1200 enquires of the last couple of weeks. Some stats for you:
32 from India
813 from North America
4 from Africa (the continent)
22 from Australia/New Zealand (separate countries, I know)
The rest from Europe.
50 or so: "I love your blog"
- Of those, 2 people specifically called out "amazing posts" and then referenced posts from Brad Feld. Cold, people, really cold. And one guy from Toronto, no less.
3 Business plans the virus checker wents nuts on, bzzzd, sorry thanks for playing.
9 emails telling me that if I didn't respond within 48hrs, they would be "forced" (or "reluctantly driven") to the iFund. I especially liked the "even tho Apple sucks, I'm forced into this situation by events in the development arena."
12 emails indicating "Jim" suggested they contact me personally. The RIM CEO couldn't pick me out of a line-up, folks.
20 NDAs attached along with the business plans. My personal favorite was the NDA in Spanish (except the file name NDA.doc) and the business plan (32 pages) in English.
1 email with: "Steve Jobs has done an amazing thing with these Blackberry devices and my application can continue the drive for total RIM dominance." Now, what's cool about this one was the Steve Jobs, Blackberry and RIM words were all in Bold and different font. This was from a fine fella in Lexington KY. Yeah, [DEL].
There were a few rays of hope:
2 people sent me PDFs with brochures and simply said this is what we do and we are looking for financing. Please let us know if we can send additional material. Smart.
Several sent links to web pages that were about us things, again, if you want more information, please let us know. Smart.
[Note: On of these some will argue it's still shotgun/spammy but it was to the point and they took the time to give me enough information for a fast scan]
Lots of executive summary (one or two page) with the basics.
Fun times around the Inbox.
I have to apologize for Lexington, KY. We do have a growing startup culture and I hope this was just a typo for this guy. In the future, hopefully we will have someone who is among our best and brightest to pitch you ad we can redeem our cities name.
http://www.kentuckystartups.com/2008/11/11/embarrassment-for-lexington/
Posted by: Richard Stump | November 11, 2008 at 10:52
Did you know that Lexington is one of the top 10 most educated cities in the USA? (Census Bureau)
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elearning/?article=educatedcities
Posted by: Scott Clark | November 11, 2008 at 11:06
Lexington Pride! You may laugh at us, but man, we defend the place we love. Dont judge us based on this one person! It really is a fantastic place...
Posted by: Ben | November 11, 2008 at 15:22
Memo to Lexington: Im not picking on your city. I thought the whole thing was funny because it was an attempt piece together some rapid emails and this fine person got ahead of himself.
R
Posted by: rick segal | November 11, 2008 at 15:44
Though we know that Jim (pardon the reference) is pushing hard to gain share in the consumer smart phone segment, the fact remains (or so Id be inclined to argue) that RIM platforms greatest strength is its amazing penetration (and general usefulness) in the enterprise space.
If you can shed any light, what is the split of folks coming to you with enterprise or productivity apps vs the usual iphone fair of games, media apps and other flashy time wasters?
Beyond email, are there any killer business-minded apps alive and well on the bberry platform?
Posted by: Tom Purves | November 11, 2008 at 17:53
@Rick
I am curious as well - I went to hear Jim speak (Ottawa Ont.) and he was really emphasizing their SDK
And I recall reading one article on a company that was intending to do an e-Learning (just in time) type thing for their service folks.
I never heard again whether it took off or not
Posted by: Elliot Ross | November 12, 2008 at 08:47
Tom/Elliot,
Approx 65% of the inbounds are non-enterprise. Im working on several e-learning items as I really like that space.
R
Posted by: rick segal | November 12, 2008 at 11:16