Don’t get me wrong. There are countless events, pitch events, developer events, designer events, and more. There’s literally a meetup every night for people in the internet industry. However I’ve noticed something incredibly different in other aspiring startup cities: a genuine sense of community.

In D.C., New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Omaha (yeah), Austin, Los Angeles, and more, there are events that members of the community consistently attend. They feel its a duty to, because the community needs it. You start to see the same faces over and over and it often results in lifetime friendships and possibly even business relationships. What some individuals in these cities fail to realize is that this sense of community is their source of strength.

The smaller communities are platforms that enable leaders to rise much quicker. In Silicon Valley, everybody is a leader (not literally, but it often feels like that). It’s an ecosystem built around the hyper-competitive. Startups are literally an industry in Silicon Valley. The benefit of this is that it’s a great place to learn quickly because everybody and their mother is building something.

However if you go to the communities outside of Silicon Valley creating a startup is unique. That’s a good thing … because it is! For any communities outside of Silicon Valley, here’s my advice: inspire others in your community through ambition and execution. The same rule rings true in Silicon Valley, however there’s far more people here that are already executing.

The most important thing: don’t call yourself “Silicon __________”, it’s doing yourself injustice. That’s because other cities have something Silicon Valley doesn’t have: community.

I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’ve spent a ton of time developing products without speaking to the customer.  It seems like a no-brainer. Yet as a creator, I want to immediately rely on my coding skill sets to push products out the door.  When I recently spoke to a friend who runs a development shop in Washington, D.C., my horrible mistake became glaringly obvious.  He shared with me a simple technique that he uses to keep clients indefinitely: daily standups.

The daily standup is a concept that has become popularized through the Scrum project management style. The meeting is limited to 15 minutes during which time each stake-holder in a project answers the following questions:

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you do today?
3. Are there any impediments in your way?

Every person involved in the project must be at that meeting. In the case of an agency, the client, the developer, project manager, and any other relevant parties are part of the meeting. This prevents later conversations like “wait, why doesn’t this work?” or “this is not what we were looking for!” from occurring.

Within a startup, the daily customer meeting may be a bit excessive, but regular and consistent communication is absolutely critical. How do you know that the product you are building is what the customer wants? How do you know that paying customers are actually satisfied? Communication is critical! Simply put, if you are responsible for managing the success of your startup, you should spend more time communicating with customers.

It will keep the customers happy and it will enable you to build a business, not just a product!

I’ve been reading all the posts over the past 24 hours attempting to dissect the financial
calculus of Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr. I figured I’d quickly summarize the key metrics that should be considered here and argue why it’s a decent fit for Yahoo, but is not exactly an Instagram.

Web-Based CPM Rates Are Crap

Given that most of the analysis I’ve seen is based on web traffic, I thought it would be best to start here. Simply put, web-based advertising sucks. The ads suck, and on average, the CPMs are absolutely horrendous.

Unless you are a niche publisher, or advertising on a large company’s homepage (like Yahoo), good luck getting $10 CPMs. Seriously. Facebook, one of the world’s largest online display advertisers is currently pulling in something like $0.75 CPMs on desktop/web.

That means we should come up with revenue that looks more like this:

120M Daily impressions x 365 Days = 43.8B Annual impressions

43.8B / 1000 = 43.8M * $0.75 = $32.85 million dollars annually on web alone.

Given that Tumblr is most likely under-reporting their traffic a bit, we can round things up to a clean $40M a year if we’re being aggressive. There’s also all types of questions over the porn content on Tumblr, but I’ll avoid that for the sake of this discussion. There’s still some growth on web but let’s be honest: the future is mobile! Isn’t that why Marissa Mayer overpaid for Summly?

Tumblr Is A Big Mobile Company

Simply put, Tumblr has a lot of traction on mobile. In fact, something like 25 percent of their traffic is currently mobile (according to ComScore as Kara Swisher points out).

