I recently had the opportunity to speak at this years Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. I was part of the Web2Open sessions that were organized by the Podcamp Foundation (Hats off to Whitney Hoffman), and in traditional “unconference” fashion, those of us who were asked to speak could do so on any topic we wanted.

The theme of this year’s Web 2.0 Expo was “The power of less,” and with that in mind I took this opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, get back to my roots and start talking about my experiences with entrepreneurship, starting a business, bootstrapping, and all of the lessons I have learned along the way…. so far. The Web 2.0 Expo theme was a perfect fit to “beta” a presentation I dubbed: “Bootstrapping: Building a Business Funded by Revenue.”

The Web 2.0 talk was the first step in developing a series of posts and presentations that I will be focused on throughout 2010. Though my story is still very much “in progress,” I have started several businesses, and have been building my most recent company, Blue Sky Factory, for almost 9 years. I’ve learned a wealth of lessons through my experiences building a business from the ground up with zero funding.

The Framework:

As mentioned earlier, the Web 2.0 talk was in “beta,’ as I am still very much flushing out the various topics and segments I would like to cover. As I have been thinking through things, there have been three main topic areas that seem to encompass the spirit of what I would like to talk about. They include the following:

1. Start-up Lessons

Just as it sounds, and what essentially encompasses most of the presentation below, there are oh so many start-up lessons to discuss, and every entrepreneur has their own. Sometimes, more often than not, they all have their own version of the same lesson. I plan on discussing several of the ones that I have experienced and have processed.

2. Building a team

At the end of the day, any good entrepreneur will tell you their company is only as good as its people. It is so true. Over the last 9 years there have been many different people who have joined my company, and each one of them play a key role in our operation. I plan on talking about building teams who are aligned, motivated and constantly executing.

3. Managing growth

It is often said that managing growth is simply the act of trading one set of problems or challenges for the next. There is a lot to be said for that statement. Growth isn’t easy, but if you find yourself managing it, then you are doing something right! There are a several “stages’ of growth to be discussed in a variety of topics (team, technology, infrastructure, finance, sales, etc).

Below, are the slides from the Web 2.0 talk, which tend to focus mostly on the first topic of “start-up lessons.” I would love to hear your input, or questions in the comments below. I will be continuing on this topic organically, and hope to begin to drill down on the high level topics listed above shortly.

I have been thinking about all of the reasons why I have been feeling so good about yesterday’s SocialDevCamp. Its a little hard for me to pin down exactly, but all I can say is that it was an absolutely great event. No, it was a special event. Baltimore has been craving for something like this for years (at least in my opinion).

The event reminded me in many ways of the very first Podcamp in Boston two years ago. There was a clear energy present, and everyone who was there knew it. Yesterday was like that for me in many ways. From the moment I got there until the moment I rolled out of the Brewers Art at the afterparty, it was energetic, passionate, educational and inspiring among many other things. It was great to connect with so many other folks from the area and along the corridor (Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC), the Amtrak corridor that is

For the first time in a long time it felt like the Baltimore scene was truly vibing. I know we have all been “vibing” in our own ways, but SocialDevCamp brought a lot of like minded individuals together for the first time ever in our city. Sure there have been small gatherings, happy hours, and definitely lots of great programming by the GBTC to bring the business community together, but this was the first time, that I can think of, where everyone came together. The entrepreneurs, the hackers, the developers, the media, (insert what you are here), etc, it was a collective, and it was a good one.

Thanks once again to Dave Troy, Ann and Keith for organizing this. A big thanks to all of the volunteers, and to all of the other sponsors for financially supporting the needs of the event, and finally thank you to all of the participants for showing up and making it happen. What a turnout!

Here are a few random thoughts from my perspective:

Facility & Location

University of Baltimore’s facility was a GREAT location for this event. The physical space simply worked. There was a main common area where the meals were and tables, the auditorium and the session rooms were all right there. This kept the attendees connected and engaged. It was refreshing to see that there were no sessions on multiple floors, lack of a common gathering area, and basically people all over the place, which is often the case when using university / academic facilities for these types of events. Finally, the actual location couldn’t have been better for out of town folks who hopped on the Amtrak and came from other cities. The UB facility is literally 2 blocks (at the most) from the train station. That fact alone definitely helped with the great turnout.

