Jason’s guest this week was Howard Morgan, Co-Founder of First Round Capital and a  30 year veteran of the technology industry.  Highlights of the show this week include: biggest passes that did great, incubator programs and what they offer and who are the greatest tech. entrepreneurs of the 80s, 90s, 00s.

Announcements: next week’s show will be live from SXSW with Tony Hsieh of Zappos on Saturday the 13th at 2pm (Pacific), 5pm (Eastern), 10pm (London), March 14th 9am (Sydney)

Ask Jason

00:11 Pablo Fernandez of Hear a Blog calls in to ask, when pitching to investors do I pitch the necessary intermediate stage of the idea or the big vision idea?

00:27 Stephen Young calls in to ask, what salary range should founders be in when taking an angel investment and follows up with how do you raise your salary once you have investment?

00:35 Shark Tank

Andrew Watson calls in to pitch Othernum a virtual phone system for small businesses.

Interview with Howard Morgan

00:47 Topics:
Biggest company Howard passed on that was great
Investing in competitive companies
Location based companies
Franklin Electronic Publishers business cycle
Mint.com and how being a part of their founders network help them scale their infastructure
How First Capital supports their companies
Idealabs, why it’s successful
Greatest Entrepreneurs of the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s

01:38 News with Lon Harris

Call of Duty Lawsuit

Bing Ad on Framville

01:48:28: Microsoft gains 400,000 users by advertising on farmville.
lon’s Question: is this a way to get users or just click
Jason: Good Idea, social games are massive

01:51:28 Social game advertising is going to be a massive advertising portal, mini cooper being launched through the movie italian job.

01:51:55 Tyler gets scolded

01:52:33 Companies advertising to free samples in magazine.

01:54:00 A large percent of facebook revenue coming from social games, zynga worth more then facebook?

Microsoft’s Project Pink Phones

01:54:35 Microsoft’s Pink Phone
lon’s question: What’s the strategy for Microsoft for releasing these phones?

01:56:00 Jason: Microsoft has a legacy and needs to start from scratch and create a long lasting mobile os.

01:58:00 xbox gets complemented

Sony’s PSP Phone

01:59:21 sony to launch a playstation themed phone, maybe a competitor to ipad.
Question: will this hit a mass audience and what will they need to hit a mass audience.

02:00:00 Sony should use the google OS
02:01:00 Sony has lost it’s relevance

iPad Release Date

02:02:50 Ipad will release late april
Question: are you planning to buy an ipad?

02:03:40 Jason: yes – the ipad without the 3g may not sell as well. Maybe ipad is too expensive for a recession.
02:05:40 ipad needs a USB
02:05:50 Howard Morgan: Overpriced Kindle

02:08:00 Steve Job too controlling

02:08:15 What will happen to apple after steve jobs?
02:09:00 Howard Morgan talks about meeting steve in person.

Fiverr

02:10:51 fiverr job board for jobs worth $5

Jason’s guest this week was Andy Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of DailyBurn a social networking fitness site, that allows you to track what you eat, record your workout, join a challenge and find like minded people for support in your fitness goals.  Highlights this week include an in-depth discussion concerning TechStars and worst VC experiences and the winner of the Bing Perfect Pitch Contest.

Announcements:

• Jason will be taking the show on the road to SXSW, March 13th.
• We have a new CDN NetDNA to deliver the show to the iTunes feed, we think you’ll be happy.
• Microsoft Bing Map Augmented Reality TED talk.

00:19 Ask Jason: Sean O’Connor calls in to ask, how do I research market size in preparation for investment discussions?

00:28 Initial Interview with Andy:
Andy’s experience with TechStars
What it took to get in
An explanation of the program
How the TechStars community help each other
The TechStars program application is open.

00:37 Jason’s Shark Tank: Steven Schofield calls in to pitch Fidgetstick a social network site aimed at bringing like minded adventure sport enthusiast together.

00:51 Bing Perfect Pitch Contest, congratulations goes to Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice.  Jason adds to the winnings in about 6 months Timeshare Juice and Propadoo (community choice) will come into studio to showcase their work.

