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23 Accelerators Give Their Best Tips on Getting In

Love ’em or hate ’em, accelerators are popping up all over the country. The best ones offer mentorship, business development, and access to connections founders just wouldn’t have on their own.

But, getting into an accelerator can often be difficult. The process is simple enough, but what is it that really puts a team above the competition? What are accelerators looking for when they sift through all the applications for their newest cohorts?

Well, wonder no more! We asked some of the top accelerators everywhere else for their #1 tip for standing out in the crowd. Check out what they have to say:

TechStars Austin

Be concise in your application and communication. Toil over every word, the more you can remove the better, but also realize that buzz words contain zero information content. Don’t try to be impressive, just try to be understandable and you’ll stand out.

Jason Seats, Managing Director, @seats

Start Co, Memphis

We look for diverse, fierce, coachable, and execution oriented teams first and foremost . . . that is 95% of our selection process. And it should be a team. While we have taken a couple in the past, being a solo founder is a negative selection criteria.

Eric Mathews, Co-founder, @ecmathews

Velocity Indiana, Inc

The tongue and cheek is Cash. And to make sure you follow the instructions. The real answer would be to make sure you express passionate enthusiasm for your idea.

Tony Schy, Managing Director, @tschy

Gigtank, Chattanooga, TN

“Convince us that you’ll be able to close sales or establish pilot projects during GIGTANK with customers in a rapidly growing market.”

Mike Bradshaw, Executive Director, @MikeBinChatt

TechStars, Boulder

Be different so you get noticed!

Nicole Glaros, Managing Director, @nglaros

AlphaLab, Pittsburgh

Be focused and specific. Don’t talk in generalities or use a lot of buzzwords or catch phrases. Be specific about the market problem you’re solving (and tell it from the customer point of view). Be specific in describing your solution (or proposed solution) and why it’s truly unique. Be focused in describing how you’ll acquire customers and market your product. But don’t mistake “specific” to mean “lots and lots of detail” – clarity and focus are still critical.

Jim Jen, Executive Director, @jimcjen

Amplify.la

“Think big and solve a problem that’s worth solving and wear your passion on your sleeve.”

Paul Bricault, Co-founder, @pbricault

Jumpstart Foundry, Nashville

“I suggest that candidates network their way through our mentors. They are all naturally predisposed to root for startup founders and are clearly listed on the JSF website. If you can’t sell them on your concept then you will have an even harder time with real customers.”

Vic Gatto, Founder & CEO, @Vic_Gatto

UpTech, Cincinnati

My advice… have a sincere passion for what you are doing. Not only will your passion get investors excited about your idea but it will get you through the gut wrenching moments of being an entrepreneur.

Amanda Greenwell, Program Manager, @GlamHippie

Launchpad LA

Get a strong referral from a founder we’ve already funded.

Sam Teller, Managing Director, @samteller

NMotion, Lincoln

Demonstrate your passion for the problem you’re trying to solve and show us that you’re the team that can solve it. At NMotion we’re looking for teams that know why you’re applying to an accelerator beyond capital. Teams that demonstrate an ability to work hard, experiment, and take advantage of the connections, community, and curriculum an accelerator brings usually rank high on our list.

Brian Ardinger, Managing Director, @ardinger

VentureSpur, Oklahoma City

If you want to give yourself the best chance of acceptance, spend some time reviewing the program and mentors on our website, including our focus areas and blog – and have a coherent reason why your startup needs to leverage our accelerator to grow quickly and how you’d make effective use of the resources provided. Startup teams that do this put themselves ahead of the pack!

Kraettli Lawrence Epperson, Managing Director & Co-founder, @klepperson

TechStars Boston

Demonstrate you have a team that can learn quickly and cares.

Katie Rae, Managing Director, @ktrae

FlashStarts, Cleveland

Demonstrate the ability to iterate rapidly. Our application process is iterative. Apply and we will provide feedback. Respond and we will provide more feedback. On day in May we will cut a $25,000 check and accept you into our Summer Program. Continue the process throughout the summer and we might cut a $250,000 check (follow-on funding amounts vary. In 2013 the amount ranged form $0 to $300,000).

Charles Stack, Founder/CEO, @cstack

LaunchHouse, Cleveland

The number 1 tip for being accepted into LaunchHouse Accelerator is having industry expertise, consistent customer development, and the team to execute.

Todd Goldstein, CEO, @ToddGoldstein

Straight Shot, Omaha

The most important thing to be able to demonstrate is how the founding team is uniquely qualified to solve the problem their business aims to address. Being able to connect a founding team’s personal and professional experiences with the market that’s being pursues is a great indicator of the ability to execute and generate the momentum necessary to quickly grow and scale.

David Arnold, Managing Director, @David_M_Arnold

TechStars Chicago

Pro Tip to help you get into Techstars Chicago: Be able to demonstrate an ability to execute and iterate a ton in a short amount of time. We love teams that are smart, open minded, coachable and can out execute the competition. Submit your application early, add updates as you make progress and gain learnings and execute, execute, execute!!

Troy Henikoff, Managing Director, @TroyHenikoff

SeedSumo, College Station

Prove you move quickly – if your team is strong and concept is solid, the last thing we look for is movement. Are you testing things already? Prove it to us. The ball should already be rolling…fast.

Bryan Bulte, Managing Director, @bultebryan

SURGE, Houston

My #1 tip for entrepreneurs: Clear demonstration of commitment. SURGE’s entire business model is designed so that everyone – investors, mentors, sponsors – is aligned with the same goals as our entrepreneurs. We are 100% committed to entrepreneurs and they come first in everything that we do. We believe in entrepreneurs having skin in the game. We do. We are the largest investors in SURGE and our entrepreneurs. We expect our founders to reciprocate and be 100% focused on the business they are pitching to us. If they are not, we know that customers will not buy. Investors will not invest. Thus, breaking our entire model. We don’t want part-time or hobbyist entrepreneurs. We want the real deal.

Kirk Coburn, Founder/Managing Director, @kirkcoburn

Impact Engine, Chicago

Passionate entrepreneurs that are ACTION oriented.

Chuck Templeton, Managing Director, @ctemp

Healthbox, Boston

“Be candid about your areas for improvement – we are here to help, mentor, build, guide and connect!”

Ateet Adhikari, @health_box

Dreamit Ventures, Austin

I’d say to include a video pitch (not a 20-min demo recorded at another event, but a quick elevator pitch about the company and a bit about each team member). Doesn’t require high production value – phone is fine. Better to see team members talking than one of those cartoons with an automated voice reading a script. It’s not the most important thing (obviously the fundamentals of the team/business matter most) – but it’s unique and effective,

Kerry Rupp, CEO, @kerry_rupp

gener8tor, Madison, WI

Demonstrate traction. The marketplace doesn’t lie—tell us about your customers, users and revenue.

Troy Vosseller, Co-founder, @troyvosseller

Everywhere Else is Back and Coming to Tennessee

It’s been months in the making, but we’re finally ready to announce:

Everywhere Else Tennessee is back!

That’s right: 3 days of startup excitement is heading to the historic downtown Memphis April 30th – May 2nd!

From our speakers and our sponsors to our Startup Avenue alumni and all of you, watching the Everywhere Else community grow over the past year has been nothing short of incredible.

You have taught us so much since our inaugural event in Memphis, and with the help of your feedback and support, we know this is going to be our best yet!
We’ve kept all the things that made you fall in love with our Everywhere Else events in the first place, but we know you’re going to love the changes, too.

