Archive for January, 2008

I know I am a few days late (2.5 days to be exact, but who is counting) on blogging about the Crunchies, but given my hectic schedule over the weekend, I have just now had time to really dig into the outcome and winners and formulate an opinion on the whole matter.

First off, let me say congratulations to all of the winners, I am sure you are well deserved of the title that was bestowed upon you. With that being said, I am a little baffled by the whole event. According to the Crunchies web site:

“The 2007 Crunchies is our first annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.”

The thing that really baffles me about the awards ceremony comes in the last part of the sentence, “blah, blah, blah of the year”. Of the year to me implies that they were recognizing the best startup and technology innovations of calendar year 2007. So now that we are clear on the fact that the competition (after all, it was a competition or a popularity contest depending on how you look at it) was fopr calendar year 2007, let’s take a look at the categories and the winners and see how many of them actually launched in 2007.

• Best bootstrapped startup - Techmeme, well I was able to pull up an archive from Dec 21 2005 when it was called Tech. Memorandum, so in fairness I researched until I found a archive from when it was called TechMeme, and guess what I found, June 1 2006. Last I checked, 2006 is not 2007, so how did Techmeme even make it into the competition? Don’t get me wrong, Gabe has done a fantastic job with the site, I read it daily, but in fairness, he started it long before 2007.
• Best new gadget / device - iPhone, fair enough, it came out in 2007, so clearly it deserves winning this category (not to mention that I covet the iPhone and want one and am so jealous of everyone in the office that has one).
• Best business model - Zazzle. According to this press release, they secured $16 mil in financing back in July of 2005. Hum, that does not sound like 2007 to me.
• Best design - SmugMug. WOW, this one may be the furtherest removed from 2007. Their about us page states they started back in 2002.
• Best enterprise start-up - Zoho. I could not find a date for when Zoho actually started, but they are a productivity suite from their parent company AdventNet, Inc., which hold onto our seat, was founded in 1996. That is in a totally different decade!
• Best consumer start-up - Meebo. Hum, launched in September of 2005, doesn’t sound like 2007 to me.
• Best mobile start-up - Twitter. Started in March 2006, getting closer to 2007 but no dice (for the record, I am a huge fan and user of Twitter, so thanks Ev for dreaming this up and launching it).
• Best international start-up - Netvibes. Founded in 2005, nope not 2007.
• Best user generated content - Digg. November 2004, come on :-(.
• Best video site - Hulu. I cannot say for sure, but it looks like we might have winner #2 that was actually founded in 2007. The earliest entry on their blog dates back to August 29th (great day BTW, my wife’s and my anniversary) 2007. So I will have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
• Best clean tech start-up - Tesla Motors. Cool cars, but started in June 2006. Close but no cigar fellas.
• Best use of viral marketing - Stumbleupon. Nope not even close, 2001.
• Best time sink site - Kongregate. Founded 2006, sorry not close enough.
• Most likely to make the world a better place - DonorChoose. 2000, in Internets years, that is like 70 years ago, come on people.
• Most likely to succeed - Wordpress. Founded 2003, again not quite 2007.
• Best startup founder - the ol’ Zuck (well, not really old considering he is only 23). 2004 if my memory serves me correctly, so nope, not 2007.
• Best startup CEO - Toni Schneider from Wordpress. See above.
• Best new startup of 2007 - iMedix. Finally, one that fits the description of the competition, and just barely made it in, being founded in January of 2007.

Now do not get me wrong, I think this competition was great, I just wished that the organizers would have been a little more clear in their description. If they were truly looking for the best startups/innovations for 2007, then they should have either stated that the company/innovation did not have to originate in 2007 or they should have only been looking at companies/innovations that were created in 2007. Out of all the winners, only 2 were actually conceived in 2007. Maybe next year they will get it right, one way or another, but please do not give off the impression that it is for that particular year when in fact it is not.

This post is completely inspired by a post from earlier today by a friend of mine, Micah Baldwin. I have only known Micah for a few months (compliments of DC Startup Weekend), but it feels as if we have been friends for years. For those of you that do not know him, I highly encourage you to get to know him if you get a chance, he is a great person to be around, both personally and professionally. One of Micah’s personality traits that stands out from the moment you meet him, is that he says what is on his mind, whether you like it or not.

This trait of his is one of his many qualities that I admire. He is not afraid to say what he means, and he means what he says. You may not like what he has to say, but he is not going to hold back on the account of the possibility that you may not like what he is saying. If you are going to ask his opinion, you have to be prepared that it may not jive with yours, but you have to be willing to accept that, or just do not ask him. Micah is a very intelligent guy, and has a lot of business acumen that he has acquired through the years of running his own company, to working for several startups, and when he speaks, he is telling you how it is and how he feels, regardless of the audience.

So often, it seems that people will tailor what they are saying because they are afraid of what the other person might think, or they are afraid that it may incite an argument that they are not ready to deal with, whatever the situation, it happens. It is almost as if there is a filter between our brain and our mouth and what comes out on the other end has been sanitized down to almost nothing. If you feel strongly about something, and have valid reasons for feeling that way (as long as they are valid in your mind) then do not hesitate to say what you mean and really mean it. Do not say something if you genuinely do not feel that way, you are wasting your time and giving the recipient a false understanding of what you truly meant. If you are telling them something that they in turn are going to make a decision based off of it, you damn sure better tell them the truth so they are not making a decision based on falsehood.

I know it is a very simple concept to grasp, but I think by and large human nature has programed us to apply that filter to most of what we say. Unless of course you are Micah, and then the fire hose is opened up full throttle (as it should be).

In order to grow and become better people and leaders, we have to learn from each other. Micah puts it best:

“Learning doesn’t occur unless there is friction in the process. A leader shows his greatest ability when he is at the greatest loss for what do next.”

Thanks Micah for an inspiring post and for your unwillingness to bend when it comes to throttling back the fire hose.