University of Virginia Venture Summit
Lecture Notes: Venture Panel Discussion “Windows on the Future” March 25, 2010
A discussion of opportunities in emerging technology areas from elite venture capitalists

• Stephan Dolezalek- VantagePoint Venture Partners, moderator
• Jack Biddle-Novak Biddle Venture Partners
• Frank Levinson-Small World Group and Founder/Director of Finisar, Inc.
• Sandy Miller-Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
• Rob Paull-Lux Capital

Dolezalek’s Introductory Slides: “Innovations at a Crossroads” (slide set unavailable, however, see recent ARPA presentation for some of the slides)

• Is the US in decline? Are we in the British empire phase– fat, dumb, happy, protectionist?
• Myth: New jobs are neither created by big business or even small business. New Jobs come from New Business. Ergo, you keep the economy healthy by nurturing new business. Cites Jeffersonian values of diversity, liberty, innovation, etc.
  • Author’s Note: Dolezalek (and Biddle, too) is clearly a champion of the free market and limited government involvment.
• (See slide 2 of ARPA presentation) We are transitioning from the “5th wave” (digital networks, biotech, software information systems) to the the “6th wave” (Solar, electrical transportation, smart grid infrastructure, etc)
• 1995-2000 IT boom technically occurred at the end of the 30 year cycle of the 5th wave. We are at the beginning of the next wave.
• (See slide 3 of ARPA presentation) Who will emerge? Transformative companies emerge from difficult gauntlet/funnel (Patent–>Company–>VC–>Mezzanine–>IPO–>1 industry leader– “winner takes most/70% market”).
• (See slide 4-5 of ARPA presentation) Similarities and Differences of IT and New Energy.

Question 1: Introduction. What is the state of your industry?

Biddle

• VC business is contracting. Hasn’t been profitable since 1997 (did he mean 2007?). In its heydey, ROI was 2:1 today you’re lucky to get 50 cents/dollar. Half will go out of business. Contraction will be good for remaining companies, profitability, transparency returns.
• Novak Biddle Venture Partners are investing in a diverse portfolio (mentions Blackboard, 2tor, WealthEngine)

Levinson

• US is shrinking as the rest of the world catches up (”US had the sandbox to itself”).
• Cites Israel and Singapore as two countries that have really emerged as VC powerhouses. Singapore is exploring 85-15 partnerships (with callout rights) with private VC. His company is heavily involved in this area.

Miller

• Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a “late stage” capital company. Bullish on mobile market (mentions portfolio game companies Zynga and ngmoco:))
• Optimistic. Open source and hosted model makes it cheaper and easier to startup.

Paull

• Works with universities in Health and Life Sciences field.
• Cites innovative partnerships with foundations (”nondilutive capital”) that help with risk mitigation. For example, Gates Foundation helps fund research in infectious disease vaccinations.

Question 2: Big government’s role

Dolezalek

• Recent government moves (eg, Sarbox) have been designed to reduce risk for US investors. In turn, does that endanger the reward? Is the environment less attractive for entrepreneurship and competition.

Biddle

• US still has fantastic infrastructure/culture for innovation. Reiterates that government should not impede entrepreneurs. Starting a company is an “unnatural act.” Don’t put up roadblocks (taxation, etc).

Levinson

• Government can play a positive role in fueling opportunity. Cites some SBIC examples.
• But let things fail, part of the process (creative destruction)

Paull

• Promote math and sciences K-12.
  • Miller agrees the focus should be on early education as higher education is still world class. Notes the panel makeup (drama, astronomy, economics, and 2 architecture majors)
  • Biddle: Don’t need a CS or EE to be technical.

Question 3: Most Exciting Areas

• Biddle: health care, personalized medicine
• Levinson: clean tech
• Miller: mobile technology
• Paull: health care IT ($2.2 trillion)

Audience Questions centered on Angel Investor Thoughts, Charity, China, Government Involvment

• Dolezalek:
  • On Angel Investing: Good sign when the angel is a former successful startup CEO. “Quality adult supervision in early company life.”
• Biddle:
  • On China: Contrarian view. Innovative core culture (coastal, Han) for sure, but what of the rest of the population?
  • On Government’s Role: Be a cheerleader but get out of the way/don’t interfere. Government should not involved itself with direct investment (artificially keeps weak companies alive).
• Levinson:
  • On Angel Investing: Family/friend angels are a red flag (unreasonable valuation). Must be a true partnership (ie board makeup)
  • On Government’s Role: Have universities meet with people on the street (or farm). Create technology to solve real problems.
• Miller:
  • On Doing Good: Zynga used game platform to raise money for Haiti.
• Paull:
  • On Government’s Role: Create community/forum of trailblazer CEOs who meet with innovators (Cambridge Model). A listserve that shares intellectual property licensing available.