Don’t fix what’s not broken:

World Class Speakers–At our past events, we’ve had some of the the world’s top entrepreneurs and investors grace our stages and connect with our community including the likes of:

Joe Medved, Partner at Softbank Capital
Scott Case, Founding CTO of Priceline.com
Andrew Warner, Founder of Mixergy
Wil Schroter, Founder & CEO of Fundable
Dave Knox, Co-founder of The Brandery
Bill Harris, Former CEO of Paypal & Intuit
and many, many more.

At Everywhere Else Tennessee, you can expect the same caliber of speakers. We’ll be announcing the 25+ speaker line up over the upcoming weeks. Let just say it’s so good, even we’re a little giddy.

Meaningful Connections–The Everywhere Else conferences have always been great places to make real connections with both the community and our speakers. You’ve actually told us this is one of the main reasons our events are so special.
Besides our daily programming, we’re throwing 3 amazing parties, where you’ll be able to connect with other entrepreneurs, investors, and speakers from all over the country.

Affordable–There are a lot of good startup conferences out there. And you’re free to sell your kidney to attend them, too.
Everywhere Else continues to provide the same quality of content and connections, but we’re doing it at a much lower price so we can provide access to entrepreneurs at all stages of the journey.

Where we’re stepping it up:

Southern Flair: I speak from experience when I say there’s nowhere like the South, y’all! We’ll be shining a spotlight on the Memphis startup scene and the entire South throughout the conference.
We’re celebrating the best Memphis has to offer, including trips to some historic Memphis nightlife spots and sweet BBQ, plenty of BBQ.

Quality Over Quantity: Our last two conferences were big! That was lots of fun, but this time around we want to really focus on facilitating quality connections that will help you move the needle.

No more convention centers for us. 409 South Main is in the heart of the historic South Main Art District and right on the trolley line. It’s wood-y and creaky in all the ways old buildings should be. You’re gonna love it!

We’ll only be releasing 400 tickets total this go round (1/3 of what we did last year) and it’s guaranteed to sell out!

Startup Avenue: We’ve had our Startup Avenue before, of course, with over 100 startups participating to date, but in 2014 we’re focusing our efforts on highlighting only the best startups in the country.
Not to say our previous alumni haven’t been amazing. They’ve gone on to raise over a combined $10m this year alone!

Now startups will apply for a table, and we’ll select only the most promising ones to showcase at Everywhere Else Tennessee. Startup Avenue startups will also have the opportunity to pitch our investor panel for a chance to win the title of Heavyweight Startup Champion of Everywhere Else.

Think your startup has what it takes? Check out the full details and apply here!

Your first shot at tickets!

Early adopter tickets are $150, and they’re on sale right now! We had an amazing response from our newsletter subscribers yesterday. These tickets are going fast, and we only have a limited number. Don’t be left out!

Reserve Your Spot Now ->

Don’t worry though if you do miss out. We’re only releasing a few early adopter tickets, but there will be more chances to participate. This is what pricing will look like for our 3 day conference:

$150 – limited number of “early adopter” tickets
$225 – regular ticket price
$300 – “laggards” tickets
$400 – day of tickets

Love for our amazing partners

We’ve been very fortunate to have the support of some awesome organizations that truly are the ones that make this possible. We use each and everyone of their services and could not recommend them any higher.

Please help us say thank you by checking each one of them out, sending them a tweet or just saying hi at the conference.

Many more announcements here soon to come!

It’s still not too late for your organization or company to become a partner as well, please shoot Nick a quick email at Nick@nibletz.com for more details.

10 Largest Canadian Startup Financings in 2013 Aggregate over $500M

There’s a little known secret about our friends to the north.

Canada is quickly becoming a startup powerhouse.

In 2013, the top 10 largest VC rounds added up to over $500 million. Canadian investors definitely participated in most of the biggest rounds, but investors from the States are getting in on the action, too.

In fact, US-based investors dominated the two biggest rounds. Hootsuite’s Series B ($165 million) attracted Accel Partners and Insight Venture Partners. Shopify’s Series C ($100 million) brought in Bessemer Venture Partners, Felicis Ventures, FirstMark Capital, and Insight Venture Partners. Messaging app Kik also brought in big name investors for its $19.5 million Series B: Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, RRE Ventures.

What’s also interesting is that benchmark that some of these rounds brought the companies to.

That Series B for Hootsuite was larger than all funding into the social media monitoring vertical between the second quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013. And Shopify’s Series C made it one of those mythical unicorns: the $1 billion company. Other startups in that club? Airbnb, Uber, Pinterest, and Box, just to name a few.

Like a lot of places outside Silicon Valley, Canada doesn’t have one industry it’s pushing in. The startups with the most financing ranged from ecommerce platforms to me

ssaging apps to biofuel companies. With such a wide area to cover, there’s obviously lots of room for different technologies and industries in Canada. What’s impressive is how much money overall the different verticals are raising.

So, what’s going on in the frozen north? We’ve talked about some exciting new startups based up there, too. But, when we think Canada, we don’t often think “startups.”

Is 2014 the year that changes? Check out the chart from CB Insights below and tell us what you think.

32 Most Influential Investors of 2013 (Outside Silicon Valley)

Investors. We love to talk about them, to watch what they’re doing, to know who they’re talking to. Even for startups choosing to bootstrap, investors can often have a lot of influence in the way you think about markets and ideas.

But, who should you listen to?

To help you figure that out, we made a list of the most influential investors to watch in 2014. With so many out there, we had a few criteria we used to decide who to include:

Outside of Silicon Valley. Obviously, Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else! While we pay close attention to lots of Valley investors, like Paul Graham and Dave McClure, this list is specifically for investors who choose to live/invest everywhere else.
We looked at CB Insights’ most active investor list from 2013.
We considered the founders of active funds that are creating some buzz in the investing world.
Personal brand. A lot of investors are active on Twitter or blog regularly. We took into account how each investor’s personal brand is growing.

Lists like these are always subjective, of course, but these are the investors we’ll be watching in 2014. (And you should, too!)

Alexis Ohanian–@alexisohanian

Co-founder of Reddit and New York based investor Alexis Ohanian is a prolific angel investor. His investments include Couple, Teespring, Crowdtilt, and Hubspot.

Andy Dunn–@dunn

Andy Dunn is the co-founder and CEO of Bonobos and Red Swan. He’s based in New York, and his investments include Birchbox, Coinbase, Warby Parker, TaskRabbit, and Hailo.

Andy Weissman–@aweissman

Andy Weissman is also a partner at New York’s Union Square Ventures. He’s also the founder and COO of Betaworks. His investments include Twitter, Path, Codecademy, Bit.ly, Tweetdeck, Tumblr, and StockTwits.

Andy White–@leanstarter

As a Partner in the Vegas Tech Fund, Andy White lives and breathes Las Vegas. His investments show that: BoomStartup, DropShip, AngelList, and 500 Startups, among others.

Bijan Sabet–@bijan

Based in Boston, Bijan Sabet is another blogging VC with good industry knowledge. He’s the founder of Spark Capital, and his investments include Foursquare, OMGPOP, Tumblr, Twitter, and Runkeeper.

Brad Feld–@bfeld

If you’ve been around the startup space for a minute, you’ve heard of Brad Feld. He literally wrote the book(s) on startup culture. Based in Boulder, his investments include Makerbot, Fitbit, Zynga, Mile High Organics, and Yesware.

Brad Keywell–@bradkeywell

As the cofounder and director of Groupon, Brad Keywell has been around the Chicago scene for awhile. As a cofounder and managing partner of Lightbank, he continues to invest in the area. His investments include Udemy, Zaarly, Boomerang, and Benchprep.

