Past Editions
7 Ways to Raise Money Without Giving Up Equity
Non-dilutive funding options: Startup Chile ($40k per project plus mentorship, workspace, 1-year visa); Kickstarter/Indiegogo (all-or-nothing crowdfunding); Profounder (repay via perks or profits, keep ownership; US); DIV ($350k grants); SBIR (Phase I up to $100k, Phase II up to $750k; US); RevenueLoan (up to $500k, revenue-based repayment).
Looking for techie to fix serious bug!
Calling tech folks: I’ve been nominated for Best Startup Technologist in the Seattle 2.0 Awards for the 3rd year running. This highlights a stubborn bug in the nomination software—unfixed for three years. If you know engineers, please refer them to Seattle 2.0 to fix ASAP. Thanks for the support.
How to recruit top engineers to your startup
Lead with passive recruiting: build relationships via sponsor talks, dev events, and coffee chats; coach engineers to screen and follow up, maintaining a passive-candidate pipeline; focus college hires on UW CSE with talks, posters, emails, and a strong intern program; convert contractors to full-time via a 'try-before-you-buy' approach.
Favorite tools for late night startup hackers
These tools help collaboration across odd hours and distributed teams: oLark (live site chats), Join.me (one-click screencasts), Propane for Campfire (24/7 dev chat), FaceTime (face-to-face), ScreenFlow (quick screencasts), Thinkfuse (simple status reports; sold to Salesforce; shut down), CloudApp (instant screenshot URLs), GitHub (code reviews and feedback).
A Simple New Year’s Resolution: Wake Up!
For 2011 I’ve chosen a single, elegant resolution: wake up every morning by 7am or at sunrise, whichever comes first, and stick to it daily. Early rising boosts receptivity, health, and family time; it also lets me witness the sunrise. What’s your resolution for the year?
Add logs, pour fuel (VC money), light match (beta release day)
Fundraising should center on why the startup matters, its early traction, and how investment fuels a proven path—not salaries. Prepare your fire: seed ideas/prototypes, build early sales, spark proof points, then scale with capital. Ignore personal constraints as the sole driver, though wisely timed funding can amplify growth.
LeadsCon: a crash course in “show me the money!!”
LeadsCon NYC, July 26–27, 2010, cuts to the chase: money from online traffic with lean startup and agile tactics. Get $250 off full tickets with a Friday, June 25 midnight deadline (then $150). Discount link: http://bit.ly/buoU7w. Learn from proven players like QuinStreet, LendingTree, and TeachStreet.
New York Times 50 Most Challenging Words (defined and used)
New York Times reveals its 50 fancy words; try the in-page lookup by double-clicking “epicenter.” I commissioned MediaPiston to define and use every term, and the article is live. Dive in, avoid jejune laconic speech, and explore with alacrity.
Unexpected Startup Lesson #3: Why You Can’t Read a VC
Unpacking the VC trap: you can’t read a VC. In fundraising, meetings felt like one-way pitches—no real feedback or tough questions. A finale: 9:00–9:45 Qs, 9:46 partner leaves, 10:15 email ‘bombed,’ 11:00 call ‘we want a term sheet.’ Many keep feedback vague to preserve leverage; not all do.
Unexpected Startup Lesson #2: Channel your Inner VC to Understand Startup Valuations
Valuation is an output, not a starting target; VCs chase future value and ownership. For example: raise $2M, sell 33%, pre-money $4M. Negotiations can flip quickly—even double valuation in a day by tweaking total raise. Beyond price, watch liquidation prefs and unwritten terms; bootstrappers keep 100% upside.
Unexpected Startup Lesson #1: Quitting the day job
Quitting my day job to start Snapvine (founded 2005, acquired by WhitePages in June 2008) paid off fast: within 4–5 months I was ROI-positive on networking, learning and satisfaction, with startup costs around $5k vs an MBA’s $85k, proving quitting can be a zero-risk, high-gain move.
If you want to ship, cut, cut, cut!
Let’s get clear, regular updates with a visible work-item list (Lighthouse or similar) you can access. On a call, cut non-essentials to hit a minimally viable release: decide which features and bugs are mandatory, drop the rest, and ship—look-and-feel can wait.
3 Things I’ve Learned To Recruit Great Hackers
Lead with value: recruit hackers via 'try before you buy'—enlist contractors not tied to agencies to keep a full-time option open. Do coffees to meet interesting people and spark buzz. Hyper-focus on one school: informal talks, brown bags, affiliate dinners, open houses, and post-fair meetups with top students.
How much traffic do you get from being on the front page of Hacker News?
A week after hitting Hacker News front page, my post 'Sell Ice Cream, Not Cream and Ice' drew 2,530 visits in 3 days: 1,542 from HN, 574 direct, 50 from Twitter, 49 Craigslist, 32 JimmyR.com, 200+ elsewhere; ~15/day before, ~30/day now, and I gained ~30 followers, showing syndication's power.
Sell Ice Cream, Not Cream and Ice
At LeadsCon I saw how startups succeed by business, not just tech: acquire traffic, filter by simple web forms to gauge intent, then sell the leads. Education lead-gen could hit $1B; a home-improvement firm scaled to $10M/year in three years, after $500 first-day profits.
Avoid This Startup Mistake: Losing Customer Focus
To keep engineering focused on users, we printed hundreds of new user photos and pinned them on walls, fueling weekly focus groups. In 2006 Snapvine hit 1M signups in 7 weeks and briefly turned off 25% of signups; this simple visual feedback boosted real user insight—try it.
Crucial first hire: the "do-it-all office admin"
Back in June 2006, after a Series A, we hired a Do-It-All Office Admin to tame distractions and get essentials done, enabling founders to focus on building the business. Over 2.5 years we had 2 successors; they were self-driven, smart, trustworthy, and could problem-solve with limited guidance.
The positive follow-up to complaints, failures and ideas.
Complaints gain value when paired with solution ideas; failure becomes innovation when it includes honest learning; ideas gain impact when followed through. Next time someone brings you any of these alone, inspire them to deliver the positive follow-up and unlock the potential.
FiReGlobal West Notes
At FiReGlobal West as a guest on a CTO Panel, I argued tech can boost civic engagement; education must move from fixed pacing to coaching and individualized progress; 52% of CO2 comes from buildings; InTouch Health enables remote hospital care; Dell envisions mobile, virtualized IT with 'Standardize, Simplify, Automate'.
Competition. Am I screwed?
No, you’re not screwed—competition validates your direction. Copy proven ideas, learn from their customers by contacting 10 random users about top features and missing ones. Early success isn’t destiny: in ’98 I panicked after Yahoo bought a similar firm and sold; one competitor doesn’t matter, keep building.
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