Yahoo recently acquired the huge blogging platform Tumblr for 1 Billion in cold hard cash. This move is great for the New York City tech scene (aka Silicon Alley) and gets investors and entrepreneurs motivated. Over the past few days as news leaked out about this deal, I had a chance to see critics and praises all over the internet and Twitter. The praises mostly consisted of people who admired Tumblr founder David Karp for how paid he is now. Nothing wrong with that. Criticism went towards Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and what people call a dumb decision to buy the popular site. Tumblr as it stands now doesn’t make enough revenue to justify the price some say. But with over 100 million unique users a month, i’m sure Yahoo is foaming at the mouth to throw advertisements up.

Unless they have some other ideas.

My goodness, what @wordpress must be worth now. That is, unless business models and making it rain have gone out of style.

— Chris Sacca (@sacca) May 19, 2013

So how does this affect startup founders? It literally muddies the water even more than it is today. Seeing a deal like this go down, is convincing enough to have founders strictly focus on getting users and not revenue. The whole attitude of create something cool, get 100,000 users, and find a way to get paid later; is a thought process many subscribe to. Even me. Here is the catch though, many entrepreneurs fail to see the gorilla in the room…

Funding.

Your idea is dope, you got some great traction, but times is hard. Especially if your a woman or African American. Startups have to prove themselves a bit more now. Since most early funded social consumer startups have failed to manage cash flow correctly and hire good talent. Its been reported that winter was coming all 2012, and it may well be here now. To sum it up you can’t really be sure that you’ll have funding to help you grow your company until you figure it all out.

My opinion is to sort out what your goals are first, then stay in the middle. If your goal is to build a $100 startup like Chris Guillebeau, so be it. If you want to build something larger, then a sure way to grow with outside support, is to make sure there is a balance between getting users and making money. There is no standard for success, but i’m pretty sure having some thought out plan to make money gives you way more leverage these days.

If you have a big hit on your hands however, you’ll be ok. There is power in people. Congrats Tumblr.

A while ago I talked about how we can use hip hop to teach entrepreneurship. Now with The Phat Startup, we are doing just that. So far I have been fortunate enough to speak at several schools and events pushing our message forward. It was sort of a “beta” run. Now, for the rest of 2013 we plan to enhance that message with specific talks, workshops, and books. We plan to get tons of press and make this message bigger than us. Because it is.

visit our site for more information

If you have some ideas or opportunities you think could include my new firm, email me. We would love to chat.

Everyday there is some new blog post, study, info-graphic, or video telling you how to be successful. I realized a long time ago that anything is possible on God’s earth. I have witnessed the dumbest people, make the smartest decisions and the smartest people make dumbest decisions. Reading bio’s from successful entrepreneurs and learning from their failures and successes taught me that there is no set path to success. Sure there are ways to increase your odds, but even doing those wont promise you anything.

The only thing we can do is prepare. Thats what Monte Lipman told me when I was 15 years old at a career conference. I never forgot it. He told me:

Opportunity + Preparation = Luck

You don’t have to be smart, rich, poor, black, white or purple to get lucky. You just have to be prepared for the right opportunity. I read Sarah Lacys post today at Pando Daily and was reminded about that again. There is no standard for success just stay prepared by building something people love and need.

Here we are, at the end of 2012. What the hell did I do this year?

Became a public speaker: Spoke at Black Enterprise (first time in Chicago), Electronic Arts, local schools, and several other events

Won 3 awards: BOC, GNEC, and The Grio

Became a contributor for Black Enterprise

Grew BrickCity Tech partnering with local companies like Audible.com, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and K & L Gates

Started the “Converge” project to bring more tech collaboration and learning to Newark, NJ

Shut down my startup Playd, more on this later

Started this blog

Founded “The Phat Startup” project to bring a hip hop perspective to building a business

Became an Author: writing “The Phat Startup” Going to show you how not to fail like Playd did

Read over 20 books (business)

Went into debt

Got out of debt

Jay Z followed me for 2 minutes on Twitter

Began a new startup “Lovelytics” (December)

I don’t think thats everything, but I wasn’t keeping count either. The problem about me is I didn’t have any definite goals, so I think I fell short of my potential to have a great year. Think about how much we all can achieve if we did? My goals this year are really split into 2 parts: Health and business. I started losing weight before I moved to California for summer 2011. It sort of killed my momentum and it took a very long time for me to get back mentally to where I was. So my goals will be focused on that.

Since there are several opportunities coming my way I will try to keep things at a minimum and try to stay focused on the things that matter to me most. First is my pockets!

