Bootstrapper.com - Confessions of Serial Entrepreneurs

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am making San Francisco my new home. I look forward to working with the Bebo team and living in another amazing city. Hello San Francisco!

Richie

Hey Everyone,

As you’ve probably read, I was just part of a group that acquired Bebo. I am pleased- better yet, I am PSYCHED to let you know that I am part of a team that has acquired Bebo. There are so many reasons for our excitement-and we will get into those in the near future. For the next little while, we’ll be behind closed doors spending time with the Bebo team and gaining deeper insights into the worldwide communities on the platform. For now, I just want to say how excited and grateful I am for this opportunity-and to everyone that helped make this happen…..Stay Tuned!

Hey Everyone,

This event is going to be awesome! Hope you can all make it!

Social Networking Your Business, Tues June 8th

Social Media tools provide professionals with an unprecedented channel for building business networks, both locally and across the globe.  B2Bs contended with many challenges can more effectively run their businesses by communicating in real time with others who experienced the same challenges. By immersing your business in prospect-rich networks, you will benefit from idea exchanges, online events, positive brand encounters, development of lead-generating relationships, and results in new revenues for B2B organizations.

Join Brightmap, Ultra Light Startups, and ourselves at Fearless Business for a one of a kind opportunity to master various aspects of encompassing social networking to benefit your business.  A panel of professionals in the B2B community will attend to discuss how to use social media to benefit your business.

Click on the link below to learn more and purchase your tickets today!

B2B Networking, Tuesday June 8th

This June’s Early Stage East, the premier venture conference for promising young startups and the investment community promises to deliver compelling content and opportunities. Companies representing the hottest sectors right now - cleantech, financial tech, and emerging media will present their value propositions to an audience investors - venture capitalists, angels and individuals who represent over $4b in capital.

Our featured guests and panelists will broaden our perspectives on the key topics of media and branding, two critical aspects to a company’s growth and ultimately, bottom line. Daymond John, founder of Fubu, co-star of the Shark Tank, and author, will be our keynote speaker. The other esteemed guests include: Jeff Pulver, founder of the 140 Conference and early stage investor, Josh Kopelman, Managing Partner of First Round Capital and recipient of the 2010 Venture Impact Award.  The original NYC fashion entrepreneur, Yuli Ziv will also be on hand to share tried and true viral marketing tactics.

Of course, this conference is not all work and no play!  The conference is being hosted at the historic Hotel Dupont during the famous annual Jazzfest.  After all, what better environment is there for connecting with your peers, broadening your horizons and listening to the companies of tomorrow?

Register now for special early bird rates, including accommodations.

This has to have been one of the most memorable Affiliate Summit’s that we have attended. The Bootstrapper crew consisting of myself and three other adventure cravers got to the Rio a little bit late on Monday after a 2 hour layover in Chicago. We walked around the conference hall and had the pleasure of visiting old friends who have since gone on to start highly successful affiliate networks.

We were lucky enough to catch the Geek Fest keynote on the last day, which I thought was fascinating. The panelists talked in great detail about the evolution of affiliate marketing and how far it has come. The world ofaffiliate marketing has definitely in my mind as I think back to its earliest days changed. Back then, Commission Junction was the main and only legitimate network to grab offers from and then on the other side of the coin the there was the wild wild west of email marketing. These were the days when Mortgage companies and lead aggregators would pay $6 a lead from random bulk mailers and most advertisers had almost no clue on how to incorporate affiliate marketing into their marketing budgets. I could only dream back to those days

Being an industry veteran and now presently on the venture capital side, as I walked through all the booths filled with new exciting cutting edge affiliate networks it an unleashed a bit of excitement in my mind. I remember what it was like to be apart of an ad network startup with hefty ambitions and I remembered the difference that one key connection could make at a conference to the bottom line of a business.

Affiliate Summit is by far one of my favorite conferences, it is a must attend in my opinion for anybody who is involved in any form of online advertising. Everybody who is somebody is either exhibiting or doing a keynote presentation on the new product or service that they are offering to the masses. I can’t do anything but sit on the edge of my seat and look forward to Affiliate Summit East because as I’m sure this conference will surpass the last one as they always do.”

Hey everyone, a buddy of mine is producing an awesome event that will be keynoted by Al Gore. Yes, THE Al Gore.

Here’s details. I hope to see you there!
The best and brightest innovators and innovations of the education world will soon gather at the Phoenix Convention Center. Hosted by the Scottsdale, Arizona-based EDU Research Group (http://www.edurg.com), EduRG Conference 2010 will be held February 27-28, 2010, providing a venue for students, teachers, businesses and technology to work together for the betterment of higher education. Featuring a keynote address by former Vice President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, as well as speakers and workshops covering all aspects of education and hundreds of exhibitors displaying the latest in education-based products and technology, the Conference is guaranteed to have something for anyone seeking to further their education, improve their teaching methods, or showcase their school or business.

