Smart Start-Ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities

by A. David Silver

Book Overview

Praise for Smart Start-Ups

"Silver's new book is a masterpiece of clarity concerning the next great entrepreneurial wave, and my only problem with it was the charley horse in my elbow I got turning the pages."
-Robin Richards, founding President, MP3.com, and CEO, Notification Technologies Inc.

"Silver is a modern-day Prometheus. For community entrepreneurs, Smart Start-Ups contains the secrets of fire from the heavens. If you...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470107421
• ISBN13: 9780470107423
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Must-Read Book

I read a lot of business books, and Smart Start-Ups is one of the best I've read in a long time. I'm extremely passionate about entrepreneurship and online communities, and David Silver's book makes 3 key points that really hit home with me on a personal level: 1) The historical perspective of "Second Age of Communities" and moving away from infrastructure building to community building. This idea was intuitive to me, but the analogy of past guilds/unions rising to power compared to the present growth of online communities gave me an immediate "ah-ha!" moment. 2) Online communities need multiple potential streams of revenue to succeed. David draws from a few proven business models (like Mary Kay) to give very useful ideas on monetization. The idea of creating float to fund online communities is also extremely powerful. 3) Online communities not only as a business opportunity, but as an artistic expression and social movement. This part is excellent. Many business writers tend to be more one-dimensional and I found it inspirational that David alludes to artistic and historical contexts within his book. In addition to all the innovative ideas, Smart Start-Ups provides useful tools for assessing the robustness of business ideas using David's First Law of Entrepreneurship and the Eight DEJ Factors scores. Smart Start-Ups is a must-read if you are at all interested in online communities and entrepreneurship. The historical context provided in the book gives entrepreneurs and investors conviction that online communities are a macro trend and not a mere fad, while the example business models give concrete ways to approach the market for many years to come.

Welcome to the "New Internet" Your Community

This book changed my life and business, literally. It has humanized the Internet for me like none other and explained what the Internet always was, and will be moving forward. Enabled by video and social media technology, it's all about the rise of the community. You Tube, MySpace and Facebook are just the start of this online transformation. I had heard of ideas like Web 2.0, but now it has meaning. Read this book and you'll understand too. David Silver delivers with revolutionary force, entrepreneurial expertise, and a practical plan. He is someone who has the experience to future pace this forward thinking state of the Internet. I can't say enough about this book. I'm now going to re-read it.

Blows the dust off your brain

This is one of those books that you dream about after you read it. Don't read it at night--you won't sleep. Ever wonder why all these social networking sites keep getting bought for these outrageous sums of money? It's in this book. It's written as a blueprint for starting your own online community. These will be the cities of the future, as Mr. Silver observes. The city builders are starting to emerge now. Fortunes will be made. This is the instruction manual. If you have any entrepreneurial tendencies, this book should be required reading.

Smart Start Ups- Pure Gold by a man called Silver!

If you buy one business book this year make sure it's Smart Start -Ups . Author David Silver has over thirty years experience backing entrepreneurial companies,and it shows from the getgo.Silver's message is simple ,within 3 years Internet Communities will be seriously big business,names like MySpace,YouTube,Facebook have been sold for millions or are being offered millions of dollars.The success of these embryonic companies has been built on two primeval human instincts ,the need to search and share.In the past it was tribal hunting of game,now its information ,globally in real time.When citizens have the urge to search and share common data/information -Communities are formed-Online.The money will go to those forward thinking entrepreneurs who aggregate,those search and share hungry individuals into Online and more recently Mobile(phone) communities.Despite being a highly respected VC not only in the business but on the lecture circuit,David Silver,many times emphasises that very little venture capital or indeed business experience is essential.The beauty is that like the Weight Watchers business model ,the assets are the subscribers themselves!.Or as Silver puts it, think like this `'My Community will not incur cost of goods sold and my members will generate the data and pay me for the privilege of sharing it with other like minded members''.Pure and simple if you build it they will come in their mobbing digital droves,wagging their ,music,pictures,videos,stories, behind them.So what ? heres what! get enough millions of like minded people together and the bricks and mortar boys (traditional business),will have ready made customer bases.If you are smart enough You will be the one selling You Tube est 2005 selling it to Google for $1.3 billion in 2006.If you take the Initiative NOW,you will be positioned to take full advantage of the coming WEB 2.0 ,i.e the age of communities. But putting it that simply does not do Smart Start-Ups justice.This book is refreshing in non prejudice detail,and glorious insight.I would recommend this book be referenced over and over ,by those budding `'Communiteers'' as Silver calls them.From raising Capital,to the rules for creating Successful online Communities,to Reputation management it's all here.Traditional business is reeling ,the online/mobile consumers like you and me are calling the shots.There is serious money to be made ,by giving people something simple online/mobile ,that something, a digital space to share a common interest.I cannot rate this book highly enough and recommend it more as a vital handbook-than to be ever left on a shelf.

A priceless resource for online and mobile entrepreneurs

I can't think of a more enlightening book on the topic of entrepreneurship applied to the world of online and mobile communities (can't quite figure out why or how the editors skipped the mention of the mobile component in the title of the book either). I picked it up by pure accident at a bookstore one day and now it's become an essential reference as I am working on the development of an online community for people affected by diabetes at tudiabetes.com. Although I am not in complete agreement with some of the strategies presented, overall David Silver provides up and coming entrepreneurs with a chockfull of ideas that will keep you making notes as you go through the chapters. As a veteran online communiteer, I highly recommend this book for anyone considering venturing into the online (or mobile) world to colonize new spaces as we enter the new era of the internet.