My name is Mick Hagen.
Founder of Zinch.
Laughing at Dweebist.
Drop-out at Princeton.
Top 100 Entrepreneur.
Devout Mormon.
Millions of views on Youtube.
Meet my better half.
Meet my new son.
We live in San Francisco.
This is my life.
Welcome.
I saw these little advertisements throughout the Forbidden City. For such an historical landmark of a Communist nation to have this…well, it’s fascinating. I wonder what the CPM is. With the amount of people going through there each day, i’m guessing Amex is getting a pretty good rate. :)
Short story: I have a new blog. It’s called Dweebist.com. Short posts…usually graphics or images. It’s an intersection of design, technology and geek.
Long story: So I subscribe to a ton of blogs in my google reader. Every day i’m reading/seeing/learning about new stuff. I mainly read about technology, start ups, education, sports, design and business. I see a lot of different things though. Sometimes I tweet about it.
I’m not a very good traditional blogger because it usually takes too long. I don’t feel like I have a lot time. That’s why I update this blog so infrequently. And that’s why I tweet often. Tweeting is easy and short. Takes very little of my time.
So basically I decided to start a new blog that consisted of all the short and small stuff that I see everyday. Not a lot of words (cuz that’s what takes long). Usually just images, videos, etc. I didn’t wanna use this blog because this is for more personal, family updates….also for longer posts w/ lots of words. Dweebist is for simple, less-word posts. I tried some of those on this blog and I didn’t find it very effective or organized. Things got crazy.
And when I would do stuff on my wife’s blog, Elegance Redefined, she would always get bugged w/ my content. Her stuff is more girly…and my stuff isn’t. So that didn’t work out. The only option I had was to just do a separate blog. So I did.
Meet Dweebist.com.
Why Apple is Apple. Steve Jobs on managing through economic downturn:
“We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place — the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that’s exactly what we did. And it worked. And that’s exactly what we’ll do this time.”
So tonight was the Utah Tweetup at Cowork Utah. Great place. Anyone looking to get away from the home office or just looking for a refreshing place to think, work…try Cowork Utah. It’s nice.
Anyway, I was on the ‘expert user panel’ at the event along with Janet Meiners Thaeler, Jesse Stay, Nate Moller and Ash Buckles. They are cool people and had some insightful thoughts. It was good that Cowork Utah brought a little diversity to the panel (me) because I was basically the only one NOT an seo/sem expert, social media consultant, pro blogger, etc. That’s how most of them make their living. Not me. I use Twitter mainly for personal enjoyment but also to evangelize Zinch. So my Twitter usage in some ways is very different than theirs.
Below are a few thoughts of mine…in no order at all. A few I shared while there at the panel…and a few thoughts were inspired by certain panel discussions.
How will Twitter effect traditional blogging?
Micro-blogging (twitter, tumblr, etc) will definitely change the face of traditional blogging. Janet said that her twittering has affected her blog post frequency (she’s spending more time on twitter). Twitter has definitely effectd my blog. If I can get my point across in 140 chars…why not. So I blog less.
Tweets are short, sweet and easy. 140 chars. Digestable. Efficient. Easy to write. Easy to read. It’s an all-around win-win for everyone. The world is moving faster and faster. What we used to have time for yesterday, we won’t tomorrow. Our patience is fading. Blogging will certainly still exist. But attention spans are much, much shorter with the introduction of microblogging. This will become the norm.
Jesse Stay argued that because of Twitter our blog posts will get longer. I think that’s crazy. Twitter proves that people want less, not more. I can understand why he said that though, he gets paid to blog. Though I disagree with him here, I think he is a talented and smart guy. I really like his SocialToo app.
Using Twitter to make money, to drive business.
To me twitter isn’t about making money at all. It’s about having conversations, making connections, networking, learning, and having fun. If twitter is a chore for you…or a job….don’t do it. Don’t talk to people just to talk. Talk cuz you want to. People will see right through it. A bunch of the panelists seem to be using it strictly for business. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. But for me, I think it’s a great social tool. It’s a great way to communicate and make real friends. Not for business or money. For life.