Charlie O’Donnell–@ceonyc

Charlie O’Donnell is a New York based investor at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. He blogs at This is Going to Be Big. His investments include GroupMe, Refinery29, editorially, and Chloe + Isabel

Chris Hollod–@chrishollod

LA-based Chris Hollod manages A-Grade Investments, theVC fund Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, and Ron Burkle. His major investments include Foursquare, Uber, Zaarly, Warby Parker, Chegg, Flipboard, and Dwolla.

Chris Sacca–@sacca

Chris Sacca spends his time in Truckee, CA, where he’s the Managing Director of Lowercase Capital. He’s a prolific investor, but some of the big names include Uber, Kickstarter, Turntable.fm, Instagram, Path, Charbeat, and Facebook.

David Cohen–@davidcohen

As a founder/CEO of Techstars, David Cohen is well known for championing startups everywhere else. He’s also a blogging VC. A few of his investments include Twilio, Uber, Bondsie, and GroupMe.

David Tisch–@davetisch

David Tisch is former Techstars director, and he now helps run and invests through the Box Group. His diverse investments include Fab.com, ID.me, Boxee, IFTTT, AngelList, Kitchensurfing, and Skillshare.

Eric Hippeau–@erichippeau

Eric Hippeau was once the CEO of The Huffington Post. Now the New York-based investor is a partner at Lerer Ventures. His investments include Buzzfeed, Yahoo, The Huffington Post, and PandoMedia.

Fred Wilson–@fredwilson

With his daily blogging about all things in the industry, it’s a no-brainer that Fred Wilson would land high on the list. Wilson is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures in New York. His portfolio includes Twitter, Zynga, Etsy and Disqus.

Greg Bettinelli–@gregbettinelli

Greg Bettinelli is a venture partner at LA’s Upfront Ventures. He’s also the cofounder of the MuckerLab accelerator and has worked in leadership at eBay, StubHub, and HauteLook. His investments include Foodzie, Chromatik, and Trunk Club.

Izhar Armony–@izhararmony

General Partner at Boston-based Charles River Venture, Izhar Armony has also had some big hits. He invested in Twitter and Yammer. His portfolio also includes Zynga, Zendesk, and Qualcomm.

Jeff Bussgang–@bussgang

Jeff Bussgang is a cofounder of UPromise and literally wrote the book on VC (Mastering the VC Game). The Boston/New York-based investor has invested in oneforty, Simple Tuition, Crashlytics, and SavingStar, among others.

Joanne Wilson–@thegothamgal

The wife of Fred Wilson is a businesswoman and investor in her own right. Like her husband, she regularly blogs about startup life. Her angel investments include Daily Worth, Kitchensurfing, littleBits, LE TOTE, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Lover.ly

Joe Medved–@joevc

Joe Medved is a partner at Softbank Capital and an adviser at the Brandery. He also gave one of the most informative talks at Everywhere Else Cincinnati in October. Joe’s investments include Rap Genius, Thumb, CrowdTwist, and FlightCar,

Jonathon Perrelli–@perrelli

Another fan favorite at Everywhere Else Cincinnati, Jonathon Perrelli is an active investor in the DC Tech scene. His investments through Fortify VC include Introhive, Social Tables, Fleksy, and The Trip Tribe.

Jonathon Triest–@jtriest

Detroit-based Ludlow Ventures is “angel and seed stage investing without the ego.” As the Managing Partner, Jonathon Triest’s investments include uBeam, EatSprig, Chalkfly, and AngelList.

Josh Kopleman–@joshk

While Josh Kopelman is technically in the Valley, First Round Capital has offices in New York and Philadelphia, and they’ve been so influential in seed stage investing, we couldn’t leave them out. Kopelman’s investments include LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Path, and Mint.

Josh Linkner–@joshlinkner

Josh Linkner is the author of the book Disciplined Dreaming and the founder of Detroit Venture Partners. He blogs here. His investments include Miso Media, Stylecaster, UpTo, and Quikly.

Lee Hower–@leehower

Once on the founding team at LinkedIn, Lee Hower is now the cofounder and partner at Next View Ventures. He also blogs regularly about what he sees happening in the industry. Based in Boston, his investments include Swipely, Goodsie, thredUP, and Crunched.

Mark Hasebroock–@dundeevc

Mark Hasebroock was another awesome speaker at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. As a member of the Dundee Venture Capital team, he’s invested in Graphicly, TripleSeat Software, and MindMixer.

Mark Suster–@msuster

Mark Suster is well-known in the startup world for his blunt take on everything, but as an entrepreneur-turned-VC, he’s seen a lot. He shares his opinions and wisdom at his blog, Both Sides of the Table. His investments include Treehouse, awe.sm, MakeSpace, and DealMaker Media.

Michael Arrington–@arrington

The TechCrunch founder now blogs at Uncrunched and invests from Seattle and the Valley. His many years in the industry has made him an astute and vocal fixture. Arrington’s investments include PandoMedia, Zaarly, Couple, and Codecademy.

Mike Brown, Jr–@mikebrownjr

New York-based Mike Brown Jr is a General Partner at Bowery Capital. His investments include Codecademy, Newscred, About.me, Bit.ly, and Betaworks.

Mo Koyfman–@mokoyfman

Mo Koyfman is a General Partner at New York’s Spark Capital. His investments include Skillshare, Warby Parker, Kitchensurfing, Aviary, and FundersClub.

Nitesh Banta–@nbanta

Nitesh Banta is an investor at General Catalyst Partners and the founder of Rough Draft Ventures. Based in Boston, some of his investments include Airbnb, Hubspot, KAYAK, Warby Parker, and Thumb.

Shari Redstone

Shari Redston is the cofounder and managing partner of Advanceit Capital. She was a media executive and currently holds the Vice Chair positions on the boards of Viacom and CBS. Advancit Capital has invested in Skift, Oyster, Bottlenose, and Newscred.

Steve Case–@stevecase

The co-founder of AOL is now a regular startup champion and investor. He founded his VC firm, Revolution. His investments include Zipcar, Runkeeper, Uber Media, and LivingSocial.

Calling All Pot Startups: A Venture Fund Just for You

It’s been a week since recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado. After years of lobbying, an historic vote in 2012, and a year of haggling over the details, weed enthusiasts lined up to ring in the new year at the new retail stores. Iraq War veteran Sean Azziriti bought the first bag.

A whole new (legal) industry, with the expectation of almost unlimited growth in the coming years as more states legalize…sounds like the perfect scenario for startups.

That’s what High Times Magazine thinks, too.

The 40-year-old magazine is a staple in toker culture. Besides the print magazine and website, the company also hosts the Cannabis Cup in cities across the United States and Amsterdam. Even during the hottest years of the war on drugs, High Times published issues and continued to host events.

And now they’re supporting startups.

The High Times Growth Fund will raise money to “invest in compelling businesses across all areas of the rapidly growing domestic cannabis market.” The HTG Fund is looking to raise $100 million and wants invest $2-5 million in each company.

“What we are looking to do is provide capital and credit to companies that are established and have grown and reached their potential as much as they can without access to traditional capital markets,” fund managing director Michael Safir told the Denver Post.

He went on to say that fund will consider growers, but the main focus will be on ancillary companies.

“If you are running a cannabis business, you aren’t getting (a Small Business Administration) loan, you don’t have bank accounts,” he said. “It’s hard to grow when you don’t have the tools.”

While the HGT Fund will operate like a venture fund, there are other organizations handling the angel side of things. The Arcview Group operates an angel network for accredited investors to invest in cannabis startups. They estimate the industry growing by 64% in 2014, and that’s without mass legalization at the state level.

All the buzz around marijuana this week tends to forget one thing, though. It’s still against federal law to grow, possess, or smoke it. While it’s assumed federal authorities will turn a blind eye to users and companies within states that have legalized, no one really knows for sure yet. That kind of instability may make it difficult for some investors to take the risk right now.

Of course, more and more Americans are in favor of legalization, making it seem inevitable. Perhaps this is the perfect time to get in the business.

The “Must-Attend Conference for Entrepreneurs” Everywhere Else Tennessee is headed back to Memphis this Spring. We’re releasing the first 50 tickets for 50% off exclusively to our newsletter subscribers on Jan 13th. Don’t miss your shot by signing up here!

What You Can Learn About PR from Dave McClure

Agree or disagree with him all you want, Dave McClure knows how to make a scene. He’s notorious for speaking his mind and saying what everyone else is thinking, but no one else will say.

Last night, Dave posted the tweet above to reach out to women founders for the Women 2.0 PITCH event. Women 2.0 CEO Shaherose Charania replied to his tweet with a laugh and a <3.

Soon after Dave’s tweet, though, New York investor Sarah Kunst replied:

Regardless of who you think is right and wrong in this situation, we can all learn a lot from the way Dave McClure handled the it.

Engage your critics

It would have been easy for Dave to ignore Sarah’s tweet. Or at least acknowledged it and gone about his evening. As a big investor in women, unsexy, and startups everywhere else, McClure hardly needs to justify his own thoughts on women in tech.

Instead, he spent most of the night talking to and retweeting his harshest critics. One woman he retweeted said she had lost respect for him and 500 Startups.

Now, personal attacks are one thing, but calling out the company is another. Again, it would have been easy for Dave to ignore or dismiss this tweet about his accelerator, which had nothing to do with his personal Twitter account. Instead, he gave his critic a platform and announced to all his followers that the 500 Startups brand was being doubted.

Throughout the evening, Dave asked questions and tried to understand the criticism. I don’t know of anyone who thinks he’s sexist, but he quickly admitted that if he offended one woman, he might very well have chosen his words incorrectly.

Which leads us to the next lesson:

‘Fess up and try to fix it

Immediately, Dave admitted that he could have been wrong. He explained what he meant, but he listened to the people criticizing him and learned from how they felt. After a couple of hours of this, he tweeted:

Same heart, different words. After understanding the problem, Dave didn’t try to defend himself or stand his ground. He changed his wording so that the most women would hear the message.

He ‘fessed up and tried to fix it. (Here’s looking at you, Snapchat.)

The other lesson learned from Dave McClure about good PR? A little controversy goes a long way. You all know about the Women 2.0 PITCH event now, don’t you.

5 Hacks to Get the Most Value Out of College

Peter Thiel says “…what important truth do very few people agree with you on? To a first approximation, the correct answer is going to be a secret. Secrets are unpopular or unconventional truths. So if you come up with a good answer, that’s your secret.”

His point about secrets is that secrets are keys that can lead to successful ventures. Secrets are non-obvious truths that few other people see until they are introduced to them.

I’ve shared secrets about learning how to walk, how to get through a breakup, how to be a movie guru, and how I became a bestselling writer.

College is a big secret everyone is talking about. The trend right now is for rich guys to diss college. Peter Thiel is renowned for paying kids $100,000 not to attend college. A lot of other people, like my friend James Altucher, have written about how college is a scam.

At what price does college become “worth it”? It can be argued that it may never be worth it – you pay more money in than you can ever get back and end up in a black-hole-of-no-return. This is what happens to most people, but there is another way. In this post series, I will share my secret to hacking college.

College is a bet.

College is a bet. You are betting 5 years of your life and hundreds of thousands of dollars on an outcome that occurs after those 5 years. You need to have an expected outcome in order to know how much to bet. Five years is a lot of time, and you shouldn’t bet 5 years and all that money on something that will not propel you forward.

The real question is one of cost versus value.

Benjamin Graham said and Buffett popularized: “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”

Graham is popular for inventing value investing: buying things intrinsically undervalued, which limits risk and improves probability of reward. The challenge with value investing is finding undervalued things – because these are non-obvious and hidden.

What if you had a formula that helped you find the secret value in college so you could graduate debt-free with many job offers? Kind of like value investing in your education?

Use the scam to your advantage; hack the system, and you can give yourself the best chance for success. This is how Buffett invests, how Thiel advises and how Altucher has rebuilt himself too many times – by following a value-based formula.

Don’t be okay getting scammed.

Most people get scammed by college because they are comfortable getting scammed by college. When you went to college how many of your friends said “I’m totally getting scammed right now”? None of them.

Instead, they said “Where can I get the cheapest slice of pizza tonight because I am literally dead broke paying my life savings to an institution that doesn’t guarantee I’ll have a way of earning it back when I graduate and I have a final exam tomorrow in Georgian Literature so I’ll see you later.”

On the other hand, I graduated with no student loan debt and a full time job where all the money came straight back to me and not to student loans. My first job taught me the lessons in an industry that I then used to build my own business.

The financial freedom I gained allowed me to take more risks. I quit jobs and traveled the world more than once. I started trading from a home office when I was 22. I paid cash for my cars and never made a single car payment. I wasn’t wealthy, but I was free, and I’ve always lived below my means, enabling more freedom.

I almost got scammed by college but I figured it out just in time.

Let’s look at the numbers:

2013 average college loan debt: $35,200 (and we all know people with much more)
Average starting salary of 2013′s graduating class: $44,928 (after tax and 401K your take home is ~$30,596)
US Gov’t Student Loan Interest Rate: up from 3.4-3.9%
Average graduate salaries: down 5.4% in 2013
Average Annual Tuition: up 5.4%
Tution and living costs at Harvard: $64,954/year
Tuition and living costs at University of Illinois: $29,594-$48,896/year
Tuition and living costs at #1 ranked Walla Walla Community College: $11,415-$17,976/year

At these prices, education is a major cost. If you attended University of Ilinois with in-state tuition you pay $30K/year. The average student graduates in 5 years, not 4, total cost is $150,000 + you have to remove the money you could have made if you were in a job for 5 years. Let’s call that $30,000/year for a whopping total college cost of $300,000 over 5 years. Wow. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for in-state cost of going to college.

There’s got to be a way to hack that.

How to Hack College Rule #1:

Reduce the amount of time you spend in college. This will reduce room & board and tuition. If you went to the University of Illinois in-state for 3 years instead of 5 you’d save about $60,000.

SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!

If you attend Harvard, I just saved you $130K. If the average graduate finishes with $35K in debt, they could wipe out the debt and have $25K extra in their pocket.

The way to reduce your time in college is by cramming in more hours per semester. I was taking over 21 credit hours per semester. Next, you attend school year round. No summer jobs, no internships. Finish fast.

When you graduate with a degree in a trade, you don’t have to worry about interning anywhere. People will give you job offers all over the place. Take lots of hours each term and go to school year round. This will make you finish college up to 2 years early.

How to Hack College Rule #2:

What really matters to people is the focus of your degree and where you graduated, not where you went to school all 5 years.

When was the last time someone asked you “Well, I see you graduated from Stanford but where did you go the other 4 years?” Never. No one cares. Start your education going to a less expensive school, finish your prerequisites, and if you must go somewhere that “looks better” on your resume, transfer there for the last few terms so you can get the degree from that school.

Is it risky? Not as risky as spending $130K on two years of basic college courses and frat parties. When you transfer into your graduating school, finish as fast as you can to limit the expense. Go somewhere inexpensive the first 2 years, live at home if you have to, and save the extra cost of living and tuition expenses. Many schools look favorably towards transfer students and make it easy for students to transfer in.

I spoke to Christine Mascolo, Harvard’s Director of Transfer Admissions. Harvard looks favorably on transfer students. They look for students with a sincere, concentrated focus combined with other interests outside the classroom showing how they can contribute to the community while pursuing their academic passions. Though Harvard only accepts a small number of transfer students per year, transferring into a good school is not only possible, but a solid option that can save you a ton of money.

