Saturday, 28 December 2013

Awesome is as awesome does


There's a thing going around that the number of companies that receive investment doesn't alter the number that go on to be "awesome companies". To quote:

“The tech industry creates roughly 10 awesome companies per year... independent of...how many companies are funded"
 Mike Maples, Floodgate Fund

Putting aside that this is a very Silicon Valley-centric viewpoint, it seems there's some confusion between the term "awesome companies" and "companies that create awesome returns within the VC fund lifecycle". They are not the same. A truly awesome company is an IBM, a Unilever, a Honda, a Beretta; companies that stand the test of time, continue to evolve and grow by adapting their products to meet changing times and changing customer demands.

The global tech industry almost certainly can and does produce more than 10 awesome companies a year. Some of those will not be VC funded (which means you're unlikely to hear of them because they won't be riding the hype wagon), some will be funded by funds that are not playing the short term (10 years is short term, it's barely one economic cycle; Beretta was founded in 1526), and some will take no more than a solid seed investment round or two to become serious businesses.

Clearly we are limiting the definition of awesome here to that of great monetary value, which leaves aside awesome tech companies like Mozilla and Wikimedia, but even so it is not important  for "awesomeness" to have become a billion dollar business in less than 10 years; this only matters to people who have invested at valuations upward of $50m and whose investment fund is time limited.


A seed round that values a company at a few million needs only to reach a valuation of $50m in a reasonable time (a) to have made a serious, awesome, return for its investors and (b) where that company has achieved growth while being profitable (rather than following growth strategies of the "seek users at all costs" variety), then the investors could be taking annual dividends equivalent to their original investment value.

Which is, surely, truly awesome.


A version of this post originally appeared as an answer on Quora

Saturday, 23 November 2013

Thoughts for startups (no. 4)

Maybe this is more one for the investment community than startups as such, but here goes.

The problem with elections as a way of choosing who should lead is that eventually those who get elected will be skilled in the art of getting elected and little else

That is loosely what Plato argues in The Republic - that those skilled in the art of persuasion are best at persuading others to vote for them, and hence that becomes the key skill for those who want to be elected. The skills that would make someone valuable as a political leader post election are irrelevant, because that is not how they are selected.

There is the same risk with this focus on selecting which startups to learn more about based on a 3 minute (or shorter!) pitch. It is hard to say anything really informative in 3 minutes, and hard to select what of all the things you could say about your disruptive startup[1] you will include. The best pitches will be delivered by those who have become good at pitching, good at choosing which things to say and good at saying them in a way that gets people's attention. The startups that deliver the best pitches become the startups the investors talk to.

But being good at pitching is not the same as having a good idea, being good at solutions, being good at people and project management, being good at building a business; so the selection criteria is wrong. Using this as a filter means investors can't expect to get to talk to the great startups, the next Google; they should expect to get "like Facebook, but for people who drive red cars" and other non-disruptors, with a team that don't have the right skills mix to deliver a high performance company, but can pitch better than a professional standup comic delivers one-liners. And then don't complain that the "quality of startups" that are coming through the filter is poor; fix your filtering process.

I don't know what a good filter looks like. The accelerators could be, but they too are limiting their entry based on pitches, as well as other very limiting criteria (age range and geographic location, for example, for any of the residential ones). But for sure 3 minute pitches are only a convenient, time efficient filter; they are not a good filter.

[1] Obviously it's far easier to choose what to say if you have a non-disruptive startup, but those are not the ones that make the big returns, are they?

Tuesday, 29 October 2013

Thoughts for startups (no. 3)

I have observed, throughout life, that a man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.
Father Strickland, an English Jesuit around 1863 

Another one of those sayings that's appeared in numerous forms, but Strickland appears to be the originator. When applied to startups, businesses or organisations in general, it's most useful thought of in relation to "if not me, who", "just do it" and "do as you would be done by". 

Don't spend time thinking about how to get credit for doing whatever is it that needs doing, nor resenting a lack of credit after the fact. There's other things to worry about, hopefully others are worrying about and resolving them while you're fixing this one.

All that matters is it needs to be done, so get it done.

Monday, 30 September 2013

When is a startup not a startup?

Startup news: Zoopla wins "Most promising European tech startup of 2013".

