Fight Club Lunch

There's been a number of requests to try a Fight Club lunch rather than dinner.

So, we're going to oblige. (Money says I have to.)

Fight Club Luncheon & High Tea will be next Wednesday, Dec. 13 at noon.

We'll also be changing the venue to a location in the South of the valley. Jordy and I are getting tired of a straight diet of fish 'n chips.

I'll be sending an email out this weekend.

Looks like Tag Jungle has powered up.

It looks like somebody in that Utah Valley Basement has kept the lights on since it appears that Tag Jungle is now live.

I'd been less that optimistic since the entire crew had been mum post Silicon Valley Launch. My guess was that it had not gone well. I hope that wasn't the case or at least it wasn't a killer cause.

I've been trying to figure out how to work the site. I guess the 'how to' pages are for a later iteration. 

New VC Strategies: Venture debt or angel money?

Alex wants to grow up and be a VC.

(Possiblly so he can afford to hire personal protection and prevent further beat-downs.)

 Here's Alex's idea for funding startups:

"If I like the entrepreneur and the company or idea, I will fund it, up to a certain amount, using the following simple formula (sample dollar amounts only, actual invested dollars will of course vary):

Amount Invested = $250,000

I own 75% for my cash investment, entrepreneur owns 25%.

The moment I receive my $250,000 back with a 20% increase (for a total of $300,000), the equity flip-flops. I own 25%, the entrepreneur owns 75%.

This simple method allows for a few things to happen. First and foremost the entrepreneur is highly motivated to get my initial investment plus interest back to me as fast as they possibly can. I don’t care how they do it. Bank loan, profits, home equity line, friends and family, outside investor - it doesn’t matter. Once they pay it back, they own their company again, until then, I own it. I don’t want to run it or mettle in their business. In fact, I won’t do that. But the fact that I own 75% will motivate any entrepreneur worth their salt to hurry up and change that around.

When they pay me back, I will still get to participate in their company as a shareholder, and hopefully I can add value as a 25% owner. They will be in control though and I will be along for the ride.

Why is a 25% equity stake in your company too much to ask for funding the entire business with no personal risk on your end? All i make is a 20% return..."

Ok Alex, you asked for it.
Let's take a look at a situation like this from the entrepreneurs perspective. 

What you're offering is venture debt with a few unusual caveats.

• You'll lend money without a personal guarantee on flat rate terms of 20% for which you take 75% of the equity.
• You'll take a 20% return.
• You'll keep 25% of the company.
  

So here come the problems: 

• Why would I take on venture debt for a 25% stake (if everything works perfectly) when an angel will take the same equity postion up front  (typically 20-30%) without ever taking control of the company.
  
• When does the 20% have to be repaid?
• Say the company is growing fast. You own 75%. What would prevent you from wresting control of the company from the entrepreneure minority shareholder?
  

You're right that banks don't fund startups without personal guarantees. (Been there. Done that.) But the capital markets are highly efficient and there's a reason that they're structured a certain way. (Please believe that I'm not arguing that there aren't better ways.) You might be able to give money to a company, but only a very deperate one. Any startup that can attract an angel round can do so without giving up control of the company at all.

Charles River has their new CRV QuickStart Seed Funding Program. You'll notice some fundimental differences in how the transaction takes place. Charles makes their terms very attractive, but of course they're looking to stay on for future rounds.

Wharton School of Drones?

Ravi has it in for Wharton: Where Entrepreneurship Comes to Die

And Penn wonders why their precious school doesn't churn out high profile start ups. So where's the problem? In this case, part of it is apparent: the class itself is atrocious. For half a semester, I've listened to our Professor use the same Marketing 101 buzzwords in an attempt to describe what is different about getting the word out for start ups. And, for that half a semester, he's really said nothing.

Nimble is number 2 on squarespace.com

Wow. I was checking out my referral log and found out that this blog gets 8% of the traffic of squarespace.com, where I host the site.

I found this almost unbelievable so I took a screen shot (right).

My guess is that real blogs (and I have some) don't use the squarespace name so I would guess these figures are skewed. But still...  

Video Hosting Comparison: Youtube, Google Video, Metacafe, Soapbox, MyHeavy, Vimeo...

Video Comparison

Life Goggles has created a page where the same video is hosted on all of the leading sites.

Personally I've been using YouTube but I'd like to have a little slicker interface and player. The Soapbox player is pretty sweet with the little info popup.

Pony Tail Club: A girl & her horse.

Pony Tail Club

My daughters new blog.

