Funny - Send Manatees to Fat Camp
September 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
My buddy Mike has only literally sent me 3 emails in the past 10 years (literally, since 1996 or 1997) and has been working at Regal Cinemas for the past 10 years. So needless to say, I don’t get to see his writing all that often — like, ever. He just did a reply-all to an email I had sent to some friends — close and not-so-close. He doesn’t even know the majority of these people.
Honestly, the guy is so frickin funny, I don’t know why he’s wasting this talent — he needs to be writing for a living:
I would like to thank everyone for giving me the time to talk with them about a very serious matter. In our own oceans we are seeing an ever increasing number of overweight manatees. In fact, in the last government survey, it was found that fifty-eight percent of manatees are obese. I am sure at this point you are asking yourself, what can I do to help? Well random person, there is a lot that you and I can do to help. The NAAOM, or the national association for the advancement of obese manatees, is raising money to help send manatees to fat camp. At these camps manatees will participate in exercises to not only lose weight but to also improve their self-esteem. Please let me know of how much you are willing to help this amazing cause. We must act before it becomes too late.
thanks for your time,
Fred Griffin
IDEA #77 - Social Search Engine (take on Google)
September 19, 2007 | 6 Comments
Another idea for NYC Startup Weekend this weekend…
The Idea: Social Search Engine [take on Google!] (fb app / browser plugin / toolbar)
The Concept: Take-on Google with a social search application. Users do a search using our Search Engine in Facebook [using Google Co-Op] and the user can specify if something was a good result or not for the keyword phrase they searched on. I think we could all figure something out.
Even if we can just reach the Firefox crowd to use us; or just the MySpace/Facebook crowd instead.
The Money: Google Co-Op and collecting revenues for click-thru’s. Future: Cut our own ad deal with Google to increase rev-share of the CPC ads — or use Looksmart or Yahoo or Live.com as default engine.
The Marketing: Viral via Facebook newsfeeds and such. “Steve Poland just rated a site regarding ‘NYC Mexican Restaurants’”
Questions: When someone does a search, they go to a webpage and typically don’t come back to the search engine then — unless the result was poor, then they click back button and click a different result. How do we encourage users to rate/comment websites/webpages for their specific queries. Focus on instilling the user’s minds that they are helping their friends’ future searches and all people in the network’s future searches. It’s like one big wiki-search for the web.
Competition: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and here’s a bunch more — 40 social search engines.
Why It Would Work: Because we’re 100+ strong, can think of something that’ll change the game, and can then be the underdogs that “took on Google in a weekend”.
Wordpress Theme Wanted: 3-column
September 19, 2007 | 7 Comments
I’m looking for a Wordpress theme for a new site I’m going to be launching. I’m looking for one that can display your typical final 2 columns of ads much like TechCrunch, Read/Write Web, JohnChow, etc.
Anyone have suggestions? Template Monster has designs and then there’s a tool to rip a website’s Wordpress design off (this was posted on TechCrunch, but I can’t find it).
IDEA #76 - The Greatest Menu Meals (fb app initially)
September 18, 2007 | 1 Comment
Submitting this to Startup Weekend NYC this weekend.
The Idea: The Greatest Menu Meals (fb app initially)
The Concept: Users rate specific meals on the menu of restaurants. We’d have menu’s for restaurants and users could specify what they thought of various meals — it would also be a reminder to them (personally) to know in the future what they’ve had and like.
I always find myself at a restaurant asking someone I’m with what they’re getting or recommend; or what the waitress recommends. This would be a way for us to all know what our friends recommend and the public at large. Imagine holding a menu at a restaurant that had Amazon-style user ratings of all the meals, how cool would that be?!
The Money: Ads on the pages — future would be very targeted ads by restaurants and other local advertisers. If someone is just looking for a good mexican restaurant in San Fran, we could show them a list of the top-rated ones by their friends and everyone, with some sponsored ads at the top of particular restaurants.
The Marketing: Viral via Facebook newsfeeds and such.
Questions: How do we initially populate restaurants across the USA? And then specific meals on their menu’s? Maybe initially people can specify menu items themselves — “Burger” — “the burger is amazing at Founding Father’s; you’ll never have a better one! Get it done medium!”. We could start out with generic food items and the user could specify a genre of the restaurant, thus if they said it was Mexican, we’d populate with generic Mexican dishes that the user could add/subtract from (bean burrito, chicken fajitas, beef fajitas, etc).
