Category Archives: Deadpool

by Brian Solis

Credit: Sam_UL via Flickr

Over the weekend, my latest post ran over at TechCrunch to help entrepreneurs, startups and businesses in general, focus on generating revenue and growing their business during this tumultuous and uncertain economic climate. It was time for something constructive, as the doom and gloom crowd have enjoyed far too much airtime. Bottom line, fear is pervasive, and while some fear is generally good for us, widespread panic is the catalyst for poor decision-making. Whether this post is rudimentary or it instills hope and direction, the point is that the business world needs more “halftime” speeches right now.

“Don’t worry about getting ahead, instead, just survive…Cutting deeper and quicker is the formula to survive.” – Sequoia Capital

There’s a distinct difference between survival and real world business and without continuous expert advice specific to the landscape and climate of each business ecosystem, many companies may unwittingly lock themselves in an isolated panic room instead of taking strategic steps to evolving and growing the business opportunity that exists today.

General advice is just that, general. One prevailing set of strategies and recommendations doesn’t apply to all.

In a conversation with veteran CEO and financier Steve Larsen, currently co-founder of Krugle, Inc., he advised, “Of course, don’t be stupid. Have enough cash to run your business, but I think the doom and gloom crowd are getting too much airtime. Look for opportunities. Difficult times are when they’ll most likely occur. When we’re at ‘steady state’ and things are normal, good opportunities are much harder to find with GREAT opportunities nearly impossible. It is during periods of tumult and transition when you can spot things that lead to the greatest returns – if you are alert. So be alert.”

In every recession, abundant opportunities are inherently rife. To simply believe that this is a generic time to step off of the playing field to warm benches or take a seat in the spectator bleachers in the hopes of emerging once again to readily have a shot at winning the game is illogical. Business, and customers, do not stop making decisions – they’re just more discerning during volatile economic climates. But make no mistake, if you choose to stop vying for customer attention, the world will move ahead – without you.

Read:

The full post on TechCrunch.

The unedited version on PR 2.0 (with embedded, printable Word or PDF versions).

UPDATE: Fear Kills Businesses is a “rising blog post by attention” according to Technorati.

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by Brian Solis

Debi Jones is reporting that Sam Sethi is bowing his head and shuttering the global blog network as well as describing some of the outstanding debt owed to bloggers and designers.

For the Blognation Staff, LeWeb was to be our first team gathering – a chance to meet, a brainstorming session and a face-to-face social event – all courtesy of Blognation Ltd. As LeWeb shuts down today, so does Blognation.

I can’t find anything official to back this up, but for now, the story is hitting the blogosphere today without contest.

Debi writes in her comments section to Ben Metcalfe, “I was in a Skype chat with the rest of Blognation’s current and previous staff, making me the source. There are plenty of people in that list you can contact for corroboration. Please feel free to do so.”

There’s hope for the Blognation brand and band of great writers as Tristan Louis, who owns the blognation domain, may relaunch the network under a different corporation.

Update 1: Sam Sethi responds.

Update 2: Is John Furrier thinking about taking over Blognation?  Read the comments.
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by Brian Solis

Do I hear two fiddy, two fiddy, three, three, three and a quarter, three fiddy, four, four in the back, whoa, four fiddy in front center, five? five? five, thank you sir on the right.

TechCrunch is reporting that bidding for Edgeio, which entered the TechCrunch Deadpool, starts at $250,000 and runs until December 21st. Interested parties can register to bid at Domain-Tools here.

Edgeio’s goal was to deliver classified ads into publisher web sites, sending traffic to the advertiser, and payment to the publisher. The platform is fully self-service, allowing advertisers to upload listings and publishers to distribute them. The company is about 18 months into the effort. The platform has elements for advertisers, publishers and users.

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by Brian Solis

Hopefully this isn’t going to become the most popular topic on bub.blicio.us in the near future, but just in case, I’ve added a deadpool category.

Edgeio has decided to cease operations, which according to co-founder Michael Arrington, was a unanimous decision made by the board. The company now joins the Techcrunch Deadpool officially.

The company raised a small angel round of financing, then in October 2006 closed a $5 million Series A from Intel Capital and Transcosmos. Due to unmet milestones and objectives, the board feels that this is the best decision.

They made a good run at it. In speaking with CEO Keith Teare over the years, there was do doubt that the passion stayed strong all along.

Best of luck to the team and hopefully everyone will find a new gig as quickly as possible.

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