Ok, emails are literally coming in faster than I can sort them – forget about reading and responding. If I don’t know you there is a zero chance of me responding. If I know you I’m probably not responding either. I am beating myself up over this but there is just no solution right now. I apologize. I am missing some good leads and pissing people off, two things I never wanted to do.
If anyone knows of a person who would make a good research assistant and general office manager type that is willing to work at for a low salary but get in the middle of a growing and exciting industry, please let me know.
My parents are now emailing me and telling me the only way they know I’m still alive is because they see new posts on TechCrunch every once in a while.
(help)
You should get them an IM account. This way they could see you are alive by monitoring the login/logout notices.
My mom (who still lives in France) told me that she saw I was working super late these days – 3/4AM, and gave me crap about it. I guess you never stop being a son…
Jeff, could you please call my mom and explain how IM works? I don’t have time.
I can imagine blocking them because I’m too busy…I couldn’t live with that kind of guilt.
Instead of teaching them how IM works, just show them how Skype works. I was able to get both of my parents to use it. Which is a miracle since they don’t even have an answering machine and can barely email! In Skype I just told them that green = I am online.
The downside is, now they are calling me much more and they keep forgetting the time difference b/w Europe and Kuala Lumpur.
Sorry to hear that you are burried in emails! Mike
I don’t understand all those terms. IM ? Is that something like being married and retired, therefore always available for spousal queries and direction? If so, I won’t subject you to that
Seems Like you, or one of your savvy geek friends could devise a new web-2 service, whereby an occasional phone message, email or pre-recorded podcast could be generated and sent to parents, as a by-product of the more important (or fun,)activity you’re engaged in
dad
Mike, I assume the email deluge is mostly people who want their product/company published. Perhaps you can appy some Web 2.0 principles to your own process: make it collaborative. Quick ideas:
- Self-publishing at a separate blog or the Techcrunch wiki.
- Get the crowd “vote” through comments
- Perhaps channel all “applicants” through Digg, and use their collective voting power to select which products to review.
In other words use some collaboration / filtering and personally process less. Now, is this in conflict with your mission of reviewing ALL Web 2.0 products?
Perhaps not – you’ve grown tremendously, you actually have a media empire in the making. At this growth rate it will actually become somehwat difficult to pick the real gems from the crowd of one-feature offerings.
There is nothing wrong with having a combo approach:
– a “complete” listing largely complied based on the above collaborative principles
– your “editorial picks” focusing on less, but outstanding products.
This way you can reduce your workload, focus on the most promising startups yet still offer a “complete” list.
Wow .. gotta stop .. this is becoming long-winded. I’m also emailing you, but you have to be able to open it
Hi Mike, I don’t know if here is the appropriate place to say this but since your email is swarmed… I am interested in being your research assistant/ office manager. I have experience in both, and since I read TechCrunch without fail I have picked up a sense of how you look at and evaluate businesses. Most important to me is getting experience in this industry as I am unashamedly an addict. Im 21 so that should cover any awkwardness of paying me a low salary. Anyways just thought I should put that on the table. I am willing to share alot more info and I assume my email address is visible to you.
Peter Wallroth
Hey Mike,
I’m very interesting in the things you talk about on both blogs and doing some research about it myself. It would be exciting to help you out, but there might be some geographical problems.
If your still interested, feel free to mail me.
Thanks,
Jesse
Mike:
This post reminds me of Enquire magazine’s A.J.Jacobs’ article in SmartMoney “My Outsourced Life” – http://www.smartmoney.com/esquire/index.cfm?Story=20050909-outsource&pgnum=3.
If you haven’t read it, you might want you. Its really funny…
-Vaibhav
you know digg.com right
why not clone them and have a similar site for people with web 2.0 start ups. anyone can submit their site, and we the users can digg it or dump it.
the more popular sites get the recognition, you can then choose to interview them, the crap that no one likes gets weeded out, and you won’t have to deal with it again.
your website uses the old slashdot model of getting articles submitted by users. since you are a corner stone to the web 2.0 world, why not work on a web 2.0 way of letting people submit their sites!
CLONE THE DIGG API /just kidding
Forget other benchmarks… Mike is feeling growth pains so WEB 2.0 must be taking off! We hope you wont lose your approachableness as you become a ROCK STAR. May we all look back at these times in the future and say with a smile “Remember when…”
Mike,
Sounds like you may need some onsite help as well but I’d be interested in helping you out as a Research Assistant/etc. if you’re game for virtual support. Third year law school has some flexibility as you may remember and watching things unfold from afar has me itching to jump in!
All the best-
Taylor
Hey if you need someone to I will sort some emails for you for free. Live in Texas so it would have to be online, but don’t mind helping out at no cost.
Hi Mike,
I am interested in helping you. I currently am entrenched in all that is web 2.0 while keeping a macro view of how it applies to the rest of the world. I currently work in advertising in NYC and would be happy to discuss helping you out or covering things you need done on the east coast. Please let me know as I am eager to team up.
Thanks,
~Eric
I agree the Internet is a growing and exciting industry in case any potential applicants were looking for additional support for the statement.
Hey Mike,
I agree with these other guys — you need virtual assistance! I’d be willing to help too: strengths being graphic and web design as well as research. I can also sort through emails and send out responses.
Whatever you do, I hope you continue with the wonderful work here and on TechCrunch!
Lisa B.
You need a team of “Crunchers”. Figure out the components of Web 2.o and divide it if possible. So various people would have a particular beat that they cover and become experts in. Maybe something like Ajax apps go to one person, social bookmarking to another, etc. They could either post directly to TC or as a draft for your quality check later.
Then maybe some kind of virtual email addresses for the various reporter’s category or some kind of filter/forward from your current email account for them to handle those parts of your email overload.
Hey Mr. Arrington,
You should check out http://yackpack.com/ and see if you feel comfortable using that to leaving messages. Then your whole family could leave each other little messages
Lisa B.