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  <id>tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2011:/1/tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4566-</id>
  <updated>2011-04-29T12:33:50Z</updated>
  <title>Comments for The Alumni Report Joe Kraus , Kim Polese</title>
  
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    <id>tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4566</id>
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    <link rel="service.edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=4566" title="The Alumni Report Joe Kraus , Kim Polese" />
    <published>2005-10-07T18:14:23Z</published>
    <updated>2007-12-16T23:15:50Z</updated>
    <title>The Alumni Report Joe Kraus , Kim Polese</title>
    <summary>Kim, CEO of SpikeSource: &quot;the world has completely changed for building a software company.&quot; Joe: talking about Jotspot, &quot;DIY publishing&quot; - wikis next step after blogs for web publishing. Jotspot heading towards &quot;DIY apps&quot;. Joe talking about Jotspot mistakes this year - not focusing on revenue. &quot;Jotspot was in beta for way too long&quot; --&gt;...</summary>
    <author>
      <name>Richard MacManus</name>
      <uri>http://www.readwriteweb.com</uri>
    </author>
    
    <category term="Web 2.0 Conference 2005" />
    
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      <![CDATA[<p>Kim, CEO of SpikeSource: "the world has completely changed for building a software company."</p>

<p>Joe: talking about Jotspot, "DIY publishing" - wikis next step after blogs for web publishing. Jotspot heading towards "DIY apps".</p>

<p>Joe talking about Jotspot mistakes this year - not focusing on revenue. "Jotspot was in beta for way too long" --> not measuring the right things; refers to Google being in betas for so long --> people want feeling of reward which betas don't provide. Joe now wants to skip beta phase in his products.</p>

<p>John: both of you have grown quickly, have you gotten to point where you lose community etc of the culture?</p>

<p>Kim: not yet grown that big.</p>

<p>Joe: everyone can still see each other. want little bit of "standing room only" so has energy etc. Inspired by Google's hiring philosophy. Jotspot's hiring philosophy is "no false positives" --> everyone you get in the company will be "great".</p>

<p>John: what about contracters?</p>

<p>Kim: development team is distributed --> set up offshore operations in India.</p>

<p>John: venture capital. what's the profile re financing?</p>

<p>Joe: myth of entrepreneurship - some people need VC backing, some don't. clear matter of economics, supply and demand. lot of companies are "features wrapped up in company's clothing" - those ones shouldn't take VC capital. need to get to $30-40million to get a decent return, which is rare. The VC is not the prize, wrong thing to focus on.</p>

<p>John: arc of kleiner-backed start-up (potential for billion dollar company etc)</p>

<p>Kim: not trying to do that. "let's get this right", scaling correctly etc.</p>

<p>John: excite going public - did you enjoy that (as goal of company)?</p>

<p>Joe: "private piece of the market feels very frothy right now"... "bootstrap froth" - can be a good thing, but if inject lots of money and pump up the valuations, it can be a problem ("venture froth")</p>

<p>John: death by bootstrap "fratricide"</p>

<p>Joe: it's so cheap to start a company these days. jotspot took $100k to go to market, much cheaper than excite. cheap infrastructure, offshore development. Tons of angel or bootstrap companies - "you'll see a ton more entrepreneurship". Will cause its own set of problems, but it's fantastic.</p>

<p>John: is it different this time personally?</p>

<p>Kim: more calm experience, people have families so not burning midnight oil, don't have to kill yourself to build a company - still long hours, but exciting.</p>

<p>Joe: is equally "paranoid, neurotic"; the desire, drive, nervousness - he's "wired that way". Wants to make it successful. Joe thinks he's "no more calm than I was in Excite."</p>]]>
      
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  <entry>
    <id>tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4566-comment:36424</id>
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    <title>Comment from Anonymous on 2005-10-07</title>
    <author>
        <name>Anonymous</name>
        <uri></uri>
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        <![CDATA[<p>Is there an audio version or a full transcript of this session available somewhere?</p>]]>
    </content>
    <published>2005-10-07T19:12:00Z</published>
  </entry>

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