Stay Curious My Friends

A fantastic post and this part really struck a nerve of an essential truth (and true even if you have a co-founder):

“Being a founder means that when things get shitty, things get really shitty — your startup is your baby, and being a founder is even harder when things are going badly. It is very easy to be discouraged when it looks like you’re going downhill, and discouragement is the worst possible thing to happen to a solo founder. Extremely important: make sure you have at least one seasoned entrepreneur friend that you can rely on to be your sounding board. Share elation at things going well, someone to listen when you have bad customers, a shoulder to lean on when mistakes are made, and most importantly, a calm voice to tell you that when you feel terrible and it seems like your company isn’t going anywhere, that things really aren’t as bad they seem. These are all things a cofounder would do for you, and it’s vital that that you have someone to fill that gap.”

I’ve been a huge fan of Escrow.com for a very long time and wanted to learn more (Plus I’ve used them for a lot of domain transactions among other things). I emailed my friend Andrew over at Mixergy a request to dig into it and I think 48 hours later he produces a fantastic interview. Now everyone can learn a ton about the escrow industry, how escrow.com got established and built, and some great management tips. I’m hoping to connect with Brandon Abbey the president of Escrow.com down the road as sounds like a very solid business that we want to join forces with when we are ready.

Watch or listen to the interview here!

The most valuable membership I’ve ever committed too is the Mixergy Premium Membership. If you are running a business, want too, or want to be in a startup buy this membership. The interviews and courses are pure gold, I have limited time but making time to listen to these has taught me more then 85% of the business books I have read. Put one on while on a run/treadmill and you will learn so much :)

Also huge thanks to Andrew for the very very kind words at the end of the awesome interview. Awesome guy!

Ever wondered how IMDB got started? A dude just loved movies!

A chance e-mail encounter in 1989 with a film fan in California prompted Mr Needham to publish his own personal database online. The list was published once a month and fellow fans could log on and download it to their own computers. The first set of software was published in October 1990 and IMDb was born.

And when and how much did they get when IMDB was sold to amazon?

The sale was part of three buy-ups by Amazon that year including Bookpages and Telebook, which totalled $55million but the separate figure for IMDb has stayed secret. Asked if the sale had made him and his group of volunteers rich, he said at the time: “Given that this was 1998 and it involved shares of Amazon, we did very well.”

Read the rest of the details here.