Health

- Lose 60 pounds (i’m a big boy) and track it all on Fitocracy

- Fast 2 days a week

- Work on my Colgate smile

- Keep Paleo in mind making food choices

- Stop reading Kindle in the dark

Business

- Publish The Phat Startup book – Do paid workshops, seminars, and online products around our book

- Publicly launch my new app Lovelytics, and get over 100 subscribers

- Grow BrickCity Tech Meetup by 200 more members

- Launch a new collaboration and learning space in Newark, NJ

- Write more blogs and contribute to more publications (1 blog a week)

- Become a better public speaker and get more paid speaking opportunities.

- Do 1 successful side project dealing with emerging markets (Stealth. Yeah I know thats corny but theres a reason)

- Earn no less than $250k ($1 billion aint so bad, right? lol)

Personal

- Volunteer more

- Learn how to code even more

- Read 50 books (business, personal growth, 80/20 stuff)

- Get a virtual assistant

- Make more friends in the tech, music, and film industry (identify ways I can bring value to them)

- Try my best to make sure everything I do provides value and convenience

- Take care of my family. Become a better brother, son, grandson, cousin, nephew, and uncle.

- Become a better friend

- Practice the 48 laws again

- Don’t get anyone pregnant!

- Make Jay -Z my mentor (mentally and/or actually)

- Thank god everyday

I think this all is possible, because I believe it is. And thats all that matters. Lets win 2013!

I’m thankful for the most high. I’m thankful for everyone who has ever believed in me. I’m thankful for everyone who has never believed in me. I’m thankful I got the chance to experience a failed startup. I’m thankful I got a chance to meet some great people that are useful. I’m thankful I was able to have one on one conversations with people I could only dream of meeting. I’m thankful for the city of Newark, its hard but its fighting to get it’s shine back. I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for my friends. I’m thankful for life.

Being thankful is an everyday thing for me honestly. Thanks for reading.

Nothing worth having is easy to get. Its been a crazy 4th quarter, I love a challenge though. I plan to highlight all of the lessons learned in my book “The Phat Startup” dropping 1st quarter of 2013.

- I started working on a new web application project name: Livelite. Nothing much to say about that right now, just that we are coding up a MVP and I can’t wait to share it. I interviewed so many professionals looking to solve their problem. It’s aimed at enterprise and small business owners, so unsexy.

- Still looking at some potential locations for our Converge space.

- Check out my new article on BlackEnterprise.com: 6 Reasons Entrepreneurs Should Consider Newark

- Also, for my non-technical readers out there that don’t quite know what a tech startup is I put together a very basic overview that you can view/download here. The video version is coming soon for this as well.

I also have some new posts lined up for the blog, stay tuned.

I have a few interviews I have yet to release, it’s almost like im addicted to talking to people. But, every time we drop one on ThePhatStartup.com I usually get an email or text about how I did it. It’s not rocket science and I learned these simple steps from others, most of this information can be easily “googled.” But I decided to go ahead and show people how I record Skype interviews anyway, from my perspective. Warning: Mac Version only, I do provide alternative software for Windows users.

Can You Hear Me Now?

1. First and most importantly, get a good microphone. I still see Youtube clips and hear podcasts with horrible audio. If you have horrible audio, your guest better be the President or the Pope. Otherwise people will tune out in a matter of seconds. The mic I use and have been using for years is the Blue “Snowball.” Its sturdy, has clear audio, and I love the Blue brand. Any mic that records clear would do though.

2. A pair of headphones. I made this mistake plenty of times, but always wear headphones. If you want the headphones to be less visible get the in ear ones. You wear headphones because you only want the mic to pick up your voice. Don’t worry about the audio from the computer, the software I recommend below will get your guest, your mic is only for your voice.

Can You See Me Now?

3. Webcam. I use a Macbook Pro so im good to go. I do realize that someone reading this may not have a webcam or want to opt out for a more visually appealing one. Just make sure its clear.

4. Download Ecamm. Ecamm allows you to record the actual Skype call. Make sure you have the right settings selected however. Heres a capture of my settings:

Windows users can alternatively get: Vodburner

Time To Edit & Upload

5. Once you are done recording the interview you have your choice of what to use to edit the video. I use either Adobe Premiere or just plain old iMovie. For Windows users I read the Vodburner has editing features built in, So thats convient. If you need help learning how to edit movies search youtube for tutorials or look for resources on the softwares official website.

6. Upload to Youtube, Vimeo, everywhere. Get famous. Most important step!

Want more details? Think I should do a more in depth course on how to do this? Just email me and let me know. I might put something together and throw it up on Udemy.