Sessions & Participation

Although I didn’t participate in the session selection and voting (I showed up a little late), I think the sessions were great. I particularly enjoyed the “Business of Social Media.” What was really great to see was the level of participation from attendees. I know thats the point of these events, and it was definitely present and accounted for. It was great to hear so many perspectives and to learn what was on peoples minds. I sat in the Business / ROI of Social Media, learned about the semantic web, attended Shashi’s session on selling social media to the boss, and the mashed up “who needs VC’s and Amtrak Tech” session. All good stuff.

Corridor concept (DC, Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Boston)

I liked the discussion that was started around linking up the “Amtrak” cities and building off of the momentum of every location. There was a lot of discussion and comparison around startups in Silicon Valley vs. startups out here on the east coast. Discussion around the available resources we have to us, from money to talent and more. The thinking is that we need to start to look at ourselves, out here on the east, as our own corridor or ecosystem, and shouldn’t look at it from a single city point of view. The connecting link between five major markets, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC & Boston, is the Amtrak. You can get to any of these cities VERY conveniently via the train, and be in the center of them within a few hours. I look forward to more discussion around this, as we truly are our own technology corridor. Lets tighten this concept up.

In many ways, its great to finally see Baltimore on the map as a micro-hub. I look forward to many more events like this in the future. The next SocialDevCamp is already being planned for this September, details will follow as they are announced. Blue Sky Factory will continue to support these events and any other event that helps bring everyone in our region together.

Here are some links to SocialDevCamp Media: (feel free to add more links in the comments to other media)

Flickr photos

Animoto Slide Show from East Coast Blogging

Video of Sessions by Kenneth

Twitter hashtags

Great to see everyone, catch you all at the next one!

I am still getting requests for the presentation I gave last month at the edu Web Conference. You can download the PDF here. I also just uploaded the presentation to a pretty cool service called SlideShare. You can flip through the presentation below using their widget, and download it from there as well. Thanks to Chris Brogan for turning me on to this service. Very cool.

My good friend via the interwebs, Niccolò Favari a.k.a. flipthedolphin, recently posted an interview with me on his blog. It’s kind of strange having two entrepreneur themed interviews go live within a weeks time. This one was completed well before Gnomedex.

I first met Niccolò in the blogsphere. I don’t remember when, but it was back in late 04 or early 05. You know how it goes, one day he left a comment on my blog, and then I left a comment on his, etc.. next thing you know we are friends from the blogosphere.

Niccolò has been an incredible friend over the years. He was the original registrar for my blog’s domain, he has helped me time and time again with small Wordpress tweaks, and many other technical issues and questions. He is also an incredible photographer.

He recently asked me to do an interview for his blog, flipthedolphin. This is in the same vein as the Startup Spark interview with Steve Fisher, in regards to it being about my experiences with entrepreneurship, but the questions are totally different.

You can find the interview at this link.

“…I would say above all else, the one thing that will continually separate successful entrepreneurs and businesses, from others, in regards to momentum and success is their ability to “Execute” The get the job done part is key. People talk a lot, and have a lot of ideas, but in order to succeed you need to always be executing.”

As mentioned last week, Steve Fisher, editor of B5 Media’s Startup Spark blog, and I did an email interview which he began posting this week. Honestly, I had the thing half baked on my desktop for over a month and finished it up on the plane out to Seattle Thanks for your patience Steve!

Steve recently posted part 2 & 3 of the interview. You can check out the series here:

Startup Spark:

Part 1 – Backround, Blue Sky Factory, Competitive Landscape
Part 2 – Vision, Revenue, Team
Part 3 – Elements for success, Bootstrapping, Marketing

Excerpt:

What approach to marketing plays a significant role in promoting and attracting customers to Blue Sky Factory?

Our approach is, we are different. We are not your typical ESP, and you learn that fast. Outside of our search marketing, our ads are different and edgy. I also embrace social media, and I think that’s important as the CEO. As you know, social media brings a certain level of transparency to the company. People get to know me; they get to know the company. We are open, we blog, we are on the social networks, we are speaking at events, sponsoring unusual events, publishing articles, interviewing with the press, being thought leaders, etc. We get a lot of people referring us business simply because they know us. I think all of those things above play a significant role in our marketing and how we attract business.

Its been a pretty busy Monday in our world of email. Check out all of the various activities that have been announced today:

- Constant Contact, the leader in small business email marketing solutions files for an IPO.

- IMN ( formerly IMakeNews) seeks a $30 million -$40 million recap to double in size and do acquisitions.

- Google buys Postini.

- The DMA acquires the Email Experience Council.

