed the language naturally using wingwoman instead of wingman, because I knew Google would be confused by this term, whereas Quora wasn’t.  The response wasn’t Google fast (milliseconds), but it was certainly fast enough that the quality of information was worth it.  Over time this waiting period on Quora can only decrease as the amount of users and the amount of questions that have already been answered increases.  The product is also built very well to ensure rapid communication so that answers can be updated very very fast.  Many ask if Quora can make it out of the silicon valley echo chamber or if it can really be useful to a mainstream audience.  My verdict: Yes. Oh Hell Yes.

First off, the title is meant to get a point across.  The statement of Microsoft Excel being the world’s most used database may or may not be true, but it would be a fair statement  to claim that “An alarmingly large number of individuals use Microsoft Excel to store non-numeric arrays of information that should probably be stored in a database / be created by a simple web application”.  Despite all of the technology advancements we have today there is still no solution for the age old problem of using Microsoft Excel as a database for keeping track of information and basic businesses processes.  The logic behind this post has been in my head for years, but the inspiration for it finally came about when I was sitting in on a pitch an entrepreneur was giving to my friend Adam at True Ventures.  Part of the conversation went something like this:

Adam:  So how do they do this (process X) now?

Entrepreneur:  They keep track of it in an excel spreadsheet.

Me:  Yeah, that’s a good sign disruption is needed.  If you want to find a good SaaS app to build, just find an industry/process that is largely dominated by excel spreadsheets.

Why Is Excel Still Used Like This?

It Just Works + It’s Familiar-  Though this post seems to be “bashing” the use of Excel as a simple database, it’s still the easiest solution out there.  Fire up a new excel document, define the header columns, and start entering in data.  In the long run, Excel is a poor choice, but in the short run, it’s the easiest way to get the job done  Once you’re done, click email and everyone else gets the spreadsheet.  At this point, the headaches usually start rolling in due to version control.  Excel is also very familiar to John Q Public.  My generation has been using it since we were teenagers.  We don’t want to learn something entirely foreign and different.

You Don’t Have To Ask IT To Do Anything-  Many people would like a better solution including some basic workflow management ie- the equivalent of a damn dropdown to track things!  There’s one problem:  they have to go to IT.  That means the choice is now continue using Excel OR spec something out, sit down with IT, have them build/buy something that you probably won’t end up using anyway, test it, and then wait for it to be rolled out to everyone.  I’m pretty sure Excel wins a large majority of the time here.

Some Evidence of Excel Being Used as a Database

Public Relations- When we started Publictivity, it happened because a Public Relations firm was tracking all of their conversations inside of an excel spreadsheet.  They had a separate CRM system and would export the contact list to a spreadsheet.  From there, they would keep a spreadsheet for each “campaign” (specific product launch/set of pitches) with the status of the pitch, link to the coverage, and whether they received the review material.  If there were multiple people working on an account, they would just email the spreadsheet back and forth.  Crappy way to do things, but that’s what worked well.

Human Resources (UMiami Capstone Project)- For my senior year project as part of the CIS major we had to redo the system that recorded absences at the school of business for their employees.  My first question was: How do you do things now?  Their answer?  We keep track of it all in one spreadsheet that we’ve had for close to fifteen years.  That’s right, one spreadsheet, fifteen years.  I asked why?  Their response –  It was just the easiest way to do it, and asking IT to do this until now was a huge headache.  We eventually built a fairly simple and very cool system, but had to leave some things for IT to finish due to security purposes.  Since IT still has to do something that is > 30 minutes worth of work, I have a feeling that original spreadsheet may live to see another 15 years.

A Friend’s Startup-  The final inspiration for this post came about after sitting in on the pitch I mentioned above.  It was once again “another case of the spreadsheets”.  Right now many vendors track the risk to their supply chain in a spreadsheet in Excel.  For the first time since leaving Publictivity 18 months ago I realized that there is an intense amount of opportunity around displacing Excel as a lightweight spreadsheet + process management tool.  If large corporations are leaving risk management to an excel database, this has to be a very large problem.

YCombinator Idea #22- If you look at the YC ideas we’d like to fund thread, idea number 22 is rooted in solving this exact problem.

People often use Excel as a lightweight database. I suspect there’s an opportunity to create the program such users wish existed, and that there are new things you could do if it were web-based. Like make it easier to get data into it, through forms or scraping.

