July 7, 2008
Posted by Ryan Graves
Challenges of an entrepreneur…from Loic Lemeur.
This is a direct post from Loic Lemeur’s blog. I respect Loic very much and think that his thoughts on entrepreneurship and social software are worth sharing…
This is the type of content that we will be excited to share on ActionsTalk.com from entrepreneurs who are experiencing these challenges.
Challenges of an entrepreneur
-find a space (not an idea) and execute as fast as possible
-differentiate and innovate, no copycat
-launch fast in alpha and iterate, do not wait for a perfect product
-gather an initial community and get its constant feedback to improve the product based on the feedback
-find funding fast and try not to lose too much time on it
-gather a kick ass team (top challenge: engineers, especially in the bay area…)
-scale, open as fast as possible the service
-communicate constantly with the community
-keep momentum going after initial launch
-stay on your main market or localize fast?
-manage an international team (Seesmic is already on 3 continents…)
-create a great API and gather a developer community
-integrate in major social software (see my social map post)
-reach critical mass
-find the business model and grow revenues
Social software trends
-content versus conversation
-decentralized instead of centralized on blogs in the past
-immediate versus lots of thoughts (microblogging versus long posts)
-”disposable”
-open (API, open source)
-open customer service (see getsatisfaction)
-sharing as much as possible with the community to enhance the service
-more human (a face on the Internet users, Seesmic helps this in video)
-live versus asynchroneous
-the web in the pocket (iphone, Nokia n95) changes the deal
-ecommerce and recommendations through the filter of your friends instead of marketing
-news finds you through your friends instead of getting it from reading mainstream media home pages
