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.
Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category
Message To President Obama
Saturday, March 6th, 2010WebSpy Soho Giveaway
Thursday, 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.
What should Jason do for the 50th episode?
Thursday, February 18th, 2010The title says it all; we want to make the 50th episode special, for one we are taking the show on the road to San Francisco the epicenter for tech startups and plan on having a venue that can hold a large number of people. In the past while on the road normal segments like “Ask Jason” and “Shark Tank” have proved difficult. So we have been throwing around a couple ideas:
- Have a mega guest, interview and live Q&A (who do you think qualifies as a mega guest?)
- Have a round table of past epic show guests (who would you include as the 5-6 epic guests?)
- Have a Bonus (show) after hours poker game with guests chatting about tech news and how it fits in with business. (Would head-to-head play between different guest be interesting and have Jason bouncing around chatting between tables or would a table full of different guest be fun?)
All of these we have been throwing around but we would like to hear your ideas and don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Please add your ideas to the comments.
6 Months Later With Vivolve
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Who remembers the first two companies to pitch on “Jason’s Shark Tank”? That’s right Emotify and Vivolve, I reached out to John Theriault of Vivolve to see how things were going. For those of you who don’t remember Vivolve is basically LinkedIn for teens. Allowing teens to create a bunch of mini profiles that link together to paint a picture. In addition to academics, athletics and jobs, they can create a volunteer service profile, as well as profiles for all of their arts (visual and performing) and music interests. All of this trains them to be aware of how and what is important in the job world.
Below are 3 sections to get an idea of what a profile looks like:
Q&A:
Please catch me up, what has happened since your call in?
As you know, I was given a great opportunity to pitch Vivolve.com on TWIST’s very first Jason Shark Tank episode. At the time, we were still in the final stages before launch. Immediately after the show, I got several contacts from viewers of that episode and was able to make some great business contacts. Our appearance got us invited to pitch at an event in Phoenix.
In late October, Vivolve.com was able to launch into beta mode with some very early success. With virtually no budget, and a word of mouth marketing campaign only, the site has been able to garner many thousands of unique visitors, 100k plus hits and hundreds of actual signups. Our average page view count (4.5) and bounce rate average (under 50%) has been better than expected for what we have to work with.
How do you verify the recruiter’s legitimacy?
When a recruiter registers with the site, we call their organization to verify they are who they say they are and they are tasked with recruiting. This is just one level of security we offer our registrants.
What has been the hardest thing for you to date, since launch?
Like any startup, we have faced some challenges thus far. The biggest is trying to get momentum operating on a shoestring budget. We have a number of marketing initiatives identified that should give us a big bang for our buck, but like everything, those take money. A second big thing has been trying to respond to feedback, especially design suggestions, and implementing those changes on the fly. We have been given very good feedback by some very successful people and have tried to follow it. The unexpected work, however, always seems to push other things back with a small team.
What kind of feedback has the site gotten since launch?
The overwhelming amount of feedback has been off the charts complimentary. The idea/concept has been stamped with a unanimous thumbs up. A tool for teens to help them gain exposure to opportunities after high school is pretty much a no-brainer. Some of our messaging needed to undergo a facelift to better highlight our benefits and those updates are still a work in progress and forthcoming soon. All in all, we have had a huge amount of eyeballs (teens, coaches, educators and parents) give us a stamp of approval.
Are you looking for more funding?
We are absolutely looking for an angel investor or two to help get us to the next level. We are prepared to offer a generous amount of equity if we get a generous amount of capital. Since the site is built out already, and we manage our own hosting etc, a large part of the next dollars we bring in would be for marketing purposes. This marketing, we feel, will get us very quickly to first revenues so we never have to look back. A target for capital right now is in the 150k to 500k range.
How can the TWiST community help?
I would like to thank Jason again for the opportunity to introduce Vivolve.com on his show. As I said earlier, we are in a very different stage right now than August, that being a live site and not just a concept in the making. Besides a capital infusion, any PR from the TWIST community would be great PR. Whether it’s on their blogs or websites, Twitter and Facebook mentions and even telling their family and friends that are teens to register. We are truly trying do our part in helping our nation’s future leaders get exposed to opportunities that they otherwise might never have gotten. I guess we are just looking for that big break like so many others have gotten, and hopefully the TWIST family can give us that next big push!
TwistShirts
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Last week we learned of Charles Goffnett and his “Insights From Tyler” inspired T-shirts. If you want a T-shirt, Charles has been busy and within a couple days has launched his new site TwistShirts.
