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W20: Keynote - Six Apart, Digg & ...
Keynote: Built to Last or Built to Sell. Is There a Difference?
Speakers: John Battelle - Federated Media, Joe Kraus - JotSpot, Mena Trott - Six Apart, Jay Adelson - Digg
 To me, this keynote was the most engaging segment of the day. CMP and O'Reilly must have known to save the best for last.
John
Battelle teed up several questions to the panel: how they thought about
their companies future, what kept them up at night, whether or not they
built their companies to "last" or to "sell" and finally, mistakes they
made along the way:
Joe Kraus:
entrepreneurs have to answer an important question up front i.e. what's
more important to you, control or success. If you are built to sell,
you'll want to take less money up front and should consider rallying
around a single product. If you are built to last, you'll be more
included to diversify your product offering and rapid organic growth
becomes less important.
Mena Trott: there
can be a balance between putting your company to be sold and
positioning yourself for the long haul. The key either way is to
surround yourself with good people because one of the biggest
temptations to sell comes when you want a vacation following three
years of non-stop work. If you have good people that you can trust, you
can take a break every so often.
Jay Adelson:
how you prepare your company to last or be sold really depends on the
type of products and services you offer and what your business model is.
Joe Kraus: founders
need to be cautious when they take VC money because there is a
temptation to sell when success comes. However, VCs (and even your own
employees) might be better served and more inclined to wait for greater
returns that come with long-term growth.
Mena Trott:
Six Apart is not thinking about being the next YouTube. That was such a
rare deal that it's unrealistic to think that any other company will
see that kind of money in the near future. She has the company focused
on executing against their corporate goals.
Joe Kraus:
entrepreneurs are optimists by nature. This is symptomatic of society
in general -- according to a poll taken in the last 2-3 years, 19% of
Americans reported being in the top 1% of income earners.
Jay Adelson:
Last year, Digg had a number of media companies calling and promising
major buyout dollars. He got temporarily caught up in the hype but said
it was harmful to the business because it distracted Digg's focus.
Joe Kraus:
interesting point about the latest Web 2.0 phenomenon - unlike MS
Office products which made the "individual" more productive back in the
80's and 90's, Web 2.0 tools are geared toward making "groups" more
effective.
Wrapping up the keynote panel, John Battelle
asked the panel what their biggest mistake was during their companies
last 3-4 years. The answers:
Jay Adelson: Digg's biggest mistake was allowing the blogosphere to drive corporate decisions
Mena Trott:
wishes they hadn't jumped through so many hoops for bigger companies as
partners or customers -- she said that as a smaller company, you
shouldn't be afraid to say "no".
Joe Kraus:
regrets not putting JotSpot's business model into beta at the same time
they put their product into beta. He lost a lot of valuable time
figuring out what JotSpot wanted to be when it grew up.
Next up, Day Two Keynotes...
Tue, Apr 17 2007
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