I’ll be at the Always On conference this Thursday, July 21, on the Open or Closed Web panel, moderated by that shrinking wallflower Marc Canter. I’ll be arguing for a Closed Web. Of course, I am kidding with those last two statements. As I am continually reminded, sarcasm doesn’t translate well to the written page. On August 8th, I’ll be on the Vox Populi: Understanding the role of consumer-generated content panel of the SES San Jose conference.

Echoing many of the things I’ve been saying, Joe Kraus has a great piece on how cheap it is to start a web company. I can provide a couple of additional data points. I started ONElist with $5K. That lasted from January 1998 to June 1998 (it was cheap even back then to launch a start-up). I then raised $50K from a friend and that carried us through the rest of 1998, at which point we had 1M users and raised VC.

I’m flattered to be included in the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 in the Toolsmiths category. Thanks to everyone involved!

Greetings from Tokyo. The response to Stealth Start-Ups Suck has been fantastic so far, both pro and con. Thanks to everyone who’s been commenting on it. You can track people talking about it through this link for Bloglines citations. I didn’t mean to specifically pick on 24 Hour Laundry and I didn’t realize others had already been doing so. I don’t know them and I’m sure they’re nice and smart people.

There’s been a small rash (ouch, you should see a doctor about that…rimshot) of press coverage about the new stealth web start-up 24 Hour Laundry. Who knows what they do, but whatever it is, they’re doing it wrong. Here’s the thing, stealth mode for a web start-up is the kiss of death. Stealth mode is when a company is operating in secret for some length of time before launching their product or service.