I finally managed to get a little time to go through SEOmoz’s 2008 Web 2.0 awards list and it occurred to me that a good way to see how 2.0 you are is to tally up the number of their award-winning sites that you use regularly.

They have 174 sites listed and I use a grand total of 17 of these, so I guess that makes me not so much web 2.0 but more web 0.2.

In my defence, I will roll out the usual line about being so busy that I don’t have the time to keep up any more.

Once you have counted up, check below to see how you did.

0-30: Really, why did you even bother trying.
31-60: Nope, you still have the stench of 1.0 about you.
61-90: Not bad, you can hold your head up high.
91-120: Yep, it’s official, you can now add 2.0 after your name.
121-150: Crikey, don’t you have a life?
151+: You bloody cheat! Go back and count again properly.

Seriously though, what did surprise me a little bit is the lack of 2.0 features in this awards list. Don’t get me wrong, I love SEOmoz, but if you are going to put together a list of the best 2.0 sites why not make the actual awards list a bit more 2.0 too?

That said, this is a great list and come 2009, expect to see Snagsta up there with the best, even if they have to create a new category for us!

We have repeatedly been told that we have to be prepared to follow Snagsta wherever it takes us. Very often the dream founders start out with is totally different from the website they end up with. This can happen for a variety of reasons:

1. Along the wide and varied path that is web development better ideas turn up out of nowhere

2. The founders' idea is slightly off target (I think the diplomatic wording for this is 'ahead of their time')

3. The investors 'suggest' a 'new approach' (as an aside: we've been given all the latitude we've wanted so far)

4. The users decide they have a much better idea for how the site should be used (this was certainly the case with Twitter (according to Biz Stone) and Bebo (as Michael Birch explains).

It appears flexibility is important.

And then you'll walk into another meeting and someone will tell you what they look for in founders is an unwavering pig-headed determination to see their idea through against all odds.

But even the best ideas occasionally have to be abandoned. So the question is: how do you know when enough is enough?

And the answer is... predictably: you don't.

The good news is you can't be criticised because nobody knows. It's luck (certainly if you take Taleb's word or the FT's)

The bad news is that this decision could either make you or lose you A LOT OF MONEY.

At Snagsta we've built our solution to this problem into the management team. Alex Moore is possibly one of the most stubborn people I know and I'm extremely flexible (some people call me indecisive... but I'm not so sure).

The point is that one should have some contingencies. And I am pleased to be able to demonstrate to our readers that we are ready. In the unlikely event that Snagsta needs to shift focus we have strategically also registered the domain www.shagsta.com.

Have a great weekend!

footnotes:
* pertinacious - don't be embarrassed, I had to look that up too.

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We launched our private alpha (geek-speak for test site) yesterday so the mood under the arches is buoyant to say the least! Well, it was buoyant until we reviewed our bug register... 170 and growing! But all the major functionality is working well so we're pretty amped!

I need to get back to squishing those pests so will hand you over to someone a lot smarter than me (not easy to find that sort of person I hear you say). Today's list comes from the tail end of a recent interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb in the Sunday Times. And I can proudly say I have permission from Taleb to publish his words of wisdom. To give things a slightly different spin this week I have tried to add a comment beneath each of his tips that reflects its relevance to entrepreneurs and start-ups. When I couldn't think of any, I have done something completely different and made sarcastic comments at the expense of myself and those around me.

1. Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

I think scepticism is one of driving motivations behind many entrepreneurs: a healthy scepticism for existing products and people's predictions invokes the 'challenger' mindset. I have honed my scepticism on the small & aesthetic for long enough now...

2. Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

HOW can you possibly fault a man who holds amongst his top 10 tips: 'GO TO PARTIES'

3. It's not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

There is ONE exception to this rule. Never tease a Venture Capitalist. Regardless of the size of his tie. Buy him a drink, complement his colour-co-ordinated cufflinks, but never tease him.

4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act - if you can't control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) once said: 'If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late." And so it is with Snagsta. When the time comes we'll be wearing our best but at first 'site' it may appear as if we got dressed in a bit of a hurry... tucking in our shirt on the way out the door. Kind of my 'style' I suppose, given I was once described as looking like an 'unmade bed'...

5. Don't disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don't understand their logic. Don't pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific 'evidence'.

