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This Week in Startups - Jason Calacanis

Needed to take a few minutes to talk about This Week In Startups (#Twist on Twitter.com) hosted by Jason Calacanis. There’s not enough content to do a Top Ten list yet, since the show is new and all. A Top Ten on how #Twist will FAIL is inappropriate, and it’s a bit too soon to post a Top Ten on how great #Twist is, for now. So where does that leave us? #Twist is a terrific show that actually gets better every week.

What’s Good about #Twist

Format: From a production perspective, the minimalist approach works. Host, Laptop, Guest, Done. Perfect! Jason does fine without having to control all of the levers that make the show work (Tricaster, camera, etc). The direction will get better over time, and Jason will trust the director to get the right shot at the right time, eventually.

Interview: The interviews are terrific. It’s the secret sauce. Clearly, the best thing about the show. What potential entrepreneurs-in-waiting need is access to smart people. The number one thing you can do as a “would be” entrepreneur is to find a successful entrepreneur and emulate him or her. This means you need to get to know them, how they think, what makes them tick, and then, try to execute as they do; if not better. With #Twist, you have the unprecedented opportunity to interview CEOs and other Execs through Jason. Jason doesn’t shy away from the tough, important questions (how much money do you spend on servers?, what do you pay your top developer?, etc). And the “Bonus” is you get the opportunity to ask the Host questions through #Twist. How cool is that? By far the number one reason for tuning in.

News Segment: The content is terrific. The implementation needs work (No offense, Rich ;). What makes the “News” segment work is the quality of the story and the point-counterpoint analysis of the content. One of the best things about the interchange on “Cranky Geeks with John C. Dvorak is the welcomed and anticipated opposing perspectives of the guests. The News Segment FAILS if the anchor a) has no opinion 90% of the time, b) agrees with Jason 100% of the time, c) off-the-cuff commentary adds nothing, regardless of how good the research is. I like the idea of a rotating anchor. This worked on show number #3, and needs to be explored more. The anchor’s job is to research or understand the given research items, then form opinions that may or may not be mainstream in order to intelligently discuss the subject with Jason and the Guest. In short, the News Anchor needs to ante up.

Twitter Interaction: Brilliant. Makes the show interesting, although it does need to be moderated. It’s a feature that needs to enhance the shows content or provide a transition to or between segments. There’s definitely a right time and wrong time for Twitteruptions Twitteractions. As the show gets better; Jason will get better, not to worry. Twitteractions before the show starts are terrific and a good source of questions/comments. Twitteractions on News items works as well. Twitter questions after the main Jason interview works exceedingly well. Interspersing Twitter questions during Jason’s interview doesn’t work. Let Jason asks the questions that get us to care about the Guest, then have Twitter take us down the rat-hole if necessary, in a good way. Jason is good enough to pick the questions that matter and present them to the Guest in an engaging way without interruptions from the peanut gallery. Twitter comments on News stories should be read by the Guest. Have the “successful” CXO offer his opinion on current/failing/in-between startups and stories. Let’s see what they really think? Shout outs at the end of the show are pretty good. In for a penny, in for a pound, if you get negative feedback on the show, e.g 5.5 on show quality, as long as it comes with a valid reason (not disparaging of the Guest or Anchor), you should read it along with the 9.5 and 10.0.

Inside Baseball: There are times when Jason mentions either people he knows or activities in and around Silicon Alley that only he is privy to. Some people like it, some people don’t. I love it. I want to know who’s on Jason’s speed dial. I want to know what’s happening behind the scenes. I want to know if Jason crashed his Tesla and who he’s going to Angels and Demons with next week. We don’t have to spend the whole show on it, but a insider’s peek is fine with me.

I’ll post more about the show in the next few weeks. You can expect the Bad and the Ugly to show up as separate posts eventually. In fact, I’ve committed to posting more in general in the coming weeks. I chose this blog because Jordan is a very good friend of mine (met in Business School) and I agreed to help him with his site. All for now. Cheers! @iAinsley (That’s i - Ainsley Jason