| Raising $20,000 in contributions to launch a web start-up. Your participation entitles you to vote on actual business decisions. I will blog about this entire journey as openly as I can -- taking you through the entire start-up process and providing feedback from VCs & Entrepreneurs along the way. My hope is that we'll all learn quite a lot from this experience. |
This initiative is still moving forward, but over at http://blog.WeBothLike.com — hop over there for the latest as we blog this entire start-up journey for WeBothLike.com.
This is the final post on this website.
Note: I kept the RSS feed the same, only it’s now showing all posts from blog.WeBothLike.com.
I don’t believe at this moment that I can raise the contribution size I have been hoping to raise ($10k minimum; $20k goal). My belief was that I could get tons of entrepreneurs that are very interested in the entire start-up experience — specifically getting to hear the insight of experienced venture capitalists and seasoned entrepreneurs (that I assembled), while I ran into obstacles.
Well, we’re still going to get to hear that valuable insight — only, I’m starting a venture now. I’ve aligned with a programmer that believes in one of my ideas just as much as I do. Thus, we’re moving forward on it.
We’re going to get the blog up and running for that site — and shift this blog over there, as to start branding the company.
As for all the contributors so far — if you’d like your contribution returned, I’ll gladly do that. Otherwise, I’m still going to keep the contributions in effect — allowing people to contribute — and feature the contributors/supporters (via ad placements around the web). Neither myself or Dave the programmer are by any means rich, so every penny truly matters to us during this start-up process. We hope that you’ll learn a lot from our start-up experience, and from the insight of the great panel of experts I’ve got on-board for this entrepreneur educational experience.
Not only will I be blogging about this experience, but Dave will as well. Thus, you’ll get to hear both sides of the equation — from his programming side of things, to my business / marketing / information architecture / features / etc. perspectives, to any vision or priority disagreements, etc. Overall, I’ll be having the final say on anything — but if we ever disagree, I’ll likely reach out to the readers and to the advisors, so that we can have more perspective.
I met Ted Rheingold of Dogster/Catster at SXSW last month, he liked the concept of blogging a start-up, but said he can’t wait til I reach the point where I can’t tell. Well, I’m curious if I reach that point as well — and what I wouldn’t be able to disclose to you. If we’re ever in discussions with a large brand for advertising dollars, or possibly looking to acquire us — I likely won’t disclose the company we’re in discussions with. If an acquisition were to occur or a large sponsorship deal, I may wait until it closes before I blog about it — and depending on the signed agreement, I may have to withhold some things (i.e. deal size), but will write about the experience none-the-less.
I hope to get you (the readers) involved throughout the entire process — hopefully some of you will be helping us out, whether it’s logo design or logo ideas, or ideas on “this or that”, or feedback on something, etc. I’m excited!
Announcement of the business idea shortly, as well as full blogging. The first matter at hand will be incorporation — whether to be S-Corp, C-Corp, or LLC … so stay tuned for that interesting topic and the reasons why we’d be one versus the other, and which we ultimately become.
This weekend I’m having a simple script written — as an IFRAME, but using JavaScript.
Through the remaining time left, I’m going to have a script that randomly pulls a supporter of $150+ and display their logo, company name, and description they supply, and display it in the right-column of every page of the Ringside Startup website, and the Techquila Shots website (every page — I’m getting about 100k pageviews per month over there). I’ll tell ya what — for every $150 a contributor contributes, I’ll rewrite the script to give your ad greater exposure (thus, if there were 3 contributes — A $150, B $150, and C $300 … for every 4 pageviews, 2 would go to C, 1 to A, 1 to B).
Thus, you should get 200k+ pageviews (divided by total $150 sponsors). Maybe I’ll make it so that there are 3 logos displayed on each page.
I’m then going to give out this script to everyone — and readers, if you’d like to continue helping support Ringside Startup, then you can copy this script and place it on your blog. It’ll have a little logo to Ringside Startup under it, saying that these ads are displaying on your blog in support of Ringside Startup.
Yes, I haven’t been able to do much the past couple days — but I’m going hard at this Ringside Startup for next 49 days. I really want to make this a reality.
Anyone have other crazy marketing ideas for gaining reach and exposure?
James just wrote in the following, which I like his thinking — I just quite honestly have no clue how this could/would work:
I love the idea for a massively transparent startup process, and i look forward to participating.
That having been said, I’m not donating because you don’t pass either of my investing filters:
1. Is RS (ringside startup…) going to help make me money?
No. Being listed on the contributor page doesn’t count.
2. Is RSS a worthy charity?
No. Much more worthy funds out there.
I think your idea would be much better if you did give equity, and gave higher equity to those involved earlier in the process.
Just like the real thing!
What about all this SEC nonsense?
I guarantee that there are ways around it. Your investors need to organize their own fund, and invest as essentially a single investor. Each time investors create a fund, you should negotiate with them an equity rate just like you would with any VC.
The big problem, of course, is setting up the crowdsourced VC fund. That’s not my business, but I would invest in such a fund. And I’d like to see your venture help in the development of these kind of crowdsourced funding projects.
$480 total raised. About 50 days left. I’m trying for $20,000 — but minimum is $10,000. Thus, I need to get $200 of contributions per day. I have an option that if a contributor puts up $150+, they get to post their logo and add additional descriptive text. I’m going to start randomly displaying these on the sidebar of every webpage — to encourage business sponsors (essentially buying ad placement). Would be great to find 75 of these type of sponsors (1.5 per day).
