Winning in Business Realize your potential. By Boris Revsin.

CampusLIVE Series: Huge Discounts at UMass Amherst, UNH & BC

Hello BETA Club members from UMass Amherst, UNH & Boston College:

Today CampusLIVE launched a brand new initiative that you yourselves suggested: BIG Deals. Big Deals are HUGE discount (in the 50-75% off range) made specifically for college students at these three schools.

To check out today’s deals, go to:

UMass Amherst: http://www.campuslive.com/umass
UNH: http://www.campuslive.com/unh
BC: http://www.campuslive.com/bc

If we get enough traction with this WEEK full of awesome deals, we’ll keep doing it all summer and all next year. Your favorite places will show up, I guarantee it.

Thanks,
Boris

Full Disclosure

I haven’t written on this blog in quite a while. One day soon I will write about the CampusLIVE trials and tribulations of raising our first round of capital. Can’t do that yet, at least not the interesting parts.

There is one thing that has been on my mind lately, though. Non-disclosure agreements.I’m under an NDA with dozens of companies. Consulting gigs, strategic partners for CampusLIVE, potential advertisers, the works. Even Ask.com jumped into the game with a 16 page M (mutual?) NDA that nobody in their right mind could ever get through. Now don’t get me wrong; I fully understand that there are some things that you don’t want leaking out to your competitors. How much you pay for a search on your service, for instance. Or how much you’re willing to pay to buy up a certain websites graduating senior users.

But what about your new idea? You’ve got a pretty solid concept and you want me to take a look. Maybe offer some advice or introduce you to someone who can help. You email, set up a time to sit down, and meet me for a coffee. We get to talking about business, life, and eventually get to your new great idea.

Your idea is aimed at the college market.

You haven’t even started building it yet.

Your asking for advice from me.

The last thing I want to do is sign your non-disclosure agreement.

Listen. Non-disclosure agreements have their time and place. But if you’re looking for some advice, don’t ask me to sign one. Yeah, sure, I could steal your idea. Or god forbid talk to somebody else about it. If all it takes to displace you is an executive summary of your product, you’ve got trouble.

The funny thing about these sorts of things is that people have it all backwards. You WANT people talking about your product. You WANT people to know that you’re an entrepreneur with a good idea. You’ve got a headstart and a bunch of people watching. If Google or Facebook (or CampusLIVE?) wanted to steal your idea, then guess what: we’ve probably already thought of it. Innovation comes from looking around you and mixing and matching things that are either working or aren’t. I reject the notion that anyone’s idea is “new”. Google peeked at dozens of prior search engines. Facebook had the same amount of social networks to study. They looked at something working somewhere else, improved it, implemented it and made it work.

Want to look at something humorous, check this out:

Groupon, the hot new startup: http://www.groupon.com
Groupon, the hot new startup: http://www.groupon.cn

Nope, not the same company. The copy-cats exist everywhere. It’s not about them, it’s about you.

“”Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” - Charles Caleb Colton

Cheers,
Boris

Brief Hiatus

Yes, yes. I know. The blog has been quiet for over a month.

The truth is I am working on some big projects and should probably keep my mouth shut until they are complete.

Blog will be back soon, better than ever. Trust me.

Boris

The blog in not so many words…

Wordle is cool.

My Social Networks

I was thinking this morning about all of the social networks and real-time chat streams that I am a part of. I thought it would be interesting to have a central hub for all my online presences (and I can do that, my blog).

So, let’s check it out:

Most Active Social Networks
Facebook
LinkedIN
Twitter

Chat Clients
Skype: boris.revsin
AIM: bobosox3
GChat: boris.revsin@gmail.com
FB Chat: Boris Revsin (gotta be my friend)
BBM: 31E7FE19
Phone: 978.621.6373

Not Active
Friendfeed

That’s a pretty ridiculous amount of ways to get in touch with me. Here is a question: how many of these overlap? Could I get rid of half of my chat clients, and still be within reach of everyone? Are there some that I am missing?

This is the essence of social media, in my opinion. Are all of my online personalities branded correctly?

Let’s ask Dan Schawbel.

Entrepreneur Reading List

I’ve been asked a bunch of times recently for recommendations on “good” business books. I’ll recommend a few basics here, and do a follow-up post with some I would consider outliers.

My Basics:

1) The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
2) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
3) Purple Cow by Seth Godin
4) Ideavirus by Seth Godin
5) Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi

I generally will list those off to anyone who asks for a couple of recommendations. It does not matter whether or not you agree with everything written in these books - it’s all about the authors, who were/are major players [with the obvious exception of DC] in the startup world. I recommend that you wiki all the authors if you are interested in similar books - most of these guys have written at least 2 or 3.

Blogs:
Sethgodin.com
Techcrunch
ReadWriteWeb
Mashable
Lifehacker

I’m also a fan of Mark Cuban’s blog.

Let me know in comments if any of you have read or are reading any of these.

Hello… world?

Well, you’ve made it to my first blog post. If you don’t know who I am, you can feel free to read a little more about me here. I’ve got an interesting second post to make, so I better get to it…