 
I thought this was a good idea for a number of reasons. First, she loves horses and if I'm going to have to continue to pay for shoeing, vet bills, feed and training... We're going to make it a business. (Of course, Dad doesn't get it.)

(After seeing that I received a check from Yahoo last month my daughter also thinks this is a good idea. She has dollar signs prancing in her head already.)

My wife is also involved. She's just got her new advertising site up (Wild Blue Creative) and now we're off on the pony express. Our goals with this new pony site are:

• Give Madison (our daughter) a place to express herself and gain positive feedback. Gramsie & Gramps, Yaya & Papu, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and fellow academy riders can all be counted on to provide this.
• Provide a method that by itself teaches consistency and self motivation. ie. No posts / no quality = no traffic.
• Provides and outlet where she can express her love for riding.
• Offers some experience in building something of value that people want.
  
• Lets her generate income that's a direct result of her own efforts (with parential help and moderation).

Pony Tail Club will be completely kid safe, friendly and positive. If you have anyone interested in reading the ongoing reality show saga of girls who love horses, please send them a link.

 

Interestingly, I just put the site up yesterday and there are already 30 rss subscribers. I find that unusual.

Click Fraud: This has got to violate Google / Yahoo terms.

This video site really pissed me of with their hidden click fraud. They purposely hide ppc links that look as though  they're navigation for videos.  I only realized what happened after clicking a link that threw me off the site. Think the advertisers don't mind?

 

Hey Fight Club wusses: Where's yer story?

Fight Club: Membership Requirement #1

I've heard much talk from some about what great fight stories some of you have. So far it's just been big talk. Alex and Ryan... you know who you are.

Membership Requirement #1:

Write and publish (to this site) the story of the last fight you were involved in. (Physical blows exchanged.)

Entrepreneure Fights

If you've never been in a fight you have three alternatives: Write a fictional story of a fight that you might have been in at some time in your lift but that you loose embarrassingly. Write a thesis on why physical violence can't solve society's problems and how this site is destroying our children. Put your tail between your legs and slink away knowing you're not Fight Club material.

Write your story and send it to me here. 

Zero Sex Lift: The life of a startup entrepreneure.

This guy is an honorary Fight Club member, right up there with Billy Barty. This is one of the funniest blogs I've ever read. Here's some tidbits.

Six weeks ago facing the one year anniversary of the last time I touched a girl I, out of both desperation and a momentary lapse of judgment, put down my $19.95 and jumped into the internet dating scene. Let this be a lesson to everyone reading; never try an Internet dating site. For those of you who don't listen to my warning here is a little advice. If she looks like a model, it's a porn site trying to get you to check out a page so they can send you enough junk e-mail to sink a battle ship. If she doesn't look half-bad, it's an old photo before the accident or the Ding Dongs reduced her life to meeting tubby computer geeks with no social skills over the internet.

Their thinking is the same as yours, "I'll rope them in to liking the real me, than when he/she sees my grotesque Jaba the Hut exterior it won't matter because they love the real me."

Truth is you don't want someone like that any more than they want you. You'll have to forgive me; currently I'm a unique combination of bitter, drunk, and lonely. I'm also getting ahead of myself.

A woman who looks lost is walking toward me. She looks like she could be the shorter fatter sister of the slightly less than average looking woman I am waiting for.

"Are you Mike?" Oh shit, it's not the sister.
"Darla?" She smiles but I can tell she's disappointed. She undoubtedly went through dozens of pictures to find the one that made her look a little closer to human than the oily husk she parades around in, as did I. After two appetizers and a few drinks she goes to, "Powder her nose" and never returns. Someone Kill me.

Progress Log

The following statistics apply to everything that has happened to me since the creation of this site, February 2003.

number of people I have had sex with (Not counting myself)	(0)
number of women who have submitted requests for sex	(4)
number of those to result in sex	(0)
number of those to turn out to be a 13-year-old punk kid who sent me a computer virus.	(1)
number of men pretending to be women who've submitted requests for sex	(38)
number of women in other countries who've made "offers"	(19)
number of nude photos sent to my e-mail / P.O. box	(12)
number of people to suggest I go on "Queer eye for the strait guy"	(9)
total amount I've paid to keep this site up (bandwidth, virus software, hosting, ect.)	($453.85)
total amount of money donated	($266.12)

Why the hell would you eat brownies sent to you by a stranger?
Yes, I was an idiot to eat the brownies but look at it for a moment from my point of veiw. I have a hand written (extremely feminine) letter that smells slightly of perfume telling me the story about a girl who had really bad acne in highschool and who can relate to my story. She is poor as well and can't donate any money but wanted to do something nice for me, so she made me some brownies.

