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Startup Climate

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35 pointsmarketer15 comments

I think the last point is the most important:

"6. Everybody seemed to feel the web game has shifted to the higher level. A lot appeared to feel that small publishers and sites would start to be squeezed out of the market in the coming years."

This is true, but I don't think it's completely accurate. To succeed as a small publisher, you will need to be remarkably talented and know how to efficiently market your site.

Gone are the days of lame content sites succeeding on pure bulk, like About.com. Except for Mahalo I guess.

I always thought Mahalo was a sort of fameballer site. The only people I know who've heard of it know it because of Jason Calcanis' reputation as "most obnoxious person in the world". I used to like it, but half a year ago it turned cluttered and ugly. Is that really a popular web site, or does it just get attention from Media 2.0?

Yea, it's a total SEO play. Just look at the way they interlink their pages and shamelessly promote high search volume queries like video games.

1. Nobody expressed interest in content, social media or social network sites.

It think this is a real shame. All the Facebook, but for my dog / Facebook, but for my garden / Myspace, but for my Facebooks have really given a bad name to this genre of site. It became the type of site for people who were looking to cash in quickly or had no business getting involved in the internet.

The problem is that the web is a social animal. People want to interact and share. I hope we see the move toward social/crowd-source sites with loftier goals. I think there is still a lot of value to be had in these types of sites.

None of these are extremely surprising:

#1 considering VS's have probably heard half a dozen "Facebook, but with FeatureFoo" pitches a dozen times a day for about a year.

#2 and #3 go hand-in hand - Google seems to have gotten the top of the hill on monetizing people going from one place to another on the web. If you figure out how to take away 1% of their tolls, you've got a successful startup.

#4 is an old one - education doesn't scale. Web can make it scale, with money to be made.

#5 is the core of "Web2.0"

#6 seem to be off - as jwesley expounds on well.

Keep in mind these are the authors' impressions from talking to VCs, who traditionally (and perhaps by definition) are at least one beat behind what's really going on.

Right on. This is conventional and repetitive thinking and should be ignored at all costs.

Very interesting.

I think the web game for general apps has shifted up a gear. However I believe this down turn in the economy is going to drive more 'less tech savy' users to try and make a buck on the web.

To Jo Bloggs the web is an income stream he should be using to get through this economic downturn. As an entrepreneur this is a market worth tackling? What do you think?

FTA:

If the above seems vague, it’s deliberate. Details are reserved for [whatis9.com] clients. But, the above should be enough for some entrepreneur to be dangerous.

Given the entrepreneurial spirit of HN, let's try to collaboratively dissect each one of these together.

This reminds me of posts I read back in 2002 and in 2005. Which of cource prooved to be wrong.

Thanks for the posting this link. It is concise and written by a very experienced entrepeneur.

Good advice for those in startups now. If you don't have funding and you're not focused on monetization of web traffic, don't go to VCs.

"and you're not focused on monetization of web traffic"

If you are, perhaps you don't need VC though...

I'm not clear I follow your logic. If you are focused on monetization, that just means you have a business plan with a great monetization story.

To get from a Business Plan to a staff, office, and working product, you need to get some moolah. If just a small amount of money, then you don't need VCs. Angels or bootstrapping will do. If you need a large amount of money, then VCs are the way to go.

Real solutions to better monetizing the web are what investors are interested in.

Such as...

They're looking for someone that has figured out a better a way...or rather, that they (they being the VCs) believe has figured out better/different ways of monetizing web traffic.

It's all a crapshoot until it's actually been done and works.

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