00:56 Interview:

• What’s next for DailyBurn
• Fund Raising goals
• Bringing the team together
• Health issues in the US
• VC stories (Jason and Andy’s worst experience)

01:28 News with Lon Harris:

• Facebook Patent
• Palm in Trouble
• Shamu and Social Media
• Sexy App Ban by Apple
• Yammer Communities
• Yelp Lawsuit

Jason’s guest this week was Michael Robertson, CEO and Founder of MP3Tunes.  This was an incredible show, highlights include a guest that has an incredible amount of experience, battling big corporations, lawsuits and how to deal with them, interesting predictions for the music industry and how MP3.com got started.

00:07 During “Ask Jason” we get to hear Josh Nielsen ask “How do I value equity when being offered a job at a startup?” the question doesn’t end there without spoiling things, be sure to see where this one ends up.

00:25 We get to hear from Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice pitch how he plans to change the timeshare exchange experience.  He gets some incredible feedback from Jason and Michael regarding his business model and distribution.

00:44 Highlights of the interview include:

• Michaels story of rags to riches
• What motivated him to succeed
• How he started MP3.com and fought the music industry, winning and losing in some cases.
• How independent label artists helped him succeed.
• 6 months to IPO
• Why he gave $15 million to his employees
• Michael’s opinion on why Spotify will go out of business.

01:49 News with Lon Harris include:

• Microsoft and Yahoo
• Tesla Plane Crash
• Lower Merion, PA Privacy Invasion
• Sex.com
• YouTube Embedding Survey
• Please Rob Me
• Scribd
• Hulu on the iPad

Jason’s guest this week was James Segil of EdgeCast a content delivery network.  Highlights of the show include an interesting discussion of TED and why he is banned from attending, a celebrity Ask Jason call-in and how companies distribute their content.

Things of note:

• Open Angel Forum announces two new cities: New York and San Fransisco, to be competitive to pitch be sure to have a working product (beta is ok).
• This Week In Twitter, hosted by Lon Harris had their second show, please check it out.

During “Ask Jason” we get to hear Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software and Stack Overflow) call in to ask some advice on closing a deal with a VC and Jason follows up with a question for Joel regarding how to help developers experiment and learn new things.

We get to hear two different companies pitch during Jason’s Shark Tank the first is Rob Leclerc pitching Babbleflix a language learning tool basically Rosetta Stone meets Netflix.  Our second caller is Shawn Edmondson pitching thereNow an innovative approach to continuing education for teachers.

Highlights of the interview include:

• How content delivery networks work
• Why EdgeCast decided to compete with Akamai
• A short discussion about the backbone of the internet
• Is the internet ready and capable to grow exponentially
• International implications of the internet
• Debt vs. Equity and Warrants

News with Lon Harris discusses:

• Google Buzz (Jason’s Buzz Profile)
• Google Buys Aardvark
• Deadpool: Veoh
• Free Kindle
• Shakeup at MySpace

Rate the show in the comments 1 – 10 (10 being best)

Today Jason had the opportunity to speak to 55 seniors at Penn State who will all be working on the University’s “Idea Pitch” contest.  All the students are part of the Information Sciences and Technology school and will be pitching their ideas to the business school.

I really liked this interview it was not your normal TWiST episode.  While it had the same sense of humor and casual tone we get to hear Jason tell his story and how he learned and what motivated him.  You can even see the passion coming through at one point where I sensed emotional satisfaction in proving the naysayers wrong.

He starts off by asking how many people want to be an entrepreneurs and who wants to be a drone worker bee (about 6%).  Throughout the interview he motivates the class and opens many eyes about work life, later in the show he asks the same question to find a very different answer.

Entrepreneur core qualities:

• Entrepreneurial parents
• Recklessness gambling personalities
• Resiliency
• Focused
• Won’t take no for an answer
• You will disproportionately be rewarded if you succeed
• Work harder
• Must believe in yourself

Questions from the class:

• Do you stir the pot on purpose (Twitter)?
• What is your relationship with your employees?
• In the early stages do you worry about intellectual property?
• Can you be someone who is an entrepreneur within a company?

Who wants to be a rice picker and who wants to be a Samari?

This week’s guest was Scott Morrow, CEO of ThisNext a social shopping search/discovery site that uses crowdsourcing to bring the best products to the top.  Highlights of the show are a live surprise call to a superfan and interesting discussion about arbitrage.

The show starts off with a great behind the scenes video (by Colorado Tech TV) of the Boulder Open Angel Forum event.

