jordan willms on business, entrepreneurship, technology and the web

On Saturday (March 24th, 2007) I attended YCombinator’s Startup School event at Stanford University. YCombinator, an innovative (and controversial) Venture Capital firm, works with carefully selected entrepreneurial startups over a summer session in Boston, and injects a small amount of money into these startups in exchange for 5% ownership of the company.

Mark J. Macenka, gave a great speech on The Great Value of Avoided Mistakes in startups. If you are interested in starting a company, or have already -- this list can be really beneficial to you.

Here is his advice:

1. Don’t get too focused on control.. Many entrepreneurs get obsessed with keeping 51% of a company. Don’t get bogged down on dilution. Just get the money and get changing the world.
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Bittorrent Tracker ThePirateBay, has recently declared that it will be looking for a new country to operate out of. However, the news here is that ThePirateBay has elected to buy their own country instead of finding one with relaxed copyright laws.

They found SeaLand, a micro-nation who's sovereignty is in dispute, and launched the website BuySealand.com in order to try to raise funds to purchase it to the tune of 8 digits or more (10 million or more). However, the implication of such an action are clear: "We are the Pirate Bay, and we know what we are doing is illegal, so we are buying our own country to define our own laws". This is a far cry from their traditional defense of "We are not doing anything illegal".

The legality debate aside, the fundraising should be an interesting one to watch, with powerful social and ethical consequences if it succeeds.