Author: Dana Oshiro

Every entrepreneur will tell you that recruiting the right candidate is important. While startups are constantly trying to find programmers that mesh well with their culture, team and work-style, one article suggests that companies still struggle finding candidates that know how to program at all. Jeff Atwood published a post this morning entitled, The Non-Programming Programmer with a stunning look at how many interviewees misrepresent their abilities.

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Says Atwood, “I am stunned, but not entirely surprised, to hear that ‘the vast majority’ of so-called programmers who apply for a programming job interview are unable to write the smallest of programs… It’s the equivalent of attempting to hire a truck driver and finding out that 90 percent of the job applicants can’t find the gas pedal or the gear shift.”

Atwood suggests putting candidates through a quick programming test before screening for culture-fit and personality. In a past post he presented us with some phone screening questions and something he calls the FizzBuzz test.

Today he points to Mike Lin’s See[Mike]Code as an excellent screening resource. Lin’s site allows you to watch candidates program in real-time. Those that complete the 10 line programming test are then considered for an in-person interview. These tests can potentially save a company alot of money as many in-person meetings require springing for airfare and a hotel room. Other good screening resources might be found in a candidate’s GitHub profile or in links to their contributions to open source projects.

Photo Credit: turtlemom4bacon under the CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

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There’s a fine line between what is considered a knowledge database and an invasion of privacy, and that line is likely to be determined by marketing. This week we wrote an article about Please Rob Me – a service that identifies Foursquare and Gowalla check-ins on Twitter and lets others know that a person is not home. While location-based services are often touted for their social and recommendation-based benefits, the realization that they can be used negatively have many questioning the responsibility of those groups that collect the data.

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In mid January Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated that the age of privacy had come to an end and we responded that evolving preferences were not a valid justification of the elimination of privacy preferences. Nevertheless, between cookie tracking and browser identifiers like those shown in the EFF’s Panopticlick and the fact that it only takes your zip code, gender and birthdate to identify you, it’s hard to ensure total privacy in the first place.

If a startup were to put up a page simply to capture the information of your friends, all of of your daily habits, your location and your purchases, few would opt in. But as Last.fm’s Felix Miller pointed out more than 4 years ago, you might do it for “myware”.

While spyware is undeniably a dubious thing, myware is the practice of spying on yourself for benefit. Last.fm’s AudioScrobbler collects data on a user’s listening habits, songs, tags, preferences and friends. That information is then used to update a database and an algorithm then calculates song recommendations. Across the Web that same system of opting into myware is used to target advertising, make shopping recommendations, deliver relevant news and provide customized services. But because this is marketed as a service, rather than a personal data grab, few mainstream users weigh the disadvantages to opting in until it’s too late. Google Voice’s transcription feature is a great way to take notes on your calls, but isn’t it akin to opting into a wiretap?

As startup entrepreneurs, what responsibility do we have to educate our users on the perils of opting in? And how can we do this without disrupting the virality of the service?

Photo Credit: Rob Pongsajapan

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If an agency has ever pitched you on outreach to women’s blogs and they don’t mention the BlogHer network, there’s something wrong with them. BlogHer and its 2,500 contributing blog affiliates are celebrating the network’s 5 year anniversary with the combined traffic of 21 million unique visitors per month and some huge lessons learned along the way. ReadWriteWeb spoke to co-founder Elisa Camahort Page to find out what it’s like to run a women’s network in a man’s world.

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According to the Catalyst Census, “From 1995 to 2005, the average rate of increase in women’s representation on Fortune 500 corporate boards was, on average, one-half of one percentage point per year. At that rate of growth, it would take another 70 years for women to hold approximately 50 percent of Fortune 500 board seats and reach parity with men.”

Page explains that the market was ripe for BlogHer from the very beginning as media began to latch on to the idea of women’s representation in technology, science and business. In 2004, Page and co-founders Lisa Stone and Jory Des Jardins created the BlogHer Conference in an effort to answer the media question – where are the women bloggers? As the conference came to fruition, the three were immediately flung into the spotlight with media coverage from CNN and MSNBC. Says Page, “We knew then we were on to something and we decided to make it a business.”

A year later the conference lead to a publishing network and a diverse range of female bloggers joined forces with the trio to promote discussion across their domains. After 18 months of bootstrapping with their own funding, the co-founders raised $3.5 million from Venrock and have since raised an additional $13 million to build out the 20+ topic channels. The network currently syndicates to iVillage, Oxygen.com and BravoTV.com.