Future: Full menu integration for restaurants. Ability for restaurants to manage their menu, daily hours, and daily specials. Daily specials might be updated by voice (a VXML app that dials-out to the restaurant every morning; pincode protected to ensure the owner/manager can only update the daily specials).
A ‘dating’ function that allows you to browse photos of other users that go to the bars/restaurants you go to regularly. Suggested other restaurants/meals that you may like based on people that recommend similar restaurants/meals as you have. SMS to retrieve recommendations from a restaurant or recommended restaurants based on your location.
Competition: There’s restaurant listing competitors like Yelp, but is anyone focused on specific meal ratings by users?
Why It Would Work: In the user’s profile page, the profile box for this app will show recent meals the user has rated. People eat 3 meals a day — I think a ton of people eat 2 meals out per day.
IDEA #75 - Where I Hang Out (facebook app)
September 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I’m submitting this in the pool of ideas for Startup Weekend NYC this coming weekend.
The Idea: Where I Hang Out (fb app)
The Concept: Users specify the bars/restaurants/coffee joints that they frequent. Thus I may say that last night I was at Hardware (bar/restaurant), 67 West (bar), and Level (bar/dance club). I might have several places added to my profile as places that I frequent. I could specify places I’m going to in future (like ‘Level’ this coming Friday night — and I’d see who else is going) or in past (last night I was at ‘67 West’ and then I could see who else was there — and contact someone that I had seen or met there). Ability to see where all your friends have recently been or are going in future.
The Money: Ads on the pages in this Facebook app.
The Marketing: Viral via Facebook newsfeeds and such.
Questions: How do we initially populate bars/restaurants across the USA? Where do we get this list online?
Future: Ability for people (via wiki) to specify weekly/daily specials (drink/food). A ‘dating’ function that allows you to browse photos of other users that go to the bars/restaurants you go to regularly. Suggested other bars/restaurants that you may like based on people that go to the bars you already like, also go to. Happy Hours/dinners/lunches — ability to create events amongst your friends. SMS to specify where you are or going.
Competition: dodgeball was SMS pretty much. Anyone know of others? Any FB apps - yelp??
Why It Would Work: The goal is to help connect people offline, online. People also love to see where they’re friends have been or are going — there could be the ability to comment on each day at each restaurant/bar — “remember when that guy passed out” or “who was that girl in the black/white checker dress?”. In the user’s profile page, the profile box for this app will show recent places the user has been or are going; or might show the user’s favorite spots to hang.
Startup Weekend Toronto - My Two Cents
September 18, 2007 | 14 Comments
Overall the weekend was a blast — but not exactly what I expected. I had my own expectations of the weekend after hearing about the Boulder Startup Weekend.
I had expectations of a lot of fun, meeting new people (crazy people — entrepreneurs — like me), knockin back some beers, and building something cool.
There was way too much structure to the weekend. People were all assigned into functional groups prior to the weekend, there were about 30 ideas that the “facilitators” narrowed down to 8 that were pitched and voted on once everyone was together. I think there were some goodies that were missed from the 30, so I spoke up and said I think people should voice an idea if they have one — there were many people that hadn’t been on the wiki or forums for the weekend. The facilitators’ answer was that everyone was notified of the wiki/forums and structure of the weekend ahead of time — fair enough I suppose.
I also expected an even split on all the equity in the company we were collectively creating. Sure, you’re going to have some leeches, but whatever — there shouldn’t be certain people with a ton more equity in the company. How Boulder operated with Vosnap was they took 50% of the shares and divided them equally amongst the participants (each participant could earn up to 3 shares of stock — 1 for each day - Fri/Sat/Sun - that they participated in). The remaining 50% — 25% is being divided amongst a management team that will continue pursuing the business as a real company (those stock options mature over time) and the remaining 25% is being held for a future investment from an Angel or VC.
Toronto was structured to give the person who’s idea was selected 20% equity right off the bat — for having an idea! Ideas are shit, it’s all in the execution. We were required to sign a doc handing over the rights to anything we built over the weekend — and the shares didn’t even add up (they were 35k short; it turned out to be a typo, but still). The legal guy that apparently put this all together (and was also the guy whose idea “won”) explained to us (the 4 Americans that were “disruptive” as we were told the next morning) that “VCs invest $1-$3mm in ideas alone, so we wanted to reward the idea holder — and ensure that people submitted good ideas.” When I heard that, I knew it was just inexperience as to why the division of equity was the way it was — because also, equity was disbursed based on your time put in pre-event and post-event. Thus, I think the facilitators ended up with like 5% each, the idea guy had probably 25%, and the 30 others ended up with 0.02% each. 15% was reserved for future management and nothing for future investment — thus, that 0.02% would be diluted if an investment was ever made.
