I came across a great article today by Jason
Calacanis on the topic of PR for startups. Jason Calacanis is founder and
CEO of Mahalo, but you probably would better know him as the the guy behing
Weblogs, Inc. In any case, he’s accomplished, and knows a thing or two about
getting visibility for a startup.
I’ve always thought of myself as being really different from Jason (note:
I’ve never actually met him). He seems to be the classic extrovert and seems
capable of really putting himself “out there” for his startup. Though I don’t
think of myself as lacking in passion, I just don’t have the gumption he
does.
In any case, If you’re involved in a startup (particularly if you happen to
be venture-backed), the article is worth the read. However, the original
article is over 4,500 words and on the off-chance that you’re lazy like me, here
are some of my favorite points from the article:
1. “My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be
everywhere, be real.”
2. First time I’ve ever the heard of the term ceWebrities. clever. With
regards to these ceWebrities, “these overnight successes are 10 years in the
making.”.
3. “Be the brand…you must be in love with your brand and
inspired by your brand’s mission to have any hope of getting press.”
4. “Be everywhere…every single night I would go out and
meet folks in the internet industry…while other folks went home to their
families, I went out and made a family.”
5. “Your job is to transfer the enthusiasm you feel for your brand to
everyone you meet.”
6. “Always pick up the check — always…everyone remembers
who picked up the check”.
7. “Set a goal of creating deep relationships with a small number of folks
as opposed to running around trying to trade business cards with as many folks
as possible.”
8. “Be a human being. The best way to get PR is not to
sell someone on your company or product — it’s by being a human being.
Journalists hate being pitched…journalists and bloggers are, in fact,
humans.”
9. “Before meeting with a journalist, it is your job (as CEO) to read their
last five articles in full…”
10. “Your job as the CEO/founder is to create direct, honest and personal
relationships with journalists.”
11. “Attach your brand to a movement.”
12. “PR is, by definition a reflection of what you’ve done. When a startup
hits, it’s not one thing that does it, it’s typically many things working in
concer.”
I'd summarize the advice and change the 6 words of advice to: Be amazing, be passionate, be human. What's your 6-word version?
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I’ve been thinking a bit this past week about startup teams and what makes
them work (or not work). Most people that are in and around startups will
readily agree that recruting the best team possible is critical
to success. This leads to statements from startup pundits that look a
lot like “get the best people possible.” Far be it from me to argue against
this kind of sage advice. You should get the best people possible onto
your startup team. All things being equal, who wouldn’t want to recruit
the best people possible?
However, the phrase “best people possible” is a bit too vague for my tastes.
The question is, what makes a given team member the
best? Are they the smartest ones? The ones with the most
experience? The ones with the greatest skillset for a given role? The
ones with the most domain expertise? For purposes of this discussion, I’m going
to “merge” all the things that makes a given individual really, really good into
something I’ll call “Capability”. You can feel free to make Capability a
function of whatever attributes (intelligence, experience, skills, etc.) as
suits your taste.
So,
Capability = How well the person can do the job
Now, this article isn’t really about capability. It’s about a somewhat
orthogonal concept that I’m going to refer to as Confidence (or
Trust). By confidence, I don’t mean how much confidence they (the
candidate) have. I mean the degree to which the rest of the team
believes a person has the required capability.
Confidence = How strongly people believe in a person’s
Capability
My argument is this: The best people to recruit into a startup are
the ones that have the optimal mix of capability (can get the job done) and
confidence (trust from others that they’ll get the job done). Even with lots
and lots of capability, if there is moderate or low confidence, the individual
will be second-guessed, undermined, and ultimately just plain ineffective. Even
if they would have a bunch of good decisions, it’s not really going to
matter, because they won’t get to make that many, and the ones they do make
might not “stick”. Unfortunately, this kind of team dysfunction does not jump
right out at you, it creeps in when you’re not looking. Everyone has the best
intentions. A quick (totally made-up) example: “Billy’s a great web design and
UX guy…and he’s been lobbying for this simplified design to replace the $25,000
website we created last year. Sure, he goes to all the conferences and stuff,
but does he really get that sorts of people come to our website, not
just customers?”
