At serious organizations like NASA, when things go wrong, they try to figure out why. At joke incubators when things go wrong, they just wait for Web 3.0.
Coders who go through an incubator are not entrepreneurs. Many “hackers” who run Web 2.0 sites are not entrepreneurs. The definition of an entrepreneur is: “a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.” You have to run a BUSINESS to be an ENTREPRENEUR.
That means you have to have a business. A business makes money. Sorry losers, you don’t run businesses. Let’s run through all the worthless features being pumped out by our jolly fools over in Boulder (home to dumb start-ups like Kimbal Musk’s Me.dium - we’ll forgive them for having the dumbest domain name ever):
1. EventVue - a social network around conferences. I suppose if these chumps had ever attended a real conference, they’d realize that startups like confabb are already failures. Start-ups like nTag are raising major money and possibly causing cancer to an entire generation of conference goers meaning that EventVue is more or less DOA. UNSURE OF DEMAND. NO ABILITY TO GET PAID.
2. IntenseDebate - we already covered them and like the founder but it’s going to take a lot to scale this business and make money on it. The founder seems smart so they may figure out another model. UNSURE OF DEMAND.
3. socialthing - an aggregation of all your social crap. It’s a nice idea and I would actually like it, but the owners of the content are the social networks themselves and they have no desire to open things up. Facebook has already proven that they aren’t that serious about being open. This isn’t like RSS feeds where as a blog owner, I have an incentive to allow other readers. Social networks are about communication, photos, etc., not about reading easy to share text content. BIG BOYS WON’T LET IT WORK.
4. J-Squared Media - another howler of a Facebook app. 4 million installs. They claim to be generating $30,000/month in CPA ads. That’s nice. What happens when Facebook wants a piece of the pie? What about someone who launches a similar app with no advertising (a la Free Gifts)? UNSUSTAINABLE. NO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. NO BARRIERS TO ENTRY.
5. Search-to-Phone - a voice-based search service. Um yes, that’s called 411. Oh wait, they call you back with offers? No way! That’s called lead-based marketing. This is nothing particularly innovative. Our good friends at TechCrunch couldn’t even spell “process” correctly here - it’s great to know how professional and serious TechCrunch is. NOT NEW OR BETTER OR SHINIER.
6. Villij - it analyzes your social networking life to find people with similar interests. That’s what your social network already does. It’s heartening to know that TechStars’ $15,000 investment doesn’t even get the company to have a real business idea. NO VALUE TO CONSUMERS.
7. FiltrBox - it allows you to filter blogs and news sites. Yawn. Way to design a product with a target market of 1,000 people who spend no money. TINY MARKET. NO WAY TO MONETIZE.
8. KBLabs - cool little Facebook apps. I respect the co-founders because they built some nice apps and are going back to college. SMART GUYS.
9. BrightKite - “place streaming”. Yawn, more Loopt, Twitter, etc. b.s. You recieve offers from local businesses such as bars. I don’t know too many bars looking to give $5 pitchers to geeky Web 2.0 guys who haven’t showered in a week. DONE AND BORING.
It’s heartening to see that TechStars managed to waste a couple of grand and continue the circle jerk. Paul Graham would be proud - after all, imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