A little moving and shaking going on

Below, are some of my thoughts around what I would classify as a “basic” marketing 2.0 framework. I am writing on this topic as I begin to think through the presentation I will be giving in July at the edu Web Conference.

In a very dynamic and ever changing landscape of web 2.0 and social media, marketers are continually faced with new challenges on how to make sense of, and embrace emerging online mediums that expose them to a world of unmoderated, decentralized conversation, taking place within a rich media playing field – syndicated text, audio, and video everywhere.

There are some basic tools that organizations must deploy in order to participate in this complex online social universe. Its becoming increasingly important for marketers to be able to develop and maintain consistent ways of participating in and measuring the success of their online engagement efforts. The ROI on social media will be an important metric for organizations to be focused on as we move forward in this evolving media landscape.

How does an organization measure its ROE or Return on Engagement? What are the key elements that an organization needs to be included in this new social media landscape? What follows is what I believe is a basic framework for participating in a world of Marketing 2.0, or, in other words, marketing in a Web 2.0 world. You will pick up on a common theme as you move through this framework, and that is one of “become a publisher of information.” None of this is rocket science, its pure practicality. We live in an expanding world of content. And yes, content IS king, it was said long ago. Now the mindshare of the masses becomes a content game, down to the marketing level.

Here are some of the basic components and tactics you need to succeed:

A Blog

I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on this one, because if your reading this post, you probably a.) already have a blog and have most likely been writing it for a while, maybe even years, and or b.) you recently launched one or are at least savvy enough to know you need one and are actively working on getting it live.

Simply put, a blog acts as your base. It is your foundation of words, opinions and expressions. Its where you express your points of view, your opinions, your news and information. Its a place where you can revert back to, to clarify your position, stake your claim, and make your mark as a person or an organization. Blogs are the newspapers, the media, the dialogue of the future. To not blog, is to not speak, nuff said.

Email Marketing

Oh yeah, you KNOW I am biased on this one but I don’t have to speak to why email should be a spoke on your marketing 2.0 wheel now do I? Email is the driver, the dominant application of all online mediums. Aside from being an incredible channel for developing loyalty and retention with your audience, the medium also delivers one of the highest ROI’s today for marketers. Email also drives the reach of your message, extending it, and spreading it virally through personal networks and communities. Send out a newsletter, tips, promotions, cross / up sell, re-publish blog posts, link to media, tell your story….build a subscriber base and publish targeted, relevant content.

RSS Feeds

If you are already blogging (or when you begin), you will most likely have an RSS feed associated with your blog. Make this feed as easy as possible to subscribe to for your readers. You may also consider publishing multiple feeds depending on your organization or what kind of content you are publishing. For example, your blog feed, your podcast feed, topical feeds, etc.. Publishing feeds gets your message out via a rapidly emerging channel. Consumers of media are customizing their home / start pages with feeds of interest, loading up their aggregators with subscriptions, and also subscribing to RSS feeds via email as well (another important feature to have). I have a pretty good feeling that an individual’s OPML file will be an important asset as we move forward in this landscape.

Syndicated & Optimized Press Releases:

In short, spread your key news via at least one of these services (PR Web, PR Newswire, MarketWire). The Google juice alone is worth every penny. Get your news, and your name out almost instantly via these syndication services. This is a no-brainer. Yes, it can be costly but for as little as a few hundred dollars to have your news pushed out globally, generating tons of inbound links to your web properties, is really worth the time and effort. I have done it many times and it simply works. Check out the pick up around the announcement of our acquisition of RSSFWD. We used MarketWire’s service for this release.

Produce Audio and Video Content

I am not talking CNN style, spend a $100k on a commercial / promotional piece. Naturally, I am talking about producing podcasts and online video content. Produce something. Come up with a show with a theme that relates to your area of expertise, or your industry. Produce an audio show at the very least, the barriers to entry / production are just too low now to even be debating this internally. Podcast your organizations message, period. If you can add the visual element to this, ie. video then by all means do it, just think it through and make it compelling, unique, relevant and interesting.

We live in a world of online rich media, ever growing and expanding. Broadband adoption has blown this door wide open, giving organizations of every size the ability to become their own media outlet. Broadcast your message in text, audio and video. Again, the barrier to entry is just too low to put up a fight…

Start Speaking and Showing Your Face

Lets get “un-digital” for a moment and talk about humanity and being a real person. We do live in a physical world, and we can’t ever take the human experience away. The personal connection is more powerful than any other medium. In terms of marketing, I believe this is critical. Get out in the world, come up with an idea or a topic to speak on, volunteer to talk to groups, be a guest speaker on a particular topic, be on a panel, go to networking events, etc. In short, show your face and speak your mind. Make yourself the expert in your field and meet and greet as many people as you can. Extend your brand by putting a face and a personality to a name.

