Crowdsourcing is basically asking people to help you do something. You could say barn-raising is crowdsourced construction.

Wikipedia is my favorite example of a crowdsourced knowledge base.

99 Designs is one of the bigger websites where you can crowdsource design work.

Crowdfunding is another example of sourcing money from others. Started with IndieGoGo and blew up with KickStarter. Now there’sStartSomeGood and ThrdPlace, to name a few more (because they happen to be LA companies).

And now there’s Crowdfinancing, which sources investments from the public to start companies. This is coming into play soon, with sites like Crowdfunder preparing for the big day the switch is flicked. (another LA company)

For anyone who wants to get after it, Wikinomics is supposedly a fascinating book.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of new services they offer after the new crowdfunding law passes.

The secondary market for startup equity is also growing. Last year, Private stock transaction dollars amount grew 73% on SecondMarket, only one of a few platforms that offer this sort of service.

I believe the growing interest in incubators and accelerators, crowdfunding platforms, and secondary markets signify the maturing of an investment field that has until recently been very decentralized and private.

The best way to do PR is to build relationships with these writers. This doesn’t mean bombarding them with news articles, but actually reading what they write and helping them grow as a writer.

Follow popular publications (including blogs) on Twitter that are likely to cover your company.

Search for publications that cover your industry sector, or have written about your competitors and partners.

Follow writers on Twitter who are most likely to write about your company.

Search for writers who wrote about articles that relate closely to your company (eg. If you have a nightlife mobile app, identify writers who have written articles titled “best 10 mobile apps for nightlife”). On some publications and articles, they’ll point you to the Twitter account of the writer. Otherwise, you can usually find them by googling “firstname lastname on Twitter”, maybe include the publication they write for to refine your search.

It’s good to be aware of the writer’s personal use of Twitter. Reading their profile and past tweets should give you a sense of whether or not they’re using it for professional growth.

Share articles that relate to your business on Twitter and mention the writer’s Twitter handle.

The format I usually follow is: quick comment. article title. http://link~ via @writerhandle #relevanthashtags. A quick comment means you’re adding to the conversation, rather than just spreading it. Mentioning the writer gives them credit and exposure, while also notifying them of your interest in them. Including relevant hashtags will give your company, the article, and the writer additional exposure.

If they respond, reply with a short friendly tweet.

No need to jump their bones at the first sign of correspondence. If they thank you, say “you’re welcome, we love your articles!” No need to say more.

Don’t ask for coverage, offer stories.

If you’ve read their articles and have had a few correspondences with a writer, you should feel comfortable offering them your company as a story. Don’t be pushy, say something like, “We think we have a good story. If you’d be interested in covering us, don’t hesitate to reach out!” It’s good to have a new and exciting story (product launch, super cool new feature, etc.), no writer wants to write an old story.

Be genuine and humble.

If you don’t actually read or like their articles, don’t tell them you do. This is also an exercise that should help align the focus of your business. Every time you share a story, ask yourself, “is this us?” Keep track of which articles are getting the most activity (clicks, retweets, replies) to see what types of articles your followers like most. If you listen closely, over time, you’ll get an intuitive understanding of your community beyond the scope of analytics.

Notice how we’re not asking for anything? That’s the point, you’ll get what you give.

I humbly disagree with his discontent.

I agree with his points in this post. If I were to “name” our community top down, I don’t think it would have been Silicon Beach.

However, I think you can’t ignore how the name became popular. A small group of entrepreneurs put together a Facebook group with no intention but to keep each other connected. This small group grew quickly past 500 people, and is now a place where entrepreneurs announce events, showcase their products, and ask each other questions. I believe a large portion of our entrepreneurial community today associates the name “Silicon Beach” with our collaborative and helpful community of entrepreneurs.

As a brand, I think there’s few things more exciting than your community coming up with a nickname for you on their own and wearing it like a proud badge. It’s easy to say, “hey, that’s not my brand,” but I’d like to suggest that this is an opportunity a brand should embrace.

I’m pretty sure PBR didn’t set out to be a brand for Hipsters, but when they noticed that Hipsters loved their product, they went with it. That worked out pretty well for them.

