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Hi. My name is Kevin Rose. Here I share my thoughts, ideas, and random things I find online.  For work, I'm the founder and site architect of Digg, and a co-founder at Revision3 and Pownce (acquired by SixApart).  When the internet is off, I climb rocks, drink tea/wine, read books, and explore San Francisco. Thanks for visiting.

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Saturday
25Oct

Forget Web 2.0/3.0, Start Something During Web 2.5

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Why to start a new startup in a bad economywww.kevinrose.com

Paul Graham - Why to start a startup in a bad economy

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I've added this to digg at
http://digg.com/tech_news/Forget_Web_2_0_Worry_about_Web_2_5_new_Kevin_Rose_video

I hope I get my first top story! Any diggers want to help? It seems like only people with a lot of friends always end up getting their story popular. This story deserves to be at front page, so please digg. Thanks! :)

Oct 25, 2008 | Registered CommenterQuick PWN

Oops, please delete this comment.

Oct 25, 2008 | Registered CommenterQuick PWN

Thanks Kevin for this video and article. Helped me feel confident about my startup!
Also, I need to try one of those really good teas you've been drinking! Too bad I am not in SF :\
Keep on posting the good stuff =)

Oct 25, 2008 | Registered CommenterIstvan

Web 2.0 became "web 2.0" when people took notice of the trend of vowel-deprived, over-funded start-ups started to gain a significant number of eyes looking upon them. Very few people have taken the time to turn those eyes into dollars. Those eyes have a lot of value to them and I honestly think that it's time that content providers take a second to look at who they are focusing on. If I shoot out content to a very specific audience (say 5000 coal miners) versus 50000 general eyes (maybe only 1% are coal miners) then maybe I should focus on the core 5000... then those eyes are most likely to buy the new brand of coal mining tool and I could sell my ad space to those people who want to sell to my audience. My point is that many web 2.0 companies have focused on number than on their audience. Those who have niche audiences can make a killing in these rough times because they serve a very specific segment of the population. perhaps the focus should be taken off of broad exposure and more on niche audience engagement

Oct 25, 2008 | Registered Commenterroger gil

Thanks Kevin for the link and also your video comments - genuinely useful and kind of inspiring.

I'd love to hear more about the decisions you took, things you did, mistakes you learned from etc on the route to starting Digg. Have you thought about doing a few blog posts covering this?

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterJon Mulholland

Great post, Kevin. =]

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterHen Asraf

Excellent post. It would be great to hear more when it comes to startups.

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterJamie Christenson

Great Post Kevin, and a great blog post to.

Hope to hear more from you, about startups and how you got everything going.

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterDakota ONeill

A wonderful post Kevin, I feel the exact same way as you do.

We currently launched our website Bukisa in the same "scrappy" way you mentioned, without spending thousands of dollars on PR we are getting great reviews from the Blogosphere.

The way I see the cycle of a bootstrapped startup is :

1. Get Live
2. Learn from your community of users
3. Improve
4. Gain Traction

Repeat and get profitable - then expand big time and come with a solid record to VC's or Angels.

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterSimon Gelfand

Right on Kevin...

Thanks for sharing this post with us. I'm currently starting up my own business and totally agree with you. Not to long ago I took some time to reevaluate our situation and determine if it was a smart move to release our product while the market is in turmoil.

It smacked me in the face that it was the perfect time for us. We just need to tailor our plan to the current market. If our product can survive during this market we'll be that much stronger when the economy turns around.

Your insights regarding Digg and your other start-ups are inspiring. Keep them coming, there is a lot we can all learn from you.

Cheers!
~ Rick

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterRick Martinez

Kevin,

Excellent subject...and hearing it come from you should really make a difference. We're doing something new on PipersPicks.TV - and I've got a few other projects I'm excited to get off the ground. It is hard...everybody is busy with their lives, but when it's something you really want, somehow willpower creates its own time and resources.

I'm also a technology attorney (yeah-one of the more fun legal areas). At the very least, it's nice to have a cool project to distract you from the bad economy!

Thanx again - helpful info from someone with personal experience is always the best kind!

Adam
(an early Digg adopter :-) )
TeamPiper
PipersPicks.TV

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterTeam Piper

Great post :) thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject, leaves me thinking.

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterMatt Varone

Thats good advice Kevin. I gave the article a read as well. Thanks!

My startup, RantBlogger.com, is like Digg, except with more focused content and best of all, payments to users based on submission popularity.

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterAhmed Belal

Thanks Kevin, this is a big help for me. I bought a domain called theyCREATED.com a while back and coded a whole backend system in PHP for it (profiles, avatars, comments, etc.) but haven't really figured out what to do with it yet before I let it go public.

I think you're right in that now is the time to try and get out there...so I'm definitely going to get a good idea going strong in the next few weeks and just get it up.

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterNick Morris

Thanks for the inspiration!

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterRyan Spahn

I launched http://www.seyboldknows.com today. An RSS aggregator focused on what people are talking about - locally. Let me know your thoughts Kevin. Help a small timer in Boise out ;-) No VC funds here! Less than $5k invested in development!!!

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterGeorge Seybold

Great inspiration! Thank you. Very Vaynerchuk like. Love it!

Oct 26, 2008 | Registered CommenterXtian.tV

Hey Kevin!

Great post! I have actually been thru the exact thing you're describing. One year ago I lauched Mapia, a restaurants / bars / hotels review site for Brazil. I did the work entirely on my own, on my spare time, and now, one year later I'm finally getting some rewards. I still have my job and have no intention to leaving it, but its nice to see something you created really work out.

It took a few months for somebody besides me to post a review to the site, but now I'm getting close to 10/20 reviews a day, and around 130k visits/month, which is pretty good, I think! And all that done by myself, on my spare time, and hosted in the cloud. And it has been a lot of fun!

Keep posts about entrepreneurship coming! It's always nice and inspirational to see somebody young like you (and me) talking about real experiences and successes!!

Oct 27, 2008 | Registered CommenterEduardo Scoz

Kevin,

Great post, I totally agree... I work for a venture capital fund of funds (basically, we invest in the VC firms that in turn fund start-ups) and the data really shows that companies started in economic down cycles have outperformed those started in what were better times for the economy. While we are seeing some VCs back off investing in start-ups a bit, for the most part, I have to say that they get it and continue to fund start-ups that deserve it.

Thanks for the refreshing blast of motivation though... I've had an idea for a web-based, community driven venture fund that I've been shelving for a while that maybe I'll give a shot now.

By the way... one of our funds invested in Digg earlier this month, which I was ridiculously happy about. (maybe too happy haha!)

Oct 27, 2008 | Registered CommenterAakar Vachhani

I liked this a lot. :)

I also liked digg from the beginning (even though I didn't sign up for it right away). Back before the 2001 crash there was a site here in Germany called Shortnews that was really phenomenal -- and, well it crashed and burned (actually it was bought up by some big media company and was immediately ruined).

So I knew of digg-clones that pre-dated digg! ;D

I would advise people who are trying to succeed to pay attention to the domain name. Digg is a very good name -- it almost seems like natural language (a point I have often made before) but I guess it's also a term that can be "protected" from an intellectual property point of view.

In the long run, you will be far better off using the Wisdom of the Language (see http://gaggle.info/miscellaneous/articles/wisdom-of-the-language) than trying to build a brand with conventional advertising (like Google or other ppc schemes).

So if you have any spare change to invest, Kevin, I would definitely look into "news" or "ratings" or similar keywords -- of course CNet's portfolio has now found a rather secure home, but other domain names are still available!

;) nmw

Oct 28, 2008 | Registered CommenterNorbert Mayer-Wittmann
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