So, you ask, why would people making the decisions ever hire folks that they
didn’t have confidence in anyways? Isn’t that stupid? What’s the point talking
about that? I’d respond with two things: First, confidence is not a
binary thing. It’s an analog thing. There are degrees of
confidence. Second, confidence may start out being really high, but can be
chipped away at as time goes.
Now that we have some of the baseline behind us, here are some thoughts on
capability and confidence when it comes to startup teams:
Capability vs. Confidence
1. How did we find this person? Certain sources of
referrals engender more confidence than others. Did your co-founder bring the
person in? Is she your niece, once-removed?
2. Who has the most confidence in them? Is it the person
that introduced them? Someone that will be working with them? One of your
investors? One of your advisors?
3. How important is confidence for this role?
There are certain areas in your startup where folks need to have a fair
degree of discretion. For example, regardless of how smart and passionate the
founders might be, if you hire a professional UX designer, you have to let them
do their thing. Debates are good, but whoever is the best qualified to make the
decision should make the decision.
4. Who on the team loses the most if they don’t work out?
Yes, I know, everyone loses when you lose a team member. But, who is
impacted the most?
5. Is the eroding confidence justified? Is it possible
that a bad hiring decision was made? Did people expect a degrree of capability
that just did not get delivered?
Some though (but important) questions.
Closing words of advice: When recruiting team members make
sure someone on the team will go to bat for the person when things are
shaky. You need a trusted member (like one of the co-founders) to help
objectively assess issues of eroding confidence — and help restore it if
needed. Otherwise, things go into a downward spiral and nobody wins.
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I just got back from Y Combinator Demo Day, Summer 2008. For a startup
fanatic like me, it’s hard to imagine a more fun use of a few hours. I got to
watch 20 back-to-back, rapid-fire startup demos. 
Here are some of my initial reactions and thoughts on the newest cohort of YC
startups. Note: Like most OnStartups articles, this article focused on the
entrepreneurial perspective (not the investor perspective). The folks that
should (hopefully) get the most out of this are the YC startup founders
themselves.
Notes From The Y Combinator Summer 2008 Demo Day
1. Best Cohort Yet: Overall, in my (highly subjective)
opinion, this is the best batch of YC startups yet. I think I have a bias
(which has been tempered over time) for startups that have demonstrated some
thinking around things like monetization and revenue, and that might be
influencing my thinking. The current cohort, on average, seemed to have a
stronger emphasis on not just making something people want, but something that
will yield revenue, and (gasp!) profits. Good stuff.
2. Presentations were better than what I’ve seen in the
past. More fluid, more polished, more effective. My hat’s off to all
the YC startup founders that presented today. You guys did a great job! Having
said that, it’s not a totally fair comparison. You guys do have the advantage
of many more YC founders before you that you can learn from. I’m guessing that
Paul, Jessica and the rest of the YC crew are also getting better and better at
nudging you in the right direction when it comes to Demo Day presentations.
3. Tip: Use your precious minutes: The Y Combinator team
did a great job keeping things moving, and I think the format of Demo Day works
well (6 minutes per presentation, no audience questions). One quick tip for the
presenting team: If you are doing the presenting, you should begin with your
message even while your team member is setting up. Don’t wait for the
slide deck to come up on the screen. Don’t shift the focus to your buddy who is
switching out the cabtes and stuff. Don’t wait. Just start delivering
your message. In your preparation, come up with introductory
remarks that don’t rely on your first slide being up yet. When you only have a
precious few minutes, 30 seconds counts.
