No Snivelling

It's a little off-topic for this blog, but we're pretty excited about the new lifelong learning class selection added in the Portland, OR area as we recently brought Clark College on to TeachStreet. And, it's extra exciting, as we have family in the Portland, OR, Vancouver, WA/Camas, WA Clark College class area, who've told me that Clark College is the place to be for great classes in their area.

What caught my eye was the Knife Skills 101 class in Portland, as I've recently started my New Year's Resolution to finally 'learn to cook', and this is one I'd love to take with Aunt Jeannine the next time I'm down there!

Another wine lovers class in Portland is the 'From the Wine to the Bottle' offering at Clark College -- looks very cool (and only $105!)

Finally, for the dance lovers, there's a Portland, OR Zumba Class at Clark College that looks like a blast -- ahh, never enough time in the day!

Labels: camas wa, clark college, community college, portland or, vancouver wa

Unanswerable startup questions
1) bay area or ______ (seattle, boston, new york, austin, topeka...)
2) can you be successful as a part-time entrepreneur (while working at BigCo)?
3) ruby or _____
4) wordpress or _____
5) is _____ good for SEO (this one's a little bit more answerable, but still requires that you do a bit of research, and make quick non-fully-informed decision)
6) lifestyle business or venture capital?
7) when to give up?
8) profitability or growth?
9) is content or design more important?
10) what metrics to track?  best things for dashboard?
11) ad-supported or fee-based/freemium?
12) rackspace, AWS, or _______
13) paypal or ______
14) scrum, waterfall, or chaos?
15) in-house or off-shore devs?
16) PR firm or do it yourself
17) ...

Things Entrepreneurs Say (and what they mean)
1) it's going great
2) the last few months have been awesome
3) we're making great progress
4) the team's really coming together
5) we're still relatively small, but growing quickly
6) we've had x# record revenue months in a row
7) traffic's continuing to grow
8) we're angel funded
9) we pay market rates
10) equity compensation included
11) looking for rock-star developers
12) looking for CTO who's hands-on
13) looking for interns
14) i love my VC/investors/advisors
15) everyone in the company is in marketing
16) everyone helps with CS support
17) ...

Job Description of a Founder/CEO
1) ...

We continue to explore opportunities in the Test Prep Class and School space, and today launched a new Test Prep Finder blog. It's obviously still in experimental phase, but we're looking forward to launching some other tools specific to the needs of GMAT test takers and GRE practice test searchers.

If you have memories of test taking, please reach out with ideas about how we could improve the experience for students (or their parents!).

Labels: gmat class, gre exam, teachstreet, test prep

Her 2010 resolution is no more visits to that vet place

http://blog.daryn.net/post/285406425/gbb-molly-sports-her-teachstreet-pride

Being in Honolulu's been great but it reminded me of things I like and
don't like when I travel.

1) go places where franchises/chains/brands are discouraged (hanalei
bay vs. Honolulu; marthas vineyard vs. ______; Friday Harbor vs. ______)

2) don't eat at restaurants that you wouldn't dine at, at home (Jimmy
Buffett's Grill - truly awful)

3) ocean views are worth it

4) cool breezes are nice too

5) rental cars can be liberating

I know... my blogging frequency is somewhat (totally) lacking. Well, honestly, I've got a few things going on in my life.

(1) if you haven't noticed in my Facebook feed, we added a new puppy, Stella the French Bulldog -- go check her out in my Facebook photos -- she's awesome



(2) we're in the middle of a mini/major-house renovation, and have been since July/July -- it's nearing completion, but has been for what feels like months

(3) I'm training for a marathon, to be run in Honolulu in mid-December (click if you'd like to donate to fight Leukemia Lymphoma) -- long run of 18 miles last weekend, and will be running 20 miles in ~2 weeks. Then off to the fun in the sun.



(4) finally, TeachStreet's been making amazing progress. We launched our payments/revenue systems in July and September, and have been spending the last several weeks optimizing the site experience -- some major improvements to note:

- We added a focused Test Prep Class and teacher site, featuring premium partners such as Kaplan, PowerScore, Knewton and more. So, if you know students looking for SAT, GMAT, LSAT, GRE test prep classes, have them check it out

- You can now easily find upcoming classes in your area - the selection of teachers, subjects and classes is becoming pretty amazing, all across the country

- We've got another pretty cool 'launch' coming tomorrow, hopefully significantly improving the teacher profile page experience, and a few other little pleasantries

Hope you're lives are going great -- Karen and I are racing around, as usual -- hope to see you all soon!

Labels: gmat class, gre exam, lsat prep, sat study, teachstreet, test prep