This site will no longer be updated folks. Find all the latest This Week in Startups news and shows at thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/

See you all on the new site!

Podcast (video): Play in new window | Download

Podcast (audio-only): Play in new window | Download

Jason’s guest this week was David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Railsand partner at 37signals.  This show will go down as one of the epic shows, two great entrepreneurs both with often what appeared to be differing opinions but similar in many way.  You’ll have to watch to understand that comment, not to mention 2 great insights from Tyler “he’s back!”.

Insight From Tyler, “Going out for drinks and not going back to her place”

00:05 Ask Jason, Angela Benton (Black Web 2.0) calls in to ask, Do you think the Weblogs, Inc model will work today, in a specific vertical or niche?

00:18 It’s all about solving pain points

00:23 Jason’s Shark Tank, Devrim Yasar calls in to pitch Kodingen, a cloud development environment

Insight From Tyler, “Homeless Hotty At A Hip Hop Club” you’ll have to watch to understand

00:47 Interview, How David got started in tech.

He Got his first computer at 6 years old, his friends became programmers and he had no interest in C++

His first interest was in gaming and he ran a gaming review site (1997) about the upcoming launch of Quake 3

He worked an incubator in Denmark but quickly realized it wasn’t working which led to an interesting discussion about Europe vs the US and that in Europe you are accountable for VC money.

00:50 David isn’t a swing for the fences guy he believes in singles and base hits as a way to run your company

Jason shares his progression from the base hit approach to swinging for the fences through his three companies

Freemium vs premium discussion (Facebook vs 37signals)

David is not a believer in getting eyeballs = money

00:56 David believes market share doesn’t matter it’s all about profit

If offered an absurd amount of money he wouldn’t sell 37signals, he enjoys the work

01:02 David thinks that you should be working on your best idea at any given time

It’s all about profit not revenue
01:06 How “the exit” has changed the game

01:10 How the system is set up to benefit the entrepreneurs

Build a profitable business

Money taken from (Jeff Bezos) went to the founders and wasn’t to grow the company

01:14 David’s delusion’s of granger

01:16 David would not trade 37signals for Salesforce

David may believe in an older form of capitalism

01:22 News with Mike Bracco

• Google Vs Viacom
• Kindle App for Mac Released
• Spotify User Data Released

As you all know we are wrapping up the Bing Perfect Pitch Contest and we would like to hear from the community.  We had so many great people pitch their ideas that we are having a tough time deciding ourselves.  What pitch do you think is the winner?

Kahlil Lechelt and Ryan Wiseman launched their own podcast This Week in TWiST similar to This Week In TWiT where they chat about the week’s show today.  They focus on each segment recapping what was said and often give a bit of background story to the topic.  If I am a caller pitching Jason on Shark Tank this is a must listen to, they give really good feedback on your pitch, what they understood, what they didn’t what they would have liked to have heard.  For a first episode I give them an 8, I found them interesting I enjoyed the background stories and I liked the format, there is room for improvement and I will continue to listen each week.

Podcast (video): Play in new window | Download

Podcast (audio-only): Play in new window | Download

Today Jason had the opportunity to speak to 55 seniors at Penn State who will all be working on the University’s “Idea Pitch” contest.  All the students are part of the Information Sciences and Technology school and will be pitching their ideas to the business school.

I really liked this interview it was not your normal TWiST episode.  While it had the same sense of humor and casual tone we get to hear Jason tell his story and how he learned and what motivated him.  You can even see the passion coming through at one point where I sensed emotional satisfaction in proving the naysayers wrong.

He starts off by asking how many people want to be an entrepreneurs and who wants to be a drone worker bee (about 6%).  Throughout the interview he motivates the class and opens many eyes about work life, later in the show he asks the same question to find a very different answer.

Entrepreneur core qualities:

• Entrepreneurial parents
• Recklessness gambling personalities
• Resiliency
• Focused
• Won’t take no for an answer
• You will disproportionately be rewarded if you succeed
• Work harder
• Must believe in yourself

Questions from the class:

• Do you stir the pot on purpose (Twitter)?
• What is your relationship with your employees?
• In the early stages do you worry about intellectual property?
• Can you be someone who is an entrepreneur within a company?

Who wants to be a rice picker and who wants to be a Samari?