4. Don’t use gender stereotypes: This one’s going to be a
little touchy. A few of the startups today used examples and screenshots that
were um, a little too “gender-stereotypical” (that’s a semi-polite way of saying
they were too far down the spectrum towards being sexist). I can understand and
appreciate that most of the YC founders are young males in their 20s. But, my
advice would be to resist the temptation to use scantily clad women in
demos. It’s both inappropriate and sub-optimal.
5. Answer the question you know people are asking
themselves: Once you start doing presentations a lot, you begin to
realize that there’s a “pattern” to the kinds of quesitons people have in their
heads. The same themes recur. Do what you can to make it as difficult
as possible for people to dismiss you because they’ve got that one big
“obvious” question/objection/whatever. For example, I thought the Fliggo team did a smart thing by closing with
this nugget: “I know you’re asking yourself, how are these guys going to make
money…I’m glad you asked…”. You don’t necessarily have to answer the “how do
you make money” question (though that’s not a bad thing), and you don’t even
have to frame it as a quesiton. Just try and address the most obvious things
people are likely to wonder about.
6. Tip: If you’ve got traction, share it earlier in the
presentation: There were several startups that had pretty impressive
early traction (like users and revenues). They didn’t talk about this until
later in the presentation. I’d suggest possibly getting this message out
earlier in the presentation, because it will grab people’s attention
and cause them to listen more intently to the rest of your story. Imagine an
opening sentence that is something like this: “Hi, we’re XYZ. We launched just
a few weeks ago and we’re getting some encouraging early evidence that we’ve
built something people want…Here’s what we’ve learned from our 14,000 users…”.
I’m not suggesitng you use that exact sentence, just a thought. When dealing
with investor types, remember that folks have short attention spans and you’re
best served by grabbing them as early as possible with
something they care about.
7. Memorable sound-bites are not just for TV: I’m
generally not a big fan of over-preparing for presentations (more often than
not, sounding natural is more important than sounding polished). Having said
that, some clever, funny, well-crafted sound-bites thought of in advance and
added to the presentation are a good thing. They’re particularly good for
bloggers and media types that might cover you. For example, the PopCuts folks had this great snippet: “The
only way to get famous on BitTorrent is to get arrested.” Simply
brilliant.
8. Audience participation/engagement works: A couple of
the startups were able to work their demo such that the audience was “involved”
in the demo itself. Although this is hard to do, it’s valuable. It also helps a
lot when you get audience members to do something (instead of just sit
there and listen).
That’s all I have for public consumption. However, I have notes from each of the
presentations. If you were one of the startups that presented today and want
my quick thoughts or feedback, feel free to email me.
I just noticed a great summary write-up of today’s event on Scott Kirsner’s
Innovation
Economy blog. If you’re not yet reading Scott’s blog, you should be.
Best wishes to all the Y Combinator startups. It was great to see you all
and chat with many of you at the close of the event. Knock ‘em dead next
week. In the meantime, some closing advice: Get some sleep!
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I have been tracking Y Combinator (a
new kind of venture firm for early, early stage startups) for several years.
They have a distinctive approach to the early-stage funding process and have
funded some interesting companies. YC is in the news again because of Google's
recent acquisition of Omnisio, a YC investment.
Thinking back on several years of YC history, I dervied the below list of
companies that I would have funded had I had the opportunity to do so. I tried not to cloud my judgement with hindsight (that is, I'm not just picking the ones that ended up being successful). Also,
note that these are not what I think to be the best YC companies — just
the ones that I’ve thought about in the past.
1. Reddit: I remember the day I first
encountered Reddit. They were presenting the product at one of the early Web
Innovators Group meetings. I was still a grad student at MIT at the time, and
went to the meetup with a few of my classmates (we were working on a paper about “Web
2.0” for one of our classes). Interestingly, Kiko (remember them?) was one of
the other companies presenting that evening. I’ll be honest and admit that on
the first evening, I didn’t quite “get reddit” (the category of social news was very
new at the time). But, reddit showed up on my radar pretty quickly a little while later. I
noticed a bunch of traffic coming to OnStartups.com (this blog) through
reddit.com. It caused me to take a second look, and I’ve been following them
ever since. I don’t know Steve Huffman that well (he might actually be even
quieter than I am), but Alexis is about as nice a guy as you can find and has a
weird, quirky creativity that is magnetic. To build a successful startup, it
helps a lot if people actually like you.