I didn't understand that but I am sure it's deep.

6. Learn to fail with pride - and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error - by mastering the error part.

There is an interesting debate on the correlation between success and past failure. In my industry the US is very pro-failure, whereas Europe is far more risk-adverse. Statistics suggest there is no correlation but I have hedged my bets by establishing a long track record of failure...

7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words 'impossible', 'never', 'too difficult' too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take 'no' for an answer (conversely, take most 'yeses' as 'most probably').

Bit late for this advice given I am now inextricably linked to Alex M... he's not really a loser but has exceptionally dodgy taste in music.

8. Don't read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.

I've talked about this before. Ironically this list came from the business section of The Times... a Black Swan perhaps?

9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

The central theme in Taleb's book (Black Swan): success has a lot to do with luck. Do whatever you can to put yourself in its way. Luck is less likely to visit you in your bedroom while you're watching dvds...

10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

Given his instantaneous reply to my mail I know exactly how junior Taleb thinks I am. To those of you that I haven't written back to recently... it's because you're so important.

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On Sunday, I got shouted at by my wife.

This happens occasionally, and just between you and me, it is usually my fault, though of course I would never admit to that within her hearing.

This time though, I place the blame firmly upon Snagsta.

You see, I had told my wife that I needed to spend a bit of time in the outhouse to do some testing on the site, but unfortunately when she came out five minutes later to see if I needed anything, I was watching an Eddie Izzard video clip. She was a bit miffed, but was slightly appeased when I managed to explain that I had followed a link from one of Alex’s lists that had cropped up as part of my testing.

About fifteen minutes after that, she kindly brought out a snack, only to find me chuckling to myself whilst reading a page of Mitch Hedberg quotes. Again, I tried to explain that I had been checking the friends functionality and seen this list of Paul’s on the site and it was all part of the testing process. Even to my own ears, this sounded weak.

The final straw though, was when she came out about an hour later and found me on perezhilton.com. Now, I had literally just seen the site mentioned on a list of Nikki Davies’ and had clicked through to have a very quick look, but it was exactly the wrong moment and of course because of this, it looked like my morning’s “work” was watching videos, reading jokes and ogling celebrities.

I tried manfully to make her see that it was Alex, Paul and Nikki, and in a wider sense Snagsta, who were to blame, but she was having none of it.

Our nanny could only laugh as she saw me getting dragged into the house by my ear to spend some time with my son.

I’ll leave you with Nikki’s list of Best Celebrity Gossip Blogs, but remember this is not for work hours:

1. perezhilton.com
   Trashy, flashy and crass
2. pinkisthenewblog.com
   Personal and engaging
3. tmz.com
   At the cutting edge with breaking news and video clips
4. jossip.com
   New York focussed gossip site
5. pagesix.com
   The original, but no longer the best
6. hollywood.tv
   Video-based blog
7. hollywoodtuna.com
   Blog featuring the hottest female celebrities
8. defamer.com
   LA focussed gossip site

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I attended NESTA's Innovation Edge conference this week. Despite the title apparently the only thing jaw-dropping about it was Gordon Brown (who was doing that thing with his chin so quickly even Rory Bremner would have been impressed).

As with all such events it's a bit hit & miss and one has to make a cost-benefit call. Can an entrepreneur trying to launch his site afford to spend the day nodding sagely in agreement with keynote speakers, nancying around making small talk and drinking lukewarm coffee? Well, the answer is ‘sort of'. At my decisive best I elected to attend the more targeted afternoon sessions and so unfortunately missed Gordon Brown, Bob Geldof & Tim Berners-Lee. But I have it on good authority from the effervescent Meriem Aissaoui from Smarta that they were in fine form.

By the way, Smarta is a fantastic business resource and social networking site for entrepreneurs and small businesses that launches officially in November.

The first seminar I attended was called ‘Are online social networks the new cities?' Unfortunately the topic was too high level to get the crux of matters the same way blog conversations do but at least it was fairly entertaining. Here's an extract of the dialogue between the facilitator and Michael Birch (founder of Bebo):

Facilitator: So Michael - why did you move to San Francisco? Was it Silicon Valley?
Michael Birch: Because of my wife - she's from San Francisco. There just happened to be a small thriving internet community there too.
Facilitator: Lucky she wasn't in Utah. That would have been interesting.
Michael Birch: Probably not that interesting.