During “Ask Jason” we hear Denny Ferrassoli ask, what are the pros and cons to bringing real money vs. virtual currency to a social community.

Anibal Damião calls in for “Jason’s Shark Tank” and he pitches Influads an advertising alternative, where one advertisement is place on a website.

During the interview we learn about what it’s like to come in as a President for a startup with a founder still in the mix, the ins and outs of crowdsourcing methods and a detailed discussion about pay per click, arbitrage and paid search.  Scott brought up one ThisNext feature that was pretty interesting “Explore” a map that allows you to watch people shop live around the world.

Another contest was held on the fly, Charles Goffnett (ShirTeeapp.com) , a superfan, sent in four “Insight’s from Tyler” inspired t-shirts that were given to four fan’s chosen at random who thanked our sponsors.   Charles will soon be launching a site if you’d like to purchase one on your own.  I’ll be sure to post details once they are available.

Please rate the show in the comments, 1 – 10 (10 being best)

This week’s guest was Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing Search at Microsoft.  Not only was the show insightful as always but I think this was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in awhile.  Not to mention Jason’s recent Twitter iPad joke, shame on the journalists who fell for that, Jason and Loren Feldman of 1938 Media put them in their place.  One last comments about the iPad, No USB No iPad.

In the “Ask Jason” segment we hear from Dewayne Carel, who asks “How do I keep momentum with my blog (Modders Inc), the uniques spike then plateau back to original values?”.

During “Jason’s Shark Tank” we get to hear Andrew Hillman pitch MaroonDoor a solution for sometimes sticky Home Owners Association politics.

During the interview we hear a great discussion about, why Bing turned out so well.  Stefan’s past with Microsoft and his vision for search.  One interesting feature that was brought up was Bing and Twitter information.  If you go to Bing.com/twitter you can search Twitter content, I urge you to try it I thought it was interesting, try searching #TWiST.  Lastly Stefan mentioned the theme for the Bing Friday T-Shirt contest “Airports” if you’d like to win a Bing T-shirt simple @Bing with a query that exemplifies the theme and the team randomly picks a winner.

Rich DeMuro finishes with the news:

• Facebook and a Foursquare killer
• Roku seeks private funds for engineering and marketing
• AT&T to launch Yelp competitor Buzz
• iCurrent know available to everyone
• Square announces Angels
• Startup raises $230,000 using only LinkedIn

Please rate the show in the comments : 1-10 (10 being best)

- Show quoted text -

This week’s guest was Phil Kaplan co-founder of Blippy.  Highlights of the show included a great discussion with Phil about what it’s like to work as Entrepreneur in Residence, another great Tyler quote and multiple giveaways (5 Jawbone ICONs, 1 Nexus One, $500 MicroSoft prize pack (congrats Erika)).

Announcements:

• A new show This Week in Android (@TWiAndroid) hosted by Mark Jeffrey showcasing everything android will follow TWiST each week.  To catch it live stay on the same Ustream page for TWiST.
• A new Bing Shark Tank contest is announced, I’ll post all the details in a blog post, needless to say submit your ideas for Jason’s Shark Tank, that is step one.

In the Ask Jason segment, Wayne calls in to ask, what is more important to investors being in a hot sector or having a proven revenue model?  Jason follows up with a good question asking Phil how he chose who would be an investor in Blippy due to the large interest.  In Shark Tank we get to hear pitches from Propadoo and Brand-Yourself, two great ideas who received a ton of feedback.

In the news:

• Digg overhall
• 2009 a bad year for VC deals
• YouTube movie rentals
• ComScore overhall
• Zocdoc

I would like to start compiling Tyler quotes can you help me by adding them in the comments.

Please rate the show in the comments: 1 to 10

Following TWiST 35 with Brad Feld, Jason had a special bonus show with some of the Open Angel Forum (OAF) inaugural presenters.  Jason starts off by explaining what OAF is “it is a forum to help entrepreneurs raise Angel investment” and then goes on to talk a little bit about the  structure of the event (the audience consists of Angel Investors and five service providers).  The next OAF event will be held in Boulder, CO and hosted by TechStars in February.

A few of the companies that presented were interviewed and we get to hear a firsthand account of their experience.