While other publishing networks of this size often opt for a wholly automated system of content aggregation, home page features and related blog links, BlogHer has a commitment to curation. Says Page, “It’s not just about the traffic, we want to ensure that diverse voices come through in order to generate more discussion. We’ve got a headline editor who looks for topics we want to explore and we take care to feature interesting content.”

Featured pieces are then served across the publishing network to the 2,500 affiliate blogs and relevant pieces are linked alongside a blog owner’s own content. When asked what keywords (other than “BlogHer”) drive the most traffic to the network, Page replied, “Women are not a monolithic block who think, act or buy in the same way. It differs from week to week, but for instance, in 2008 the keywords all revolved around the election or the economy. The areas of interest that drive traffic are not much different than other blogging networks.”

The one topic that rally’s Page’s diverse community is female representations in the media, workplace and of course, on the Web. In the backlash against a particularly bad YouTube campaign launched by Motrin, BlogHer was among the first communities to retaliate with a Motringate. The consumer trust, distribution and collective spending power of the BlogHer community is enough to make or break a household brand. As Page and her co-founders begin experimenting with targeted feed and podcast programs, advertisers may find even more opportunities to test their mettle in this female media landscape. To check out the network visit blogher.com.

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It’s easy to construct an “us” versus “them” mentality between startups and investors, especially when there are so many disgruntled founders who’ve had the door slammed in their face. But I’d hardly make the generalization that investors avoid innovation. While it’s true that proven returns are required in the majority of portfolio companies, it’s these revenue generating deals that tend to lift up the longer term innovation-based investments.

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Andy Singleton’s recent article for On Startups suggests that VCs avoid innovation whenever possible. Writes Singleton, “If you ask VCs what they look for, they use words like ‘traction’, ‘proven business model’, ‘reference customers’, and ‘invest in marketing’ or ‘sales and marketing’… It doesn’t take a genius to understand what they are saying.  As much as possible, they want to avoid all innovation (stuff that’s not proven).  It’s risky and unprofitable.”

I know this isn’t going to be easy to hear, but the above statement isn’t entirely true. It’s not that investors want to avoid ALL innovation or even all risk. It’s that most want to avoid YOUR innovation. There’s no plot to crush the inspiration of the “animal spirit”, no interest in thwarting civil society, the issue isn’t that investors are short-sighted jerks, it’s that they need more cash cows (especially in this garbage heap of a global economy) to balance out the big audacious paradigm shifters.

VC’s don’t print money. Cash cows allow VC’s to continue raising funds and these funds are then dispersed across the portfolio to others who are pre-revenue. In other words, we can’t all be whimsical geniuses with a three year launch plan. If VC’s started doling out money to every starry-eyed pre-revenue entrepreneur and ignored those cash cows that pick up the slack, funds would implode on themselves. It should come as no surprise that you can’t pay for office space and servers with sweet dreams and pixie dust. You may not realize it, but if you’re funded and you aren’t generating revenue, someone else’s profit is likely paying for your existence.

This isn’t to discourage you from innovating or building something you believe in, it’s just a reminder that if you aren’t generating profit, there are no guaranteed rewards for hard work or good ideas. If you really are “an irrational animal spirit” then you’ll continue to take risks regardless of the outcome.

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The Guidewire Group just launched its Innovate!100 competition to highlight the most promising companies of the year. Early-stage startups are encouraged to submit applications and compete in one of 22 pitch slam events across Europe and North America. Winners will enjoy global visibility and may share in sponsored awards including cash and in-kind prizes, valued at over $1 million dollars. In addition to being an international competition, one of the things that makes this contest different from other events is the fact that shortlisted companies’ assessments will be made public. ReadWriteWeb caught up with former DEMO producer and Guidewire Group President Mike Sigal to find out why he’s sharing his company’s secret sauce through something called the G/Score.

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Contrary to popular belief, the G/Score is not a rating of your startup’s street smarts. The score is the Guidewire Group’s attempt to rate your company across a variety of categories and help you improve your prospects. The company’s assessors include VCs, journalists, economic development strategists and executives from companies like Microsoft, Motorola and Research in Motion. Scores are assigned to demystify what investors, media and partners yearn to discover – namely, are you a fit?

Says Sigal, “Investors have a fiduciary duty and it’s not our place to give investment advice. What we’re doing is creating a resource to highlight companies and make them accessible to the greater community… The response from entrepreneurs is that fundamentally, if it means that we’ll save them time by connecting them with the right people, they’re all for it.”