Why would I immediatly think anyone would want to poison me? I haven't done anything wrong to anyone. Who would get so worked up about my site as to send me chocolate ExLax? And I couldn't taste it! I had a brownie, it tasted good. I had another, still good. I think I had four total before I started to feel sick. They were small though, I'm not that much of a pig.

The next thing I know I'm giving birth to the antichrist.

Googles Big Idea Challenge:

Google nips startups.

It seems that Google thinks that good ideas might be germinating in the halls of higher education. I can understand Googles motivations, they want to have the smartest people working for them rather than competing with great ideas.

Via Google Blogscoped: Sam Davyson says, “This morning in my university pigeon hole I got a flyer about the Google Big Idea challenge. They're targeting grads.” The flyer reads:

The Google Big Idea Challenge
What is Google’s next revolutionary product and why?*
Graduate Jobs at Google

We are looking for final year students and recent graduates who are creative and think differently. By answering the question posed above in the The Big Idea Challenge, you have the opportunity to impress us and get a job at Google. Your answer can be in any format you choose; this might be a business plan, schematic diagram, presentation, or just some text. The top entrants will be invited to the Googleplex in London to meet the the team and talk through their Big Idea.

How to Apply

• Visit www.google.co.uk/bigideachallenge to find out more
• Send us your application by January 5th 2007

*This must not be an existing Google product.

I am curious about what kinds of reaction they'll get. I would think that they might get some great ideas and scoop up a few crack troops, but it might be that the best startup ideas won't be attracted to working for the man. The allure of becoming a G-man may begin to wear thin. I'd think that working for Google is beginning to resemble many large tech companies (free food notwithstanding).

The Uninsured Patient Experiment

From the Healthcare Advocate Blog: Here's what he found when posing as an uninsured patient requesting an elective CT scan:

• The list price varies by 75% ($1,013 to $3,970).
• The best uninsured price varies by 92% ($204 to $2,600).
• List price discounts range from 0% to 86%.
• To get many of the discounts hospitals offer the balance needs to be paid in full at the time of service or a large down payment made, to receive it.
• Some hospitals are unwilling to divulge the price over the phone and others will not call back.

Connect Magazine: Colin has Geoff in a dog collar.

The same day I receive an email from Geoff Osmond, Connect Magazine telling me that he is not Colin Kelly's chauffeur, I notice that Colin has him wearing a dog collar for this article on non-compete agreements.

You may not recognize him but that little 'soul patch' is a dead giveaway. (You can't see it in this image but it 's defiantly him.) 

Dapper: API data mapper for the masses

These types of services are becoming both commonplace and increasingly easy to use. I spent five minutes and built a tiny app. for my medical spa MD blog. This pages takes the medicalspaMD titles and comments and displays them.

Those who are more technical adept than I can undoubtedly do more but if it's easy enough for me to use, it's approaching mainstream.

I can see that these types of services could pose a potential problem for businesses like screen-scraper.com. I'd be interested to hear from Todd on where he thinks these types of services will end up. Perhaps he'll come to Fight Club this month.

From the Dapper FAQ: Dapper is a service that allows you to extract and use information from any website on the Internet. For those familiar with web services, you can think of Dapper as an API maker. For the rest of you, Dapper allows you to build web applications and mashups using data from any website without any programming.

From the Dapper Blog: Dapper’s mission is to allow you to use any web based content in any way you can imagine. And by use, we mean going beyond just reading or viewing a webpage. You may want to create an RSS feed or a Google Gadget for a site, take a site’s content and put it on a map, receive an email alert when your site’s Alexa’s ranking goes below 5000, or create a mashup of your favorite band’s tour dates and a camping locations reservation website to organize your musical camping vacation. Whatever you want to do, however you want to mold the web, Dapper can help you do it.

Perhaps Pete could use this to keep the Times and WSJ linking to his blog. That little timeline he built was a coup. 

Scheduling PPC ads to run by time.

Savvy Internet retailer could make sure its ad runs in the late afternoon, when online shopping spikes but ad competition falls

From WSJ: Most online shopping happens on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and then in the late afternoon between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., largely at work, according to comScore Networks, a Chicago Internet market-research firm.

The highest percentage of dollars spent online during a typical weekday occurs between 11 a.m. and noon, followed by 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and then 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., comScore says. By far, consumers spend the fewest dollars online in the hours between midnight and 8 a.m.

Peter Fader, a marketing professor at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, says some advertisers start running ads at midnight and exhaust their daily preset ad budgets by midday. So a savvy Internet retailer could make sure its ad runs in the late afternoon, when online shopping spikes but ad competition falls