• Eric Lagier, CEO and co-founder of TigerTag the world’s first free lost and found service.  The core of our service is the TigerTag – a small, neatly designed tag that you apply to all your valuables that you would like to safeguard.
• Arun Gupta, co-founder of WakeMate a bluetooth cell phone accessory that will analyze your sleep to find the optimal time for you to wake up and analysis of your sleep pattern.
• Jason Kiesel, co-founder of CitySourced a real time mobile civic engagement tool. CitySourced provides a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issues (potholes, graffiti, trash, snow removal, etc.) and report them to city hall for quick resolution; an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern; and a positive, collaborative platform for real action.

For those interested the two companies we do not get to hear from are:

• Backupify is a service that backs up your online accounts: Wordpress, Facebook, Basecamp, Google Docs, Gmail, Flickr and many more.
• Postabon where people upload and vote on in-store discount recommendations in your area.  The result is a comprehensive list of relevant, user-tested discounts happening at brick and mortar stores in your area right now.

Jason’s guest this week was Brad Feld, co-founder of Foundry Group and mentor for TechStars.  Highlights of the show include the appearance of Sith Lord Calacanis and a great discussion about startup team dynamics.

The show starts off with a recap of the inaugural Open Angel Forum event consisting of “Power Angels” such as Chris Sacca, Ron Conway, David Cohen and many more.  Jason has one special announcement, the next Open Angel Forum will take place in Boulder, CO hosted by TechStars in February, details will be posted at the Open Angel Forum website.  After pleasantries we get to hear a bit about Brad’s experience in Alaska and Boulder and how he has helped cultivate the Boulder startup community and what it is like to be part of TechStars.  Things progress to Ask Jason and we get to hear about the necessity of have a developer as part of your team.  Tyler Koblasa calls in and pitches Ming.ly a CRM tool for social contacts.  During the interview segment Brad and Jason discuss: startup visas and their importance, what is important to his firm when investing  and what is important for your startup team.  The news segments highlights: Haiti, Yahoo’s Shopping API, MyTown, Google China and Apple acquisitions.

Here are a couple blog posts highlighting the Open Angel Form inaugural event:

Mark Suster: Both Sides of The Table

Brad Feld: Feld Thoughts

David Cohen: Colorado Startups

This week was an all “Ask Jason” show, present to help Jason with questions and advice is the ever insightful Tyler Crowley and Mahalo technical advisor Mark Jaffrey.  We have the pleasure of hearing four great questions and a news segment with Lon Harris that touches on all the tech stories of the week.

The show starts off with a highlight of Open Angel Forum, 100+ people applied to pitch at the Los Angeles event alone (Jan. 14^th) and for the other cities combined an additional 100+.  Tyler says on average these applicants are better than TechCrunch50, 5 companies were chosen pitch.   Hopefully, they will be on a special TWiST next week.  Four more cities will be launching next week, Jason sees this going worldwide.

In the “Ask Jason” segment we get to hear from the youngest caller to date Max Salmeron a 15 year old blogger.  Jason explain how blogging is a great medium and how focusing on a specific subject that you enjoy and are passionate about is necessary and how important it is to become part of that community.  Tommy Leap a first time listener calls in to ask about how to become an Angel Investor.  Jonathon Dusing (of Row27) calls in via Skype to discuss iPhone apps and how to compete with big companies that like to throw their legal weight around.  Lastly, Anthony Colarusso (MyFaceShirt) calls in to ask a question about how to I get traction online with a T-shirt business.

News with Lon Harris:

• Nexus One – Google enters the mobile phone business
• AOL/Mashable Deal?
• Crunchies 2009
• Tablet Fever -  Are tablets destined to be the hot tech product of 2010?
• Gowalla – promotion in partnership with Incase
• Phitter – Former “Cheers” star Kirstie Alley has launched Phitter, a Twitter-inspired community that unites individuals trying to lose weight.

Lastly, Jason announces my addition to This Week in Startups as the new official blogger for the show.  My goal will be to follow-up will past guests, and provide content mid-week.  So please check back, I announce all new posts via Twitter @ScottSimko with the #TWiST hashtag and on Facebook.

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest this week is Shawn Gold, CEO of online invitation startup, Cocodot.   Shawn and Jason have a long history together, including at Weblogs, Inc (where he was the President).  Shawn’s most recent venture, Cocodot, is looking to reshape the way people handle invitations for high end events – it’s the first online service that presents and invitation of high enough quality to use for important and elegant events like receptions and weddings.  Tune in to hear Shawn’s take on what it’s like to launch at TechCrunch50, his history with MySpace, and the lessons he’s learned from working at numerous tech startups.