Don’t make it feel like a database. That frightens people. The question to ask is: how much can I let people do without defining structure? You want the database equivalent of a language that makes its easy to keep data in linked lists. (Which means you probably want to write it in one.)

The key here is the line that emphasizes the fear of databases to your average everyday worker.  The word database seems like a complicated thing that IT deals with, which might bite their heads off.  They’ve dealt with MS Access before, but that just scared them to death.

How We Can “Fix” This Problem

Be Wufoo’s cousin.  I’ve always respected Wufoo due to the simple, yet very painful problem they were solving.  This is explained well by pg in the ideas we’d like to fund post:

…In most companies the IT department is an expensive bottleneck. Getting them to make you a simple web form could take months. Enter Wufoo. Now if the marketing department wants to put a form on the web, they can do it themselves in 5 minutes…

Wufoo was able to take a process that might take months and reduced it down to a 5 minute process that anyone can do.  I think that’s the answer here at least in it’s simplest form.  Do what Wufoo did for collecting external data, but for collecting internal data and simple workflow processes. Take what is currently done in a spreadsheet as a database, and instead of requiring IT to take months to replace it with a custom built application, make a simple way to do it yourself in a drag&drop fashion in under 5 minutes.

Ironically without even knowing it, this is the problem I spent the last 6 months of 2008 solving at Publictivity.  We had originally built Publictivity as a way for PR professionals to better manage their workflow.  I realized we were just replacing a spreadsheet and that many other companies had this problem.  So we set out to build something that was malleable and any type of company could use to replace their “spreadsheet databases”.  It was a feature called Applets.  We finished it, but it was never released to the public, but here’s a demo video below (or direct link so you can watch in full screen HD).  Maybe I’ll put it online or open source it like I’ve always planned.

Some Notes:

• Everything was completely drag and drop.
• There were basic relational entities ie- you could reference the equivalent of other sheets.
• There was a public applet directory where you could one click install templates other companies made publicly shared (you would NOT see their data of course).
• We had basic data types that we felt every company would need (files, links, contacts, and actions).
• You could easily set the header columns and set dropdown fields as filters.
• All data was shared with your entire company.  We had started planning privacy/security features.  We also had a “Share” button that let you simply notify/share a team member of an entry.

There have been companies that tried to tackle this problem, but ultimately failed (Blist and Coghead).  It’s certainly a problem, but what is the right solution?

There’s been a lot of discussion going on whether Facebook is an evil company.  There’s also a lot of talk going on about whether Zuck knows what he’s doing or if he should step down.  I don’t really plan on discussing those issues since it’s not my place.  Zuck’s done a great job carrying the company to 500 million users and he doesn’t need someone else piling on.  What I do want to discuss are the five suggestions that Calacanis put forth at the end of his most recent post.  They are insanely important issues and great suggestions whether I agree with all of them or not.  These suggestions boil down the industry’s frustration with Facebook.

