This week, more details came out about the TechCrunch extortion scandal (too boring and non-eventful to link to).  The extortee Sam Odio emailed Jason Calacanis explaining that he was the one involved.  Jason forwarded the email to someone whose style I find so distasteful that I don’t even want to mention let alone link to them.  The backlash against Mr Distasteful and Jason Calacanis was fast and furious – the comments “Calacanis does not seem worth trusting based on this.” and “When did Calacanis ever seem to be worth trusting? He’ll do anything to get attention.” became two of the top 25 highest voted comments on Hacker News, ever.  Lots of people just don’t like Jason Calacanis.

This seems wierd to me. I’ve never heard anyone say “I know Jason Calacanis personally and I don’t like him” or “I’ve worked with Jason Calacanis and he’s horrible.” Ever since Jason expressed an interest in GeekStack, I’ve asked people I know how it was working with him, and it has been overwhelmingly positive. For example, last week I emailed him asking for a lawyer recommendation, and he emailed me back within 2 hours with an introduction. I’ve written before about why I think it’s useful for tech entrepreneurs to listen to Jason Calacanis. It’s only people that know of him that hate him (I’m sure there are people that know him and dislike him, I’ve just never heard them speak up).

The short story of what happened is:

• TC reporter asks for a MacBook Air in exchange for coverage
• Sam (founder of Divvyshot) hems and haws about it, flustered by the direct extortion
• Story breaks with limited details
• Jason writes about it
• Sam writes an email to Jason confessing his role in it
• Jason forwards an email to Mr Distasteful
• Mr Distasteful threatens to expose Sam
• Sam comes clean, tells story
• Everyone piles on Jason for forwarding the email

Jason added some details on Hacker News

• He gets 400-500 emails a day
• This email was not clearly marked as confidential
• He didn’t know what Mr Distasteful was going to do with it

Sounds like a simple misunderstanding that we can all learn lessons from:

• When you want something to be confidential, put CONFIDENTIAL in the subject and first line
• When emailing a busy person, have useful subject, short body, and clear ask at the end
• If something seems “hot”, think twice about who you tell about it

Jason and Sam both made some faux pas here, but they’ll both survive.  And despite this, Jason does tons to help entrepreneurs.  TechCrunch50 has sped lots of great companies on their way to success, TWiST has taught lots of entrepreneurs and helped others directly (yours truly included), and Open Angel Forum has connected 10 (soon to be dozens) of startups with the best angels in the business.  This is in addition to the small throwaway things that he does in private, like helping me find a lawyer.  This is all in addition to his day job.

What does this have to do with Robot Cars?  Just like the preconceived distrust people have for Jason keeps them from seeing the good he does, the distrust people have for technology that takes power away from humans will prevent us from using robot cars.  Even if they perform 100x safer per mile, every accident will bring headlines like “2 More Die Due To Robotic Failure”.  Fear will keep a net beneficial technology that saves lives from being adopted.  Ok, it was a stretch of a point to make, but it was a really fun headline to write.

Good thing Jason has thicker skin than the robots!

I knew about Mixergy long before I became a big fan.  One of his interviews would get posted at Hacker News, I’d recognize the name and click through, then find a video to download and usually it would end there.  I’m a copious podcast listener and one of the greatest moments in my podcast-listening life was when the iPhone OS 2.0 (3.0?) added a “2x” button to podcast playback.  This lets me listen to twice as much audio in the same amount of time.  But it doesn’t work for video.  So Mixergy interviews, while they sounded nice, were already long and because videos can only play back at normal speed, it feels twice as long.  This meant Mixergy was a curious footnote and nothing more.

I finally listened to one when I just couldn’t say no to the interviewee (I think it was Jeffrey Kalmikoff of skinnyCorp) and was pleasantly surprised.  It was my first exposure to Andrew’s interview style and it was so much more deep and informative than anything I’d heard before.  This made me much more ambivalent (no, it doesn’t mean apathetic) about the amount of content Andrew produces once I knew how great it was.  But I couldn’t keep up with it and didn’t watch another video for almost 6 months.

The magical moment was when I was reading the HN comments for one interview, someone posted a link to the audio for the interview, and I eventually found that there’s an iTunes-subscribable feed of the audio of all the interviews.  This meant I could listen fast and have each interview dropped onto my iPod every day.  Since then (around Christmas) I’ve listened to every interview and I realized there’s something different about listening to all of them vs just one.  Listening to any given interview will give you some good insights and exposure to one person’s ideas.  Some are particularly useful for dealing with a specific topic (like Law 101 for Startups – btw Andrew, many, many entrepreneurs become paralyzed by legal uncertainty and the cost of finding good answers – this was 100x better than reading web pages about law that are either too general or untrustworthy) but usually you don’t get a life-changing experience from one interview, just some spectacular anecdotes.

Listening to 10, 30, or 50+ interviews gives a whole different perspective.  You move from anecdotes to data.  Andrew goes into such detail that you basically have raw data on a bunch of successful companies, kind of reading business case studies in MBA school.  Nobody tells you what you have to do to be successful, but you can weigh your situation against the situation and decisions made by so many others.  I’d imagine it’s like the value Paul Graham and YCombinator provide.  YC has graduated hundreds of companies and so they have a statistical level of experience with software startups and product development.  When pg or any of the YC partners give you advice, it’s not just based on brains or hunches, it’s shaped by more experiences than any single person could accumulate.  As detailed as he is, Andrew doesn’t know his interviewees as well as YC knows their companies, but Mixergy is free and open to anyone who takes the time to listen.

For an investment of 30 minutes a day, you learn enough to bounce your own ideas off of a stable full of entrepreneurs.  You sort of become your own mentor.  If you have access to a real life startup mentor like Paul Graham or Dave Cohen (of TechStars), by all means, use them as much as you can, but if you are locationally challenged, not ready to dive into a startup, not connected, too young, etc, let Mixergy be your mentor.  You can come up with reasonable excuses for not moving to Boulder or Mountain View, but if you can’t or won’t take the free, unlimited mentoring that’s available at Mixergy, you’ll be walking blind with only your own untested entrepreneurial instincts.

Every once in a while, some writer ends up having every thing they write posted to Hacker News for a while.  (Well, there are lots of people who get everything they write posted to HN but the problem I’m about to describe only affects those that write frequently).  Whether it’s a flurry of good writing, or exposure to new readers that get excited about their archives, they can end up with several links on the front page, or something of theirs posted every day of the week.  The problem is that for the HN readers that already have an opinion about this writer, these links are noise.  If you like the writer, you’ve already subscribed to their blog, and if you don’t like them, you don’t want to see them every day.  So tension builds, snarky or negative comments get posted, and then there’s a backlash against links to that writer.  After the backlash, the links from that person slow down and once again, only the best of their stuff gets posted rather than everything they write.  I’ve seen it happen with Coding Horror, Seth Godin, 37signals, TechCrunch, and others.

