Saturday
Feb202010
Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 04:09AM This Week in Startups #42 with Michael Robertson
Jason’s guest this week was Michael Robertson, CEO and Founder of MP3Tunes. This was an incredible show, highlights include a guest that has an incredible amount of experience, battling big corporations, lawsuits and how to deal with them, interesting predictions for the music industry and how MP3.com got started.
00:07 During “Ask Jason” we get to hear Josh Nielsen ask “How do I value equity when being offered a job at a startup?” the question doesn’t end there without spoiling things, be sure to see where this one ends up.
00:25 We get to hear from Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice pitch how he plans to change the timeshare exchange experience. He gets some incredible feedback from Jason and Michael regarding his business model and distribution.
00:44 Highlights of the interview include:
01:49 News with Lon Harris include:
TWiST is brought to you by our generous sponsors:
Download the MP3 Here!
00:07 During “Ask Jason” we get to hear Josh Nielsen ask “How do I value equity when being offered a job at a startup?” the question doesn’t end there without spoiling things, be sure to see where this one ends up.
00:25 We get to hear from Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice pitch how he plans to change the timeshare exchange experience. He gets some incredible feedback from Jason and Michael regarding his business model and distribution.
00:44 Highlights of the interview include:
- Michaels story of rags to riches
- What motivated him to succeed
- How he started MP3.com and fought the music industry, winning and losing in some cases.
- How independent label artists helped him succeed.
- 6 months to IPO
- Why he gave $15 million to his employees
- Michael’s opinion on why Spotify will go out of business.
01:49 News with Lon Harris include:
- Microsoft and Yahoo
- Tesla Plane Crash
- Lower Merion, PA Privacy Invasion
- Sex.com
- YouTube Embedding Survey
- Please Rob Me
- Scribd
- Hulu on the iPad
TWiST is brought to you by our generous sponsors:
 |  |  |  |  |
Download the MP3 Here!
Reader Comments (29)
It is a testament to this show that people still listen to it despite the long downloads. I have experienced slow downloads with this podcast for weeks, and guess what? I leave iTunes open for however long it takes.
This episode with Michael is a perfect example of why I am willing to wait: Brilliant material. I haven't even finished listening to all of it yet, and I had to come here and comment that I am fascinated by one portion of it especially. Listen to 1:04:55 - 1:06:25. It will be a short bit on business plans. A 1 page business plan to guide you is the interesting part. It makes a lot of sense to do the research but not rely on a business plan, and I will certainly keep that need for flexibility in mind. I plan to bring this into my entrepreneurship class (where we discuss the 30 page business plan among other things) and see what people think.
Thanks for the great show, Jason!