Chris Dixon

Yeah, consider this from another post from Chris in 2010:

Entrepreneurs should always ask themselves “why will I succeed where others failed?” If the answer is simply “I’m doing it right” or “I’m smarter,” you are probably underestimating your antecedents, which were probably run by competent or even great entrepreneurs who did everything possible to succeed. Instead your answer should include an explanation about why the timing is right – about some fundamental changes in the world that enable the idea you are pursuing to finally succeed.

http://cdixon.org/2010/11/07/timing-your-startup/

Here Chris argues that even if he is able to recognize brilliance in advance, he wouldn't necessarily bet on them because of other external factors. So has he changed his mind in the last 5 months?

The more I read about startups, the more I feel like ignoring all advice and jfdi.

Remember the often quoted advice from Joel Spolsky:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

Enterprise sales cycle is EXPENSIVE, so, while the actual cost of your service may be much less, you have to pay for the ten airplane flights and meetings and hotel rooms before you close your sale (and add a few one afterwards for good measure).

also

http://cdixon.org/2010/02/06/selling-to-enterprises/

"Enterprise-focused VC’s sometimes refer to products priced between (roughly) $5k and $100K as falling in the “valley of death.” Above $100K, you might be able to make a profit given the cost of sales. Below $5k you might be able to market your product, hence have a very low cost of sales"

I'm not sure if all of that advice applies to a Ruby gem... big freaking enterprises don't use Ruby that much.

That said, it's a great success story :)

I was excited to try this out and was very impressed with the quality and speed of the service.

Back when I was working at Big Co Inc., the shared admin assistants were an incredibly valuable resource to leverage your time. Unfortunately, it's not a feasible option to hire one at a startup. Exec changes that.

It's a great option for times when you need something NOW but can't or don't want to stop what you are otherwise doing. Examples: taking a mac to the genius bar, getting printer ink, getting batteries.

Also relevant is this cdixon blog post about how the internet is changing what a "job" is. [1]

[1] http://cdixon.org/2012/02/26/the-internet-is-reshaping-our-economy-from-one-of-huge-corporations-with-lots-of-jobs-to-huge-platforms-with-lots-of-income-streams/

Thanks Brandon - excellent point. Indeed, Chris Dixon addressed this issue in a recent post here: http://www.cdixon.org/?p=702. Moreover, I made a similar comment to your solid interview with Andrew Warner on mixergy.com (http://bit.ly/dVkS1):

"Lesson #3: understand the deal terms and run models as to what happens under various scenarios. Fenwick & West puts out a quarterly survey of market deal terms in venture capital financings (see, e.g., http://www.fenwick.com/publications/6.12.1.asp?...). At a minimum, the entrepreneur should understand what is "market" and how each deal term plays out in a liquidation. For example, in Q1 ’09, participation only occurred in 51% of the Silicon Valley vc deals and 40% of those were capped."

Thanks again.

Great example of pivoting. (As Chris Dixon said: "Ask yourself: if you started over today, would you build the same product?" http://cdixon.org/2010/06/14/pivoting/)

Another tidbit I found interesting:

Now that the company has its HTML5 and iPad strategy in place, Adler says they are focusing on making Scribd more social and less reliant on search engines. Today, the majority of their traffic comes from Google, but Scribd is putting a greater emphasis on the social by closely integrating with Facebook.

If Facebook (rather than search) becomes the principal way that people find content online, that could spell big trouble for Google.

Video is great. App/service looks solid. But marketplaces are so tough that I feel you almost HAVE TO START IN A NICHE and take the bowling pin strategy [1].

Look at Yardsale–they're a YC company and doing essentiall the same as Sold. I haven't seen much press about growth or follow-on funding.

Poshmark, on the other hand, is niche-focused (women's fashion) and seems to be growing well. Raised $15.5M. [2]

[1] http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/04/poshmark-nabs-12m-series-b-led-by-menlo-ventures-to-expand-its-mobile-fashion-marketplace-beyond-ios/