This brings us to Mixergy.  Mixergy is a site with daily interviews of successful entrepreneurs.  The interviews are broadcast as live video, then available for download in audio or video format later.  There are a couple things that make Mixergy special.  First, Andrew Warner gets excellent guests.  In addition to many big names in tech and enturepreneurship, he finds a constant stream of people with interesting and valuable experiences that you’ve never heard of.  Second, it’s very well produced – interviews are at the same time every day, there’s a calendar of upcoming events so you can plan ahead to watch ones you’re interested in, the video and audio recordings are up later that day, and there’s a community-produced transcript for each episode.  Third, there’s a strong community that participates in the interviews, suggests and connects new people, and pushes Andrew to continually get better.  But the biggest strength by far is Andrew himself.

Most podcasts are somewhere between god-awful and tolerable.  The “best” ones are still generally a couple of guys shooting the breeze with maybe something resembling a plan.  But Andrew researches each person he’s going to talk to, prepares questions in advance, sends the questions to the interviewee, and has a pre-interview talk with them, including going over which questions won’t be answered (like finaicial figures).  Despite all the preparation, Andrew probes for and chases down whatever interesting tidbits come up in conversation, then works his way back to the plan.  Nothing gets past him or left out by him.  For instance, when he was interviewing Rahul Sood of Voodoo PC, he was very meticulous about the timing of Rahul’s entrepreneurial activities as a teenager, including when he bought an old house in Calgary that he ended up selling later for $1M.  If you listen to Andrew talk to someone for an hour, you’ll feel like you’ve known that person for years.  And after 200+ interviews, he has his technique down pat.

Those are all great, but the thing that really makes Andrew special is how gracious he is.  Listening to him talk makes you feel like he’s shaking your hand, but the really nice handshake where they put their left hand on top of your clasped rights.  He’s extremely polite and thankful to all of his guests, his listeners, community, and sponsors.  He seeks out, graciously accepts, and implements feedback he receives on his site and other forums.  He’s truly a class act, one of those people you want to hate for being so good, but there so good that you can’t help but like them.  I haven’t met him but I’m sure if I did, he’d make me feel like a million bucks and that he was the lucky one to get to meet me.

Back to Hacker News, there has been a Mixergy backlash building because his interviews have been posted every day for the last couple of weeks.  People were starting to get agitated, but then something amazing happened.  One person asked:

Serious question: is Mixergy considered a worthwhile site? Haven’t I seen it dissed on HN before?

I was worried that people were going to pile on, but then 10 people responsed, all positive, some extremely so.  Here’s a sample:

I think it’s a life-changing site for sure and you get to hear from industry veterans first hand about a lot of relevant info. What more do you want?

They’re always really useful interviews. It’s like having several more long chapters in the “Founders at work” book.

If there was a Pulitzer for startup interviews, I’d expect Andrew Warner to be nominated.

I’m counting on Andrew’s insightful interview techniques so that he can “conjure” up from interviewees all the knowledge that they’ve build along their entrepreneurial experience so that we can learn from their successes and even failures.

Wow!  Google could open source their search algorithms and I don’t think they would get as ringing praise as that from the HN crowd.  Andrew, if you’re reading this, please know that you’re doing something very special as Mixergy and there are many, many people who appreciate it.  Keep it up!

If you’re not Andrew and you’re interested in entrepreneurship at all, listen to a few of his interviews.  While each person’s story is unique, hearing many of them helps you pick out common issues, pitfalls, characteristics, and opportunities.  Mixergy lets you walk in the footsteps of giants, rather than fumbling in the dark.

UPDATE: Read the followup about how to Building Your Own Mentor here

His latest post, Stategic SEO for Startups, is a classic Shoestring article.  In the longish article, he describes the basics of SEO, why some common conceptions about it are wrong, how it can work to your advantage if done right, and the hallmarks of good startup SEO.  Again, read his article but the main takeaway is that you do better by ranking high in lots of specific, niche keywords that relate to your product, and the way to rank high is to start early, iterate, and get links back to your site.  Clearly he knows what he’s doing because I’ve already linked to his business blog and his product.

But to show him I really understood the article, I’m responding to his thinly veiled request in the very last article: “I do try to write most people who ask for advice (odds are better if you ask good focused questions, let me get a blog post out of it, etc)…”  So Patrick, in the spirit of mutual SEO building, here are some good focused questions that you can answer publicly.  If and when you answer them, I’ll happily link to your answers:

1. In the past you’ve talked about outsourcing your content creation to your “army of freelancers”.  What did that consist of on your end?  My guess is you looked at terms and topics people were searching for (you mentioned “baby shower bingo” once) and then sent a job to your freelancers to come up with 80 or so baby shower words that you feed into your card generator and sample bingo card landing pages.
2. How do you analyze and rank your SEO strategies?  I see your sample card landing pages have an id that they pass to the registration page so you know how the different landing pages are converting.  What other methods do you use to determine which SEO methods are most valuable to you?
3. Your Bingo Card landing pages allow you to programatically generate tons of pages from content in your product.  What other tips do you have for getting lots of good SEO content for a low investment of time/money?

GeekStack is very close to starting playtesting and once there’s some feedback coming in there I’m turning my attention to SEO, marketing, etc, so this is on my mind. Thanks in advance – you’re one of my favorite startup writers and every time I see a “MicroISV on a Shoestring” article on Hacker News of in Google Reader I know I’m getting something good.

UPDATE: Sure enough, Patrick responsed within 16 hours and his reply is here: Followup Questions for “Strategic SEO for Startups” Thanks, Patrick!

Comscore is the technology industry’s biggest bully, and today I’m calling for an industry-wide boycott of their services.

I’m asking journalist and bloggers to stop covering their stats, I’m asking advertisers to not use their services, and finally, I’m asking startup companies to not support their new and widely reported on “$10,000 to get your stats correct” extortion ring.

If I was a stock trader I would short the stock–but I’m not–so I won’t (I keep my money in bonds and angel investments for the record).  Also, if you own Comscore shares, I’m not going to tell you that you should sell them, but if I were an analyst–and I’m not–I would probably tell folks to sell every share they had, and as quickly as possible.

Additionally, I’m asking Comscore to drop their “pay for correct stats” model in the next ten days.

Let’s get into why.

Comscore’s Reign of Terror

For over a decade, I’ve railed against our industry’s leading metrics company ComScore with little result.

