Connecting the dots of life and business

Dan Scudder, a Boston native and founder of DormItem.com spent his summer with a valley startup, Rapleaf.com. This is part two of our chat during my Bay Area Visit. We sit down to discuss how an entrepreneur outside the valley feels once he’s immersed in the startup epicenter.

I don’t talk much about my involvement Almost Mediocre, but they’re a group of creative guys I joined almost two years ago. We make comedy “shorts” (short videos) for the primary purpose of a creative outlet and luckily we’ve had success selling some of our wares to the likes of Sprint, the producers of American [...]

This is part two of my interview with Robin Wolaner. We discuss the benefits she’s seen of social networking for both her startup and personally. Specifically, she references examples of LinkedIn and even MySpace. If you’re catching up, be sure to catch the first part of our talk, then head over to LinkedIn and add [...]

Many startups turn to friends and family for early funding. I’ve never personally done this (successfully), but I have tried. I owned a business with my brother and we both put in capital. Our parents and friends didn’t invest and I can only imagine the headaches. Peter Ireland offers some simple yet effective advice on [...]

You’ve heard the old saying, there’s no such thing as bad press. In some cases I agree, but good press in the right spot is magic. But, how do you get your story in that fabulous spot? Most startups don’t have the resources to hire a PR consultant, so how do you get the word [...]

Facebook isn’t the only site garnering attention from college kids. Dan Scudder founded DormItem.com, a site that aggregates items for sale by college kids. He has a couple revenue models and is currently a student at Babson College. This is the first of four video clips from my interview with Dan. If you’re curious about [...]