While the top company scores will be made public for the Innovate!100 Program, entrepreneurs who choose to work with Guidewire on subsequent G/Scores have the option to keep their scores private and apply for re-scoring after correcting their weaknesses. Because all pitch slam finalists will be judged using the scorecard, those applying should consider the following questions as they pertain to the Guidewire methodology:

Business
This part of the G/Score is all about the nature of your business idea.
1. Concept: Can you prove a need for your product? Will you create a new market or disrupt existing leaders?
2. Market: Are there enough potential customers to create a compelling business? Will you have to share the market with a lot of other players?
3. Competition: Who else is competing for your market’s attention? (Sigal explains that this isn’t just direct competitors, but indirect competitors, alternatives and even customer indifference or inertia).

Execution
This section is all about reality, not projections. Here you are expected to give a picture of your everyday business.
1. Business: How many users, partners and major stakeholders do you currently have? What is your adoption rate amongst them?
2. Product: Does your product exist or is it just an idea? If it does exist, do you have user adoption? If you were to stop providing a service today, would your customers have noticeably worse lives?

Team
Having a team of famous second-time entrepreneurs is great, but not if you’ve only got engineers. Have you got a well-rounded team of individuals who can fulfill the responsibilities of running a successful business?

Business Model
A revenue stream is not a business model unless it has been proven through a repeatable process. In his own words, Sigal says, “This section is all about the Benjamins. Are you making money and can you continue to make money over time?”

Funding
Are you self-funded, seed funded and/or VC funded from $2.5 million to more than $25 million dollars?

To apply for one of the Innovate!100 Pitch Slam events go to Innovate100.com/program. Registration for the program is $75 dollars USD and includes 2 pitch slam registrations, access to online pitch training and inclusion in the program promotions. European entrepreneurs should start applying now as the first event kicks off in Barcelona on March 1st.

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If you’re a mobile app developer, one of your biggest concerns is getting noticed. Companies like Smule and Tapulous already have recognized brands; however, for the independent app designer, the promotion process requires a fair amount of strategy. One proven method of increasing downloads is becoming listed as one of the App Store’s top selling services. We spoke to faberNovel‘s Baptiste Benezet to find out how indie developers can hack the App Store ranking algorithm.

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Benezet explains that although Apple offers a variety of featured content within the web-based App Store interface, 80% of sales are made via the mobile ecosystem. While sales are driven by Apple editorial content, category browsing and rankings, because there are no opportunities to advertise in the mobile app store, it’s more important than ever to promote your app using the right marketing mix. The company collected data from the Regie Autonome Transports Parisiens (RATP) French commuter app to create a good formula for product, pricing, placement and promotion.

Product & Pricing: faberNovel found that a differentiated pricing strategy was a good way to earn revenue. While the company hit a few hiccups with its initial pricing of 1,59€, after cutting the premium service cost by 50% and building a phenomenal free experience, the new pricing strategy generated 3 times more sales. Says Benezet, “A good free version is crucial in pushing users towards the premium service, especially when the cost of the paid app is high.” In addition to monetizing via app sales, the company earned a good chunk of revenue through in-app advertising in the free version.

Promotion: Buying impressions on major websites was abysmal in drawing new users. From 500,000 impressions purchased on major French networks, the site was only able to generate 4 app sales. Benezet suggests that cross-application advertising is a better solution as relevant users are targeted via the devices they’ll use to download the new apps.

Place: Benezet argues that in the world of iPhone applications, size matters. Once the RATP application download was reduced below 10Mb, the company saw its largest sales peak ever as users were able to access the service via their 3G networks (rather than via the web-based App store). In addition to this consideration, Benezet’s most groundbreaking finding was in the App Store’s ranking algorithm. Explains Benezet, “The formula for App rankings only accounts for your last 4 days of sales.” The formula is 8 times the sales of the current day + 5 times the sales on the 2 proceeding days + 2 times the sales on initial date.

Benezet suggests that a promotional campaign of 4 consecutive days is more likely to pay off with a top ranking rather than a staggered date campaign. Furthermore, because app sales tend to increase by about 20% on Saturday and Sunday (even with a commuter app), it is most advantageous to be one of the top ranking category apps at the start of the weekend. As your sales increase over the weekend, your app’s daily ranking increases and the next four days revenue generation becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.

While the rankings remain relative to other application sales, faberNovel believes this model will help you increase the success of app downloads. After testing the theory, the company welcomes feedback to faberNovel.com.

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There’s a reason why vanity URLs, personalized profile pages and recommendation systems are so popular. To a customer or site visitor, there’s nothing more interesting than themselves. As the CEO of web tracking and sales conversion site Genius.com, former CMO of online meeting tool WebEx and author of Sales 2.0 for Dummies, David Thompson knows a thing or two about the customer psyche. Thompson spoke to ReadWriteWeb and explained why today’s landscape makes it the toughest in history to make a sale. And for once, it’s got nothing to do with the down economy.

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He explained that in the past, sales people often made products like B2B software sound complicated in order for companies to add a perceived value and drive up prices.

Says Thompson, “The web has tipped the scales in favor of the buyer. You can get on the phone with a sales rep and rather than being confused by product features, you’ve done all the research and your position as a buyer is strong. Today, a sales person has to assume transparency.”

In order to close deals, sales people need to know as much as they possibly can about a potential customer. Genius.com works with companies to generate leads through web analytics, visitor profiling and contact / point-of-sales services. Some of the company’s clients include British Telecom, Ticket Leap and Jigsaw. The company builds profiles of site visitors and translates them into customer leads.

Says Thompson, “While B2B and consumer-facing e-commerce are just starting to use the same type of analytics, the two are very different in that 50% of all sales are made via phone call, webinar or in-person meeting.”

Thompson explains that few vendors above the $10,000 spend mark are willing to make purchases via a wholly automated system. He explains that startups targeting ad buyers, higher-end subscription sales and health-related consumers should take note. Some services simply can’t be streamlined to the point of complete automation.

Thompson believes that using social tools to understand customers on a personal level is exactly how trust is established and sales are made. Rather than trying to mystify customers with product features, sales people are often required to connect on an emotional and personal level. It makes sense. Would you rather buy a product from a web form and real-time sales bot or from a sales person whose family might benefit from the commission?

While it’s counter intuitive, Thompson suggests that maybe the way startups can stand out and offer customers added value is by removing some of the automation process. Services like EHarmony and Experts Exchange do a great job of streamlining with a personal touch. Meanwhile, companies like Zendesk offer startups a chance to access on-demand services from real people at affordable rates.

Photo Credit: Eddy Van 3000 under the CC Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Generic License

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In the ancient times before the internet, a business plan was what you wrote to appease the Gods of private equity and venture capital. It was a thick document, full of scientific analysis, market data and of course, a J-curve shaped projection of sales. The problem was that few investors would make it through your epic masterpiece. Instead, they’d skip to the juicy parts. Former CEO of Elance and current founder of Roach Capital Partners, Eric Roach, shares what he’s kept in the business plan to raise $55 million dollars in venture capital in two months.

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In a recent blog post, Roach writes, “I would not waste the time building a big bad business plan, at least as described all over the web.  I’ve come to believe this has become a consultant’s dream, unfortunately, not one filled with gold at the end of the rainbow… When looking at the companies I have funded, I cannot think of a single time when I have read one.  Not one.”

I saw the post moving up Hacker News earlier today and I sincerely hope that entrepreneurs continued reading the article beyond the initial “don’t write a business plan” message.

While Roach dismisses the idea of an epic business plan document, he does encourage entrepreneurs to build a business case. The VC suggests omitting excel spreadsheets and keeping it simple. That being said, you need to know your projections, financials and product market as if those spreadsheets were sitting in front of you. In his experience, he’s raised funding with an executive summary, a powerpoint deck of 10-15 slides, clear financials and an elevator pitch. While he suggests you spend less time on constructing an epic document and more on getting your second meeting, he recognizes that you will be required to justify all of your statements. The point is that it’s not about the paper, it’s about your rationale, product and power to persuade.

Photo Credit: Alex de Carvalho

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Georgetown roommates David Ambrose and Justin Tsang never thought their time spent together in the dorms would amount to a joint business. The two recently launched Scoop St. – a group buying discount site for local deals on restaurants, spa packages, sporting events and concerts. Similar to other shopping sites like Woot and GIlt, users have a limited time to purchase. However, with Scoop St. and Bay-Area competitor Groupon, a minimum number of users must sign up for an offer by the end of the day. When the minimum is met, your credit card is charged, but if no one else signs up for the deal, then you aren’t charged a penny.

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What’s the advantage to this sort of discount? Scoop St.’s inaugural deal was half off tickets to your choice of 4 Knicks games. For $29 you and your friends can rush the online discount ticket box and buy up a block of seats together. Think about all those nights you might have spent at home scouring Netflix for those lost episodes of The Office. Scoop St. may just be your ticket to a New York social life.

The idea for Scoop St. and group buying is by no means new. As a car fanatic Ambrose engaged in group buying activities via forums for discount car parts. Meanwhile, Tsang’s experience is grounded in tuángòu – the Chinese practice of flash mob-style shopping. As a teen in the early nineties, Tsang would organize online and arrive at a store with a large group of strangers to bargain for group discounts. Widely used on items like appliances and electronics, tuángòu participants often find forums like 020.teambuy and strategize on their haggling ahead of time.

