Instigator Blog

When does the life of a startup really begin? Is it at the moment when you first have the spark of an idea? Is it when the company is incorporated? When you hire your first employee? Raise your first angel financing?

How about 2 weeks before you’re set to launch?

Recently, I announced that my startup, Standout Jobs, is launching at the end of the month at DEMO 08. If you’re not familiar with DEMO it’s a very highly regarded, well organized event around product launches. Many of the companies presenting are startups, but not all of them. About 70 companies are invited to attend and spend 3 days promoting their products and businesses. The most challenging part of the entire event (according to most people) is the 6-minute demo presentation you give on stage. As Seinfeld once said, “People are more afraid of public speaking than dying.”

DEMO runs from January 28th to January 30th. It’s near Palm Springs, California … so I’ll be getting out of the miserable weather and heading for some decent sun.

And so, with just over 2 weeks to go, we’re sprinting to start up. And this isn’t just a one pony race either, we have to sprint on multiple tracks, simultaneously.

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Yesterday I launched a new design for Instigator Blog. The feedback has been great - some positive, some negative (to be expected), and all of it interesting and important.

In my post announcing the new design, I wrote, “And, I’m writing a much more detailed post explaining the process I went through in redesigning the blog, and that should be coming soon.”

And thanks to Darren Rowse that post is now available: How I Redesigned My Blog.

Darren agreed to publish the post as a guest piece on ProBlogger. I was glad to do it there and hopefully help shed some light on the grueling, time consuming and detailed-centric process of redesigning a blog.

Enjoy! And please post your comments there (and here!) to let me know what you think…

I thought I’d start 2008 with something new … so after many months and a few delays in-between, I’m very happy to launch the latest design for Instigator Blog!

If you’re reading this via RSS — come check it out…

This is a completely new design from my old one. And for this go around, I brought in some heavy hitters. I came up with much of the original design, but then worked with Francis Wu and Nicolas Pin to get it done.

I really feel this design does a great job of raising the bar. It adds a serious element of sophistication and professionalism, but continues to maintain an edge. It’s certainly a softer, more subtle design than before, but it’s still the Instigator Blog after all.

In redesigning the blog I examined every single element of it. This wasn’t just a facelift, it was reconstructive surgery. I examined every nook & cranny, and made a number of fairly significant design and information architecture decisions. Of course, there are still a few details to iron out, which I’ll be doing in the coming days. And, I’m writing a much more detailed post explaining the process I went through in redesigning the blog, and that should be coming soon.

But for now, please come check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

A company blog is extremely challenging to do well. The biggest challenge (which is not unique to a company blog) is finding the time to do it. Everyone’s swamped and blogging was just never part of the plan. But it should be.

Blogging is the single best way of generating sustained, quality buzz for your company. Done well, your company blog will create more awareness, customers, press, publicity and goodwill than anything else you can do.

So how do you create the perfect company blog?

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Keeping with the schedule I started last year, the first Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast will be next Tuesday, January 8th at 9am. We’ll hold it at Bistro, Etc., located at 1291 Avenue du Mont-Royal, E.

I know some people have requested that we hold the breakfast at 8am. I’m not opposed to that, and maybe it makes sense to set the start time at 8am, and people just come whenever they like. I know I’d still make it around 9am or just a bit past that. But there’s no reason my arbitrary time should stop others from meeting beforehand!

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