2. Xobni: I met Adam Smith for lunch at a
Thai place in Coolidge Corner (Brookline) a long, long time ago. Long enough
that it was before the exceptionally talented Matt Brezina joined as
co-founder. Even back then, I liked Xobni for one simple reason. It complies
with my notion of “the problem you solve should be ugly, the solution should be
beautiful.” There are few things less fun to develop these days than desktop
applications for Windows. It’s ugly. What’s even uglier is developing desktop
software that has to integrate as a plug-in to something else — like
Outlook. That’s one ugly problem. Further, the fact that millions of
people still use Outlook made it in an interesting commercial opportunity.
Plus, I really like Adam. He’s super-smart and listens. [Matt, I like you a
lot too, but I didn’t know you back then and I’m trying to talk about my early,
early thoughts on the company].
3. Pairwise: I saw the pairwise guys
present at the YC Demo Day (the big day following months of furious coding
that is the core of the YC experience). Of all the companies in that cohort
that presented, I liked Pairwise the most. It appealed to my data-driven nature
and they had something that I felt had commercial opportunity. More
importantly, unlike many startups, it seemed they were actually
thinking about the “how do we make money” part very early in the
process. I haven’t kept up with Pairwise much since then, and they haven’t
written on their blog since November, 2007 — so I’m guessing things didn’t take
off like they had hoped. Regardless, I thought the guys were great and the idea
was a good one.
4. Wufoo: I’ve been dealing with the
frustration of web-based forms for a long, long time. It’s a common enough
problem that lots of people try to solve it by creating a “form builder” of some
sort. It’s an appealing problem to try and solve (unlike what Xobni is doing,
it’s a fun problem to work on). We even built one as a part of our landing page application at HubSpot (not
because it is fun, but because it is a necessary part of what we do). Back to
Wufoo. The thing I like about them is that they are exceptionally good
at the UI/UX thing. I’m not a designer myself, and don’t play one on TV, but I
know great design when I see it. I also know how hard it is to do
right and how rare it is to find people that have that gift. What’s even rarer
is the notion of great UI/UX design talent intersected with a strong business
sense — which the Wufoo folks seem to have.
5. Disqus: Of all the startups from YC
that I’ve seen, I feel like I understand Disqus the best. Having been a blogger
myself for some time, I get the notion of centralized comments and the
tradeoffs therein. This is why I met with Daniel Ha — coincidentally, at the
same Thai restaurant in Coolidge Corner where I met Adam Smith. (Yes, I’m a
creature of convenience and the place is 2 minutes from where I live). Daniel’s
one of those entrepreneurs that makes a great early impression. He’s clearly
smart, but also recognizes there’s stuff he needs to learn that’s going to
increase his odds of success. I like the general notion of Disqus (always have)
and even back then, there was some early evidence that folks were going to use
it. Disqus is also one of those companies that likely benefits most from an
association with YC and Paul Graham.
6. RescueTime: Tony Wright (the
founder of RescueTime) probably doesn’t even recall this, but he and I first had
online contact years ago. He reached out to me way back then as a
reader of my blog and reported a problem with the commenting system. Since
then, Tony and I interact sporadically (mostly through each other’s blogs).
Tony’s one of those guys that I’d bet on simply because he has an uncanny knack
for how the startup game is played. Intersect that with an interesting idea
that could get massive appeal, and you have a great startup.
So, there you have it. 6 Y Combinator startups that I probably should have
been more aggressive about investing in. But, that’s not my style.
