Monthly Archives: April 2010

Fred Wilson's 10 rules for a startup success

Posted on by
Reply

Fred Wilson has listed out the 10 things he thinks are necessary for startup success on his blog.  Keir Whitaker on Carsonified was nice enough to breakout the 10 things into a list for us:

1.  Speed – If your application is slow, people won’t use it.

2.  Instant Utility – the service is instantly useful to the user. no long configs.  it just has to work. (posterous comes to mind)

3.  Software is Media – your software has to have a personality, like media does.

4.  Less is more – keep feature sets trim and grow over time.

5.  Make it programmable – API API API – this is the one thing that Simplizt needs.  it’s coming… i swear!

6.  Make it personal – allow your users to infuse their personality into the application

7.  RESTful – make sure everything in the application has a clean callable URL. i think this lends the application to spread virally and have better SEO.

8.  Discoverability – SEO.  I think every entrepreneur needs to know the basics of this, even if you’re not a developer I would argue.

9.  Clean – the application cannot be busy on the page

10.  Playful – he describes this as: mobile, social, global, playful, intelligent.  I think this is the one i’m having the hardest time with.  I’m trying to figure out how to make a task management system playful.  I have some ideas that maaaaay work.  we’ll see.

So there are the 10 things that Fred Wilson believes will make a successful web app.  I’m pretty excited to my site directed toward these things! If anyone who comes across this posting has some feedback, please check out Simplizt and tell me what you think! I’m all ears!

The 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Buy the ticket, take the ride

Posted on by
Reply

So while I was sick last week (which is why I didn’t get my free idea friday out!  Sorry!).  I watched the Hunter S. Thompson documentary, ‘Buy the ticket, take the ride’.  Toward the end of the movie, they say ‘Buy the ticket, take the ride.   As you get older, the ticket gets more expensive and the ride shorter’.  That statement really rung true in my mind.

I see why the Seed Companies look for younger entrepreneurs.  They’re able to take a lot more risk coming out of school.  There’s nothing that they won’t benefit from.  However, as you get older, the more difficult it is to really “buy that ticket”.  Once you get kids, a mortgage, it gets even harder.  One thing that we all take for granted as well is time.  The ride truly does get shorter and shorter, because time is the only asset that we’ll never get back.  Money we can make again, once a minute is gone, it’s gone forever.

So for anyone out there reading this, if you’re coming out of school or sick of your job, buy the ticket, take the ride!

Finding a good co-founder

Posted on by
Reply

Chris McCann covers this on his blog, and reiterates how some well-known investors look at the problem.  This is pretty difficult thing to accomplish.  I’ve worked with several so far and it’s pretty much been a bust for me each time.  Various personality conflicts, scheduling, and commitments ended each relationship.  And that’s what it feels like, breaking up… and now I have to move on and find another “date”.  It’s just like real world dating, you need to figure out who’s a good match for you.  If you’re a super star, do you want to date a nobody?  If you’re a nobody, is it possible to date a superstar?  What type of girl are you looking for?  What are the personality traits that match?  This is pretty much the process that i’m going through now, looking for someone that I can “sync” with and really dig into a project with.

Overall the problem I have is that I’m willing to dedicate my entire time to working on a project, night and day, and I’ve already given notice at my part-time job to work on Simplizt, my task management tool.  However, I generally don’t find the same dedication in my counterparts.  Since I’m the technical person, I expect my co-founder to be a person who’s willing to write all the blog content, write articles, focus on product features, and marketing/sales while I’m coding.  it’s surprising, but this really isn’t easy to find!  I’d actually love finding another technical person so I could focus on everything I wrote above!

Some resources for everyone to go date:

Founder Dating – a way for you to meet other co-founders in seattle and cali right now

Startup Weekend – a way for you to meet other people and decide together to conceive and launch a product in 54 hrs.