I’ve been horrible with posting, I know.  The past week has just been killing me.  Here’s something for you all to enjoy though.

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[tags]leeroy jenkins, wow, web 2.0, publictivity, world of warcraft, spike, vga, video game awards [/tags]

Sarah Travel from Bessemer Ventures just started a new blog. Cool thing is, she’s young, and sounds like she can kick ass (Well, her picture on the blog says not to mess with her, so I’ll take her word).  Always good to see some fellow early/mid 20 somethings doing some cool things. Check the blog out, as she has a good take on Guy Kawasaki’s VCAT. Okay, back to work.
[tags] venture capital, blogs, bessemer ventures, blogging, web 2.0, publictivity [/tags]

So the SF Gate posted a great article about young entrepreneurs leaving school. Disclaimer before I Begin this Post: This is not advice or a path for everyone. The article chronicles the likes of Sean Parker, Blake Ross, Evan Williams, and more. It shows something inherent about all of them: They clearly knew what they wanted to do. Evan didn’t want to work for anyone, Sean knew he wanted to start Napster and be an entrepreneur, and Blake wanted to continue with Firefox. Blake is actually a Miami native, and went to high school down the road from where I live. Don’t just do it, to “do it”. There’s a few things that make sense, when it comes to taking this path:

1. Know Exactly What You’re Going To Do- Plan the project/ company before you take time off. Don’t just jump ship, without knowing what you’re going after.
2. Don’t Leave Completely, Take a Leave of Absence- Certain schools differ on this. UMiami and Harvard are 8 year, and I believe Williams is something like 3. It’s called “Stopping Out”.
3. Do it and Don’t Look Back- You’re going to question yourself. Stop once you make the decision. Hesitation can ruin it all. If you go into it, give yourself over.
4. Don’t Try To Fit In- Don’t try to fit in or be affected by the norms of society. They won’t and can’t understand. If they give you crap, brush it off
5. Surround Yourself With Like Minded Individuals- Try to stay around people in the same situation or fellow entrepreneurs
6. Have Fun- Enjoy this. The journey is the reward. Your life is significantly different now than anyone else at your age. Be proud of what you’re doing.

This is a touchy subject, especially something I’ve debated in the past. It takes balls… lots of them.

[tags] college, silicon valley, entrepreneurs, obvious corp, evan williams, blake ross, firefox, sean parker, napster, facebook, dropping out of college, stop out [/tags]

I think there are two key traits I’ve learned over the past two years that a startup needs: Focus and Scale. They are two intertwined characteristics. Your focus is strengthened by your scale, and vice versa. I’ve touched upon this aspect before, but have never done an in-depth post on the issue.

Focus

Your focus should be drilled into your head. It should probably be envisioned in your mission statement. Focus is the goal of your company and its products. Your initial focus should be very narrow, targeted, and niche. For example: We provide learning tools to educational institutions that focus on preschoolers. Notice that Focus is made up of two things: what and who. In this case, the what is: learning tools. The who is: educational institutions. The what is usually shaped and molded to fit the who. These two aspects are what change with scale.

Scale

Scale, is the explosive growth of your company towards new verticals and markets. Scale expands the  who, while keeping the inherent goals of the what. In my mind, there are three levels of scale a company/ startup should go through in order to be succesful.

Initial Scale

This is going to be your first trial run. In the first few months, it will be where you start to grow and acquire your first customers. It is going to be very very small, but don’t be scared. In our example company, it might be preschools only in Florida. Eventually you will expand your initial scale to different regions: the southeast, the east coast, start over in the west coast, then make it nation wide. This in itself is one hell of a feat. If you can saturate your first market with your initial scale, awesome. You’re already a great company. Take your time with your initial scale, as this will teach you the most important lessons.

Expanded Inter-Vertical Scale

So you’ve saturated the first part of your vertical. In our example companies case, it was the preschool market. Some companies will just stay at this level, and be happy. If you want a homerun, you try to keep growing. Your next step is expanded inter-vertical scale. This is the first point you hit, that slightly changes your who. Our example company is still providing educational tools (the what), but they begin to provide their product to new markets within their vertical (the education market). It might be the college level, the high school level, disabled learning level,etc. This is where it might also make sense to raise a round of capital. It really depends if your revenues can sustain rapid growth or not on their own. At this point, you want the fertilizer to grow. You may hit some speedbumps as well. Expect that some inter-verticals will go well. ie- college market, but not the high school market. Once you’ve spent some time on inter-vertical scale, take a look at the results. More importantly, look at what you’ve learned. If so, it’s time to move ahead.
Mass Consumption and New Markets/Verticals Scale

This is the holy grail. This is where your company is dominating, and ready to reach its maximum potential. If you pull this off, or even begin to take the journey, you may be ready for an IPO. You are going to change the who for sure, and also modify the what slightly. In our example company, they may begin providing learning tools to educate and train. This could start to include the workforce, police academies, the government, and more. The same philosophies and strengths they applied to the educational market could be applied to new markets and verticals. This is very hard to do, and takes planning from day 1 as a startup. This is where your revenue charts are really making that “J curve”.

A quick example- Facebook.com

Initial Scale- The college market. Began with the ivy league, and eventually expanded to all colleges. Included 2 and 4 year schools.

Expanded Inter-Vertical Scale- High School and graduate/workforce market. Simply an expansion in the who to include more people

Mass Consumption and New Markets/ Verticals Scale- Opening up to regions and everybody. This is Facebook’s big test, to see if they are “that” hot. This fully scales their who and their what.

[tags] scale, focus, entrepreneurship, web 2.0, publictivity, startups, facebook [/tags]

PayPerPost gets how to conduct a press campaign.  Yes, they’re controversial, but I think all great businesses do that well.  Maybe they get shit for the way they conduct business, but they’re playing it the smart way.  They’re not jumping at everyone’s first reactions.  That’s good, no it’s great.  They have a new business model, that is going to change, and they need to execute with precision.  They can’t just jump the gun, and do it, because everyone says so.  The big guys in the blogosphere hate them for their business model, but at the end of the day, those aren’t their customers.  It’s the smaller guys.  The ones who run the smaller blogs, and represent the average consumer.  You know… the people that would confuse half of the startups for Star Wars Characters.  Anyway, they just launched RockStartup, which is a great reality television/ vcast that focuses on following PayPerPost through their journey.  It starts after the money is raised from DFJ and Inflexion.  It’s great to see a Florida startup get some spotlight.  I’ve embedded the first video from RockStartup. Enjoy! I know I’m already hooked.

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[tags] payperpost, ted murphy, tech crunch, web 2.0, michael arrington, ppp, florida startups, inflexion partners, dan rua, tim draper, dfj, draper fisher jurveston [/tags]

So I took a few days off from blogging, emails, and mostly everything this weekend. It was an overly draining week.  Not that this week will be any different, but I just needed to recharge.  Only had one development meeting this weekend, which went great.  Honestly, I’m overly ecstatic on how great Publictivity is coming along.  The UI is going to be something really special.  Can’t wait to show you all something.  Expect quite a few posts tonight.
[tags] publictivity, web 2.0, recharged, jason l. baptiste [/tags]