silvia77

Question: what if you have a launched business + the trademark to the name and someone still owns and won't sell the .com URL? We own the .co and all other extentions but the .com is preferred, would you go about thr same way groupon did it in this case?

Here is a direct link to web2.0 Expo's last html email campaign http://recp.mkt41.net/servlet/MailView?m=35580090&r=NTUy... (link is a little long)

It's not spammy but it does include graphics, colors, layouts, etc. Also I could be wrong but I think using an html email gives you a more accurate open rate.

Sure some people can misuse html email's but I don't think they are all bad.

We pulled all of these localized resources from the city specific StartupDigest's we publish. Thought it would be a good idea to put them all on page and accessible outside of the email newsletter.

Would appreciate your thoughts and if you have any city specific (national + international) blogs, news sites, or resources to add leave it as a comment below.

wow.. really?

If you are targeting restaurants (if not pick a good segment, small business is huge) then I would suggest going at off hours (very early or late), going in person, and talking to the owner face to face.

Most likely if its a small business restaurant the owner will be there. Even better is buy breakfast or dinner at the restaurant.

Then when you get a chance explain the problem you are trying to solve and a brief explanation on what you are doing, with the goal of getting feedback and their opinion. Only then if the owner is interested in hearing more should you follow up with an official pitch/presentation on what you can do.

It's a hard and slow process but no one said #startuplife is easy

Never used Groupon, but you might want to try emailing/calling some of the Retailers that have used Groupon in the smaller cities and see firsthand how effective it is.

Might be hard to find a "Retail Owner" here on HN.

Second this, have had a great experience with 99 designs in the past.

I actually tried that (I thought it was that simple too) but the formatting came out all strange.

I sent a note to Posterous support, and they said that Posterous was not meant for email newsletter archives and I should not use it for that reason.

Weird but for some reason it doesn't quite work and they seem to not be focusing on that.

actually a big opportunity is to be able to take newsletter archives and turn them into blog posts. It's actually a big problem in the email world.

If you are interested in this space email me chris at thestartupdigest.com

Open rate varies a lot city to city but we see anywhere between 20%-60% opens across all of the issues.

We still use twitter/facebook to spread our blog posts, archives, etc but email is our main channel of distribution. For us we see twitter bringing ~30% of our subscribers, facebook doesn't do so well for us.

This was a post we wrote up in follow up to this HN thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488170

Gives our personal account to why email lists are so valuable and some of the metrics we collect to track this.

here is the link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1489352

just wrote a follow up piece on HN about our personal story on why email newsletters are worth so much: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1489352

In our experience, once you hit above 50k subscribers it starts to get the attention of advertisers. Also important is how long you have been doing it for, it takes time to build up trust.

There was just a HN story asking about non-developer success stories (sorry don't have the link, writing this using the HN iPhone app) this is a perfect story for that discussion.

A large % of companies were started by non-coders, and this is a good example of one. Not to say anyone can solve hard technical problems but just because you can't code doesn't mean you can't start something great.

There is nothing wrong with starting a business in a traditional industry, the most important thing is doing something you love and want to do.

Was hoping for more discussion around bootstrapping and being cheap as opposed to iPhone development.

Is there anything wrong with being cheap? My company is currently barely "ramen profitable" and being cheap is more of a necesity vs a choice.

Being able to lower your standard of living is a big part of being an entrepreneur, we all need to be able to do it at some point.

Local investors and successful entrepreneurs: the early-stage entrepreneurs in your cities need you now more than ever. We need you to take your vision, put it on the ground, and carry your city and your followers up with you.

We need you to be our heroes.

Go with your associates and assistants to local events. Their eyes and ears aren’t trained like yours to find insane talent and bigtime ideas. They can’t inspire us with their experience and insight like you can.

We need your perspective and physical presence to find the best your city has to offer and to help us bust through the brick walls that are stacked in front of us.

Give us your presence at one event each week at a bar down your street. We need your instant and honest feedback. When you’re there to give it, you will make our ideas, our companies, and your city better, faster.

To be clear, this isn’t charity work. Being on the ground floor again will remind you why you got into this business in the first place (or, maybe, why you should get out). If all you think about is dollars, I bet you’ll find companies to advise and invest in that no one else has heard about yet.

But all money aside, do you believe your city can be home to the next company to shake up the world?

If you want to make your city into a true startup hub, you need to show us your face.

You may never write a check to a local startup, but we will never forget those who shook our hand and told us what we needed to hear first, even if you reject our ideas because our market, the team, or the traction isn’t right.

This is, as David Lee said last week, “a pay-it-forward business.” If you pay one night forward to your followers, your company, and your city, each one will give more to you than you can possibly imagine.

Ron Conway is a hero to Silicon Valley. Fred Wilson is a hero to New York.

Who are the heroes of your startup community?

Amen to that. Great stuff.

Just curious, in what part of the country is this small-town startup-hub?

Every startup hub needs three heroes: an investor, an entrepreneur, and a political advocate.

Silicon Valley has 2/3 (investor and entrepreneur) and so does New York (investor and mayor).

What other cities have good combinations?

Cool. Do you know anyone there personally? Love to hear a first hand account of what's going on in that scene.

If you want, you can reach us at:

chris [dot] mccann [at] bases [dot] stanford [dot] edu

or

brendan [at] thestartupdigest [dot] com

thanks!

I agree with not feeling comfortable with introducing a facebook friend to someone else, which is why I think the premise of Thread is flawed.

But as a guy looking for a date I am looking for people outside of my own network for people who have specifically stated they are looking for someone as well. Which is why I like Plenty of Fish

Thanks for pointing this site out, I'll definitely check it out!

I would agree and say I am a very visual person. It's not necessarily that I'm looking purely based on looks but I like to see who I am talking with.

That being said with pictures you can tell much more than "skin deep" looks. For example you can see if they have friends, what things they like to do, if they like to party or not, etc. Facebook makes it pretty to get that kind of info quickly

Amazing video... I transcripted out all the great info and advice Tim and Kevin had to share, check it out http://tinyurl.com/cpaw8o

Here is a transcript and notable quotes I wrote up from all the speakers from the justin.tv video check it out http://tinyurl.com/d8tpzd

I just finished typing out a transcript of the video on justin.tv. If your interested, check it out at http://tinyurl.com/d8tpzd

This is the first comment I ever written on YC News, your story was strangely compelling. You are a very talented writer, you can really capture the emotion though your words..

I go to college too and there have been some times where I felt the same way.. The best thing to do is to get involved with something you are interested in and meet people through there. Use events or activities as a medium to get closer to interesting people, its one thing that has really worked for me.

People are naturally social creatures, its probably hard but force yourself to go out and meet people. The best way to start a conversation is just to say hi. Yea you will probably get rejected by 90% of the people you meet but keep at it and the 10% will more than make up for all of those failures.

Also if you want to talk feel free to email me at chris.r.mccann [at] gmail.com I'd be happy to talk