Don’t get me wrong…I think twitter can help business. It helps zappos; it helps comcast; it helps jetBlue; and of course it helps Zinch. But I really believe that for any business on twitter, it needs to be more about listening than about speaking. That’s how we are using it. Boxee does a great job at it too. I complained. They listened. They are constantly using it to improve. It’s masterful how they are using Twitter. Picture perfect. Sure they’ll give product updates and news here and there. But the majority of their communication are conversations with customers. Listening. Learning. Improving.
Any business (or person trying to drum up business) who just fills their twitter stream with information about themselves is doing it wrong. Listen more than you speak.
Tweeting. What to tweet.
Twitter’s business was based around the answer to one question: What are you doing? I believe people need to answer that question more. Seems like more and more people are ONLY tweeting links. Links to cool news stories. Links to their own businesses. Links to their own blog posts. Links links links. I think a little of that is fine. But I think it’s important that people mix in some what-are-you-doings. People are fascinated by people. People care about who you are and what you are doing…much more than you think. Lifecasting has become more popular than ever. Reality TV shows are still prevalent. People are interesting. Share yourself.
It’s important to find a good mix of what you tweet about. I think Guy Kawasaki is a good example of what not to do. He just links to all his alltop or Truemor stories. People still follow him. I do. But I think he’s abusing the relationship and pretty soon i’m gonna say enough is enough. I’d much rather hear the answer to the question, ‘what are you doing?’
Overall.
Twitter is a great tool. Everyone should use it. It’s the simplest content publishing tool out there. It’s real-time. It’s mobile. For business or personal, it’s a powerful platform to communicate.
I’ve been at Zinch since summer of 06. Two years and change later we have about a half million students, 600+ four-year universities, thousands of lines of code and a nice product to show for it. It’s been a lot of work, to say the least. And this is just the beginning.
With the recent financial meltdown and economic crisis, i’ve been thinking alot about web businesses and their future. I see friends and friends of friends starting or looking to start web businesses. College campuses are becoming breeding grounds (more than ever) for web entrepreneurs. I read about dozens of new web businesses every single day through blogs like Techcrunch, Mashable and KillerStartups. New websites are everywhere. Everywhere.
And why not start a web-based company. It’s inexpensive (relatively speaking) and it’s sexy (you know it is).
However, there are two fundamental problems that I see right now.
1) People don’t realize how effin hard it is to create something that people care about.
2) Too many web businesses are coming out with NO business model.
Because everyone and anyone is doing it, people get this hugely misunderstood notion that starting up a SUCCESSFUL web business is easy. No. It’s not. Just cuz you rocked door-to-door summer sales for the local Pest Control company or you took some e-business class last semester or you’re girlfriend thinks you’re hot doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy. You are way off. More and more websites are competing for our time and it’s becoming tougher to create something that really matters.
When I meet with web entrepreneurs (be it phone, lunch, email, etc), I pump them up…I encourage…I smile…I excite….I inspire. But deep down inside I’m thinking of what all this really means. It means all-nighters. It means going months on end without salary (at times) and trying to figure out how you’re gonna pay the bills or what you’re gonna eat for dinner that night (if you’re gonna eat at all). It means failing, failing, failing, failing on small battles, strategies or plans. Everyonce in awhile you’ll find a win…and you’ll sleep so well that night. Overall, you’ll lose more battes than you’ll win. That’s reality. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come out on top overall. But it’ll be discouraging. It’ll be draining. Passion is the only thing that’ll lift you up and get you out of bed in the morning to fight that next day’s battles. It’s the only thing.
I meet with these entrepreneurs and I try my best to articulate this. I try my best to convey this. It’s hard to communicate. I don’t wanna pop any balloons or burst any bubbles. I want them to live the dream. But sometimes it hurts inside me…cuz I know that so many aren’t willing to pay the price to succeed. They just aren’t passionate about it enough…they aren’t mentally tough enough…..they aren’t competitve enough…they just aren’t enough. Starting something up on the web is easy. Making it successful is almost impossible. Relatively few actually have what it takes to slip into that small percentage.
The other big problem is stinky business models.