Why is this such good news? Currently, mobile appears to be monetizing pretty well for the largest mobile behemoth: Facebook. According to a TBG Digital report last year, Facebook’s mobile CPMs are over $10. While we may expect these rates to fall as inventory expands and the mobile ad platform becomes more widely used, these ad rates are incredibly promising.

With Tumblr being the 7th most popular app in social networking in the iTunes store (yes, I know, a single data point), things are looking pretty good for the company. Who knows how much time is spent in the Tumblr apps, but my guess is that it’s a lot! That could spell many more additional impressions. Yet right now all of the analysis I’ve read is based exclusively on web traffic. Why?!?!?!

If we were to use ComScore’s numbers on mobile traffic, we could say that the company can produce at least 10 billion annual impressions on mobile (although this math is not exactly fair or accurate, but stick with me). If we are conservative about the mobile CPMs (which currently appear to be boosted by primarily mobile app install advertising), we can say they’ll make $2.50 CPMs. That results in the following math:

10B / 1000 = 10M * $2.50 = $25 million in mobile advertising. That’s on the low end.

If we were to use Facebook’s CPMs on mobile, we can quadruple that estimate to $100 million.

The Final Number!

With all these numbers, we could project a relatively aggressive revenue target of $200 million a year (in a couple years).  I should really emphasize aggressive.  That’s because it’s not clear how likely mobile will be able to keep the ridiculous CPMs that Facebook has been generating.  My guess: not likely.  However if we consider the aggressive revenue targets, and with Yahoo currently trading at 6X revenue, we can set the price of Tumblr at $1.2 billion.  It’s that simple!

In Support Of An Acquisition

The numbers accomplish one thing: they are used to justify the acquisition to investors. You know, those people who care about the financial state of the company? If you want to look at a more detailed financial analysis, click here.

Yet the numbers are skin deep. As a product, Tumblr could potentially be a perfect fit. Over the past few months it has become increasingly clear that Marissa Mayer is doubling done on the content business. That’s exactly what Tumblr is: content. Yes, it’s user-generated, but it’s a content play. Yahoo! also needs to stay relevant in the younger demographics, and that happens to be Tumblr’s core audience.

Mix together a hip brand, content, and the potential of paying back the cost of the business, and you have a solid acquisition.  Who cares about that whole revenue thing, right?!?

The Flip Side

The downside is also pretty clear. Tumblr is actually a runner up in the mobile space. The hip apps in social mobile right now are Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat. Tumblr ranks below each of those.

The company also isn’t profitable. Even if the company had $100 million in revenue, who knows what the costs are? The company has a dwindling bank account because David Karp, understandably, doesn’t want to just throw up ugly web-advertising. The lack of advertising is part of what keeps the company hip!

Also, who wants to run a display advertising business? Oh wait, Yahoo.

If we were to look at opportunity costs, why wouldn’t Yahoo get a little more aggressive and go after a mobile messaging app that’s taking off (aka. growing faster than tumblr)? Isn’t messaging the future of mobile anyways? Or why not try to make a play for Pinterest? The main reason may be that none of the other private companies in this space want to sell for $1.1 billion. If that’s the case, Yahoo! is simply taking the best it can get.

Who wants to be a runner up though?

Conclusion

For Tumblr, this seems like a great exit opportunity. While it may not be the ideal outcome, the company has yet to figure out an incredibly lucrative business model and David Karp doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed. Once the company does begin to serve up advertising though, they’ll be able to immediately plug into Yahoo’s existing infrastructure.  Will it be incredibly profitable for Yahoo?  Probably not.  Yet if we’re going with the same recurring motto of Marissa Mayer making Yahoo hip and cool, Tumblr seems like a pretty good fit.  So yeah, just view this acquisition like your standard pair of billion dollar jeans!

