MusicTrainer Making Some Progress

March 10th, 2010

Brendan Miranda called in on TWiST #32 to pitch MusicTrainer a website that will teach you via video how to play different instruments.  While Brendan’s pitch wasn’t necessarily great, that can be improved, his idea Jason says is genius.  Jason and George gave great advice on how to improve and simplify his idea and even sketched up a wireframe. (recap)

I asked Brendan if he could update us on his progress and what he took away from his call in.

  • The experience with TWIST was a valuable introduction to the entrepreneur community. It has opened many doors and resources for me and the community has been supporting me with everything ranging from SEO tips, design feedback, to suggestions for my business model.
  • Being on the show has also been a great ice breaker in discussions with many people that had heard me call in.
  • Recently finished production on 20 DVD’s worth of Video Instruction.
  • The current MusicTrainer site has over 100,000 video views in the past 3 weeks.
  • Working on possible video production deals with international equipment manufacturers.
  • Site Design is almost complete just finishing up a few things. Website should soon be ready for launch. A preview can be seen here. http://bit.ly/9TLSbZ

I checked out his preview site and watched a couple videos, the production quality is very nice.  I even learned where to place my fingers in relation to the fret on an electric guitar.  Be sure to check out the instructor page I was very impressed, these guys are professional musicians who have worked with some amazing people.

I was thinking how might we help Brendan and I know the preview is incomplete but I think feedback of the current design would be beneficial.  What to you all think?  What do you like or dislike, anything you would change?

Posted in Interview | 1 Comment »

Saturday’s Guest: Tony Hsieh of Zappos

March 8th, 2010

Saturday’s guest will be Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, General Manager of Venture Frogs, coming to you live from SXSW.  Many of you already know Zappos and the amazing customer service and culture that surrounds the company but what do you know about it’s CEO?  I thought I’d focus on somethings you might not know:

  • He attended Harvard, class of 1995
  • He Co-Founded LinkExchange and sold the company to Microsoft in 1998 for $265M
  • He is a Co-Founder of Venture Frogs an incubator / investment company
  • Did you know Tony isn’t a founder of Zappos?  He was and investor and advisor in the beginning but quickly joined the Zappos team in 2000 and yes he recently sold Zappos to Amazon in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.
  • He has a book coming out soon, Delivering Happiness, release date June 7, 2010.

Some of the highlights of Delivering Happiness include:

  • Pay new employees $2000 to quit.
  • Make customer service the responsibility of the entire company, not just a department.
  • Focus on company culture as the #1 priority.
  • Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business.
  • Help employees grow both personally and professionally.
  • Seek to change the world.
  • Oh, and make money too.

Here is a few of Kevin Rose’s favorites quotes:

“It may seem sometimes like we don’t know what we’re doing. And it’s true: we don’t. That’s a bit scary, but you can take comfort in knowing that nobody else knows how to do what we’re doing either… so there are no experts in what we’re doing. Except for us: we are becoming experts as we do this.”


“The role of a manager is to remove obstacles and enable his/her direct reports to succeed. This means the best leaders are servant-leaders. They serve those they lead.”

Special thanks to Bing and Sonos and our regular sponsors DNAMail, Ustream, WebSpy and PowerVPS for bringing TWiST to SXSW.  We will have more exciting sponsors announced soon.

Details: Saturday the 13th at 2pm (Pacific), 5pm (Eastern), 10pm (London), March 14th 9am (Sydney) at the Six Lounge (117 West 4th Street Austin, TX 78701)  if you plan on attending live the first 200 in the door get two drink tickets.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charliellewellin/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

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Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment »

Message To President Obama

March 6th, 2010

Jason expresses his disappointment in President Obama’s priorities in placing health care over job creation and entrepreneurship.  He goes on to challenge President Obama to be bold and great and not to try please everyone.

Posted in Misc | 4 Comments »

TWiST #44 with Howard Morgan

March 5th, 2010

 
 
Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest this week was Howard Morgan, Co-Founder of First Round Capital and a  30 year veteran of the technology industry.  Highlights of the show this week include: biggest passes that did great, incubator programs and what they offer and who are the greatest tech. entrepreneurs of the 80s, 90s, 00s.

Announcements: next week’s show will be live from SXSW with Tony Hsieh of Zappos on Saturday the 13th at 2pm (Pacific), 5pm (Eastern), 10pm (London), March 14th 9am (Sydney)

Ask Jason

00:11 Pablo Fernandez of Hear a Blog calls in to ask, when pitching to investors do I pitch the necessary intermediate stage of the idea or the big vision idea?

00:27 Stephen Young calls in to ask, what salary range should founders be in when taking an angel investment and follows up with how do you raise your salary once you have investment?

00:35 Shark Tank

Andrew Watson calls in to pitch Othernum a virtual phone system for small businesses.

Interview with Howard Morgan

00:47 Topics:
Biggest company Howard passed on that was great
Investing in competitive companies
Location based companies
Franklin Electronic Publishers business cycle
Mint.com and how being a part of their founders network help them scale their infastructure
How First Capital supports their companies
Idealabs, why it’s successful
Greatest Entrepreneurs of the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s

01:38 News with Lon Harris

Call of Duty Lawsuit

Bing Ad on Framville

01:48:28: Microsoft gains 400,000 users by advertising on farmville.
lon’s Question: is this a way to get users or just click
Jason: Good Idea, social games are massive

01:51:28 Social game advertising is going to be a massive advertising portal, mini cooper being launched through the movie italian job.