My best wishes to all the Y Combinator founders. Particularly those that are
working away furiously on their products in preparation for demo day coming up
soon. I hope to see/meet many of you there.
By the way, if you're not in YC, but you're a superstar web developer (take 5 minute quiz) and looking for a fantastically fun startup gig, I'm recruiting for HubSpot. Just drop me an email. I'm easy to find.
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You remember 1999, right? It was the day of the sock puppet and crazy, CRAZY
marketing strategies. By the way, before going too much further, I will confess
that I actually bought pets.com shares back in the hey day. Why? Because
everyone was doing it, and my wife and I thought the commercials was creative
and funny. Granted, my "due diligence" bar was lower back then, but I'd
understand if many of my colleagues would revoke my angel investor license just
for that.
But I digress. Today's article is about new ways startups are using to try
and attract attention and -- wait for it -- eyeballs! A software company in
Cambridge, MA is running a "viral marketing contest" whereby they are giving
away a total of $50,000 for bloggers, videographers (basically anyone with
a video camera) and others into the "new, new marketing".
Here's the article:
Insanely
Brilliant or Just Insane? The HubSpot $50,000 Viral Marketing Contest
Now normally, I'd be having a jolly old time making fun of this startup with
references back to every lame attempt at "marketing" we saw out of dot-com
startups back in 1999. There's just one problem. It's my startup
that's doing the crazy stuff! Yep, that's right, my startup HubSpot, which recently raised $12 million in
venture funding is giving away $50,000 of that in a viral marketing contest.
I figured once people get wind of this, many of my friends, colleagues and
bloggers are going to send me emails saying, "Dharmesh, what the hell?".
Actually, I might get an email from an investor or too as well, because we
haven't run this by them yet. I figured I'd try and pre-emptively answer some
of the inevitable questions.
1. Why do it? Well, it's kind of simple. We've been
having great success with attracting leads (and closing customers) through our
blog and other online channels. Some of our most successful marketing efforts
have been blog articles that went viral on social media sites like digg and
reddit. Last week, we tried to do a rough economic analysis and estimated the
value to us of leads generated from these successful pieces. It
was high. So, there's opportunity here. Plus, we don't like spending
too much money on AdWords. It pains us.
2. Why not just do it ourselves? Well, frankly, because
developing viral content that spreads like wildfire is a tricky business. We
have a team of great folks writing content all the time for our blog (including
me), and sometimes we hit it out of the park. But our guess is that there are
folks much more talented than us that are capable of producing
remarkable content (as Seth Godin would say). We figured it's worth a
shot trying to draw those people out.
3. If it works, it could work big. We're at a stage now
where experimentation is reasonably cheap. Instead of getting stuck in the rut
of turn this dial a bit, flip this switch a bit, and crank out the customers --
we'd like to look for some non-linear growth opportunities.
Oh, and if you're a VC reading this (particularly one of our VCs), we're
doing the same thing in marketing that you do when looking for investments:
Pick projects that have potentially huge impact, even if they are a bit whacky
and high-risk. If we do a dozen of these crazy projects, if just one wins,
we're golden! Champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries for everyone!
So, what are your thoughts? Is this genius or desperation? Would love to
hear your comments.
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Warning: I'm about to go on a bit of a rant. I usually only reserve these
kinds of articles for when things really irritate me, and this is one of
those times. I'm generally a patient, considerate person, really I am.
Here's the source of the most irritation I've felt from a technology article
in a long time (and this from BusinessWeek, a major brand that I respect):
Beware
The Hype For Software As A Service
I actually hesitated to even include a link to the article, because you might
be tempted to go read it. But it has to be done. It's kind of like when you
smell something really awful that's been growing in your refrigerator.
Then, you give it to your spouse and say: "Hey, check this out -- can you
believe how bad it smells?"
Disclaimer: I work for a tiny little startup that provides marketing software as a service. So, I guess
I could be biased. I'm not wrong on this one, but I could be biased.