The second seminar, ‘Entrepreneurs v Investors: Can the relationship ever really work?', was better. Saul Klein (The Accelerator Group) highlighted honesty, self-awareness and the ability to face issues sooner rather than later as critical ingredients for an effective relationship and Jon Moulton (Alchemy) provided a list of habits that help you spot Bad Managers & Entrepreneurs that I have paraphrased below:

• They don't know the numbers, don't care about them


• They don't have any customer interaction


• They are often arrogant and dismiss questions from their staff


• They are little too focused on the material things (talk about pay & bonus schemes in the first meeting)


• They don't have a TO DO list - no signs of structured organisational skills


• They don't visit their businesses


• They make stupid acquisitions (double or quits)


• They isolate themselves


• They work 9 to 5 - lacking passion for their business

If you are a regular reader of our blog you will know we usually quote other people’s genius and experiences in order to make us appear knowledgeable and adventurous: this week however, we thought we might throw caution to the wind and talk about something we did instead.

On Wednesday I completed an investment readiness programme named gateway2investment (g2i). g2i is put together by the London Development Agency and is delivered by a consortium of private sector companies. It offers participants advice and support to help make companies “investor ready”.

I found the course really helpful as it made me take another look at how we present Snagsta to investors.

I also got to meet lots of great entrepreneurs who are busy setting up all sorts of interesting businesses. Links to a few ideas I found particularly interesting follow: Charlotte Vere at Big White Wall, Jason Devenney at Siondo, David Crane at debatewise and lastly blogger-to-be Ricky Doyle at Practice-IT.

I would thoroughly recommend the course to any London based startups.

Lastly, here’s a related list from the founder of Seesmic: Loic Le Meur’s advice to internet startups.

1. Think global as you create the business
It is very difficult because our natural tendency is to think local, to eat lunch and dinner with people around where we live and think in our own language. I lived in Paris most of my life and I was naturally addressing the French market first. Moving yourself and your family to a very international city like London, NY or San Francisco helps.

2. Create an original product: new and different
Digg or Twitter have created new social relationships and even though they have hundreds of copycats, they will remain the originals. The best way to succeed is definitely an original and great product.

3. Do not create a copycat, unless your goal is only to get acquired
Do not do copycats, even if you are in a remote market and even if it is tempting, unless you are just here to create a company and sell it quickly to the leader, which is a business model that some entrepreneurs have become masters about. Why not partner with the mothership and launch them where you are instead of copying ? Innovate, do not copy, life is too short for that.

4. Try to raise funds from world-class VCs
They will help you become world-class, but if you are not based in Silicon Valley you have a lower chance that they invest in your company. If you go for local VCs, always take the most international ones.

5. Hire people from all nationalities as much as possible
Americans hire Americans. French hire French. Spanish tend to hire Spanish people. Even if it is easier, you should hire as much as possible a team with as many cultures and languages as possible. Cultural cross pollination is a wonderful way to stoke creativity.

6. Register your domain names in the key countries you are interested in (and the large ones you are not interested in)
A common mistake made by most startups. Very difficult given how rare good domain names have become but you would absolutely try.

7. Protect your brand Worldwide
Do not wait to sort out trademark in the key regions.

8. Make a site that is language ready day one, even if you launch in English
More non-English content is posted every day on the web than in English. It is ok if you localize when you have built the product, but at least make it very easy to do by separating the language text files of the interface. Obvious? Yes. Do not forget that many languages have words much longer than english words and they tend to break the interface, take Finnish or German and you will see what I mean.

9. Gather an international community since day 1
International starts the first day you launch the company. Having members from all around the World will give you different perspective and different uses of your own product. We have not even launched Seesmic yet but we have users from more than 20 countries who came and used it. We learnt each time.

10. Talk to the most active members of the community to help you understand their market and become evangelists there
These active members can be very powerful evangelists in the different countries, they can also help you get introductions to potential partners

11. Create an application that lets your community translate the site by themselves
The way Facebook translated its site in many languages using an application where members could do inline translation and then vote when there was a discussion on the best term to use. This was a brilliant way to come back with high quality and fast translation. It also helps you have languages you would have not even thought of launching. Do not forget what it takes to maintain them though.

12. Languages are not the same in all the countries they are spoken
French in France is different than French in Quebec so is Spanish different in Mexico and in Madrid. Words may not even be understood the same. email for example is “email” in French (it’s just as often the english word) and “courriel” in French canadian. Use “courriel” or “pourriel” (for spam) in France and some people will laugh at you. Same for “chat” which is “clavardage” in quebecois and just “chat” in France…

13. Do not think that Europe is the U.K.
Most US companies launch from the U.K. thinking they are launching in Europe. There are more than 20 languages in Europe, and the cultural differences between a Danish, an Italian and a Portuguese are huge. Succeeding in the U.K. does not mean you will succeed in the Netherlands.

14. Manage costs properly
Going international by creating your own office or dealing with a partner is expensive. Think about incorporating the company in a country you do not know, respecting social and work local laws, accounting, reporting… In some countries work is not flexible, if you had to close the office and fire your team it could cost you up to a year of payroll…

15. Never do a 50/50 deal with anyone
The famous “golden share” is very important. If you do 50/50 deal nobody has control and it leads to a mess most of the time. The best is of course to be in control of your own business.

16. Do key partnerships with large local players
A great way to go international is what LinkedIn has just done in France by partnering with the largest human resource organization, APEC. APEC’s established position on the market will guarantee LinkedIn initial volume and branding.

17. Never trust that if the partner is large your service will be a success
Partnering the the largest ISP or portal in a Country does not mean they will heavily promote you. You are likely to end up as the service #867 promoted on a page nobody watches. They would never do that to you? I experienced this many times… You would better partner with a small site in your space which will really feature your service than a large one where it will be lost like in a Christmas tree.

18. Create an international reseller program
Sharing a nice % of the business with your partners or resellers is a good way to get them motivated. Web hosting companies have been good at establishing worldwide presence by offering reseller programs, partner conferences, joint marketing, etc.

19. Kill your local copycats
Despite all your efforts, you will have copycats in many markets if your product is successful. Try to kill them first, if you are the leader you should have more traction and means

20. Buy your local copycats if you can’t kill them
Can’t kill them Buy the best ones to grow, if they are copycats they do not have that many exits possible, most of the time they were created for you to buy them. Think about making sure the team will stay in place and not only the founders…

21. Be very pragmatic
In some markets it could be a joint venture, in others it could be a partnership with a large player, and other places just creating your own team works

22. Do not apply any of this to Asia
I do not know the Asian market enough to judge what is happening there but it seems that most large US sites that launched in China pulled back or were not successful. The Japanese market has its own leaders, but I wont’ risk an opinion on an area I do not know enough, I would just be very cautious there.

23. Do not apply any of this to Russia
Everybody forgets the Russian Internet market, it is huge and growing fast, the leaders there are local and operated by russians. They even buy American startups - LiveJournal was bought from Six Apart by Sup.

24. This advice only applies to Internet startups
My experience extends only to Internet startups. Other young companies may find that much of this advice does not apply to them.

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Alex Moore's post 2 weeks ago resonated with me for a few reasons. One of which is the fact that I think he copied my idea - I am convinced I talked to him about this concept a little while ago ;-)

But more importantly, back to the river. There is no bigger river than the river of Twitter. Thanks to my Facebook status updates several people have asked me recently what Twitter is. In a way it's a bit like micro-blogging - here's a commoncraft clip that explains it a lot better than I can. And here's another good link.

It's great if you've mastered continuous partial attention but you have to pick who you follow carefully as you can be inundated with the most trivial facts about people's lives (Sorry Chris, couldn't resist... my dad also loves Indiana Jones).

The Twitter signal-to-noise ratio is terrible though. The highly regarded Nassim Nicholas Taleb has strong views on this. He doesn't read newspapers for this very reason.

On the flipside, Nic Brisbourne reminded me that 'when you are in the business of trying to predict where the hype will be in 12-24 months then [you] don't have the luxury of ignoring the breaking news.' And I have to admit, amongst the froth, Twitter certainly has delivered some timely nuggets that have really helped us as we strive to stay ahead of the curve. Or, in Alex's case, just behind.

Here's a useful list by Paul Walsh that includes some tips for new users.