1. Add an export key. I don’t care about features.  I care about benefits.  Adding an export key is a feature. The notion behind this makes tons of sense, but Facebook is already doing this in a rudimentary form.  The benefit of an export key is letting me use my social graph and their context in other awesome applications.  Right now I can sync all my friends data with my iPhone.  Developers can also make great applications that make use of data I want to export such as email addresses.  An export key would be a welcome addition, but I think the important thing is to enable developers to use the information from your social graph.  If Facebook were to “fall” it would not be because tons of people want to get their data out.  They’ll find a way to do that regardless.  Facebook could “fall” because people found a much better product and user experience.
2. Support a common ‘Like’ standard- This is already happening.  Anyone can add a like button and pull the data associated with “likes”. If Digg wanted to factor in the likes a piece of content has with their algorithm, they could! Maybe the ability to add a custom like button would make sense, but I think it would do more bad than good.  Imagine this:  I create a like button that looks like a submit button for a form or a simple image.  I’ve just found a way to make you like a page that has a hidden title of “World’s Best Porn”.  It also dilutes the significance of a like button.  The like button is a common standard.
3. Do not require folks to use your currency-  Ebay only supports paypal.  Though I have my quarrels with paypal, I think that makes sense.  No one is stopping developers from integrating paypal or other merchant accounts.  Facebook currency and credits will provide a simple way for developers to make money in the facebook ecosystem.  Getting a merchant account is really hard.  Facebook credits/currency will allow developers to make money online in a much easier fashion.  It also provides a frictionless process.  Sign in with FBConnect, click pay, and done.  I will say this:  the fees need to be reasonable. 30% has somehow become the precedent since the Apple store.  I’d rather see their cost for processing/credits around the usual <= 3% level.
4. Remind users of their privacy settings- This is the best point of the article and something I hope that Facebook implements.  Steve Jobs also mentioned this point at D8.“Privacy means people know what they are signing up for in plain English. Some people want to share more data. Ask them. Ask them
   every time. Let them know precisely what you are going to do with their data.” – Steve Jobs, D8If Facebook constantly lets users renew their privacy vows, it will make them feel comfortable and gain their trust for the long term.  If we’re going to move the world forward to share more information we need to hold their hand through the transition.
5. Stop stealing every idea out there and partner!- I feel like this is some personal issue with a backstory we don’t know about.  Facebook actually has a record of hiring/buying some of the best talent in the game for specific skill sets.  Friendfeed brought their current CTO, Divvyshot is going to make photos rock, Ivan from tipjoy will make payments rock, and Joe+Blake from  Parakey are some of the smartest guys out there.  So once again, not sure what the backstory is behind this suggestion, but I think Facebook does the opposite of what Calacanis suggests.

Criticizing Facebook and playing armchair Board of Directors gets old fast.  Suggesting ways to improve the product is great though.  They may not agree with it, but giving level headed suggestions will let them know where to at least think about taking the product.

I’m a big believer in having a product driven culture over suits and finance people making decisions.  Zuck promoted Bret Taylor to CTO today at Facebook, which I think is a really smart move.  I read an internal email that was sent to everyone from Zuck, and something stuck out at me:

…Although, to be honest, Schrep, Cox, Bret and I all sit in the same pod so you can pretty much grab any of us at the same time.

That’s right, the CEO sits with the product guys and the CTO.  Not by himself and certainly not with a bunch of traditional “managers”.  Companies stay great by having their leader right next to the product.  This fact alone makes me even more bullish on Facebook for the long term.

It seems that the battle for the 50 inch screen is finally happening. Boxee has been growing like a weed and Google is finally entering the foray with Google TV. There’s also chatter that Apple will finally turn the Apple TV from a hobby into a real business. I think this is great and something whose time has come. Smartphones are great, but there are hundreds of millions of HDTVs being sold every year that need innovation.

There’s one thing that worries me after hearing Google’s plans – they’re trying to take the desktop experience of the web and bring it to the TV. This is just WebTV all over again. The web isn’t meant for the tv in it’s current form. The same reason you wouldn’t put a desktop app on an iPhone without rewriting the UI is the same reason you shouldn’t put that app on the TV. It just doesn’t translate well. The web WAS meant for TV, just with a ten foot UI.

Quick background:

3 foot UI- desktop/laptop experience. 3feet from your face
1 foot UI- smartphone. 1 foot from your face.
10 foot UI- TV. 10 feet from your face.

We need to start making “apps” for the 10 foot experience. There’s two ways we could go about it:

One: Create yet another group of silos where the tv screen requires different apps for googletv, appletv, boxed, roku,etc. This just sucks.

Two: Create a simple open source UI framework similar to jquery, specifically JQTouch, that easily builds 10 foot interfaces optimized for 1080p resolution (maybe 720p too). Let developers build one site for the ten foot experience that works across with a webkit browser. Then we can just translate that app to whichever platform(s) win. Here’s how I propose it works:

A Standard Set Of Input interactions

Backspace takes you back, space is pause, and the volume up key puts the volume up. I want to know that my app will workmproperly with inputs. The same way jqtouch can recognize/listen for motions such as swipe/tap is how this should listen for motion inputs as well for Wii type remotes as well.  Why?  This would enable web developers to create a new class of motion sensitive games like the Wii.

HTML 5 Rich

Video is a big part of the tv experience, duh. If were going to do media, let’s make it HTML5. Let’s also make sure we have support for things like WebGL and Canvas. I think games can do very well here. (side note: the standard input interactions should have a listener function for wiimote like accelerometer inputs). I also think location is huge. I want what I’m interacting with to be location aware. I’d love a foodspotting 10 foot UI.

