Comments on: Three Things Every Startup Should Do, As Inspired by UW Business Competition

By: Seattle Startup Index for June 2009 hits the streets | TechWag

Seattle Startup Index for June 2009 hits the streets | TechWag — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:38:30 +0000

[...] Three Things Every Startup Should Do, As Inspired by UW Business Competition (xconomy.com) [...]

By: Start-Up : le livre » Blog Archive » Trois choses que devrait faire toute start-up

Fri, 01 May 2009 14:15:08 +0000

[...] Xconomy devient un de mes sites favoris. Voici un post sur les trois choses que devrait faire toute start-up. [...]

By: Start-Up: the book » Blog Archive » Three Things Every Startup Should Do

Fri, 01 May 2009 13:48:13 +0000

[...] Xconomy is becoming one of my favorite web sites. Here is a short post about three things every startup should do [...]

By: Shawn Plaster

Shawn Plaster — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:13:53 +0000

As a judge in the past and a participant working the booth this year (helping some friends with their idea, TalkHealth), it was a fun event. Some observations from the other side:

* General consensus from several judges is the ad revenue model is not working. Interesting catch-22, ad model doesn’t work so don’t bother, but you cannot implement a subscription-based revenue model without an established large community; can’t create a large community if you charge them from the start. I know content / participation is key to solving the riddle but it’s a daunting task for those starting out on a shoestring budget.
* Great to interact with some judges who were interested in truly helping the participants with their business model (e.g., Lara Feltin of Biznik spent a lot of time talking to Bas Kamphuis of TalkHealth about how to protect your community; Chris Howard of Ignition shared a lot of relevant information about community building; Galen Ward of Estately stressed the importance of exposing content to maximize organic search traffic).

Overall, it was great to see such a huge turnout.