As mentioned above, this is only part of a framework. I certainly have not covered everything, and I have not covered or gone into any depth on tactical implementation or measurement. That said, I believe the elements I have listed above are key “spokes” on the marketing wheel of the future, which is now

In an attempt to play a little “catch up” I posted two ROI Radio’s this week. This past Wednesday I posted my discussion with Christine Burke who is the Vice President of Corporate Sales for L’Occitane. It was a great change of perspective having a discussion from the client or company point of view versus the vendor / provider point of view. Christine and I talk about how L’Occitane is implementing a variety of online marketing channels and how they optimize the medium.

As mentioned in an earlier previous post, I also had a chance to speak with Kris Smith, VP of New Media at Room 214, founder of Palegroove Studios and produce of the Croncast. Kris was a trooper, jumping on the phone with me literally with about 2 minutes notice and being asked one simple yet powerful question of “whats next?”

You can check out both podcasts at the ROI Radio site. Subscribe to the RSS feed here. Subscribe via iTunes here.

Since I am still about a week behind on blogging activities, I wanted follow up to an earlier post where I mentioned that I was judging a business plan competition at UMBC in conjunction with Entrepreneurship Week USA which ran from Feb 24th – March 3rd. The event was great and we actually had two first place winners. Congrats to both teams!

The 2 first place winners are:

Company Name: Auto Soundtrack
Students: Sandorn Dornbush, Computer Science PhD Student and Alark Joshi, Computer Science PhD Student

Idea: Use advanced artificial intelligence techniques to learn how a person’s music preference varies over time and external conditions. It does this by learning its owners’ musical preferences for different activities, then automatically tailors the music selections accordingly (ex: plays fast music when a person is working out, calmer music when in the office, etc.). Prototype devices have been developed and Sandor and Alark are currently working on consumer applications. They have recently partnered with Nokia Research to bring Auto Soundtrack to Nokia headsets.

Sandorn and Alark were very passionate about their idea and are actively developing it with Nokia as a research partner. They are aware of the Last.FM’s of the world and seem to be on the edge of taking their technology to the next level. This was definitely an interesting idea that will no doubt be developed.

Company Name: Phoenix Circuit Boards
Student: John Keyser, Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student

Idea: Develop cutting edge aftermarket electronic control boards for paintball games to fill the niche market for high-performance, feature-packed boards. Paintball is a $1.5 billion dollar per year industry and is ranked as the third fastest growing extreme sport behind snowboarding and skateboarding. John currently has 2 boards in
development.

Talk about a niche play. I admit when I first heard about this I didn’t really understand, but then after listening to John present, and learning how big the paintball market is (and growing), it was clear there was a great opportunity for this product launch. Great job finding a market thats underserved with an up sell / cross-sell opporuntity. Apparently, there are alot of people who are into “mod’ing” up their paintball guns with advanced circuit boards

Congrats to both teams!

In case you didn’t know, today marks the kick off of Entrepreneurship Week, a Kaufmann Foundation supported and sponsored national event starting today Feb 24th through March 3rd. Entrepreneurship Week is a collection of thousands of activities across the country that are:

“designed to stimulate on-going interest from individuals and organizations serving as an educational kick-start for the uninitiated, and an inspiration for young people to begin a journey to fulfill their potential as self-starters and entrepreneurs.”

I am happy to be participating in Entrepreneurship Week with my alma mater UMBC. UMBC’s cutting edge Alex Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, which just received a $2mm grant from the Kauffman Foundation to expand its programming, is hosting a student business plan competition this coming Monday.

I have been asked to be a judge of the competition, and am really looking forward to it. We have 18 groups which have made the submission deadline, and my FedEx packet of biz plans arrived at the office yesterday. I will be reviewing them this weekend, and then on Monday we have back to back presentations from 11:30am-4:30pm. Each group gets 15 minutes to present their idea and do a few minutes of Q&A.

From my initial scan, it looks like there are some very interesting ideas, so the competition should be good. The top prize is $1000.00. Good luck to all of the students who are participating! I look forward to it.

If your interested in participating in any participating Entrepreneurship Week events in your area, this website has a listing of most of the institutions and organizations who are involved. Check it out.

And remember, there’s never been a better time to start a business in America