Killer articles on startups

Keepstream is one of the five Capital Factory companies graduating today at Demo Day here in Austin. With their new web tool you can collect tweets and snippets, arrange as nicely-formatted collections, then share directly or embed in blog posts as I’ve done below.

Besides shilling for them, I’ve been wanting to make these kinds of posts periodically. It’s nice to highlight awesome articles about startup that I didn’t write!

(Full disclosure: Through Capital Factory I’m both an investor and mentor for Keepstream.)

Intelligence
New Blog Post: “You’re a developer, so why do you work for someone else?” http://bit.ly/aOWzNG
You’re a developer, so why do you work for someone else? | Intermittent Intelligence
Aaron Brazell
POST: Everything I Needed To Know About Entrepreneurship, I Learned from Star Wars http://is.gd/eDbKM
Everything I Needed to Know About Entrepreneurship, I learned from Star Wars — Technosailor.com
Dharmesh Shah
6 Simple Selling Tips For Software Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/aS3yjg (from OnStartups)
6 Simple Selling Tips For Software Entrepreneurs

6 simple tips for selling more software.
Mark Suster
US Economic Risks (Sept 2010): Impact on Investors & Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/EconOutlook
US Economic Risks (Sept 2010): Impact on Investors & Entrepreneurs | Both Sides of the Table

This post was originally published in a shorter (more sensible) format in the Wall Street Journal online.  If you’re short on time click on the WSJ link and
Steve Smith
Startup Business Checklist 2010 http://bit.ly/8ZoNZD
Startup Business Checklist 2010 : Steve Smith’s Blog

Below is my current checklist for startup businesses in 2010.  This is meant to be relatively industry-agnostic and focuses primarily on online components of the business (meaning, it may not apply to businesses which avoid the Internet for whatever reason
Neil Davidson
New blog post. Pricing a breakthrough product: http://bit.ly/9Nvi1J
Pricing a breakthrough product – Business of Software Blog

If you’re a horse rider then coming off your horse is something that’s going to happen to you occasionally: This rider survived – walked away, in fact – because he was wearing a special protective jacket. As the rider fell,…
Jason Shen
How To Land a Killer Job At a Tech Startup Out of College – http://t.co/FwZn4PF
How to Land a Killer Job at a Tech Startup Out of College | Jason Shen
Ash Maurya
New Product: USERcycle – a better way to track and engage your customers: http://bit.ly/dsMZhy #leanstartup
New Product: USERcycle – a better way to track and engage your customers
Jason Cohen
Great parable by @edwinmoh on what the VC world is like: http://bit.ly/aAdQmF
Football+babyThrice Around the Block: The Growth Mystique: A Silicon Valley Parable

Thoughts on marketing, technology commercialization and Silicon Valley startups by a high tech executive
Alexander Blom
Great basic guide on VC / Startup liquidation preferences: http://bit.ly/dafsOQ
Beware the trappings of liquidation preference | VentureBeat

Scott Edward Walker is the founder and CEO of Walker Corporate Law Group, PLLC, a boutique corporate law firm specializing …
Bob Walsh
RT @BobWalsh 5 Mistakes Developers make Selling to Developers http://bit.ly/dtmTLS
5 Mistakes Developers make Selling to Developers
ThisIsSethsBlog
Seth’s Blog: But what have you shipped? http://bit.ly/aQ8hPF
Seth’s Blog: But what have you shipped?

Yes, I know you’re a master of the web, that you’ve visited every website written in English, that you’ve been going to SXSW for ten years, that you were one of the first bloggers, you used Foursquare before it was…
Prefinery
How we collect first impression feedback from our new users by sending a simple welcome email – http://bit.ly/21XPSI
I Welcome New Users on Tuesdays – Prefinery Blog

9 responses to “Killer articles on startups”

  1. Hi Jason! Thank you for telling us about this!

    This product does look well-polished and quite tempting. I will probably end up using it sooner rather than later to replace that retired blogroll of mine. I guess this is what happens when a start-up gets to have YOU as a mentor :)

    I was wondering, though, what the business model for Keepstream was. I did not see any paying service while (quickly) browsing their web site, so how are they going to pay for ramen?

    • The current plan is to create a freemium business. A free version is available for many people to try out and get used to curating links and social media, then bloggers and companies that want a more powerful platform can upgrade to various subscription levels. We’ll roll out the paid features later though once we’ve gotten a stronger understanding of our user base and more data points. Gotta pay for the ramen somehow! If we have a little extra maybe we’ll upgrade to rice and beans.

  2. KeepStream looks awesome, and as soon as you mentioned it I felt this deja vu feeling that I had already been wanting it, but of course such a thing hadn’t actually occurred to me before. That said, it’s only partially useful; add in XML feeds from blogs (like from blog.asmartbear.com) and then it really starts to become useful!

  3. thumbs-down from me. No ‘about’, no ‘what’s in it for me?’… no call to action, blah blah. Possibly biased because of my innate dislike of the real-time fuss’n’bubble.

    • Hey Robbie – sorry to hear that they website didn’t provide enough information! A big upgrade to the homepage is on the to-do list, but haven’t rolled anything out yet because we’ve been in silent teaser mode for a while. The site is still in private beta, its just open to signups for a short period to get some new users in to kick the tires. Feel free to send me any ideas or feedback you have at tim(at)keepstream(dot)com – I’d love to discuss further!

  4. Thanks for posting these, there are a few I haven’t checked out yet! I find it tough to find the gems without needing to read through so many of the thousands of blogs that come up in regular searches.

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