Back to the article. Here are some of the issues I had:
1. SUVs Suck, So SaaS Must Too: The author does some
strange build-up in the opening paragraphs using "SUVs are cool" and "cell
phone causes cancer" as examples. The point? That both of these are/were
surrounded by "hype". And, we should always beware of hype. Think of the
children! I'm already irritated. For the record: I don't think SUVs are
cool. Oh, and these inane examples are what drove me to the title of this article. Fight fire with fire and all that.
2. SaaS Is Cheaper: The article tries to refute the "myth"
that SaaS is cheaper by providing this cogent argument: "Most service providers
charge each user by the month." There's no discussion of the economics of
installed software, drive-by sales in enterprise software, or the cost of
capital for small businesses. Hey, those SaaS vendors charge monthly, so it
must be more expensive. Right? That must be why Salesforce.com has
been so successful -- they just charge more than Siebel.
2. SaaS Reduces Hardware Investment : It refutes the
"myth" that SaaS requires less hardware investment by arguing that although you
don't have to pay for all the servers and stuff, you still have to pay
for fast access to the Internet. Here's the quote: "Sure, the SaaS providers
deal with the servers, and all the Windows headaches and patches and builds and
versions and whatever. That's their problem. But you still need fast access to
the Internet." The rest of this particular argument just gets worse from
there. Now, I'm really irritated.
3. SaaS Is Quicker To Setup: Yep, this is a myth that is
"busted" too. The example provided: "It's kind of like assembling furniture."
The author provides as evidence that SaaS is not easier to setup, the fact that
he's got a lopsided bookcase in his den. This "proves" that little theory about
SaaS being quicker to setup, wrong. Sure, setup costs for SaaS can be high
(based on level of customization), but on average, SaaS offerings are
simpler and quicker to get going on.
4. Data Can Be Secure In SaaS: The article argues that
data backup and reliability in SaaS is a myth. Once again, we have extreme (and
in one case totally unrelated) examples offered as proof. Yes, data security is
always a risk, but I'm not convinced that the risk is any higher for
SaaS than businesses (especially small businesses) than running the software on
your own servers, sitting in your closet somewhere.
If you think I'm being overly harsh, please read the article. I dare you.
And, if you do go read it, please don't forward it around to your colleagues.
Sometimes, you don't need validation that the thing in your refrigerator really
does smell that bad.
End of rant. Back to our regularly scheduled program next time.
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Today's big news
from TechCrunch is is that Google is in the final stages of acquiring digg
for about $200 million. Makes sense to me. Particularly given some of Google's
recent experiments having social voting in their search results pages.
I'd been thinking about startup acquisitions earlier this year (and started
keeping a side list of deals I thought should get done). Just as an
amusing exercise. ![]()
The 5 Tech Deals That Should Happen
Disclaimer: When I say should happen, it's not a prediction, just
something that I think makes sense.
1. Facebook should
acquire Twitter: Let's
face it, back in the early days, some of us wondered how Twitter was different
from an enhanced version of Facebook status updates. I think the two products
would work well together, and Facebook has the resources to help Twitter get
over some of the current platform stability issues.
2. Google should
acquire FriendFeed:
This would be a bit similar to the FeedBurner acquisition (although FriendFeed
is nowhere near as far along). Google gets a good product that can further it's
social networking stuff.
3. Microsoft should
acquire Xobni: This one's
already been talked about before, and almost happened. It should happen.
Xobini's got a great team, Microsoft needs some new energy in the Outlook
group.
4. Intuit should
acquire Freshbooks:
You may not have heard of Freshbooks, but it's a cool company with a cool
product for invoicing. Intuit needs a much better web offering, and the
Freshbook folks have great design and are great entrepreneurs.
5. Ning should acquire
Mixx: Ning is growing, but
needs more "best of breed" style social networking apps. Mixx is brilliantly
executed and more and more people want/need some type of focused social news
product as part of a larger social network or community.