Says Ambrose, “It makes sense that this tradition of group buying is becoming popular in the US during a down economy. We see ourselves as being a great tool for local businesses to acquire new customers and New Yorkers to get fantastic deals.”

While the duo’s deals are currently only based in New York, they plan on expanding to additional locations in the near future. As for the future of group buying in general, Ambrose suggests that the offline phenomenon of tuángòu may emerge outside of Asia as geolocational apps find new use cases. The Scoop St. team plans on exploring mobile options in the coming year. To try out the service visit Scoopst.com or follow the deals via the Scoop St. Twitter account.

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At today’s Mobile World Congress, augmented reality company Metaio unveiled its Unifeye Mobile SDK and Android demo at Sony Ericcson’s Creation Day. The company is offering developers a chance to experiment with feature tracking, 3D animation rendering and real-time interaction. In other words, the world of augmented reality applications is about to heat up.

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We first spoke to Metaio in November when we looked at the company’s consumer application, Junaio. Since then Metaio has continued to work with clients like BMW, Siemens and Popular Science to produce augmented reality products on the Unifeye platform. Because of this established presence with major corporations, the release of the Unifeye mobile SDK should have marketers salivating at the thought of dictating the design of their own experiences.

The SDK will allow 3rd party developers to take advantage of the Unifeye platform applications including its configuration templates, 2D texture / image tracking, 3D object tracking, marker tracking, GPS tracking plug-ins, video support and web-based rendering engine. According to the company, ” You can choose from different programming layers by either using the comfortable high-level (black-box) API or having individual component access to rendering, capturing, tracking on a low-level basis.”

As more companies provide tools for the mobile AR development space, it will be interesting to see whether developers opt for their own proprietary applications or whether they choose to build their ideas within pre-existing applications via the Layar model. Regardless of how platform allegiances play out, there’s no denying that the release of new tools can only encourage further innovation in the types of experiences being developed. Perhaps we’ll see our user-generated AR experience in the near future. For more on the SDK visit metaio.com/products/mobile.

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One of the best ways to become an industry influencer is to get involved in industry events. They’re a great way to surround yourself with respected colleagues and they offer your the opportunity to network with others who share your interests. If you’ve got the guts to go toe-to-toe with some of the industry’s top pundits, get yourself on stage and show the world what you’re made of. When you apply for speaking opportunities, here are some of the points to consider.

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Reach and Engagement: One of the most important things to remember is that event planners want to fill audience seats. If you can prove that you’re going to contribute to that, you’re more likely to be invited onto a panel. Event companies often use platforms like Strutta and Vator TV to encourage voting and early audience participation. The voting indicates whether or not you have a following. Meanwhile, competitions like the Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad event gauge the interest on Twitter as startup fans retweet pitches to the first round of TechWeb judges.

Relevancy and Expertise: In some cases expertise is pre-determined by the events you’ve already spoken at. If you’re trying to get into a mobile event, it makes sense to explain that you’ve already spoken at another mobile conference. If this event is your first one, you may want to include links to white papers, blog posts and testimonial from notable industry celebrities. One way to ensure that you’re pitching a timely idea is to poll your network via Google Moderator, Linkedin Question or Aardvark and find out what they want to hear from you. Sometimes it’s easiest to see your most engaging material when an outsider offers you feedback.

Entertainment and Sound Bites:An event planner’s biggest fear is that you’re going to be forgettable. It’s actually better to completely self-destruct than it is to be forgettable because at least self-destruction gets talked and tweeted about. In order to draw people in, many speakers pitch personal anecdotes and place them within the context of our shared history as startup entrepreneurs. Listeners generally find stories about themselves fascinating and if you focus on collective learning rather than your company pitch, you’re more likely to produce an entertaining presentation. If you’ve got video of past speaking engagements or podcasts send those along with your application. Organizers are looking for panelists who are lively and sound bite-able so avoid using industry buzz words like “ramen profitable” or “minimum viable product”. If an organizer wanted wisdom from Paul Graham or Eric Ries he or she would invite Paul Graham or Eric Ries. This panel application should be about you sharing the lessons you’ve learned.

Photo Credit: Tom Woodward under the CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

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The problem with hiring an arsenal of top sales and marketing executives when you don’t have a proven customer model is that you’re likely to burn through all that funding you worked so hard to get. Steve Blank’s latest post entitled, It Must Be a Marketing Problem is a cautionary tale about a company that continued to scale up without knowing the needs of their customers.

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Blank describes being called into a company for “a marketing problem” only to find that neither the company’s marketing department nor sales team had left the building to find out the needs of consumers.

He writes, “Missing the sales numbers had nothing to do with marketing…Neither the CEO, VP of Sales or VP of Marketing had any idea what a repeatable sales model would look like before they scaled the sales force.”

Between the 10 sales and marketing staff, the company had made decisions based only on site metrics and early audience research that consisted of feedback from friends and family. In other words, they were developing their strategy in a vacuum.

To ensure that you know the needs of your customer, Blank suggests you test your customer problem hypothesis through real world observations. Once you have real world observations, customer demographics and a firm knowledge of the competitive environment, then you’re free to begin experimenting with new tactics. Tactics are validated through concrete sales. When you determine what is driving your growth and you make those new sales, the idea is to map the process and hire others to help you execute.

For a more complete look at Blank’s model for customer development check out this article.

As for the idea of having a “marketing problem,” sometimes the biggest question isn’t how to position your product, but determining its value to the end-user.

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This week thousands of visitors arrived at ReadWriteWeb thinking we were the new Facebook and asking us how to login. The phenomenon came about as mainstream audiences were directed to our story via Google search for “Facebook login”. While RWW’s regular tech readers found the mistake amusing, it perhaps speaks to the fact that there are huge variables in user interaction.

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A few months ago Betaworks’ Andrew Weissman wrote an article entitled, Don’t Get High On Your Own Supply where he tells entrepreneurs to step outside of their insular worlds. He writes, “[It] can mean not believing what other people say or write about your service – good or bad – it is the use case that matters, not the chatter.”

In our world of tech media, it’s easy to forget that there is a large group of users who type terms like “Facebook login” into Google search. Could you imagine if we’d written an article entitled, “Bank of America Wants to Be Your One True Password”? We might all be sipping margaritas in the Grand Cayman right now.

If a huge audience can’t understand the difference between a blog and a social networking site, how are we supposed to explain the concepts of OAuth and OpenID? If you’re a startup entrepreneur, step outside of your own world of early adopters and look at your product through the eyes of a n00b. While we didn’t mean to confuse Facebook users, the traffic on this week’s login post is proof that the late adoption audience is a valuable group to consider.

Photo Credit: Dave Olson

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Less than a decade ago, online dating was by no way considered mainstream. Not only were you judged for putting your profile up on a dating site, but your choice of site between Lavalife, Match and Nerve Singles told others whether you were there to date, get married or make friends with benefits. Today, location-based dating sites are quickly gaining ground. With the increasing mainstream acceptance of services like Foursquare and Gowalla, new opportunities within the dating space have emerged. Forget badges and points, geo-locational apps already have the power to promise you love.

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ReadWriteWeb caught up with Skout CEO Christian Wiklund. Last month we covered Wiklund’s transition from building a location-based network to a dating site.

When asked how proximity-based dating is different than regular dating he explained, “With mobile location-enabled dating sites we can make serendipity happen. Skout cares about ‘when and where’ you are. We refrain from matching singles on 100+ dimensions or requiring you to fill out pesky forms. This is about the conversation that you have with a person, similar to how you would engage a potential love interest in real life.”

Wiklund’s casual approach to dating takes into account the context of a place coupled with looks as being key connection indicators. Essentially, if you find someone attractive and they hang out in a place you hang out, then you can contact each other and meet up. He is so sure that users will find others, that this Valentine’s Day he’s offering premium members a money back guarantee if they don’t find a date for Sunday. Then again, what sad soul would be bold enough to ask for their money back?

Nevertheless, the fact that Wiklund’s site is already charging for services like unlimited chat, premium placement and unlimited browsing access, shows a stark mind shift between dating and general apps like Gowalla and Foursquare. Those using Foursquare might not be willing to spend freely on virtual gifts or currencies, but even ten years ago, dating site users were used to the idea of winks, flirts and chat at a premium. This fact, coupled with the biological urge to mate, means that dating might turn out to be among the most lucrative categories for geo-locational services.

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Raising funding is hard any way you slice it, but the emergence of cause-base resources is helping pave the way for ethical startups that might have otherwise gone unseen. A few years ago we featured 13 seed funding options for entrepreneurs. Since then a few investment groups have come forward with a different approach. One such funder is the education-focused incubator Startl.