Additional Coverage

• Daily Press: UVa to host annual Venture summit…UVa Venture Summit aims to find funds for researchers
• UVA Today: Ideas and Investors Will Meet at U.Va. Venture Summit March 25-26
• NBC29: Students Woo Venture Capitalists At UVA
• Newsplex: UVa Hosts Second Venture Summit
• Baltimore Sun: What’s next for venture capital?
• Pyle & Associates, LLC: UVA 2nd Annual Venture Summit

Last Year’s UVA Venture Summit

Had a pleasant day trip to DC on Saturday for the Third Annual BarCamp DC (Schedule | Twitter | #barcampdc).

Location: MLK Library. Ah, in the heart of DC. A wonderful diversity of townies, international tourists, homeless, and, of course, geeks. My kind of town.  I sat in on the following sessions. My notes and commentary:

Scout n Lunch
I missed the whole topic creation confab. Yeah, bummed because that’s where you really meet people and stuff. Weekend sleep is more important, I suppose.

• Spent the first hour just floating from session to session getting the lay of the land of the rooms and format. The environment was collegial and the panel spam was being kept to a minimum.
• Second hour: I think the camp was serving free lunch (courtesy of the sponsors) but, hell, Chinatown was right around the corner. Yes, played some hooky to pay homage to Tony Cheng’s restaurant. Cheng’s is a classic 70s Old School throwback (I could see a spectacular John Woo Triad shootout scene here). The food is nothing overly spectacular (had the tofu-beef and pork dumplings…dim sum station was out this day, too) but, boy, they load your plate.  Good value and I come here as habit/tradition. I digress…

Session 1: Lean Start-up
So the first real session I went to was Lean Start-up with Kevin Dewalt (Twitter).  Kevin runs the DC LeanStartupCircle Meetup and is an enthusiastic student of Eric Reese (StartupLessonsLearned.com) and Steve Blank (Wikipedia):

• He started the session by asking the provocative question of why so many startups fail (he humbly included himself in this camp with two “failed” startups under his belt).  Even though the US is considered the gold standard for start-ups, the vast majority of them fail.
• Introduced the concept of “Lean Startup”. From what I was able to understand, this is a methodology that attempts to apply the Scientific Method to Innovation with a heavy emphasis on hypothesis testing. Based on this testing, you continue to iterate until the final product or market emerges.
• EARLY dry testing of whether a market exists in the first place is crucial. Use tools like Google or Facebook ads to see if there is any real demand for your product. This step is crucial and may save you much wasted time and money. Why go “all in” and build something that nobody wants.  These ideas mirror Blank’s “Get out of the building” and “Customer Discovery” theories.  For the VCs these days, tech itself is much less important than real customers.
• An audience member was touting Mechanical Turks as low cost beta testers. Also, personally vouched for the whole “exclusive beta” marketing strategy (”shh, don’t tell others” technique). Twitter with its lists and Google with the wave invites is doing this masterfully, btw.
• There was some Zen talk about how you approach things without understanding the problem AND solution. I didn’t get that. I still don’t get it. Then again, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Session 2: How to lead a small business to success
The best way to describe this session is IT Jerry Maguire starring Peter Corbett (Twitter | Blog: Advercation) of iStrategyLabs.  This was one of those classic “How I Did It” talks:

• Basically, went through in detail, how he went from being laid-off from an agency to forming his own successful interactive company (iSL) and developing a nice client list (ie, Geico) in a remarkably short time.
• Pro Tip: An audience member asked how one changes the stance of customers only wanting you (and no one else in the firm) doing the work.  Peter, as the recognized face of the company, gets this all the time.   Essentially, on day one, introduce the person doing the work for the client and set clear expectations.  Create a comfort level and ensure the client has an immediate direct line to you, the principal, for feedback.
• On developing tribes/networks/collaborator relationships: (1) Give, give, give…rarely ask. I’ve heard Robert Scoble share the same advice. (2) Get out and build your personal brand and community.  He did this by building the TwinTech parties, others have created user groups, etc.
• On a side bar, he used a lot of relationship metaphors for business (”Having never seen the bride naked until after the arranged marriage”…basically, test drive with some potential collaborators on a small project to see whether a long term partnership ought to be forged. Can we work together?). In the end, business is relationships.
• Uber Secret Pro Tip: “People want to buy, not be sold.” This maxim is the foundation of Peter’s “trade secret” method of closing sales.  He sheepishly shared that strategy to the audience, and well, I’m not going to share it here.  You should have been there.

Session 3: Freelancers lessons learned
The topic of this session had to with freelancing (or creating startups) when you are working a full time “real job”:

• This one was sort of a mishmash, I think, primarily, because there aren’t too many universal maxims when it comes to this topic.  Every situation is different, and you could see that play out as the various panelists had opposing opinions (some said to disclose with your employer, others said “what you do in your spare time is your business.”).
• Nice anecdote of when you go to a networking event, someone hands you their card…then 8 seconds later (”are you cool?”) you get handed their other card.
• There were some obvious no-brainers: don’t work on stuff that directly competes with your employer/client, don’t work on outside projects on company computers, etc.
• Funniest moment was when one of the audience members revealed himself as an IRS taxman (we knew something was up when, earlier, he effused praise for the Agency). I gotta wonder if that then stifled the openness of the rest of the discussion especially around tax issues.

5 PM Session
My mind, much like my stomach after Cheng’s, was pretty full at this point.  I was spent, man. Exit.

I learned a lot of stuff. I hope I contributed some points as well (at least, this post will be a small contribution to the community).  I love the unconference free-form dialogue concept and will be back.  Great job by the organizers, sponsors, and the grande dame MLK Library!

More Recaps

• Technorati Search
• Clutch Cargo Lips: BarCampDC Take 2
• Network Solutions: Event Review: BarCamp DC 3
• Political Activity Blog: Another great #Barcampdc experience
• Russell Heimlich: BarCampDC 3 Recap
• TechCocktail: Barcamp DC 3 Recap

*4 Twitter references…5….in this post. Who do I send the Lincoln to?

Perhaps, my personal highlight of CES 2009 was the “Blogging in  Troubled Times” Q&A with Robert Scoble (Blog | Friendfeed | Twitter | Wikipedia) and Gary Vaynerchuk (Blog | Twitter | Wine Library TV | Wikipedia) on Friday January 9, 2009.  The room was cozy (half full, maybe 70 people, sign of the economy?) which made the fireside chat that much more intimate.  To have two “keynote” speakers in a small room dishing out priceless advice for two quality hours for no money is a treat indeed (see sponsor thanks below).  There were brief pre-ambles, but the session was dominated by Q&A.  A couple quick thoughts about each speaker (1) Scoble is much taller in real life (I think that heavy tripod makes him look smaller in the Scobleizer picture).  He’s also just as nice and genuine as can be. (2)  Vaynerchuk is as advertised and more.  He is like a modern day R-Rated business Confucius (straight shooting, entertaining, every sentence uttered a quotable quote)…Oh yeah, it’s pronounced VAIN-ER (rhymes w her)-CHUCK (rhymes w his favorite word).

Without further ado and in true Scoble “sharing” fashion, here are the highlights of the talk:
(please note: I took furious notes, but there’s probably some paraphrasing here.  I saw about 5 bloggers (including Pelotonics) videotaping the session, so look out for those transcripts. S=Scoble, V=Vaynerchuck)

The Economy

• Blogging was born in the last recession.  Unemployed software engineers built platforms for themselves and friends to rant about the state of their “f*d company” world.  They started blogging just for fun, but it unwittingly started the next revolution in media and direct to consumer communications. S
• Everything is cheap right now: labor, real estate, bandwidth.  ROI is easy when the expenses are nominal.  “Real Money” and “Real Good Sh*t” gets made in the next 2-3 years of this downturn.  While the other bears are in their caves hibernating, you should be out foraging for food (sure, less food but a lot less competition).  Anyone willing to work and hustle during this period will gain marketshare. V

