Smart Start-ups: How to Build and Profit from Online Communities

by A. David Silver

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 work with communities of any kind, you ignore this book at your own peril."
-John Szeder, former senior game developer, Digital Chocolate, Inc., and CEO, Mofactor, Inc.
"Silver dives in and pulls the naked truth out of the world of online communities. There's nothing like it on the shelves. He speaks with the best and brightest in the mobile and online community markets."
-Sean Malatesta, founder, Yack Media Services, and Vice President, Indiagames, Inc.
"Smart Start-Ups is a must-read for any aspiring Internet entrepreneur. Silver cuts right to the heart of the important fact that communities are like entire nations, but without geographic borders, and they're creating the greatest transformation since the Industrial Revolution."
-Clarence Briggs, founder and CEO, AIT.com
"Silver's book is an excellent, captivating, ingenious, and essential read for anyone who wants to know how to create wealth by starting an online community. One mark of a great book is that it makes you see things in a new way; Silver certainly succeeds in that respect."
-Kyle E. Gillman, founder and CEO, Forgefinder, Inc.

Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship

Paperback

First published May 18, 2007

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read most of it, but didn't finish it. Somewhere around the part where he started talking about Firefox being made of blogs and how all social networks should offer branded credit cards or that people would pay $2.40 per video that members sent to them, I realized that Silver is an old guy trying hard, and almost succeeding, to know what he's talking about on all these newfangled topics. He has a few good insights here, particularly about appearing to be rookies, not relying on advertising as a business model just because you can put ads up (having ads should mesh with the purpose of your site), and a bit about "reputation management" (although he never once used the word "troll", despite frequently discussing "pervs" and "defectors", and even "griefers" once).

Perhaps his go-for-the-big, why-you-don't-even-need-more-than-$300K-and-your-members-will-just-give-you-that approach just wasn't for me.

[Book Calendar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver.

David Silver is a venture capitalist and an author of over 30 books on business. This book varies between being a strategy guide to start an online community and a stream of ideas for starting a variety of online businesses. The book describes online communities as being both on the internet and on mobile phones.


I found the sections on how to start an internet company quiet interesting. He was focusing on social networks like myspace.com and twitter. Social networks are described as being successful because of the ability to generate mobs of people and focus on user generated content. David Silver describes them as requiring very little capital to create.

He argues for a different strategy in creating communities. His view is that it is important to be part of the crowd, not appear to have a lot of money, ask for tips, try to encourage people to provide content for you, and create services which people will pay for.

Part of the strategy he is describing is appearing to be in opposition to large media companies. For example if you are selling ebooks, you might tell people why you don't like paper books, or if you are selling music downloads, suggest why compact discs are obsolete. Being persuasive and generating controversy, even lawsuits will generate even more interest in your sites as well as money.

Where the book did not do well with me was the constant stream of ideas which he proposed. It is easy to generate ideas but it is much harder to show how to execute on them. David Silver talked about everything from online legal arbitration societies to social sites on how to reinvent the American car. This was distracting. The sections on strategy and implementation were much better than the suggestions for new businesses.

I liked his ideas on how to create an online business strategy. It very much describes how to think like a social networking business person. The book was written in 2007 and seems to have been right on target for 2010. If you can get past the constant stream of suggestions for new businesses this book is worth reading.

[Bashar · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those books which I decided to leave unfinished, for the author has this twisted vision of locking everything on the net, making it pay per view kind of web. The kind we all don't want to have. He talks about how social sites should be charging it's users rather than providing it for free and monetizing it. Just imagine how that will effect interconnectivity. With free tools, people find it hard to migrate. Imagine how hard it would be with paid ones.

He supports the idea of selling out, arguing how fool it was of Mark Zuckerberg not to sell for $1 billion. I'd like to hear his opinion now.

His thinking isn't one that improves and expands, but rather cashes out quickly and quits.

I couldn't bare to waste more time

[Danielbstern · Rating 5 out of 5]

was excellent at the time I read it.

[Phuong Phan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've found many ideas for my start-up in this book. It's great!

[Faisal]

want to read

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could have been more easily readable using visual techniques.

[Lori Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read book on startups for knowledge workers and aspiring entrepreneurs.