Posts Tagged ‘Web 2.0’

Posted on July 20, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

25 Web 2.0 Startup Commandments

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1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

16. You will have at least one catastrophe every three months.

17. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced.

18. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You’d better.

19. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don’t need money, right?

20. People will think your idea sucks. They’re even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed.

21. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion. Thought your first love in High School was clingy? You can’t take out a restraining order on your startup.

22. Being an entrepreneur requires a healthy amount of ignorance. Note I did not say stupidity.

23. Your software sucks. So what. Everyone else’s does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup. Startups are no place for architecture astronauts.

24. You do have a public API, right?

25. Abject Terror. Overwhelming Joy. Monstrous Greed. Embrace and harness these emotions you must.

Source: It’s difficult to say where these all came from but I do know that Mark Fletcher, founder of Bloglines came up with at least the last 10.

Posted on February 22, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

Social Networking = hard work!

I love Web 2.0 stuff and more importantly I love community involvement but hell it’s hard work to keep up with the various subscriptions I have to social network sites. A couple months back my good friend Lisa, who now lives in Toronto, sent me a friend request to join Facebook. Because she’s my mate I joined up but that’s as far as I ever got with it.

Then interestingly enough tonight I got a request from her to join a group on Facebook which I diligently obliged to do but the really scary thing is about two hours later I got a friend request from Paul at Chilibean. After never using the system I suddenly get found by him and I had no choice but to mail him and ask how on earth he hooked up with me. Turns out it’s quite easy but a little freaky at that!

This has now in turn got me going and I’ve started to setup a small profile on Facebook. I’m even thinking about putting up some real pictures of me… but only time will tell. I’ve also been looking at Facebook in terms of its functionality and in principle it seems half decent.

The best thing I found is that you can setup an RSS feed from your site and it will publish your posts in Facebook which is super-cool!

In truth though I’ve really come to like MyBlogLog as a social networking tool but I can see for people who don’t have their own sites, such as my dear friend Lisa, Facebook is great to blog and keep in touch with the world.

On a side-note I managed to score a 1-year Pro subscription on MBL so I’m a really chuffed guy but unfortunately I can’t tell you how or why… sorry!

Anyway I digress - at some point though we have to draw the line with all these sites. When is enough actually enough? I barely have time to blog let alone keep up these social networks but maybe it’s a small price to pay for social fame. Thoughts anyone?