Scott Johnson likes to talk, and if you’re smart you’ll listen to his stories and his advice. Check out this recent interview that covers:

• his background
• his new company Ookles
• why Ookles should NOT set up in Silicon Valley
• the remedy for logfile issues that affect Google to Friendster to Feedster
• the Bill Gates rule
• the Bob Metcalfe rule
• why it’s smart to raise money early and raise a lot

More details
Download the mp3 (right click to save)

This last Saturday I was a speaker at the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy, along with geof lambert of the California IPv6 Task Force and Dave Kovar who has a chain of martial arts studios in the Sacramento area.

When I started Tubes I went into it head first without any experience, so I was bound to do my share of spinning my wheels and making mistakes. In fact I think there’s no better or faster way to learn, but if I had known about the SEA and how great of a resource it is I would have gone through the program. How many places and people are out there to truly help you as an entrepreneur? The answer is “not very many” if you don’t already know. Trust me I know first hand that most entrepreneur resources and “help,” are most often somebody else’s business and they do want your money. The people behind SEA do it because it needs doing, and as a result entreprenuers and companies are created. Wow. This is probably the best thing you can do as an entrepreneur getting started.

I already knew geof lambert because he puts on a Tuesday Dinner once a month, and from our conversations he and I are almost completely on the same wavelength. Well… except for the fact that he thinks “blogworking” is going to be a big deal, and I am 100% certain nobody will ever give a #$%& about the word Actually the concept holds water because it’s a dynamic that is very much alive inside of MySpace and LiveJournal, but the word definitely sucks.

I did not know Dave Kovar, and honestly my first impression was that he was a complete beefcake and that his profession gave him an excuse to beat up little kids Well little did I know this guy really has it together, and soon enough I find myself taking notes. I never take notes! FYI they plan to change the studio name from Kovars Martial Arts, to “Satori” which is Japanese for “enlightenment.” So one thing I learned is that you’re supposed to drink enough water every day to equal half your weight in grams. I know I don’t drink enough water so I’m going to buy myself a trendy Nalgene water bottle, and I’ll probably be making trips to the can every 15 minutes.

One of Dave’s mentors is Dan Millman, who is famous for being the author of “Way of the Peaceful Warrior.” Dan has a system which Dave has adopted, and if everybody adopted it the world would be a better place. The rules are as follows:

Pretty basic but the implications can be astounding. In business this is particularly smart because acting out of emotion in a situation will usually result in doing or saying something regrettable. Here’s a quote by Benjamin Franklin that Dave said that is worth relaying:

Dave actually added some lines of his own to this: “Who is brave? He who is smart enough to be afraid but does it anyway. Who is mighty? He who has control over his emotions and can make friends with the enemy.”

One last thing that really hit home with me, is that he said people for the most part want only the best for you and eachother. In the context of public speaking and performance, if somebody isn’t really being 100%, then the audience is mostly sending them good thoughts. Of course there are times when every person is critical or mean, but most of the time most people are not. I don’t know how much truth there is to this but it’s certainly something to think about. If there happens to be only one guy rooting for you or your team, that should be enough.

I’m very happy to welcome Ross Mayfield to the Tubes’ advisory board. Ross is the CEO and founder of Socialtext, which is an enterprise wiki solution and also the first wiki company.

While I’m at it I should also introduce the rest of the Tubes’ BoA. There are a lot of great people involved with Tubes in some fashion or another, but advisors fill a very special role. However good/smart an entrepreneur I might be, Tubes would not be what it is without the help and support of these people. They have helped to refine the good parts and to put to rest the less-than-compelling/less-than-strategic parts, and as a result we’ve ended up with a kickass value proposition.

Kevin Drost has been an advisor for a while now, and he and I have spent many hours on the phone talking about music industry and artist issues. Kevin comes from Sony where he was a global A&R executive assistant, and among other artists he helped to sign Franz Ferdinand. The music industry is in shambles, and Kevin’s experience coupled with the relationships he has with many bands has given him a first-hand view at how inefficient the industry truly is.

Cynthia Typaldos is an expert in social networking and online collaboration. She founded RealCommunities and GolfWeb which were both acquired, and now she’s back in entrepreneur-mode working on some new ideas. When she’s ready with something I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Andria Tay has a lot of experience in marketing and artist developement for companies such as MTV and EMI. She was recently VP of Marketing at EMI Jazz & Classics, which involved working with artists such as Norah Jones and Sarah Brightman.

Jordan Ritter co-founded Napster. The real one. Need I say more? He also founded Cloudmark, which is likely the world’s most effective anti-spam solution because of the way they leverage the intelligence of their millions of users.

That was our first one and while it was a smallish crowd, we definitely had a great time. Adam also took pictures.

Woodstock’s pizza in Davis, Thursday March 16th, 7:00PM in the front area of the adjacent room (the one with the bar). See you all there!

Adam Kalsey and I have arranged the first of many Sac Geek Dinners. Actually it’s going to be in Davis, but we’ll probably move it around because variety is the spice of life. Traditionally the Bay Area gets all the fun stuff, but that is no longer! Everybody is invited but be warned you will be surrounded by geekery. And please RSVP (comment) on this blog or send me an email so I can warn the restaurant if we anticipate a bigger crowd. There is free WiFi so bring your notebook if you want, and bring your beer goggles in case you want to put the computer away and have a good time. Watch this blog for more details!

When: Thursday, March 16th 2006 at 7:00PM

Where: Woodstock’s Pizza in Davis, CA

My friend Adam Kalsey’s kids are selling candy bars for their little league, and Adam is helping by allowing people to donate online via Paypal or Amazon. Since shipping candy bars through the mail is not cost-effective, Adam is going to donate them to a Sacramento children’s charity. This is a great opportunity to help the little league, help a local charity, and avoid a few extra pounds by not eating a few dozen chocolate bars! For more info check out Adam’s blog.

I’ve been an advocate of friend-to-friend (F2F) filesharing for a long time. Rather than opening up your shared files to tens of thousands of peering eyes, you only give access to a selective group of people that you know and trust. Since most media sharing is typically based on recommendations via word-of-mouth, it only makes sense to transfer files directly. Most word-of-mouth online takes place around IM, forums and email, but filesharing hasn’t yet really found a fit in that mix.

So I tend to keep track of what’s out there in startup land, and AllPeers from day one gave me a major stiffy Yeah they can still screw it up if they don’t keep the focus on useful functionality, but I think they really have an opportunity. Anyway they just raised a round A so congrats guys. As usual TechCrunch has a great review of how the software works.

The highlight of the evening was a tie between the Taco truck and the chocolate fountain, but there was also the rare opportunity to photo the Scotts together. From left to right: me … Scott J. … Scott R.

Guy Kawasaki was an early helper with Tubes in introducing me to some VC lawyers. The thing I remember most about him is that he once said at The Art of the Start conference, that he feels like a woman in a man’s body. I can’t even remember the context but if you know guy… it’s probably the type of thing you’d expect him to say Anyway he’s a great source of wisdom but we still don’t use macs and now he’s giving it away for free on his blog. One of his most recent posts offers tips on raising angel money.

In a very related article at CNN Money, Michael Copeland goes over some of the finer points of navigating the angel world.