Well, that’s crap in my opinion — and thus, future official Startup Weekend events (put on by Andrew Hyde) will have a certain structure to them; including division of equity and less structure. In Boulder, leaders emerged within the groups — whereas in Toronto, leaders were preselected; and quite honestly it felt like they were “the boss”. I didn’t come somewhere on my weekend off to be bossed around. And not that I was, but I wanted to see leaders emerge — people that you start to trust and that you start to agree with.
This is all my opinion of course — I’m a Type B, so I’m not into tons of structure or organization.
So anyhow, some really great people in Toronto. And the organizers had very good intentions, I just didn’t agree with all of the structure — and I think the people spoke with their actions (60 people showed up Friday night and 30 returned on Saturday).
I look forward to this coming weekend in NYC — Andrew will be leading the effort and it’ll be tons of fun I know. I can’t wait! And Andrew needed this to all happen last weekend, so that all future ones will have the right vibe to them.
StartupWeekend - Toronto this weekend, NYC next
September 13, 2007 | 2 Comments
If you’re in Toronto or NYC, be sure to either sign-up or just stop-by the StartupWeekends that are planned. This weekend (tomorrow) is Toronto and the following weekend is NYC.
If you’re attending either, leave a comment on this post — and I’ll see you there!
ADVICE: Give Away Your Ideas & Take A Load Off
September 12, 2007 | 4 Comments
Seth Godin has a post up about giving away ideas and how execution is the real hard part. It’s the truth.
Personally, giving away ideas is like therapy for me — or rather, a necessity. My Mom has had the perfect analogy so far for me — it’s as if I’m in the bottom of a well, and it’s filling up with water (”ideas”). If I don’t scoop the water (”ideas”) out of the well (”my mind”), then I’ll drown. And that has happened — I find myself being pulled by 3 ideas that I’m “saving” and I can’t focus on any one of them! Then it’s torture for me, because I know I can’t execute on all of them.
Trust me, I still have tendencies to hold onto ideas — I have a few at the moment that I haven’t shared for months, because I’m “saving” them. How do you, as a reader of my blog, know when I’m saving ideas? When there are post droughts — because I’m drowning in the couple ideas I’m really excited about that I think could be “the one”, don’t share them, and they block the rest of my creativity.
But all this sharing has really helped me to better identify opportunities, in my opinion. It also brings out some great comments on the idea posts that makes me (and others) realize something that I/you weren’t even thinking about.
So those ideas you’ve been holding onto the past 6 months that you’re never going to execute on anyhow, write ‘em out — you’ll feel a lot better. Hell, you might even find someone as interested as you are in it (if you find that there really is an opportunity for the idea), and you may find your future business partner!
If you’d like to share any with my readers as a guest post, email it to me — I can’t guarantee I’ll post it, but feel free to send my way.
[via James Kirk]
Steve Poland in BusinessWeek
September 11, 2007 | 2 Comments
It’s not quite Kevin Rose style, but it’s still a mention in BusinessWeek. Attorney Jay Parkhill (advised me during my Ringside Startup social experiment) also made it in the article.
IDEA #74 - FMail (Facebook App)
September 10, 2007 | 4 Comments
I think there’s enough open architecture in the Facebook API that would allow someone to create a Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo! Mail/Zimbra copycat. The current Facebook mail/messaging is very simple (no BCC, no forwarding, no quick access to your contacts).
You would need to have your own domain that you open up as the “free” email address domain (i.e. ‘fmail.com’ — stick away from ‘facebook’ being in the name, because that is copyrighted and FB may sue you in the future).
This app would tap into your FB network first as your main contacts; it’d allow you to import contacts from your Gmail/Hotmail/Outlook/etc contacts.
It would monetize via contextual ads like Gmail.
The user could use the app within FB or you could also have a stand-alone website.
You could integrate/create IM within the web-based app as I mentioned as a previous idea (although my previous idea was IM as a desktop app).
You can add a profile action link under every friend’s profile that says, “email this user”. Attachments are already built-in. Users could email to FB friends or email addresses.
You could also create a desktop app or AIR/Silverlight app using FB’s desktop API features — thus, you could create a MS Outlook competitor.
Big money in email, of course.