Corporate America

• Blogging/Twitter is changing everything.  Many companies just don’t get this “real-time feedback” world and are getting their “asses kicked” because of it.  Best Buy executives were following Scoble around that day and seemed awe-stricken by his constant communication with his readership and friends. S, V
• Best Buy being surprised is “f’ing awesome.”  While the slow moving corporations figure it out (”it’s phenomenal they don’t understand”), the nimble little blog can jump on opportunity….However, the gap is closing.  “When I see FoxNews talking about Twitter, I get sad.” V

Virgin Blogger Advice

• Get to know how traffic gets to your website.  (for Scoble, 2% comes from Twitter, 60% Google). How do people find you? Use Google’s Keyword Search tool. Basic SEO is a prerequisite but don’t be consumed by it.  The best SEO strategy is simply making a useful site for your community. S
• Try a niche. Don’t try to be Michael Arrington (all things to all people).  Become a market authority/trusted source about your particular market. S, V
• Read everything/get obsessed about the subject matter you’re interested in blogging. (When Gary decided to go into wine blogging, he tore down the Pamela Anderson posters on his wall replacing them with K&L ads :-)). Join communities (be part of communities by interacting, not just sending one way links).  If you are a real two-way contributor, other members will be linking to you unsolicited. V
• Write about what you love.  You must have pure passion/emotional attachment for your subject matter for it to work in the long term.  In the end, if it makes you happy, then that’s really the only thing that matters (traffic, monetization be dammed). V
• Follow best practice blogs for ideas, networking, and a blueprint.  Suggests popurls.com (bloggers with the highest RSS subscribers) to get a lay of the land. V author’s note: Take Wine Library TV as the perfect example. Create a WLTV equivalent for your niche blog.
• Empower your community.  Building a community and audience takes a “sh*tload of time but so does making money.” V
• Treat everyday people with courtesy (cites a Tim Ferris anecdote). S If you treat people differently based on their level of influence, then “you are broken.” V

Monetization

• Get sponsorship (a la Seagate and Scobleizer), Leverage advertising (affiliate ads, Adsense, etc), or vertical distribution (a la Wine Library TV) S
• The only way to maximize any of these strategies is to gain readership, and that’ll be a seemingly slow process, initially.  Eventually, good blogs rise to the top and a traffic “tipping point” occurs. S
  • I’d rather have a business that slowly double pennies rather than an early large payout for something that starts quick then fizzles. V
• Leverage new tools like Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter, and Mobile Apps to get the message out. Build brands around new paradigms.  S
• Don’t worry about money.  When people care about you and you become relevant, the money follows naturally.  V
• Once blog relevance is established other avenues of revenue automatically open up like public speaking, consulting, books, etc. S, V
• Takes margin over volume anytime.

Followers

• Definition of blog relevance is the power to make sh*t happen (you could have a million followers or just one, ie, Bill Gates).  S
• “There are people with zero followers that can move more people than this room combined”. S
• Rather have 1500 quality followers over 30,000 any day.

Facebook

• According to Scoble’s sources, 5000 friend limit is going away. S
• Facebook weakness = closed system.  Difficult to share with the outside world. A “walled garden.” S
• Facebook strength = closed system.  “Normal people” want a closed private environment. V

Robert Scoble

• Dubiously claims 8 hours of sleep. Ha!
• How does he keep up with followers? Media snacking (like a newspaper, don’t read every page or every word).  When you have time, interact.  Always appreciate the effort.
• Built his brand because all he wants to do is share. “Shine flashlight away from me.”
• Goal in life is to have one meaningful conversation every day.
• Tipping point was when he got a coffee shop to show up on Google via his blog.

Gary Vaynerchuk

• Spends an hour a day working on blog content/video.  Spends most of his days answering emails and interacting with his customers.
• Uses Search Twitter and Google Alerts to track his company’s coverage.  Proactively will reply.
• Sure, he’d love to be LeBron James, but (know thyself) he’d rather execute and leverage his own DNA.
• When he wakes up, he asks himself two questions (1) What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life (2) What is my legacy?
• Chose wine blogging over the NY Jets because he wanted to go after the “big nut.”
• De-emphasizes stats.  It’s more a feeling.
• Tipping point was literally when he got his first comment on WLTV.

