I would include links to your previous projects, what your expectations are, and references. It will help people see that you have a little "skin in the game".
4,892 karma · joined January 3, 2010
At the end of the day users decide how they are going to use your product.
This month I've switched to a flat rate for a 30 day run. I'm selling ads directly (AppSumo and MediaTemple), and through BuySellAds (no one has bought through this, but I think it's because I'm charging more).
If I know the sponsor well, I have no problem charging at the end of the month. If you have any more questions feel free to shout!
Quite honestly we're still experimenting with content to see what works and what doesn't (TSF is only 2 months old). If our current batch of stories don't interest you, dig a little deeper and checkout some of the fantastic interviews with Andrew Warner, Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit) and Tim O'Reilly. Perhaps that would better suit your tastes.
I hope I can win you over, but no hard feelings if TSF isn't the place for you.
All the best, Paul
P.S. I'm always open to guest authors if you would like to contribute!
We have some fantastic content lined up this week and I hope you'll check us out. We are obviously not a techcrunch clone, but I think that's a good thing :) Say "hi" in the comments if you decide you want to hang your hat at TSF for a while. All the best, Paul.
Edit: link http://thestartupfoundry.com
1. The Reddit alien came from a doodle in marketing class. Always be looking for inspiration.
2. If you have a great product and great service, tie it to an awesome brand. This will help you become memorable.
3. When people tattoo your logo on themselves, you’re doing something right
4. Great branding can’t save something that’s not good enough, so making sure you’re product rocks is the first priority.
5. Decent branding without a lot of cash: If you don’t have a network of designers, checkout a site like 99designs (but “shake the friend tree” for artists before you go this route).
6. You can’t succeed if you don’t actually start. Don’t be afraid to fail.
7. If something fails, no one will know about it because no one used it. Stopped letting fear paralyze you and built cool stuff.
All the best, and keep kicking ass!
1. Initially the Reddit team was rejected by YCombinator. Paul Graham then followed up with them via a phone call and said “as long as you ditch your original idea, you can come be a part of YCombinator”. This is a great reminder that investors often care more about the team then they do the product.
2. Alexis also talks about how Reddit was able to get new users by creating fake accounts to simulate an active community.
3. Alexis talks about a meeting they had with Yahoo, but he felt that the meeting sucked because Yahoo was more interested in the traffic they were generating then the actual mission of the site.
4. Met with Google, and things went really well. This was a huge boost of confidence for the Reddit team as “some very smart people at Google were interested in our product”.
5. Alexis also reminisces about doing “digital grunt work”. Alexis attributes a lot of Reddit’s success to doing things that aren’t glamorous. Great reminder that entrepreneurship is all about “the hustle”.
6. Entrepreneurship is a Bipolar existence. Sometimes you feel like you’re building an online empire, and other days you feel like a nobody. This is completely normal.
7. A tip that Alexis shared for other startups was to “celebrate quick and easy wins” (especially in the first 6 months). This helps to build momentum, and establishes comradery on your team.
1. In this video Tim talks about what “Web 2.0″ means. (How he views the internet as an operating system).
2. Tim realized that software was becoming a commodity. He saw the same thing play out earlier with hardware in the IBM era. When something is commoditized, an adjacent thing becomes valuable. In the IBM era when hardware was commoditized, software became very valuable (and Microsoft won).
3. The web is a platform. The example Tim gave was Napster. Napster worked by indexing the songs you already had on your computer, not from a pre-determined master list. This was a huge shift in thinking about what the web could be about.
4. Tim encourages entrepreneurs to not “paint by numbers” when it comes to solving problems. Just because one company was successful doesn’t mean you should clone their product.
When I write my articles for The Startup Foundry, I try to focus on what will help startups succeed. I've gotten some pretty sad emails from startups that think they're failures for not being huge in 6 months or less. I wrote this to make a point that it takes time for most startups.
All the best, Paul