How To Hack college Rule #3:

You may love Georgian Literature, but you have to study a trade in college. Georgian Literature is essentially useless. No one will pay you for your review of Defoe. A trade is anything that trains you for a specific type of career after college: finance, accounting, programming, engineering, environmental geology, law, medicine, nursing, etc. These majors will get you a job after college, and your grades hardly matter.

I don’t care if you say “but I’m passionate about Georgian Literature.” Study academics as a minor. Your job at college is to learn how to create value or prepare to get a job after college: minimize cost and maximize return.

A friend just graduated from University of Colorado with his bachelor’s in computer science and his first job is a programmer at Apple making over $100,000. He had multiple job offers in several cities. His future is set for life. Win.

Another friend graduated from University of Colorado with an English degree. She moved back to her parents’ house in Maine and is working at a restaurant as a server. This is after 5 years out-of-state tuition + living expenses totaling around $125,000 + financial aid. I’m sure she’s academically enriched, but she’s in the financial and opportunistic hole. Loss.

How To Hack College Rule #4:

Be entrepreneurial by learning how to help people. You are around a totally unique demographic. Facebook started as a college-based product. Would Facebook have ever started if not for its founder attending college?

It’s a great market. What do these people need? Be creative, and start something on your own. Maybe it will grow and make you wealthy, maybe not, but it will teach you real keys to success. Go to the entrepreneurship center at your college.

I was the Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship while in graduate school at the University of Oregon. Not only did that fellowship pay for my graduate business education, I also worked with aspiring entrepreneurs and founded a company through a relationship that began there.

The secret of real education is learning how to create value. If you can do that, you will be secure and free for life. Most of college is like tourism: fun experience but it’s all about YOU. This is not the way the world works. No one cares about your mind opening experience. They care what you can do for them. You have to learn how to help people: you must learn how to create value.

Another friend of mine is a lifeguard in San Diego. She started a jewelry company in college and people love it, but she doesn’t see the opportunity. I beg her to focus on her business over her job. Here’s why:

She is young – No family, no rent, no overhead
She has customers – Lots of customers! Stores want to carry her products and the products sell. Everyone in business would kill for this problem. Give your customers what they want! If they want to buy, you sell!
It’s scalable – At her “job” she is stuck making an hourly wage. No matter what, she can only make that wage. Her jewelry income is theoretically unlimited: if she markets herself more she could get into big stores and create a million dollar company very quickly. Look at what Sara Blakely did with Spanx or what Charlie Chanaratsopon did with his concept Charming Charlie.
It’s dependable – She won’t fire herself.
It creates value – It brings pleasure to lots of people and I personally love it.
It’s valuable – If she stuck with it she could sell the company in a couple years for a lot of money and never have to work again. Then she could go surf in Fiji and be a lifeguard for fun rather than as a slave.
It’s a real education – She’ll learn more about building something than school can teach; she could skip school.

When you are in college it’s a great time to start a business. You have facilities, a customer demographic, time to experiment, and limited overhead.

How To Hack College Rule #5:

Limit your expenses. This includes tuition, but also rent and other living expenses. With my little company I was paying rent with enough left to eat at Tipu’s Tiger and drink Chai Lattes at Second Thoughts a few times each week.

I bought a VW bus with summer job money (before I knew enough to go to school year round) for about $3,500 and had no car payments. I traveled and lived in it on weekends so I didn’t have any camp site fees or hotel fees and my friends LOVED traveling all over the West Coast in my house on wheels (it had red chili pepper lights inside; we looked like a glowing red spaceship zooming down the highway). I was going through college fast, earning money, learning valuable business skills, and still having fun.

Thiel’s definition is that secrets are about value – something you know that others don’t see, but can help a lot of people. His interest as an investor is of course to create a return on the secrets of the founders he invests in.

If you compress your college career into fewer years, start at the least expensive school and transfer, study a trade, be entrepreneurial, and limit your expenses, you will save at least $50,000. You will graduate with more job opportunities and more years of income. You could probably make $100-$200K additional income in those extra years.

What would you do with $50,000 extra, or more, in your life? Before you go to college, you should think about this. If you follow this advice I’d love to have dinner and hear your story. I’ll even pick up the dinner tab.

Kevin Faul’s background is in finance. He loves being in the mountains and on the ocean, and he likes to build – furniture & ideas. Follow him on instagram @kevinfaul or twitter @kcfaul. Or just email him kcfaul [at] gmail [dot] com.

11 Startups Outside Silicon Valley to Watch in 2014

Year-end lists were all over the Internet in the last week. Hot companies, trends, IPOs, cat videos…if it was put on the Internet this year, there was a list for it.

Except, we couldn’t find one specifically focused on startups outside of Silicon Valley. Well, that’s obviously a problem, because while the Valley has a lot going on, there are plenty of great startups kicking ass everywhere else.

So, we took at look at our Mattermark account* to find our favorite startups outside of Silicon Valley. Founded by Danielle and Kevin Morrill and Andy Sparks, Mattermark is a startup itself, but they are quickly becoming a trusted source of information for investors looking for deals.

With 5 content companies on the list, it looks like 2014 will be the year that content really becomes king. Two companies in the top 11 are specifically focused on helping brands market on Pinterest, and the buzz they’re generating may indicate there’s a big market for their services.

A word about our methodolgy: we specifically focused on startups outside Silicon Valley (obviously). We also focused primarily companies in the Seed and Series A stages of funding.

upworthy2

1. Upworthy is king of the buzz.

Upworthy gets so much attention, it’s almost hard to believe they’re not even 2 years old yet. The headline-focused content site focuses on “things that matter,” which means putting linkbait-y headlines on articles of importance so they’ll be shared more. Love ’em or hate ’em, Upworthy is probably the most buzzed-about early stage startup outside of Silicon Valley.

2. Teespring crowdfunds custom apparel.

Boston-based Teespring provides a platform to create and sell custom t-shirts without the upfront costs. It works like any other crowdfunding platform: put your t-shirt design up, determine your sales goal, and customers are only charged if the shirts are actually printed.

3.Tailwind leads the way in Pinterest marketing.

We were super pumped to see our content partner Tailwind make an appearance in our Mattermark search. The New York and Oklahoma based company helps brands and marketers use Pinterest to the fullest. Make sure to check out their posts on social media marketing here at Nibletz and more on their blog.

4. Prefundia lets you see Kickstarter projects before they’re kickstarted.

One of the most common pieces of crowdfunding advice is to already know who you’re first funders will be. Essentially, you need to create buzz before the project even goes live. Prefundia helps build that buzz by letting creators post their projects and get feedback before they launch.

5. Twenty20.com brings your Instagram pictures off your phone and into real life.

Formerly Instacanvas, Santa Monica-based Twenty20.com allows mobile photographers to sell their pictures in online galleries. The 2-year-old company is already well-known among Instagram photographers, and the recent rebranding seeks to make the whole experience even better.

6. Spring.me proves that we’re not through with new social networks.

LA-based Spring.me is a social community based on interests. The unique thing about Spring.me is that, unlike other social networks, they’ve stated right from the beginning that sponsors and advertisers will also be incorporated into the community. The year old company isn’t Snapchat, but number 6 on our list ain’t too shabby.

7. Written.com helps engage your customers.

Austin startup Written helps content marketers and bloggers to build audience and authority. They facilitate content licensing, syndication, and sponsored content. In a world where every startup needs to have content, it’s no wonder Written is getting a lot of buzz.

8. Jobzella is a career mega mall.

Cairo-based Jobzella puts all your job-seeking needs into one place, from skills classes to resume writing to actually seeking a job. They are still in beta and only recently closed their seed round, but it could be a big year for Jobzella.

9. RapidMiner gives customers an edge with data mining.

Boston startup RapidMiner provides software and services that allows businesses to optimize their data through predictive analytics, data mining, and text mining. The company is a little older than the others on the list, but their recent $5 million Series A hints that they are working on some bigger stuff.

10. COINTERRA proves Bitcoin is going mainstream.

Austin-based COINTERRA is a “semiconductor engineering company.” They are designing cryptocurrency processors and systems on the bet that Bitcoin is going big. Considering the buzz around Bitcoin, it’s not surprising to see a Bitcoin company in the top 10 of our list.

11. Ahalogy is cracking the Pinterest code for big brands.

Cincinnati-based Ahalogy helps companies market content, specifically on Pinterest. Their algorithms and data tools help “crack the code” to visual content marketing, starting with Pinterest.

*Mattermark uses a propietary algorithm to determine individual scores for each company. While these companies ranked high in the Mattermark app, this list was also subject to our editorial decisions and is not a pure reflection of Mattermark’s rankings.

Starting Up in 2013: Lessons Learned

Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of 2 part series from entrepreneur Matt Goldman. Read part on the great lessons from 2013 tomorrow.

This year has been a whirlwind.

Diving headfirst into the SaaS world is a roller coaster ride like no other, a constant fluctuation of peaks and valleys, mini successes and epic failures. And, when all is said and done, an invaluable string of lessons to carry on to the next ride.

This year Joelle (my girlfriend/business partner) and I have made the life-changing leap from 9-to-5ers to full-time entrepreneurs.

We’ve grown a little audience of our own, talked to our heroes, learned from our peers, launched a product…and then another one, met some amazing people, and perhaps most important of all, discovered a new lifestyle we didn’t think was possible before.And in doing so we’ve naturally made a ton of mistakes along the way.

While we’ve written plenty about micro-lessons we’ve learned throughout the year, here are some of the bigger ones we’ve learned. My hope is that there are a few nuggets in here you can take with you on your next trip around the track.

Product Takes a Long-Ass Time. Plan Accordingly.

We started in March, whipped up two landing pages, and got to work building out some ideas. Surely, we’d launch the products within a few months, and then make a ton of money, right?

Wrong. This was what actually happened:

April 8: Minimalytics Teaser Page
April 29: HookFeed Teaser Page
August 21: First Minimalytics Beta Tester
**HookFeed pivoted to focus entirely on Stripe Notifications in a Live Stream
October 24: First HookFeed Beta Tester
**HookFeed pivoted to focus on Stripe Email Alerts and Daily/Weekly Summaries
December 17: HookFeed Launched

So it’s been just over 9 months and we’ve only “launched” one of our products. Minimalytics is still in beta and needs significant development before it’s ready for prime-time. We overcomplicated things and are working on returning to our Minimal promise

Even though we’ve launched HookFeed to the public now, it will take several months before it is generating anywhere near enough revenue to cover two salaries entirely.

Luckily, we started with a longer runway than we thought we needed. You should set aside cash to fund at least 1 year to become profitable.

If you’re one of the folks who thinks you’ll have a profitable product in a few months (I sure did), then this bit is important. Listen up:

Your product will not make as much as you think, as soon as you think. Be ready for that.

We Spread Ourselves Thin

Nearly every experienced entrepreneur we’ve Skyped with has ended our conversation with, “Why the hell are you building two products? Focus on one.”

Every time we heard this advice, we said, “Yeah, Yeah…I guess it’s just a lesson we need to learn on our own. We want both products for ourselves, so we’re going to build both.”

Many great things have come of building two products at once (which I’ll touch on in a bit), but it has also increased our time to market on both products, increased our cash-burned, and slowed our learnings/pivots.

That being said, if I could press rewind and go back to March, I’d do it all the same. However, I would have paid more attention to the feedback we were getting from people smarter than us.

Juggling two products is really hard. Marketing two products and building one-at-a-time is much more attainable.

We Let Client Work Steal Our Focus

Although we started with the dream of never working for anyone again, whether they were a boss or a number of clients…I was approached by a retail chain seeking an overhaul of their various websites.

When Joelle came to work with me, we realized we could use an extension to our runway, and we signed a 4-month contract to rebuild their entire web presence. Luckily, I had just read Brennan’s book and ventured out of my comfort zone to charge about 5x what I would have normally charged. They accepted, and ended up being a great client. Our contract ended in July, but we made the decision to stay onboard for monthly work.

Up until July, we were spending about half of our time on client work, and that was enough to nearly derail our product efforts. Since then, we’ve been able to balance the two much better.

Our advice for product people taking client work:

Don’t turn it away if it’s a good deal. Run if it’s a bad deal.
Charge 3-5x what you normally do. Read Brennan’s book.
Don’t bill hourly. Bill daily, weekly, monthly, or preferably per project.
Group client hours together so you can spend chunks of time building and marketing your product(s).

We Had No Sense of Urgency

When you have a long runway, and don’t fully understand how much time/effort it takes to get a successful software product off the ground, it’s easy to squander valuable time.

That’s not to say that you should be spending every waking hour on your work, but rather that the hours you dedicate to work (which can be reasonable) need to be fully devoted to work.

We’re making changes starting this week, and actually setting working hours (gasp!). When you leave a full-time job and discover the freedom of working solo, you tend to resist any process that you dealt with at your prior job. One of those is set working hours.

In the past, I would wake up around 5-6am and “work” until about midnight. But throughout the day, I would go out for food, go visit Tiny Factory and chat it up, play the occasional video game, or go on cleaning sprees to avoid exerting any effort on the not-so-fun bits of work.

In the future, I’ll still be waking around 5am, but focusing harder and actually working during my brightest time of the day. Then working out, then eating lunch, then back to work, stopping no later than 6pm.

More of an effort will go towards writing and coding the tough stuff in the early morning, and handling the lighter tasks in the afternoon. Possibly over a beer.

I wasn’t sure how this would feel, but I tried it yesterday and it was amazing. Having no burden at 6pm sent a few questions through my head, “What books could I read?” “What should I cook for Joelle?” “Who should we hang out with this week?”

All good things that got neglected over the past year.

We Spent too Much Time Together

When you live and work with your girlfriend, you see a lot of one another. We’re pretty used to this since we actually met at work at our last job. But it still takes its toll.

We’ve found that we are each most productive when we’re alone, and even better, out of the house.

My most productive time is:

At my desk writing/coding between 5am and 8am
At a coffee/beer shop in the afternoon

I’ve also noticed a 10x increase in Joelle’s output when she gets out of the house.

We’re making an effort daily to get out and away from each other now. Not just for productivity reasons, but also so that our time spent together is more valuable/appreciated.

It’s easy to fizzle the sparks that flew when you were first dating someone. Especially when most of the day you treat each other like business partners. It takes only a little extra effort to avoid this default, and return to the days of snuggles and sunset cuddles.

We Let Our Health Suffer

We’re both in relatively good shape, but during busy times this year, we let workouts take a back seat to work — and our health surely suffered.

I’m much worse than Joelle in this regard. She has run triathlons and been competitive her whole life. I have always avoided competitive sports and although I love the feeling after working out, I avoid it like the plague.

If you have a partner/team, encourage each other to workout and stay healthy year-round. The impact is incredible.

I’m Matt Goldman. I’m building HookFeed and Minimalytics. Also writing a book about how to build a SaaS rocketship with my partner Joelle and Michael Sacca.

*A version of this post was originally posted on Medium.

Ghost Announces Launch of “Just a Blogging Platform”

On December 23 London-based Ghost announced the opening of their hosted blogging platform to the public.

