TWiST, Matt Mickiewicz of SitePoint, 99designs, and Flippa

Posted by SRSimko on August 31, 2009 · View Comments

Date: Aug. 28, 2009

Guest: Matt Mickiewicz, Founder of SitePoint, 99Designs, and Flippa

SitePoint is a fast growing online media company and information provider targeting the Web professional market, specifically Web Developers and Designers. The company has five major revenue streams: advertising and sponsorship, content-based products both online and in retail, software, and more recently streaming video subscriptions and classified listings. SitePoint is currently the 978th most visited web site in the world!

99designs is a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.

It’s definitely a cliché but there’s no other way to describe it — 99designs was started by designers for designers. Our role at 99designs is to provide a friendly, professional, and secure environment where designers from all walks of life can compete on a level playing field – where they can show off their work, improve their skills, communicate with peers, and win new clients.

99designs was founded by Mark Harbottle, co-founder and chairman of sitepoint.com, along with internet veterans Lachlan Donald, and Paul Annesley.

Flippa is the leading marketplace for websites.

As a buyer, you get to choose from the widest range of established web sites, with comprehensive information about the business helping you to make the correct decision with confidence.

As a seller, you have access to a huge crowd of interested and informed buyers keen to bid good prices for premium product. The hard work you’ve invested in building your business will be rewarded

Special Announcements:

(04 min) Jason’s Review Challenge, plain and simple he wants feedback on the show good or bad. So he has created a contest to review this episode and the winner gets a $500 iPhone gift card. Post it and send the link to contact@thisweekinstartups.com
4 remote shows coming up, next week live from Sequoia (2 conferences and 2 from Sequoia)
We Live In Public, tells the story of the effect the web is having on our society as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, visionary Josh Harris. If you buy a ticket (in the next week) the first 100 people to email a pic of the ticket to contact@thisweekinstartups.com you will receive a Mahalo pack.
New segment “Jason’s Shark Tank”, 3 minutes to pitch your idea (similar to Dragon’s Den)
Jason will be the first user of the professional user account for Twitter.

Ask Jason: (22min)

Stewart Moore from Maryland

- How likely is it for someone to start a consumer hardware company? Very expensive, you are competing with the big guys. However, things are changing and a few smaller companies have succeeded Flip and Slingbox. Flip was very simple, no features and went against the norm. Their have been failures OQO, make sure your idea is different. He wants to create a device that can download and create podcasts. Make sure you do a 100 to 1,000 unit run and have people order in advance and start the work when you get 500 orders then you do it. Consider using Kickstarter to help fund your idea or ChallengePost to help you get the design work done (one of Jason’s Angel investments).

Tim Holladay, Splat Technologies, mobile app. development.

- How does a small fish know if a big company is really interested, what is the next step after initial interest? Great question, you may have to go through 5, 10 meeting to get anything done. They are big companies and it takes a long time to get anything done. Protect yourself assume it will not happen and run your business is so. Ask them during a meeting is this something that you may be able to execute on in 30 days, 60 days or 90 days and based on what they say let them know you have 3 other clients interested and you will make sure to get back in touch with them in said period. Jason prefers the slow approach to salesmanship when people seek him out. Consider a free, opensourse version to let them see something and if interested you can make a full version. Jason prefers a visualization approach give them something to see.

Jason’s Shark Tank: (42 min.)

Shaan Siddiqui

Idea: Emotify, Tag content based on how they feel and create user media packages.

Jason’s Recap: The Delicious / Stumbleupon of emotions, you have the core of an idea. BuzzFeed has a tool that is similar. It is in the feature phase, let me guess you are not sure exactly where this will go, can the feature turn into a product and then a business. What have you done before? 2^nd startup, self funded, spent $25,000, worked on a year and a half too long and it failed but he has moved on. Jason would have to meet you he prefers crazy passionate entrepreneurs. How does this go from this being an interesting feature to a product? Will this become a destination site? Shaan didn’t answer with conviction, he said basically maybe. This concerned Jason because he thinks it would be a good destination site and wanted to see passion for the idea. What did your parent’s do? Father – Teacher, Mother – Manager of a local supply firm, You grew up middle class? Yes, what kind of car did your parents drive? Accord and Civic. Did you go to college? Yes, paid for college himself. How much money would you need and what would you spend it on? They are about 8 weeks from launching, they have a workable link. They need runway, for servers and a site redesign. They received some money from a local angel. Jason wants a java code to help him make his site better.

Matt’s Recap: He like the idea of content across multiple websites and multiple mediums and possible curated content. What he didn’t hear was, how will this make money? Right now Shaan is expecting advertising but the business model isn’t fully developed.

Tyler’s Insight: One of his favorite feature is the Tweetmeme button, it allows you to Retweet right away. Within 6 months he is reaching Digg like numbers, it gives instant feedback. Will this be a similar simple feature?

