Social Media

10 Essential Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter


This series is supported by Grasshopper, the Virtual Phone System designed for entrepreneurs. Follow Grasshopper co-founder David @dh.

startup imageCountless entrepreneurs have been drawn onto Twitter. Perhaps it's because the platform has been a hotbed for innovation, or maybe it's the millions of potential connections that has made it so enticing. Regardless, there are a lot of great entrepreneurs tweeting about their experiences. That's why we wanted to build this list of essential entrepreneurs to follow - to help you discover and connect with them.

We can't write about them all, however. So instead, we chose 10 people that we believe represent the entrepreneurial spectrum. Some are developers, others are social entrepreneurs. Some have multiple successes under their belts, others are earlier along. However, everyone on this list has the drive of a startup entrepreneur and offers unique perspectives via Twitter.

This list is only the beginning, however. If you have an entrepreneur you believe is worthy of recognition, we want to hear about him or her: leave his or her Twitter name in the comments along with an explanation of why you follow that person.

1. Caterina Fake

Quick Bio: Co-Founder of Flickr and Hunch

Why we chose this entrepreneur: Caterina is a female entrepreneur with a major success under her belt and a new and exciting project underway. There's a lot to learn from her.

What she tweets about: She tweets about coding, women in entrepreneurship, and topics nerds love. You'll also find books, interesting articles, and some talk about Hunch.

Random fact about Caterina: Beyond Hunch, Caterina also sits on the board of Creative Commons. She's also a semi-frequent blogger.

2. Loic Le Meur

Quick Bio: Founder of Seesmic, Founder of LeWeb Conference.

Why we chose this entrepreneur: Loic is passionate, a serial entrepreneur, an avid tweeter, and brings an international perspective on entrepreneurship to this list. He engages his followers frequently.

What value does Twitter provide to entrepreneurs? Loic told us that he believes Twitter's greatest value to entrepreneurs is that it keeps you constantly and instantly in touch with your community and your customers. He called it a "live focus group" that gives you instant feedback, allowing you to immediately correct problems.

His top piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: Don't wait for the idea of your life, he said. Specifically, he recommended that entrepreneurs simply execute and launch as fast as they can and iterate as fast as they can, because you can get instant feedback and quickly correct. He cited a popular quote in entrepreneurship circles, "If you are not embarrassed by your product, then you launched too late."

3. Guy Kawasaki

Quick Bio: Founder of Alltop, Partner at Garage Technology Ventures, author of Art of the Start.

Why we chose this entrepreneur: Guy is an early Apple employee, venture capitalist, and best-selling author. His perspective on the entrepreneurial world is unique and his passion for the topic is difficult to top.

Additional note: Guy's use of Twitter is unique. Most of his tweets focus on sharing interesting links related to technology, society and entrepreneurship.

4. Jason Fried

Quick Bio: Co-founder/CEO of 37signals.

Why we chose this entrepreneur: 37signals has been a leader in building powerful web applications, but the reason Jason is on the list is because he and his team have a different perspective on building a startup. It's a message of bootstrapping, of not taking venture capital money, of building revenue-generating businesses rather than high-growth businesses.

What he tweets about: Currently, he uses his Twitter to engage with customers. He's experimented with holding virtual office hours as well; it's a great chance to chat with a successful entrepreneur.

His advice to entrepreneurs: Rather than try to summarize or transcribe Jason's (very straightforward) advice for entrepreneurs, we'll just let him say it in his own words:

5. Jesse Stay

Quick Bio: Entrepreneurial developer in the social space, founder of SocialToo.

Why we chose this entrepreneur: Jesse truly embodies the developer entrepreneur. His passion is in building things (in his case, social media-based products), but he understand what it takes to turn that passion into a business. His tweets are constantly informative.

What's the benefit of being a developer entrepreneur? "You have the ability to create things," he told us. Developers entering entrepreneurship have the ability to create worthwhile products. This makes your technology solid and allows you to move faster with less cost. Technical skills are tougher to learn than business skills and are core to building any web business (Jesse points to FriendFeed as an example of a technology-driven company).

What's your top piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? Jesse told us that he believes aspiring entrepreneurs need a business plan, or at least they need to understand how their business will grow, thrive, and make money. He believes most entrepreneurs need to have a firm understanding of how they will make money, especially as VC and angel money has dried up.

6 & 7. Stacey Monk and Leila C. Janah

Quick Bios: Both are social entrepreneurs. Leila is founder of Samasource, which provides digital work for Kenyan refugees. Stacey is founder of Epic Change and TweetsGiving.

Why we chose these entrepreneurs: We're big proponents of social entrepreneurship, an area that doesn't get enough attention. These two women have done a great deal to help bring positive change to the world.

What they tweet about: When they aren't traveling, you'll find a lot of personal tweets about their causes and their efforts to catalyze change worldwide.

8. Mark Bao

Quick Bio: Teenage entrepreneur, CEO of Avecora, founder of Ramamia and several other companies.

Why we chose this entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship has no age. Some start their first company at 17, others at 71. Mark embodies the former in a big way.

Most difficult thing about being a teenage entrepreneur: Mark's answer to this question was interesting. He told us that "the most difficult thing about being a teenage entrepreneur is getting caught up in the idea that you're going to be doing less work than a regular entrepreneur and get props because you're a teenager."

His point was this: that he's an entrepreneur first and a teenager second. He has to fight the perception that his age is more important than his entrepreneurial endeavors. Yet at the same time, he has to pull the same weight in order to succeed in a market that doesn't care about a founder's age.

One other problem: the work-life balance is tougher, especially as you have to grow up quickly running your own business.

His advice for young entrepreneurs: Don't get caught up in being a young entrepreneur. Instead, pull your own weight and focus on building great products, because if you don't you'll turn 20 and wonder why nobody is listening anymore.

9 & 10. Biz Stone and Evan Williams

Quick Bio: Co-founders, Twitter

Why we chose these entrepreneurs: It seemed wrong to suggest a list of entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter without highlighting the duo that made Twitter possible. Evan was also co-founder of Blogger, while Biz was part of both Xanga and Blogger.

What they tweet about: Ev and Biz have racked up several thousand tweets combined, but much of what they discuss is personal. You will get an inside look at life inside a fast-growing startup, as well as a better understanding of what's happening within Twitter itself.

Their advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: A while ago, the duo sat in front of hundreds of students and entrepreneurs in an auditorium at the University of California: Berkeley for Startup School 2009. For a full half hour, they not only discussed their experiences starting Twitter, but answered the audience's questions on building great startups and being a great entrepreneur. Perhaps nothing so personifies this list as much as the video embedded below:

You can follow all of the people on this list by going to our customized “10 Essential Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter” TweepML group.

Series supported by Grasshopper




Image courtesy of iStockphoto, cmcderm1

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