Wearable computing is all the rage nowadays and the Melon headband is no exception. In only a few hours the product’s Kickstarter project has raised over $20,000. While I’m not quite convinced that having a portable EEG is necessary, it’s most definitely a new approach to monitoring yourself.

As someone with serious ADHD, the concept of measuring focus resonates deeply with me. However EEGs have been around for a long time and I’m not quite sure whether or not Melon has developed a breakthrough algorithm.

If the sleek-looking headband really does deliver what it has promised, I could see this serving as a productivity assistant. Lose focus for too long? Get an alert to put you back on track! If you want to learn more about the Melon headband project, you can check it out here on Kickstarter.

While I don’t spend much time cutting into things, it is pretty clear that thousands of people want to. I thought the pitch video (embedded below) was brilliant, primarily because they contrasted their product with the incredibly popular 3D printers that show up regularly on the site.

Be honest: don’t you want to be season walking down the street with your cool new mill! It’s so small you can literally carry it with one hand (yes, I see your jaw dropping right now). In all honesty, this is part of a much broader trend toward more robust do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping. If I had a tool shed, I’d most definitely love to throw one of these Othermills in it.

Are you into building “wearable circuits, custom guitar effects pedals, and quadcopter electronics”? If so, you can cough up $1,399 as the early birds already snatched up the $999 versions. You can read more about it here.

The person who Twitter suggested doesn’t appear to have been active for over a year, leading me to believe that Twitter is using this strictly as a re-engagement strategy. Definitely an interesting feature.

She’s not in a rush to raise funding, although there’s no doubt that she feels the pressure to do so given all the people around her that are depositing major investments. The business started as a side project. It was a business intelligence tool. Not the world’s most sexy product. Techcrunch isn’t covering her product every day, if at all. Most people won’t ever hear of the company. That doesn’t matter though, people are paying.

Is she changing the world in a major way? Most Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, media, and investors will say “no.” However there’s a world outside of Silicon Valley. There’s a world where quitting one’s job to start a small business is insanity. There’s a world where doing so and succeeding makes you a leader. That world is mostly ignored from San Francisco to San Jose.

If you aren’t chasing a billion dollar dream in Silicon Valley, you may develop an inferiority complex. Yet the bootstrapper is just as crazy and clever. There’s a lot to be learned from the bootstrapper. Could the business eventually become a medium or large business? Sure. Did it start with a bunch of hype and funding? Not at all.

It started with a dream, followed on with execution, and it is mostly funded by paying customers. There’s plenty of them out there, you just won’t hear a lot about them in the venture-funded hype-fueled media.

Yet for some reason every time I personally speak with a bootstrapper, it’s a breath of fresh air. If we truly want the world to understand entrepreneurship, we need more bootstrapping stories. That’s where most on the jobs are actually created. That’s where a large percentage of the economic growth is happening.

So dream on Silicon Valley bootstrapper, you’re not alone. We need more of you!

A new product that packages information into a sexy dashboard has exploded in popularity since launching less than 24 hours ago. Right now it ranks number one in the iPad app store, but is it really that great? More importantly, why is it so popular?

The Root Cause, Why dashboards appeal to us

There are countless reasons we are attracted to dashboards:

• We are overwhelmed with information – We live in a world of information overload and anything that attempts to consolidate, simplify, and segment that information into digestible bites is desired. Examples of companies that have validated this concept: Flipboard, Tweetdeck, Mailbox, and more.
• We desire organization – It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in life. While this is a symptom of information overload, achieving balance is what we all want. However balance is effectively impossible. Anything that can helps us to organize our thoughts and compartmentalize them is desired. To-do list products, contact books, personal finance products, and calendars are examples of products people use to try and organize their lives.
• We want control – It turns out, all our attempts to organize our lives have resulted in us becoming slaves to notifications. At some point, many of our products begin to control us rather than the other way around. All the tools that supposedly make us productive bleed into others (via notifications/alerts/etc) making us feel helpless (or out of control). Taking those notifications and stuffing them in a single source, the dashboard, appears to solve that problem.