Back in April, Ghost CEO John O’Nolan launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a new blogging platform. They reached their goal in 12 hours and ended up raising $300,ooo during the 30 day campaign. (We’ll call it a crowdfunding success.)

O’Nolan and development lead Hannah Wolfe got to work, and in October they launched the platform.

So, what is Ghost, and why do we need another blogging platform, exactly?

According to O’Nolan, who was a former WordPress employee, most blogging platforms have gotten away from their original purpose: publishing. In the quest to optimize for every kind of content, systems like WordPress are confusing and difficult to use. They interrupt the flow of a writer’s work and make it harder to do the things many writers already struggle with (like inserting graphics).

Ghost isn’t like that. With a two-column presentation, you can type in the markdown column and see how it looks in the preview column as you go. The dashboard is gorgeous and allows you to see all the analytics that matter to you in one place. “Free. Open. Simple.” it says on the Ghost about page.

The blogging platform released in October, and hosts like Rackspace soon had plugins that made it easy-ish to get up and running. But, the team at Ghost wanted it to be even simpler, and behind the scenes they were working on a Ghost hosting platform that will make the whole process of getting a blog on the Internet super simple.

Last week saw the public release of that hosting platform as a premium service.

Wait…premium? Didn’t the website say it was “free”?

So, here’s the interesting thing about Ghost: they’re a nonprofit. They don’t have millions in the bank, and they aren’t taking investor meetings. They don’t plan to exit and profit in the billion dollar range. They’re just building a blogging platform.

(I know, it’s shocking. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay.)

The Ghost team will use proceeds from the hosting platform to fund the rest of the project. And, in return, users get a simple system that makes blogging easy again.

“Do we want to make millions and sell to Facebook? Or do we want to make something that’s genuinely good and serves its users, not its investors and shareholders,” O’Nolan says in the Kickstarter video.

However, while they claim to focused on users, it’s only possible to type your posts in markdown, making it more developer-user friendly than writer-user friendly. And, as far as I can see, they don’t offer a cheat sheet for those of us that aren’t familiar with writing in markdown.

Still, that’s an easy fix, if they choose to make it. The platform is beautiful, and Ghost will be a fun project to watch in 2014. The future of big journalism may be unknown, but the fate of bloggers looks pretty good.

Paul Graham, The Information, And The Era of New Media

Well, there’s nothing like a little controversy to wrap up a year.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know all about the recent shitstorm over Paul Graham and his interview with The Information. For those of you blissfully under your rock, here’s the rundown:

First, The Information posted the edited transcript of an interview staff writer Eric Newcomer did with Graham.
Then, Valleywag published a story full of indignation and accusations about Graham being sexist.
Twitter exploded with the rage of angry, tweeting feminists.
There were a few posts over the weekend dissecting the whole issue. Here’s ours, and here’s one we love from Fred Wilson.
Today, first Graham then Lessin wrote their own responses to the controversy and to each other.

This whole issue has been centered on whether or not tech is a sexist industry. Age-ism and sexism have been debated again and again, which is awesome. Hopefully the dialogue will actually get us somewhere.

Another focal point of the story is the state of modern journalism. Portions of both Graham’s and Lessin’s posts address this issue and provide the perfect example of the era of new media.

Graham’s Post

Graham says that the context for the interview was to get comments on a feature about his wife, Jessica Livingston. In his view, this misunderstanding led him to respond differently. “In a conversation you stop explaining as soon as the other person’s facial expression shows they understand. In an interview…you don’t have that real-time feedback, so you have to explain everything completely,” he wrote.

Two statements, according to Graham, were especially affected by the interview/conversation distinction. First, he takes issue with the fact that The Information edited out the word “these” from this commentt:

We can’t make “these” women look at the world through hacker eyes and start Facebook because they haven’t been hacking for the past 10 years.

Graham says that he meant a subset of women–specifically women who aren’t already programmers. That sentence was in response to a question about whether YC should train its women founders to be hackers.

“We” doesn’t refer to society; it refers to Y Combinator. And the women I’m talking about are not women in general, but would-be founders who are not hackers.

I didn’t say women can’t be taught to be hackers. I said YC can’t do it in 3 months.

The second comment, and the one that Graham says bothers him the most, is the idea that programmers have to start young or they won’t be successful. He explains it like this:

I was explaining the distinction between a CS major and a hacker, but taken in isolation it sounds like I’m saying you can’t be good at programming unless you start as a kid. I don’t think that In fact, I err on the side of late binding for everything, including metiers. What I was talking about here is the idea that to do something well, you have to be interested in it for its own sake, not just because you had to pick something as a major.

Lessin’s Post

After Graham posted his view, The Information editor-in-chief Jessica Lessin responded on her personal blog. The Information is a new subscription publication that is seeking to reach tech professionals. It’s only a few weeks old, but Lessin spent 8 years covering tech and Silicon Valley for the Wall Street Journal, so she’s no newbie.

The upshot of Lessin’s rebuttal is that they did in fact originally interview Graham for a feature on his wife. However, the interview ended up covering so many topics that they later decided to publish the whole thing on its own. According to Lessin, they got permission from both Graham and his PR person and provided them with a transcript, which they ok’d.

She defended The Information’s policy like this:

On the record discussions with journalists are exactly that: on the record, meaning the material may be published. It is very common to use parts of older interviews in related stories, sidebars or even stories in the future…The Information will always go a step further and follow up and let you know when we plan to use the on-the-record comments.

The Era of New Media

“On-the-record” means “on-the-record,” and it always has. The practice of using quotes in other stories–and even out of context, intentionally or not–is as old as journalism.

The problem, of course, is that journalism has changed dramatically. In the age of Twitter, any one sentence can be pulled out of a greater conversation, skewed a little, and then find its way around the world. And, just like ugly rumors in high school, the truth rarely proves so viral.

Graham found that out with his whole women hacker thing. He felt the sentence was taken out of context and the meaning completely changed by the exclusion of “these.” Whether it makes that much of a difference or not, Graham received a lot of backlash for an opinion he doesn’t hold.

No one has really found an answer to this yet, and, because this new era also thrives on pageviews, plenty of publications don’t really care about the problem.

As for Nibletz, there are a few things sources can always expect from us:

If you tell us “off-the-record,” you will never see your comments in the pages of our site.
When we plan to publish a story that spins off the reason for an original interview, we’ll let you know.
If we make a mistake or misquote, we will update the story with a correction and a note pointing out the mistake.

Ultimately, we strive to be the voice of startups everywhere else. As humans, we’ll make mistakes, but we’ll always attempt to report with integrity and honesty.

Paul Graham learned, again, that nothing we say is safe, even when honest journalists work hard to get quotes right. Social media and the pageview game have changed the industry too much.

Needless to say, 2014 should be an interesting year.

Paul Graham & Sexism: Just One More Distraction From Real Work

Last night I came across a flurry of furious women tweeting about Valleywag’s article on Paul Graham: Paul Graham Says Women “Haven’t Been Hacking For The Past 10 Years.” The article takes apart a recent interview of Graham done by The Information.

While I fully get the the “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” thing, I just have to say there’s really not much here to be pissed about.

13-year-old girls are scary

The first thing Valleywag writer Nitasha Tiku takes issue with is this quote:

If someone was going to be really good at programming they would have found it on their own. Then if you go look at the bios of successful founders this is invariably the case, they were all hacking on computers at age 13. What that means is the problem is 10 years upstream of us. If we really wanted to fix this problem, what we would have to do is not encourage women to start startups now.

It’s already too late. What we should be doing is somehow changing the middle school computer science curriculum or something like that. God knows what you would do to get 13 year old girls interested in computers. I would have to stop and think about that.