Some Human Interface Guidelines

this should be really loose, yet inspirational. boxee has done a great job of this. We get to set the ground rules and if we can show designers/devs how to properly make a 10 UI app, that’s AWESOME. I don’t want to see 10,000 of the same app UI, but I do want to see 10,000 awesome apps.

Plug and play For Existing Sites

This is way above my head technically I think, but I’d love if the basic framework could “10footify” a site. The same way WordPress plugins can make a blog have an iPhone ready site, id love to see that happen for the 10foot interface.

Some consensus on how ads will integrate

If my tv tells me I’ve won two free iPod nanos, it will get thrown out the window. Let’s try to make room for ads, but let’s see if we can make them inspiring.

This is just a quick list, but it’s certainly a start. I’d love to see some prototype apps that fit into the ten foot UI space. Ie- someone create a Twitter cliemt that is web based but designed fully for the living room.

Jason Kincaid also posed the question to the Press Event during Google I/O. PM from Google and Adobe CEO gave their question on the ten foot experience for Google TV.  I’m not buying their answer.  Sure the web is available from day one.  It was available from day one in 2005 on my Windows Mobile phone, but it was just shit.  It’s a great start, but if this is going to succeed it needs to really fit right.  I’m sure Adobe will make great authoring tools, but they will probably take too long to do it.  I’d rather see someone make something like JQTouch.  The web works too rapidly to wait for Adobe.  We didn’t wait for them to create something like JQtouch/JQuery and we won’t wait for them to create something for the ten foot experience.  I do hope they prove me wrong and release something ASAP.

Skype just enabled calls over 3G using Skype for the iPhone.  Yay, right?  WRONG.  Turns out that you will have to pay an added fee towards the end of the summer to use Skype over 3G.  So much for Skype being “free” for Skype to Skype Calls.  There’s a way around it though.  Hell, I’ve been using Skype over 3G running in the background for a month or so now.

Step 1: Jailbreak your iPhone using Spirit.

Step 2: Install 3G Unrestrictor via Cydia.

Step 3:  Make all the calls you want over 3G without added charges.

The following presentation is from Refresh Miami’s May meetup where I spoke about our experiences on developing a minimum viable product in one weekend.

Awesome Mashup with Lady Gaga and The Killers from Divide&Kreate.

I’ve had an iPad for about two weeks so far and I think ive put it through enough paces and experiences that I can give it a proper review and verdict. I’ve given my reccommendation on the device many times to other curious individuals, but nothing this in -depth. I bought a 3G model with 64gb of space. My belief is that if you’re looking to get the full experience of the device, you need to have the 3G version. Let’s start shall we… Backwards.

Overall Verdict

the ipad is without a doubt the most important piece of technology I have ever owned. I don’t give this recommendation lightly either. I’m known to be a skeptic, and ive played around with enough early technology to feel confident in saying this. Having the iPad is akin to the time that I purchased the first MP3 player in North America, the Diamond Rio PMP300 with 32mb of ram in 1997/1998, or an AOL communicator by a barely known company from Canada called Research in Motion in 2000 that let me use a physical keyboard+check my ims/email from anywhere in the country wirelessly. It was early and there was more to be done, but I knew it was the shape of things to come. The iPad gives me that same feeling – my world will never ever be the same.

What is iPad?

The iPad is whatever you want it to be. It is not a consumption only device and it is not a netbook by any means. The same way that many saw the computer as an overgrown typewriter are just as foolish as those who say the iPad is only a “big ass iPod touch” or a “bedside toy”. The iPad is whatever you the user and thousands of application developers make out of it. It is truly a new way to consume, create, and aware content. It is the true tabula rasa of technology, a blank slate waiting to be molded.

The Battery Life

I have never seen the battery go down to zero… Ever. I barely use my laptop (a subject I will get to in a bit), and the iPad lasts all day+night long. This is a major benefit for me, as I mostly work remotely and hate to be tethered to a charging outlet. Example? I’ve been writing this article so far for a good 30 minutes and I have not used a single percentage of battery.

Portability/3G

it’s light, sturdy, and a delight to bring with you everywhere. I have a case from incase, which makes my overall travel needs smaller than a single book. It does requiring syncing with a computer, but inhale only had to do that twice. You do notnhave to worry about bringing your laptop with you.