It all started when I was a journalist in the 90s for the Silicon Alley Reporter. I listened to company after company from Silicon Alley to Silicon Valley complain about how ComScore’s method of counting traffic websites, via a sample of users, was incorrect.

People couldn’t understand why the internet industry, with it’s ability to track traffic perfectly, would ever adopt the failed sample-based methods used on television and radio. Comscore’s ideas were antiquated and unnecessary.

Entrepreneurs would show me their internal stats, which were typically three to five times larger than Comscore’s numbers, and beg me to correct them in the Silicon Alley Reporter.

However, I noticed a pattern: the big companies didn’t complain about Comscore.

Why?

Well, from what multiple people shared with me, you simply had to follow the money. According to these folks it was an unspoken truth for years that if you paid Comscore they fixed your numbers, and if you were a small company and didn’t, well, you suffered. Comscore would probably deny this, but their recent “pay to play” product shows their true stripes.

They screwed me at Weblogs, Inc.

It wasn’t until I started Weblogs, Inc. that I really felt the sting of not participating in the Comscore protection racket. You see, advertisers love Comscore and they make advertising buys based on it.

Our small, but growing blogs, were under reported month after month and Comscore basically told me to pound salt when I complained. It cost me money, and I promised myself that if I could ever support another service that wasn’t based on payola I would.

Here you can see a smoking gun from 2005 when Comscore did a “study” on blogs with Gawker Media as a sponsor. Interestingly, Gawker’s blogs did really well in the study. The only problem was that Comscore’s numbers were different than the SiteMeter traffic that Gawker and Weblogs Inc. were publishing at the time.

Denton privately admitted to me he support Comscore because he had to because of their reputation in the advertising industry. He thought I should bite the bullet as well and get in bed with the bullies. Not my style, sorry.

[[ Some links from 2005 Comscore: Show us the data or get out of Dodge http://bit.ly/4I7S6i and ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com/3526851 - Fred
Wilson throws me under the bus: http://bit.ly/8BpFnh ]]

I publicly complained about Comscore but no one would really listen. Actually Jeff Jarvis did support me: http://bit.ly/8zW0GF

My good friend Fred Wilson, who had invested in the firm, turned away and watched the bullies he invested in pummel me when I complained about Comscore. Fred is outspoken and an advocate of startups–except with Comscore. He’s turned a blind eye while letting his huge venture return in Comscore color his objectivity. In fact, it must be obvious to Fred that Comscore is, in fact, holding back his other startup investments by extorting money from them!

Fred’s been an amazing supporter of mine over the years, but I’ve never been able to get over the fact that he invested in and supported these guys. Fred’s continued support of this company is unconscionable at this point. He needs to come out and say that Comscore charging $10,000 for this product is a pure shake down.

Do it Fred… you know you want to!

ComScore Tries to Buy Me Off

This summer the tough guys at Comscore approached me with a clandestine deal after I continued to publicly complain about their methods. The message was clear: if I stopped criticizing them and publicly supported their server data measurement program they would not charge me. The $10,000 it would cost a year for this service would be free for me if I threw my fellow entrepreneurs under the bus.

Their email to me included something out of the a Sopranos episode: “Normally there is a cost to implement, but in this case we will gladly waive the charge if you are interested.” Yeah, and if you’re not interested perhaps you would like to come on a fishing trip with us this weekend.

You bastards think that after a *decade* of me trying to stop your extortion you can by me off by simply waiving some fees? I could easily pay the $10,000 fee today but I will never give you guys a dime. I will remember what you did to me  when I was coming up forever.

I’d rather lose half my revenue from advertising as Mahalo grows from a top 1,000 site (2007), to the top 400 sites (2008) and now a top 200 site (2009), and eventually even a top 50 site I hope (2011?)–than give you even one ounce of my support.

I wrote back: “You guys are evil for charging companies–I would never support you. Quantcast and Google are going to crush you guys…. And I’m telling everyone I know to support Quantcast.”

They never contacted me again.

Comscore formalizes their extortion ring

This week you may have read over at the excellent “All Things D” that Comscore is now willing to do real metrics on your website if you give them $10,000 a year. They claim this is to pay for their servers. More: http://bit.ly/6Fqrhe

This after they spent the last decade criticizing the direct measurement methods of their competitors like Quantcast and Google Analytics as being flawed! Now they say pixel tracking–actual measurement on the server side–is the best method. What a bunch of slim buckets.

Could it be that enough publishers and advertisers have told you to go f– yourself in the past year?

Could it be that Quantcast has a product that is 100x better than your service and it’s FREE?

Could it be that Compete.com is secretly testing a server-side testing method like Quantcast’s and is about to kick your ass?

>From where I sit, this is Comscore’s desperate Hail Mary pass to try and save their dying protection racket. Comscore has ZERO value when Google Analytics, Compete.com and Quantcast allow you to publicly and freely track your stats.

Bullies, Ethics & Your Part

As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I learned that when you or your friends were being bullied there was really only one solution to the problem: punch the bully directly in the face as hard as you can the second they approached you. Like really, the second they come at you–the second the first word comes out of their mouth–punch them in the face. Don’t let them even finish their sentence. If they say “I want your milk money” your fist should make contact right around the
“want” mark.

BANG!

At a young age I tested this technique and it resulted in a couple of multi-day suspensions from school and black eyes, but it is a life-long strategy for success that has never failed me. Do not let yourself or your friends get bullied–ever. Even if you get your ass kicked, at least you got your shot in and you held your ground.

When someone from Comscore approaches, you should tell them to go hell. (Note: do not literally punch them in the face–I’m not advocating physical violence here, I’m advocating voting with your dollar.)

I put up a good fight for a decade but made little progress and frankly got my ass kicked by Comscore in the Weblogs, Inc. days. However, their obnoxious behavior has finally been publicly exposed. This means that we–as an industry–can finally run this bully out of town.

Again, here is what I’m asking for in the Comscore Boycott. Feel free to republish this article in whole at your blog.

The Comscore Boycott: Play Your Part!

1. Startups: Do NOT pay a single penny to Comscore–ever.
2. Startups who are getting this program for free (I suspect a good number): Opt out and tell Comscore to f– themselves.
3. Press & Bloggers: Please do not run Comscore’s inaccurate numbers, and please expose their extortion ring.
4. Advertisers: Do not use Comscore to plan your media buys: use the free and more accurate Quantcast.
5. Google: Please release your version Comscore killer (based on Quantcast’s model), or better yet PLEASE BUY QUANTCAST!
6. Compete.com: Please release your Comscore killer.
7. Stock traders & Analysts: Please think deeply about the potential revenue destruction that Comscore could be facing.
8. Fred Wilson: publicly state that you do not agree with ComScore’s mafia-like methods.
9. Republish this email at your blog.
10. If you have information on Comscore that should be exposed send it to me in confidence (say anonymous up top)

To My “Friends” at Comscore

You know I’m right.

