Business 2.0 has an article about venture capitalists that are looking
for business opportunites in specific areas. One in particular (below)
sounds like a wiki. Anyone who wants join with me to make a prototype,
write a business plan and pitch it to Norwest Venture Partners contact
me off list (paul(a)yellowikis.org).
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/print/0,17925,1096807,00.html
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$3M SOCIAL NETWORKS MEET THE TOWN CRIER
WHO: Jim Lussier, Norwest Venture Partners, Palo Alto
WHO HE IS: A former exec at Accenture and
Beyond.com, Lussier handles
software and services for Norwest, which manages $1.8 billion in
venture funds and won big with investments in PeopleSoft (PSFT) and
Tivoli Systems. Lussier led recent deals with travel-services company
G2 Switchworks and P2P radio broadcaster Mercora.
WHAT HE WANTS: A kind of souped-up Craigslist for every neighborhood,
everywhere. Just type in a zip code, and this website will present not
just garage sale listings and classified ads, but headlines and photos
from dozens of local news sites run by busybodies willing to provide
free content and keep it constantly updated.
WHY IT'S SMART: The idea taps into the same social-networking allure
that helped make Flickr a $35 million Yahoo (YHOO) acquisition -- that
is, user-driven content, organized so that all visitors get a slick
stage to showcase their stuff. In this case, the stuff isn't just
photos but local knowledge: updates on a rash of burglaries, say, or a
ranking of preschools. (The most popular contributors might receive a
small percentage of ad revenue.) The site could also offer a
marketplace for everything from baby-sitting to tree trimming. Sure, a
number of regional websites already offer something similar, but this
site would aggregate the content under one umbrella and provide a
platform to scale it across the nation. If all goes as planned,
Lussier says, paid ads could bring in as much as $100 million a year.
WHAT HE WANTS FROM YOU: A website template finished within six months
on a $500,000 budget. (Lussier estimates that a team of two or three
can do the job.) If it shows promise, Norwest will provide another
$2.5 million to tackle the real challenge: developing a core group of
users who can light the viral fire. "Building that community happens
when people get value out of the service," Lussier says. "They need to
feel compensated for their time by the information they get back out."
SEND YOUR PLAN TO: jlussier(a)nvp.com
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Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica