Category Archives: web 2.0

TechStars: My Take

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Update: David Cohen’s perspective is here. Jeff Rohrer, another entrepreneur, has a good synopsis too.

I attended a TechStars event tonight that was open to the public. We didn’t apply to be apart of TechStars but I kind of wish I had.

The panel discussion was excellent, but more than anything it was great to be in a room full of other entrepreneurs going through the exact same thing that I am.

The topic of the night was “How to fund your startup”. I walked away with the following:

  1. Bootstrap it – The panel was full of people who fund entrepreneurs and make a lot of money doing it. Ironic though that their advice was to NOT take money from them, or at the very least, to put it off as long as possible. I also found it interesting that most of the people on the panel started their first company with “10 bucks” (Brad Feld) or “100 bucks” (David Cohen) or “-10 million” (Gary Held).
  2. Be creative – There were a couple of really colorful and interesting business stories that the panel shared as examples of how to be creative. Basically, there’s no one right way to raise money. Do what makes sense. That may seem obvious, but so many times I see others (myself included) looking for a road map. While there are some general guidelines, ultimatley, you just have to figure it out.
  3. Real entrepreneurs eat ramen noodles – Lifestyle choices are a big part of starting a company. You have to be willing to eat ramen noodles for a while to get things off the ground. Lisa Rutherford likes you to “max out your credit cards” too because it shows passion, committement and belief in who you are and what you’re doing.
  4. Keep costs low, but focus on growing revenue – Part of funding your startup is keeping the money that you have, so you want to keep your costs as low as possible. At the same time, you have to grow, which usually means spending money. Balance is the key here. You don’t want to tighten up to the point that you stop growth. This can be scary sometimes as it may mean having to spend your last few dollars.
  5. The right advisors are invaluable – You have to find the right advisors with experience in your industry. Ideally, someone who can help you with a big probelm that you’re facing. The best advisors will never ask you for compensation, but let’s be fair, if they’re providing real value, you should invite them to participate in the upside by way of a small equity position. Be careful not to populate the back of your business plan with a list of big names that hardly know you. This may look good on paper, but you’re missing the point of an advisory board. You must develop personal relationships with each one so they have a vested interest in you and what you’re doing.

David Cohen also did an excellent job moderating the panel and keeping the discussion focused. I wanted to say thanks to him and the panel for putting this together. I really appreciate what you guys do.

The only bummer was that the MyBlogLog guys (acquired by Yahoo!) weren’t there for the panel discussion. Apparently they’ve been hanging around TechStars. I really wanted to meet them. (Update: Eric Marcoullier posted in the comments. Looks like he may be back in Boulder sometime.)

Keep an eye on the TechStars Blog for a video of the event.

eNeighbors Features: Classifieds

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We’ve recently put together a small sales team and subsequently developed some training materials to get the guys up to speed on all the features of eNeighbors. So, I thought I’d follow suit here on the blog and post a series of entries tied to the different features that eNeighbors offers a neighborhood.

First, there are 5 core communication features that we offer:

1. News
2. Events / Calendar
3. Groups
4. Classifieds
5. Bulletins

In addition, there are other more standard web features:

1. Online Resident Directory
2. Contact Form
3. Architectural Request Form
4. Resources (this is for all your HOA documents)

The first feature, I’ll cover is Classifieds since it has been our most popular so far. As of this morning, there have been 253 classifieds posted on eNeighbors from about 15 different neighborhoods in the past 10 weeks.

1. Classifieds are free

2. It’s so easy to post a classified, you can do it in about 2 minutes. All you have to do is click “Post a Classified”, type up your ad, preview it, and then click “publish.” Your ad is instantly added to the site for everyone to view.

3. The top 3 most recent classifieds appear on the Home page.

4. When you post a classified, it is viewable by anyone in your neighborhood that has registered on the website.

5. There are 4 different categories you can post to:
– For Sale
– Wanted
– Neighborhood Services?
(things like babysitting, pet sitting, yard work, etc.)
– Professional Services
(things like, Mary Kay, tax services, house painting, etc.)

6. Finally, each classified post is automatically put into the eNewsletter and sent to every neighbor that has chosen to receive the newsletter either daily, weekly, or monthly.

Contact us today to get more info on signing up your neighborhood for eNeighbors

All Things Digital

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On down the west coast, there’s another gathering this week of the technology elite in Carlsbad, CA — D5: The D Conference

The D5 conference is part of All Things Digital which was created by Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Here’s the overview from the site:

AllThingsD.com is a Web site devoted to news, analysis and opinion on technology, the Internet and media. But it is different from other sites in this space. It is a fusion of different media styles, different topics, different formats and different sources.

This is when the tech geek in me really wishes I could get my wife to move the west coast. Should be some really cool stuff going on.

The highlight reel of the much hyped presentation of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together on the stage can be seen here.

It’s good to be part of the 21st century.

Where 2.0

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The Where 2.0 conference is underway in San Jose. All the big local players are gathered together to share the latest and greatest in location-based technology.

Here’s a quick excerpt from their overview page describing what Where 2.0 is:

Now in its third year, the Where 2.0 Conference is where the grassroots and leading edge developers building location aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. In the O’Reilly conference tradition, Where 2.0 presents leading trends rather than chasing them.

Visit the blog here, or if you prefer, live Twittering.

It’s also nice to see Garmin participating. Not a lot of big tech firms out of the midwest, but Garmin’s corp headquarters is about 5 blocks from my parent’s house in the suburbs of Kansas City.

Fatdoor Goes Alpha

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fatdoor has launched in alpha mode (SF Bay area only for now).

In a very high-level sense, fatdoor is a new social network focused on localness and aims to have direct ties to the physical community in addition to the online nature of the network.

Per Greg Sterling’s blog, Raj Abhyanker of fatdoor indicates that their goal is to connect neighbors to each other specifically around things like local community, schools and families.

I applaud fatdoor in their efforts. Here at eNeighbors, we are attempting something similar — eNeighbors’ focus is connecting neighbors in their community and offering new ways to more effectively communicate with each other.

The move of social networks to the local level is a great thing to see. Relevance of information and community is starting to grow, and for adults who have little time on their hands to spend online, services like fatdoor will provide a great way to keep in touch with their community.

Neighborhood Search from Google

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Last Friday, Google posted on its Lat Long Blog that Google Maps now has neighborhood search capability. To any but the most savvy users, this could be very misleading. Here’s the part that intrigues me:

Recently Google Maps introduced the ability to perform searches by neighborhoods. Neighborhoods tend to be somewhat informally defined but well recognized in certain cities. Neighborhood search is now available in fifty US cities, with more to follow.

The part about “informally defined” seems to be loophole to me. And then there’s the caveat of “only available in 50 US cities” which is the misleading part (since the title of the blog post doesn’t specificy “which” neighborhoods).

All this aside, I played along to see what the results would look like in Kansas City. Granted, KC is not the biggest metro in the country, but it’s respectable. My first search for art galleries on the Plaza gave me only one gallery that was actually on the Plaza (I know of at least 10 more). The other two results were in Kansas as far south as Leawood since Google didn’t know the difference between the Plaza and Hawthorne Plaza out south.

Second, I thought I’d try it on an actual neighborhood. I picked Mission Hills since it’s probably the premiere neighborhood in KC with the likes of Henry Block, George Brett, The Halls family, and The Russell Stover’s mansion being just a few of the well known residents. Looking for coffee around the Mission Hills neighborhood was a little better but not much. Only one of the results would I actually classify as being in Mission Hills.

My point in all this is that true neighborhood search still does not exist. It’s not even close. Google is still simply matching keywords to business listings. An actual framework of neighborhoods just doesn’t exist. Yelp comes close, and Urban Mapping has made some headway, but there still isn’t a true neighborhood level index to search from or serve content to.

Bottom line, it takes a lot of good old fashioned hard work, unique local knowledge, and lot of time to build such a network; and it’s just not economically viable for the large search companies to go down that road.

Social Networks & Advertising

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Some good info on ad placement in social networks over on eMarketer today. MySpace and YouTube top the list (not surprising). Driving traffic and brand awareness are the top reasons for the placements. One of the questions posed is how do people use search when they are interacting within these social networks?

Interesting to see Craigslist in the #5 spot for the most ad spend. Good sign that local ad spending and hyper-local audiences are being considered across the board.

Local Social: The Insider View

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Perry Evans posts on the launch of Local Guides today on his blog, evans ink. At first, it seems to be another rehash of local content, but what I think sets it apart is the “guides” aspect. Here’s a way for you (as a local in your community) to provide direction for other people in regards to the “it” places to eat, shop, hang out, etc.

For instance, I’m a huge music junkie. There are a lot of great local bands in Kansas City (where I live) that no one knows about. Here’s an opportunity to provide an insider’s view on the local music scene to someone like myself but who is from another city and is just visiting KC and wants to catch some great local shows.

I also like how the site gears itself towards an experience by using guides. In other words, sight-seeing the Plaza as opposed to just finding a restaurant for lunch.

The other great aspect is the centrality of the service. Everyone in KC knows that The Pitch is the best guide for local music, but people from Boston might not know that. I’m usually not a proponent of nationally-centric sites for local services, but it seems to make sense here due to the content that is being shared and the intent for the information.

The Tech Threshhold

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The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently published a study on the usage of information and communications technology (there’s a great breakdown here). This includes internet and cell phone usage. The most interesting part that jumped out at me was the number of users that either are annoyed by technology (29%) or don’t use it due to inexperience (23%). So, I ask this question:

If technology was easier to use (and understand), would more people be comfortable using it? Or, does the very nature of technology limit the number of users that will adopt it?

In context, this is very relevant to me relating specifically to the work I did on the eNeighbors application interface. My design efforts were focused on simplicity and a very “non tech” look and feel, but even more importantly, the very essence of the application was designed to focus on a small number of tasks and to perform those tasks easily and efficiently. In short, I was targeting the inexperienced technology user with no prior exposure to things like web 2.0 sites, Ajax tools, RSS, blogs, etc. Does this make it more likely to be used, or will those individuals who resist using technology still be reluctant to adopt the tool?

I think the key is relevance.

If a technology tool can provide a service or information that is relevant to the user, those previous biases can be overcome since there is a very real reward for exerting that extra effort.

When it comes to content, there are certain types of information that we’ve become numb to. TV commercials, banner ads, etc. have lost a significant amount of their impact due to the fact we encounter them when they are not relevant. I think the future of online advertising is heavily dependent on this concept of relevance.

I realize that is exactly what Google keywords does (and why it’s been so successful), but ultimately, the amount of quality within those pieces of relevant information needs to grow before we once again grow numb to it. That level of quality is going to be based on filters and behavioral awareness. There must be a limit to the information, otherwise it loses it’s impact. And that it is exactly why there is a race to the “local” finish line. The question is: where does that line exist?

I like to think it’s in my own backyard.

Broadband Is King

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Broadband internet (DSL, cable, high-speed internet, or whatever you want to call it…) is now reigning supreme in the world of connecting people to the internet in the United States. AT&T and Comcast have officially surpassed AOL in subscribers bumping AOL to the #3 spot.

With broadband adoption over 50%, the future is bright for the internet companies, and hopefully this is a sign that web 2.0 will not burst like it’s ill-fated 1.0 version. To give you an example of why I believe this to be a great sign of the times and also why the web 2.0 companies are approaching this next era with more focus and realism, we at eNeighbors have approached our business model in the following manner:

1. We launched a web 2.0 application in less than 6 months for under $100k.

2. We have less than 5 people in the company.

3. We have no official office space (we all work virtual).

4. Finally, we are self-funded so far — no insane VC funding/spending here.

There’s no substitute for critical thinking and talent. We excel at both. The market is primed. Online use is on the rise. Google, Yahoo, YouTube, MySpace, etc. have made it commonplace (and cool) to be connected 24/7. This is a great time to be working in the online space. It’s so much more fun to go to work when you’re having fun!

Oh, and happy Cinco de Mayo!