01:51:55 Tyler gets scolded

01:52:33 Companies advertising to free samples in magazine.

01:54:00 A large percent of facebook revenue coming from social games, zynga worth more then facebook?

Microsoft’s Project Pink Phones

01:54:35 Microsoft’s Pink Phone
lon’s question: What’s the strategy for Microsoft for releasing these phones?

01:56:00 Jason: Microsoft has a legacy and needs to start from scratch and create a long lasting mobile os.

01:58:00 xbox gets complemented

Sony’s PSP Phone

01:59:21 sony to launch a playstation themed phone, maybe a competitor to ipad.
Question: will this hit a mass audience and what will they need to hit a mass audience.

02:00:00 Sony should use the google OS
02:01:00 Sony has lost it’s relevance

iPad Release Date

02:02:50 Ipad will release late april
Question: are you planning to buy an ipad?

02:03:40 Jason: yes – the ipad without the 3g may not sell as well. Maybe ipad is too expensive for a recession.
02:05:40 ipad needs a USB
02:05:50 Howard Morgan: Overpriced Kindle

02:08:00 Steve Job too controlling

02:08:15 What will happen to apple after steve jobs?
02:09:00 Howard Morgan talks about meeting steve in person.

Fiverr

02:10:51 fiverr job board for jobs worth $5

TWiST is brought to you by our generous sponsors:

Bing Logo PowerVPS Logo webspy

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Posted in Episodes | 8 Comments »

TWiST, SXSW, Tony Hsieh, 2 Drink Tickets, Does It Get Any Better?

March 3rd, 2010

Six Lounge: 117 West 4th Street Austin, TX 78701

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Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

TWiST Coming To SXSW!!!

March 2nd, 2010

SAVE THE DATE:  This Week In Startups will be live from SXSW on Saturday the 13th 4-7 pm (Central), 2-5pm (Pacific).

That’s right, 3 hours of TWiST live, we will be announcing three amazing guests, who knows who will show up unannounced.

If you are interested in sponsoring please email us at: partners@thisweekin.com

DETAILS TO FOLLOW!

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Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »

Friday’s Guest: Dr. Howard Morgan of First Round Capital

February 28th, 2010

Howard Morgan, Co-Founder of First Round Capital

Jason’s guest this week will be Dr. Howard Morgan, Co-Founder of First Round Capital, he brings 30 years of diverse experience to the interview ranging from venture capital work to teaching at some of the finest institutions in the country.  In addition, to First Round Capital he is President of Arca Group, serves on the board for Idealabs, and is Director at Intelligize and Altruik.

He has also been involved in more than 3 dozen startups and is a lead investor of Bill Gross’s Idealabs, an incubator for internet companies.  He is also an active consultant and speaker in the information space, working with companies ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies to government agencies.

Not only has he been involved in the startup community, he has a Ph.D. in Operational Research and has been a professor or associated with many institutions including: The Wharton School, The Moore School, California Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School.

If you have a question that you would like Jason to consider asking, please submit them to the comments.

When: Mar. 5th: 1pm (Pacific), 4pm (Eastern), 9pm (London), 8am (Sydney, Mar. 6th)

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Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »

TWiST #43 with Andy Smith

February 26th, 2010

 
 
Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest this week was Andy Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of DailyBurn a social networking fitness site, that allows you to track what you eat, record your workout, join a challenge and find like minded people for support in your fitness goals.  Highlights this week include an in-depth discussion concerning TechStars and worst VC experiences and the winner of the Bing Perfect Pitch Contest.

Announcements:

00:19 Ask Jason: Sean O’Connor calls in to ask, how do I research market size in preparation for investment discussions?

00:28 Initial Interview with Andy:
Andy’s experience with TechStars
What it took to get in
An explanation of the program
How the TechStars community help each other
The TechStars program application is open.

00:37 Jason’s Shark Tank: Steven Schofield calls in to pitch Fidgetstick a social network site aimed at bringing like minded adventure sport enthusiast together.

00:51 Bing Perfect Pitch Contest, congratulations goes to Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice.  Jason adds to the winnings in about 6 months Timeshare Juice and Propadoo (community choice) will come into studio to showcase their work.

00:56 Interview:

  • What’s next for DailyBurn
  • Fund Raising goals
  • Bringing the team together
  • Health issues in the US
  • VC stories (Jason and Andy’s worst experience)

01:28 News with Lon Harris:

TWiST is brought to you by our generous sponsors:

Bing Logo PowerVPS Logo webspy

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Posted in Episodes | 11 Comments »

NetDNA Saves The Day

February 25th, 2010

We have been listening and understand your frustration with regard to the download time for our shows and it looks like we have found a solution.  This Friday we will be switching over from Blip.tv to NetDNA for our iTunes feed.  We have been testing their service with This Week In Android and we think you will see a significant improvement.  You won’t need to change anything regarding your iTunes subscription just continue to download like normal.

We feel that you will be happy with the results, let us know if you run into any problems.

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Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

WebSpy Soho Giveaway

February 25th, 2010

Many of you may remember WebSpy was giving away 500 one year (full version) subscriptions of it’s new product Soho. While they perfect their product and to express their appreciation of your patience they are giving away an additional 100 subscriptions and 1 Bang & Olufsen earphone. Please check out their site for details.

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Posted in Misc | No Comments »

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