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As mentioned in Fred Wilson’s latest blog post, Startl is similar to seed fund incubators like Techstars and YCombinator except that its a nonprofit organization focused specifically on advancing new learning experiences. While the program offers a mobile app design bootcamp in New York, it’s Startl’s 3 month accelerator program hosted by Philadelphia-based DreamIt Ventures and Ideo design firm that will allow entrepreneurs to learn the ins and outs of creating an education-based business. DreamIt celebrated a graduation and demo day in August and the new Startl program will be folded into the next cycle of DreamIt participants.

The rise of such philanthropic investment groups may open up new categories for startup funding. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omiyar Network prides itself on being an organization that offers opportunities for entrepreneurs to “catalyze economic, social and political change”. The network has invested in government transparency, micro-finance and education-focused companies. Meanwhile, the Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge offers funding for community news innovations. Past prize recipients have included EveryBlock and Spot.us.

We know we’re just skimming the surface for cause-related startup funding. If you’ve got suggestions, let us know in the comments below.

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A few days ago Ryan Waggoner launched PRManna – a site for startup companies to offer themselves as news sources to the tech blogging community. Similar to Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out (HARO) the site allows journalists to submit requests with the idea that community members answer tech-related questions for articles. In the past we’ve listed the ideal components of a communication pipeline. We spoke to Waggoner to find out how he’s trying to address the needs of both bloggers and entrepreneurs.

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In addition to PRManna, Waggoner also runs conversation tracking and analysis company MightyBrand. When asked why he’d embark on this ambitious new venture he replies, “I know what it’s like to pour my heart and soul into a company and because there’s so much noise out there I wanted to help create a meritocracy for entrepreneurs. I wanted a way for startups to put less time into their outreach and more time into their core competencies and products.”

After posting a request, journalists receive emails through the PRManna system in addition to a link to their request feed and the option to repost the request to Twitter. Entrepreneurs can then visit the site or follow the newly created PR Manna Twitter account to track queries. The Twitter account was only set up today, but Waggoner is already planning to categorize requests and sources in the near future. While he recognizes the value in more established sites like HARO, Waggoner hopes his site can become the press destination for tech and entrepreneurship.

When asked how he’s dealing with the issues of privacy and relevancy he replies, “For now we’ve got anti-spam on posts and our initial reputation system is based on catching abusers internally and allowing reporters to flag irrelevant pitches.”

In addition to PRManna, Waggoner suggests that startup companies look to sites like Hacker News to gain constructive feedback on their products. Given that we found Waggoner through the community, it’s indeed another good resource for entrepreneurs. To sign up for PRManna email alerts visit prmanna.com or follow the Twitter feed.

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In the last few months several startups have asked me how to approach corporate blogging. Judging by the frequency of requests, Gartner was right in suggesting that corporate blogging is rising up the “slope of enlightenment” and about 2 years away from widespread mainstream adoption. The road to enlightenment has been a long one. In the past ten years we’ve learned that company blogs should not be press releases, sales pitches or plagiarized quotes from Dale Carnegie. You reach enlightenment when you learn to respect your readers. If you want someone to bookmark or retweet your posts, then give them a useful resource. Below are a few approaches you can take to increase the dialogue and comments on your blog.

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1. The Operations Blog: Many company blogs focus on the internal workings of the startup and how teams have managed to increase efficiencies. For example, marketing teams have dissected their efforts, COO’s have talked about their transition to cloud services and HR teams write about their employee wellness plans. Sometimes your story along with links to useful vendors is a great resource for others.

2. The Veteran / Inspirational Blog: This type of post is best suited to the second time entrepreneur, agency founder or well-established investor. It often offers stories about the climb to a position of power as well as some of the lessons learned along the way. If you’re attempting this approach you should already be in a position of mentorship for others. You want people linking to your article in the hopes that they’re revisiting it as a point of inspiration.

3. The Prediction Blog: Both the iPad and Google Buzz have been huge news stories in the last few days. Your little corporate blog isn’t likely to outshine the stories from major tech blogs and media outlets, but you can provide some relevant predictions for your specific industry. For example, if you’re a consumer facing web startup with a real estate focus, you could highlight the use cases for Buzz and its geo-locational features.

4. The Research Blog: If your company deals with large amounts of anonymized data or your startup specializes in analysis or monitoring, then the research blog is a good way to aggregate your findings and pinpoint trends. The best way to write this post is to summarize key findings and make suggestions on how others might adapt. If you’re not confident in your recommendations then you can ask for quotes from industry veterans. This method is often used by analysts and real-time monitoring startups.

5. The Community / Advocate Blog: This type of blog only really works if you have a large number of stakeholders who need your support and direction. Planet Mozilla is a great example of a resource that focuses on internal events; nevertheless, these internal events help thousands of open source developers contribute to Mozilla projects. If you’ve got lots of 3rd party developers, designers or contributors, this may be a good option for you.

