Life of a Digital Entrepreneur

Am a huge fan of Failblog and Backblaze.

Brian Brushwood from Scamschool would be proud of this….

Was able to prank Backblaze on Failblog yesterday by submitting a screenshot generated by a modified URL on Backblaze.

Allow me to share how I did this:

I realized when I checked my download status with backblaze they left the variables in the URL to come up with a length

https://secure.backblaze.com/online-backup-speed.htm?os=mac&mb=63264&throttle=50&kbitspersec=4264

For 63GB still have 24  days to complete the backup and it’s all visible in the URL:

So all I did was change the total space to something very high (630 TB) in the URL:

Submitted to failblog, and bam.

It would be cool if Backblaze said something more graceful, like. “WOAH,  you have a ton of stuff.. it’ll be a few years before this is complete.”

Over the last 5 years, have been focusing on building Viddler out of Bethlehem, PA. One thing that has taught me, if you are going to take the remote path, you need work extra hard to stay on top of your game. Going to conferences is an option but, expensive and takes time away from your business.

Luckily, online tools make it possible to continue sharpening your skills, even from afar. Problem with long podcasts like these, is you can easily waste your time if you aren’t picky with your podcast. If used wisely they are the perfect tools for in-between time (driving, flying, doing laundry, etc).

These are my 3 must-listen to  podcast resources:

• This Week In Tech – For the essential tech news, rockstar Leo Laporte is an incredible host and always brings super intelligent guests.
• This Week In Startups - Jason Calacanus does great job of bringing in incredible entrepreneurs and providing a mix of education/entertainment.
• This Week In Venture Capital -  The venture space is changing every other month. Mark Suster does a great job bringing in the top VCs and Angel investors.

For the last few years, it has been a privilege to work with folks leveraging viddler technology such as Gary Vaynerchuk.

It’s also been a privileged to work with such a great team that’s focused at delivering the best video technology.

The latest hire, Billy Disney, is first full-time hire outside that development/support workflow, and with the Viddler Spotlight series, has begun highlighting the love affair and “privelegedness” we have with our customers:

And with this amazingness, Billy humbly bakes himself as folks to be privileged to work with.

If you haven’t seen lastest blog post on Viddler, check it out. Also GetClicky’s announcement is superb as well.

Did a video for it.. the first I have done in a LONG time which is the reason why am so rusty

In a recent strategic conversation someone recently said “wow, you guys should be marketing this more” when referring to # of customers, big accounts and profitability.

We do put much of this stuff on the blog and on Twitter but she was referring to the more traditional marketing techniques: Sponsoring events, parties, keynote speaking, press releases, email newsletters, etc.

This brought me to defend staying low key. Allow me to share reasons….

Benefits of Staying Low Key:
- Competition doesn’t pay attention (we have features implemented better then our competitors and they still haven’t caught up)
- You wouldn’t believe the amount of people buying into video hosting that don’t attend big shindig conferences or give two cents about press releases.
- Save time and money. What matters and what sells is usually how good your product is and how fast you are innovating. Also if your not spending a wild amount on marketing you can offer your customers with a more affordable product.
- Other companies do operate like this and succeed. For instance, has anyone seen Getclicky? Two guys building one of the best analytics toolset in the business. They are low key, no mainstream marketing strategy, and after investigating have a outrageous # of customers.

This isn’t to say we aren’t looking to improve our marketing strategy. Just a slight argument for staying under the radar.

And I will keep the company name I work for out of this, cause I know I have google alerts setup on our competition. #stayinglowkey

BillyD did an amazing job highlighting Viddler Business Services.

The focus was around Control, Customization and Branding viddler offers as a video hosting service. What do you think, did those points come across?

Jefferson Graham from USAToday wrote an amazing article on Viddlers HTML5 support.  Make sure to signup for our HTML5 beta!