Here’s my Startup2Startup presentation from Feb 25, titled ‘Try This For Lean Startup’, detailing some of my experiences starting ONElist, Bloglines and now Snap Groups. You can find the video from the talk here. [slideshare id=3622074&doc=1020-10-29-100402135149-phpapp01]

Another article that originally appeared on the now-defunct Startupping blog: Don’t believe what you read. Don’t EVER believe what you read about yourself. “The Press” is no longer the most important source of coverage; the bloggers are today’s opinion makers, especially when it comes to coverage of technology innovations and, more importantly, the gossip that fuels the buzz of which products are hot, which are duds. Traditional PR firms only marginally “get” the blogosphere.

You will have at least one catastrophe every three months. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You’d better. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don’t need money, right? People will think your idea sucks. They’re even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion.

I’m going back and reposting some articles from the now-defunct Startupping blog. This was my first set of startup commandments: Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

Wingedpig.com is the home page for Mark Fletcher. Mark is an Internet entrepreneur, software developer and investor. He currently sits on the board of Techdirt. In 2003, Mark started Bloglines, a free web-based news aggregation service. Using Bloglines, users can search, subscribe to, share and publish blogs and RSS feeds. Bloglines was named one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Web Sites for 2004, and was named the Best Blog/Feed Search Engine by the Search Engine Watch Awards in 2005.