Which is your favorite?
- It’s like Japanese Jazz
- Like A Wheelchair at Disney
- Like Sneakers at a Funeral
- Like Betting Against The Mayans
Calling all female CEOs and Founders!!!
Monday, February 8th, 2010Jason would like to reach out to the women in tech for a guest appearance on TWiST. Our thoughts have focused on bringing in someone who has either raise a venture capital round, has a site in the top 1,000 on Quantcast or a notable product, etc. While impossible for us to know everyone, we would like some suggestions. Who would you like to see on TWiST?
Please leave your suggestions in the comments
This Week In Android: New Addition
Thursday, February 4th, 2010I’m happy to announce another “Superfan” has gained employment with the ThisWeekIn network at This Week in Android as the sites blogger. How many of you remember Max Salmeron’s call in TWiST #34? Max, the youngest caller to date (15 years old), wanted to learn about how to become a blogger and was interested in Jason’s life experience in tech. Through a couple Twitter DM’s and some follow-up we found his work interesting and thought he might be a fit. Please welcome Max to the community.
You can find more of Max’s work here:
Message to Arthur Shlujjburger (Sulzberger) of NYT.com
Monday, February 1st, 2010Jason recently had a message to Arthur Sulzberger, Chairman of The New York Times, don’t be beholden to Steve Jobs and the whims of Apple. If you value the demographics and data of your subscribers and want to create a relationship with them, you will lose that ability, it will be gone. Not to mention the control you give them, take a look at the music industry, who steers that ship? Apple, Amazon MP3, Walmart?
Thank you Kahlil Lechelt (Superfan) for the clip.
You Know You’re a TWiST Superfan if…
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
The question of “What is a TWiST Superfan?” came up and I thought why not ask the Superfans. I think in order to qualify as a “TWiST Superfan” I think the bold statements are mandatory and identify with two or more additional statements qualifies you.
You Know You’re a TWiST Superfan if …
- …you know the sponsors without even thinking (Thank You @DNAMail, @Ustream, @WebSpy, @PowerVPS, @Bing).
- …you are known in the live chat room.
- …Jason has mentioned your name in show more than once.
- …you remember the Deadpool.
- …you can name all the intro songs in order.
- …you won a Mahalo mug.
- …@dnamail @dnamail @dnamail everybody loves @dnamail.
- …you’ve listened to more than one episode in a day.
- …you knew Jason was joking about the iPad.
- …you know Brian Alvey has a comic site.
- …if you use your USB wireless connection on your MAC so you can get full reception of TWIST while driving.
- …you’ve created a TWiST related website.
- …you got off the Bitch Train.
- …you have written a review.
- …you have multiple comments on this blog.
- …you watch TWiST live instead of going to happy hour.
- …you can finish “Like a wheelchair at _________”.
- …#TWiST is your number one saved Twitter search.
- …you’ve submitted a clip/post to Hacker News Y Combinator about the show.
- …you watch the shows over and over.
- …you know the full version of “Insights from Tyler”.
- …you’ve clipped and posted a TWiST video.
- …you have called in to “Ask Jason” or “Jason’s Shark Tank”.
- …you have been RT by @Jason.
- …you have Friday planned out.
- …you anxiously await the download each week.
- …you have seen all the episodes.
- …you know the cue when Jason is about to plug Bing.
- …all you think about at work is past episodes and starting your own company.
- …you find yourself pricing one of those Withings / WiFi scales.
- …you’ve downloaded Kanye West’s Good Life from iTunes.
- …you listen back to all of the shows to get all the lessons.
- …you thank the sponsors spontaneously during the week in between the shows.
- …you find yourself with a problem and start thinking, what would Jason do.
- …you go to Disney in a wheelchair to skip the Bitch train.
- …a Withings scale shows up in your Blippy account.
- …your mother knows who @Jason is and she tells you to get off the bitch train
Please keep the list going in the comments.
Thank you JT Keller (a Superfan) for the graphic
Jason’s Message to YouTube
Monday, January 25th, 2010During TWiST #37 Jason had a suggestion for the folks at Google/YouTube. He believes to go along with YouTubes latest news of adding movie content they should purchase the rights of Sundance movies that don’t get picked up. This does two things it provides exposure for the directors, so they will continue to create interesting content and it teaches people to go to YouTube for movies.
Do you agree or disagree and why?
Thank you Kahlil Lechelt for the clip.
