Archive for the ‘entrepreneurship’ Category

back in the SF marina

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

I slept on the floor last night and shivered as though the 3 feet of snow on the ground in Boston followed me to San Francisco. It’s cooold in the foggy city. But I still miss this place.

With 3 moves in nearly as many days, it has been a busy return to California. First stop was Los Angeles where a loyal Scripped blog reader and mother of my someone special had a fantastic birthday party at a tapas restaurant in Ventura. Just one day prior, I loaded up a Zipcar and moved my crap from Cambridge to Boston, where I will sunset my days as a graduate student in a cozy new Beacon Hill apartment. From Ventura we took the 101 straight up to San Francisco and woke up early to help the movers load up a U-Haul. No more kitchen nook and views of Scott and Chestnut. It’s funny how much smaller an apartment looks when the furniture’s out. With hardly a moment’s rest, were back on the road to Davis for another apartment cleanout. Then half of us returned to the empty marina apartment and cuddled up on the bare floor next to the radiator that hissed and spat as it tried to keep us warm through the night.

And now I am back at the marina Starbucks. This place is like a friend that I couldn’t get along with for a while and is now back in my life. I credit it to the free wireless. I used to hate the fact that Starbucks, at the height of its cash hogginess, would charge obscene rates for Internet access. Finally, my old friend has come around. I’m loving the free Starbucks wireless, and I reward them by purchasing a soy mocha with my Starbucks card.

Today I am off to Napa for lunch and a visit to grandma. Sunil is traveling around Barcelona and Zak is currying it up in India. That leaves Josh and I to hold down the fort through the holidays. Were it not for my iPhone life would be much less pleasant and I’d have to duck into these cafes more often to keep up on your emails and other business. It’s such a treat how technology not only makes it possible to keep up with a virtual company, but also allows the possibility to be a student, a grandson, a boyfriend, and even an apartment mover, more or less all at the same time. I would not have it any other way.

Happy holidays, Scripped folks. We’re really looking forward to the new year. In the next big newsletter we’ll tell you why!

Cheers,

Ryan

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Posted in Writing, entrepreneurship, ryan | 3 Comments »

making money on YouTube

Friday, December 12th, 2008

This NY Times article was sent to me by a good friend, my old pal from UC Berkeley who was the BMOC (you remember that term? “Big Man On Campus”) our senior year of college. Tall, tanned, handsome, charismatic Hawaiian athlete-turned-president of the student body, he couldn’t take a step outside of Eshelman Hall without a high five or hello.

Anyway, we still chat, but the conversation has matured a bit. We now talk about making money doing what you love, and he sent me this article. I’ll quote just a bit here:

Making videos for YouTube — for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers — is now a way to make a living.

Granted, building an audience online takes time. “I was spending 40 hours a week on YouTube for over a year before I made a dime,” Mr. Buckley said — but, at least in some cases, it is paying off.

And no, Michael Buckley has no relation to me, unfortunately. But if you happen to know him, please send his email address over. Maybe a common last name is enough to get him to promote Scripped.

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Posted in entrepreneurship, publicity, ryan | 3 Comments »

community-powered everything

Monday, November 24th, 2008

I write this from an empty bar named “The Muddy Charles” on the MIT campus. Serving pitchers of Bud and Sam has been my Monday afternoon routine for months now. Today is the first time I’ve had the bar all to myself.

It usually bustles with the likes of the 3 Peters: PB, PC, and P… something. There’s another guy who downs a pitcher while doing the Boston Globe crossword puzzle. Some do construction jobs on campus, others are MIT staff, and there is at least one emeritus professor, an old lovable man named Bernie who teaches astrophysics.

I like it here. It’s one of just a few hubs in the MIT community. Hubs are important to have, no matter what community you belong to, and if you’re somewhat of a binge networker like me, you try to infiltrate the leadership. It’s why I couldn’t just patronize this cozy little campus pub; I had to be a bartender! And as expected, the networking is great. Coincidentally, this picture of me in Variety magazine was taken at the Muddy. The fireplace in the background keeps us warm when it’s 30 degrees out.

Anyway, let me bring this back to Scripped. I set up a profile for Scripped in the VenCorps community, a new “community-powered capital” platform set up by a big-time venture capital company. Since they’re still in alpha, I can’t provide any links, but suffice to say we managed to get in pretty well with these folks too. Just today it was announced that Scripped took 3rd place in a “showdown” against 9 other other startups who made it into the finals. We’re very happy with that.

The irony of this is, of course, that Scripped is still a closed platform. We are aware of that and can’t wait to watch the networking that you’ll do when we blow the lid off this thing. Rest assured we’ll make sure it’s safe to do so and all the legalese is done properly. It’s mostly script and idea protection that is drawing the process out, but we’ll get there.

