It’s been more than 8 months since I began on BuzzBlaze – and, today, I’m pleased to announce that we’re finally ready to showcase our product to the public!
For those of you who don’t know, BuzzBlaze is a social news aggregation website that allows users to discover and share content online. We want to redefine the way people consume media online by providing the best news reading experience on the internet – on one elegant interface.
Unlike many other social news readers (or RSS readers), we’ve built BuzzBlaze to be inherently social – we want to empower people to be content curators and allow people to easily find out what their friends are reading.
Along with my co-founder Tony Chen, we have worked extremely hard to get to this stage. It’s been a long journey but it’s only the beginning. We’ve already begun developing Version 2.0 and have greater things to come that we can’t wait to show you!
Over the coming weeks, we’ll begin rolling out private beta invites. There are still some minor bugs (hence, beta) and we hope this transition will help iron these out.
But rather than having to sign up on the waiting list, I’ve decided to give out exclusive invites – just to my subscribers. You can sign up through this link:
Click Here To Sign Up For Private Beta
Let me know what you think and send us your feedbacks!
I’ve also attached more screenshots below for you guys to check out. Enjoy:
Click Here To Sign Up For Private Beta
I went to Startup School last Saturday which was hosted by Y-Combinator and BASES as they happen to be at Stanford. It was by far the best event I’ve ever attended so far with so many great speakers and attendees.
I literally had the best seat in the house (front row, dead center) and that was because I was a BASES member/volunteer so we had two rows of seats reserved which was pretty cool. While I was helping out with giving out with registering the attendees, I managed to take a quick photo of Mark Zuckerberg’s name tag:
One main theme that was obvious throughout all the talks was that the team and execution was far more important. Rarely did they talk about how to come up with the killer “idea”. Here’s a quick summary of what I learned:
Founder of Sun Microsystems – Andy mainly just talked about the importance of innovation and gave us some cool stats on how much companies spend on their R&D. It turns out Apple – widely regarded as the most innovative company – was the company that spent the least amount on R&D based on the percentage over their profit.
Founder of Y-Combinator – Paul was definitely one of my favorite speakers of the day and talked about the current state of the VC vs Angel vs Super Angel market, why there are super high valuations and how founders can take advantage of that.
Founder of Groupon – Andrew basically talked about the failure of thepoint.com and how that evolved into Groupon. His six keys were basically:
(I didn’t take a photo…) Founder of Linkedin – Reid basically just talked about how to take an idea/product to market and get users on board. And make sure your competition sucks.
Godfather of Angel Investing – Ron was brilliant. His speech was basically the story of how he met the founders of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Napster – and at the same time bashing the movie “The Social Network” and how it was nothing like the Zuckerberg he met five years ago. He kept on emphasizing how those people were exactly like us and if they can do it, anybody can do it. Having read “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, I don’t exactly buy that. But still, the stories were pretty fascinating.
(Didn’t take a photo) Founder of Imeem – Not much to talk about here. Basically just bashed the heck out of why you shouldn’t start a music startup.
Founder of Quora – Adam talked about the early days at Facebook and why he started Quora. The best quote I got out of was “It’s okay if something doesn’t scale if it strengthens your position”.
Obviously, this was the highlight of the event. Mark was surprisingly outgoing, funny and very confident – his public speaking has definitely improved drastically compared to two years ago. He made a few remarks about “The Social Network” and how the movie got random details such as the shirt and fleece he was wearing exactly right. He said Facebook buy companies because of the people, not the company.
But the most interesting part came during the Q&A where he was asked how Facebook was going to break into the Chinese market. While Facebook aims to be open and transparent, Mark talked about how you should respect local cultures and that Facebook was not about spreading American values. His plan is to first focus on the other markets such as Russia, where western companies have also struggled. So if Facebook can prove it can be the first American company to succeed in Russia, then hopefully they can convince China.
Unfortunately, I missed Tom Preston-Werner (founder of GitHub) and Brian Chesky (founder of Air BnB) due to numerous reasons…
But anyways, during the breaks and afterwards, I had the chance to “chill” with some of the attendees outside:
Robert “Scobleizer” Scoble
MC Hammer
And of course…
Mark Zuckerberg!
Startup School was an awesome experience. Hopefully there will be more cool tech events comining up in Stanford! If you get the chance, definitely go. It’s the best way to meet new people.
Marc Andreessen recently gave a presentation at Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Ventures program (I’ll definitely have to check that out when I get there 
). Marc is somebody I truly look up to and who I consider a legend in Silicon Valley, having started, not one, but, TWO billion dollar companies. So when he speaks, it’s worth listening to.
In this clip, he talks about the key components needed for a startup to be successful. Marc’s advice was very useful as I’m currently in the middle of launching a web startup myself. Enjoy:
To summarize, the three necessities for startup success are:
This can be broken down into two parts:
It must be a 10x leap happening in the technology landscape. So is your product 10x faster? 10x cheaper? 10x better? In order words, is there a fundamental technology or economic change that causes you to justify having a new company?
You need a founding team of complementary skill sets. This usually includes one or more super-strong technologist as well as a market/salesperson who has a good understanding of business.
You can watch the full one hour presentation Marc gave at Stanford here.
Over the past few months, I have been reading a lot of articles and gathering tons of information about tech startups as I set to launch my first one this fall. I’ve saved many of my favorites and, rather than keeping them to myself, I decided to share my bookmarks to the public.
The list I’ve compiled below have been filtered and I’ve only selected to publish the best of the best articles and videos. I urge all entrepreneurs who is serious about starting their own tech startup to read those articles as there are tons of golden nuggets to be taken away from them.
This list isn’t meant to be consumed all at once. Instead, you should use this bookmark as a resource list that you can always come back and reference. I’ll be constantly updating this list as I come across new well-worthy articles (if you have any article recommendations, please feel free to submit the links in the comments section below). Enjoy:
* Highly recommended
Every once in a while, you come across a presentation that just blows you away – this speech given by Guy Kawasaki on “The Art of the Start” is one of them. It’s not the usual same-old business advice. Instead, Guy cuts through all the B.S. and smashes apart all conventional and corporate ways of running a business – all in a funny and engaging manner. You might have seen this video before, if not, it’s a presentation well worth watching for all tech entrepreneurs out there looking to launch their next startup. Enjoy:
“Top 10 Billionaires Who Dropped Out of College…” - I’m sure you have come across those kind of lists before, whether you read about it on some blog or in the media, convincing you that you don’t need a college degree to become a successful entrepreneur. Sure, there are some who succeeded without having attended college but I personally don’t buy into this whole “you don’t need college” hype.
I mean, just do the maths: what’s the ratio of great companies founded by people who didn’t go to college at all versus those who went (even for just a year or two)? As a young entrepreneur, I’ll be attending college this fall and the decision was an absolute no-brainer – even if you are an entrepreneur who wants to start a business and knows exactly what you want to do with your life . I’ll give a few reasons why I chose to go (from an entrepreneurial perspective):
The media love to single out people like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates as examples of billionaires who didn’t need a college degree. Well, here’s the other side of the story that they usually don’t mention: they actually went to college in the first place. And the irony is that college was absolutely crucial to their business as that is how they met their business partners Dustin Moskovitz and Steve Balmer, respectively. Not to mention Sergey Brin & Larry Page of Google and David Filo & Jerry Yang of Yahoo. College offers a great networking opportunity and is truly the most fertile place to meet your future co-founders. In fact, many colleges across the United States help facilitate this with organizations (a great example being BASES at Stanford University).
But it’s not just about business co-founders. College provides the opportunity for you to meet like-minded people who you would never meet otherwise, exposing yourself to all sorts of cultures, values, opinions and views. It’s also probably the last chance you will ever have to spend time with a lot of smart people at your age.
It’s about the overall experience. You only get to be a kid once so you might as well take advantage of that. Few will ever go to college later on in their lives and if you do choose to go later, you would have missed out on all the college experiences of growing with your peer group. Many people have told me how great their experience at college was like – the parties, the connections, the professors, the events – and how it was their most memorable time of their lives. I wouldn’t want to regret spending the rest of my life having only heard about all the great things rather than living it.
Obviously, you’re there to learn. Sure, you can self-educate and learn as you go along, but college is more about the well-rounded knowledge with its liberal arts program rather than just professional skills. It’s not just about street smart but instead a combination with book smart.
Besides, your life won’t be permanently ruined either way. You don’t have to limit yourself to just studying at college; you can still be entrepreneurial while also being scholastic. Many of the most successful business ideas evolved out of college. For example, Facebook was derived from the “Face Book” that all freshmen get on their first day; Google and Yahoo came out of a PhD thesis project related to computer science.
College and entrepreneurship can go together, so you might as well go and have fun. What do you think? Is/was college important for you?
Via Shane Snow
So the difference between a tech startup and a rock band is not as different as you think…
The idea of entrepreneurship is applicable to more than just business or making money. It really applies to all ventures and projects where you take a risk, assemble a team, come up with something great and work hard. I think that is really the essence of entrepreneurship.
What do you think? How do you define “entrepreneurship”?
Hi, I’m Stanley Tang – a 19 year old tech entrepreneur, author and student. Since 2006, I’ve been building internet businesses ranging from online magazines to social web applications. I also published a book called eMillions, which was a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com.
I’m inspired by technology, startups, design, innovation, philosophy and business. I love engaging in the creative process of building tech startups.
Right now, I’m pursing a Computer Science degree at Stanford University. Be sure to look around to check out what I’ve been up to lately.
Just Launched My First iPhone App – TaskMob
Over the summer, I’ve been spending most of my...
BuzzBlaze.com Has Officially Launched!
It’s been more than 8 months since I began on...
256 Must-Read Content For All Tech Entrepreneurs
Over the past few months, I have been reading a lot...
Should Young Entrepreneurs Go To College?
“Top 10 Billionaires Who Dropped Out of College…”...
Turning The Page
For the past four years, I’ve had the privilege...
Interview With Gary Vaynerchuk – Founder of Wine Library TV
Last week, I had the honor to interview social media...
Twitter Was Invented In 1935
(Click on image to zoom)
Be remarkable – somebody worth making a remark...
Just Launched My First iPhone App – TaskMob
Over the summer, I’ve been spending most of my...
Interesting Differences Between American and British English
Going to college was a huge change for me – not...
The other day, I came across this inspirational quote...
BuzzBlaze.com Has Officially Launched!
It’s been more than 8 months since I began on...