[reposted in its entirety below, slightly reformatted]

[ disclaimer: written with boiling blood ]

Background/Disclaimer

When confronted with an abuse of power, an injustice or a scam I’ve developed a really effective technique: I blog, tweet and whine about it passionately for as long as possible. Basically, I do this until people get sick of me (some of you reading this have at various times told me this–I’m sorry!). I’ve learned over the years that this process is wildly effective in the long-term and has the added bonus of being great therapy. It’s a way for me to relieve the dissonance associated with the injustice, perceived or real, that I see.

So, I fight.

You see, where I grew up, you said what you felt and let the chips fall where they may. If you liked the Giants in a room full of Jet fans, well, tough s@#$t Jets fans (and Jet fans have a horrible existence anyway). My Irish mom and Greek dad are as opinionated as they come, and our dinner table was filled with healthy debate. So were the steps of the Brownstone where my brother and our crew sat all summer long in the 70’s and 80s, battling over the finer points of Star Wars, Yankees, X-Men and Howard Stern.

It probably didn’t help that I grew up in my dad’s bar.  I watched him put an end to countless bar fights by clever debate techniques (i.e. “is this really worth fighting over when we could be all be enjoying this amazing bottle of wine?”). Of course, when that didn’t work he would slam the offender’s heads into the mailbox on the corner of 89th and 3rd avenue. It’s probably still got the dents in it, I should go check. Ahh… the good old times.

I’m from the bottom, so I still feel like I’m from the bottom. In fact, my biggest fear in life is that at some point I’ll stop feeling like that. This is a long way of explaining to you guys where I’m
coming from when you see me wound up like I am today. Father forgive me for the rant I’m about to go on … you see, I’m simply programmed to fight.

My Latest War: Angels charging startups to pitch

Recently, I was made aware of a group of angel investors that were charging startups to pitch them.

Yes, you heard that correctly: the rich people (angels) are charging the poor people (startup entrepreneurs desperate for cash to fuel their dreams) to hear their pitch. No, I’m not kidding. This is actually happening — and it’s widespread.

Last week, a number of the TechCrunch50 companies informed me about firms calling them to present at their “Angel forums” — only to discover that they would face fees ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 for a 10-15 minute pitch slot. After additionally investigation by the Jason Nation (the top 10% of the maniacs who follow me on Twitter), I was sent details of one epic bastard that wanted $10-$25,000, plus a couple of percentage points of the value of the deal (you’ll find out
who later in this email).

When I heard this, my blood started to boil immediately. So, I did what any maniacal, self-absorbed CEO from Brooklyn would do: I started a jihad against this dispicable form of payola and the people doing it. It’s on people … it’s on like a Donkey Kong.

Why it’s wrong to charge startups to pitch

I’ve been in the startup scene since 1994 and in those 15 years I’ve met, interviewed — and in some cases, pitched — the most powerful investors in technology. None of them have ever charged me a dime for doing so. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH!

It’s low-class, inappropriate and predatory for a rich person to ask an entrepreneur to PAY THEM for 15 minutes of their time.  Seriously, what is the cost to the party hearing the pitch?  If you answered “nothing” or “the cost of two cups of coffee” you win the prize! Even if you rent a hotel room and put out breakfast for your fellow angel investors that’s like $20 a person. You mean to tell me that a room full of rich investors can’t afford to pay for their own God-damned $20 in bad coffee, stale pastry and stained ballroom rugs? Really?

To be clear, I am making this a class war because it is one: cash-poor startups are bringing RICH angel investors an opportunity to become EVEN MORE RICH. As such, the rich folks should pick up the non-existent to minimal costs.

Why startups fall for “angel group” payola

Now, you ask: why would any self-respecting entrepreneur pay thousands of dollars to rich people just for the opportunity to pitch? Well, the truth is that the more mature — or flat out better — startups would never pay to present. The best ideas by the best entrepreneurs get socialized instantly. As an new angel investor myself, one who has only done two investments of $25,000 and $50,000, I can tell you that I already get flooded with pitches. I can’t even imagine the volume of pitches real angel investors like Matt Coffin, Sandy Climan, Sky Dayton, Tony Hsieh and Ron Conway get inundated with.

This means that the only people who would pay to present are the entrepreneurs who are either “less good” or less connected. Now, I’m being diplomatic here in saying “less good,” in many cases, these aren’t just folks who lack a track record: they’re simply pursuing a bad idea.

In other words, if this was Hollywood, the folks who pay to present to investors are ugly, unpopular and lack talent. I know, that’s harsh but I’m afraid it is true. If you’re idea is good it will spread–even if you have no track record. If you’re only option is to pay to get in front of these folks you’ve probably got an idea that is weak or bad. Not always, but probably. Or maybe you’re a little naive or desperate to get things going–I don’t blame you for this startups.

Now, before you go saying “Jason is connected and he has access to angels” remember that I hustled my way into this industry from nothing. I networked at free conferences and figured out a way to get on the radar of uber-angels like Ted Leonsis, Fred Wilson and Mark Cuban. They paid attention to me because I had good ideas. If my ideas had sucked, they would have ignored me. Period.

These pay-for-play scams remind me of the “modeling agencies” that charge people for representation, acting lessons and to have their headshots done. Trust me kids, Brad Pitt and Kate Moss did not pay to get representation–they didn’t have to. If you’re paying to get an agent, it’s because you’re being scammed.

What about ‘presenting fees’ acting as a ‘filter’?

The folks who run these scams are going to feed you some line of B.S. like “we use these fees to filter out people who aren’t serious.” They’ll say something like “if we didn’t charge these fees, we
wouldn’t be able to filter through all the applications.”

Really? Well, the angels investors I know are really busy and they don’t charge fees. If Mark Cuban and Ted Leonsis — two really busy dudes running a dozen projects each — don’t charge why they hell do you? Oh yeah, right, you’re predatory DBs looking to double dip!

Classy.

It’s your job as an angel investors to do the filtering and that should come out of YOUR RETURNS on your investments. If you have to charge it’s because either a) you’re a predatory DB or b) you suck at investing so much that your returns can’t pay for the time that you spend evaluating companies.

… or maybe c) you are actually a good person who has just never thought about how smarmy it is to charge a startup for your time? I’m willing to suspend judgement for a moment and consider all of those options.

What do we want?

At this point I’m calling on all angel groups who are charging to do two things immediately:

1. disclose what fees they *were* charging, displayed prominently on the top-level of their website.
2. immediately state that they will never charge these fees – again, displayed prominently on the top level of their website.

