Jul
1
Ninja Startups
Filed Under General
I figured, meh, why not weigh in on the latest topic to storm the blogosphere (at least the small section I read) - Cheap startups. Some heavy hitting names have been posting about it… Joe Kraus, David Hansson, Om Malik, Mark Fletcher, & Chris Saylor (Ok, Chris may not be a heavy hitter, but he wrote a fine post!). Both Joe and Mark talk about starting a company on $100k and $50k, respectively, but I tend to disagree. Chris, Dave, and I have found that you can start it much cheaper than that! We figured out that you can start one for around $5k - that even includes leasing an entire server for the project. The only thing you need to remember is that you have to be willing to pour copious amounts of free time into your project, or the $5k won’t cut it. To quote Henri Ducard from Batman Begins, “Theatricality and deception are powerful agents. You must become more than just a man in your enemy’s mind.” I titled this post Ninja Startup, not because we are stealthy (stealth is a topic Mark has talked about before), but because you have to use theatrics to draw attention to your project. Odeo is a great example; they posted some info about their project then put up a mailing list signup with a semi-catchy layout. Odeo followed that with a post that they would give away an iPod to a random person that signed up. Brilliant, cheap advertising! Now, the key difference between Agnda and Odeo is that Evan and Noah obviously have access to much more cash than we do. I bet we could bang Agnda out in two weeks if we had the funding to work on it full time. That is one of the reasons Chris and I have struggled with the idea of VC or angel investing, we want to do this full time without selling our integrity (read: soul).
And, umm, what is with the lack of trackback interfaces on blogs? *cough* David, Mark *cough*
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A lot has been said about Joe’s post during the past few days. Which made me think — is it also a great time to be an investor?
I think so and provide reasons why in my post, Web 2.0: It’s a great time to be an investor. It would be great to get feedback to see if others feel the same. It’s clear that Web 2.0 is not only changing the rules for entrepreneurship… it is also changing the rules for angel and venture investing.
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