Well, frankly, isn’t that what we’re always screaming about–more STEM education in schools? Never mind that most students won’t be interested in STEM, so we’re just piling on more boring subjects for already bored teenagers to ignore. (Buy me a drink sometime, and I’ll give you my full rant on education.)

Graham was just stating the same thing plenty of other people have: if we want to increase the number of women in tech, we should probably focus on the next generation.

As for the the “God knows what you would do to get a 13 year old girls interested in computers” comment, well, God probably does know. Look, it’s silly to get angry at the fact that a 49 year old guy doesn’t understand 13 year old girls. I don’t understand teenage girls, and it wasn’t that long ago that I was one.

Seriously, for the most part, getting teenage girls interested in anything isn’t easy. Are there exceptions, even in computer science? Yes, thank goodness, and those are the girls we need to be encouraging every day. Not the ones we force to sit in computer classes they hate.

Age-ism is the bigger issue here.

Graham pointed out that most great hackers have been doing it for 10 years or more. Again, that’s just true, if we assume the whole 10,000 hours thing. There’s no point in getting mad about it.

The problem with Graham’s logic isn’t that he assumes there aren’t women hackers who have been doing it for 10 years. It’s that he assumes 23 is the prime age to start up. Yes, the biggest outlier success stories of our generation are people who started companies in their early 20s, but they’re just that–outliers.

The average age for entrepreneurs in high growth industries is actually 40. So, theoretically, a woman–or anyone else–who started programming at 21 could get in her/his 10 years and still have 9 years to go before they hit the average entrepreneurship age. That’s great news for those of us who didn’t have the wisdom during puberty (ha!) to choose our career path.

Even so, I’m not eviscerating Graham for this assumption, and here’s why:

There are better things to do.

Is Paul Graham sexist, age-ist, or racist? Probably not, but it sure makes for great media fodder when he says something that can be twisted to sound that way.

Graham didn’t say women can’t be hackers, but if he had, he would be wrong. So what? If you’re a founder and you quit because you think Paul Graham says your gender/age/nationality excludes you, then you frankly wouldn’t have succeeded anyway.

In the eternal wisdom of one of my mentors, “Founders gotta be foundin’.”

In other words, we all have businesses to start. It’s far more productive (and profitable) for us to actually start those businesses than to worry about what some tech gossip blog says about one of the most successful investors in the country. We each have enough obstacles to overcome that it’s just stupid to continue to invent new ones that won’t actually affect our daily business.

If Graham looks you in the eye and tells you your business sucks, you should probably listen. If the blogosphere tells you he thinks women don’t hack, it’s probably safe to shrug your shoulders and get back to work.

Founder Spotlight: Joe Huff of LSTN Headphones

Joe is the co-founder and director of positivity at LSTN Headphones. In 2010, he left his position as co-founder and CEO of Ramp Logistics to start a new social cause: This Shirt Helps. Since then, his experience and passion both revolve around social enterprise and making the world a better place. Both LSTN and This Shirt Helps were designed to harness the power of consumer purchases and make a positive difference while engaging and empowering. Follow him @joehuffLA.

Who is your hero?

There’s really no one person I would call hero. I’ve been and continue to be inspired by many things and people and by life in general!

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Don’t be afraid to make decisions and don’t be afraid of failure. You can’t really succeed without making LOTS of mistakes along the way unless you’re incredibly lucky. Not making a decision is much worse than making the wrong decision most of the time because you become paralyzed. It’s important to be decisive and then adapt if your original plan doesn’t work out. That’s the beauty of failure — it’s the breeding ground for new and better ideas. And even when you fall on your face, your still moving forward.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

The biggest mistake I have made was becoming too caught up and emotionally invested in a product instead of the result we were trying to achieve. It’s really important to take a serious step back now and then to just look at what you’re doing and be honest about whether or not it’s working toward your main objective. In the past there have been times where we waited too long to pivot or weren’t focused on the right part of our business. We were pouring all of our time into a certain product or part of the business that we loved but that just wasn’t performing. It’s really important to make sure what you’re focused on is really achieving your true end goal.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I’m a morning person. I use the first hour in the AM to set the tone for the day. Whether it’s a morning hike or coffee and emails, I get all of my thoughts together and prioritize everything in that first hour so I have a game plan. If possible, I try and knock a couple things off the list right away so I have a feeling of accomplishment early on. That way I’ve got something to build off of or fall back on if things go sideways.

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Don’t be afraid to take on debt, financing or investment when possible if necessary. Fifty percent of $10M is much better than 100 percent of $0.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Take a look at who you spend your personal and professional time with. If they don’t inspire you, make the changes necessary to surround yourself with as many inspiring people as you can as often as possible. “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future” is a quote I live by!

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

My version of success is simple. I think when we die, the only thing that will have mattered is what we did to make the world a better place. So success to me is when you know you’re trying to make a difference, you’re inspiring others to do the same and you’re happy because of it. Luckily, I feel pretty successful already just because I realized that early on.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Chicago Startup Retrofit Raises A Series B To Make Us Healthier

There are quite a few fitness startups cropping up.

Apps like RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal monitor your exercise or diet. Sites like Daily Burn offer subscription access to fitness classes. And, of course, there’s wearable tech. Fitbit, Fuelband, and Atlas are just a few examples of the tech you can wear to monitor activity levels.

Chicago-based Retrofit aims to take weight loss to the corporate level, offering employees of large companies like Google and Salesforce.com discounted rates to try the program. Retrofit incorporates some of the startups mentioned above, specifically Fitbit, as well as one-on-one coaching sessions with a dietitian, exercise physiologist, and behavior coach.

There are plenty of weight loss programs that focus on corporate clients. Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig both have corporate arms and years of brand recognition. So, what makes Retrofit any different?

According to the Retrofit team: results.

In their first 12 month “cohort,” more than 90% of participants lost significant weight. The average weight loss was almost 20 pounds, which equals a 9% of overall body weight.

On the heels of that success, Retrofit announced a $5 million Series B on Friday. The round is led by Cambia Health Solutions, but includes participation from previous investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson. This announcement brings Retrofit’s total funds raised to $15 million.

“Retrofit is thrilled to announce additional venture funding from Cambia Health Solutions and DFJ,” Retrofit CEO Jeff Hyman said in a statement. “These two companies prioritize investments based on creating value through the innovative use of technology.”

It’s true that tech and wellness are seeing some interesting mergers these days. Data mania is growing, and everyone wants to be able to measure success. I find Retrofit particularly interesting because it merges that data (through Fitbit) with real human interaction. The digital coaching sessions can help make sense of the data and create actionable plans for improvement. By putting the program in a corporate environment, participants might also have the built-in support system of colleagues going through the same experience.

However, like any fitness program, there are some other things to consider.

For one thing, most of the participants were male. Most weight loss programs are marketed to and used by women, so this is a huge win for Retrofit. It also skews the results a little bit, because men lose weight faster than women.

Second, the true success of weight loss doesn’t come at the end of the program. It comes a year or two later, when participants are still at their goal weight. Let’s face it. For most people, the actual losing weight isn’t very hard, especially if you have the right program, support, and motivation all aligned. The real challenge is keeping the weight off so you’re not in a yo-yo of weight loss and gain.

To be fair, most of Retrofit’s clients lost the majority of the weight in the first 6 months and spent the next 6 months maintaining and losing a little more. The year-long program (as opposed to a few months) could carry huge benefits on the road to weight maintenance.

With a successful trial run behind them, and an infusion of cash, Retrofit has plenty of time to continue to improve it’s product. While the company is targeting corporate clients, you don’t have to work for a big company to utilize the service. Check out Retrofit here for more info.