UPDATES!

• ?Fouroboros: Blogging was born in a recession. Good ideas always are.
• Pelotonics: Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuck - a great pair to learn from (VIDEO)
• Woot!: CES 2009, Day 2: Scoble and Vaynerchuk Speak!

Monster

• Special thanks to Monster Cables (Twitter) for sponsoring this talk.  Kevin “Little Monster” Lee and his team were on hand giving out free gifts to the audience (”Best in CES Show” Schwag: Monster Outlets to Go 3 USB Power Strip, Monster ScreenClean, and tickets to their Diana Ross concert party!).
• The Outlets to Go will be my new favorite traveling companion. A super compact/portable multi-strip outlet with a USB charging port.  As someone mentioned in the audience, you will make instant friends in the airport with this cool  little device.
• Kevin was also demoing a “Fettuccini” inspired headphone set.  Fettuccini doesn’t tangle up, and neither do these headphones.  Really nice concept.  Can’t really confirm the sound quality (just not comfortable demoing earbuds, yuch), but, hey, it’s from Monster and Dr Dre…

TechCrunch50 did an awesome job with this year’s conference.  On the one hand, sure wish we could have attended; on the other hand, the webcasts were so clear (kudos Ustream) that it was nice watching it in the comfort of my living room (analogous to the “pros and cons” of watching a football game live or on tv).  The panel sessions were simply amazing.  Each one could have been a plenary or business school keynote anywhere else.  Again thanks to the TC50 team for letting us watch for free and live!

As promised, just for fun, we’ve created a TechCrunch50 ButtonALL channel highlighting five finalist companies (where search was a relevant component…many of the promising search services, especially in the image and video category, are still in beta sign-up mode, so this the best five I could come up with).  Here are the companies and descriptions (from the TC50 website):

• Blah Girls
  Blah Blah Blah” is a new original content Web property that delivers a unique perspective on popular culture from the vantage point of the Blah Girls. The Blah Girls are an animated clique of teenagers who enjoy providing their commentary on the latest entertainment themed news and happenings. With this initial foray into the digital medium, Katalyst Media is applying their expertise in content creation in a new form, and providing a compelling offering to advertisers. (yeah, the Kutcher company)
• Causecast
  Causecast is a powerful online social medium that connects nonprofits, leaders, celebrities and brands to those who want to want to make a positive impact on the world. The site educates and entertains using original content and - most importantly - inspires people to get involved with the issues they want to support, in the ways they want to support them. Only on Causecast do media, social networking and philanthropy all converge in an unexpected and unparalleled way. Causecast helps make it easy for you to give back and make doing good your own. Causecast is also the only outlet that provides real-time daily coverage of cause-related news from around the world.
• Footnote
  Footnote makes it easy for members to combine profiles of people with historical newspapers, photos and documents directly related to them. Footnote adds millions of historical images each month to more than 40 million pages of military records, naturalization papers, photos and newspapers already on the site. It does this through partnerships with leading archives and by encouraging members to upload content from their shoeboxes. All content can be annotated and connected by the Footnote community. More than 80 million Footnote profiles are continuously enriched by users uploading photos and documents - or connecting to existing Footnote images. Each profile visually depicts a personal narrative as life events are plotted along a world timeline of historical milestones. The result is a deeper view of the key people, locations and events related to each unique individual.
• Good Guide
  GoodGuide.com provides free and easy access to the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts of products and companies. Today, GoodGuide offers ratings on over 60,000 products commonly found in your home - from baby shampoo to household cleaners - making it quick and easy to find safe and healthy products that are right for you and good for the planet. GoodGuide helps you see what’s behind the label, find better products, get expert advice, and view recommendations based on what’s most important to you. GoodGuide delivers the information you need anytime, anywhere - online or on your phone. In the coming months, GoodGuide will be adding new product information for food, toys, electronics, automobiles, and beyond, making it the best resource for buying safe, healthy and green products that protect you and your family.
• Tweegee
  Tweegee.com is a pioneering destination site that empowers Tweens to express themselves creatively and safely in an innovative and customized online environment. Tweegee integrates social networking, digital content, and interactive tools to offer a complete online platform for Tweens. Tweegee provides Tweens with the ability to take full ownership of their online activities, to create their full personal web sites, communicate via web based email, organizer, and more , engage in rich multiplayer games, interact with a webcam games and application, read news most relevant to them, and author their own articles and much more, all at one destination. Tweegee’s novel approach offers a creative and independent outlet for Tweens to construct their online characters. All communications are protected with technologically advanced safeguards, such as the patent pending “WordUp!” feature, human and automatically moderation and more Tweegee equips Tweens with a genuine web 2.0 experience; addressing Tweens interests and concerns yet allowing them to experiment with the “real internet”.