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest on this week’s show is George Naspo, CEO of IKANO Communications.  George has tons of experience (30 years plus) in the business world during which he’s bought and sold numerous companies – he’s got some great insights into how to evaluate companies that you don’t want to miss.  George has built up a reputation over the years as a “fixer”, brought in to fix up companies and turn them into power houses – check out the full episode to see why he was brought in to turn around IKANO Communications and the great job he’s done there.

We’re also running a special contest this week thanks to IKANO and PowerVPS, we’re running a special contest this week.  We’re giving away free VPS hosting for life to 5 lucky TWiST viewers.  Just head on over to Twitter and tweet why you should win free hosting for life.  Just make sure to include both “#TWiST” and “@PowerVPS” in your tweet.

Finally, we’re very excited to welcome Bing (yes, that Bing) on as the newest sponsor of TWiST.  Stay tuned over the next few weeks to see some of the great programs that Microsoft will be working with us on to help out everyone in the startup community.  And in the mean time, make sure to head over and check out the amazing new Bing Maps beta, with a truly amazing interface and capabilities.

See you all next week!

Download the MP3 Here!

Coming into the TWiST studio this week is Jack Andrys, CEO of WebSpy. Jack’s been running IT startups since about 1994 (prior to that he was a commercial diver for the construction industry, interesting change, right) and has built WebSpy into one of the leading providers of log analyzation software, with its products being used the world over.  Check out the full episode to see how Jack made his transition, what it took to start WebSpy and where its going in the future.

If you haven’t tried out any of WebSpy’s products, make sure you head over and take a look at them.  They’re rolling out a new Soho product soon (you can even help vote on the official logo for it) that’s perfect for parents and bosses who want to see how much of what traffic is being used, without breaking anyone’s privacy.

Download the MP3 Here!

On this episode of This Week In Startups, Jason is joined by Jim Lanzone, former CEO of Ask.com and now current CEO of Clicker. Clicker brings together a wide array of programming from traditional television to web originals. The site could quite possibly be the next gen version of TV guide with features such as listings, recommendations, show infos, and live streaming clips of the shows of your choice. Jason digs deep and chats with Jim about their debut at TechCrunch 50 to what the future holds for, what could be, a site that will integrate with people, families worldwide and become a household name.

Download the MP3 Here!

On this episode of This Week In Startups, Jason is joined by Kamran Pourzanjani, CEO of Pricegrabber.com. The site provides a price comparison service that is linked up with 13,000 merchants, retailers, and sellers and overlooks millions of products by tagging each with “matter of fact” information. The site got its start in 1999 with only 1.5 million in angel funding leading up to its acquisition by Experian in 2005 for $485 million. Join Jason as he learns about the journey Kamran Pourzanjani took to build a startup and become a renowned entrepreneur and angel investor. Also catch his take on Jason’s showdown with the Keiretsu Forum!

Download the MP3 Here!

Our second episode this week (making up for the missed one last week), Jason is joined by Matt Coffin, angel investor and founder of LowerMyBills.com. Matt founded LowerMyBills back in 1999 (full details about his inspiration come during the first part of his interview) and later sold it to Experian for over $300M. Since then he’s become an angel investor and advisor to startups around the world (including Mahalo).

Check out the full episode to find out about his management style, the type of companies he really wants to invest in, and how to get funding with your next project.

Download the MP3 Here!

Download the MP3 Here!

Joining Jason on this week’s episode of TWiST is LA-based venture capitalist Mark Suster.  Mark is a highly experienced VC with GRP Partners – he’s also an entrepreneur who built and sold two companies before starting with GRP.  If you want to talk to someone who knows about building, funding and selling companies, Mark is your man.  He’s also a fixture in the LA tech community, frequently appearing at events and counseling local startups.

Tune in to see how Mark got his start and the advice he has for entrepreneurs of today.  And what do you think his take is on the entire angel controversy….

Just a quick reminder, no episode this week as Jason is in NYC for the Audience Conference (giving his final keynote ever).  But we’ll be back the week after with 2 episodes, including one live from San Francisco!  See you then!

