Startup Launch Twitter Chat with @RobertSwisher #VCBuzz [with all the buzz inside]

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Startup Launch Twitter Chat with @RobertSwisher #VCBuzzMost of us have had ideas for a cool new site, service or app. Very few of us have actually went from idea to acting; even fewer had the patience to launched those to the public.

Why is it so difficult to actually go ahead and act? How to overcome all the hurdles and actually realize your ideas? Let’s chat on that with our today’s mentor @RobertSwisher

***Please sign in here to follow the chat -> twchat.com/hashtag/vcbuzz

***Important: Join this event on Google Plus to be notified of upcoming chats (It’s easier with daytime savings and different time zones!)

About Robert

Robert Swisher is a co-founder, developer, and evangelist over at @festpopusa, a new way to discover, prepare, and plan your next music festival journey for every generation

Robert is also CTO at

Connect to Robert on Linkedin

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you come up with the idea of @festpopusa? How is the idea innovative and what got you excited about it?

I can’t take credit for the original idea, my Co-Founder Scotty Moore came up with it. A few years back he was trying to put together a trip to Lalapalooza (if I remember) and realized.

What a pain it was to research a festival, then book tickets, travel, lodging etc. You had to bounce around to a ton of sites. He knew there had to be a better way. That was the beginning of FestPop.

After that we realized there were so many global music festivals (actually 10K+ a year and growing) but most people only could name 10 or so. We realized we wanted to help foster discoverability to all those festivals. That was how the idea for our recommendation engine was born.

We want to spread the idea that festivals aren’t just for EDM fans in their 20s, there’s an experience out there for everyone.

Time is ALWAYS tough, you just have to get started by setting a little aside

Q2 How did you go from the idea to implementation? What was your biggest motivation?

Getting started is the hardest part, overcoming that initial inertia.Just pick somewhere and start. It could be researching the market, or writing a biz plan, or sketching out ideas on a napkin. Just pick something and go. Start setting aside a block of time to dedicate to your idea regularly.

We’re a bootstrapped startup and haven’t raised any money yet, so time is obviously a huge factor for us as well. To get an idea off the ground you really need to care about what you’re building and be passionate about it. I think that’s the biggest motivation. So see your idea of solution shared with the world.

If you can’t be excited about the idea, who will be. I’m also a believer in getting started while keeping your day job ?

My biggest motivation is just seeing the idea come to life. I’m a building and I love to create things. I’m a builder I mean ?

Totally agree Jim. You need to partner with people who’s skills compliment your weaknesses.

Q3 What’s your promotional plan for @festpopusa? How do you plan to get the word out?

As a bootstrapped startup we don’t have a ton of money for marketing at this stage.We’re mostly focused on organic search driven by creating great content and social. We’re also betting on the word of mouth style virality that exists in the festival community.

We do for quite a few, especially smaller festivals that don’t have big PR teams.

Small festivals are the ones who most can benefit from partnering with FestPop and those are our favorite to work with. They’re the one’s that need to be discovered. Coachella and EDC don’t need any help ? Paid search is still important for any online business, but we do that sparingly.

Our team spends a lot of time searching for them, and they’re active lovers of music festivals as well.

Agreed. Right now our primary focus is building a product and community over revenue, but revenue is still great!

Q4 What would be your advice to those of us who are still planning to launch? How to actually start doing things?

I’ve kind of said this before, but the best advice is stop talking about it and do. A lot of people get stuck in analysis paralysis. It you’re passionate, get started!

Also, don’t be afraid of getting your idea into the market as soon as possible before it’s “done”.

Reid Hoffman said it best “If you’re not a little embarrassed about your product, you waited too long to launch.” Or something close to that ?

I also really believe in having a co-founder of co-founders. Starting from nothing is very hard to do alone.

Start going to startup meetups in your area and networking with other aspirational entrepreneurs

Q5 Combining two CTO roles at two companies, how do you manage and balance your time?

Balancing time is a real challenge and I don’t have a perfect answer. The best thing is to just really schedule your time. Both during the workday and your free time.

There are weeks when I can be completely overwhelmed at business.com, but I still need to find time to give to FestPop.

I’m a big list maker, I like GTD as a method for working and combine that with a lot of calendaring. Ruthless prioritization is key. And don’t use your inbox as your to-do list. There are plenty of tools that can help you organize your tasks, try to keep at inbox zero as much as possible

Abosolutely, great rule to follow. Always better to just knock out quick tasks right away. I also use a timer for setting how long I want to research something or spend on social media etc.

Here’s one I love. Datexx The Miracle Cube Timer, you just flip it onto the side with the time length you want.

Our previous launch marketing chats:

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