So, what do you think? What's your vote for the acquisitions in the
remainder of 2008 that should happen? Leave 'em and debate 'em in the
comments.
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If you read this blog, there's a pretty good chance you're somehow involved
in the business of software. By that, I mean you are trying to (gasp!)
make money in the software business. If that's the case, I can't think of any
better place to be this September than the Business of Software Conference
being held in Boston on September 3-4. 
Some Reasons Why You Should Be At Business Of Software
2008
1. Joel Spolsky will be there. Well, he's not just going
to be there, he's one of the organizers along with Neil Davidson, the CEO of Red Gate Software.
2. Seth Godin will be there. Seth is a brilliant
marketer. Doesn't get more brilliant. And, if you're in the business of
software, you really, really need to understand marketing. If you're not
reading Seth's blog, you should
be.
3. Jessica Livingston will be there. Jessica is the author
of "Founders
At Work", which was an exceptionally fun and insightful read. Parts of it
gave me goose-bumps (yes, I'm that strange). If you're both a software person
and a startup person, you need to read her book.
4. Jason Fried of 37signals fame will be there. Jason's on
my list of "most pragmatic entrepreneurs ever". He was kind enough to let me
interview him for my graduate paper at MIT back when I was a student. All
around swell guy. Oh, and you haven't already, you should absolutely read "Getting Real". Now it's
even free.
5. Richard Stallman will be there. Yes, that
Richard Stallman. This should be one interesting discussion.
6. Eric Sink will be there. Eric is (in my mind), the
software guy's software guy. Immensely articulate and thoughtful. Eric's aptly
named "Eric Sink On The Business Of Software" is one of the books on my startup
reading list.
7. Mike Milinkovich will be there. He's the executive
director of the Eclipse foundation.
8. Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing will be there.
Steve was a big hit at last year's conference. If you want to understand why,
just watch the
video from last year.
9. Tom Jennings and Paul Kenny will be
there. Tom's a venture capitalist and Paul's all about sales. I'm guessing a
few of you are looking for capital or looking for customers.
10. People like you will be there. People that
are in the business of software.
Note, the above is not a complete list of speakers.
Oh, and by the way, I've been selected so speak at this year's conference as
well -- but please don't hold that against them.
All in all, Business of Software
2008 promises to be a great event. Something I'd travel to come see, if I
didn't live in Boston -- which I do.
By the way, if you're going to go, you can save $300 by registering before
July 22nd.
Hope to see you there.
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For those that are nauseated or otherwise troubled by gushing praise of tech
blogs, please click away now. I will not be offended.
I'm an avid reader of the TechCrunch
blog. In their own words, it's a blog "dedicated to obsessively profiling and
reviewing new Internet products and companies." If you're in the startup world,
and aren't reading it, you probably should if for no other reason than the fact
that your peers are reading it, and it'll get cited often. It's uncomfortable
when I hear someone at the office say "Hey, did you read that article in
TechCrunch about..." and because I've been stuck in meetings for 2 hours and am
too polite to read blogs on my Blackberry during meetings, I have to say,
"no...umm...I've been in meetings for the last 2 hours".
Anyways, you get the message. I heart TechCrunch.
Now, fast forward a bit, and lets talk about CrunchBase. CrunchBase is a
user-editable structured database about companies, people and products
in the tech world. It's a great complement to TechCrunch. The site is well
thought out, gets the job done and actually has a pretty good data set. It's
useful.
On to the news that drove this article. The nice folks at TechCrunch just
released an API for CrunchBase. I'm an API kind of guy. As the developer of
the reasonably popular Website Grader, a free website analysis tool, I am always
on the lookout for new data I can feed into the Website Grader algorithm to make
it even more useful. The CrunchBase API is likely going to fit the bill.
So, here are the reasons I l am bestowing about TechCrunch the
embarrassingly gushing praise:
Reasons I Love The CrunchBase API:
1. Simple Invocation: Invoking the API is simply a matter
of accessing a URL containing the company or product in question.
