(This post was initially published on Business Insider)

Inspired by Harvard Business Review’s 2-Minute Opportunity Checklist for Entrepreneurs, I decided to create the 2-Minute Opportunity Checklist for iPhone Entrepreneurs.  Making an iPhone app might be a smaller task than building an entire technology business, but the same fundamentals rules still apply: you need a solid product, a market for that product, a way to cost effectively reach that market, and a way to make money.

So you’ve got a great idea for an app.  You’ve spent hours poking around the app store and you haven’t found anything that does quite what you’re thinking.  Good start. But before you throw yourself wholeheartedly at the project, ask yourself these questions:

1)  Does your idea excite others?

Passionate customers are vocal customers.  If your apps doesn’t scratch some itch or get people excited, it’s probably not worth doing in the first place.

Do eyes light up when you share your idea?  How about when you show mockups or an early prototype? One girl literally jumped up and down screaming when I showed her an early version of Exit Strategy NYC. Awesome.

Your product doesn’t have to impress *everyone* you show it to — just your target market. When GateGuru’s Dan Gellert showed me an early demo of his product (‘Yelp for airports’) last year, I wasn’t blown away.  I don’t travel enough to truly appreciate the product and the need it serves. But frequent fliers totally *got* it and the product has been very well received.

2) Is there a big market for what you’re making?

Always do your back of the envelope calculations. Refer to my earlier Definitive Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing.  Be careful of niche hyperlocal applications.  Making an app for Boston residents? Consider that there are 750,000 residents and about 20% have apple devices and 3% of those will buy the app. That’s 4500 people. If your product costs 99c and your developer costs $125 an hour, you’re probably not going to make back your investment.  Making a product to serve Boston wheelchair riders?  You’re looking at about 32 purchases. Fuhgettaboutit.

3) Is it inherently mobile?

Some ideas are native to a mobile platform because they take advantage of the iPhone’s unique features. Yelp’s app uses GPS location to show you nearby restrooms.  Grindr take advantage of proximity to show you nearby users. Brushes uses touch to recreate painting and Trainyard uses it to easily lay down railroad tracks.  Real Racing takes advantage of the phone’s accelerometer to make racing fun.  Everyday looper takes advantage of the device’s rich audio capabilities.

Other ideas thrive because the iPhone is a mobile device and people almost always have it. Instapaper, for example, makes online articles available to read later on your phone.  Similarly, Evernote works because it’s available to record notes, memos, or photos on-the-go. Exit Strategy NYC succeeds because it’s there when you need it — when you’re in the subway station waiting for the train.  It simply wouldn’t be useful as a desktop application.

3a) Would it be easy to use on a mobile device?

Mobile devices have two big constraints:  small screen size and poor typing experience.  Does your idea require convey large amounts of information all at once (perhaps a stock trading platform)?  Or are you collecting a large amount of information from a user (perhaps as part of a lengthy registration process or a mobile blogging idea)?  These make poor candidates for mobile apps.  Be sure to design your app with economy of taps in mind.

4)  Is it pressworthy or buzzworthy?

There are over 300,000 apps in the app store.  How will yours stand out? Make sure you have a good answer to this question.  Getting noticed is the toughest part of launching an app (assuming you’re not Facebook, Paypal, or the MLB). Apps are cheap so customer acquisitions costs must be zero or close to it. This means most traditional paid marketing methods simply won’t work. Either your idea has to be wacky and press-worthy, extremely polished and addictive (Angry Birds, Cut the Rope), technologically impressive (RedLaser).  Or it should be viral in its design (Instagram, Kik Messenger) or tap into some pent up demand (Skyfire bringing flash on the iPhone).

Hopefully this gives you some guidance for thinking about making a mobile app.  Be sure your app is inherently mobile, serves a big market, and will be found by the world.  If you can check those items off your list, you’re well on your way to app success!

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“If it has 80 percent of the features and it costs 10 percent of the money, I’ll take it”- MTA Chairman Jay Walder

In June, the MTA hired a bunch of interns (grad students) to explore cheap ways to bring cellphone service in the subway system. The entire project only cost $30,000.  This shift is part of Jay Walder’s new mindset that “The best is the enemy of the good.”  Similarly, the MTA had discussions with OpenPlans about a cheap method for providing real-time bus location data to riders. The MTA is turning scrappy!

But the holy grail is real time subway times and this one hasn’t gotten the refresh it needs — the MTA is spending $384 million to implement countdown clocks in each station which tell riders when the next train arrives. The work is already underway, but won’t be complete until 2016.

This seems crazy.

I haven’t seen any impressive scrappy third party solutions yet other than Roadify which focuses on crowdsourcing.  But it’s hard to imagine this getting the mainstream usage it needs. Furthermore, a crowdsourced system would break when you need it most: late at night when trains are infrequent.

Here are a few solutions I’ve come up with (All of these assume that the MTA hasn’t given you permission to install any equipment on their property.)

1) Consider that trains are actually visible at times: they cross over the bridges as they leave and enter Manhattan.  Why not install a detection device focused on these bridges?  Find a DUMBO startup with a nice view of the Manhattan Bridge and mount a camera or sensor in their window to detect when trains cross.  Then broadcast that information to the world.

2) Similarly, the ground shakes when a subway goes by.  So identify a bunch of different buildings that rumble when trains goes under them.  Leave an iPod Touch (connected to wifi) in the basement of these buildings. The device’s accelerometer could detect the rumble of each passing trains (which I’m betting would be a slightly different signal depending on the direction of the train). With a few of these detection points around the city sending back information to a central database, you could infer train locations for the entire system.  And this system would require a minimal capital investment:  buy fifty used ipod touches for $100 –even ones with broken screens are fine.  With only $5k equipment costs you’ve got yourself an 80% solution.