Dashboards Are Another Distraction

Attempting to consolidate all your notifications in a single place does little to solve the problem. Instead, each widget in the dashboard presents a new rabbit hole for you to fall into. In other words, it’s incredibly challenging to effectively select mission critical information. For most people, very few things are mission critical.

Seize control of your information consumption!

Segment your responsibilities at work and at home and focus on each individually. Your net output is the direct result of which information you choose to prioritize. Discipline over your information consumption is critical.

Unless the dashboard is a research tool, it will do nothing but distract you from your existing task at hand.

The Solution

Simply put, you need to choose which information you are going to digest and when. Without structure, you are falling prey to the endless passive consumption cycle. Want a more clear cut solution? Here’s your answer:

1. Turn off all notifications – They will destroy your life. Let people know that if they want to get a hold of you for an emergency, they must call or text you directly. All non-emergencies will be sent to your inbox, or elsewhere.
2. Schedule your active consumption – Prioritize that information which is most important to you. While email, calendars, and to-do lists can be productive, you need to determine when you are going to work on each.
3. Schedule time for passive consumption – A little bit of bored at work content is acceptable, but put aside time for it. Otherwise you can quickly fall down the rabbit hole of clicking on one article, then another, then the next, until your day is done.
4. Enjoy life! – Seriously, all the information noise can become a complete distraction, increasing your ADD symptoms (whether or not you have ADD, you probably have some of the symptoms).

Need further help taming your content addiction? Try out the Self Control app.

Facebook’s Algorithmic Curation

This is the theoretical holy-grail of content curation. How users interact with content determines whether or not it receives increased distribution in Facebook’s news feed. The result is a feed which moves at a steady pace yet by no means overwhelms the user. If this system truly worked, you would like the vast majority of content that’s in your feed.

User-based Curation

Twitter is the best example of this approach. Simply put, it becomes the user’s job to curate which content they are interested in. On Twitter you subscribe to hundreds (or even thousands) of other users and then click on the content that interests you. The people you subscribe to are ultimately the curators and if they do a good job, you continue to follow them.

Curating The Curators

For many people, Twitter becomes overload. Whether you’re concerned that you might miss something, or you simply don’t want to read every irrelevant tweet that someone publishes, companies are being formed to curate those who you already subscribe to. Prismatic, Nuzzle, and others are all examples of companies who are providing an algorithmic (Facebook-like) curation on top of Twitter.

Editorial + Headline Curation

For most publishers, they are aware that not everybody will want to read every article on their site. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, Huffington Post, Drudge Report, and other large publishers focus heavily on headlines. These headlines are what the audience uses to determine whether or not they want to read on. It’s similar to how Twitter works with one exception: there’s an additional level of editorial curation. The editors determine whether or not something is published. It’s then up to the audience to determine which articles they like.

Social Voting Curation

Hacker News and Reddit follow this model. Simply put, the audience of the site votes on content that they like. The more votes, the further up the front-page that content goes.

Each of these curation models have pros and cons, but for all the products in the content space, getting the approach right is critical. If you happen to be building your own content product or service, you should be thinking about which of these approaches serve your audience best.

The reality is that the success of a startup is barely related to a competitor’s moves. Instead, it’s dependent on each decision we make for our own company. How do I know this? Multiple times I’ve sat idle on an idea for years, watching hundreds of companies created all attempting to tackle the same problem in their own way. Some have been successful, others have not, all have had different approaches. In all instances, it was the company’s decisions, not the competitor’s which determined the outcome.

The paranoid, winner take all mentality, is built on the fear that somebody else is going to go out there and eat your lunch (i.e. take your business from you). It leads companies to raise excess capital. It results in small companies quitting when there’s still plenty of food left to go around. It generates paranoid CEOs.

The reality is that you just need to keep your head down and stay focused. For any small startup the competition is barely relevant.