Confession time.

I didnt grow up in Boulder. I didnt even grow up in Colorado.

Me? I was born in Fort Collins and moved to California when I was less than 2 years old. I grew up in California in the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose. (My family also spent a lot of time in Mountain View and Palo Alto - my dad worked at Stanford University for 25 years).

Needless to say, I am a firm believer in the fact that California rocks. And, in terms of technology and technological advancement, the Silicon Valley rocks harder.

Not Colorado. Especially not Boulder.

But over the past year of working at Lijit, mentoring TechStars companies and countless time spent with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, developers, and the like, my thinking changed. Boulder became “ok” in my California-centric view. (I still think everything is better in California, dont get me wrong).

Then, last week, Sarah Lacy came to visit. On camera, during an interview with my friend (yes, my friend) Matt Galligan, in writing on her blog, and to my face at dinner, she said two things that for some reason have really struck a chord with me:

1. Boulder initially gave her a cool reception; and
2. She held the belief that for an entrepreneur to be successful, they had to be an “off the charts” self-promoter (I am paraphrasing both points).

Her point was: How could any company in Boulder ever hope to compete nationally or internationally if they dont constantly sing their own praises?

The general feeling I got was that she, who had interviewed hundreds of startups and receives hundreds of pitches daily and traveled to many cities both domestically and internationally, had seen what it took for a startup to become successful.

As a reporter, you certainly have the ability to see and record what has generally been successful.  Yet, lack the actual experience of being inside the cauldron where true success stories are grown.

Success is independent of location and comes with hard work, which engenders recognition, and while recognition can precede success; success is only a by-product of respect and trust (especially in a web 2.0 world, where usage always equates to success).

Whats the outcome? How has the “humbleness?” / “silence?” of Boulder affected the success of the companies here?

There is one Boulder startup that I have true insight in, Lijit Networks. When we use Compete.com (yes, everyone can say its a bad measure, but even a bad measure used equally is apples to apples) to compare the unique visitors and page views of Lijit versus two “hot” Valley startups, Twitter and FriendFeed (both with much more buzz), we end up with:

Unique Visitor Comparision between Lijit, FriendFeed and Twitter

If you cant see the numbers, year to date:

• Lijit’s monthly Unique Visitors are 3,927,455
• FriendFeed’s monthly Unique Visitors are 566,641
• Twitter’s monthly Unique Visitors are 3,478,239

Again, I just used compete. If we use QuantCast, the numbers break out this way:

• Lijit’s monthly Unique Visitors are 673,000
• FriendFeed’s monthly Unique Visitors are 140,000
• Twitter’s monthly Unique Visitors are 1,900,000

I, of course, like Compete much better…

But, if you look at the growth curve on the Compete.com graph, Lijit and Twitter follow a very similar trajectory.

What about pageviews? Not surprisingly, Twitter is the king:

Page View Comparision of Lijit, Twitter and Friendfeed

Yet Lijit’s pageviews are more than double FriendFeed.

Doesnt make a ton of sense given the use cases (Lijit is a search service and FriendFeed is a lifestream aggregator). I assume that Compete is counting actual daily searches as pageviews (since the search engine results pages are on lijit.com), especially since I doubt people enjoy (no matter how well designed) our homepage that much.

It, of course, could be that we over estimate how many of our publishers use our stats pages or check their earnings, but I digress.

The point is, that with minimal fanfare, Lijit competes nicely with two of the hot Web 2.0 Valley companies. Shoot, with minimal fanfare, we are the second most used search widget behind Google’s Custom Search.

Is Lijit different than other Boulder companies? Not really (except that their Business Development guy looks fabulous in a pink hat). We know some of the successes, Left Hand Networks going to Hewlett Packard for $300mm plus, SocialThing going to AOL, and Intense Debate going to Automattic. People forget often that Blue Mountain Arts ($780mm to Excite), ProFlowers, Celestial Seasonings, WhiteWave, Gaiam and Crocs are also Boulder companies or have Boulder roots. Even my favorite t-shirt company (other than PleaseDress.me) Threadless has set up shop here in town.

TechStars has seen 20 companies come through its program, with 3/4 of them getting funded and all of them learning more than they ever would on their own.

StartupWeekend, started in Boulder, as the brain child of one mop-haired designer, and now has gone to take a microcosm of the Boulder entrepreneurial experience to dozens of cities domestically and internationally and hundreds and hundreds of people.

Gnip, when deciding where to locate, chose Boulder over San Francisco, even though their founder and CEO, Eric Marcouiller has developed deep roots and relationships in The City. (Eric helped found MyBlogLog which was sold to Yahoo!) because of the resources provided within the community, as well as the community itself. Jud Valeski, Eric’s co-founder and Gnip’s CTO, is also a transplant to Boulder.

Boulder entrepreneurs dont have to be wild self promoters, because unlike Silicon Valley, there isnt a deafening amount of noise to battle through.

As the end of the day, Boulder companies just dont spend a lot of time (and money!) on banging their own drum.

And for all the analysis, it could be as simple as knowing that putting our heads down, working our asses off and supporting each other, coupled with a real desire to see Boulder (not a company, not our reputation, not our place in history, but the entire community) succeed, will always lead to an outcome that bears more a valuable, satisfying fruit.

Whew. Now its time for me to contradict myself–I wouldnt be a good bipolar if I didnt.

So why does the concept that Boulder entrepreneurs are doing themselves a disservice by not being self-promoting bother me so much? I really dont know.

I do know that I consider myself the “Chief Evangelist” of Lijit, and as 2009 nears, I know that my function at Lijit has to morph slightly.

I look to others that have blazed that trail, people like Anil Dash and Matt Mullenweg (for bloggers); Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble (for technology), and I wonder what are the things I can do to emulate and learn from them.

I wonder what additional difficulties I will face being at a “non-Valley” company (to the point where I have comtemplated moving to San Francisco).

(On a personal note, I also wonder where the line between self- and company-promotion lies, and how hard I can push myself to do things that make me feel uncomfortable but are right.)

My job will, in some ways, become what I have outlined Boulder companies dont need much of and I am interested in seeing what that means for Lijit and me, and plan to blog about it (of course!).

Which means that you can plan to see my pink hat everywhere in 2009…

How hard will my job be in 2009?

Here is what I do know about Lijit:

• Lijit is a startup with a positive trajectory towards success;
• Lijit has a team that has the ability to make that happen;
• We are building some cool stuff (centered around providing publishers more control);
• Everyone has not heard of Lijit (yet); therefore
• We have a lot of work ahead for us in 2009.

And what will Boulder’s startup scene be like in 2009?

Heres what I know about Boulder:

• Boulder entreprenuers are doing just fine in the success department,
• And for those folks that dont believe me, I have a guest room you are welcome to come stay in to check it out.

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I am an old man.

And because I am an old man, occasionally people younger than me (usually when drunk), ask me for advice.

This advice asking always amazes me given that I have made more mistakes than good choices in my life, and that while I am currently not in jail (another fact that always surprises me), I am also not the most successful person ever.

In fact, I could potentially put myself in the category of mediocre at best if categorization was called for, although I would certainly get extra points for wearing a pink hat.

Now it might be the constant stream of Bright Eyes and other emo rockers that is streaming out of the computer speakers that is causing me to Jew-up this post or it could be that my left ear is itchy as shit and driving me nuts.

But, I digress.

Seeking happiness.

One’s life can be distilled down into two major components: Life and Work. Now Life includes things like: family, sports, writing, art, etc. Basically, anything that is not Work. Work, on the other hand, includes, well, your job.

And for those seeking happiness, here is the secret.

The source of your happiness can only be one. Work or Life, you choose.

Immediately, the naysayers (amazingly there are a few) will say that happiness is derived in part by created a balance between the two.

You can only balance time, you cannot balance the source of your happiness.

Here are two examples:

My friend Lawrence. Lawrence worked for the same company for six years (he has since moved on), his job was from 7am - 4:30pm. He drove an hour to and from work. Every day, he dealt with the same group of people, doing the same thing.

I never understood why he did that job, until one day we were sitting on a bluff over the ocean and I asked him. Lawrence replied “Everyday at 4:30pm, I get to go to the things I want to do. The job gives me the ability to do that. I work out. I play lacrosse. I travel. I buy what I need. It makes my life happy.”

My other example. Me. when I first was working out of college, the president of company I worked for pulled me aside and said “Micah, people will always assume you dont do a lot of work, because your work style creates the perception that you dont work. You are never at your desk. You are always talking to people. Remember that perception trumps reality.” But, I was happy. The people that saw my production, knew I was putting in 60-80 hours a week. Even now, I leave the office, feed the animals, and turn on a computer.

In Lawrence’s example, he does enough work to have the life he wants; and in my example, I do enough life to have the work I want.

In each case, we have learned that the source of our happiness came from a different location.

Interestingly, I would imagine that most people feel that Lawrence made the right decision, and I am an idiot. I would also imagine that without the previous explanation that most people feel I am an idiot.

The bottom line: You cant have it all. Pick a place, Life or Work that you want to be the source of your happiness and build around that. You might find the results interesting.

Where is the source of your happiness? Life or Work?

$6.19

I know this because of the enormous research I did over the course of the previous 12 months based on multiple factors including number of followers, percent followed, age of account and 28 other measures.

$6.19

Of course, if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy.

For some reason, a intrinsic value has been placed on the number of friends or followers we have accumulated in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others.

A week ago or so, I mischievously tweeted:

“base requirements for a SM expert: LI (>500); Twitter (>2000); FB (>1000); and at least 100 pics of you on flickr. (not self or mom taken)” - @micah

For many people, as their stature online grows they assume that their offline value also increases.

It seems that numbers equate to worth.  RSS subscribers, pageviews, twitter followers, Facebook friends all equate to true value.

As an individual’s number of followers/friends grows, they become more aware of how people view them and begin to develop a “personal brand.” (”There are 10,000 people that read my tweets, I cant tweet a joke like that!”)

If a person has an intrinsic value online (meaning that they can influence behavior or thought online), should they also be aware of how they are valued and adhere to that?

Take for example Guy Kawasaki. Most of hs communication online (at least recently) is about Alltop (which is an information aggregator that includes this blog in the startups section), Truemors posts and other efforts he is involved in. How would people react if Guy started talking about just hockey? Would his following leave? Would he no longer have value online?

Or Robert Scoble. Robert is a great source for information about what he is doing and whats going on in the technology space. If he stopped talking about technology and started talking about nature, would his value subside?

Both do a great job of interacting with their respective communities, is that their real value?

Tim Ferriss and Lance Armstrong are both involved with Twitter and have a high number of followers, but neither follow anyone. Do they have no/limited value because of the lack of interaction?

As long as quantity drives online value, quality will always be seen as secondary, driving the voices of truly interesting people into the noise of the “valuable.”

Social Media Value should not be tied to number of followers or friends (or even previous recongnition or fame).

The value of any participant in any social system is just that: participation.