Internet, startups, Education Gregory T. Huang wrote: When I first met Dave Schappell a few weeks ago, we talked mostly about entrepreneurship and his experience running his startup— TeachStreet, an online community site for connecting local teachers and students. Today TeachStreet has some big news: it has expanded to Portland, OR, in its first move outside of Seattle. The idea is, if you want to learn any new skill or find students to teach in any area of your expertise, Schappell’s site will hook you up. (Initial highlights for Portland include 488 yoga classes, 297 knitting classes, and 117 fishing classes.) It’s a big step for TeachStreet, which launched in Seattle only four months ago and is backed by Madrona Venture Group and Bezos Expeditions. The site, which is free to use, makes its money on contextual ads. Increasing traffic is the key to its success. “It’s a big change going from one site to two, mostly search-engine related,” says Schappell. “We are more than doubling the number of pages we have indexed.” That should translate into more-than-doubling the traffic to the overall site, he adds. “We’ll be a lot more discoverable.” But more than that, the move speaks to an interesting company strategy. A key issue in any expansion is the time and resources needed to launch and maintain a new site or location. Schappell says it took about five months to prepare for the initial Seattle launch—gathering data on who the experts were in various fields, making contacts, and so forth—but it took only about half that time, 10 or 11 weeks, to prepare for Portland. The reason? Much more efficient data gathering, and knowing exactly what information (like start and end dates, titles, and addresses) and Internet tags they needed for their teachers and classes. That came from his team’s Seattle experience. So Schappell doesn’t anticipate needing to grow his core team of developers and product managers, who number about 10 in Seattle. Which is huge, of course, because if they can keep increasing their traffic without hiring more people, they’ll make a killing. To do that, however, will also require continually improving the site. As of today, the TeachStreet website is redesigned to have more intuitive navigation buttons and more content to introduce teachers to the site. In the coming months, look for TeachStreet to expand into other, larger metro areas. And further down the road, the company has its sights on a broader vision. “Our [larger] goal is not really about classes and schools,” Schappell told me at our first meeting. “The bigger opportunity is around thousands of people establishing themselves as experts.” That might mean helping people find personal advisors, rather than take classes—say, someone to help them set up their home entertainment system, buy a new car, or redo their kitchen. Again, it’s all about the traffic. As Schappell sees it, the main challenge for TeachStreet will involve taking the show on the road to much bigger cities with massive boroughs and suburbs that are like separate cities in themselves. He isn’t saying yet which city will be next, but he says it probably won’t be a big surprise. “It’s still hard to launch each city, but it pretty much doubles or triples your [search engine] relevance each time,” Schappell says. “This is just the beginning.” Comments | Permalink | Share |  E-mail UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS Less