Most people will only spend a few seconds reviewing your Twitter page before deciding whether to follow you or not. The more followers they have, the less time they're likely to spend. So, these tips should help increase the chances of people following you.

1. Fill in the bio. Include a few words that describe you. Try to make it punchy.

2. Link to a Web page that's relevant, preferably a blog or biog.

3. Don't follow everyone you find interesting at once. Wait for some to reciprocate or you'll look like 'billy no mates'.

4. Using a company name as your screen name is ok for some people. Loren Feldman and Mike Arrington are amongst the 'exception to the rule' category. I personally prefer to follow people, not companies.

5. Be honest, open and above all, be yourself.

6. Be patient. You won't build relationships or feel the community spirit over night. It takes a little getting used to. Use twitter to have conversations with people for at least a few weeks before forming an opinion.

7. If you're unsure whether to publish a comment, publish it. Ok, that's probably not the best tip, but it's what I do all the time. Sometimes it doesn't work in my favour but mostly it does as people know that what they see is the real me.

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I remember reading something a while back about how God had a huge project and he got it done in 7 days. For us though, we have not had much luck with His approach. No matter how many times Phil, Alex, Paul or myself proclaim “Let There Be Snagsta”, that only seems to work for deities.

We are at that stage now when it seems like every issue resolved sprouts 3 new issues to deal with. Not that these are big issues necessarily, but even the small issues can stack up.

It is also now that we start to see just how many tiny details there are to address in order to get Snagsta to the point where we can let you loose on the site (and don’t think we can’t see you there salivating all over your keyboard at the prospect!).

As with a lot of things, it is all about finding the right balance. Good enough to keep you interested, complete enough to keep us happy.

To close, I’m going to leave you with a bit of a cop-out list - some project management one-liners that have tickled my fancy over the years:

1. To estimate a project timeframe, work out how long it would take one person to do it then multiply that by the number of people on the project.

2. If an IT project works the first time, it is wrong.

3. A user is somebody who tells you what they want the day you give them what they asked for.

4. Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.

5. The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the other 90%.

6. Warning: Dates in a calendar are closer than they appear to be.

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If you're a regular reader of our humble blog, you may have noticed that we like rivers here at Snagsta. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Alex G's theory about project management being a bit like white water rafting.

This week we're picking up comments from recent blog posts from both Nic Brisbourne and Stowe Boyd about slower flowing rivers. One of the reasons we set up Snagsta was to cut out clutter and help people deal with the perils of information overload. This is why Stowe's concept of dealing with information such as feeds, news and status updates struck a cord with us here at Snagstaville.

Stowe likens this flow of data to a river of information. Instead of trying to intercept and process it all, he suggests only looking at it when you can and sample what is passing at any given moment.

He goes on to say that you shouldn't waste time worrying about missing things because if anything's really important it will be written about later and will therefore flow by again shortly.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

As always, we will sign off with a list. As this week's topic is a peaceful one, I thought it appropriate that we showcase a complementary list about contentment from the wonderfully content Leo Babauta from Zen Habits.

Peaceful Simplicity: How to Live a Life of Contentment

1. What's important. First, take a step back and think about what's important to you. What do you really want to be doing, who do you want to spend your time with, what do you want to accomplish with your work? Make a short list of 4-5 things for your life, 4-5 people you want to spend time with, 4-5 things you'd like to accomplish at work.

2. Examine your commitments. A big part of the problem is that our lives are way too full. We can't possibly do everything we have committed to doing, and we certainly can't enjoy it if we're trying to do everything. Accept that you can't do everything, know that you want to do what's important to you, and try to eliminate the commitments that aren't as important.

3. Do less each day. Don't fill your day up with things to do. You will end up rushing to do them all. If you normally try (and fail) to do 7-10 things, do 3 important ones instead (with 3 more smaller items to do if you get those three done). This will give you time to do what you need to do, and not rush.

4. Leave space between tasks or appointments. Another mistake is trying to schedule things back-to-back. This leaves no cushion in case things take longer than we planned (which they always do), and it also gives us a feeling of being rushed and stressed throughout the day. Instead, leave a good-sized gap between your appointments or tasks, allowing you to focus more on each one, and have a transition time between them.