If that is done, well, then this battle is over. We’ve accomplished our goal and everyone can get back to their day jobs.

However, if this is not done immediately, my group of startup CEOs and angel investors will begin targeting specific groups for elimination. We will launch competing, fee-free events directly opposite your events. We will encourage angels investors, service providers and startups to boycott your events. You may even find our street teams outside your events handing out flyers.

This isn’t a joke and this is a threat: stop charging startup companies to present or we will do everything we can to put you out of business with a competing, free option.

Now, if you think this is too hardcore and you don’t like my style, well, I can understand that. If you would rather take this offline and try to work something out, well, that’s not available as an option. There is not going to be any kind of negotiation and I’m not going to meet you for coffee.

Also, I don’t care what you think of me and I certainly don’t care if you email my investors (like one group has started doing) to tell them I’m out of control. The people who invest in me know exactly who they are investing in. In fact, one reason they back me is because I am a little out of control. Deal with it.

Angel Groups We’re Investigating

1. Keiretsu Forum ($1,000 to $8,000 to present according to sources)

The first group that was brought to my attention is something called the Keiretsu Forum. They have chapters all over the world, it seems, and they’ve been doing their program for a long time. I’m told by people that they charge between $1,000 to $8,000 to present and that a lot of good folks are involved.  This is not publicly available information: they hide it!  Now, if there are so many ‘good people’ involved, well, that’s great because good people will understand where startup companies are coming from when they demand that Keiretsu Forum drop their fees. If you have information about this group, please email it to me at jason at calacanis.com. We especially want to hear
from folks who have been asked to pay or who have paid. Send us the documents please.

2. Maverick Angels ($500 to $1,000 to present).

This group is a splinter group from Keiretsu we’re told. They hide their fees in a “boot camp” to prepare you to pitch (what a joke). If you have details on this group, again, send it to me.

3. PrivateEquityForums.com (stunnning $14,500 to $25,000 plus 3-5% of your raise to present!)

We’ve received information that Mike Segal of Joshua Capital Partners runs this forum that is looking for up to $25,000 and/or 3-10% of how much you raise! I’m in shock by this one… could this possibly be true? Do you know anyone who has attended this event or, worse, actually paid these fees? If so, I need you to email me immediately.

4. Tech Super Club ($595 to present).

This seems like a small event, but folks tell me they are charging $595 to pitch to angels.

5. Angels Den UK (£850 + 5% of raised funds)

Across the pond we have another reported payola scam that is looking for big upside in introducing you to angels. Disgusting! Send us the details of this one if you have them!

In Summary

To recap the email quickly:
a) There is no circumstance where an angel investing group should charge a startup to pitch
b) We’ve launched an investigation into these groups and need any information you have
c) If you would spread the word about this issue by discussing it with angel investors and startups we would appreciate it
d) We are demanding that angel groups waive all fees starting today
e) We are going to crush any group that doesn’t comply with our demands
f) There is no negotiation
g) Angel forums upset by this email: Jason doesn’t care what you think of him and could care less if you email his investors, his mother or the Principal of the Internet to complain about his bad  behavior (plus these folks get emails all the time and are used to it).

JCAL out

P.S. 1. If you have any thoughts on this please hit reply and tell me (I read them all).
P.S. 2. If this email was the final straw and you want to unsubscribe just hit reply and put unsubscribe in the subject line.

END
______________________________

It has always bugged me that there was nothing like this in Chicago.  Chicago has a sneakily large tech community.  All the businesses here need lots of IT talent, but the lack of large software product companies means there is little recognition of all these workers.  When the programmers are second, third, (or worse) class citizens at a company they aren’t driving the culture.  In the tech community, the most prominent companies are 37signals and Threadless, each of which have dozens of employees.  Google it’s not, HP it’s not, MSFT it’s not.  So despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands (?) of tech workers, many organized and active user groups, and some visible companies, all of which would make a good setting for a seed investment program.

What would it take?  One or more people who are connected to the local tech and broader financing communities and a million dollars or so dollars.  I’m not exactly sure about the time requirements because I don’t know how much time they spend each week while YC is in session or how much time they spend during the off season, but it is probably more like a seasonal than full time job.  If each round consisted of ten companies given $20K, then you could launch 5 seasons for a million.  Two or three million would give more runway to get an exit to replenish the fund.  Surely there’s someone in Chicago with a couple million bucks that would like to be the Brad Feld or Paul Graham of Chicago.

But a recent study by [NAME] of all of the seed programs found that in order to be successful, you can’t just copy the model – you have to provide something unique.  YC has four years of track record, hundreds of companies, trust from investors, and some of the most charismatic and talented mentors.  They also draw from a worldwide audience, so if someone in Pittsburgh or Denver wants to build a quick demo and gets admitted to YC and AlphaLabs or TechStars, they would probably go with YC rather than their local program.  So if you want to matter and get access to high quality founders, you need to offer a differentiated experience.

So what could a Chicago program offer?  Not access to investors – Chicago is so remote from the VC and angel communities as to be basically off the map.  Not access to tech media.  What does Chicago have?  Businesses!  Not just big non-tech business, but the whole principle of the companies is to do business.  Simple formula – create value and sell it for less than it cost you to build.  While Steve Blank and Eric Ries have gotten a lot of play lately with the #leanstartup principles, but it’s the same principles that 37signals and Threadless were built on a decade ago.  Maybe it’s because of the Chicago Big Shoulders legacy, or just becasue the lack of VC funding means there’s no other choice.  But bootstrapping is part of the Chicago culture and the best distinguishing feature Chicago can offer.

So how could you structure a seed-size investment with a bootstrapping focus?  Take the same $20K for two founders but space out the disbursal *so it’s not enough to live on*.  Maybe $2K a month over 10 months, or disburse more money when you hit pre-agreed metrics, or some twist like that.  This would serve two purposes – first, to put the heat on to deliver some value immediately and get paying customers right away, and build off of that.  People would have to either have jobs, a pre-built demo, or some deep domain expertise and connections.  Second, it would send a very clear message that it is NOT for speculative technology products.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those, we just don’t do them here.  Chicago has little to offer those kinds of founders and it would be a disservice to them and the city to encourage them to be here.  Other than that, I would say it’s straightforward execution.  I’d recommend against centralized office space because there would be a temptation to put it in the Loop but that’s probably the wrong place.  Maybe Lakeview of Ravenswood.

