I think the best one so far was Github Cofounder Tom Preston-Werner's talk. Almost every sentence of his was a gem, and the fact that he had bootstrapped both his startups made it even more interesting!
The GitHub talk was one of the few for me that streamed reasonably. I've been pretty disappointed with the streaming performance today. TC Disupt was flawless for me, this was almost unwatchable.
I agree that Tom Preston-Werner had some great advice especially about "bootstrapping while working your fulltime job to pay the bills."
Watching Adam D'Angelo was a bit painful, he was really nervous and unfortunately due to streaming issues it seemed like some of the bad moments were showed over and over -- that said, the bit of his talk that stood out was "having a good reputation helps open doors". I didn't get to see his whole talk, hopefully he expanded upon how to build that good reputation...
Someone actually asked him that specific question. His answer (paraphrased): "Find a small company that you think is going to be big and join it. At small companies, you learn a lot about many different things. As they grow larger, you learn about scaling issues. Throughout the process, build your personal network."
Tom and Mark Zuckerberg's, both very insightful. The other talk by the guy from imeem was pretty interesting too. Overall it was a pretty good day. Oh, on my end the stream was flawless and I guess that helped.
Do you know which of the justin.tv links features Tom's talk? I'd love to watch it, but there are over 10 videos from today, several of which are over two hours long. Any idea which one has his talk?
Thanks for all hard work that went into Startup School! Especially for going through the extra work to record and stream online! Really hope to make it out next year!
Wow, the LinkedIn guy spoke in gold nuggets. I am extremely grateful I am doing systems software, not consumer stuff. Our failures are most spectacular, but at least our success doesn't depend on others.
I'm curious, has there ever been a talk of a failed entrepreneur? So far, the talks that I have heard are ideal discussions of how a startup grows and succeeds. Sure there are rough patches that are described, but I am not given a sense of the reality of starting your own business (besides credit card debt).
How does a person handle a pitiful situation of being broke? When you are having difficulty of bringing your idea of a business to fruition because you are stuck in a rut? When someone screws you over? Or some unforeseen consequence that you weren't anticipating when you entered the startup world?
