I’m curious what people think. My wordpress popularity plug-in (thanks Alex!) tells me that these were my most popular posts in 2006. It figures this out by links, comments, trackbacks, pings, etc.
80% of my top ten posts were based on my experiences, observations, and advice. 20% were coverage of new Colorado startups. Clearly this tells me that I should keep writing the first type of post. The real question is: How valuable are the posts about new Colorado companies to you? Please comment on this so I have a better feel.
I am sitting here, snowed in, catching up on some interestingblogs I’ve recently come across, praying that I don’t get tagged with this silly 5 things game that’s going around (hint, hint).
My mother, who is visiting from Florida, just called me a “workaholic”. I said “Mom, I’m watching a football game.” (The Packers are up 3-0, and who cares.) But I guess she figures if I’m my laptop is open then I’m working. How quaint.
So I figured I’d ask. If you’re reading this post before Christmas day (or your equivalent big holiday), do you consider yourself a workaholic?
Mom, I’m not a workaholic. I’m just reading.
Ok, so I’m checking my email and working on a web site while I’m reading. Big deal mom.
I stuck some of my stuff up on HiveLive. I created a few Hives of stuff. Then I shared my stuff. Other people said some stuff about my stuff, and then added some more stuff. So now I have a few hives of stuff up on HiveLive.
Ok, I know you want to know what the hell this stuff is. Well, it’s just stuff. Let me give you one example. I was considering an investment in one company, and I knew two or three other people who were too. So I put all the “stuff” (in this case, on that one company) up on HiveLive. There was text and conversations from emails, documents I’ve collected, and links to more random stuff. This one Hive became the place that I kept my stuff that was just lying around in emails or documents pertaining to that one company. Then I shared that Hive with others who were looking at the same company. We could discuss this info, add more info, and generally stay informed about this company.
“HiveLive started as a new way to manage information online. The catalyst: I got fed up with trying to use a PDA and Outlook and Word and Excel and Postits, and many other applications, to keep track of everything I wanted to remember. All my stuff was scattered in different places. Heads-down a few years ago, I spun together an early alpha prototype of what eventually set the stage for HiveLive. More recently, my brother Geoff and I spent over a year redesigning and retooling the entire system. “ - Founder, John Kembel
Sure, I could have used BaseCamp or some other kind of structured online database. Sure, I was researching the company and wanted to play with their tool. But what struck me as cool was just how unstructured, while at the same time dynamic, each Hive can be. You can just put more stuff into a Hive on the fly, and easily control who else has access to it and at what level. It’s simple social collaboration without the overcomplicated features that many other tools have. The obvious question to John was “how do you make money with this thing?” John responded: “HiveLive is free, and we hope to keep it that way. It turns out that we’re also helping other community-builders to build their own custom information spaces using our unique platform. I can’t say much more about this now, but we’re extremely enthusiastic about the possibilities.”
If you want to try it, you can join the small private beta of about 5,000 users. John is letting the first 200 ColoradoStartups readers into the private beta - click here. Thanks John!
I started using Newsgator’s Go on my blackberry about a week ago. They’ve had a Windows mobile version for a while, but the Java-based product is still in beta. I use NetNewsWire to manage my RSS feeds, and I’ve always loved the fact that it sync’s to the web-based version so I can easily keep up with RSS from anywhere without worrying about what I’ve read and what I haven’t. Now that I can use Go on my Blackberry and only see the articles that I haven’t read elsewhere, I’m a happy camper. This is so much nicer than the non-integrated mobile reader I was using because I never see an article I’ve already read anymore.
I hope this thing goes final soon so I can happily pay for it, just like I promised I would.
To Kevin, Greg, and the Newsgator gang: Fantastic job and thank you.
Denver’s six person LgDb is not sexy, but I like it.
LgDb is “The USA’s Best Legislative Database” according to founder Scott Yates. Think IMDB, but for bills instead of movies - Who’s in charge, who’s involved, what’s the current situation, what’s the “plot”, and what are people saying. I like the site because it aims to give consumers easy and direct access to information on bills that is otherwise scattered around the web in an unorganized fashion. LgDb aggregates information about bills from various states and brings the information together in a simple consolidated view.
Members of the LgDb community can participate by searching, tracking and commenting on bills that they are interested in. LgDb also offers a paid service ($495/year) which is targeted at heavy users or other stakeholders in the process such as lobbyists and gives them advanced features such as keyword search alerts, activity alerts, and bill sheets to keep track of bills of interest.
I think it’s fun to watch important (or unimportant) bills travel through the process. If LgDb can attract more users to the system, I can envision interesting ad-hoc social networks that could develop around each individual bill. Scott says he wants to support the community by adding wikis and other social features within each bill. I would expect to see bloggers linking to bills on LgDb as the depth of content improves.
