This Week In

In 2008 my poker friend Kevin Pollak was visiting the office when I showed him our studio. He said “I’ve always wanted to do a Charlie Rose-style talk show,” to which I said “go ahead.”

He asked what it would take to do a talk show and I replied “a guest?”

Less than two week later Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show was born, and shortly after that I started my own weekly show, This Week in Startups.

After a year and 100 combined shows, Kevin and I had lunch at Urth Cafe in Santa Monica and discussed what it would take to build a streaming network. On the short list we figured out we needed:

1. A great domain.
2. A great CEO.
3. A great team.
4. Some great Angel investors.

In two months we locked down all of those items with:

1. ThisWeekIn.com
2. Mark Jeffrey
3. A half dozen critical hires
4. Myself, Sky Dayton and Matt Coffin each putting up $100,000 each.

Six months later we have over 20 shows, a killer team and close to $1M in yearly revenue. Of course, it’s going to take a lot more than that to reach our goal of 50 weekly shows!

to apply for a job at ThisWeekIn.com email jobs AT thisweekin.com.
to sponsor a show email sales AT thisweekin.com.
to partner email CEO mark AT thisweekin.com.

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English Bulldog

Hello, my name is Jason. Welcome to my blog on the interwebs. You can reach me on twitter @jason and by email at jason@calacanis.com. My Skype is jasoncalacanis, and my mobile phone is 310-456-4900.

I only pick up numbers I recognize, and in terms of emailing me, the best strategy is to write short, blunt and to the point requests. I can quickly respond to short messages, and many times I simply don't have the time to read five page pitches. In terms of taking meetings, I only do that after reviewing an actual product (not a business plan). So, the best time to ping me is when you have mockups or an alpha site. I don't read business plans, and I've never written one.

Other twitter accounts you can follow: Video Games, Open Angel Forum, and LAUNCH Conference & Newsletter

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