Fletcher: Sure. It’s very flattering to have some company come up and start
schmoozing you. It comes down to you have to figure out what you want to do
with your startup and your life. With ONElist, it was very easy—I didn’t even
have to make the decision just to keep going as long as I could, because I knew
I was creating all this value from the users. Otherwise it just comes down to the
intangibles I guess. If you like the people you’re talking to, if you think you’re
getting a decent deal. But what is a decent deal? It’s the most money you can
get, right? But what is that? Nobody knows.
Livingston: It’s a confusing situation for a lot of founders.
Mark Fletcher 243
Fletcher: Sure. Why do you start a company? Do you start a company to get
rich? Do you start a company for the fun of it? That’s going to play into it also.
And then, what’s your definition of rich, I suppose is another thing. It doesn’t
take a lot of money to let you live without working ever again, if you do the
numbers. So what are your goals in life? You have to think that through.
Livingston: What other practical advice would you give to would-be founders?
Fletcher: I guess, get a lawyer. With ONElist, I incorporated not using a
lawyer. There’s a company in Delaware called the Company Corporation, so I
created an LLC by myself before I had a lawyer. Then we went online and fixed
things after the fact . . . it was a big hassle because VCs want a C-corp—any sort
of investor generally wants a C-corp because that’s what they understand.
With Bloglines, I had an accountant, at least for a good part of it, who was
fairly cheap. One of the hassles of ONElist was that I was the one managing the
books the first year, as well as answering the 200 support emails every night, as
well as doing all of this other stuff. I guess I’m torn with how cheap do you want
to go with a startup. Having an accountant is kind of a nice frill.
I also think a lot of people don’t know about all these outsourcing sites,
which are absolutely wonderful. One of the things that I did do differently with
Bloglines was rely upon an outsourcing site, in this case eLance, for a lot of
things. Not a lot of coding, but other things. So, if I wanted to put together a
presentation and I needed a couple of graphics, I put up a proposal on eLance
and ended up working with some lady in Australia, who turned things around in
6 hours, for $50. So sites like that are so amazingly powerful, which is just one
more reason why it’s really easy to do very small companies, because you don’t

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