Dave Van de Walle | President & CEO | uSphere.com

Web 2.0, the groundswell, and how you’re gonna make millions*

About me:

used to be a corporate pr guy | didn’t really like pr | either get an MBA or build a business | spent time at Syracuse and ChicagoState

About uSphere:

bootstrapped the business from its inception in 2005 | we’re still at it | cross between eHarmony and LendingTree and Facebook for college admissions | goal is student traffic, parent traffic, college admissions people traffic | the brand is out of your hands | be prepared to embrace that fact or get the heck out

What we did right:

not collegesphere, it’s uSphere: international focus, not just USA | outsourced virtually everything | virtual business | ad networks | affiliate networks | dialogue is part of the brand | oh yeah we actually have a brand

What we didn’t do right:

kids don’t buy stuff, parents buy stuff | wasted too much time figuring out pricing of student stuff | didn’t go after parents early enough

Advice, for what it’s worth:

think long and hard before raising money | if it smells bad, it’s bad | if it looks bad, it’s bad | if they won’t tell you what they’re up to, it’s bad | partner first | talk to everyone | “A Team & B Idea”

Terms Dave needs to teach you:

bootstrap | monetize | backchannel | NDA | Grade A | industrial strength

About the groundswell:

read the book! | seriously, go buy it right now | go to groundswell.forrester.com and you can get all the info that you need about the groundswell | I cannot overstate the importance of getting this book | POST: people, objective, strategy, technology

Sites I love, tools I use, people to Google:

Google | pandora | realclearpolitics | uSphere | techcrunch | crunchbase | churchrelevance | Edward Tufte | grubhub | sugar (open source CRM) | ning | elgg | Area 224 | UniversityCMO | twitter (usphere) | facebook | go read the 4-hour workweek

thanks

you can contact me at dave@usphere.comor connect with me on facebook