Not really knowing what I need to take the site to the next level is probably my biggest challenge. I started off with high hopes and expectations for the site and now I am having serious doubts and questions about how viable and sustainable this concept can really be. I guess these are the high and lows of entrepreneurship, and I'm at a low point right now.
I tried looking for outside funding early on but eventually got discouraged and gave up. I've started working on a new project this year and so my focus has shifted a bit. I may reconsider outside funding once again in a couple of months if I still own the site and the traction metrics are positive.
Haven't thought about applying to YC because I'm not much of a developer and without a technical co-founder I figure my chances of acceptance are very low.
What made Techcrunch great at one time was not only learning about early-stage startups, but reading Arrington's honest analysis, opinions, and reviews. His brutal honesty did upset founders who got a bad review, but at least he was offering readers more than a BS press release.
I've also started working on a similar concept. My approach to this problem is to use context based LISTSERVs. The goal is to help make social sharing relevant by targeting both interests and "social roles".
Mailchimp works pretty good. You can customize the front end of your landing page and use Mailchimp's backend to capture the email and manage the list. Here's my example: http://www.sharescribe.co/
I'm referring to executing the Groupon "business model" which is what this article is really about. It doesn't take much "execution" to clone and create a landing page for subscribers. But thank you for your insightful knowledge into the meaning of the word "execution" in the startup world.
I had a MySpace account before I had a Facebook account. When I first joined MySpace a lot of my friends were on the site but soon after a lot of them started to leave and move over to Facebook. MySpace allowed users too much freedom to design and customize their pages which resulted in a horrible user experience for most users, while Facebook offered users a more clean design and professional experience.