I personally think Silicon Beach is a playful name which many entrepreneurs in Los Angeles can relate to. Regardless, I think it’s great that our community is increasingly growing and bonding, and for all we know this silly nickname has something to do with it.. I also believe we can attribute a portion of our increasing press coverage to this memorable nickname.

I’m not writing this to suggest that “Silicon Beach” represents the LA startup community well, but rather to suggest an alternative viewpoint to the branding of the term.

Over time, many angels learned the risk of investing in companies that were still pre-seed. The solution, which has recently caught on like wildfire, was the incubator/accelerator model, not only providing funding, but also providing mentorship. By pooling the money from groups of investors to start the accelerator and by bringing on a large group of mentors, they’re successfully hedging the risk of investing in pre-seed startups while also increasing the success rate of those companies.

In short, the recent growth in numbers of incubators/accelerators is only partially due to the growing startup economy, but it also signifies a fundamental shift in the way pre-seed investments are made.

Entrepreneur [Inspiration + Perspiration] + Accelerators/Incubators [Money + Mentorship + Community] = Success?

Why?

Learning how to use Microsoft Word before learning how to write HTML is like learning how to use a calculator before learning how to do math.

Before learning HTML, we should be taught to use text editor, which can only create plain text files (meaning no fonts, no colors, no heading, etc.). This should be enough to start using a computer for writing.

Coincidentally, you can use text editor to make your first HTML project. It’s really simple:

1. Write something in text editor.
2. Save it with the file name ending in “.html” (eg. hello.html).
3. Open the file using your browser. (Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, etc.)

That’s it. You should see the text you typed appear in your browser.

Learning your first code is just as easy. To make something bold, add a <b> and </b> before and after the word. ”<b>hello</b> how are you?” will produce:

hello how are you?

Similarly use <i> </i> to make a word italic, and so on.

The basic HTML functions = the basic functions of Microsoft Word.

Knowing basic coding is very useful in business, regardless of whether or not you want to become a developer. Tools like WordPress, which powers over 70 million websites worldwide, are much easier to use when you know some basic HTML.

I used w3school to learn HTML, which is a simple website that’s been around for a while. I still go back to it when I need to remember a few things, mostly because their SEO rocks. There are other great resources for learning HTML, some of them text, some of them video. Some of them are geared toward people who have no desire to be developers, and others for people who want to start creating websites right away.

• Tuts+
• Don’t Fear the Internet
• HTML Dog
• Team Tree House

It’s so simple.

It was last Thursday that I put together the website for Yéiyo, and it was Friday that I sent out the press release and submitted Yéiyo to a few sites. I thought people would find these numbers interesting, and hopefully helpful.

131 Unique Visitors, 3:05 Average Time On Site

I posted about Yéiyo on my personal Facebook casually on Friday, which is where most of that spike came from. Ycombinator’s Hacker News also brought in about 10 visitors on Friday. Most of the visitors from Monday and Tuesday are from Betalist.

Betali.st brought the most visitors

By far, Betali.st sent over the most visitors. Considering the website is for people who want to find out about new startup ideas, I guess this makes sense. The press release I submitted to 24-7pressrelease apparently didn’t do too much.

27 Beta Testers, 20% Conversion Rate

The homepage of Yéiyo asks people if they want to be a beta tester. 27 people submitted their email addresses. That’s a 20% conversion rate. I wanted to see how this compared to other people, but the best I could find were conversion rates for Launchrock pages, which is essentially the same thing. Conversion rates ranged from 9% to 43%, but I’m sure this depends not only on the idea, but also on the way the Launchrock page is marketed. 6 days also isn’t that long, we’ll get more data over time. (43% conversion rate – Article, Quora Discussion, 30% conversion – tips on using Launchrock)

Should have used Launchrock

Or at least an alternative. Just realized while looking for conversion rates that Launchrock now has a simple widget that can be added to any website. Launchrock does a much better job of tracking analytics and incentivizing people who sign up to share the site with others. It’s not too late, so you’ll probably see that implemented into Yéiyo soon. Unless we use one of their competitors:

• Launchrock – Launched at StartupWeekend. Free.
• KickoffLabs - Paid solution.
• LaunchEffect – Free WordPress Theme.
• Prefinery – Paid solution.
• Oo0mf - For mobile.

