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July 26, 2005
VV Show #7 - Evan Williams of Odeo
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A quick glance at Evan's bio might make it seem as though he just stumbles into all the newest, hottest trends. However, the only thing Ev stumbled into was traffic (the kind you get on the non-information highway -- where he discovered the value of listening to podcasts) on his commute. After trying his hand in Nebraska's tech entrepreneurial circuit (well, he was the circuit), Ev made the voyage out west to California. He founded Blogger, one of the most popular blogging services, sustained it throughout the dot com bust with few resources, and sold it to Google. After spending some time at Google growing Blogger, he's back on the trail again building his new podcast business, Odeo.
Odeo is a young startup with fuel. Ev announces in this show that Odeo has just received its first round of venture funding.
Update (4/21/08): Ev returned Odeo's funds to the investors and sold the company. He co-founded Twitter, which just raised its own funding and is on a fast growth curve.
Show notes:
1:40 First gig
- First real job at O'Reilly Media.
2:35 Unusual places to build Internet companies
- Referring to Dick Costolo's remarks on our show about Chicago being a challenging place to start a technology company: '[Chicago] pales in comparison to Nebraska in challenges.'
3:15 Moving to California
- O'Reilly in Sebastopol.
4:50 From employee to entrepreneur
10:35 From geeks to general audience
- Launched BlogSpot to host blogs.
12:20 Google acquisition
- 'Until Blogger was Google-sized, it just wasn't interesting at the corporate level.'
- 'To Google's credit, they didn't screw it up, which is what a lot of companies do with tiny companies when they buy them.'
18:20 Odeo thinking big
- Met co-founder Noah Glass.
- First developed Audioblogger together.
- Adam Curry and Dave Winer were first to develop podcasting.
- Used Audible to pass time while commuting to Google.
- 'It seems like there are a hell of a lot more people in the world who don't spend their days in front of a computer than there are that do' The potential for audio content is possibly much greater than that of blogs as far as reaching a really mainstream audience.'
24:10 Other podcast players
- Apple 'made it much, much easier to use Odeo.'
- 'We [Apple and Odeo] work well together. I'm sticking with that story.'
28:05 Odeo's funding
- Until now, Odeo was angel funded by Ev and one other person.
- Just closed on Friday (July 22) some venture funding that will be announced this week.
- Won't announce who's funding it yet.
28:50 Podcast industry
- 'I think there are definitely gonna be people who make a living creating podcasts, or more generally, related to podcast in a bunch of different ways.'
30:35 The better suitor: Yahoo or Google?
- 'Podcasting is going to fit with Yahoo's strengths pretty well...'
32:25 Next six months
- 'I should probably take a hint from my co-opetition, Mr. Jobs and all the friends at Google, and not comment on such questions.'
- 'It's all about helping people when they come in the door go away with the stuff that they're most compelled by and interested in.'
Links:
View Venture Voice on Odeo.
Check out what podcast Ev's subscribed to on Odeo.
Posted by greg at 6:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 22, 2005
VV Show #6 - Scott Heiferman of Meetup
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Entrepreneurs need community. This entrepreneur makes communities. An Illinois native, Scott Heiferman came to New York while working for Sony in 1994. He quickly joined the avant-garde of the Silicon Alley community while growing his new media ad agency, i-traffic. After selling i-traffic to Agency.com (capitalized companies apparently acquire non-capitalized ones), Scott worked the counter at McDonald's. Scott left both the food services industry and the advertising business to create something unheard of: an on-line service that gets people to leave the computer.
Show notes:
1:35 Worked at McDonald's
- 'I felt like working, but I didn't want to hang out with any lawyers or accountants or investment bankers anymore.'
- 'It was really nice to get your hands dirty ' well, actually, my hands weren't dirty.'
3:15 Lessons learned
- 'We were never really told we should care too much about the customer, and that was a little surprising.'
4:30 Previous ventures
- Also started Fotolog.
5:30 Meetup thought up
- 'Meetup's a really stupid-simple idea that couldn't have been done before 2002.'
- Got involved in mid-90s with the World Wide Web Artists' Consortium.
- 'It was something that had to be done.'
8:15 Challenge of starting Meetup
- International Meetup days was an important part of it.
9:55 First Meetups
- 'It was interesting that it was the Slashdotters and the bloggers who first started using Meetup, because what's ironic about it is that these are the people that supposedly never want to leave the screen ' that they're most in love with the computer and why would they ever leave it? ' but they seemed to be the hungriest to want to connect in the real world.'