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest on this week’s show was everyone’s favorite Twittering wine guy, Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary has a new book out (Crush It!) detailing how to turn your passions into businesses and achievements. Of course Gary and Jason are both very passionate speakers (and very engaging) so check out the full episode to see this amazing level of energy.

Special Note: Due to Gary Vee’s vernacular, this episode contains a number of swear words that have not been edited out.

Download the MP3 Here!

If you’re part of the tech world, you’ve no doubt heard by now about the controversy over “angel” investing groups charging startups to present to them (for full background, check out Jason’s posts on the subject: Part 1 and Part 2).  So for this week’s episode, we dropped the normal guest and instead had a ton of callers from all sides of the issues: Steve Bell, a member of the Keiretsu Forum; Mike Sid, a CEO who was hounded by one of these forums; an entrepreneur who’s pitched several of the forums; and a venture capitalist who’s attended all of them.  Check out what all of them have to say about this practice and where they think its going.

Of course we wouldn’t leave you without some of your favorite regular segments too, we’ve got callers for Ask Jason & Jason’s Shark Tank, and of course Lon is stopping by to read the news.

Enjoy the episode, and make sure to leave your comments about this hot-button, and important issue.

Remember, next week we’ll be on early @ 11am PDT with Gary Vaynerchuck!

Download the MP3 Here!

Live from New Noise Santa Barbara, Jason is joined by John MacFarlane, CEO of Sonos. Check out the full interview to see the big new products that Sonos has planned (or at least what Jason implies they do), how they deal with the complex legal issues surrounding the music biz, and just how big a system you can configure using Sonos gear.

We also picked a winner of the TWiST Review Contest – congratulations to the team over at Minority Fortune.  Head on over and check out their winning review!

Download the MP3 Here!

Another week, another bonus episode!  On Tuesday, Jason was joined by Mark Goulston, author of his fifth book, “Just Listen”.  Mark is the guy Jason turns to when he needs guidance on workplace issues and it’s easy to see why.  Check out the full episode to see what Mark has to say about how to keep your workplace running smooth and keeping everyone happy (and productive!)

Also, remember, we’ll be live from New Noise Santa Barbara on Friday @ 1pm, so make sure to tune in right here.

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest today is Joe Essenfeld, CEO of LocalBacon, one of the finalists from TechCrunch50 2009.  LocalBacon is a job posting site that turns the traditional model on its head – instead of charging companies for posting, it charges job seekers to apply (a nominal $1 fee).  The goal is to weed out the “blast” emails that people send to any job they see posted and help the most qualified candidates rise to the top.  There’s also mandatory feedback, so applicants can see what the hiring company thought of them to help tailor their future applications better.

Check out the entire episode to see how Joe came up with the idea (and which fellow TWiST fan helped him build  it).

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest on our second bonus! episode of TWiST is Kimbal Musk, entrepreneur and restaurant owner.  Kimbal is currently running real-time search provider, OneRiot and is the owner of “The Kitchen”, a community restaurant in Boulder, Colorado.  Tune in to the whole episode to hear how Kimbal got his start, why he thinks real time search is so important, what it’s like running a tech company far away from Silicon Valley and much more.

Just a reminder – join us this Friday when Jason interviews Joe Essenfeld, CEO of TC50 Show-Off company, Local Bacon.

Download the MP3 Here!

We had a special episode this week, live from the Digital Family Summit in Santa Monica, CA.  Jason chatted with Mike Jones, COO of MySpace, and Peter Hirschberg, CEO of The Conversation Group, about community building and the challenges facing companies trying to establish themselves in the space.  Tune in to see all the insights from these three veteran community builders.

Just a quick reminder – we’ll be having another special bonus episode on Monday at 1:30pm with Kimbal Musk, so make sure to tune in then!

Download the MP3 Here!

It’s the first of our special “bonus” episodes – a series of slightly shorter shows consisting of just the interviews with some of the top influencers in tech.  Joining us today are Ryan Block and Peter Rojas, co-founders of gadget lover site GDGT.  Tune in to find out how they got their starts and have become two of the most influential journalists in tech.

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest on Friday’s show was Brandon Kessler, CEO of ChallengePost – an online site where anyone can create challenges (like the X-Prize) and make them available to the public.  This is Brandon’s fourth startup, so tune in to see how he keeps creating, and executing, all these great ideas.

