It is incredibly important to have an understanding spouse or partner. I'd argue that your spouse or partner can often be critical to your overall success. I think they have to feel part of the team. My wife shares in the rewards of success and believes in me and my teams, so she is very supportive. This is particularly important when we are struggling or going through a hard time. I can't imagine being in a relationship with a person who wasn't 110% on board with me in a startup.
Replied to this post a couple of weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3120510. Continue to slug it out with the Goliath that is Pearson. To their credit, they are engaging us in the conversation. Figured I'd submit our latest thoughts to get feedback. Thanks.
I knew something like this would eventually surface, but didn't realize it'd come from Pearson. We actually launched a very similar business model/site a year ago. I've been waiting to post anything on HN, b/c we are in the process of releasing a few changes (payments, channel updates) that I think would be helpful; but can save that for another time. We are really intrigued by this announcement b/c it is pretty much a direct competitor to what we are doing at NIXTY (www.nixty.com). I posted some thoughts on our blog and will highlight them here. I'd love to hear any thoughts/criticisms on this analysis.
There is ONE big difference between Pearson and NIXTY. Pearson’s main focus is on Pearson’s content. They are trying to make the LMS a commodity, so they can sell more of their content. NIXTY is focused on open education content.
Pearson’s OpenClass = Selling more of Pearson’s Closed Content/Courses
NIXTY = Supporting/Promoting Open Content/Courses
Pearson has the name ‘open’ in the title, but the real goal is to sell more closed content. Will it work? We don’t think so. Why?
1. Open Content is transforming education. It is free. Pearson will marginalize open content and focus on their own content. This will ultimately prove to be the undoing of OpenClass.
2. As the Inside Higher Ed article discussed, other publishing companies will not put their content in Pearson’s OpenClass ecosystem. We are hoping that they’ll look for a neutral alternative like NIXTY.
3. Pearson hasn’t exactly been awesome in the LMS space. eCollege is not what we’d call a market leader. I’m not sure, but it seems like eCollege folks might be in charge of the OpenClass product. Do they have the chutzpah to blow up eCollege to help OpenClass. Will the revenue streams from eCollege (tho likely decreasing) be sacrificed to help them grow OpenClass? Doubtful. They’ll likely try to keep both systems working and consequently end up doing a half-way job with OpenClass.
4. The comments around this from most folks in the articles and on Downes’ Google + post have been less than positive, suggesting that folks don’t necessarily have a lot of trust in Pearson.
Now, to at least try to be fair, let’s consider what Pearson has going for it.
1. They’ve got one BILLION dollars (said in my best Dr. Evil voice). Seriously, they’ve got A LOT of money.
2. They’ve got a lot of strategic relationships with other organizations and institutions. They seem to have done a nice job of rolling this out with their 9 design schools. Nicely done!
3. They’ve got great content!
4. They are good at marketing! You’d think Google co-designed this thing from the get-go; really, however, OpenClass is just another app just like learnboost or any other number of education apps in the Google ecosystem.
In sum, Pearson’s OpenClass is an innovative approach to help Pearson sell more of their closed content. We believe that they’ll be forced to marginalize open content and competing closed content. Consequently, they’ll end up doing students, educators, and colleges a disservice. NIXTY offers the same functionality, same price (free!), has been around for over a year, and doesn’t have any content to hawk. Consequently, we can provide a better service to students, educators, and schools.
You are not alone! Indeed, I think this is a key issue for all of us to address as globalization becomes more and more of a reality and degrees become less credible predictors of competency. Basically, we think we need a sort of reputation system that scales globally as a solution to this problem. Here are the key components we launched:
-CV/Resume display
-Recommendations from trusted others
-Work display (examples that illustrate your capabilities)
We are addressing the problem with www.nixty.com. We launched in July. There is definitely a lot of opportunity here. There are also a lot of challenges in addressing this market. If interested shoot me an email glen at nixty dot com. I'd be happy to talk more with you about this space and share what we've learned in the process. Also, if you are interested, here is an overview video of what we are doing: http://www.youtube.com/user/NIXTYLearning. Here is another video - an interview with Scoble -- it is more of a high-level sketch of where we see things going (more emphasis on research-backed open courseware etc.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfuDRlUp3AU
I enjoyed meeting Scoble. The guy was really sick during this interview and still managed to come out and meet with me. He clearly cares about his work and is passionate about technology.
1. Conscientiousness - ability to track details and be organized - huge predictor of success in most domains.
2. Grit - it is going to be incredibly hard. These people need to know how to persevere.
3. Interpersonal skills - tough to navigate/lead a small team of people. Person should be able to help people individually and collectively.
4. Willingness to GLADLY do whatever it takes
5. Strategy - ability to look at market and competitors and clearly articulate how your business is going to reach its objectives.
6. Finance - they don't have to be a MBA; knowing how to use quickbooks is good and to basically keep more money coming in than money going out.
7. Willingness to admit limitations and ask for help - this is really key. There are plenty of really smart people out there that want to help. This person should be humble enough to ask for help and to then be very thankful for the help they receive.
You might consider a type of incentive program or a revenue share approach. If people refer others, then you give them a certain percentage of whatever money they yield.
I think quality is better than quantity. Build relationships with folks you are targeting. Take them out to lunch. I know in-person meetings are not something most of us love to do, but they are really important -- especially for the potential user. Get a handful of say 5-10 people that you really want to reach. Listen to them. Solve their problems. Ask them for blurbs. Put the blurbs on your site. Ask them for referrals etc.
This might not be answering your question, but the hundreds of emails approach (at least to me) doesn't seem like the most efficient strategy.
We are building this very thing at www.nixty.com. Benwerd, I'm familiar with Elgg and have actually consulted with Harold Jarche a few times (several years ago). If either of you are interested, then I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Please send me an email at glen at nixty dot com.
http://www.amazon.com/Idoru-William-Gibson/dp/0425190455