tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post115421373267396625..comments2024-03-24T10:38:16.997-07:00Comments on Geeking with Greg: Starting Findory: Launch early and oftenGreg Lindenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09216403000599463072noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154492910588136512006-08-01T21:28:00.000-07:002006-08-01T21:28:00.000-07:00Greg,I understand the solution of cold-start probl...Greg,<BR/><BR/>I understand the solution of cold-start problem is your trade secret. That's fine.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if you can answer my other questions about dealing with competition pressure and motivate your team? <BR/><BR/>I want to join some startups but not so sure about those two issues.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154452837451193742006-08-01T10:20:00.000-07:002006-08-01T10:20:00.000-07:00Hi, Otis. Alexa numbers are unreliable at best. ...Hi, Otis. Alexa numbers are unreliable at best. I talked about this at length in an earlier post, "<A HREF="http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/05/accuracy-of-alexa-metrics.html" REL="nofollow">Accuracy of Alexa metrics</A>".Greg Lindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09216403000599463072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154449805095857342006-08-01T09:30:00.000-07:002006-08-01T09:30:00.000-07:00Thanks Greg, although this now makes me extra wond...Thanks Greg, although this now makes me extra wonder about Alexa, where Findory and Simpy traffic numbers seem to have just crossed, and Simpy doesn't serve 10M pages/month yet. Weird... but thanks for the number.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154409002644897192006-07-31T22:10:00.000-07:002006-07-31T22:10:00.000-07:00I think you need over 10M page views per month for...I think you need over 10M page views per month for AdSense Premium. Findory is a little below that, but not much below, and we're doing interesting stuff, so they let us slide.Greg Lindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09216403000599463072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154405745062704152006-07-31T21:15:00.000-07:002006-07-31T21:15:00.000-07:00Thanks for the answers, Greg.Regarding AdSense pre...Thanks for the answers, Greg.<BR/><BR/>Regarding AdSense premium - I didn't even know this existed. I imagine the requirement is a certain number of page/ad impressions and a good CTR. Do you know what those numbers are? I checked AdSense Help, but found no mention of AdSense premium. I'll go email AdSense folks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154390526016134282006-07-31T17:02:00.000-07:002006-07-31T17:02:00.000-07:00Thanks, Roy. Sorry, I do not feel comfortable tal...Thanks, Roy. Sorry, I do not feel comfortable talking about solving the cold start problem. I am afraid that would be a little too close to the secret sauce behind Findory.<BR/><BR/>Thanks, Otis, glad you are enjoying it.<BR/><BR/>On the size of Findory, there were two people at Findory from Sept 2004 to Nov 2005. Other than that, it has just been me. I funded Findory, though, as you can see from the "On the cheap" post in this series, expenses are fairly low. The overwhelmingly dominant cost is not taking a salary for an extended period.<BR/><BR/>On AdSense, the interface Findory has to Google AdSense allows us to provide them with keywords (though you are only allowed to use this feature if you are a premier client). Findory picks the keywords to give to Google based on both the personalized content of the page and an individual reader's history. I would prefer to work with an ad broker where we could pick the ads directly, but this is the interface we have if we layer on top of Google.<BR/><BR/>On licensing, I have gotten many inquiries, but the licensing route is a smaller business that I personally would find much less enjoyable, so I have declined to pursue that direction.<BR/><BR/>Thanks, Otis.Greg Lindenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09216403000599463072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154318623664727882006-07-30T21:03:00.000-07:002006-07-30T21:03:00.000-07:00Greg, nice series. Inspired by you, I may write o...Greg, nice series. Inspired by you, I may write one up for <A HREF="http://www.simpy.com/" REL="nofollow">Simpy</A> when the time comes.<BR/><BR/>Time for questions:<BR/>- You mentioned virtual office in an older post. How many people are there behind Findory? All technical, I imagine?<BR/><BR/>- You mentioned personal funding. Where did that money come from, if not a secret? (sorry, didn't research your background)<BR/><BR/>- Regarding ads that you derive from Google. Are those AdSense ads? You typically need to feed those ads some keywords/content, so they can be targeted. Does this mean you feed them user's reading history? Can you share some technical details about how you do that? Do you just include the key terms/topics/whatever in the HTML source, so that Google's AdSense JavaScript gets it?<BR/><BR/>- I understand the attraction of running a (successful) independent service fully well (Simpy.com again)<BR/>Thanks. Have you ever thought about selling/licensing the guts of Findory for other web sites/services?<BR/><BR/>I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569681.post-1154238589279542562006-07-29T22:49:00.000-07:002006-07-29T22:49:00.000-07:00Greg,Thank you very much for sharing your experien...Greg,<BR/><BR/>Thank you very much for sharing your experience. <BR/><BR/>Your opinion on product launch does make lots of sense for Internet products. Have you thought about bucket testing?<BR/><BR/>I am curious about the feeling of working on a tiny startup and potentially competing against big companies like google, yahoo, microsoft. How do you deal with the pressure? How do you motivate your team? <BR/><BR/>BTW, would you talk a bit about how you solved the cold start problem?<BR/><BR/>Again, thank you!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com