A startup? Zoopla? It's been launched for nearly 6 years. Turns over something north of £30m, spent millions on acquisitions, been through a merger, employs 100s of people, and has £10m cash in the bank.

A "start" up? It's a bit like "New town" Linford, which is now the best part of a 1000 years old. Surely there's a point at which a startup stops starting up and becomes a company, some combination of factors, a line in the sand, that means you've passed the startup phase.

A length of time in the market place; should that not be relevant to the definition of a startup? Or is it only after a long time (by company standards), e.g. 10+ years? Google is 15, Facebook is only 8. Can't call them startups, surely?

Does how big your company has become not have a bearing on your status as a startup? Revenue, numbers of employees, something? The UK average company turnover isn't much over £500k. Ignoring one person companies, the average company employs 15 people. So exceeding the average by more than an order of magnitude doesn't disqualify you from being a startup?

Nothing about the stages you've been through? Acquiring other companies, going through a merger - these seem like the actions of an established company, not a startup. But maybe that's not included in the measure either.

Ahh, wait. Is the only thing that disqualifies a company from being a startup an exit event? So the company has to be acquired or go through an IPO. Which would suggest that the concept of a startup is being defined by the interests of the investment community rather than, say, anyone else.

Given the passion that drives people that start up a business, that's a bit sad, isn't it?

Sunday, 8 September 2013

The beginning of the end of free

Or rather the end of you, the user, as the main product of Internet companies. So I'm not talking about the end of the various freemium business models, where you can get some limited version of a product for free and pay for upgraded functionality, but the end of free to use products where revenue is generated from selling advertising streams targeted at the users of those products.

This business model has been the go to approach for many Internet startups and basically goes like this:

"we'll do this cool thing, preferably that encourages people who see/use it to share it with others"

"have to figure out how to keep a low cost of operation because we won't charge people to use it"

"we'll keep doing this thing, adding some new features once in a while to keep people interested, preferably new features that encourage people to share the thing with others"

"and like when we've got x number of users, we'll start selling ads, and the companies buying advertising will love us because we'll have so much data we'll be able to target people really effectively"

The problem has always been that this model doesn't scale, that it's just not sustainable as the go to business model, however much its dominance in the space makes it seem otherwise.

There's a number of reasons why I say free to use doesn't scale, and one of those is literally scale. The first to market with this business model could sell advertising based on smaller numbers. When they said "1 million users" 10+ years ago, it sounded a lot. But now 1 million users, unless it's a really great demographic (either high spending or very niche), is hardly worth mentioning. Facebook have topped 1 billion.

But 1 million active users costs a lot of money to service - so to reach a user count that sounds attractive enough to get big ticket ad buys requires significant ongoing expenditure and therefore ever bigger rounds of investment. And all the time you have to acquire ever more users to even sound like you'll make the investors a decent return - let alone actually make them that return.

Another challenge is the increased number of "need to be viral" players - it just makes for a lot of noise in people's inboxes and social feeds, generating social virii antibodies in the general population, weakening the viral potential. To overcome this requires marketing expenditure (traditionally a no go area for tech startups) and therefore increased cost to achieve a growth rate that is still slower than that of the pioneers.

Increasing concerns over online privacy are also curtailing some of the potential for online marketing, reducing its attraction for those controlling ad buys.

But an even more pressing reason is that people are starting to expect a lot from these services that they pay nothing for, and in particular right now expecting considerable ongoing expenditure to ensure users, particularly younger users, do not experience abuse or other unpleasantness via those services. Now, for the established players such expenditure is relatively easy to fold into the bottom line. But for those still trying to enter the market and reach that scale where ad payback is greater than expenditure it just raises the bar yet further.

Is the cost bar now too high for new startups who want to adopt free-to-use as their business model? Probably not. But it's definitely getting there.


Monday, 5 August 2013

Thoughts for startups (no. 2)

Though this is really a follow-on from no.1 (isn't that always the way with thoughts?) we'll let it standalone.


"it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain't so"

and

"I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see."

The latter is from the lyrics of Amazing Grace, written by the reformed slave ship captain turned abolitionist John Newton and published in 1779.

