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Best & Worst Decisions Starting Companies
markfletcher writes "Today I launched a new site, Startupping, dedicated to helping Internet entrepreneurs. For the launch I asked several successful entrepreneurs about lessons they learned starting and running Internet companies. The first set of replies includes responses from Paul Graham, John Battelle, Chris Pirillo, Ross Mayfield, and Dick Costolo."
He's using an old /. trick in order to promote his own website.
:(
1) Make a funny post (as AC, so you d'ont care about Karma), with the URL of your website at the end of it.
2) Get modded up "Funny"
3) Your URL is visible to all Slashdotters
4) Visitors => Profit !
Too bad I have neither a website nor a blog, so I can't try
In the case of Startupping, the wiki has been written byy someone who does not know what a business plan is - it gives a list of potential revenue streams as business plans. I assume he has written stuff that he knows FA about, in the hope that someone competent will come along and write some sense.
The rest of the wiki is equally useless.
The forums are not exactly active.
The blog aggregators might be useful.
The Startupping blog itself consists of the one article linked to. That post itself has nothing earthshaking. Old advice like "do something you love", "hire good people", "stick to core competencies" and "don't be afraid to take risks".
Why exactly would anyone want to visit this site?
Nolo. No contest. They have quite a bit of free information and you can buy their eBooks in DRM-free .pdf format in addition to the usual dead trees versions.
BTW, you almost certainly want to go LLC.
A place to discuss contract terms, get recommendations for legal help, advice on whether to go LLC or C-corp - or one of the million other questions that come up.
A fellow named "Robert A. Cooke" has written several easy-reading tax law/accountancy books, very much in the mould of what you might call "The Idiot's Guide[s] to Teaching Yourself Corporate Tax Law in About 24 Minutes Flat": Be aware, though, that Congress has a bad habit of changing the "laws" about every five minutes [and dittoes as regards the IRS & the "regulations"], so at any one point in time, no single person on the entire planet is entirely certain of the precise state of all the laws and all the regulations at that very moment.
But I'd recommend Cooke as a good place to start to get an overview of the big picture.
http://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/l
http://www.nolo.com/
http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/index.htm