- 'Today the biggest Meetups are the moms.'
12:30 The Presidential election
- 'When people actually get off their butt and actually go to a local gathering about some political candidate or issue, that is newsworthy and that's a good newsworthy.'
15:00 Scott's Meetups
- Started New York Tech Meetup a couple of months ago.
16:20 Entrepreneurship geographically
18:25 Making Meetup successful
- 'It's a cliché, but it's true: it's all about the team.'
- 'Engage people to care, because it's one thing to make a great product, and it's another to make something that will get momentum.'
- Cites marketing writer Seth Godin about the importance of being 'remarkable'.
22:10 Media matters
- Huge fan of del.icio.us and flickr, but those brands are unknown to most people.
- 'There's one holy grail for anyone who cares about getting anything' no disrespect to the blogosphere but Oprah is where anyone should want to be. We've never gotten there, but if you really want mass America to know something, don't think it's anything but Oprah that can do that in 2005.'
24:05 Social networking?
- Loves LinkedIn, but Meetup isn't social networking.
- MySpace.com acquisition by News Corp.
25:45 Changing business model
- Some Meetups are profit making endeavors.
27:00 Meetup in the future
- 'Our goals are all about just more of the same.'
28:00 Podcasters' Meetup in New York
Posted by greg at 1:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 4, 2005
VV Show #5 - Joe Kraus of JotSpot (part 2 of 2)
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We covered the past with Joe in our previous show, but it's clear he spends a lot of time thinking about the future. Many people muse about how they would do things differently if they had only the chance to do it all over again. Joe is doing it all over again by building his new business, JotSpot, from scratch. He shares his development strategy and vision for the company.
Show notes:
0:45 JotSpot elevator pitch
- 'Do it yourself application publishing.'
- 'There's nothing that allows an average person to create a Web-based application.'
2:45 Getting non-geeks to use JotSpot
5:45 Listening to customers
- 'Focus groups are not useful at all for telling you new concepts to be created. Focus groups never asked for the Sony Walkman. Sony created the Walkman. But figuring out how to make this new device easier to use, focus groups are really good at.'
6:50 Team dynamics
- 'I tend to like people who have a mass amount of raw, intellectual horsepower.'
8:45 Excite lessons
- 'The company had to scale up too fast for its own good. We had to grow so fast. I don't think we need to do it that way this time.'
- 'I have a no false positive rule, this time, which is that I'd much rather pass on people that could fit in JotSpot to make sure that we never get somebody who doesn't fit inside JotSpot.'
9:20 Funding
- Raised money from Redpoint Ventures and Mayfield.
- 'It took $3,000,000 to get Excite to market, it took $100,000 to get JotSpot to market ' a 30x difference.'
10:45 New competition
11:15 Prices for JotSpot
12:55 Developer community
- Hub of developer community at developer.jot.com.
- 'Our developer community isn't well developed, if you will, enough, to really be contributing to the core product in a major way, yet.'
14:00 To do list
15:00 Non-profit work
- Just joined the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- 'I've been allowed to succeed by an environment which has enabled me to innovate without permission. And I think that preserving that environment is critical. And I think it's under threat by changes to copyright law.'
17:45 Interesting opportunities on the Web
- On podcasting: 'Media that allow for what amounts to infinite variety will usually trump media, will always trump media that allows for only finite variety. That's the reason that cable and satellite continue to trump and erode traditional broadcast. But I believe media that allow for infinite variety but don't requite permission to publish will always trump media that allow infinite variety but require permission or media that does not allow hardly any variety.'
- 'Satellite radio trumps regular radio due to the first law, which is that infinite variety trumps little variety, but I think that podcasting trumps satellite radio because it allows infinite variety without permission. And that I think is amazing powerful.'
Excited about Odeo, Curry and Apple iTunes.
- 'In terms of content ownership, I don't see the traditional players dominating this market [podcasting] in any substantial way.'
21:30 A blogger but not a podcaster, yet
23:15 Copyright and podcasting
24:10 Advice to entrepreneurs
- 'I think now's a great time to be starting something. You can feel it.'
- 'If you got the bug, if you can make it work, do it.'
- 'It's cheap to start things these days.'
- Services like Rent A Coder and Elance make it inexpensive to outsource development.
Posted by greg at 7:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
