For some really strange reason, I felt dirty for eating chicken from Popeye's while reading this article.

I'm just not sure what they think Step 2 is.

iseewhatyoudidthere.gif

/Congrats & continued success, hillbilly

FTFA: 'I'm just not sure what they think Step 2 is.'

Okay, I laughed at this.

Outsource to KY instead of HK?

Sounds like it's time for a new book.

"How to Monetize Snark"
by Drew "I own FARK, I own FARK, Suck my Diiiick, I own FARK" Curtis

/BTW, cool story bro

So when Drew mentions websites that get multiple owners, and start telling creators what to do, a good example would be Diggv4? Nice tech related website that started and now is a piece of shiat run by websites who have most fans. Basically a marketing website that has nothing to do with users sharing websites/articles they find interesting.

Also, it is not possible to find silent partners who only care about getting dividend or share of profits and have nothing to do with day to day operations? I guess that is what you refer to as Angel investors?

Maybe too many people got burning in .com bubble and don't want to invest in tech startup companies. "Oh great another website looking for investment capital". How do they tell whether a .com entity is another fad or complete bullshiat from the ones who make money? From what I've seen from websites is that the bigger they get the more they sell out. It becomes all about profit and not about customer satisfaction and keeping it simple. Although I guess that is partly the industries fault, get big real fast whatever the cost, and hope someone buys you out.

I did actually look for some investment money, but I couldn't find anyone to throw $50,000 into Fark to cover startup costs.
This was when you first started website? As the investors would ask on Canada's Dragons Den: "what are your current revenues/profits". If you had no revenues to show you could make money or manage a business (assuming fark website was not up and running at the time) then I could see why no one wanted to give another .com $50k.

Your copyright at bottom of fark page says 1999, I thought people were handing out millions back then before .com bust? Or was that only new IPO companies that were getting millions and showing no revenue stream?

andrewabc: From what I've seen from websites is that the bigger they get the more they sell out. It becomes all about profit and not about customer satisfaction and keeping it simple. Although I guess that is partly the industries fault, get big real fast whatever the cost, and hope someone buys you out.

I've never seen that on Fark. Yeah, they'll get over it.

Clearest example of unpaid product placement masquerading as an actual article I've ever seen.

Jesus Christ, Drew. Stop pretending your captain of the industry and realize your just a C class nerd whose personal website got lucky. Fark.com barely turns a profit. Which is fine if you just want to have fun and earn some extra beer money. But you are not a Businessman.

This story kinda doesn't fit with Drew's other interviews where he said Fark started out as a hobby running on the spare capacity of his server hosting business.

I'd actually like to hear what the the money was going to be for. Was bandwidth that expensive back in 1999? Fark's mainly just a user donated pile of links, I'm sure there's some overhead with the comments and all but still sounds high from a startup standpoint. Was there no system of ad's back then? Wow, hard to believe that the internet has changed so much that I can't even remember if ad services were common in 1999/2000 to generate early revenues.

I'm currently in an MBA program and we just went through a course on venture capital and startup funding options, I now wish we'd had Drew in there to give his insights.

As far as Kentucky's efforts to attract startups. I'd suggest keeping goverment small, keeping taxes low. Keep the Coal and power companies happy and rates real low. Then spend some time going to every technology company and advertise that we have lots of cheap land with a skilled workforce, cheap land, real cheap electricity (eat that California) and promise to keep the business environment comfy forever. Tell them that once they move in they'll never find a better deal and never have to move again.

The state could really push the eastern part of the state for tech too. Most of the people there have decent educations and are pretty smart, wouldn't be too huge of a challenge to train them up as tech's. A tech campus at the foothills would have easy access to plenty of land, lots of telecommunications, energy.

There are plenty of secondary markets for startups outside of NYC, LA, and San Francisco. Chicago is a major one. Minneapolis another. Denver/Boulder is another one. Plenty of startups and investors looking to invest in those markets.

/veteran of three startups in Minneapolis

I'm sure there are plenty of smart people in KY, but I wonder if the best of the best (both business and tech) are going to want to live there for very long. Not that it is a bad place to live, but it won't be as stimulating as a major city.

Isn't a 'tech startup' generally developing the launch of a new technology? By definition?

Unless Drew invented the forum or HTML or something, this ain't no tech startup, though a fine cottage website it may be.

So wait, what is this alt interface thing Drew mentioned in the comments? Is that news to anyone else but me?

StarlingFive: So wait, what is this alt interface thing Drew mentioned in the comments? Is that news to anyone else but me?

You'll get over it

Ennuipoet: FTA (Comments):I just checked out Fark (never heard of it before now), and it's exactly the type of website id enjoy using, but (if im being completely honest), the user interface really puts me off.

Hahhahahahahahahahahahaha woooo hahahahahahahaha

/you'll get over it

Yea I came here to be the bastard that mentioned that one too...

ricbach229: As far as Kentucky's efforts to attract startups. I'd suggest keeping goverment small, keeping taxes low. Keep the Coal and power companies happy and rates real low.

This really shouldn't be a concern. Keeping the companies happy often has nothing to do with lower prices. Often times the things that make power companies happy are things like guaranteed returns on investment, yet these result in the over investment in infrastructure and higher overall prices.

ThematicDevice: ricbach229: As far as Kentucky's efforts to attract startups. I'd suggest keeping goverment small, keeping taxes low. Keep the Coal and power companies happy and rates real low.

This really shouldn't be a concern. Keeping the companies happy often has nothing to do with lower prices. Often times the things that make power companies happy are things like guaranteed returns on investment, yet these result in the over investment in infrastructure and higher overall prices.

Kentucky has a guranteed rate for residential that's pretty good but we've been on an odd environmental streak lately where we don't want to allow companies to build new plants for industrial and export production, which means they aren't building the turbines for domestic use either. Right now we have low rates but we're going to get higher costs down the road if we don't start building soon. The big papers in Kentucky have both been against new electric production on environmental grounds and want rates to rise to force conservation.

The guranteed rates of return are kinda dumb in my opinion. Leads to some perverse incentives to do things like buy the most expensive building possible for HQ so you can have a higher base to use for your 10% profits.

My ideal world, Kentucky would repeal the ban on nuclear and we'd lead the country in new next generation reactor design and roll out and sell our coal and power to other states.

We actually moved from California to Chicago in order to secure investment capital for our little tech startup.

We didn't need enough to make us attractive to any of the big players on the coast, but we needed significantly more than what friends and family could kick in.

Chicago is really trying to set itself up as a new tech nexus...especially with Groupon being here. (Andrew Mason is a really great guy btw)

We found an awesome set of Angel investors with enormous amounts of experience in taking a new company to the next level.

After two years of pitching, refining business plans and development we are just about set to go into beta and things are looking really, really good.

It would have been ten times as hard to do this back on the coast and our company would be significantly different both in form and function.

This is just really isn't related to the article much, but I would like to thank Drew for the sentence. "It's like that single friend we all have who wants to meet someone (anyone), but never talks to people and rarely leaves the house."

I went to a Renaissance Festival today and because of that sentence sucked it up, pushed past the shyness talked up a girl in the line for soup in a bread bowl, bought her a drink, hung out with her and her sister all day and got her email address.

Nothing to do with the article's theme but thanks anyway Drew.

Ennuipoet: FTA (Comments):I just checked out Fark (never heard of it before now), and it's exactly the type of website id enjoy using, but (if im being completely honest), the user interface really puts me off.

Hahhahahahahahahahahahaha woooo hahahahahahahaha

/you'll get over it

i was tempted to insert that into the comments of the article, but i'd rather not taunt the drew, maybe i should come up with patsy to blame

who'd be a good victim

bravian: There are plenty of secondary markets for startups outside of NYC, LA, and San Francisco. Chicago is a major one. Minneapolis another. Denver/Boulder is another one. Plenty of startups and investors looking to invest in those markets.

/veteran of three startups in Minneapolis

houston, austin, ft worth,

ricbach229: Kentucky has a guranteed rate for residential that's pretty good but we've been on an odd environmental streak lately where we don't want to allow companies to build new plants for industrial and export production, which means they aren't building the turbines for domestic use either. Right now we have low rates but we're going to get higher costs down the road if we don't start building soon. The big papers in Kentucky have both been against new electric production on environmental grounds and want rates to rise to force conservation.

Heh, actually the older plants are the cheapest sources of electricity, and the newer plants are the cleanest. Even coal has come quite a long way depending on the technology used. If you wanted to really cut down on pollution the oldest plants would be replaced by even something like IGCC Coal.

Something_Creative: StarlingFive: So wait, what is this alt interface thing Drew mentioned in the comments? Is that news to anyone else but me?

You'll get over it

Not this time. This time we'll get under it.

I read this as a "you can succeed from your mom's basement" type article.

Eh.

Read Sam Walton's biography sometime. It's called "Made in America: My Story". More than the normal ego stroking, he actually gives a bunch of reasons why Wal-Mart thrived and dominated every other retail business in America.

For example, control your costs. Drew talks about that in the article, and so did Walton: success in business isn't about making a profit, but reducing your costs more than your competitors. Even if it seems like you're losing money in the short-term, you'll win the long-term game when everyone else can't pay their bills. It's cheap to live and work in Kentucky and Arkansas, and that's why Drew/Walton locate headquarters in those places rather than New York.

You were looking for angel investors to post a picture of a squirrels nuts?

Also, wtf? I thought this was a rent to own deal?