6. The Coolhunter Blog: This blog is perhaps the toughest one to pull off because not only do you have to be confident in your ability to spot emerging trends, but you also have to make sure that the trends are relevant to your community. On-demand manufacturing site Ponoko does a great job of showcasing design while inspiring community members to build their own pieces.

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While the rest of the world was caught up with Google Buzz, Apple was quietly granted a patent for a virtual reality App Store. The store patent encompasses details such as seasonal and time-based lighting, color schemes and a basic storefront representation. A few bloggers have already criticized the patent as a relic from SecondLife past, the store may have more use when we consider it in the context of the XBox Live marketplace.

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According to Patently Apple, the patent is one of several awarded to Apple today. First filed by David Koski in 2006, the abstract explains that a storefront representation is deployed, a store visitor is acknowledged and subsequent visitor shopping cart activity is shared with others.

Rather than thinking about this in the context of Second Life, it may be more appropriate to look at the XBox’s emergence in the home entertainment space. Although primarily highlighted for its gaming features, XBox Live offers integration with Last.fm and Netflix, as well as social sites like Facebook and Twitter. Each user creates their own avatar and profile and then shops for games and videos within the XBox Live marketplace. Apple’s attempt to move into this space may have interesting implications.

Someone who plays exercise-related games might receive a recommendation for a diet cookbook, a workout soundtrack, a yoga video, a calorie counting app and several portable devices to help you manage your routine. As well, the group shopping experiences may allow for virtual fitness groups, book clubs and even discounted group buying experiences. When we consider the time spent per user in games, this could be a lucrative business. While Koski may have simply filed the patent to receive his company patent bonus, there’s also the chance that Apple is preparing for a more immersive future in entertainment.

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If you’ve been a geek your whole life then you understand the term “Canadian girlfriend.” The Canadian (or sometimes British) love interest is the person you talk about when a member of the opposite sex inquires about your dating status. The story is that you met online, you’ve formed a solid bond and you’ll probably break up with your online girlfriend when a girl in your vicinity decides she likes you. The idea is to drive up the value of your perceived social stock. In the startup world, the same principle is used in “ham and egging.”

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As pointed out in a recent blog post by university professor Scott Shane, “ham and egging” was first coined by Columbia’s professor Amar Bhide and Harvard Business School’s Howard Stevenson. The term refers to the technique of convincing multiple stakeholders that others are working with you despite the fact that you’re only in talks. The only problem is that most early partners only want to work with you if other reputable partners have already signed on.

Explains Bhide and Stevenson,”the ultimate ham and egging solution is for the entrepreneur to simultaneously convince each participant that everyone else is on board, or almost on board.”

However, when ReadWriteWeb spoke to MobiTV CEO Paul Scanlan about forging deals between telecom and television companies, he suggested a different tact. Although Scanlan found himself caught between partners who were skittish to sign on without the initial validation of others, he decided that rather than ham and egging, he’d build contingency clauses into contracts. Scanlan’s contracts stated that all partnerships were contingent on a set number of large-scale partners to launch. While this may not be the ideal method of closing deals, it seems like an ethical alternative to engaging in deals that begin with dishonesty.

Have you ever engaged in ham and egging and if so, was your deal a success?

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Between Y Combinator’s Startup School, the influx of seed fund incubators, the list of legendary mentors and investors and the dotcom bust’s school of hard knocks, is there really any reason to go to grad school? At ReadWriteWeb we’re supportive of lifelong learning and universities that coach entrepreneurs, but a recent post by Venture Hacks founder Naval Ravikant has us wondering, “What is the value in grad school?”

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Ravikant suggests that incubators and accelerators like YCombinator and Techstars are the new grad school.

He writes, “In some ways, it’s better,” and that unlike business schools, YCombinator pays entrepreneurs, which allows founders to be their own boss and encourages original work.

In addition to Ravikant’s points, the fact that every incubator participant is connected to advisors through a financial agreement means the group may be motivated to maintain their network and share contacts. Nevertheless, before dismissing the idea of grad school altogether, it’s good to remember many of the top entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley are MIT, Harvard and CalTech grads (including some of the Venture Hacks team). Perhaps the argument here is not so much about incubators over traditional institutions, but in the value of good mentors that have a stake in your success and do not rest on the laurels of a tenured position.

As a startup entrepreneur, what is the best lesson you’ve ever been taught and who taught it to you?

Photo Credit: Duncan Hull

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