3) There are other ideas too that might work but don’t seem as elegant: find apartments near the subway exits and install a motion sensor/camera above the subway staircases — when floods of people come out, you know the train just came.  But this really works only at crowded times like rush hour when train schedules don’t matter much.

4) Use directional microphones pointed at subway grates to hear when trains go by.

Have other ideas on how to do real-time train tracking on the cheap?  I’d love to hear ‘em in the comments!

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New Work City (NWC) is one of the most important hubs of the NYC technology scene.

Why?  New Work City houses ~50 amazing tech freelancers and entrepreneurs running a dozen or so fledgling startups such as Perpetually, Loosecubes, Urban Pregame, Homingcloud and TouchGraph.  Creating a home for independent workers and early stage entrepreneurs creates the fertile soil needed to seed innovation and birth new companies. NWC is that home. In short, New Work City is a home for the homeless and a desk for the deskless, individuals otherwise relegated to working from coffee shops or trapped in the depressing isolation of their own apartments.

If you’re thinking “desks for rent” you’re missing the bigger picture.  It’s all about the people. NWC is people getting together because working in a stimulating environment surrounded by friendly passionate people who love what they do is f***ing awesome. It’s productive, it’s fun, and it’s deeply satisfying.

On September 1, a mere ten days from today, NWC opens its new home:  a brand new 5,000sq space at Canal St and Broadway. The NEW New Work City will support a larger community and will be amazing. As an independent space, New Work City is self-sustained by paying members of the community — people like me. There’s no sugardaddy bankrolling it and no VC firm backing the space.  It’s run as a break-even business and it’s entirely volunteer run — truly a space for us and by us.

In ten days, the dream for NYC to have a dedicated coworking space will be realized. It’s a dream that initially took shape back in the summer of 2007 as part of an East Village coffee shop (CafeBricolage).  Many of the same people are still at the helms.

Having an awesome home to independent workers and entrepreneurs is crucial to New York City’s goal to become a major technology hub.  However, NWC needs your financial support to make this happen. We need about $100,000 total for the new space, and are attempting to raise $15,000 through Kickstarter.  Please donate to our KickStarter fund and be generous (let’s smash through this goal!)

Also, please seriously consider whether your company or organization could benefit from a partnership/sponsorship opportunity with NWC.  If so, please get in touch with me and I’ll happily put you in touch with “mayor” Tony.

By supporting NWC, you’re supporting NYC as a healthy place for startups.  On behalf of me and all New Work City members, thank you for your support,
Jonathan Wegener

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• Young Entrepreneurs and B2B Startups: Doomed to Fail?

I propose the following hypothesis for discussion: young entrepreneurs should focus on building B2C companies since they lack the deep industry experience needed to build successful B2B companies.

Allow me to explain my thinking.  Young people in their 20′s trying to start a business-to-business face an uphill battle for several reasons:

1)  Identifying Opportunities is Hard
The best companies are started by people solving their own problems — or so goes the classic logic.  But for young entrepreneurs without any deep industry experience, there aren’t any obvious problem for them to solve.

2) Building the Right Product is Hard
When you haven’t experienced the pain point you’re solving, you don’t truly understand customer needs.   You can try to put yourself in their shoes, listen closely to their problems, and design a solution.  But ultimately, it’s tough to get product-market fit from the position of an outside observer.  A related issue: anytime you’re solving someone else’s problem, staying motivated becomes tough.  Will focusing on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow sustain the necessary passion to succeed?

3)  Sales, Marketing, and Business Development are Hard
Without industry experience, you won’t have the personal relationships to get your food in the door and close deals and you won’t know the right distribution channels.  You’ll struggle to craft your marketing message in a language that speaks to your customer’s needs.  Furthermore, you won’t have existing relationships with the other players in the industry which could be your partners.

Your Responses

Here’s a few of the fantastic responses I’ve already gotten in response to “entrepreneurs in their 20s should focus on B2C products since they lack any true ‘industry’ experience needed to build B2B products”:

  ^^^So the measure of a good entrepreneur is the ability to overcome all of those obstacles?

^^^It’s definitely an uphill battle…

^^^Isn’t it extremely difficult to find a “good” B2B idea?  I like the idea that it’s simply a steeper learning curve and you can build a team with actual industry experience.

^^^What does that look like in practice? Picking a bunch of random industries (say…architecture!) and getting internships in them so you can look for problems that need solving?

^^^This is interesting, and it’s what many young entrepreneurs do — they spot brand new opportunities that simply didn’t exist earlier.

^^^Nice happy medium.

^^^Perhaps I’ll do a whole other blog post on this — is there a higher barrier to entry for a B2B idea than a B2C idea, which makes B2C more ripe for first-time entrepreneurs?  My feeling is yes.

Start With What You Know?

So what do most young B2B entrepreneurs do? Many start with what they know…local! The business on the corner seems like a good place to start.  And of course the market is now flooded with these hyperlocal advertising ideas — “a text message couponing solution for restaurants”  (see my earlier post on that subject).

I can’t think of too many young entrepreneurs that have successfully started B2B ventures.  In fact, the only person that comes to mind is Darren Herman.  Most young entrepreneurs stick to B2C, creating slightly better products to expose undiscovered product opportunities (Tumblr, Box.net Facebook, and Plancast come to mind).  Are there tons of unsexy B2B ventures from young entrepreneurs that have simply flown under the radar?

Your turn: what’s a 20-something to do?

I’m done talking — now it’s your turn.  Any young successful B2B entrepreneurs flying under the radar?  How did you do it?

Investors/VCs — do you find most B2B companies started by someone with deep experience in that industry?  Are there outliers?  How much industry experience is typical.  Weeks?  Years?  Enough to rule out 20-somethings?

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