In the meantime, keep on writing…

Ryan

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Posted in Scripped, business model, entrepreneurship, launch, ryan, script frenzy | 7 Comments »

EmTech at MIT

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Hey folks, back with another post. Hopefully I’ll be more frequent with these now that the rhythms of school and Scripped have settled into a steady, up tempo beat.

I write my first correspondence from our Cambridge office about EmTech, the emerging technologies conference at MIT.

Click here and scroll to the bottom. Yes, there we are, your favorite screenplay software startup, playing with the big boys. I met some great people and learned about some fun companies. My favorite is EvenHere, a really innovative web video product placement company.

Ever wanted to buy that Burberry sweater worn by your favorite sitcom star? Now with the advent of flash overlays and contextual video ads, you can click and buy as soon as that character walks in the room.

Pretty cool, and it’s good news for Scripped.

Why? Because as soon as people figure out how to make money from online video, there will be a gold rush for good content. And where will they look for this content? They’ll come here, and they’ll pay you for your script.

The answer to this monetization riddle hinges largely on the work now being done by companies like EvenHere. They’re not the only ones. YouTube itself is another, with their yet-unmonetized billion video streams a day. I’m just saying that as soon as online retail shops start to see dimes and dollars rolling in from video ads and overlays, the game is going to change. Ad rates will go up, online producers will make money, and you, the writers, will hold the keys to the castle.

Until then, it’s a waiting game. At least it’s fun to keep writing in the meantime.

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Thank You!

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Thanks to Jason Arnopp for writing such a nice post about us in his blog: http://jasonarnopp.blogspot.com. We at Scripped are always happy to hear feedback like this. We are very self-deprecating and hard working, and we want to create the best product possible for our users. We are a long ways away from perfection, but we are working hard to get there.

Headed home today to Northern California, which is very exciting. I think that’s it for now…

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scripped frenzy - prologue #1

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Well, here we go. Scripped is on its way, and it certainly keeps us busy. I also notice from our analytics that people are actually reading this blog. I guess that means we need to be careful about what goes up here. Bummer.

There is a lot I wish I could write. We’re being compared to certain other companies you might also know about. But competition is good. It means there is a market for free online screenwriting applications. Surprise! People like free stuff! It becomes a competition, I suppose, for the best writing community and/or embedded writing tool. That’s the main difference between us and the other guys. But I don’t want to (or simply can’t) dwell on that here. Instead, I’ll write about a another kind of competition: Script Frenzy.

I was on a bus between Boston and New York City last year with an old friend from Berkeley, telling him about the nascent form of Scripped. He thought it was cool and wondered how we would get users. “Hey,” he said. “Why don’t you run a competition for scripts, just like NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month?”

“Hmm,” I replied. “That’s interesting.” And I put my headphones back on.

But the idea stuck, and I visited the NaNoWriMo website and discovered the Office of Letters and Light. Then, to my surprise and near-dismay, I found it, the actual embodiment of the idea from the bus: Script Frenzy. Shoot, I thought, they took our idea. Then I remembered something I learned back in elementary school: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So I joined their email list.

The first Script Frenzy happened in June 2007. It was awesome. I didn’t participate, but I still thought it was awesome. I liked receiving their emails as I sat in a garage in Los Angeles, scheming up Scripped. When they asked for donations, I said hello, and tacked another $50 onto my student debt. To my delight, they wrote back.

Thus began a very friendly relationship with the founders and organizers of both the novel writing and screenplay contests. With the Office of Letters and Light located just across the San Francisco bay from where I grew up, it was easy to meet in person. I was taken immediately by their passion and dedication and hoped Scripped might be able to contribute in some way. Since we offer Scripped Writer for free and do not charge for PDF export, it seemed natural that they might suggest our website to their new writers.

We are also thrilled to promote Script Frenzy to everyone in the Scripped community. In fact, I’m so excited, I will also blog about my first Frenzy experience. Write a full script in the month of April? No problem!

All in a day’s work.

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Oh, the blogosphere

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Well, the storm is coming and our time draws nigh. The blogs have found us.

It has been one of those days that entrepreneurs live for. The constant stream of emails, each discussing the finer points of our numerous critiques and how we should react. It’s a reason to engage our peripheral advisers with a “Hey, check this out! These guys think we’re going to be millionaires!” And follow up with another flurry of replies.

But more than anything else, it’s market data we simply don’t have access to just yet. For those who found us interesting enough to write about, thank you, because we need to know what writers actually think, and outside of the feedback form on our site, we have precious little interaction with our market. Silent observation of these blogs provides key data that we can use for business decisions.

So thank you, oh blogosphere, for the nice words and candid advice. We will serve thee as best we can.

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thoughts on business

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

It’s interesting how throughout my life “just business” has implied impersonal or mechanical interaction. Like the person to whom the phrase, “Calm down; this is just business.” is directed to is not really a person at all. He or she is instead an object to be acted upon.

