Potential Entrepreneurs: 20 Questions to Ask

Kelly K. Spors of the Wall Street Journal listed 10 questions for potential entrepreneurs to ask themselves and assess whether they are cut out for the job (particularly in this economic climate).

Her list of 10 questions is below and it's interesting how to focuses almost entirely on personality traits... when I would argue that is half of it. Obviously the other component is the idea and vision... I've included my secondary questions below her's:

1. Are you willing and able to bear great financial risk? 1A. Do you have financial backing to fund the vision and team for at least twelve months?

2. Are you willing to sacrifice your lifestyle for potentially many years? 2A. Are you able to manage your time effectively and wear multiple operating hats?

3. Is your significant other on board? 3A. Do you have a board or advisors who you consult with and seek guidance from?

4. Do you like all aspects of running a business? 4A. Which aspects do you dislike and which are you weakest at? Do you have partners and/or advisors to compensate?

5. Are you comfortable making decisions on the fly with no playbook? 5A. Have you created a playbook to sit alongside your business model?

6. What's your track record of executing your ideas? 6A. What's the track record of execution among other players in this space?

7. How persuasive and well-spoken are you? 7A. What's the need that you are trying to solve? Who's the community you are trying to serve? Can you craft a concise definition for both?

8. Do you have a concept you're passionate about? 8A. Equally important... Is it a concept that others can become passionate about (employees, users, etc)?

9. Are you a self-starter? 9A. Is the business a self-starter? In other words, is there a clear, short-term monetization path; or, will you need to fund the business through that point?

10. Do you have a business partner? 10A. Do you have a technical partner? Or, if you are technical, do you have a business partner?

You can also read my guide to boostrapping a start-up

Widgetbox Partners with Atlassian & Confluence

Widgetbox is pleased to announce that you can now add their widgets to pages inside of Atlassian’s Confluence enterprise wiki. Confluence is the largest commercial wiki with over 7,000 enterprise customers worldwide. With this integration, Confluence users can quickly and easily add any of Widgetbox's 117,000 widgets to their wiki page, blog post or personal space.

Jay Simons, Atlassian’s VP of Marketing is really excited about the integration:

Our integration with Widgetbox is a great example of how wikis aren’t just for text anymore. Confluence customers want to add videos, slideshows, stock quotes and other dynamic content to their pages. By supporting Widgetbox, we’re giving our users access to an almost limitless amount of rich content.

Widgetbox has thousands of widgets to help business teams collaborate and stay informed. For example:

- A project team working toward a deadline can add a countdown widget to their project page.

- A company with offices around the globe might add an international clock widget to their Confluence dashboard.

- Or a salesperson might add LinkedIn badge or a SkypeMe widget to her Confluence personal space.

Confluence users can also make their own widgets with Widgetbox's Blidget and Blidget Pro tools. With these tools users can create custom, branded widgets from RSS feeds, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and other services. To see a demo of Confluence / Widgetbox integration in action, check out the video below:

To learn more about Atlassian and Confluence, please visit their website at http://atlassian.com/confluence or read their related blog post on Atlassian's Blog.

You can also read coverage on VentureBeat.

Why Amazon Continues to Pull Away from eCommerce

Read this blog enough and you certainly know that the one company I rely on and respect most is Amazon. Almost daily, I use Amazon as an example in good product experience, design, strategy, etc. Do yourself a favor and read Scott Wingo's analysis of Amazon's success over the last three years and how they have situated themselves differently from the rest of e-commerce (particularly eBay). Scott knows eBay and Amazon quite well - and the article is available on SeekingAlpha and eBayStrategies:

Amazon's relentless focus on value and selection along with their innovations around shipping and handling cost reductions, ease of use and merchandising built on the foundation of trust from the a-to-z guarantee have given them the most enviable position in ecommerce.

InGameNow Adds Live Scoreboard to iPhone Apps

Attention sports fans - InGameNow has added live scoreboards to its suite of iPhone Apps. Now you can easily access real-time scores from that day's events and navigate to the discussion for that particular game:

If you have already downloaded the iPhone Apps, they are now available for updating via the iTunes Store. If you have not, please use the links below to install:

Get all the iPhone Sports Apps by InGameNow: - InGameNow iPhone App
- NFL iPhone App
- NBA iPhone App
- UFC / MMA iPhone App
- NCAA Football App
- NCAA Basketball App
- Soccer iPhone App

Gawker Rolls Up Defamer & Valleywag... Chasing Huffington Post?

In my 20 Digital Media Projections for 2009, I stated that there would be a handful of other major sites racing into that space that Huffington Post and The DailyBeast have successfully created. Today comes news that Gawker is rolling up another of the big Gawker Media properties: Defamer. Just a couple months ago, Valleywag was rolled into Gawker.com (it now resides at valleywag.gawker.com)

At first I thought this was because Nick Denton had significantly cut staff and resourcing across the network. And while that may well have been the case at Valleywag, that doesn't seem to be the case with Defamer.

Defamer serves 6m page views a month (Gawker does 24m). That is substantial - albeit not enormous.

The roll-up to me looks more like a page out of Huffington's book: build a brand and verticalize within it. Gawker's take has always been to create unique, stand alone properties and hope that people navigate between the brands.