As far as 3G and AT&T go? I cant believe this is the same AT&T that provides service for my iPhone. I often use wifi due to being at the office or home, but I’d say 30% of the time I am on the 3G connection. It is blazing fast and very very reliable. Couple this with the battery life of the iPad and I now feel that I can take over the world. I now have ubiquitous Internet and seemingly unlimited battery life.

Overall Performance

it is absolutely fast. I can grab it and start working or consuming things way faster than any other computer I own. The a4 chip is an amazing piece of hardware. I will say that the RAM is fairly disappointing as it is only 256mb. This requires fairly annoying issues such as safari having to reload page after navigating away. My guess is that the RAM will be doubled in the next version.

Storage

64mb is more than enough as most of my data is in the cloud. Music takes up most of the storage space on the iPad. This will probably change with either spotify or whatever apple does with its lala acquisition in the future.

Content Consumption

it’s a delight for reading books or browsing the Internet. I’ve also found a way to stream non h264 video via air video. I’ll watch video content casually in bed, but my HTPC is still the best bet for video due to it’s 52 inch screen. I tried the composite video out kit which was nice, but I don’t get why there isn’t an hdmi out. I don’t want to watch 480p video. The usatoday app is the best example of print media on the iPad. I stillmwouldmlikemto see an HTML 5 version in the future. iBooks is pathetic with its prices and selections, but the Kindle app totally makes up for it. Seriously, Amazon is more than okay.

Areas i haven’t explored too much are gaming and education. The graphics on some games I’ve tried are on par with other portable systems. The possibilities for learning seem endless. I actually want to learn with the iPad. I also think it might be insanely useful for kids.

Content Creation

This is where i think the world completely and utterly underestimates the iPad. Typing is different and the touch interface is certainly way different, but its only about learning something new. I can’t type as fast as I do on my MacBook, but I can certainly type a good 40 wpm still. I assume it will only get better over time. This entire article was composed on my iPad btw.

Office document and presentation creation is absolutely awesome with Keynote and office2hd. Ive already created and given two presentations solely via my iPad. It took a little bit longer but it was tons of fun. Keynote has a little bit of work to do in terms of making customization easier. Office2hd is the killer app for me right now. At 8 bucks it’s way cheaper than pages and numbers. Most importantly it connects with google docs andndropbox. It means my document creation is still all cloud based. I don’t need to sync my iPad with my computer to make sure docs are synced and saved.

Email is great. I mostly use the native mail app, but google has done a great job with gmail on the iPad. This thing is an Email machine.

More technical tasks such as code editing, not code creation are possible. I can spawn and reboot servers as well. I also use terminal to administer our infrastructure anywhere. Ftptogo also gives me FTP access. The only missing technical tools would be a powerful photo editor and a db admin tool for mysql.

Most importantly, I’m way more focused when working from my iPad. I’m not switching back and forth between five hundred different windows. The iPad is the anti-ADD computer. I like the fact thtat my entire centernof attention is on one and only one thing when using my iPad.

Downfalls

The ipad is not meant to be used in nice weather it seems. Its summer and I want to be able to get work sone while laying by the pool on the weekend. The screen is hard to read and the devicenoften has tonshut down due to overheating. I feel this was a big miss by the folks at 1 infinite loop.

Multitasking is missing. I know it’s coming with oS4, but it can’t come soon enough. I’m glad Apple is doingmit right. My jail broken iPhones battery is absolute garbage with multitasking.

Cross app file access is severly needed. I want to upload a pdf I download in mail to drop box and vice versatile. This is just a software fix.

Front facing camera. NOW. I wamtnto use this with Skype video chat.

Syncing is absolutely horrendous.  This isn’t just an iPad issue, but an itunes and Apple issue.  It is by far the least elegant solution Apple has ever created.  It’s complex, confusing, takes too long, and is just a hassle.  It honestly makes me feel like I’m using Windows.

Final Thoughts.

My MacBook has gotten a total of 2 hours of usage in the past two weeks. The rest of my work and play has been done on my iPad. There are some downfalls, but they’re mainly software or app related. That can be fixed with some red bull and an ambitious hacker. The iPod had a click wheel, was mac only, cost $500, and only had 5gb of storage in 2001. We all know where it is now. I’m just as excited to see what the ipad evolves into over a next decade as well.