We also had special callers this week – the founders of redbeacon and anyclip, the winner and one of the semi-finalists from TechCrunch50 2009.  Ever wondered what it’s like to present at TC50?  Tune in to get the behind the scenes scoop.

Just a reminder, we’ll be on at a special time this week, 7pm (PDT) – live from the Digital Family Summit in Santa Monica, CA.  See you then!

Download the MP3 Here!

Download the MP3 Here!

We had a very special (and a bit shorter) episode this week, live from the offices of Sequoia Capital in Menlo Park, CA.  We were up doing the rehearsals with some of  the companies that will present at TechCrunch50 2009, and man, do they look great.  Hope you’ll be there to see the launch of some of the most innovative and exciting companies ever.

Garry Tan, co-founder of Posterous, was nice enough to stop by and chat with Jason for the show.  and as a special “treat”, TechCrunch Editor Mike Arrington decided to also come by for a bit.  Check out the full interview to see everything they talked about.

And thanks to the great response (we’ve already gotten 25 reviews) we decided to extend the review contest.  So keep them coming!

Make sure to tune in next Friday (at a special time 2:00pm PDT) for another special episode – this one featuring Roelof Botha from Sequoia Capital.  He and Jason will be taking tons of “Ask Jason” and shark tank calls – so if you’d like to be on the show, e-mail us at contact [at] thisweekinstartups [dot] com.

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest this week was Matt Mickiewicz, founder of Sitepoint.com and 99designs.  Matt has been an entrepreneur since high school, when he founded what was the precursor to Sitepoint.  Check out the entire episode to find out how he brought it all together and has become one of the most successful young entrepreneurs, without most people even knowing it.

We also had several very exciting announcements on the show today.  We have several new contests/giveaways going on.  There’s the TWiST Review Contest, the Incredible Audible Deal and the “We Live in Public” NY giveaway.  Check out the specific pages for full details on all these great giveaways.

We also introduced a brand new segment this week – “Jason’s Shark Tank”.  Two self-starting entrepreneurs had the chance to pitch Jason on their ideas and why he should invest with them.  Think you have a better idea than they did – e-mail contact@thisweekinstartups.com with your pitch and you may end up on the show!

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guests on this week’s episode were Brad Hunstable and John Ham, Co-Founder of Ustream.  If you don’t already know, Ustream is one of the best live video streaming sites on the web (and certainly our favorite here @ TWiST).  Tune in to find out where the idea came from, how they built up the platform, and what’s coming up next.

No episode next week, but make sure to tune in on the 28th for Sean Spector from GameFly.

Download the MP3 Here!

And for a full recap of this (and every episode), check out Scott Simko’s ThisWeekinStartupsRecap.com

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest on this week’s episode was Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix.com.  This week’s episode was also particularly special as it was our first live, remote show – broadcasting from LA’s premiere tech event – Twiistup.  We had live ‘Ask Jason’ questions, the deadpool, news and a very special ‘acquisition’ announcement from Jason.  This is definitely an episode that you do not want to miss!

Full episode after the jump

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We were back on the air this afternoon with Loren Bendel, CEO of Savings.com. Jason introduced Loren as someone he has a lot to learn from as Loren knows an array of things about his vertical that have made him so successful. Loren gave some great insight into what it’s like to run a coupons and promotions company under a recession and also talked about the value of using social media practices to advance the company.

There was an eclectic set of callers this week too. The first caller, Nathan Stobezki, wanted to know if Jason had any thoughts about how to raise capital for his company. Pete Jimison, the second caller, skyped in from Switzerland with a question about the company he started with his brother. Finally, there was a great question from Gabrielle Pascoe, an old acquaintance of Jason’s from the Silicon Alley days, about how to choose the proper salary for the CEO of a new venture. As usual, each was offered a ticket to the TechCrunch50 conference in September. Send in your “Ask Jason” questions to contact@thisweekinstartups.com and maybe you too will be as lucky!

This weeks news included a discussion about the Twitter document leak on techcrunch.com and the importance of using discretion when storing company documents on the interweb. There was also a brief talk about youtube’s future business model followed with the sending off of failed company “The Printed Blog” to the “Deadpool.” Finally, Jason made a PSA to the “stupid people of the world” near the end. If you want to know what he had to say then or at any other point on the show, watch it for yourself and find out!

