4 (of the many) keys to Web Entrepreneurship More info http://joncrawford.com http://www.storenvy.com

1. WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
HOW I'VE MADE IT WORK
Jon Crawford
KCRUG • May 12th, 2009

2. INTRO
• Not my definitive guide to Web Entrepreneurship.
• Don't
have experience in B2B or quot;enterprisequot;-grade
companies.
• Thisis a talk for people who want to start their own business
instead of working somewhere or contracting.
• Will
try to keep know-it-allism and boasting in check.
(No promises!)

4. BACKGROUND
• Business/Marketing degree from KU.
• Some basic graphic design skills from making newspaper ads
for the KU newspaper, but not a career.
• No web dev knowledge until 2005.
• “What’s a <br/> tag?”

6. DEEPTHOUGHT DESIGN
• Focused on good design and custom-made CMS systems for
small business.
• In business for 2 years
• Lots of CMS-based websites.

8. HATED CONTRACTING
• Did a few months of contracting and couldn’t stand it.
• Running a business vs. building HTML eblasts.
• Fulfilling your dreams vs. someone else’s dreams.
• Decided I needed to come up with an idea. Had several!

9. Scope creep like you
wouldn’t believe.

10. TAKE THE PLUNGE
• Had money in the bank and decided to go for it.
• Stopped taking on work in April 1st ’08.
• “Launched” August 1st ’08.
• Break even from Day 1. Supporting three people full-time.

12. STORENVY
• Still “pre-launch”.
• Full launch this summer.

14. ENOUGH
BACKGROUND!

15. JON CRAWFORD’S
4 KEYS TO WEB
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

16. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good taste.

17. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good taste.
Don’t have good taste? Get some!

18. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good taste: Study
•Visit CSS galleries. ex. http://cssremix.com/
•Look at logo galleries.
•Dissect what makes the good, good.
•Compare yourself!
•Does our product belong among these sites?

19. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good taste: Study
• Use a Mac. Seriously.

20. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good taste: Study
•Listen to the RailsEnvy Podcast
•http://ruby.alltop.com
•RSS for A FreshCup
•Follow leaders on Twitter - Developers &
non-developers

21. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good ideas.

22. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good ideas.
• Know what people actually want.
• What apps are becoming successful?
• What are the trends?
• How should stuff work?
• Compare your idea to these. Does it hold water?

23. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good ideas.
• How can you improve something that already exists?
• If it doesn’t exist, there’s a reason for that.

24. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good ideas.
Get to the point where you know what
“good” is and then don’t compromise.

25. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!

26. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
“Stop learning about web
development and actually develop
something!”
— Jon Crawford

27. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
• Don’t read so many RSS feeds!
• Don’t follow so many Twitter users!
• Don’t explore and conquer every new technology
that comes out!
• If it won’t make you money, ignore it!

29. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
CouchDB

30. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
Any other database
besides MySQL

31. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
Ruby (without Rails)

32. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
Test::Unit

33. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
jQuery

34. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
Unobtrusive Javascript

35. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
Ajax in Rails w/o RJS

36. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Stuff I’ve never learned:
Merb or any other
framework

37. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Stop learning new stuff!
Find tools that simply solve the problem
you’re currently facing.
It’s only a problem if it’s preventing you
from launching.

38. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Get quality help.

39. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Get quality help.
• Let people know you’re looking for a good designer.
• Be picky.
• Hang around people more talented than you.
• Consider an advisor.

40. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have good taste.
Have good ideas.
Stop learning so much.
Get quality help.

41. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
What is success?

42. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
What is success?
Don’t compare yourself to 37signals or Etsy.
These are the outliers.

43. KEYS TO WEB ENTREPRENEURSHIP
What is success?
Success is being self-sustaining.
Anything on top of that is gravy.

44. KEYS TO WEB
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Questions?