My mom found this document (I think I wrote it for some TAG/Olympics of the Mind speech competition in 8th Grade.) when she was unpacking the other day.  I’ve been searching for it for a while and finding it meant a lot to me.  After reading it for the first time in over a decade, I realized the advice from my 12 year old self is the perfect advice I could use as a 24 year old (soon to be again) entrepreneur.  I hope it’s useful for you too.

Almost every startup needs to execute a PR strategy in some way or another to succeed.  One of the key aspects of executing PR is reaching out to journalists + bloggers (I could write a whole post on the right+wrong way to do this).  How do you get that contact info?  A lot of people pay thousands of dollars a year for contact databases from companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars like Vocus or Burrelle’s Luce.  Vocus literally has an office full of nearly minimum wage staffers who do nothing, but call journalists to update contact information.  This just isn’t efficient in a Wikipedia world.  Most importantly, this information should be available to companies for free.  If I have a startup, I should be able to find the contact information, pitching preferences, etc. of relevant journalists + bloggers to pitch without scouring the internet endlessly and/or paying thousands of dollars a year for a contact database.  Here’s what I propose:

A free, open, and crowd contributed database of blogger + journalist contact information for startups.

Here’s how it would work:

• Start solely with the tech niche (the mashable, techcrunch, wired, and LA Times tech beat writers of the world).
• Fully open to browse and moderated submissions/revisions ie- you submit contact info of a blogger, we’ll double check that it’s okay (ie- no personal info given).

Some concerns:

• Spam- I’d probably make email addresses an image only to prevent scrapers from coming stealing it.  There would also be a strict rule: NO PERSONAL INFORMATION.  If it’s an email address it should be associated with the publication.  If it’s a cell phone number, it should be available already somewhere.
• Initial Content-  I wouldn’t launch this without having a fairly decent database of tech writers.  That wouldn’t take long and a few startup/PR friends alone could help me populate the database in a matter of hours.
• Benefit to bloggers/journalists-  Most startups have no clue how to pitch you specifically.  They just scour the net, find a contact page, and shoot off a shitty email.  If we had an open database where pitching preferences were included, I bet the pitches would get a whole lot better + tailored to your preferences.
• Some may say “bloggers/journalists won’t want their info out there”-  There’s a chance this is right, but if you deal with spam + personal information privacy the right way, it should be okay.  This information is available to ANYONE, except you usually have to pay thousands of dollars.  I have a real problem with information costing thousands of dollars when it should be free + openly available.  Journalists + Bloggers are meant to get pitched and already do, this would just help make the process more bearable with better pitches since their preferences would be listed.

I originally had this idea a few years ago.  I figured somebody would solve it as the number of startups was increasing and the need for PR became more important.  Some important people in PR and the startup world told me they would love this.  I certainly would, how about you?  Please reach out personally j@jasonlbaptiste.com if you are either a blogger/journalist or startup that wants to get involved.

There are rumblings that Apple is going to ban geo-location ads on the iPhone.  This is just the start.  Here’s what I think is going to happen:

Apple will only allow free apps to run ads served by them from their new advertising division they gained via Quattro Wireless.

It makes perfect sense.  Apple loves to have control over everything.  Look at the iPad- they control the processor, battery, software, apps on it, casing/molding, and sales distribution.  Why would they stop there and not go after ads?  This will be their most direct shot at Google in order to stop them from “killing the iPhone”.  Developers will love it too, as it will serve as a semi loss leader, the same way the iTunes store does:

• Payouts and rates that put AdMob to shame.  Apple isn’t in the business of ads, they’re in the business of selling hardware.  They can afford to give more to developers and basically break even.
• Tight integration with XCode and Apps.
• Apple like elegance for advertisers to log on and place an ad.  Imagine if placing an ad was as elegant as using an iPhone, iLife, or any other Apple product. The press they get from this move will certainly attract advertisers on day one.
• Publishers will love it.  Not all content is going to be behind a pay wall, and those that offer their content for free will now have a huge incentive to make iPhone/iPad apps.

Expect a WWDC release.  Google should be scared shitless if/when they do this. Weigh in on a poll here whether you think this will come true.