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10 Lessons From A Failed Startup Posted by Matt Goldberg on May 27th, 2009 |
A person once said that the only positive thing about goofing up is how much others are amused by it. That is a bit cruel, obviously. If we reword the sentence and make it become “The one positive thing about making a mistake is that others will be able to learn from it” it becomes more palatable. Less Ambrose Bierce-like, granted, but true nonetheless.
If you want to learn from someone’s mistakes (or laugh at someone’s miscues, that depends on your vantage point) you will be able to do so by reading this post named “10 lessons from a failed startup”. Here you have its main points:
1. Find quick money first.
2. Content businesses suck (or: do it for love and expect to lose money).
3. Know when to value speed vs. stability.
4. Set a dollar value on your time.
5. Marketing requires constant expertise.
6. Control and calculate your user acquisition costs.
7. Form partner relationships early, even if informal.
8. Plan costs conservatively and err on the side of raising too much.
9. The key to negotiating is having options.
10. Knowing isn’t enough.
One thing that shines through time and again when reading the full article is that ideals are fine but reality calls the shots. That is, you must adapt your ideals to the real world. It will never work the other way around. And yes, I know it worked for Jerry Maguire. And as much as I love that movie, that is all it is – a piece of fiction. Get real, or pick a different trade.
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Hannes Walter Talks Fluid Forms Posted by Fred Imparatta on May 26th, 2009 |
We had a chat with Hannes Walter, of Fluid Forms. A must-read for any entrepreneur looking for some inspiration:
1. When did your site officially launch?
Beta 2007
Launch 2009
2. What does it offer its visitors? Tell us briefly about your product or service.
Fluid Forms enables inspired individuals to integrate their personal touches into real and unique objects such as furniture, jewelry, lamps or accessories, by offering easy to use Online-Design-Tools. With these Design-Tools (developed with professional designers) anyone can create and commission unique products within seconds and without any special knowledge. Especially for people interested in art and design but also for gift buyers Fluid Forms is an exciting offer. Within two weeks each unique fluid form gets produced by digital fabrication methods (such as laser-cutting, 3D-printing and CNC-milling) and directly shipped to the customer.
3. How did you develop the idea for your site? Briefly tell us the story of how you thought this product or service would work, and how and when you decided to start working on it.
I had already worked with digital production methods like laser- cutting and 3D printing as well as with 3D CAD software in my former jobs. The initial idea came up during the diploma thesis for my Master of Media Design in 2004. We started to develop first design templates and prototypes in 2005. Those where very 3D-printed vases and lamps, but back then 3D-print was still too expensive for the consumer market.
4. Did you need to look for outside investment in order to finance your project? If you had an investor for your project, tell us who that person or company was.
Fluid Forms started in an start-up incubator financed by the Government of Austria. It was ideal to start with a quite futuristic start-up idea without taking high risk.
Especially, because Angel’s investment is still not very common in Austria.
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How To Build A Successful Social Site Posted by Matt Goldberg on May 21st, 2009 |
That is quite a nice question, don’t you think? If you want to find an answer you might not have to look that far into the distance. In actuality, consulting any book on anthropology will give you more than enough food for thought.
As we all know, anthropologists propound that the behavior of individuals is dictated by the environment to more than a fair degree. This might go someway into explaining why there are so many specific networks available – networks for wine lovers, networks for bikers, networks for fighting adepts… and each one of these sites boast a completely different user interface. Making the user feel comfortable is the first building block. If the user is somehow alienated, he will not immerse himself in the site. He might not even scratch beyond the surface before going away, never to come back.
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Entrepreneurs Can Change The World Posted by Leah Kanapkis on May 21st, 2009 |
A motivational video par excellence.
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The Microsoft Future: It Ain’t Pretty Posted by Leah Kanapkis on May 20th, 2009 |
Microsoft has a really pretty vision of the future. Computers built into walls, kids interacting with each other in schools half a world away, and phones that look like credit cards (or credit cards that look like phones, either way).
Well now, Sarcastic Gamer just released their take on the future of Microsoft’s applications, and it’s hilarious. Check it out here (UPDATE: posted the original, for comparison, after the jump):
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KillerBlog on Off the Fence Posted by Ben Campbell on May 20th, 2009 |
Check out this interview, featuring us, in Marshall Finch’s blog Off the Fence.
Check out the full article here, below is a snippet.
How has blogging impacted you professionally? What rewards have you
achieved as a result of blogging?
All team members, myself included, have noticed that since we’ve been blogging, we don’t find it that hard to stay up to date on current startup events. By doing research for our articles, we’ve stumbled across great blogs and bloggers that have taught us many things we then put to use on other tasks.
What blogging platform did you use to start with? What are you using
now and why?
We use Wordpress. It’s very flexible and it allows us to focus on the important part of blogging: the writing.
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How to Build a Lean Startup Posted by Fred Imparatta on May 20th, 2009 |
Eric Ries, from StartupLessonsLearned, knows his stuff. In fact, he knows so much about startups, that the video below is over an hour long and you’ll watch all of it (maybe not, but it’s really good and you should watch it). On it, he discusses continuous deployment, rapid split-testing, and root cause analysis (the good ol’ five why’s). Without further to do, here’s the video:
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Why Facebook Will Never Be Twitter Posted by Fred Imparatta on May 19th, 2009 |
Facebook has been getting a series of facelifts recently, and while Facebook itself is convinced that they’re doing it so their users can enjoy the service better and take advantage of all the features, we all know they’re trying to jack Twitter’s swagger.
Sadly, it makes sense. The internet isn’t all about original ideas anymore, it’s mainly about how to get the most users by stealing as many ideas as possible from other sites and repackaging them as original. Before trying to be Twitter, Facebook was trying to be FriendFeed, which in turn was trying to be more like Twitter (weird, right?).
Twitter’s success doesn’t come because it offers a better service (it’s down almost everyday, be it planned or not) or because it offers great communication opportunities (while there are thousands of new users everyday, the idea is not that attractive to people, which is why most of your friend’s aren’t on it already). Twitter’s success can be credited to one thing: it’s simple.
The API is easy to implement, so developers use it, spawning new and creative applications daily. Tech blogs pick up these new applications, and no matter how creative and fun to use it is, they always mention Twitter’s name. This is free publicity that draw’s attention to Twitter’s simple-yet-quirky service.
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Naming Your Domain Or Product Posted by Matt Goldberg on May 5th, 2009 |
Any task that involves a creation from the point of view of linguistics is innately difficult. I recall reading somewhere that most literary giants specialized in bending the rules almost beyond recognition, without actually breaking them. Of course, that is debatable. I feel we all should agree that James Joyce broke as many as he could when he wrote “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake”, and the same applies to writers such as Jorge Luis Borges. The true charm of what they did is that Joyce, Woolf, Borges and Co. made violations seem natural and warranted whenever they resorted to them.
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4 Lessons For Social Marketers Posted by Matt Goldberg on May 4th, 2009 |
Is it really so difficult to get a message across using social media? For the most part, one would think that common sense would apply, but as in any new area there are some spaces where analogy can not be applied. This guide that was published in Mashable will hopefully shed some light on the subject.
The main piece of advice is that the platform itself dictates the strategy, and not the other way around. That is, if you want to hang a picture on the wall you must first ensure that the picture is suitable to the wall. You can hardly modify the wall – it is the picture that will have to be suitable. You proceed from there.
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