After living in Finland a few years we got a dog, so I was often holding a big bone in my hand and saying the Finnish word for it, "luu". Something felt so correct and ancient about it, like luu is - and could only ever have been - the word that means the concept of a bone. I looked it up and luu is Proto-Finno-Ugric, and one of the oldest words to stick around in the Finnish language.
I have great respect for that first person to shake mammoth bone in another person's face saying "luu". They nailed it.
Like the other commenter I also thought the book was a dud and had nothing going on. But the "a teacher is what I see" finally clicked that series' large pictures were designed to communicate at distance. When my 8 month old wants to grab everything and not settle down to sleep, I can read her that book while she's in the crib and the calming cadence does its work. Will be fun to see her read it like your kids one day.
I can much more readily appreciate actually doing I-spy game in a physical space rather than a book like that.
But I'm not actually opposed to the basic structure of "animal color" that Brown Bear has, I think it could retain that and somehow also get more effective nuance. It's entirely superficial. Note also that 2yo's don't have an experience and relation to classes and teachers, so that doesn't even fit. The very same structure could be less arbitrary and be used instead to connect associations that are worthwhile making for the 2yo's, the way that Hungry Hungry Caterpillar doesn't just show randomness, it actually fits a real biological context.
Adapt Brown Bear to highlight an ecosystem that goes together and it would be superior and still achieve all the same interest in the 2yo's.
After a sudden influx of traffic years back, HN had an Erlang Day where the only thing upvoted was articles about Erlang. I can't tell you if it helped HN get better or not, because it caused me to come back after seeing how much the community cared about the quality of the site. Perhaps it's time to make HN proud of its boringness again?
We might as well turn this into constructive dialog - does anyone have any thoughts on how to monetize niche online media? Our events went well, but didn't scale.
There are a few online media companies that are doing really well without organizing events. Copyblogger did really well by partnering with others to develop products that the community could benefit from.
Thats the route you have to take. Partner with others to develop products. You bring the audience. They bring the products that help the audience. Something similar to what EarlyToRise.com did - created a panel of experts each of whom bought their own product to the table. (http://www.earlytorise.com/meet-the-experts/ )
Yeah, good point. The other thought that we had was to help the audience connect through some form of matchmaking. The e-commerce angle was also evaluated, to create a market for start-ups to promote and sell their products. This could also include a market for discounted startup event tickets and offers.
We have some other thoughts as well, but need to value and compare all the currently available options.
'He sold out all sponsorship packages and demo stands to Arctic15 in just a couple of months'
Even with the best sales guy it's very hard to sell when there is no market appetite. Sounds like the demand is there, media never needs to 'run out of spots'.
Its a highly valuable market niche and you are possibly underpricing.
I suggest you increase your sponsorship prices drastically.
We optimised the price in a way that we are able to sell out. It was also the maximum in revenue we could have reached so I think we did well in that sense.
The key here, in running a media business, is how do you go about building enough products that will keep you running through out the year - when there are no events (which for us where the biggest source of revenue).
I think this question will also remain a question to answer for the future, no matter how ArcticStartup will run.
With so much face-time with startups and those wanting to invest in them, did you spot any pain points that could be eased by services you could offer?
As simple as packaging up paper-work or arranging trips to China to talk to manufacturers etc?
I don't know if they were predicting a HN size load in this stage of their development. When I interviewed Kaspar for this article he said that they're looking for funding this fall to help scale, which looks like a good idea. I found the service interesting though, well worth a bookmark!
I agree completely, but would also point out that a regional startup blog may put you in front of potential investors and partners if you're far away from Silicon Valley.
I have great respect for that first person to shake mammoth bone in another person's face saying "luu". They nailed it.