In my experience, and especially with Scripped, the contrary is true. Business is people and business is personal. In my last business-y post I described a little bit about the emotional and financial investment we, the founding team, had to make to put Scripped together. That makes it personal. And the recent surge in writer interest in Scripped makes the other people side relevant.

And here I find that some interactions with people can be impersonal, and that’s okay. I think that’s why we have this blog. There are people coming to the site, poking around, and probably thinking, hmm, why is this free? There must be a catch. And who are these guys, anyway? Then they go to the About Us page which says amazingly little about who Zak, Sunil, and I are.  And so they go to the blog.

And then it becomes a little more personal, but not for us. I don’t know who reads this and what they think about it. No one leaves us comments. Maybe it’s a little charming to see that we’re pretty regular people, certainly not professionals, and aren’t really bad. And, obviously, we like to write. We just don’t get that much time to do it. And maybe, just maybe, it is compelling enough to take the plunge and try out a script. Maybe having a blog and taking a web-based glimpse into our souls makes some people feel more comfortable. Whatever it is , sign ups recently have been fast and furious! This is good because it keeps Zak excited about perfecting our new import function.

To summarize, whoever first made the implication that business is purely transactional probably didn’t stay in business very long. Or if he did, he died a wealthy man with no friends. Instead, be nice but play safe. And if you do what you love the money will come.

You don’t need business school to learn that.

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Thoughts on the Scripped business model

Friday, January 18th, 2008

Finding free wireless is less of a struggle than I thought it might be. Fortunately, I can use my iPhone to stake out the airwaves at a cafe before cracking open my laptop. If enough unlocked networks exist, I take the plunge, buy a coffee, and dive into Scripped for the next two hours.

I’m in LA for another week to think hard about our business model. It’s difficult because so much of what we are doing is contingent on the work that other companies are doing. Scripped is about as far upstream in the video production value chain as it gets. We exist where ideas are generated, and we’re happy here because it’s really not that crowded. There’s ScriptShark, which no one has access to, and TriggerStreet, which too many people have access to. We’re unique because we have a writing app that helps new writers test the screenplay waters and see how it works.

But how do we make money? The three of us are basically broke. I’m over $100k in debt from Harvard and MIT tuition and living expenses, Sunil poured his life savings into UCLA and the rest into Scripped, and Zak is in similar dire straits. But such is the life of an entrepreneur, a perspective I had the good fortune to grasp firsthand in a tour of Silicon Valley startups with my MIT Sloan classmates. Every successful startup we spoke to had a rice, beans, and sleeping bag sob story. Surprisingly, the spartan lifestyle continued even after their first $6m funding round.

So we need to monetize our services, but as I said, the monetization of a script is contingent on the monetization of the downstream video product. How much money will a producer make on a million YouTube, Revver, or *.tv site video views? No one really knows, but the answer will help us understand how much the script that drove the video is worth. Once we get this far, it will be easier to determine what to charge and to whom. I suspect the Scripped Writer will always be free. We’ll eventually charge fees to promote scripts to producers, and likewise to allow producers or their agents to browse the catalog of scripts that Scripped members allow permissions to see.

Regardless, from the perspective of a young guy sitting outside of a coffeeshop at Sunset and Vermont, it’s a fun problem to think about. Maybe we’ll put up a donation button instead. I think Sunil needs some new underwear.

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Why I Love California

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

I watched the Red Sox beat the Indians in a wild romp that sent Papi and the boys to a killer World Series streak in Denver. I’ll watch the Celtics play at the Garden in February and the Patriots have just ended the best season in NFL history. There’s something in the air in New England and it has turned our athletes into super machines. Whatever. I’m just glad to be back in California and seeing the sun again.

One thing New England the bay area share, besides lots of clam chowder, is a penchant for entrepreneurship. In the year that I’ve spent on Scripped I have picked up a few nuggets of wisdom and would like to do my best Guy Kawasaki on this blog every once in a while. Entrepreneurship is a tough gig, and if I didn’t have the bug so deep in my system, I’d have given up long ago. And yes, it does a require a good amount of luck.

For example, Sunil smells like Indian food, and I love saag paneer. So it works, and we get along. We’re also lucky that Zak was on vacation when this blog started. If he saw the junk we have on here, he’d probably puke. He is the real writer on the team and it’s a good thing we have him tied up doing product development. That’s what happens when you have two MBAs and one person with unrequited passion for the product. Sunil and I let Zak slave away while we talk “numbers” and “business.” Somehow it works. Luck, you see?

Most of all, I’m lucky to be born and raised in California. I find it incredible that my two passions for media and technology can converge as epicenters in one state. I am proud of the role California plays in setting precedents nationaly and around the world on any number of political issues (but Scripped is nonpartisan, of course). And I’m proud of the respected academic institutions that all of the UC campuses have become.

And the Indian food. The Indian food in California is awesome.

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