Highly specific social networks are popping up allovertheplace. Way out here on the tail, you can actually charge the most interested parties for efficient access to the information they crave. The tactic is to use the general public to draw attention to your site and to add content, and then to present the enhanced offering built on top of the community to the paying few. In the absence of problems with execution, I see this approach working.
Prior to LgDb, Scott Yates founded MyTrafficNews.com, which was sold to Traffic.com earlier this year. Scott has also started a new (and yes, quirky) blog called CreditCardVC.com which is the “site for business owners who don’t want VC, thankyouverymuch”. From that, you can probably guess that Scott is a bootstrapper and is not currently seeking investment capital.
UPDATE: Scott has a fantastic 5 minute video up about the benefits of LgDb. A quick video is almost a must these days to explain your new product at launch.
I was on the phone with Ben from TechRockies today. Ben was asking me a few questions about my blog and why I write it. He said “You’re sort of the TechCrunch of Colorado, huh?” I told him that was overly flattering and that I don’t do nearly as good a job as those guys. But yeah, I guess I’m doing something similar for Colorado.
Then, tonight, I read this post on Arrington’s CrunchNotes blog basically describing today as his worst day ever for variouscrazyreasons. Mike said:
“I can’t believe blogging hasn’t driven me to drink yet. I wish it was still just about meeting entrepreneurs and writing about their companies, but those days are long gone.”
I woke up this morning and listened to the Kiva bedcast. I’d heard about Kiva before, but getting it from the horse’s mouth made me want to get involved.
I’ll let you know what happens as this develops. Maybe you want to help one of these entrepreneurs. It’s an easy way to do some good in the world, and there’s a 95+% repayment rate.
Some mornings, you just don’t feel like getting out of bed. The BlackBerry is showing no meetings until late morning. It feels good there in bed. It looks cold outside.
Since suddenly I’m no longer 25, sleeping til 10 is harder to do than it used to be. Today was one of those days. I flipped on my TV and fired up the Tivo podcatcher (why the hell does Tivo call it a “PodCaster”?) and checked out a few podcasts. Here are some really good ones that were done recently that I thought you might enjoy.
Larry Nelson at W3W3 did a great podcast with CTEK’s Gary Held, Nicle Glaros, and Christina James. It contains some fantastic tips on how to pitch to angel investors. W3W3 and CTEK are great resources for Colorado - you should check them both out if you’re not aware of them.
Larry also talked with Chris Wand of Mobius Venture Capital about the challenges of later stage startups as they move past the “founders/heroes” stage. There are some great insights here for those of you who may be moving your companies out of the pure startup phase and into the sales oriented growth stage.
Finally, and this has nothing to do with Colorado specifically, I thought that the Venture Voice podcast with Kiva.org’s President Premal Shah was outstanding. I think I’ll set up a small micro-loan portfolio to see how it goes.
Here’s a formula for a base-hit (or better) and optionally landing a really cool job for smart entrepreneurial geeks.
1. Take a look at the biggest apps that people can’t seem to get enough of. The iTunes Music Store, MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, etc. Don’t just focus on the hugest companies, also think about local companies that you admire, and are well funded and/or profitable. Their strengths are all very clear.
2. For each of these companies, make a list of what they’re not so good at and imagine how much more valuable they’d be if they were good at each of those things.
3. For each of these companies, figure out if they tend to build or buy technology. This is easy to research. Don’t rule out anybody based on your findings, just use the data. If they’re buyers, you’ll make sure to build your tool in their “mold” with a similar attitude, look, and feel. If they’re builders, you’re more likely to get interest from other companies that exist around the ecosystem created by that company. Just being aware of this can sharpen your thinking.
4. Figure out what you’re good at and are passionate about personally. Perhaps it’s mobile apps, ease of use, RSS, or whatever. Map this to the list you generated in step 2.
5. A very limited number of companies should now come into focus. If you can narrow this list by figuring out which of these companies you have some sort of connection into such as geography, a buddy who works there, a relationship with an existing advisor, etc., then you should probably focus on them. Much of business success is often related to who you know or whose attention you can get quickly.
6. Jump on the blogs and support forums for these companies, and see what their customers are asking them for. Talk with company insiders that you might be able to get access to, if any.
7. Pick your top company, and go and quickly build a prototype that fills their gap. Test it with a few dozen friends - don’t spend too much time on details once it’s basically working.
8. If you do know an insider or two, pitch the tool directly to them.
9. Post your free “extension/addon/tool” somewhere their customers will see it and start using it. Show it off at a tech meetup. Blog about it. Tell your friends.
10. React quickly to what the early users want, improving your tool.
Then quickly respond to any business inquiry emails that you receive. Didn’t get any? Go to step 1.
It does work. Look at earFeeder and smartFeed (Kevin took the job). Hmm, maybe you’d better name your product “feed” something or other.
David Cohen
