photo credit: johnxlewis

Mr. Kevin Rose created Digg.com – a user driven social content website that attracts 38 million visitors each month. After you submit content to the site, other people read your submission and “Digg” what they like best. If your story receives the most Diggs, it’s promoted to the home page for other visitors to see – a unique concept which caused a revolution in social media.

Digg.com was launched in 2004 and has been a successful in luring millions of visitors. But achieving all this wasn’t as easy. Kevin Rose had a tough time launching Digg.com – a once upon a time ‘startup’.

Kevin Rose worked for a television company and worked on Digg in his spare time to keep costs down. He says “If you are really passionate about something, it is possible to work a fulltime day job and have that side project, but be prepared to make sacrifices”.

At some point net entrepreneurs will have to decide between quitting their jobs and committing to their ventures, but the longer they can work without taking help from investors, the more equity they will maintain in their start-ups.

Some other suggestions for startups from Mr. Kevin are:

•Dispensing with an office – Digg didn’t have one for 6 months
•Renting and not buying server capacity for testing
•Skipping expensive conferences and networking at after-conference parties instead
•Not to design too many features in your startup product initially
•Hiring people from the start so they can see the big picture right from the beginning
•Avoid taking money from unknowledgeable ‘dumb investors

Mr. Kevin also mentions that being worried, tensed and hyperactive about your startup product is perfectly alright. He also had a stressful time after Digg’s launch, ensuring the site wasn’t hacked or taken over by spammers – “it was really scary. I can remember waking up early in the morning because I didn’t know what was going to be on the homepage.”

A lot of advice for startups from the founder of Digg.com himself

For more details visit: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3358151/Digg-com-founder-boosts-startups
 

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