a blog for young and growing entrepreneurs 
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Startup
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02.04.09Iminlikewithyou Hires New CEO
Startup CommentsSince my previous post, it looks like things are buzzing along for Iminlikewithyou, a young YCombinator startup. The NYC-based company has hired Dan Porter as its new CEO. They plan to continue their strategy of pumping out addicting casual games, which has seemed to work so far. However, the new CEO's main challenge will be bring in revenue for the company. Porter last worked at Virgin, where he was SVP of Corporate Development, leading the company's venture investments and starting new companies. Before that, ...
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02.02.09Running The Marathon
Startup CommentsIt's common saying in the Valley that your idea will fail and constant production iterations are inevitable. However, when taking a quick glance around, all we talk about are the instant successes. Facebook seemed to have taken off from the getgo. Twitter was always about status updates. And Google was web search from day one. Sure, business plans are still in the works (I'll save that for another post), but the killer feature seemed to have been there from the beginning. This is awesome, yet, at the same time, depressing for the many entrepreneurs who are still out there grinding ...
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01.28.09Divvyshot (YC Company) Founder Looking for Co-Founder
Startup CommentsDivvyshot founder, Sam, is looking for a co-founder to join his startup, a new type of photo sharing website. The company is in the current winter session of the YCombinator program, which spans from now until April. Apparently, the deal is that his current co-founder, John, has a full-time job (founder of ipodrip.com) and will be going back to school in the fall. The startup currently operates out of the "Hacker House" in Palo Alto, currently the home of ...
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01.17.09The Customer Development Model
Startup CommentsIt's pretty clear now that "getting users" isn't a simple thing to do. I came across a presentation that addresses just this. It claims that startup's focus too much of their early attention on product development, and not enough "customer development." As a result, startups fail not because engineering was broken, but because their offering is just not valuable enough to the customers. Rather relying on a "launch" and hoping users will just come, the author explains that there should be a long and iterative process beforehand that validates that you can actually creating something that people wants. For instance, ...
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11.04.08Jessica Mah’s $500 to Startup
Startup CommentsJessica Mah, 18-year old entrepreneur, launches her startup, internshipIN, today. Her total cost was about $500 and roughly two weeks of development time. She started the website with two other friends (Arielle Patrice Scott and Andy Su) at UC Berkeley, with her story here: internshipIN began at Gypsies, the local Italian restaurant in downtown Berkeley, where Arielle and Jessica discussed how they planned to change the world. They knew it had to do with helping other students and startups, they just didn't know how. They were only a couple of bites into ...
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10.26.08Kevin Rose: Start Up During A Recession
Startup, Trends CommentsKevin Rose chimes in on why he thinks it's good idea to do a startup in the midst of an economic downturn. My views is similar to his. He agrees with Paul Graham's original post, and so do I. Since Facebook, Youtube, Digg, MySpace, and Flickr were founded, there hasn't really been any other companies that has captured my attention in the same way (well, maybe except twitter). There has been a lot of excitement, but frankly too much noise. Why to start a new startup in a bad economywww.kevinrose.com...
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10.25.08
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10.23.08Loopt Coming to T-Mobile G1
Startup CommentsLoopt just announced it's Android version of its application. Loopt on Android is coming soon and the team here has their hands full developing on this wonderful and robust platform. We've included a sneak peek with two screenshots. On the left is the Map View of you and your friends with a roll of your friends at the bottom. Click on a friend's image and you'll know where that person is. On the right is the Friends List, showing you where they are, their distance from you, and what they're doing. Lead by ...
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10.20.08Sharing The Idea
Startup CommentsEvery founder is protective over his ideas, and he has every reason to be. For example, Steve Jobs will let Microsoft down for supposedly taking the GUI. Thinking of an idea is hard and many founders believe that they are the only ones working their ideas. More often than not, there is another founder thinking exactly the same thing. Naturally, I would feel the same way, but a part of me also knows that great work also come from collaboration and feedback. One person believes in sharing the ...
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10.19.08YCombinator Gets Record Number Applicants
Startup CommentsYCombinator's winter cycle applications were due on Friday. As Paul Graham explains, YCombinator received "more applications this time than ever, and by a large margin: 10%." In case you don't know, YC is an unique fund that focuses on seed investments, usually attracting a younger crowd. They don't officially disclose actual application numbers, but we can easily assume hundreds. Roughly 20 startups get funded in each cycle. In tough times, this could be a good indicator that people are still interested in starting businesses. Or, it's just that YCombinator is becoming ...
About
Writer: Jeff Wang. I just graduated from UC Berkeley, majoring in Computer Science. Most posts will be dedicated to young entreprenuers.
My previous work experience include Microsoft and TechCrunch. I am an aspiring entrepreneur.
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