To add this channel, go to the Customize Screen and scroll to “Fun” then choose “TechCrunch50 Companies” OR you can just click here (once).

I will be following (and rooting for) Virginia-based companies over at the Richmond Good Life’s Tech News section.  There are two Virginia companies represented at Demo: (1) Paidinterviews (Blog) of McLean, VA and (2) SitScape of Vienna, VA.

As for TC50, they just released the companies, and from my initial research (clicking on the crunchbases), I don’t see any Virginia-based start-ups.  :(  There are lots of California, but I guess that should be expected.  I haven’t even looked at the Demo Pit companies (Too much work…Sure wish they’d publish a list of origin city/countries like Demo).  Once I figure out who’s Virginia, I will start covering them (UPDATE! I clicked on all of em.  I only saw Samepage of Falls Church, but there were tons of companies without location data).   In addition, the Commonwealth is being represented at TC50 by the folks at Mixx (McLean, VA) who’ve created the official TechCrunch Mixx (a mashup that aggregates all the “Diggs, Feeds, Tweets, and Blog Posts” onto one page).  Mixx was recently profiled by Somewhat Frank (Video: Visiting The Mixx HQ Mixxing Bowl) who is covering the TC50 event in person. 

If I see any good, working search engine type products, I will create a special limited search channel for ButtonALL later this week!

Our good buddies at Xerpi (Manhattan and Virginia based) are looking to hire a part-time computer sciences student with skills.  Here is a taste of the job description:

…What we can offer is an exciting, edgy set of projects and some moolah. So, maybe this isn’t you, but someone you know — we do think a student is a great fit since we offer flexible hours and work from anywhere and we are sure that the experience and mentoring we offer will be invaluable for those just learning about programming languages, data structures, and algorithms analysis…

They’re doing some pretty amazing and cutting edge work over there (Sergey Brin kinds of stuff), especially in the areas of statistical advertising modeling.  It’d be perfect for a student wanting to get some real world experience. For full details, see their blog.

Got this email recently from a ButtonALL user.  It’s basically a cool, unsolicited logo idea. 

Fwd: Please! Use this logo on your buttonall page, it is cooler cause it matches
In a message dated 8/25/2008 4:45:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, webmaster@practicalartifice.com writes:
ButtonAll is my homepage now, good job.

This logo is free of charge, a gift courtesy of:

Practical Artifice
Web & Graphic Solutions 

Practical Artifice did a fantastic job with this (I love how the logo mirrors the look of the site…spot on)!  If you are looking for a logo maker (especially if you’re in the Los Angeles-OC area), this is your man! 

• Resume
• Website: Web & Graphic Designer
• Mobile Phone - (714) 600 - 0267
• Email:  webmaster (–AT–)  practicalartifice.com

BTW, real quick…just for our blog readers, ButtonALL Customization is NOW ON!  I’ll “press release” this a little later, but just so you know…

Went to see Poison last night with a couple of good friends…for the kitsch value, mind you :)…It appeared all of Richmond (or, rather, Mechanicsville, Short Pump, and Midlothian) was there rocking out.  I’ve never seen Innsbrook/SnagaJob so packed, and I totally forgot that Poison had so many hits (I was just there for “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and that Toyota song)…Almost every number they played was a radio/MTV hit; of course, the set was only like an hour.  Poison is getting old (which made me feel old) as they were breaking up the show with lots of solos (where the rest of the lads would go in the back and catch their breath/get oxygen?)…Well, back to the glam rock world of the Internets…

The Next Two Weeks for ButtonALL:

