September 14, 2004
Getting Started
Allow myself to introduce... myself. My name is Joe Kraus and Bnoopy is a blog about entrepreneurship -- thoughts, lessons learned, open questions. It's all stuff I'm thinking about right now in the midst of starting a new company. My background is that I was one of the founders of Excite. Then I co-founded DigitalConsumer.org and now, I've got a new project still in stealth mode.
Bnoopy, pronouced like Snoopy, was the code-name of Excite when we started the company in the garage of a Palo Alto house right out of Stanford. Bob Cringely told us a story in 1993 about a Korean company that came out with a doll that looked exactly like Snoopy. They came up with the brilliant idea of evading the trademark police by calling it Bnoopy. Sneaky. Needless to say, we liberated the name from the doll manufacturer and took it for our own. Thus, Excite was born.
In Bnoopy I want to explore some of the issues I'm facing in starting a new company. I also want to reflect on some of the lessons learned from Excite and see how they apply the second time around. Hopefully in the process this will be useful to someone other than just me. Here goes...
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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Getting Started:
» Joe Kraus, Blogger from John Battelle's Searchblog
Joe Kraus, a co-founder of Excite, has started a blog, which will focus on lessons learned from a life of entrepreneurship. His first post is here. Joe is speaking at Web 2.0 - introducing his next company, in fact. Welcome to the personal publishing w... [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 15, 2004 12:58:59 PM
» Welcome Joe! from r21
Joe Kraus, of Excite fame and soon to be of a new company fame, has started blogging. Welcome to the... [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 15, 2004 3:21:08 PM
» Bnoopy from Graham's weblog
Joe Kraus, who started this new Jot thing with me, has also started a new blog. [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 15, 2004 10:10:18 PM
» Joe Kraus Blogging from Oliver Thylmann's Blog
John Battelle just posted about Joe Kraus starting to blog. I had a great chat with Joe some time back and am looking forward to seeing some of his thoughts in writing. I expect some interesting things. [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 16, 2004 12:11:40 AM
» Transparency, transparency, transparency from Musing On Technology
Boy, I feel like Steve after writing my post title. :-) Anyway, one of the things I'm a big proponent of is transparency in companies. Transparency in decisions that sr. management make and in status for work happening in various... [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 20, 2004 8:45:36 AM
» Starting a Technology Company in 2004 vs. 1993 from Business Opportunities Weblog
Joe Kraus: I've been reflecting on how different it is to start a company in 2004 vs. 1993. While I still break out like a nervous teenager, which looks awfully strange with graying hair, at a professional level, there are... [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 20, 2004 10:14:20 AM
» Start your own company from Michele's Freeminding
A great blog from the founder of Excite! [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 23, 2004 2:14:55 PM
Comments
Welcome to this little world, dude. ;)
Posted by: Chris Pirillo | Sep 15, 2004 1:32:12 PM
The real world is little. The Blogosphere is HUGE.
Posted by: Adam | Sep 15, 2004 1:43:43 PM
Hi Joe,
Good luck on the new venture. John Battelle wrote about you in his blog, hence my showing up here to see what's going on.
Posted by: Chris Zaharias | Sep 15, 2004 4:05:52 PM
Congrats on the new piece Joe....Should be interesting to learn a thing or two from you.
Posted by: Anthony Parsons | Sep 15, 2004 10:36:40 PM
I am writing to introduce you to two of our sites we are launching in about 2 weeks. BloggerTV.com and YoureOnTV.com A brief description of both are below. I am trying to create a buzz and get the word out on these sites. I would very much appreciate if you can give me some of your expertise and input on the concepts.
BloggerTV.com
Let’s face it, the medium limits the message. bloggerTV is the first of a new generation of personal TV web channels, the future of social networks. Give your fingers a rest! Now you can broadcast your blog to the world.
bloggerTV is the place to share your point of view, rants, raves, insights, philosophies, dreams, aspirations and laughs, whatever…. in a new interactive TV environment.
bloggerTV is a cultural hybrid, the evolutionary next stage which recognizes the inherent limitations of text blogging. bloggerTV adds the impact and visual expression that is impossible to achieve in the static world of text blogging. No eye fatigue, as viewers watch rather than read your world views.
YoureOnTV.com
Isn't it about time you had your own TV show, or better yet... your own TV channel?
A place to share your dreams, aspirations, points of view, passions, philosophies... and laughs.
That's right - your personal world of family, friends, experiences...whatever! Something far more expressive, exciting and fun than the static world of personal web pages you're used to seeing. This is your global showcase.
Your life...your world...for the world to see.
____________________________________________
Thanks for your time
Kind Regards,
S. Lim
310.666.5449
Posted by: S. Lim | Sep 16, 2004 5:48:25 AM
Hi, Joseph. You're a guh-nee-us, and I'm happy to welcome your feed to morning reading.
You're sure you want to keep comments on, though? People might spam with inscrutable company ideas. Or maybe they already have. :)
A topic request... The process of raising venture capital.
Posted by: Lingo | Sep 17, 2004 4:12:55 PM
Hi Joe,
welcome to the world of blogging. I am going to put one of your posts on my blog right now
Thanks
Jason
Posted by: Jason Davis | Sep 20, 2004 12:02:43 PM
Read all your entries and found them pretty fascinating. It seems like it would be fun to be involved with a startup, although I keep reminding myself of the need for such a high level of commitment. I often wonder if I'm too in love with the ideas and wouldn't follow through with enough action. Perhaps you could talk about your own experience with this.
Posted by: Stephen Huey | Sep 27, 2004 2:31:17 PM
That bloggerTV idea is going to be hot, hot, hot!
I like it.
Beef Jezos
www.startupjunkies.org
Posted by: Beef Jezos | Sep 28, 2004 12:48:51 PM
I saw you and your team on Cringley's documentary in 1995 when I was in College. It inspired me to move out to Silicon Valley and start my career.
Posted by: Aaron Bawcom | Sep 28, 2004 1:07:43 PM
Hey Joe,
Thanks so much for selling out at Excite to the likes of George Bell, TJ and Armstrong. All of whom single handedly sold the company out from under the employees to ATT; only to have their jobs laid off and their futures squandered. Stock price from $120 to pennies... You should be proud of yourself for your accomplishments, you schmuck.
From Westminster, CO....
Posted by: B | Oct 5, 2004 7:34:57 AM
Your blogs were interesting, specially the one that details Vinod's story (ok - apart from it being interesting on its own, i'm somewhat partial because I went to same school as Vinod). I'm trying to start up a new venture but am woefully short on funding related issues (who is not?). Please see if you can write about VC funding and what-not.
Posted by: Ram | Oct 12, 2004 1:38:29 PM
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