I would personally be more inclined to visit Gawker if it housed all of the brands (as disparate as they are)... assuming that Gawker could figure out a way to surface content that may be interesting to me via my tastes, history, and popularity across the site. I'll read more and I'll stay longer. I promise.

I am lazy. So too is the web (after all, the #1, #2 and #3 search queries are Google, Yahoo and eBay). Take advantage of it by making it easier for us.

Also good coverage of All Things D

Facebook Photo's Remarkable Growth - Did iPhone App Play a Role?

According to ComScore (and via TechCrunch), Facebook Photos is running away from the nearest competitors: Photobucket, Flickr and Picasa (in that order).

Facebook has been the space's leader for over a year, but the gap has widened and really started to open in September 2008. TechCrunch suggests that it is due to the profile redesign:

"But the tagging feature has been part of Facebook Photos for a long time. What happened in September to accelerate growth? That is when a Facebook redesign went into effect which added a Photos tab on everyone’s personal homepage."

How about two other additions to why the marked growth is occurring (although I totally agree that the timing is due to the profile redesign):

1. The iPhone App is one of the most popular and addictive. And it makes photo taking / sharing dead easy. In fact, it is easier to upload a photo than to enter your 'status update.' Based on my network's feed - photo usage via the App has grown significantly.

2. Switching cost: once you begin to upload photos onto Facebook, it becomes difficult to move them elsewhere or start uploading elsewhere. The switching costs are high and there are network effects. As Facebook grows (and it is everywhere now), there is less of a reason to share via print sites like oFoto / Kodak, Picasa, Shutterfly and so forth.

Wordpress 2.7 Scores a Perfect 10

I have always been a major Wordpress fan and used any opportunity to plug both Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. Now - I have an even greater reason to speak their praises: Wordpress 2.7 is exceptional. I have been using the latest version at Widgetbox's blog for a few weeks - and just recently upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.7.1.

Mind you I have used countless different versions up to this point - all of which were more evolutionary than profoundly new or different. With the latest version - that changes. For instance, moving from Wordpress 2.3 to 2.7 is almost entirely a new experience (from the interface to the feature-set to the available plugins and so forth).

What strikes me about Wordpress is what also what strikes me about eBay, Google and other web giants:

They have enabled millions of users to create content and create businesses / economies around it. From professional bloggers to (more interestingly....) developers and designers (plugins, themes, etc) - there is an entire economy based off the popularity and flexibility of Wordpress. This was one of the most satisfying parts of working at eBay - enabling millions of people to create value through the platfrom - either directly or tangentially.

Perez Hilton Asks for Facebook "Boycott" Amidst Content Ownership Controversy

The buzz on a slow Monday of tech news is around Facebook and who owns the content uploaded / created by their users.

But lost in this is that Perez Hilton covered it early this afternoon... before TechCrunch and linking to Mashable.

Three things strike me about this:

1. Techmeme isn't picking up on Perez Hilton... who may not be a technology blogger - but is more influential than any of the blogs listed in this Techmeme 'discussion'. And perhaps more influential / powerful than all of them combined.

2. Perez's influence - whether it is well informed or not - may well be the kind of pop-coverage that has driven a flurry of bad user feedback. When Perez tells users to "Boycott Facebook" - that is scary and certainly worthy of a well constructed response. Now whether Mark Zuckerberg's letter was a response directly to this (of course not), it is clearly noticed.

3. This really isn't shocking or news... the "complication" of who owns the data is complicated for all major sites and platforms. This was bound to become an issue as Facebook grew in popularity and functionality... and it will pass as well. Users may be upset on the surface - but it will not change their reliance on Facebook or their social network (unless something egregious happens).

beRecruited Helps Bemidji State Football Recruiting Class

beRecruited continues to have great press. Today's Bemidji Pioneer and Post-Bulletin describes how beRecruited helped the Bemidji State's football program recruit players from across the nation:

In this Feb. 4 photo, Bemidji State head football coach Jeff Tesch announces the 2009 recruiting class on national signing day during a press conference at Bemidji State University. Tesch and the Bemidji State coaching staff relied on beRecruited.com to help reach student-athletes and fill their class.

For Collin Stoffel, Internet networking played a big role in picking the Bemidji State football team on national signing day.

Stoffel, a linebacker out of Willow Canyon High School in Surprise, Ariz., took a proactive approach to reach college football through the Web site beRecruited.com.

"For me, I was looking to outsource the information about me any way I could," Stoffel said. "It was a way that I could reach as many coaches as I possibly could."

Similar in Facebook's ability to be an Internet social networking tool, beRecruited.com is a bridge connecting high school athletes wishing to play a collegiate sport to recruiting collegiate coaches.

Each athlete on the site has a personal page that showcases abilities. Coaches can then search the site looking at the database of athletes without leaving the office.

Among the items viewable on Stoffel's beRecruited.com page is his biography, academic achievements, game photos, athletic testing information and football highlight video.

That page was where Bemidji State running backs coach Bryan Stoffel noticed Collin, who is listed at 5-foot-11 and 209 pounds.

"Coach Stoffel contacted me by e-mail initially and told me that he loved my info and loved what he saw on the page," Collin Stoffel said. "He also said he liked my name and it seemed like destiny that I would be coming to Bemidji after seeing that."