Who would run it?  My obvious choice would be Jason Fried.  He’s the most vocal and prominent proponent of bootstrapped startups, not just in Chicago but probably the world.  He has the money, the clout, the media presence, the influence, and the experience to drive it.  I don’t know if he would take time away from 37signals to run it, but I’m sure that much of the activity would coincide with his usual speaking engagements, and his connections and popularity mean that he could probably make the arrangements with less work than someone less prominent.  I don’t know who else would be a good fit but that doesn’t mean that person’s not out there.  So Jason, if you’re listening, or anyone else who thinks they could do the job, email me at peter at pchristensen dot com and let’s talk.  There’s an opportunity here to vastly increase the visibility and success of the bootstrapping/lean startups message by letting prospective entrepreneurs prove your point.

GOOD: My GeekStack t-shirt was ready and shipped in time and it looked great!

BAD: My sample card/business cards did not get shipped to my house in time for me to bring them with.

GOOD: Debbie at the 24 hour FedEx Office location on Blossom Hill Rd in San Jose helped me print some improvised cards on glossy cardstock and cut them to size.  They didn’t look as sharp as I hoped (the sides weren’t aligned right so I got some funky borders) but they were in my hand and not so expensive and they were a hit with the people I gave them to.

BAD: The Japanese guy who parked next to me couldn’t figure out how to get his demo materials out of the trunk (he had a valet key)

GOOD: I showed him how to fold down the back seats and his morning was saved.

BAD: There was little to no AC in the convention hall and 500 people + 499 laptops quickly made the room uncomfortable and thus began 2 straight days of wiping sweat from my face every 5 minutes.

GOOD: Some of the companies were really awesome!

BAD: My eyes glazed over every time someone started talking about advertising or social media (that was a lot).

GOOD: Lots of people think adding game-like features (leaderboards, levelups, scoring, etc) is a good way to motivate people to use their apps.

BAD: This will get overused and people will get sick of it.  Do I hear “Web64″ coming?

GOOD: The judges on day 1 were awesome!  Yossi Vardi kept the audience laughing and kept his fellow panelists from being too stuffy in the morning, and Paul Graham asked on or two oddball questions that kept all the startups on their toes.  The day 1 afternoon panel of Marissa Mayer, Roelef Botha, Marc Andreesen, Paul Graham, and Tony Hsieh was flat out impressive.

BAD: I didn’t really care for any of the day 2 judges.  Partly they were boring, partly I was tired, and partly the heat sapped the enthusiasm out of everyone.

GOOD: RedBeacon did a very impressive demonstration of their product that included delivering 500 cupcakes to the audience (delicious, sweet delicious cupcakes at that).

BAD: Judges kind of skewered them because while they did an effective demonstration, they didn’t answer the key “chicken and egg” problem they faced.  pg coined an useful rule: “If you have a chicken and egg problem, you should spend the bulk of your presentation explaining how you will deal with the chicken and egg problem.”

GOOD: The RedBeacon guys are super sharp, did have answers to the concerns the judges expressed, and ended up winning the whole kit-and-kaboodle of the TechCrunch50 prize, the $50K, and $1.3M in advertising, a ton of pub, plus the last sumtuous laugh.

BAD: iMo came out with a high energy demo, dressed in a racing suit and helmet with “Eye of the Tiger” blasting . . . and he had a tech glitch so his demo didn’t work.  Despite vigorous applause and encouragement from the crowd, led by Yossi Vardi, he couldn’t get it working in time and they had to move on.  Keep in mind that this is a 20 year old kid who came from India by himself.  It was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve seen in a long time – it was like watching a basketfull of kittens get fired from their kitty jobs and evicted from their basket.

GOOD: iMo returned in the afternoon to thunderous applause and demoed his iPhone app that lets you use the iPhone as a controller for PC games.  He used it as a steering wheel for a racing game (in red racing suit and helmet to “Eye of the Tiger”, a joystick to control a flight sim (in a flight suit to “Danger Zone”, and to control a thug shooting up a house and throwing a grenade (in baggy jeans, a tank top, and swinging a baseball bat at a Sequoia VC to the tune of “In Da Club”).  He brought the house down, and even though the judges didn’t think there was much of a business, they were all intrigued because he was so gutsy to fail, come back on, light up the crowd, and electrify the whole audience.  He ended up winning the Best Presentation award.

BAD: Did I mention it was hot?  I tried really hard to care about what was going on the second day but I couldn’t sit in the main hall for more than 30 min at a time.

GOOD: I got to meet people in the exhibition space, played with a MSFT Surface table, played Beatles Rock Band (but the yellow drum pad didn’t work so I kept losing) and found some more of RedBeacon’s cupcakes.

BAD: I didn’t win the free iPod that SalesVu was raffling off, but I did get to see the SalesVu demo – Point of Sale Software as a Service.  I probably didn’t get all of the finer details, but it’s a point of sale terminal and app for restaurants for $1K instead of $10K it usually costs.

GOOD: Lots of people gave encouraging words about GeekStack and a couple of people wanted me to get back in touch with them when we have a demo.

BAD: I found out about Challenge Games, a Sequoia-funded company with $15 million and a team of cagy internet gaming veterans.  Their CEO wrote the first book on online gaming communities.  He wrote the freaking book.  This knowledge put me into a little bit of a tailspin because my whole “no one else is doing trading card games online” myth went up in a FAT pile of smoke.  Challenge looks awesome and I felt like the fat kid with no date to prom after looking at their site.

GOOD: I had a nice alcohol-fueled chat with some cool guys from Spawn Labs during the cocktail party who thought GeekStack was AWESOME and that I should be glad that Sequoia funded someone, because Sequoia investments tend to precede huge success.  What better kind of validation could you ask for?  This especially meant a lot because they had an awesome demo themselves.

BAD: I had to leave early to walk to catch BART to SFO.

GOOD: I found a group of guys driving to the airport, and one of them lived in the dorms with me in my freshment year of college.  Hadn’t seen each other in 12 years and we met in the TechCrunch parking lot.

BAD: The fast ride to the airport meant that I had over two hours to wait for my red-eye flight.

GOOD: I had time to write this report of a great trip!  Thanks to everyone at TechCrunch50!!

Summary of thoughts on the startups:

Ones I’m most excited about as a consumer: AnyClip (find any clip from any movie), Clicker (the ultimate guide to TV on the internet), Spawn Labs (play console games one any PC over broadband), iTwin (plug and play folder sharing over the internet – like DropBox but with a dongle instead of a download) and StorySomething (personalized bedtime stories delivered daily to iPhone).

Interested in as a business customer: Yext (pay-per-useful-call), CrowdFlower (Like the RightScale of Mechanical Turk).

Most likely to be an enormous, economy-changing company: RedBeacon.  The judges nailed it with this pick.  There’s a lot of work ahead and the usual ways to stumble and fail, but they could be as big as the Yellow Pages mixed with eBay.  And as I mentioned, the guys couldn’t be nicer or sharper.  In 10 years I’ll be saying I knew them when they were just starting out.