5. Eliminate as much as possible from your to-do list. You can't do everything on your to-do list. Even if you could, more things will come up. As much as you can, simplify your to-do list down to the essentials. This allows you to rush less and focus more on what's important.

6. Now, slow down and enjoy every task. This is the most important tip in this article. Read it twice. Whatever you're doing, whether it's a work task or taking a shower or brushing your teeth or cooking dinner or driving to work, slow down. Try to enjoy whatever you're doing. Try to pay attention, instead of thinking about other things. Be in the moment. This isn't easy, as you will often forget. But find a way to remind yourself. Unless the task involves actual pain, there isn't anything that can't be enjoyable if you give it the proper attention.

7. Single-task. This is kind of a mantra of mine, as I talk about how to single-task all the time. But it's an important point for me, and for this article. Do one thing at a time, and do it well.

8. Eat slower. This is just a more specific application of Tip #6, but it's something we do every day, so it deserves special attention.

9. Drive slower. Another application of the same principle, driving is something we do that's often mindless and rushed. Instead, slow down and enjoy the journey.

10. Eliminate stress. Find the stressors in your life, and find ways to eliminate them.

11. How and why to slow down. This is such an important point, that I'm going to point you to two other articles on this.

12. Create time for solitude. In addition to slowing down and enjoying the tasks we do, and doing less of them, it's also important to just have some time to yourself.

13. Do nothing. Sometimes, it's good to forget about doing things, and do nothing.

14. Sprinkle simple pleasures throughout your day. Knowing what your simple pleasures are, and putting a few of them in each day, can go a long way to making life more enjoyable.

15. Practice being present. You can practice being in the moment at any time during the day.

16. Find inspirations. Learn from the best.

17. Make frugality an enjoyable thing too. Instead of delayed gratification, try enjoying life now while saving for later.

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Okay, this Twitter post (a 'tweet' in geek-speak) is a silly example but it illustrates a much less trivial point. With all the clutter on the web people are increasingly turning towards recommendations to help with their decisions. It saves time and the results are a lot more reliable (well... Paul may beg to differ!).

But the process of acquiring these recommendations, as you'll see from the following examples, can be quite inefficient. You might email a friend who then has to spend 10 minutes digging through old emails to find the one on ‘Tips for Vietnam'. Worse still if you post a question on Facebook, A Small World or LinkedIn you could have several people chasing around for suggestions for you. Great for you maybe, but it results in a lot of duplication of effort. And it can also be rather hit & miss depending on who's online at the time or, if you're using Stumble Upon, depending on when you're online.

The chaps at RecommendBox have a better and more structured way of looking at this problem. You select who you want to receive recommendations from or send recommendations to. It eliminates the duplication mentioned above but is still a fairly intervention-heavy manual approach.

Snagsta is creating a platform that hopefully solves many of these problems and automates the process. If (and we know it's a big if!) we build huge database of interesting individual lists then finding things within the lists of friends and like-minded people can be done without interrupting them.

I took the time to consider Paul's dilemma and ultimately recommended he wear a tasteful leopard-skin thong. But in a few months time, all Paul will have to do is slide over to Snagsta and snag something from this list we recently received:

Underwear with a message for all moods and occasions

1. Bridget Jones's Granny Pants - sends a strong message and that message is ‘Here. But no further.'

2. Edible - need i say more

3. Boxers - bit of a tomboy

4. Commando - doesn't leave much for the imagination but is at least unambiguous

5. Leopard-skin thong - hopefully they're changed more often than the wearer's spots

6. Y-Fronts - hang on! This is supposed to be a girl's list...

7. Satin - that's better

8. Lace - femininity with a touch of class

9. Crotchless - come hither

By the way, Paul Walsh is one of my favourite bloggers. For all things internet from someone who 'speaks his mind and then some' check out his blog.

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It’s been a good week here at Snagstaville. The sun may have not shined much in Southwest London but we’re smiling again. The guys in Bangkok and Hong Kong are putting the final touches to Snagsta and we fully expect to roll out a private alpha version of the site next week.

Although we still can’t hear the fat lady sing she just might have finished nibbling on her last cake before she takes the stage.

We’ve also been playing with our Facebook app and had a lot of fun reading the lists we’ve received. They are as eclectic and as colourful as all the wonderful people who wrote them – thanks again to all of you who have made the time to help us out.