What did I use? I used a free contact form plugin on WordPress, so I’m collecting email addresses in a gmail folder. Definitely not the best way to do it.

10 Tweets, No Facebook

Considering I’m a social media consultant by profession, I should be embarrassed by these stats, but this time around, I didn’t put too much effort into social media. Still, I made sure to capture tweets that naturally happened by monitoring keywords and thanking every mention.

1 Press Release, Republished 10+ Times

• Official Press Release: 24-7PressRelease – Where I submitted my Press Release to. I practically picked it at random from a larger list of free press release distribution sites.
• Press Page on Yeiyo.com – Put this up for press people.
• Arts&Entertainment - Probably because events was one of the categories I chose with the Press Release. Straight republished.
• Near Field Communication News - They picked it up as mobile commerce news and linked to the press release.
• Indiatimes – It always surprises me to see how many sites automatically link to relevant press releases.
• Ecommerce News – I don’t even know what this is. Is this a website run by 24-7PressRelease?
• Hacker News (See #2 on this list) – It seemed like a good place to post. Brought some visitors.
• Betali.st – More traffic came from here than anywhere else.
• Digg – Brought some traffic. Posted it as myself.
• Scoop.it – A site similar to Digg, someone from Paris shared our article!
• Wikindu – Similar to Betalist, didn’t bring many visitors, though some.
• Other places not worth mentioning. They haven’t brought any traffic, but it’s probably good for SEO.

Mostly, they don’t want to be the first to try a new tool, because the decision maker risks their credibility. They want to see someone try it first. There are lots of nightlife related startups popping up, and some of them are gaining traction.

Are we going to see one nightlife startup blow up and take over nationwide? Or are we going to see a number of startups succeed locally without any single player take over? The bar & nightclub industry is very fragmented, does this play into the future of startups in this industry?

Alternatively, we may see Foursquare squash everyone somehow. Their new partnership with American Express is pretty badass.

Let’s check out some examples below:

• Poggled – Discounts on event tickets and drinks. This Chicago based startup has raised $5.6 million. (Article)
• Bevvy – Make a $10 bar tab reservation ahead of time to receive 50% off first $100 spent. LA based startup launched by nightlife people.
• Nixter – Check-in to parties to earn credits for drinks and gifts. Chilean startup was a spotlight at SXSW 2012. Live in 11 cities. (Article)
• Social Nightlife – Social network with bar & event info, check-in and share with friends. Differentiator? Reward system. Based in Los Angeles. (Article)
• BarBlackBook – Social network with bar & event info, check-in and share with friends. Differentiator? Content comes directly from bars. Currently live in Alabama & Los Angeles. (Article)
• ClubView – Boston based social network with bar & event info, check-in and share with friends. Differentiator? No games, no badges or points, just partying.
• EZ VIP – Open table for nightclub bottle service. Live in Miami, NY, Las Vegas. Scored investors Daymond John (Fubu) and Marc Cuban (Maverick’s) on Sharktank. (Article)
• Nightout – Social network for nightlife with deals. Santa Barbara based startup.
• Bar & Club Stats – Mobile ID verification system. (Article)
• Pourliving – Groupon for drink & nightlife specials (Article)
• PartyMonster – Group buying site for nightclub admission. (Article)
• MyDrinkOn – Drink deals. Featured as one of Chicagos best startups on Techcocktail.
• Flowtab
• DrinkPass
• Zowler
• SetNight
• GoParti
• Nighttap
• EZNiteVIP
• VIPHostApp
• Barsential
• NiteSike
• PopBubbly
• weDRNK
• BottleDown

This list is in no particular order…

One source I haven’t heard enough people tapping into is the college students, which is why I’m excited to be part of UCLA Startup Weekend this coming weekend.

While it doesn’t seem to be officially affiliated with the Startup Weekend we all know, the format seems to be nearly identical: spend 48 hours launching a startup with people you just met.

Three ways you can get involved is:

1) Joining Startup Weekend. Seriously, let’s party this weekend: Register Here.
2) Watching the Sunday Night Judging, I did this for last Startup Weekend LA: Register Here.
3) Join us for the after party on Sunday Night: Eventbrite Page (Free with promo code: 48)

Check out the schedule here: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/startupweekend/schedule.html

Check out the mentors & judges here: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/startupweekend/judges.html