It actually a great sales pitch to compare the early episodes where they say “This is what we want to do” to the most recent episodes where they say “This is what we did and how it worked.” Anyone can say “Start and Internet business and you can travel the world,” but it’s a lot more credible to hear “We’re moving to Buenos Aires for 6 months just because we can.”

The podcast is pretty inspiring and somewhat informational. The free stuff is mainly good for little tips and inspiration. I haven’t bought their seminar, coaching course, or membership site access but I’m sure it’s much more helpful and thorough inside the pay-wall. For someone interested in meatier content about information marketing, I’d definitely recommend them.

One word of warning. If you’re reading my blog, you’re probably from the build-a-startup-and-make-it-so-good-that-it-becomes-popular-by-word-of-mouth school. If that’s the case, the focus mostly on marketing can sound a little slimy, a litte pushy, a little marketerese. While I certainly don’t advocate marketing at the expense of product quality, most developers are so terrible at and distrustful of it that any little bits they pick up will help. Things like using an email list, developing a sale over multiple contacts, etc. It’s okay to add value to your offering by marketing it. Wiser people than me have made this point. Sterling and Jay are a pleasant, non-threatening introduction to a lot of marketing concepts and I recommend them.

Two (very small) beefs. First, because they do a lot of affiliate marketing, they want you to click through their site and so they don’t tell you the name of the company or product they’re pluggig. You HAVE to go to their website to click. Second, their website isn’t very organized (it’s just a big pile of WordPress entries), so it’s not easy to find the link you’re looking for. Plus some of their links are wrong and most of the older ones are broken. So rather than complain, I compiled this list of all the shows, recommendations, and links for every episode. I did prune out broken links and time-sensitive things as well. You’re welcome!

[NOTE: Episodes 1-31 are no longer available for download.  They will be sold later on CD with transcripts.]

NOTE: All links open in a new tab/window.

Episode 1 – Getting Started: 9 Things Every Internet Business Entrepreneur Needs
10/14/2005

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Robert Kiyosaki

Episode 2 – The Magic of Controlling Your Time
10/24/2005

• No B.S. Time Management by Dan Kennedy
• Jay’s Time Log
• Sterling’s Schedule

Episode 3 – Empire Building: How to Design Your Business Model
11/7/2005

• Freemind: Free software for mind mapping your business plan
• James Maduk: Creates numerous info products by just “recording everything he does” in his business (link is broken)

Episode 4 – No episode 4 (Sterling? Jay?)

Episode 5 – Establishing Your First Income Stream, Part 2
11/29/2005

• links are broken

Episode 6 – Establishing Your First Income Stream, Part 3
12/13/2005

• E-Myth Revisited

Episode 7 – Establishing Your First Income Stream, Part 4
12/20/2005

• Alibris: As Good As New Used Books
• Autoresponder Magic
• The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More

Episode 7b – Quick Update and a Resource Recommendation
1/12/2006

• 7 Tips for Creating an Ebook that Will Generate Profit – link is broken

Episode 8 – 7 Tips for Easily Writing an e-book that Generates Profit
1/17/2006

• Bootstrapper Notes – no updates since 9/20/2007
• Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog

Episode 9 – The Dangers of eBay: An Insider Look Into Why You Shouldn’t Depend on eBay as a Primary Source of Income
2/9/2006

• AllBusiness.com

Episode 10 – Common Fears of Going into Biz on Your Own and How We Overcame Them!
2/28/2006

• The Unfair Advantage: Sell with NLP!
• Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D
• New Psycho-Cybernetics
• Think and Grow Rich!
• Surprisehighway.com – link is dead

Episode 10b – Quick Update with some Business Recommendations
3/16/2006

• Jay’s favorite ARTICLE SUBSCRIPTION service! – link is broken
• No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs
• Sex Money Kiss (Audio CD)

Episode 11 – Listener Questions Answered
4/13/2006

• no links

Episode 12 – 10 Traits of a Successful Internet Entrepreneur Pt 1
6/5/2006

• Sterling and Jay on The Marketer’s Podcast

Episode 13 – 10 Traits of a Successful Internet Entrepreneur Pt 2
6/14/2006

• EBay Net Neutrality site
• Save The Internet

Episode 14 – THE Best Thing to Sell Online
7/11/2006

• no links

Episode 15 – THE Best Thing to Sell Online Part 2
7/26/2006

• Example information products
• Time management software for Mac: OfficeTime
• Time management software for PC: InerTrak
• Ron Legrand’s Information Marketing Boot Camp
• Index of recommended Interenet business resources

Episode 16 – Protecting Your Assets with a Business Entity
8/17/2006

• no links

Episode 17 – Why Most People Who Call Themselves Entrepreneurs, Really Are Not
9/7/2006

• E-Myth Revisited
• Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Robert Kiyosaki
• Promoting Your Podcast by Jason Van Orden (Jay)

Episode 18 – 6 Tips to Help Entrepreneurs Work ON Their Businesses and Not IN Them
9/27/2006

• E-Myth Revisited
• New Psycho-Cybernetics
• Think and Grow Rich!
• Nichebot: Keyword Research Services
• Promoting Your Podcast by Jason Van Orden (Jay)
• Podcamp

Episode 19 – The #1 Purpose of Your Web Site (even above selling products)
11/2/2006

• AWeber: email list management tool
• The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords

Episode 20 – Interview with Business Attorney Darius Barazandeh on Starting Your Internet Business LLC
11/15/2006

• The Wealth Building LLC: The Attorney’s Secrets!

Episode 21 – Interview with Business Attorney Darius Barazandeh on Starting Your Internet Business LLC Pt2
12/9/2006

• Getting Things Done by David Allen

Episode 21b – A Gift for Our Listeners (plus Internet Business Gift Guide)
12/16/2006

• This is it’s own link list

Episode 22 – 5 Email List Building Tips That Will More Than Triple Your Email Opt-ins
1/13/2007

• Yank font
• The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers
• AWeber: email list management tool
• Internet Business Gift Guide

Episode 23 – Information Marketing 2.0
2/7/2007

• no links

Episode 24 – The 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing 2.0 Part 1
2/24/2007

• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• The Long Tail blog
• Site Map Generator

Episode 25 – 7 Pillars of Information Marketing 2.0 Pt 2
3/15/2007

• FeedBurner
• Skype
• Technorati
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• reddit
• WordPress.com
• WordPress.org
• Jay’s 100-Point GTD Checklist

Episode 26 – The Secret Mindset Needed to Get Started as an Internet Business Master
4/10/2007

• Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• Recommended host for a WordPress blog

