The $12 Startup That Was Sold On Twitter For About $100,000

[JayKim]

The $12 Startup That Was Sold On Twitter For About $100,000 – with Sean Percival | Mixergy - Online Business Tips from Successful Entrepreneurs

 

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[Sparky]

Great find! Thanks and speed++

Just spend around an hour over lunch on reading the whole transcript.

It has very interesting parallels to the fast-lane mindset as well as some general principles for online success.

Quotes I've taken that means something:


Fast-lane mind set:

it always drives me crazy when people are doing the same job for 10 years and they're stuck there. I'm just like, "Listen: be amazing at what you do and start doing leapfrogs, and start building more, and more, and more." So, as far as equity, a lot of people will come to you and say, "I have no money. I want to give you equity in my company." Well, no equity of no equity is not worth anything.

Rich dad - Don't learn to work, work to learn: (on working for start-ups)

I think it's much better if you can go to them and say, "Listen: I have this skill, or I have this trait, or experience. I'm going to give it to you. And then in a year or two, go on to do something else. And really make something. And do better than me. I challenge you to do better than me." I think that's always a better incentive for an employee.

So if I had to really decide for myself--if I was a young guy starting out, where do I get the best education? Where do I get the most money? My sense is that it would be, go work at a smart company. Not so much for the salary but for the education that I'm going to get. And on the side, build my own business. Because that's where I could potentially bring in money.

Multiple post continued below...

 

[Sparky]

...continued.

On business philosophy:

Lori's like, "We should set up 10 sites, and just do that." And I'm like, "You know what? Let's just do one site well." So it's definitely repeatable. Like I said, like we were talking about. It's not going to be--I couldn't do a hundred sites like this by myself. But you could do one, definitely, for sure.

Andrew: All right. So give me some tips for how to do this. One thing you said is you've got to find the right niche. How do you find the right niche?

Interviewee: You know, that's always the biggest challenge. Life experience is really important. Identifying what people around you are doing, using the new--the real great thing about the real-time web is the monitoring. And so that always helps me determine if something is hot.

Online business philosophy:

Whereas a blog or a news site may only have 1 to 2 pageviews per session, you have to get to the point where you're getting 5 to 20 pageviews per session from the ecommerce site itself. And so it's a great way to draw them in and then also show them great recirculation things. So it's related products. It's more photos. It's getting them to keep getting deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of your ecommerce site.

It should come to the site, and I think you'll find that the ideal mix is they have about three big doors they can jump through. And so as long as you're not giving them too many doors that's great. So give them the three doors with an emphasis on the big door. The one that you really want them to do through.

I try not to do business with friends and family, and I wanted these people to be friends before I wanted to do business with them.

One more...

 

[Sparky]

...last one :coffee:

Playing with the big boys:

The big thing is how do you get them to know who you are? How do you get them to care? That was a big challenge for me. I started by just writing about them.

Andrew: How do you get them to care?

Interviewee: That was a big challenge for me. I started by just writing about them. And that's actually how me and Calacanis got started talking was I started writing about Mahalo when it launched. So the key is always to have your own blog.

"You know what? Let's not even talk about funding. Who cares about money? Let's talk about the people that are building, and why they're building, and why it's special."

I remember when I first met Jason, he does this thing where he'll blow you off a lot of times the first time he meets you. He wants to see if you'll come back and actually say something again. And so I remember when I met him he did kind of blow me off at first. And I didn't really know how to take that. But I was like, "Well, I'm not going to give up. I want to get face time with these people." But it was also really important that--I immediately could tell that they were annoyed with their celebrity to a certain extent.

If you walk up to Mike Harrington and you immediately pitch him, that's how to get on his "I don't ever want to talk to that guy again" list. Is to walk up to someone and immediately pitch them. So I was really, really mindful of asking for help, or asking for anything from anyone that was a higher caliber than me.

I knew that these people were getting approached left and right. And I'm not high-caliber at all. I think that I'm well known but I'm not to the point anywhere close to what these guys are. I get approached like crazy. I mean, the emails that come in, I can't help everyone that is looking for help.

And I know that these guys are in it too. So I always really try to--instead of trying to burden them with, "I need advice, I need a connection, I need help, I need you on board," you know. A lot of people will say, "I need you on board, you need to come on board." These people are too busy. Instead, I walked up and I wanted to get to know--the first thing I asked Jason was, I said, "Do you miss New York? What do you think about California?"

I think it's great if you can kind of connect with these people on a non-bubble tech 2.0 ground before you start trying to do business with them as well.

And so offering something of value to the entrepreneur without asking for anything in return, is the best thing you can do. Essentially what you've done is you've built equity with that entrepreneur. And you can cash out on that equity later on.

Again, awesome find, thanks!

 

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