The former is peculiarly self referential, as most state it is a quotation of Samuel Clemens (possibly writing as Mark Twain). But research has failed to find any such line in his writings nor any contemporaries attributing the quote to him. Now that's irony, Alanis...

But regardless of origin, the point made stands. If you make strategic decisions based on your belief that something is so when it isn't, you'll make bad to disastrous decisions - but if you make decisions that accept uncertainty, bad decisions will be less likely.

But John Newton's lyric brings other concerns. The implication is that previously there was held a misplaced certainty; this error has been uncovered and the truth is now known. But what if the truth now known is not entirely the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? What if, though different to the previous truth, it is equally incorrect?

Operating on the basis of uncertainty is a more sensible approach to strategy. It doesn't preclude the use of research, just an acceptance that research at best determines what has been, and never what will be and that truth is so very often relative. The future is certainly uncertain, and if you take that into account when making planning around your startup you'll tend to have better outcomes.

Thursday, 25 July 2013

Thoughts for startups (no. 1)

Thomas Paine, British-born philosopher, French revolutionary and US founding father wrote any number of useful sayings, but I think this one is particularly apt for anyone trying to start a business that's on the leading edge:

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." 
Commonsense, 1776

So for our startup, TwoTen, getting people to see that "family protection" when it comes to Internet filtering makes no sense, because age-appropriate is utterly not the same as "not adult". Not so much a formidable outcry, but definitely some denial - though the same people would object to film certificates being changed to simply "adult" and or not.

Thanks to Alex Kablanian for prompting this post.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

For fsck's sake add swap...

If you're like most people undertaking an attempt to repair a really large volume (in this case 36TB), you run  fsck (or specifically e2fsck) without a second thought. Some days later (oh yes) you realise it's eating all of the RAM and making big inroads into swap. A quick check via your favourite search engine gets you the information that:

(i) it's going to eat more and when it runs out of RAM and swap fsck will crash and you'll have to start over, and;

(ii) you should have had more swap or used a scratch disk by creating an e2fsck conf file and configuring one as necessary.

Oh for the gift of foresight...

But an  option I ran into elsewhere is to simply add more swap on the fly. As this worked neatly and without any fuss, I thought I'd document it here for others with a similar issue.

As root or using sudo, do:

> fallocate -l 8g /mnt/fsck.swap

> mkswap /mnt/fsck.swap

> swapon /mnt/fsck.swap

where what you call it is up to you, where you put it is up to you (ideally on a volume not doing much else) and the size is dictated by the available space and set with the "-l 8g" line i.e. I made an 8GB swap file in the above example.

Now I've doubled swap there's a chance this fsck could finish. Sometime in the not too distant future :)

Monday, 8 July 2013

Know your tools: a comment (spammer...)

There's money to be made building up links to website for the purpose of improving search rankings and/or just generating more click-through traffic. Many people object to "robotic" comments that are obviously being posted for this purpose, so the race is on to make better ways
Clearly, somewhere out there, someone has made available a clever little tool that will comment on blogs and news articles, using randomised text snippets and methods of expression to presumably make it somewhat harder to quickly spot when a comment is not genuine.
But if you're going to use such a tool it might be worth learning to use it before setting it off. Here's a comment posted to our new TwoTen blog - spot the mistake...

{
{I have|I've} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It's|It is} pretty worth enough for me.
{In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website owners|web owners} and bloggers made good content as you
did, the {internet|net|web} will be {much more|a lot more}
useful than ever before.|
I {couldn't|could not} {resist|refrain from} commenting. {Very well|Perfectly|Well|Exceptionally well} written!|
{I will|I'll} {right away|immediately} {take hold
of|grab|clutch|grasp|seize|snatch} your {rss|rss feed} as I
{can not|can't} {in finding|find|to find} your {email|e-mail} subscription {link|hyperlink} or {newsletter|e-newsletter} service. Do {you have|you've} any?
{Please|Kindly} {allow|permit|let} me {realize|recognize|understand|recognise|know} {so
that|in order that} I {may just|may|could}
subscribe. Thanks.|
{It is|It's} {appropriate|perfect|the best} time to make some plans for the future and {it is|it's} time to be happy.