The next show will be two weeks from now on Friday, July 31st 2009. Because they ran out of time, you have another two weeks to do the homework (if you haven’t already) and read “How the Mighty Fall,” by Jim Collins.

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This weeks guest was Atif Rafiq, head of Yahoo! Local for North America and previous founder/CEO of Covinga. He and Jason talked about the role of community building in creating a network of local business listings and also discussed Yahoo!’s overall strategy to leverage its various “horizontals.”  Atif talked about a number of the ventures he’s involved in, including the upcoming Local Search Summit on July 17th.

There were three callers on “Ask Jason” this week.  The first, Jonathan Johnson, wanted to know if Jason had any creative ideas for how to raise capital for his lifestyle business. Mike Stone, Jason’s second caller, wanted advice on how to effectively evaluate a competitive space and how to decide whether it was worth entering. Finally, the third caller, Greg Gerber, was looking for ways to attend entrepreneurial events/conferences without simply buying a ticket. Jason gave some great responses to these questions so make sure to watch the show and find out what he said!

On “The News with Lon Harris”, Jason gave his thoughts on the future of breaking news when discussing how quickly Michael Jackson’s passing was reported on Twitter vs. CNN. He also talked about Tesla Motors’ government loan, a lawsuit against Microsoft’s Bing, and sent security company Clear to the “Deadpool.”

Next week’s homework assignment is to read the book “How the Mighty Fall,” by Jim Collins.  Maybe you can be Jason’s star student on the air and earn your ticket to the TechCrunch50.

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Today was a special show with Microsoft’s Director of Business Development, Don Dodge. Jason and Don discussed Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing.com and why Google might be scared. They also covered on Microsoft BizSpark, a startup outreach program that provides free software services for emerging companies.

We also had a live interview from the 3rd Street Promenade Apple Store with an iPhone developer who waited in line since the morning to buy his new iPhone 3GS. This may well be the first ever live broadcast transition ever done on a web streaming show.

And we wrapped up our special episode with a bonanza of ‘Ask Jason’ callers – there were six entrepreneurs that called in to ask for a variety of advice. One caller thinks his co-founder may drop out of the business, does this mean it’s the end of the road for him or are there ways to take control? Another caller disagrees with his CEO. What is the best way to express your thoughts and advice to your CEO? Watch the show to get these questions answered.

Don’t forget your homework assignment for this week, King of Kong.

And make sure you tune in next week when our guest is Shawn Gold.

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Our guest this week was internet entrepreneur Jason Nazar from Doctstoc.com, the premier document sharing site and online community.  He briefly discussed his journey to get off the ground and gave some great advice to would-be entrepreneurs about how to secure capital, build connections, and make the best with limited resources.

Joe Waltman, a bootstrapping entrepreneur out of Orange County, CA, called in during “Ask Jason” to find out how to find and recruit a technical co-founder for his new startup. What did Jason say? You’ll have to watch to find out.

Jason also brought Taurus and Fondue (his two bulldogs) to help with sending the most recent departed company to the “Deadpool.”  Plus, we’ve got a new newscaster!  Amanda Coolong, Chief Correspondent for TechZulu, talked with the Jasons about potential MySpace layoffs, the iPhone/Palm Pre launches (and the accompanying Leo Laporte vs Mike Arrington fight), and Facebook’s Vanity URL’s, among other stories.

Make sure to tune in next week in our guest is Sean Spector from GameFly.

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Stopping by the studio this week was David Sacks, CEO of Yammer and Geni.com. He’s also one of the minds behind Paypal and was a producer on the awesome movie, “Thank You for Smoking”. Check out the full episode (in audio or video) after the jump.

Remember, there’s no show next week as Jason will be in New York to keynote Alley Insider’s “Startups 2009″ Conference. We’ll be back on June 12 with a brand new episode.

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And as always, a huge thank you to our wonderful sponsors, Ustream, DNAMail, and WebSpy

Our guest on this week’s show was Keith Richman, CEO of Break Media – their flagship site (break.com) gets about 30M unique visitors a month!

Make sure to tune in to next week’s episode – and stay tuned afterwards for the debut of our new show This Week in Advertising, featuring a panel of some of the best experts in marketing and advertising on the web and beyond.

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And as always, a huge thank you to our wonderful sponsors, Ustream, DNAMail, and WebSpy