TWiST, Chris Tolles of Topix
Episode 10 (on Location at Twiistup)
Date: July 31, 2009
Guest: Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix
Topix is the leading news community on the Web, connecting people to the information and discussions that matter to them in every U.S. town and city.
A Top 10 online newspaper destination (comScore, March 2008), the site links news from 50,000 sources to 360,000 lively user-generated forums. Topix also works with the nation’s major media companies to grow and engage their online audiences through forums, classifieds, publishing platforms and RSS feeds.
Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Topix LLC is a privately held company with investment from Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) and Tribune Company.
Special Announcement:
- (43 Min) Is expecting a Daughter Dec. 10th, he is scared to death, (he has no idea what he is in for, as a first time parent you think you know how things will change but you don’t). Yes, his career as an entrepreneur is over.
Ask Jason: (07 min.)(Live Questions From Audience)
- Ben Langfeld, student from Manchester, How far in the future should a startup predict trends? Jason likes to enter a market that is partially developed but not commercialized and figure out the business model that works. Chris sees the opportunity in improving what has already been created i.e. Google improved search. Your business model should be able to make revenue within the first couple of years, if not you may be too ahead of the times.
- Fransisco Dow (sp), producer of Twiistup, Is it inevitable that an internet company will go stale? i.e. Friendster, AOL. Chris, I think that you have a serious need to get I don’t want to say big but well known as quickly as you can because the newness is a huge part of what the tech business covers the tech business wants to cover new, once you are around for awhile you better have some revenue, eventually you have to substitute buzz for revenue.
- Don Dodge, Microsoft, What new trend or angle in your companies made you want to pursue them? Chris, they felt they had technology that differentiated them from Google news, more directory and categorization based. Focusing on being different and more local than Google news proved the most sustainable product for them and then added comments more community based. Jason, wanted to mix search in a way that wasn’t just algorithmic he wanted to create a combination of algorithm, community, and Q&A based search that would be fulfilling.
- What do you think is the best way to start a business, do you have a business model first or do you get the audience first then monetize? Jason, depends on your funding, sometimes your funding is only concerned about number of eyes and during a recession they maybe only concerned about monetization. You should have an idea of the business model but have an incredible product. Chris, strategy in hearts called “shooting the moon”, if you go for it you win big but if you lose a little bit you lose everything, that is kind of what happenes in startups. If you look at the biggest guys in web space they were more worried about audience, the key is to create a monopoly.
- Brady Brim DeForester (sp), What advice do you have on being more worried about your product than your competitors? Jason, you have to qualify your competitors some are noise and some are the real deal. Both Jason and Chris were very concerned about talent, Jason offered Peter Rojas equity stake in the company.
- Fransisco, Is it smart to look at 16 or 17 revenue streams or just focus on one, two or three models? Jason, depends who you are talking to, if you go into a VC and say we have X possibilities but recognize only 2 or 3 are possible that is ok.
The News: (57 min.) with Lon Harris
- ATT&T blocked 4Chan forum, Jason, ATT&T sucks
- Lolligift, too much for the office, success may hinge on design.
- Jam Legend, you can upload a song from your library, if you can share it you will be sued even if not you may be sued because it is the music industry.
Dead Pool: (45 min.)
- Yahoo! search
- Good move for Microsoft, Yahoo! Had 20 % market share and gave it away.
- They syndicated search to Google back in the day and they are doing it again with Bing, history repeats itself.
- Searchme
- Bad idea, how is a visual interface better than text? Does anyone flip through iTunes album covers to pick their music?
- Newsgatoronline
- Never saw the business in RSS readers, it will be built into a browser, mail client what would be the business model?
Notable Quotes:
- (14 min) Chris, I think that you have a serious need to get I don’t want to say big but well known as quickly as you can because the newness is a huge part of what the tech business covers the tech business wants to cover new, once you are around for awhile you better have some revenue.
- (34 min.) Jason, I’m going to rally my entire company around beating him and that can be a very good way to use a competitor.
- (35 min.) Chris, One of the few places where there actually is competition is for talent, that is a place where, that is the one thing I have a lot of friends that are great entrepreneurs, the one thing don’t poach my staff, that is the one place where people are competing.
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