And We're Back! (with Loren Bendele)

Sorry we missed you for the last couple weeks, but we're back on the air this Friday, July 17th! Our guest is Loren Bendele, CEO of Savings.com, and if you haven't done it already, the homework for Friday is to read the book "How the Mighty Fall," by Jim Collins. There's that and much more so make sure tune in @ 1:30 p.m PDT right here on ThisWeekinStartups.com and check it out. About Loren: Loren Bendele has been the CEO of Savings.com since January 2007. Founded in 2004, Savings.com is an online database of deals and coupons that uses its community in a Digg-like fashion to feature the best promotions. The site's users, which amounted to 1 million in June 2009, drive up to $4 million in sales per month for some stores. Savings.com was originally funded by prominent angel investors in Southern California, and went on to raise $4 million in its second round from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, U.S Venture Partners. Before starting at Savings.com, Loren was a strategy and business development consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Dallas, Texas. He then went on to run the Partner Marketing business at Teleflora, an online clearinghouse for florist shops worldwide.

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This Week in Startups #8 with Atif Rafiq

This weeks guest was Atif Rafiq, head of Yahoo! Local for North America and previous founder/CEO of Covinga. He and Jason talked about the role of community building in creating a network of local business listings and also discussed Yahoo!'s overall strategy to leverage its various "horizontals."  Atif talked about a number of the ventures he's involved in, including the upcoming Local Search Summit on July 17th. There were three callers on "Ask Jason" this week.  The first, Jonathan Johnson, wanted to know if Jason had any creative ideas for how to raise capital for his lifestyle business. Mike Stone, Jason's second caller, wanted advice on how to effectively evaluate a competitive space and how to decide whether it was worth entering. Finally, the third caller, Greg Gerber, was looking for ways to attend entrepreneurial events/conferences without simply buying a ticket. Jason gave some great responses to these questions so make sure to watch the show and find out what he said! On "The News with Lon Harris", Jason gave his thoughts on the future of breaking news when discussing how quickly Michael Jackson's passing was reported on Twitter vs. CNN. He also talked about Tesla Motors' government loan, a lawsuit against Microsoft's Bing, and sent security company Clear to the "Deadpool." Next week's homework assignment is to read the book "How the Mighty Fall," by Jim Collins.  Maybe you can be Jason's star student on the air and earn your ticket to the TechCrunch50.

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On TWiST This Week: Atif Rafiq

Jason's guest this week will be Atif Rafiq, Head of Y! Local for North America.  Atif has over twelve years experience in the web, new media and software in a variety of general management, strategy and business development roles. He currently manages the local and maps business lines at Yahoo!, which are part of the search division. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Atif was founder and CEO of Covigna, a venture-backed provider of content management software. Atif began his career in the web in 1996 as a key member of the business development and strategy team at AOL. He has also spent time at Audible (acquired by Amazon) and Goldman Sachs. Atif will also be one of the speakers at the Local Search Summit on July 17th, so make sure you check it out. See you Friday @ 1pm PDT!

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This Week in Startups #7 with Don Dodge

Today was a special show with Microsoft's Director of Business Development, Don Dodge. Jason and Don discussed Microsoft's new search engine, Bing.com and why Google might be scared. They also covered on Microsoft BizSpark, a startup outreach program that provides free software services for emerging companies. We also had a live interview from the 3rd Street Promenade Apple Store with an iPhone developer who waited in line since the morning to buy his new iPhone 3GS. This may well be the first ever live broadcast transition ever done on a web streaming show. And we wrapped up our special episode with a bonanza of 'Ask Jason' callers - there were six entrepreneurs that called in to ask for a variety of advice. One caller thinks his co-founder may drop out of the business, does this mean it's the end of the road for him or are there ways to take control? Another caller disagrees with his CEO. What is the best way to express your thoughts and advice to your CEO? Watch the show to get these questions answered. Don't forget your homework assignment for this week, King of Kong. And make sure you tune in next week when our guest is Shawn Gold.

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Today's Special Show

We've got a special show for you today (sadly Sean Spector is sick and can't join us) - but to make it all better, we've got an extended set of Ask Jason callers, plus Don Dodge, Director of Business Development for Microsoft, will be in the studio to help Jason answer all these great questions. Tune in starting @ 1pm (PDT) for the whole show!

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