Crowdsourcing and Entrepreneurship Advice by crowdSPRING co-Founder Michael Samson by, Vanessa Zamora on November 17, 2011

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During Pubcon Las Vegas 2011, Pubcon video content producer Vanessa Zamora sat down to interview crowdSPRING co-Founder Michael Samson and discussed the crowd-sourcing website he co-founded with business partner and co-Founder Ross Kimbarovsky.

 

Samson shared the origin of the crowdSPRING website which has over 100,000 registered creatives from at least 200 countries, and also explained how crowdSPRING serves as a beneficial addition to the marketplace, which has sometimes seen resistance from Web designers who argue the website offers low price points and too much variety to compete with.

 

Samson who also speaks widely on the topic of start-ups and entrepreneurship shared three components of a successful start-up with Zamora, including determining if the idea solves a problem, finding a solution, and ensuring there is an opportunity for the idea to be viable.

 

 

For the entrepreneur on a budget, Samson shared that beyond determining if an idea is viable, start-ups with limited or no funding can look to crowdSPRING for design, freelance marketplace oDesk for coding  services, social media for essentially free marketing, and Google Analytics for optimizing a website. There are so many resources available to entrepreneurs theses days, Samson added.

 

Samson said that he is a proponent of the lean start-up movement,and what is called lean marketing, which entourages entrepreneurs to get a minimally viable product out there and on Web. He said start-ups should not worry about the features to start, but rather launch it, get feedback from real users, and then build new features based on that information.

 

The next step for crowdSPRING, according to Samson, will be a shift in focus from the buyers as they plan to launch new products and features that will be of more interest and benefit to the creatives.

 

Watch Samson's full video from Pubcon Las Vegas 2011 now.