Kim, CEO of SpikeSource: “the world has completely changed for building a software company.”
Joe: talking about Jotspot, “DIY publishing” – wikis next step after blogs for web publishing. Jotspot heading towards “DIY apps”.
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.
John: both of you have grown quickly, have you gotten to point where you lose community etc of the culture?
Kim: not yet grown that big.
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”.
John: what about contracters?
Kim: development team is distributed –> set up offshore operations in India.
John: venture capital. what’s the profile re financing?
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.
John: arc of kleiner-backed start-up (potential for billion dollar company etc)
Kim: not trying to do that. “let’s get this right”, scaling correctly etc.
John: excite going public – did you enjoy that (as goal of company)?
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”)
John: death by bootstrap “fratricide”
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.
John: is it different this time personally?
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.
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.”
