Open or Closed

In the past there have been companies that tried to be as open as possible. And by open, we mean organizations that have opened themselves up to show what starting a company is and how it all works. There was even a movie created about it (Startup.com). In the recent months Earth Class Mail and Seesmic have both demonstrated some of this openness.

Start Up Junkies

Seesmic

They have both done a great job on keeping the lines of communication open using two different approaches.

What if this whole process was taken to another level. What if you could take a day to day of what is happening in the startup and made it even more open — open to a level of near-instant feedback? What if you could get users to guide you on everyday decisions? Could you get great feedback from the users and build your company? Instead of having board meetings, you could have chat or video sessions every week for users to give guidance. What if the company was not actully selling a product, but a service as a product? Yup… That’s what we are trying to do… Stay tuned.