Students are encouraged to attend the Conference, free of charge, to meet representatives from participating colleges and universities. In turn, academic institutions will have the opportunity to recruit prospective students, while meeting the top Education product and service providers in the country. Businesses are offered brand exposure, partnership opportunities and access to high-level Education executives from around the globe. For more information on becoming an exhibitor, visit http://www.edurg.com/events/ai/exhibitor.asp. Sponsors for EduRG Conference 2010 include NanoProfessor, the Career Education Corporation, YourDegree.com, Geary Interactive, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Business Marketing Association and the Arizona Technology Council, Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Arizona Department of Commerce. Academic Partners include the University of Phoenix, Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, Colorado Technical University, and Pearson eCollege. For sponsorship and partnership opportunities, email info@edurg.com, or visit www.edurg.com.

On this great winter day, the final day of the year, I would like to invite you, my loyal reader and friend to check out a book by another friend of mine that is coming out today - Pull - About the power of the semantic web and how the world is changing and data is becoming its primary positive driver. I highly recommend the book to you and hope to hear you like it!

Happy New Years!

Richie

Hello friends,

We have a new episode of “Startup or Shut up!” available for viewing. Take a look at this week’s holiday episode and let me know what you think. I welcome all your feedback and comments. Richie.

Hello friends, my show “Startup or Shut Up!” was taped today and ready for viewing!

“Startup or Shut Up!” is a half-hour weekly internet TV Show.  It consists of tech & startup news, two interviews (one CEO interview and one VC or Legal Industry interview) and a call-in segment.  Here is a link to our past episodes:  CLICK HERE

Please email me at rich@bootstrapper.com to let me know your feedback or leave a comment below.

This is awesome, Happy Hannukah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtglogZbR8

I was going back and forth with a friend of mine over email and I’d like to public acknowledge him because I felt special by this email.

It came from a blackberry and was a personal note saying: “Sorry, I’m a party right now and can’t properly respond to this note as I would like to”

Now, this was uncalled for, he was at a party and could have just responded in the morning, instead he sent me that note and I went ‘wow, that’s really nice’.

So a major shout-out to my buddy Jeff Pulver for being so dam courteous.

So I recently made an introduction between 2 colleagues and one of them sent an email to the other person saying thanks for the connection and moved me to BCC so I don’t get stuck on the email chain. Now, I’ve never seen anyone do this before despite being party to thousands of introductions and you know what, it’s brilliant. BCC the introducer and save the extra email chains!

For any of you who are in NYC, stop whatever you are doing and go directly to time square. There you will find a new American Eagle store with a gigantic video billboard of a young girl in suggestive poses with this amazing very long hypnotic video billboard with swirly patterns on it and nothing else. I was across the street at the time and the giant swirly stuff led me across the street and the video billboard got me stuck there. It’s perhaps the best outdoor ad I ever saw. Simply amazing. Go see it.

I’ve got a friend, let’s call him Bob. Bob is a successful entrepreneur with a recent exit of a company he owned 100% of under his belt. Bob is also an engineer. Bob doesn’t properly value relationships. He values building shit. Now building shit is very valuable but after the product is live, relationships (distribution) is worth many times product. Why? You can always hire a firm to build a product. It’s really friggin hard to line up marketing partners that can put serious firepower behind something without having to spend any money. Really really hard. Ask most startups how many large distribution partners they have. Most will say Zero. Bob calls me all the time asking for advice and what I would do, I tell him, line up distribution and you have users and likely acquirers and you can create excitement as well.

My policy these days is to only build companies where we line up distribution (large biz dev deals) in advance so we know we can get the product out and essentially eliminate marketing risk and expense. Yes, this is very hard but it’s far more productive to spend time in advance lining up partners than raising money. If you have the right distribution raising money will become easy as will recruiting management. Start with distribution and the rest will fall into place.

The media industry is really the communication industry, yet it doesn’t communicate well within itself. In fact, there is no cohesive ecosystem supporting it, you would think there is, but there isn’t.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between entrepreneurs (startups), venture investors and media companies (acquirers). The startups are uncomfortable talking to investors and investors rarely talk to corp dev (except when they hire a banker) yet if all 3 parties were on the same page from day 1, better companies would be built and funded with greater likelihood of exits.

I announce a call for collaboration between the builders, the financiers and the buyers.