• Finish second press release announcing “version 2″
  • Thank those who have already blogged about us and give them a heads up of customization.
  • Push to some high enders
• Decide whether we should “accept” TechCrunch50’s invitation to DemoPit (see 2007 DemoPit Companies)…
  •  I was really enjoying the discussion/camaraderie going on in the TC50 discussion section of the FAQ.  It has been a therapeutic support group where my band of brothers (and sisters) shared stories.  Someone likened the whole process to that agonizing wait to see whether you got into college.  As we posted previously, we didn’t get in, so I guess that makes DemoPit our “safety school.” Anyways, they turned off the discussion on that thread. BOOOOO!
  • Email a couple of 2007 pit companies…One poster (Ralph) on the FAQ had this interesting metric: “It seems that 21 companies out of 100 TC40 DemoPit companies got “documented funding” AFTER the event. Perhaps another group got unpublished funding. The amounts on the top 19 range from 1.3M to $12M. So if your objective is to get funding, this may be a good route.”
  • DemoPit is $3,000 (free table for a day, 2 tickets).  Exhibitors get 3 days, bigger table, 4 tickets, VIP dinner, etc for $10,000. A wise Englishman once said, a grand don’t come for free (and neither does three or ten plus plane ticket/hotel).  We’ll go in the credit hole if we decide on a California road trip.
  • What are we looking for? Funding or Exposure?  Not funding, because we’re way too newbie…IF they were interested, VC would want half, Eddie, at this stage of our company.  So, the ROI is centering around “exposure.”  No doubt, the conference will be full of A-Listers, but whether they go slumming in the basement with the Morlocks?
• Create ButtonALL Favicon
• Blog about our new red buttons: Cuil, Knol, Bebo, Etsy
• Blog about our new channels as we post them.  Eric has already created a couple for anime otaku channels…
• Submit to other startup websites/events: National: Elevator Pitch; Scoble?; There are some local ones too (I’ll post the links soon)… 
• Finally, Download Unskinny Bop off Itunes, then Detox myself and listen to Slayer for a couple of hours.

ButtonALL’s End of Year Milestone Goals (tentative):

• 50,000 :: 100,000 :: 500,000 :: 1,000,000 searches
• 100 :: 500 :: 1,000 :: 2,500 :: 5,000 :: 10,000 customized search users
• $100 :: $500 :: $1,000 :: $5,000/ month profit

Omigosh (just like everything else…ie, Miles Davis and Jerry Lewis), the French totally get it…

Blogasty: ButtonAll le moteur de recherche des feignants

Translation: Buttonall, Search Engine for the Lazy

More French Coverage: Buttonall multi moteur de recherche

Also see, France’s mysterious embrace of blogs

A couple of months back, Mark Cuban wondered aloud “how to change the balance of power in the search world and unseat Google?“  Granted, at the time, he was smoking, I mean, drinking Bud and listening to Grammy-winning heavy metal flute music, but he brings up an interesting hypothetical:   “How many websites would have to recuse themselves from the Google Index before Google Search was negatively impacted ?… What would happen if MicroSoft or Yahoo or a MicroHoo went to the 5 top results for the top 25k searches and paid them to leave the Google Index?”

Of course, it would be traffic suicide for the websites, but he’s absolutely right.  Take away the most popular URLs from the Google index (if Atlas ever shrugged), and Google would suck.  To demonstrate this “future state,” let’s use Google itself. :)  Though it’d be difficult to replicate his theory using the custom search engine API (exclude the top 5 results for the 25,000 most popular terms), we can modify it somewhat by using The Popular Table (btw, I think he underestimates his overlap number of 100,000 sites out of a possible maximum 125,000 (5 x 25,000)…Wikipedia alone will appear in the top 5 of 98% of the terms, for example).

The Popular Table only google searches among the 300+ most popular websites on the Internet (by traffic).  What if we flipped that logic, and only searched the “long tail” excluding those popular websites from the search–The Not Popular Table, if you will?

Just for fun, I compared the term “Mark Cuban” with and without the popular websites.  Here are the side-by-side results. 

Yep, Google without the popular kids is a pretty lame search party.

But back to reality though, $1,000 + some ad profit sharing wouldn’t move me to switch, and we don’t even have a popular website (yet)…So from a practical standpoint, I doubt you’d be able to convince Digg, Drudge, Arrington, or Huffington to Disallow Googlebot on the robots.txt…