A great list landed on our digital doorstep on Wednesday courtesy of Loic Le Meur – the founder of a very interesting site named Seesmic.

I wanted to share this list on our blog because we found it particularly inspiring. Although setting up Snagsta has been great fun it’s had it moments of extreme stress. That said, taking a dream and turning it into reality is an incredibly uplifting experience. If you’re thinking about setting up your own company then this list is definitely worth snagging!

10 rules to launch a startup today

1. Do not wait for a revolutionary idea, the idea of your life will never happen, just focus on a simple exciting empty space you see and execute as fast as possible

2. Share your idea as much as possible, the more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.

3. Build a community around you through blogging and social software.

4. Listen to your community, answer questions and build your product with their feedback, involve bloggers as early as possible and get their feedback, if negative, adapt your product permanently.

5. Gather a great team with a very different skill set than yours, look for people who are better than you without being afraid of it.

6. Be the first to recognize a problem or a mistake you have made. Never hide it under the carpet. Address the issue in public, learn and correct it.

7. Do not spend time on market research, but launch as early as possible in alpha or beta versions. Keep improving the product in the open.

8. Do not focus on a large spreadsheet business plan, you are so sure it is not going to happen anyway.

9. Do not plan huge marketing, growing with your community loving the product is much more powerful.

10. Do not focus on getting rich or selling your company, focus on your users, money is a consequence of success, can’t be a goal.

You may have read Alex’s list in his post last week - you probably wouldn’t remember it though, even I nodded off while reading it. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s exactly why we’re hoping Snagsta will do well. One man’s delight is another man’s anathma.

So where am i going with this? Sure we’re site that’s full of lists. And people love lists. Especially americans according to videoblogger Kirby Ferguson (check out this amusing clip: Americans love lists). In truth though, we’re more of a ‘find’ engine. And here’s why:

1. You’ll be able to dip straight into lists created by your friends. People who you trust and whose passions you understand.

2. More interestingly, by comparing people’s lists and tastes we’ll be able to indentify like-minded people and send them suggestions from each other’s lists.

3. And we won’t send you lists from people you have nothing in common with.

4. It’s going to be interesting to see how good at this we are.

5. Alex is the last person I’d want as the DJ at my party or advising me on men’s fashion but if I needed advice on buying a mountain bike or how to prepare for a trip to the North Pole then he’s the man I’d want behind me. Well, perhaps just to the side…

6. But if the Snagsta engine suggests a selection of Kylie Minogue tracks or a variety of Bill Cosby sweaters from Alex’s lists then I know we’re in big trouble.

7. Then it’s time to roll up our sleeves again. Not like the old days when all I’d roll was my eyes… along with a non-committal “Sorry. This is not my thing, I work in the Marketing Department”.

8. But if our theory works, if you’re still reading this list you’re probably my mom.

Happy Easter!

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via kwout

Alex G made us laugh during one of our frequent Skype conference calls earlier today. We were catching up on the progress of our technical build and G who is acting at the build’s project manager was reflecting on the joys of his role. He told us that trying to lead the technical team through to launch was akin to trying to steer a raft down an enormous set of white water rapids.

As we now enter calmer waters and edge ever closer to our alpha launch we thought it might be a good time to share some of our key learnings of the project so far – in the form of a list (of course):

1. Work with people you have worked with before and like

2. Play to their strengths – people perform much better when they focus on the tasks they like doing

3. For key requirements hire full-time contractors

4. Reward your team on a deliverables basis

5. Factor in a contingency for production times. Then triple it

6. Let the team set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound objectives

7. If you run in to problems, focus on solutions as a team – finger pointing and shouting achieves very little

8. Manage expectations – yes, it’s an old cliché but it’s also so important

9. Get the right balance of realism and optimism – this is never easy to do as an entrepreneur but vitally important

10. Exercise regularly - even if you’re busy and working hard to meet a deadline – there is no better way to get rid of stress

11. Lastly, take time out to laugh, even when things seem really, really bad

Not sure this is anything like a definitive list but it is perhaps a start of one I will later publish on Snagsta. If you’d like me to add anything I would appreciate suggestions – while you’re at it, a couple of tips for Mr. G on white water rafting would be welcome too!