Spoke to Jay Parkhill (lawyer) — I have to stay away from giving up equity, promissory notes (if the business isn’t a success, then it would definitely have to be shut-down, and I obviously wouldn’t be held personally responsible for getting money back into people’s hands — but anyhow, I don’t want to think about people putting up money and expecting anything more than some lessons learned from the community and advisors I have lined up. If the business actually launches, and isn’t a success — I think we’d all come out of it with some lessons learned that were worth a $10 contribution).
Still hopeful. Please help spread the word by emailing colleagues, posting on your blog, or better yet — reaching out to any businesses that you think might be interested in (essentially buying) ad/logo placement on the site.
Last night I officially launched the Ringside Startup project. I actually had soft-launched last Thursday, notifying a handful of people — including the initial advisors. Wanted to work out any kinks before going public. The mistake I made was getting the thing digg’d that night — because come today, the digg is 3 days old — it only had a few diggs over the weekend, and I’m still not sure whether it could ever get to page 1 of digg.com now.
Last night I sent an email out to Pete Cashmore (Mashable), Mike Arrington (TechCrunch), Matt Marshall (VentureBeat), and Allen Stern (Center Networks). Pete posted relatively quickly (around 1am EST), but then posted another 8 posts before I woke up — so the post was buried if you read Mashable. (Note: Don’t compete on a Monday; wait and notify the press late Monday night or Tuesday morning). The others haven’t posted yet that I’ve seen — however other bloggers have done some posting (thank you!).
Received a lot of positive feedback/support from my Techquila Shots readers. Also received quite a few inquiries to the advisory positions — honestly, keep them coming in, but I’m focused on getting the contributions now and then in the future will possibly add more advisors. Right now, there’s nothing to advise on.
I’ve only raised $320 in reader contributions — thus, I’ve started thinking about Plan B options if I can’t raise the funds. I’m thinking I either need to Read the rest of this entry »
These are some hand-picked ideas from my Techquila Shots vault that I think are the best and most practical (given the anticipated budget) for Ringside Startup.
Please contribute to Ringside Startup if you’d like to see the journey of one of these ideas turn into an actual business — and hear the guidance of seasoned start-up experts during the journey.
LikeLoveOrHate.com
I’m proposing a simple website that asks you questions to gauge what you like/love/hate — in an easy interface where you just click to answer questions, while we compile all of that data into a back-end database. Then, users place a widget on their blog/MySpace/etc and when another user (that has a profile with us) visits that user’s webpage, the widget instantly compares the visitor with the user being viewed, and tells the visitor what shared interests they have and whether they have a high compatibility (similar to Last.fm — see image provided).
Everyone has opinions — my favorite pizza shop in Buffalo NY is going to be different than other Buffalonians. Just as my opinion on the new movie “Borat” will be different than others — or the parts that I loved the most will differ from others. Give people a reason to create video and I believe you could double those uploads per day. Goal: To become the largest source of original “opinionated” video, photographic, and contextual content on the web (globally).
This idea would create that central source — and allow people to specify if they’re attending an upcoming event, or attended a past event. They can submit URLs to Flickr photos, YouTube videos, etc — and they can also meet people that are going to an upcoming event, or find that person that they met at a previous event (but didn’t get their contact info).
The whole process could take anywhere from 1-3 minutes per item. I expect there are tons of items in people’s homes that just aren’t worth it to them currently to post on eBay or Craigs List — and I believe for the millions of items listed on eBay, there are at least that many equivalent (if not more) that would be posted online if only it were simpler and took less time.
Please contribute to Ringside Startup if you’d like to see the journey of one of these ideas turn into an actual business — and hear the guidance of seasoned start-up experts during the journey.
Which one of these ideas do you feel has the most potential for “success”?
Ringside Startup has officially launched.
Here are the basics on this endeavor:
I’m raising $20,000 in reader/sponsor contributions to launch a web start-up. Contributor participation entitles you to vote on actual business decisions — the first of which will be which idea that I’ve exposed via Techquila Shots will be the web start-up I build from the ground up. I will blog about this entire journey as openly as I can — taking you through the entire start-up process (beginning with incorporation — whether to be LLC or S-Corp Inc; in Delaware or NY) and providing feedback from VCs to Entrepreneurs along the way. My hope is that we’ll all learn quite a lot about the start-up process from this experience.
The goal is for entrepreneurs to learn from all the processes and obstacles I go through — and gaining insight along the way from seasoned professionals.
I have commitments for advisor participation from:
Of course at any point, any of them can remove themselves from this project.
More details are available at the FAQ. Feel free to read up on the advisor profiles and make your own contribution to help this project move forward.
More Advisors Sought: I’d really like to add some more seasoned entrepreneurs. If you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, VC, or Angel that has been down the road with many start-ups — and you’re interested in helping to educate other entrepreneurs on the start-up process, please drop me an email.
I’m looking for 15+ seasoned “advisors / educators” for this project — not seeking any money from you, just hoping you’ll comment on various topics through-out this openly blogged start-up process when you feel you may have good input. My hope is for 2-3 comments (short or long) from you per week — but one per week would be better than none. You can drop-off at any point — your participation as an advisor/educator/expert is that your comments will be highlighted / featured in my posts.
| Sponsor Contributions welcomed. Contribute more than $150 and your logo/ad is displayed. Contact me if you're looking for more visibility on this site or Techquila Shots. |
Steve Poland is Author of Techquila Shots, a contributing writer to TechCrunch, and Founder/CEO of Vested Ventures, a web strategy and internet marketing consulting firm.
Questions about this initiative? questions@ringsidestartup.com
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