{I have|I've} read this post and if I could I {want to|wish to|desire to} suggest you {few|some} interesting things or {advice|suggestions|tips}. {Perhaps|Maybe} you {could|can} write next articles referring to this article. I {want to|wish to|desire to} read {more|even more} things about it!|
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I {want to|wish to|desire to} {read|learn} {more|even more} {things|issues} {approximately|about} it!
|
{I have|I've} been {surfing|browsing} {online|on-line} {more than|greater than} {three|3} hours {these days|nowadays|today|lately|as of late}, {yet|but} I {never|by no means} {found|discovered} any {interesting|fascinating|attention-grabbing} article like yours. {It's|It is} {lovely|pretty|beautiful} {worth|value|price} {enough|sufficient} for me.
{In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website owners|web owners}
and bloggers made {just right|good|excellent} {content|content material} as {you did|you probably did}, the {internet|net|web} {will be|shall be|might be|will probably be|can be|will likely be} {much more|a lot more} {useful|helpful} than ever before.
|
Ahaa, its {nice|pleasant|good|fastidious} {discussion|conversation|dialogue}
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{here|at this place} at this {blog|weblog|webpage|website|web
site}, I have read all that, so {now|at this time} me also
commenting {here|at this place}.|
I am sure this {article|post|piece of writing|paragraph} has touched all the internet
{users|people|viewers|visitors}, its really really {nice|pleasant|good|fastidious} {article|post|piece of writing|paragraph} on building up new
{blog|weblog|webpage|website|web site}.|
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is analyzing {such|these|these kinds of} things, {so|thus|therefore}
I am going to {tell|inform|let know|convey} her.
|
{Saved as a favorite|bookmarked!!}, {I really like|I like|I love} {your blog|your site|your web site|your website}!

|
Way cool! Some {very|extremely} valid points! I appreciate you
{writing this|penning this} {article|post|write-up} {and the|and also the|plus the} rest of the {site is|website is}
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|
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Woah! I'm really {loving|enjoying|digging} the template/theme of this
{site|website|blog}. It's simple, yet effective. A lot of times it's {very hard|very difficult|challenging|tough|difficult|hard} to get that "perfect balance" between {superb usability|user friendliness|usability} and {visual appearance|visual appeal|appearance}.
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{Superb|Exceptional|Outstanding|Excellent} Blog!|
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You have touched some {nice|pleasant|good|fastidious} {points|factors|things} here.

Any way keep up wrinting.|
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be} up too. {This sort of|This type of|Such|This kind of} clever work and {exposure|coverage|reporting}!
Keep up the {superb|terrific|very good|great|good|awesome|fantastic|excellent|amazing|wonderful} works guys I've {incorporated||added|included} you guys to {|my|our||my personal|my own} blogroll.|
{Howdy|Hi there|Hey there|Hi|Hello|Hey}! Someone in my {Myspace|Facebook} group shared this {site|website} with us so I came to {give it a look|look it over|take a look|check it out}. I'm definitely {enjoying|loving} the information.
I'm {book-marking|bookmarking} and will be tweeting this to my followers! {Terrific|Wonderful|Great|Fantastic|Outstanding|Exceptional|Superb|Excellent} blog and {wonderful|terrific|brilliant|amazing|great|excellent|fantastic|outstanding|superb} {style and design|design and style|design}.|
{I love|I really like|I enjoy|I like|Everyone loves} what you guys {are|are usually|tend to be} up too. {This sort of|This type of|Such|This kind of} clever work and {exposure|coverage|reporting}! Keep up the {superb|terrific|very good|great|good|awesome|fantastic|excellent|amazing|wonderful} works guys I've {incorporated|added|included} you guys to {|my|our|my personal|my own} blogroll.
|
{Howdy|Hi there|Hey there|Hi|Hello|Hey} would you mind {stating|sharing}
which blog platform you're {working with|using}? I'm {looking|planning|going} to start my own blog {in
the near future|soon} but I'm having a {tough|difficult|hard} time {making a decision|selecting|choosing|deciding} between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your {design and style|design|layout} seems different then most blogs and I'm looking for something
{completely unique|unique}. P.S {My apologies|Apologies|Sorry} for
{getting|being} off-topic but I had to ask!|
{Howdy|Hi there|Hi|Hey there|Hello|Hey} would you mind letting me know which {webhost|hosting company|web host} you're {utilizing|working with|using}? I've loaded your blog in 3 {completely different|different} {internet browsers|web browsers|browsers} and
I must say this blog loads a lot {quicker|faster} then most.
Can you {suggest|recommend} a good {internet hosting|web hosting|hosting} provider at a {honest|reasonable|fair} price?
{Thanks a lot|Kudos|Cheers|Thank you|Many thanks|Thanks}, I appreciate it!
|
{I love|I really like|I like|Everyone loves}
it {when people|when individuals|when folks|whenever people} {come together|get together} and share {opinions|thoughts|views|ideas}.
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it}!|
Thank you for the {auspicious|good} writeup.
It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to {far|more} added agreeable
from you! {By the way|However}, how {can|could} we communicate?
|
{Howdy|Hi there|Hey there|Hello|Hey} just wanted to give you a quick heads up.

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I'm not sure if this is a {format|formatting} issue or something to do with {web browser|internet browser|browser} compatibility but I {thought|figured} I'd post
to let you know. The {style and design|design
and style|layout|design} look great though! Hope you get the
{problem|issue} {solved|resolved|fixed} soon. {Kudos|Cheers|Many thanks|Thanks}|
This is a topic {that is|that's|which is} {close to|near to} my heart... {Cheers|Many thanks|Best wishes|Take care|Thank you}! {Where|Exactly where} are your contact details though?|
It's very {easy|simple|trouble-free|straightforward|effortless} to find
out any {topic|matter} on {net|web} as compared to {books|textbooks}, as I found this {article|post|piece of writing|paragraph} at this {website|web site|site|web page}.
|
Does your {site|website|blog} have a contact page?
I'm having {a tough time|problems|trouble} locating it but, I'd like
to {send|shoot} you an {e-mail|email}. I've got some {creative ideas|recommendations|suggestions|ideas} for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great {site|website|blog} and I look forward to seeing it {develop|improve|expand|grow} over time.|
{Hola|Hey there|Hi|Hello|Greetings}! I've been {following|reading} your
{site|web site|website|weblog|blog} for {a long time|a while|some
time} now and finally got the {bravery|courage} to go ahead and give you a shout out from {New Caney|Kingwood|Huffman|Porter|Houston|Dallas|Austin|Lubbock|Humble|Atascocita} {Tx|Texas}!
Just wanted to {tell you|mention|say} keep up the {fantastic|excellent|great|good} {job|work}!
|
Greetings from {Idaho|Carolina|Ohio|Colorado|Florida|Los
angeles|California}! I'm {bored to tears|bored to death|bored} at work so I decided to {check out|browse} your {site|website|blog} on my iphone during lunch break. I {enjoy|really like|love} the {knowledge|info|information} you {present|provide} here and can't wait to take a look when I get home.
I'm {shocked|amazed|surprised} at how {quick|fast} your blog loaded on my {mobile|cell phone|phone} .. I'm
not even using WIFI, just 3G .. {Anyhow|Anyways}, {awesome|amazing|very good|superb|good|wonderful|fantastic|excellent|great} {site|blog}!
|
Its {like you|such as you} {read|learn} my {mind|thoughts}!
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something. {I think|I feel|I believe} {that you|that you simply|that you just} {could|can} do with
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the message {house|home} {a bit|a little bit}, {however|but} {other than|instead of} that,
{this is|that is} {great|wonderful|fantastic|magnificent|excellent} blog.
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{Howdy|Hi there|Hi|Hello}, i read your blog {occasionally|from time to time} and i own a similar one and i was just {wondering|curious} if you get a lot of spam {comments|responses|feedback|remarks}? If so how do you {prevent|reduce|stop|protect against} it, any plugin or anything you can {advise|suggest|recommend}? I get so much lately it's driving me
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is very much appreciated.|
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{within this|in this particular} {article|post}!

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{I really|I truly|I seriously|I absolutely} love {your blog|your site|your website}.. {Very nice|Excellent|Pleasant|Great} colors & theme. Did you {create|develop|make|build} {this website|this site|this web site|this amazing site} yourself? Please reply back as I'm
{looking to|trying to|planning to|wanting to|hoping to|attempting to} create
{my own|my very own|my own personal} {blog|website|site} and {would like
to|want to|would love to} {know|learn|find out} where you got this from or {what the|exactly what the|just what
the} theme {is called|is named}. {Thanks|Many thanks|Thank you|Cheers|Appreciate it|Kudos}!

|
{Hi there|Hello there|Howdy}! This {post|article|blog post} {couldn't|could not} be written {any better|much better}! {Reading through|Looking at|Going through|Looking through} this {post|article} reminds me of my previous roommate! He {always|constantly|continually} kept {talking about|preaching about} this. {I will|I'll|I am
going to|I most certainly will} {forward|send} {this article|this information|this post} to him.
{Pretty sure|Fairly certain} {he will|he'll|he's going to} {have a good|have a
very good|have a great} read. {Thank you for|Thanks for|Many thanks for|I
appreciate you for} sharing!|
{Wow|Whoa|Incredible|Amazing}! This blog looks {exactly|just} like my old
one! It's on a {completely|entirely|totally} different {topic|subject} but it has pretty much the same {layout|page layout} and design. {Excellent|Wonderful|Great|Outstanding|Superb} choice of colors!|
{There is|There's} {definately|certainly} {a lot to|a great deal to} {know about|learn about|find
out about} this {subject|topic|issue}. {I like|I love|I
really like} {all the|all of the} points {you made|you've made|you have made}.|
{You made|You've made|You have made} some {decent|good|really good} points there.
I {looked|checked} {on the internet|on the web|on the net} {for more info|for more information|to find out more|to learn
more|for additional information} about the issue and found {most individuals|most people} will
go along with your views on {this website|this site|this web site}.
|
{Hi|Hello|Hi there|What's up}, I {log on to|check|read} your {new stuff|blogs|blog} {regularly|like every week|daily|on a regular basis}. Your {story-telling|writing|humoristic} style is {awesome|witty}, keep {doing what you're doing|up the good
work|it up}!|
I {simply|just} {could not|couldn't} {leave|depart|go away} your {site|web site|website} {prior to|before} suggesting that I {really|extremely|actually} {enjoyed|loved} {the standard|the usual} {information|info} {a person|an individual} {supply|provide} {for your|on your|in your|to your} {visitors|guests}? Is {going to|gonna} be {back|again} {frequently|regularly|incessantly|steadily|ceaselessly|often|continuously} {in order to|to} {check up on|check out|inspect|investigate cross-check} new posts|
{I wanted|I needed|I want to|I need to} to thank you for this {great|excellent|fantastic|wonderful|good|very good} read!! I {definitely|certainly|absolutely} {enjoyed|loved} every {little bit of|bit of} it. {I have|I've got|I have got} you {bookmarked|book
marked|book-marked|saved as a favorite} {to check out|to look at} new {stuff you|things you} post…|
{Hi|Hello|Hi there|What's up}, just wanted to {mention|say|tell you}, I {enjoyed|liked|loved} this {article|post|blog post}. It was {inspiring|funny|practical|helpful}. Keep on posting!|
I {{leave|drop|{write|create}} a {comment|leave a response}|drop a {comment|leave a response}|{comment|leave a response}} {each time|when|whenever} I {appreciate|like|especially enjoy} a {post|article} on a {site|{blog|website}|site|website} or {I have|if I have} something to {add|contribute|valuable to contribute} {to the discussion|to the conversation}. {It is|Usually it is|Usually it's|It's} {a result of|triggered by|caused by} the {passion|fire|sincerness} {communicated|displayed} in the {post|article} I {read|looked at|browsed}. And {on|after} this {post|article} TwoTen.is | Array. I {{was|was actually} moved|{was|was actually} excited} enough to {drop|{leave|drop|{write|create}}|post} a {thought|{comment|{comment|leave a response}a response}} {:-P|:)|;)|;-)|:-)} I {do have|actually do have} {{some|a few} questions|a couple of questions|2 questions} for you {if you {don't|do not|usually do not|tend
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{Could|Would} you {list|make a list} {all|every one|the complete
urls} of {your|all your} {social|communal|community|public|shared} {pages|sites} like your {twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile|linkedin
profile, Facebook page or twitter feed|Facebook page,
twitter feed, or linkedin profile}?|
{Hi there|Hello}, I enjoy reading {all of|through} your
{article|post|article post}. I {like|wanted} to write a little comment to support you.
|
I {always|constantly|every time} spent my half an hour to read
this {blog|weblog|webpage|website|web site}'s {articles|posts|articles or reviews|content} {everyday|daily|every day|all the time} along with a {cup|mug} of coffee.|
I {always|for all time|all the time|constantly|every time} emailed this {blog|weblog|webpage|website|web site} post page to all my {friends|associates|contacts}, {because|since|as|for the reason that} if like to read it {then|after that|next|afterward} my {friends|links|contacts} will too.|
My {coder|programmer|developer} is trying to {persuade|convince} me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the {expenses|costs}. But he's tryiong none the less.
I've been using {Movable-type|WordPress} on {a number of|a variety of|numerous|several|various} websites for about a year and am {nervous|anxious|worried|concerned} about switching to another platform. I have heard {fantastic|very good|excellent|great|good} things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can {transfer|import} all my wordpress {content|posts} into it? {Any kind of|Any} help would be {really|greatly} appreciated!|
{Hello|Hi|Hello there|Hi there|Howdy|Good day}! I could have sworn I've {been
to|visited} {this blog|this web site|this website|this site|your blog}
before but after {browsing through|going through|looking at}
{some of the|a few of the|many of the} {posts|articles} I realized it's new to me. {Anyways|Anyhow|Nonetheless|Regardless}, I'm {definitely|certainly} {happy|pleased|delighted} {I found|I discovered|I
came across|I stumbled upon} it and I'll be {bookmarking|book-marking} it and checking back {frequently|regularly|often}!|
{Terrific|Great|Wonderful} {article|work}! {This is|That is} {the type of|the kind of} {information|info} {that are meant to|that are supposed to|that should} be shared {around the|across the} {web|internet|net}. {Disgrace|Shame} on {the {seek|search} engines|Google} for {now not|not|no longer} positioning this {post|submit|publish|put up} {upper|higher}! Come on over and {talk over with|discuss with|seek advice from|visit|consult with} my {site|web site|website} . {Thank you|Thanks} =)|
Heya {i'm|i am} for the first time here. I {came across|found} this board and I
find It {truly|really} useful & it helped me out {a lot|much}.

I hope to give something back and {help|aid} others like you {helped|aided} me.
|
{Hi|Hello|Hi there|Hello there|Howdy|Greetings}, {I think|I
believe|I do believe|I do think|There's no doubt that} {your site|your website|your web site|your blog} {might be|may be|could be|could possibly be} having {browser|internet browser|web browser} compatibility {issues|problems}. {When I|Whenever I} {look at your|take a look at your} {website|web site|site|blog} in Safari, it looks fine {but when|however when|however, if|however, when} opening in {Internet Explorer|IE|I.E.}, {it has|it's got} some overlapping issues.
{I just|I simply|I merely} wanted to {give you a|provide
you with a} quick heads up! {Other than that|Apart from that|Besides that|Aside from that}, {fantastic|wonderful|great|excellent}
{blog|website|site}!|
{A person|Someone|Somebody} {necessarily|essentially} {lend a hand|help|assist}
to make {seriously|critically|significantly|severely} {articles|posts} {I would|I might|I'd} state. {This is|That is} the {first|very first} time I frequented your {web page|website page} and {to this point|so far|thus far|up to now}? I {amazed|surprised} with the {research|analysis} you made to {create|make} {this actual|this particular} {post|submit|publish|put up} {incredible|amazing|extraordinary}. {Great|Wonderful|Fantastic|Magnificent|Excellent} {task|process|activity|job}!|
Heya {i'm|i am} for {the primary|the first} time here. I {came across|found} this board and I {in finding|find|to find} It {truly|really} {useful|helpful} & it helped
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{Hello|Hi|Hello there|Hi there|Howdy|Good day|Hey there}! {I just|I simply} {would like to|want to|wish to} {give you a|offer you a} {huge|big} thumbs up {for the|for your} {great|excellent} {info|information} {you have|you've got|you have got} {here|right here} on this post.

{I will be|I'll be|I am} {coming back to|returning to} {your blog|your site|your website|your web site} for more soon.|
I {always|all the time|every time} used to {read|study} {article|post|piece of writing|paragraph} in news papers but now as I am a user of {internet|web|net} {so|thus|therefore} from now I am using net for {articles|posts|articles or reviews|content}, thanks to web.|
Your {way|method|means|mode} of {describing|explaining|telling} {everything|all|the whole thing} in this {article|post|piece of writing|paragraph} is {really|actually|in fact|truly|genuinely} {nice|pleasant|good|fastidious}, {all|every one} {can|be able to|be capable of} {easily|without difficulty|effortlessly|simply} {understand|know|be aware of} it, Thanks a lot.|
{Hi|Hello} there, {I found|I discovered} your {blog|website|web site|site} {by means of|via|by the use of|by way of} Google {at the same time as|whilst|even as|while} {searching for|looking for} a {similar|comparable|related} {topic|matter|subject}, your {site|web site|website} {got here|came} up, it {looks|appears|seems|seems to be|appears to be like} {good|great}. {I have|I've} bookmarked it
in my google bookmarks.
{Hello|Hi} there, {simply|just} {turned into|became|was|become|changed into} {aware of|alert to} your {blog|weblog} {thru|through|via} Google,
{and found|and located} that {it is|it's} {really|truly} informative. {I'm|I am} {gonna|going to} {watch out|be
careful} for brussels. {I will|I'll} {appreciate|be grateful} {if you|should you|when you|in the event you|in case you|for those who|if you happen to} {continue|proceed} this {in future}. {A lot of|Lots of|Many|Numerous} {other folks|folks|other people|people} {will be|shall be|might be|will probably be|can be|will likely be} benefited {from your|out of your} writing. Cheers!|
{I am|I'm} curious to find out what blog {system|platform} {you have been|you happen to be|you are|you're} {working with|utilizing|using}? I'm {experiencing|having} some {minor|small} security {problems|issues}
with my latest {site|website|blog} and {I would|I'd} like to find something more {safe|risk-free|safeguarded|secure}. Do you have any {solutions|suggestions|recommendations}?|
{I am|I'm} {extremely|really} impressed with your writing skills
{and also|as well as} with the layout on your {blog|weblog}.
Is this a paid theme or did you {customize|modify} it yourself?
{Either way|Anyway} keep up the {nice|excellent} quality writing, {it's|it is} rare to see a {nice|great} blog like this one {these days|nowadays|today}.|
{I am|I'm} {extremely|really} {inspired|impressed} {with
your|together with your|along with your} writing
{talents|skills|abilities} {and also|as {smartly|well|neatly} as} with the {layout|format|structure} {for your|on your|in your|to your} {blog|weblog}.
{Is this|Is that this} a paid {subject|topic|subject matter|theme}
or did you {customize|modify} it {yourself|your self}?
{Either way|Anyway} {stay|keep} up the {nice|excellent}
{quality|high quality} writing, {it's|it is} {rare|uncommon} {to peer|to see|to look} a {nice|great} {blog|weblog} like this one {these days|nowadays|today}..|
{Hi|Hello}, Neat post. {There is|There's} {a problem|an issue} {with your|together with your|along with your} {site|web site|website} in
{internet|web} explorer, {may|might|could|would} {check|test}
this? IE {still|nonetheless} is the {marketplace|market} {leader|chief}
and {a large|a good|a big|a huge} {part of|section of|component to|portion of|component of|element
of} {other folks|folks|other people|people} will {leave
out|omit|miss|pass over} your {great|wonderful|fantastic|magnificent|excellent} writing {due
to|because of} this problem.|
{I'm|I am} not sure where {you are|you're} getting your {info|information},
but {good|great} topic. I needs to spend some time learning {more|much more} or understanding more.
Thanks for {great|wonderful|fantastic|magnificent|excellent} {information|info} I was looking for this {information|info} for my mission.
|
{Hi|Hello}, i think that i saw you visited my {blog|weblog|website|web site|site} {so|thus} i
came to “return the favor”.{I am|I'm} {trying to|attempting to} find things to {improve|enhance} my {website|site|web site}!I suppose its ok to use {some of|a few of} your ideas!!\