For example: http://api.crunchbase.com/v/1/company/hubspot.js
2. Simple Output: The data comes back in JSON format. This
is great for use within Javascript, but even for other languages (PHP, Java, C#,
etc.), it's relatively trivial to take the JSON output and convert it into some
other format. One tip for the TechCrunch folks would be to add a parameter to
the API URLs to request output in different formats (like XML). But, no
biggie.
3. No Registration, No Limits: In an uncommon show of
cluefulness, the nice folks at TechCrunch have made it supremely easy to get
started. You don't have to register, request access to an API key or developer
account, and there are currently no governors or limits on consumption. That's
pretty cool. Gutsy, but cool.
4. Communication: To top off all of this awesomeness, the
TC folks have really gone out of their way to accept input from the community
regarding the API. The blog article announcing the API has 59 comments right
now. 14 of them are responses from the TC folks -- including Michael Arrington
himself. TC also setup a Twitter account. I "followed" them, send out a tweet
and was immediately tweeted back with a response to an idea I had for improving
the API.
Having said all that, the one critical feature I think they need to add is better search through the API. But, they've already said they're looking into that.
So, with all that I'd like to congratulate Michael and his team at TechCrunch
for an awfully with-it approach to their business. For those of you that I'm gushing like a teenager with a crush -- you were warned.
If you're a web developer and have an idea for building something cool on top of the CrunchBase API, drop me a line. I'd consider funding it and contributing it back to the community.
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I recently came across an article in Entrepreneur magazine that talks about startup
hiring mistakes. I don't know Brad Sugars (the author), but he's a columnist at
Entrepreneur magazine and has written 14 books. Though I'm impressed by the
fact that he's a published author, I disagree with several points from the
article. 
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I also was a bit put-off by the statement "the good thing is that there are
some hard and fast rules startups should follow". I may not know a lot about
startups, but one thing I do know is that there are very few "hard and
fast" rules. And, those rules that are hard and fast are rarely interesting
enough to talk about.
So, here are my tips for startup hiring startups. In some instances, these
conflict directly with the Entrepreneur article -- in others, they're just
different.
1. Don't Hire Based Solely On Intelligence/Brilliance: You
interview the candidate and she has a PhD from MIT and is off-the-charts smart.
That's great. Intelligence is an important factor in recruiting for most
startups. But, hiring just on intelligence is usually a mistake. You
need at least two more things: A passion for getting things done and cohesion
with your culture. (That's a fancy way of saying that they agree with what you
stand for and "fit in").
2. It's Ok To Hire The Inexperienced: If you find
super-smart people that fit the culture and are able to get things done they may
be a great recruit -- even if they lack experience. At my startup HubSpot, we call this hiring people that
"haven't seen the movie before" (this is our way of saying: They don't have
experience in the specific role/function). We've had great success with this.
3. It's ok to hire for an undefined role: In an ideal
world, you have a nice clear job description and a role in mind for the person
you're trying to hire. And, your network is so strong and your luck so good
that precisely the perfect candidates start dropping into your lap just as you
need them. Unfortunately, most startups are not so lucky. Sometimes you get
the wrong people for the right role (the one you're recruiting for).
Other times, you get the absolute "right" people, but just have no current
openings. Sometimes, it's ok to hire these "superstars" even though they may
not fit the job description you are hiring for.
4. It's Ok To Recruit For The Job You Hate: You might be
good at a lot of things (developing code, designing things, selling, accounting,
etc.). But chances are, you may dislike some of these activities even though
you could be good at them. The good news is that there are smart
people out there who love the very stuff you hate. There's nothing
wrong with recruiting people for stuff you're either bad at or just plain don't
like to do.
If you're interested in more tips on startup hiring, I kind of like some of
my points in "5
Quick Pointers On Startup Hiring".
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