Today, we welcomed Sean Aiken to The Bigg Success Show . Sean graduated from college a little over a year ago but didn’t know what he wanted to do. So he decided to work a different job every week for one year. In the process, he raised over $20,000 for charity. His journey has been covered by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, The New York Times, Good Morning America, Radio France, The Australian Radio Network, and too many more to mention. . . Sean, you went from being a college graduate to having had more jobs than just about anyone I know. And you did it all in a year! . Exactly! That was the problem when I graduated … I didn’t know which job I wanted. My dad gave me some advice my last year of college that stuck with me. He said it didn’t matter what I did as long as it was something I was passionate about. So not knowing where those passions lie, I came up with the idea to go out and try out a whole bunch of different jobs to see what I like and don’t like about different careers. Then I could make a better choice. So I started my web site, OneWeekJob.com, and said that anyone anywhere in the world could offer me a job for one week. Then I would go around for a year and do all these different jobs. It worked out pretty well. . Now, at any point, did your dad say … I told you to find your passion, but this is crazy? . . Definitely! When I first thought up the idea, and I told him, he asked if I was kidding him and said I should get a real job … I told him it was his fault! . So you basically lived kind of like a vagabond … through the generosity of the people in the town that you were working in, you would have a place to stay? . Yeah, people following along on the web site would e-mail to offer a place to stay if I came to their town. Oftentimes, I’d stay with my employer. About Week 5 into the project, a job search engine, nicejob.ca, came on board to sponsor the project – they helped out with some travel expenses as well. . Let’s say you were working a job in Arizona and your next job offer was in San Francisco? How would you make it to your different locations? . It always changed. Sometimes by bus, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes flying. That was a bigg aspect to the project – trying to manage all the logistics. There was a period where I was in Denver, Colorado and then I was back in Vancouver for the weekend en route to Hawaii. These are all consecutive weeks. Then on to Los Angeles, then New York, Florida, Wyoming to be a cowboy, and then on to Washington, D.C. . Out of all the jobs you’ve had, what was your favorite, Sean? . . I have … maybe a top five. When I was in Hawaii, I was a volcano park ranger. A fashion buyer in New York was really cool, and an advertising executive. I also worked with the Canadian Air Force, and I got to fly a helicopter and a military transport plane. That was a great experience as well. Also a cancer fundraiser – I really enjoyed that job. . So do you think that you’ve found your passion? . . Is dad happy yet … that’s what we really want to know? . . I think that going out and trying to find my passion has almost turned into a job all by itself; it’s kind of turned into a passion all by itself in that, it’s helped and inspired others to go after their passions. Now I’m writing a book about the experience that will be out in the Spring of 2009. So I’ll be doing that for awhile, as well as talks. It actually might become a TV show. I’m working on a documentary, so this is going to keep me busy for the next few years. . And there’s a way for people to help you get this documentary done? . . My best friend, Ian MacKenzie, came out on the road with me, starting in about Week 19 or so. We started filming video episodes about what I was learning, interviewing my employers, and talking about getting from job to job. So we’re putting it all together into a documentary now. We’re asking for help in raising funds for that. People can become a producer if they’re willing to donate an hour of their wage. Anyway who donates will be a producer of the film and their name will appear in the end credits. . What I love is that you’ve created your own job, your own role, your own space by doing this. That’s all right, Sean. . Now tell your dad that! We’re impressed by what you’ve done. It’s so interesting … such a cool story. Thanks so much, Sean, for spending some time with us today! . Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes.  Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.    Related posts Leaping From Place To Place: See The World While You Work Retire to Work: Live Where You Want Now but Keep Working  (Images from OneWeekJob.com's photostream on Flickr) ShareThis Less

Download audio file (03-tuesday-seo-podcast.mp3) Take a listen to my SEO Weekly News Tuesday Podcast above. Here are a couple of the news items that I talked about: Google Walks Away From Digg Deal Google was in the due diligence stage of the deal, where they peer deep into Digg’s technology and financial statements. Most term sheets are non [...] Less

Did you know that the Web Hosting Show was Yakov Smirnoff’s favorite way to spend a lazy afternoon? Ok, maybe that isn’t true but I will update you on the rise of the Soviet Union domain name extension as well as pull the curtain other myths and rumors about SEO. Now just as long as Yakov’s lawyers don’t shut me down, the Web Hosting Show is on the air. Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 150! Running Time: 15 minutes | File Size: 6.62 MB Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show. Soviet Union Still Exists in the Domain Name World Regional Hosting, is it Worth Looking Into? Top Search Engine Optimization Tips and Myths De-bunked! Domain Name Warehousing, What is it and Who Does It? Little known fact, in Russia you don’t host web sites; web sites host you! Ok, maybe Yakov’s material was a ‘bit more funny back when we are all running around in MC Hammer pants but that was then and this is now. A little ‘bit of a shorter show this week around to make room for another podcast’s release this week but still have a lot of topics I want to cover one on one just with you, and you, and you over there who doesn’t even like this show but you listen because you know your even going to get something out of it. This podcast is for one and all - from the web hosts to the hosting clients and everyone in between. Extra: New Bookmarklet Makes it Easy to Add to MySpace! © Mitch Keeler - like this? visit Mitchelaneous.com | FirefoxFacts.com | WebHostingShow.com   Less

This is an interview I did last week with Roy Montero. Roy is a really nice guy I met at www.verbalnetworking.com and he asked some really interesting questions. Warning: It’s a nudge over 25 MINUTES LONG! As a bonus, I think I almost cry toward the end. Way to suck you in, no? Less