Starting Aggregate Knowledge - Homework

I've been meaning to write about this for a while but being in semi-stealth mode made me a little cautious about it.

After leaving Tribe my co-founder Paul and I knew that we were going to do something but what should it be?

We had observed a lot of trends during our time at Tribe. Including but certainly not limited to:

• The rise of web services and widgets - ala You Tube embedding itself in Myspace pages. Which in my mind was one of the keys to their success.
• The fight between Google/Yahoo/MSN and traditional media online
• A proliferation of consumer focused services with better user experiences like Flickr
• Data Aggregation - Marc Canter's People Aggregator, Simply hired aggregating jobs, Zvents aggregating events.
• User generated content was white hot. Perhaps too hot?
• The low cost of starting and proving out an idea before needing to take funding.

So we started doing some homework.

We started blogging and using wikis. WSFinder is an early incarnation of this homework as is our Web 2.0 Map of the World. I also started SFWIN to understand better what was happening in the startup ecosystem.

Its easy to lose track of what is going on in terms of broader trends when you're consumed with the day to day activities of operating a company and being able to step back helped set the stage.

Comments

[Ethan Stock]

I watched Chris and Paul go through this and I must say it was one of the most thorough and sophisticated sortings that I've ever seen. They eliminated dozens of possiblities, identified at least 10 fundable venture backed companies, and picked what they thought was the single best opportunity. It was the exact opposite of many "I've got a brilliant idea" entrepreneurial leaps - the real pros use process.