Episode 27 – The 4-Hour Workweek
5/19/2007

• Four-Hour Work Week
• eSoup’s 5-hour workday blog post
• Four-Hour Work Week blog
• Elite Keyword Tool

Episode 28 – How to Generate Leads, Develop Customer Relationships and Drive Sales with Information Marketing 2.0
6/12/2007

• Information arketing 2.0 Funnel
• StumbleUpon

Episode 29 – 7 Web 2.0 Internet Business Secrets Exposed
7/6/2007

• GetMyWebinarTool.com
• Squidoo: Home Business for Moms
• Review Internet Business Mastery in iTunes

Episode 30 – Insider Secrets for Writing Compelling Copy with Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com
7/28/2007

• CopyBlogger
• MSCopeland.com: Information and Knowledge
• Singing Pig Forum
• PodcastToolBox
• Marketing Syndrome Forums

Episode 31 – How We Created Two Webinars that Generated nearly $100,000 in Sales?
10/26/2007

• Jay’s Twitter Page
• Sterling’s Twitter Page
• GetMyWebinarTool.com
• Camtasia: screen recording software used by IBM
• iShowU: screen recording software for Mac
• Special voiceover deal for IBM listeners
• Sterling’s recommended affiliate tool

Episode 32 – 5 Ways to Use Recorded Content to Continually Make Money and Drive Traffic
11/9/2007

• Stering’s top course and book recommendations
• Special voiceover deal for IBM listeners

Episode 33 – Interview with Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek
12/2/2007

• The Phenomenon by Dan Kennedy
• Four-Hour Work Week

Episode 34 – 5 Characteristics of the Ideal Web 2.0 Web Site (and how you can launch one in a matter of hours)
12/19/2007

• Recommended host for a WordPress blog
• Jay’s Twitter Page
• Sterling’s Twitter Page
• WordPress.org

Episode 35 – The Secret to Making Online Marketing and Sales Easy (or Is Web 2.0 Overrated?)
1/21/2008

• Data backup recommendation
• Think Big and Kick Ass by Donald Trump
• Sex Money Kiss (Audio CD)

Episode 36 – Success Stories from the Internet Business Mastery Community
1/31/2008

• Shaun Noonan – learningindonesian.com
• Ian Gordon – startupdaddy.com
• David Budlong – internetbasednetworkmarketing.com
• Wendy Richmond – www.positivethinkingpersonalsuccess.com

Episode 36b – 5 tips for Increasing Affiliate Sales for any Affiliate Product
2/4/2008

• IBM Affiliates program
• ClickBank
• Commission Junction

Episode 37 – Interview with Legendary Internet Entrepreneur, Yanik Silver – Plus, go to Dinner with US!
2/28/2008

• CrazyEgg – great site tracking software

Episode 38 – What You Need to Know to Start Outsourcing Your Business (and Your Personal Life) with Virtual Assistants
3/13/2008

• IBM outsourcing resources
• Elance.com
• Craigslist
• AgentsofValue.com
• DistantSupport.com
• GetFriday.com
• jingproject.com

Episode 39 – What Does Money Mean to You?
3/27/2008

• Attitudes on Money listener survey
• No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy

Episode 40 – What is the Tipping Point Between Thinking & Learning About Internet Business and Actual Success in Internet Business?
4/24/2008

• Google Site Map Plug-in
• INFO on Google Site Maps
• Site Map Generator

Episode 41 – 7 Tips For Creating Your Own Killer Website Design
5/8/2008

• Jott.com – AWESOME voice notes to transcribed email, check it out!
• http://kuler.adobe.com/ – Color Scheme Finder
• www.xhtmlized.com/
• www.psd2html.com
• http://docs.google.com – This is the Google Documents page we use DAILY
• www.GrabTheDvd.com – Dan Kennedy’s “The Phenomenon” DVD
• Elance
• Rentacoder
• Craigslist

Episode 42 – Insider Secrets of Email Marketing with Tom Kulzer, CEO of Aweber (GetYourEmailList.com)
5/22/2008

• Aweber – The ONLY email marketing campaign service for the Internet Business Mastery Community!
• Tubemogul – Distribute your viral videos to MULTIPLE sites at once, plus a bunch more! Oh yeah, it’s free!
• Internet Business Mastery Membership/Community Site

Episode 43 – The #1 Asset That You Can Acquire for Your Business
6/3/2008

• www.InternetBusinessMastery.com/getattention – Check out Jay’s Teleseminar!
• www.InternetBusinessMastery.com/book – Check out this months BOOK Contest
• www.InternetBusinessMastery.com/itunes
• Billy Sticker – Winner of last months BOOK Contest!
• 43things.com
• Gravatar.com – add your image to the Internet Business Mastery comments

Episode 44 – The 3 Pillars of Designing Your Ultimate Internet Lifestyle
6/26/2008

• Made To Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath – June Book of the Month

Episode 45 – In These Uncertain Times, How Do You Find True Security?
7/10/2008

• aMember.com – recommended membership and subscription management software

Episode 46 – How to Trigger Unprecedented Success in your Lifestyle and Business
8/13/2008

• Masonworld.com
• robinmaiden.com
• Booked Beyond SOlid by Micharl Port – August Book of the Month
• RingCentral.com – Voice mail and fax

Episode 47 – How to Create a Compelling Tagline for your Web Site that will Attract your Ideal Customer
8/28/2008

• www.drawingtutorialsonline.com
• Booked Beyond SOlid by Micharl Port – August Book of the Month
• Laura Allen of 15secondpitch.com
• EarthClassMail – An online service that makes handling your mail as easy as handling your e-mail

Episode 48 – Acquiring the Lifestyle of Your Dreams
9/18/2008

• Feedburner.com
• Keni Davis, iArtMobile.com

Episode 49 – Time Travel with the Iconoclasts of the 9-5: Four Things that We Would Do Differently if We Could Start Over Again
10/2/2008

• Tweetburner

Episode 50 – The Ultimate Recession Survival Guide
10/16/2008

• Pixel Jar – Web Services and Hosting
• Free Audio Gift from Sterling and Jay

Episode 51 – The 7 Reasons Why People DON’T Succeed in Internet Business and How You Can Avoid Every Single One, Part 1
10/30/2008

• Google Analytics

There’s a lot more info there (really, the home page is a wall of words) but the pitch is: “Collectible trading cards with the people, events, and achievements that our world is built on.”  I have a first blog post up, called “Why Would A Software Geek Make A Physical Product?” which gives some more background and a sample of the writing style I’ll use (although if you’re reading this, you probably know how I write).

I have a lot of the ideas about how it will work but there are questions that still need to be answered.  Check it out and take the chance to give me some feedback and help shape the development of the GeekStack.