zkinion

Very nice blog posting. Its amazing how such a low percent can equal that amount of money.

awwww, I miss that movie. :(

This is EXACTLY what I've been saying. To me, thats just a testing/proving ground. Get some buzz about the idea, and then try to license it to reality tv shows/celebs/iraq war reporter/hot girls/anything else thats more entertaining than startup founders.

Thats similar to a chapter in the Felix Dennis book where he talks about how execution is more than an "idea".

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/minisites/howtogetrich/

Yeah, that can expand alot in the future with wimax.

I have learned to embrace myspace just as I have learned to embrace Walmart. It might be cesspool to some, but it is what it is, which is mainstream. It is just a relection of our society, not something to be hated at all.

As far as the cracks go, they'll have little to no impact on their operaitons at all.

I wonder where one can find some good data as to how well traffic actually converts, instead of just going by CPM. I know its better to worry about monetizing a site later, and getting users by giving them something that they want first, but not all startups can use this model.

Also, many sites, especially ones that spread virally (social networking, some dating, and basically anything that revolves around interaction with others instead of just "tools") there is an uphill battle to get the first decent size batch of users. I think linkedin is a good example of this. It took a while for them to get enough users to make it worthwhile for most professionals (those outside the valley) to want to join it.

heh, i remember seeing those business card cartoons on the internet like a LONG time ago, maybe 4-5 years at least.

It doesn't seem like so bad of an idea. A tad bit idealistic, and ignores the fact that we divide up and layer our society on purpose. We shell ourselves up with people who we see as similar to ourselves, and shut out the rest. Perhaps if there is a way they could apply some method of connecting "random" people based on a whole series of information such as interests/personality.

Delaware has a long, clear history of case law, which is why many companies are incorporated there. Alot are also incorporated in Nevada (my home state). There it's like 200$ total. For a start-up, you normally don't need a whole lot of "lawyer juice" in the equation. The forms are very simple. You basically fill out the articles of incorporation document, then fill out a listing of officers/board members (initial listing of officers), which can be changed later. You also need to have a resident agent, which doesn't need to be a physical place, so long as lawsuit stuff can get there. Many places offer resident agencies as a service for as little as 99$. The deputy just needs to be able to deliver you some lawsuit/whatever. You send it all off to the secretary of state in whatever state you wish to incorporate, then in a few weeks later you get a copy of the forms back plus a certificate signed by the secretary of state saying that you're incorporated under that state. Normally all states have a website where you can look up information about a particular corporation. Every year you have to pay a few hundred bucks or so to rewnew the initial listing of officers. It gets a little more complex if you have investors and the company is initially shared between several people/other companies, but overall, its really that simple.

Delaware might charge more because of the simple fact that so many companies incorporate there. Finally, those "incorporate" services that charge a few grand basically give little advice and just fill the paper work out for you. They take advantage of the naive.

I think the main point in this posting is not how bad it is to start off with the first adopters, but instead to think how they will be alot different than mainstream users, and what you learn from them (click through, advertising, new users, etc...) might not be exactly how things will work with the mainstream crowd.

I like the site. I don't know if its a good place to think up ideas, or to even check if "somebody else is doing it" which doesn't really matter. It is a nice resource to quickly see stuff thats out there. Try to find some good in everything :)