Advertising dollars are going away cuz of the economy. And ad-based business models are proving to be bad ideas. CPMs are way down on social networks (or anything even remotely social) and people just aren’t clicking on ads anymore. Even Facebook is “struggling” to become profitable.
A common train of thought nowadays is that you just need to gain critical mass now, and worry about the business model later (or be acquired before you even have to worry about it). I personally don’t have a huge problem with this if you can succeed at part 1 of that plan: gaining huge critical mass. If you have that many users in one place and that much traction…you’ll always be fundable and you’ll always be able to buy enough time to ‘figure things out.’ Twitter is a perfect example of this. They’re growing quickly yet they still haven’t figured out how to make money. I DO believe Twitter will figure things out (if they aren’t acquired before that) and will eventually have a huge exit.
The big problem is when you DON’T achieve critical mass. You bet the ranch on that and it doesn’t happen. You put no thought into the business model early on and you are stuck with a business that’s not really a business cuz you aren’t making money. No money. No traction (or critical mass). You are screwed.
To me, it seems like so many websites right now are falling into this category. They see all these other sites (twitter, digg, facebook, youtube, etc) gaining huge critical mass and it almost seems easy. They read about these companies in the headlines; Scoble and Calacanis won’t stop talking about them; all stories on Techmeme worship them. So the big bet people make is to be just like them. Critical mass now and business model later…all the while saying ‘everyone will wanna advertse to this demographic’ as the fallback plan. Of course, the ‘critical mass’ plan fails (cuz youtube and facebook are the rare exception) and you are in a tough situation.
In fact, if you ain’t VC backed (sitting on a couple Mil) and you aren’t making the cash register ring, you are in deep doo doo. You’re oxygen is running out. You’re gonna have a hard time raising any money (unless you have some SERIOUS traction) in this economic environment and you start to stare at death in the eye. Inevitably, you eventually go into hibernation mode (fire everyone except you and your cofounder…which you’re praying knows how to code) and essentially grease yourselves up to hop into the deadpool (development moves like a snail and you go get a job at BestBuy).
Lucky for VC-backed companies, they have a little more time to get the biz model figured out (and/or the value proposition >> which leads to critical mass >> which leads to more investment >> which leads to more time to figure out the biz model). But that’s the only difference. Time. More time. But I digress…
I think so many of the web-based companies coming out right now are in trouble. I really do. If the business model isn’t solid (which so few seem), and the value proposition isn’t HUGE (HUGE HUGE HUGE…not just, eh, okay)….you ain’t gonna last. Both of those factors are near impossible to figure out and the economic times sure aren’t helping.
If I ever become an angel investor (which someday I’d love to), i’m gonna be bad (or maybe good). I’m gonna wanna invest in basically no one. Bruised and battered along the way, I know how hard this is. I know how hard it is to grow a web business. And I know how hard it is to make something that matters. I think there are few people who will scratch, scrape and bust butt to profitability….and I think there are even fewer who have the insight, ingenuity and perseverance to create something that people care about.
Are you one of the few? Are you a wantrepreneur or an entrepreneur? You’ll never know unless you try.
This post was way too long. If you got this far then you are awesome.
This is a shout out to all our offshore developers in India. You guys seriously dominate.
Prison Proxy
“Fascinating daily blog by a nameless inmate currently serving a life sentence in the Texas Penitentiary. He updates the blog daily with the help of a friend on the outside. The way it works is he hand writes and mails 5 posts once a week to a friend outside of the jail.”
The Orwell Prize
“The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog … The diaries are exactly as Orwell wrote them. Where there are original spelling errors, they are indicated by a ° following the offending word.”
I really like this idea. It makes perfect sense.
Can’t find a hotel for the next conference you are going to? If you don’t mind roughing it, try AirBed and Breakfast. Anyone with an airbed (or couch) can “post a room” and how much it costs. Thrifty travelers can make reservations on the site and pay for the stay.
TechCrunch has the story.
This isn’t new news. But I just wanted to say that this guy is a hero. He’s the Carnegie Mellon professor (dying of cancer at the time) who became famous with his Last Lecture (almost 6 million views). Wall Street Journal and New York Times have his story covered really well. His life recently came to an end. But for real, he’s a hero.
