Don MacAskill

Member since: Aug 18th, 2005

Don MacAskill's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
Download Squad	3 Comments
The Jason Calacanis Weblog	5 Comments

Recent Comments:

The three business models that make Twitter a billion-dollar business in 12-24 months. (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Jan 2nd 2008 12:29PM I have unlimited access to capital, but I still focus on building my business first and my scale second.

The "scale first, then find a business model" route only works as long as you're in a bubble, like we are now. But if that bubble bursts before Twitter both gets to scale and finds their business model, they could be in big trouble.

Companies that already have a solid business model, especially those that are bubble-bursting resistant, on the other hand, should be able to clean up.

Unless you're a VC, and you're fine losing 99 times out of 100 as long as that one hit is massive, running a startup *IS* about revenue, not critical mass.

Sony to shut down ImageStation online photo site (Download Squad)

Sep 21st 2007 1:11PM If Shutterfly isn't your thing, SmugMug is offering a 50% discount to Sony ImageStation refugees. And one of our users has created a super-fast migration tool that'll move all your photos over.

Details here: http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/09/19/arr-smuggle-yer-booty-outta-sony-imagestation/

Random thoughts from a dirty $99 hotel room in Silicon Valley 30 minutes before checkout (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Sep 14th 2007 3:28PM Dude, I love reading your blog because you're full of interesting personality quirks - and they all come out.

Cheap hotel rooms, cheap coffee... but $10K on monitors http://www.calacanis.com/2007/05/19/large-monitor-productivity-whats-the-largest-display-i-can-b/ and "whatever it takes" for fiber http://www.calacanis.com/2007/05/22/begging-for-verizon-fios-i-want-it-joseph-ambeault-joe-sava/ ? My favorite has to be "Real entrepreneurs don't raise venture capital" http://www.calacanis.com/2005/02/09/real-entrepreneurs-dont-raise-venture-capital/ though. :)

Anyway, keep it up! Oh, and I prefer them here rather than on Twitter or something. Twitter's too much of a time-sink these days and Google Reader is more efficient.

Good luck with the show!

Random thoughts from the corner of University and Waverley (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Sep 13th 2007 9:21PM Haven't read the other 13 items - had to post after #1.

AMEN! wtf is up with the state of food here in the Valley? Now, there are a lot better places than Taxis to eat, whoever took you there should be shot. But the fact remains that there are very few really, truly great places to eat here. Chez TJ in Mountain View and Caffe Riace in Palo Alto are basically it.

Surprising, because there's a lot of money here and a lot of foodies. But we all have to travel to find great places to eat, which really sucks. :(

Should you raise a lot of money or not? (Hint: Listen to successful entrepreneurs not the first-year VC) (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Jul 10th 2007 3:09AM "See, boys, that's how you do it!" - Jason Calacanis, D Conference, 2007, to his employees also at the table when talking about SmugMug being profitable and growing fast - with $0 invested. :) (Sorry, Jason, couldn't resist!)

It's a hot market, I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm not selling *or* raising money. I think you're missing a niche there (granted, a very small one in the web space) made up of people who are actually in this for the long haul because they love the business. And if it's a good, solid business, it'll be even better during bust times than boom - because everyone else has died off.

Only time will tell if I'm right, but plenty of other companies have taken the long-and-slow route to success...

iPhone vs. Blackberry review (after four hours) (The Jason Calacanis Weblog)

Jul 2nd 2007 2:49PM Jason,

We've had at least two heavy drops here at SmugMug, one particularly high velocity onto concrete, and the phones are fine. A little dinged and scratched on the corners, but functionality and screen are intact.

So your mileage may vary. :)

After outage, smugmug updates customization (Download Squad)

Aug 27th 2005 9:08PM Hi Jordan, No offense, but "hideous", "hire a new designer", and, from your post, "pretty ugly" are hardly terms used in positive press. We have an incredibly talented designer and an equally-talented branding & design firm. We happen to love the way our site looks - and our customers do too. Best of all, they *pay us* because it looks so good - unlike many of our competitors. Adding a free account level would damage our ability to deliver the ultimate photo sharing site. Just look around at our competitors - their offerings can't compete. They either run out of money and must be sold, go under, or change their pricing plans. You're welcome to your own opinion, of course, but if this is "positive press", I'm afraid I just don't want any. :) Don