It’s been almost 6 months since I posted an Enter Venture update — 6 months!  When Enter Venture started, I released one of these monthly, but moving across the country and joining a startup has affected the frequency of Enter Venture in all kinds of ways.  Needless to say, though, after 6 months, Enter Venture has gone through quite a few changes.

The goal with these update posts is to capture the evolutionary entrepreneurial process.  Enter Venture is about learning to become an entrepreneur, which, as I’ve imagined it, means learning how to do a little bit of just about everything.  It’s a whiteboard for trying out new ideas and new experiences — whether those include attending events, interviewing other entrepreneurs, learning new things, or making your own mistakes.

In this vein, I’ve been working a bit on an update to the Enter Venture theme that will give the site its first real large scale update since its inception.  Over the past few months, I’ve made a few token changes to the site — a picture here, a  widget there.  I ended my affair with my tiny green RSS button — it just wasn’t a good usability choice.  After the Crazy Egg post, it’s relative invisibility was hard for me to ignore.  The honkin’ large, orange RSS button that Neil Patel let me steal from the old QuickSprout theme does a much better job of attracting user attention.  (Neil also happens to be the founder of Crazy Egg — go figure.  Thanks Neil!)

I’ve unfortunately not been the heaviest commenter on other blogs, which is a shame.  Before my move, I had begun to get a taste for what it really means to “develop relationships in the blogosphere”.  I’ve found other ways to make use of social networking services to grow Enter Venture, but nothing quite as lasting or reciprocating.  This is something I need to address.

I’ve taken a Jules Verne-like tour around the world of web startup blogs in search of a better picture of the global startup scene.  It’s not over yet, but so far I’ve covered:

• Asia
• Middle East
• Europe
• Australia
• Africa

As part of that series, I was fortunate enough to have a few of the blogs in the international startup series invite me to guest post on their sites.  Check out StartupsNigeria and TheNextWeb.com for the same great Enter Venture content on whole new sites.  After that, check out the rest of these sites as they’re both excellent.

If you’re really watchful (and read to the end of my posts) you’ll notice that advertising’s been added to the site.  This has been a simple test to judge Google’s topic match and fit with Enter Venture, rather than a sincere effort to make money.  Though, that said, some kind soul was dear enough to click on the links a few times so I’ve earned enough to purchase an iTunes song or two.  In the future, expect to see more advertising on Enter Venture.  For one, I don’t think you can really claim to understand the internet if you’ve never worked with online advertising.  For two, I’ve started to change the way I feel about advertising while working at my current job.  Nothing is really free, no matter how much we’d like to think so and certainly not in this economic climate.

Two of my Blue Venture Community (formely known as Columbia Venture Community) colleagues — Ari Greenberg of Baveo and Dave Whittemore of Ativiti — were featured in Enter Venture’s early entrepreneur / startup posts.   Enter Venture’s 10 startup job websites post blew up and alone accounts for 35% of this blog’s traffic.  And last, but not least, Enter Venture crossed the 50th post mark recently!

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