End Result: Jason is intrigued and Shaan is onto something, he can’t say yes or no on the spot but you fit his profile, you are cheap by nature.

John Theriault

Idea: Vivolve, a life profile site for teens to start building a career resume, free for teens and recruiters, business model based around data subscribers.

Jason’s Recap: Your ability to pitch this is terrible but your idea could be brilliant. Basically, LinkedIn for High School students allowing them to start a resume 8 years before you start looking for a job. The name is terrible, work on branding. Why did you come up with this idea? He was a sports writer and saw good student athletes struggle to create a helpful online profile to get recognized. After some thought and explanation the name is sinking in.

Pointer’s on how to pitch by Jason: Present the problem or frustration you solve or make an analogy in the first 10 seconds and then move on to idea.

Matt’s Recap: It has a lot of potential; I like how your idea started down the sports niche. You could track stat’s and charge recruiters for access by making their lives easier. Once you start perfect the sports niche you could evolve the idea into other areas.

Tyler’s Insight: The internship space and application space is lacking.

End Result: Jason would like to see the sight, he loves the idea of a LinkedIn for teens and will follow up.

Discussion: (1:18)

Matt came from a working family and built everything from the ground up.
He was 15 years old when he started the precursor to SitePoint, he was learning how to build a website as a hobby and started finding cool things but everything was scattered about. He compiled all the data into website called Web Master Resources (1997-98)that linked to all the resources, he quickly became the go to destination for website building.
They bootstrapped all the way and bartered for everything from software to email lists.
While in High School he was taking advertising orders, success was quick. His parents didn’t think the success would last they thought it had no legs. However, when it succeeded he skipped going to college, the only thing he may have missed out on is the social aspects of college. Jason eloquently says the chicks.
2000-01 things got tough when money dried up, advertising shrunk but never had to lay anyone off. What they did was study how people used their website and the most popular feature was, “print this article”. They wanted to explore printing up their most popular articles as cheaply as possible and created, in his words a crappy little 200 page book but sold 20,000 for $35 apiece, which led to the books they continue to publish.
When 99designs was started the going rate for a logo was $5,000 – $20,000, so expensive many people didn’t even get a logo. The average price for a logo on 99designs is $300.
There is a movement among graphic designers against spec work and is trying to get people to stop participating at 99designs.
99designs has 44,000 designers in their community. 99designs provides lead generation for other work for designers. Their lead designer in Romania made $80,000US last year through their site and probably much more on the side.
Flippa, new site recently created is a marketplace to buy and sell websites.

The News: (1:34)with Andrew Warner of Mixergy

Apple’s Snow Leopard released with few added features, is this the end of innovation in desktop computers? No, I don’t understand this release, I guess the big feature is exchange and speed. However, it won’t be too noticeable. Will you be upgrading in this office? No, I don’t even think we did the last upgrade. Jason would like to see more innovation in monitors.
NFL banded Twittering during games. Ocho Cinco found a work around by sending a signal to a friend at the game to send out tweets. Is this a distraction to work or a great publicity stunt? Jason, doesn’t like the idea he is a work and should concentrate on the game and let his play speak for itself.
Yelp has an augmented reality feature, will this become a mainstream? Very cool not sure if everyone will have a use for it. Therefore, not that big of a deal.
Microsoft photoshopped out a black man out of its Polish site and replaced him with a white man. What do you think? Somebody is an idiot; I don’t know what they are thinking. I don’t think it was malicious but someone not thinking the situation entirely through. What steps do you take at Mahalo to prevent social oops? He is very clear that you represent your company even if it is on your private Facebook account.
Wall Street Journal reports Steve Jobs is obsessed with the tablet computer, do you think this will be a hit? Depends on price, will it be a better experience than the iPhone, iTouch. He doesn’t see it being a huge hit, very niche.
Bit.ly, shortening url for other sites. Are people making a mistake by turning over their URLs to shortening services? Benefit are the statistics and eventually most people will have their own service. They need to guarantee the service will be up no matter what happens to the company, until then I would be concerned.

Dead Pool: (2:10)

Tipjoy, micropayment company
- They will be competing with Paypal
- Not big enough of a difference

Notable Quotes:

(50 min.) Jason, If you’re not crazy I would never invest in you, if you’re like a normal person that disqualifies you from my investment fund. My investment thesis is, I like crazy unreasonable entrepreneurs.
(59 min.) Jason, A-B-C, Always Be Cheap as a startup.
(1:59) Jason on relationships, Grab time when you can and do something epic.

Relationship Ideas:

Do something that will make all the other girlfriends / spouses jealous
Bring your significant other to conferences
Gift idea, bring it to another level not by spending more but be creativity and make an effort (ex. Buy a box of chocolates, remove some of the chocolate and place something nice in the box)
Take a hike with a great view, surprise her with a some wine, cheese and crackers. Small surprises.

Insights From Tyler!!!: