Comments are a strange part of blogging. I love ‘em, and I hate ‘em. The majority of comments I get seem to fall into the camp of: “Gee, Micah, I really liked what you wrote.”

But, the comments I love are the ones that extend the discussion. Sometimes those comments spill over onto Twitter, or direct emails, or lunch discussions the next day. And those are the comments that I would love to capture. Those comments I would love to extend beyond my blog. Those comments I would love to make interactive.

When I started to get back involved with the Colorado tech scene, I got to know one of the founders of Intense Debate, Josh Morgan. Fantasic guy. Clearly in over his head, but a hard worker. His partner, Jon Fox, is a brilliant developer, but needed direction. Still I really liked what they were doing.

So, I added Intense Debate.

After a couple of weeks, Intense Debate began to really bog down performance wise. Plus, it didnt have trackback support.  Knowing the guys, I finally made the decision to pull it off my blog, and go back to the default comments. I explained why (performance and lack of trachback support). I figured the default comment system would be good enough.

Over the months, I watched Disqus continue to grow and Intense Debate languish. “They will do what they are going to do,” I thought to myself. “I hope that ends up positive.”

And, Disqus continued to innovate and extend their reach. And, finally, Disqus got funded.

And while there has been minimal innovation with Intense Debate, Disqus has continued to add features and even developed an API (which as a non-technical person always means to me that one can do more cool stuff with the product).

And, even more importantly, more and more of the blogs that I interact with were using Disqus.

Still, I stayed loyal, and added no comment system to my blog.

Fast forward several months.

My blog has grown. Many times, I get a dozen or so comments on posts. Its no 100+ that some people get, but its more than 1 or 2. So, I started reviewing comment systems again.

For those that dont know, I run business development at Lijit Networks, and one of my roles is finding additional content sources for our technology to index. At Lijit, we are content agnostic. We will index any RSS/OPML feed or URL.

I often say, “Google wants to index everything. At Lijit, we only index the information you care about.” So, if you want to index Disqus or Intense Debate comments, we want to make it easy.

So, I emailed Daniel Ha over at Disqus and Tom Keller at Intense Debate.

Five minutes later, I got an email back offering development and business development support. Access to a private API, basically whatever we needed. (It didnt hurt that Daniel and his business partner were both UCDavis–my alma mater–*ahem* almost grads).

I was completely amazed at the speed and willingness of Daniel to make sure that the two companies worked well together and produced a superior integration.

And even then, I didnt add Disqus. I stayed true to my word, not adding any comment system.

This post: http://www.jangro.com/a/2008/04/08/hacking-disqus/ became the straw that broke the camel’s back for me personally.

Why? Because the community had begun to choose which comment system they wanted to use by hacking it, and if you read the comments, Daniel jumped right in and has taken some of the hacks, and integrated them into the system. Disqus had embraced the community right back.

Then, with the addition of video comments (something I want to play with, and would rather do than write a comment), Disqus became too good to not use.

So what does that mean? Its simple enough. In this world we all work in, if you dont embrace (and be embraced by the community) you cannot succeed. If you dont continually innovate, you cannot succeed.

Moral to the story: If you dont embrace the community, and you dont innovate, you die.

And that is why I chose to add Disqus comments to this blog. Will they stay? I dont know. It will depend on if Daniel and team continue down their current path. Could Intense Debate produce something that is interesting enough for me to walk away from Disqus? Sure, and frankly, I hope they do. But, for now, Disqus it is.

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When I decided to sell my company, I began to think about things I could get involved with in the local tech community. After meeting with my friend Danny Newman, he talked about his involvement with TechStars.

Bet you cant guess which one Danny Newman is (If you guessed raggedy hipster with the bad hair, you would be correct):

So, over the past year, I plotted ways to get involved. I emailed David Cohen. I went to go work for Lijit. I even moved to Boulder. And for all my work, I got a piddly little mention on the TechStars mentor page.

Still not satisfied, I, along with Danny, decided we would apply to TechStars. We spent the better part of a year building out our idea, and crafting our application. We used fake names to not sway David’s decision, becuase clearly, he hates the Jews. (Or at least dont think Danny and I were serious, but hating the Jews sounds so much better). So, here is the application, in its entirity. Trust me, most of its true.

What’s your name?

Gabriel Vincent (Danny and my middle names)

What’s your email address?

vingab81@gmail.com (an actual email address - try it)

What’s your phone number?

720-273-1008 (an actual phone number)

Where is your team based, geographically?

Boulder, CO (an actual city)

What will the name of your company be?

RolLast (an actual name, seriously. The Web 2.0 Name Generator told me so.)

If you have a web site, what’s the URL?

http://N/A (we are actually not working on it.)

What will your company do or make?

We developed a mobile technology for the creating, sending and sharing of video. In essence, we are an aggregator of mobile video, creating multiple distribution channels through enabling mobile publishers. Because of the distribution channel, we are able to generate multiple views of specific videos quickly creating a viral effect lifting most videos to 2-3x of views.

What’s new, interesting, or different about what your company will do?

Because of the viral nature of our application and distribution network, we are able to drive multiple views quickly. For example, we recently worked with Crispin, Porter & Bosteky to drive mobile usage and views of their No Whopper campaign for Burger King, making it one of the most viewed mobile videos ever.

Have you already taken any outside investment? Please describe if so.

No. Everything we have done to date is organic.

Explain how the company will make money.

We can get corporate and agency clients to pay for the creation and distribution of the mobile videos. With 5-6 clients now, we are nearing profitability. We believe we can take our concept to the mass market, and succeed where others have failed.

Tell us about each founder (include their role, skills, education level, schools, past companies, etc

Gabriel Vincent - CEO, Graduated top 5% from MIT in Computer Science. This is really his first project, beyond smaller efforts in other companies.

Heather Stranske - COO, Graduated from CU with a finance degree. She has worked for several large companies, such as IBM and SUN locally in their finance departments.

Ben Greeson - CTO, Bron in Greeley, graduated from Berkeley. Co-wrote two books on Ruby on Rails, considered one of the top open source developers in Colorado.

If you or any of your team members have built cool stuff on the web, please provide the URLs:

Small project Vince and Ben worked on: http://tinyurl.com/229sh5

Can each of the founders come to Boulder, Colorado for the summer of 2008? If not, please elaborate.

yes.

Why should we choose your company?

We are dedicated to being successful. Our feeling is that with the connections and the focus TechStars provides, it will enable us to take our idea to the next level and truly be something special.

And what does all that work get us?

Status:        Rejected

I guess, David is going to miss out on two wild and crazy guys, but have 10 awesome teams that have been truly vetted and screened. Based on last year’s crop, I am expecting this year to blow them out of the water, and more importantly, for TechStars to have improved equally, providing additional value over last year’s program.

After all, if RolLast didnt make it, then someone is doing their job. Good Luck TechStars 2008 teams!

When I started this blog, I decided that I would be open about my past failures and what I learned from them. The biggest thing I learned was that its better to fail fast. I made a ton of mistakes early on, and in many ways, built my successes on top of those failures.

Are you in the process of building a startup? Feel that you have it all figured out, but just need a place to cook the idea and be surrounded by like-minded individuals while being mentored by folks that have learned to duck?

Apply to TechStars, applications are now open.

You can read about one founders experiences or a mentors experience, or how one team member had to get punched in the face a couple of times before learning to duck.

But, more importantly, TechStars, like the budding startup community in Boulder brings a large amount of talent to a pretty small place. I have often said that I learned more in the hallways of the companies I worked at and with, then I have ever learned doing the job.

Have a startup? Apply to TechStars. The worst thing that will happen is you will get your first no out of the way.