The Cult of Amazon Prime

By Jason Calacanis

There are two types of people in the world: those with Amazon Prime and those without.

How you think about consumption, commerce and your personal time is radically different depending on if you've join the cult -- yet.

And to be clear, Prime is a cult you will be joining.

At dinner parties and business meetings, I'll frequently ask who has Prime and what they think of it. The number has grown from one or two in seven to three or four out of seven folks over the past five years. My circles tend to be people like you, which is to say more technically sophisticated (and good looking).

Prime is at a tipping point.

Amazon is doing so well with Prime it will not say how many Prime members it has acquired since the program launched in 2005. Prime launched in three other countries -- the U.K., Japan and Germany -- in 2007.

It's around 5M according to the folks debating the issue on the interwebs. My guess is it doubles every 18 months or so.

One in three American households will have Amazon Prime (or have access to Prime) in the next four years.

This is a lock because

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Watch TWiST News Roundtable with Marshall Kirkpatrick and Peter Pham Live at 1pm PT

[ Peter Pham and Marshall Kirkpatrick via creative commons licenses. ]

Today on This Week in Startups, Peter Pham, co-founder of Color, and Marshall Kirkpatrick, formerly of Read Write Web, will join Host Jason Calacanis for the first News Roundtable of 2012 live at 1pm PT.

Peter left Color back in June, less than three months after the social startup launched publicly. Now, he is a partner at the incubator Science, which former Myspace CEO Mike Jones launched in November.

Marshall stepped down from his full-time position at RWW in November to...

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Learn from the Best at "Office Hours with Angels and Entrepreneurs" at the LAUNCH Festival

 

[ Andrew Warner of Mixergy will moderate Office Hours at the LAUNCH Festival.]

You can follow them on Twitter, read their blog posts and watch their press appearances -- but how about getting advice directly from top angels and successful entrepreneurs without needing to know someone who knows someone?

At the LAUNCH Festival on March 7th and 8th, 2012 in San Francisco, we will host the first-ever "Office Hours with Angels and Entrepreneurs" on our second stage. This is where you can have an intimate 30-minute discussion with people who have the expertise to address the biggest challenges you're facing right now, like building a team, raising money, perfecting a product and coping with the highs and lows of entrepreneurial life.

We're thrilled that Andrew Warner of Mixergy has agreed to moderate (as well as answer audience questions for him) on day one.

If you want to be

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Founders Define Reality (& Give Hope)

By Jason Calacanis

I recently had author Warren Bennis on "This Week in Startups" and he said something that struck me deeply:

"Leaders define reality."

The interview was so long we broke it into two parts. It's a commitment, but if you watch it I think you'll get a lot our of it. Part one & two.

The origin of the quote seems to be Napoleon Bonaparte: "The leader's role is to define reality, then give hope."

The challenge is that as a founder, you're going to be faced with brutal reality after brutal reality.

Looking back at my three big startups I can recall each of these "reality defining" discussions, and there is some advice I can give on them.

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Airbnb for Parking Spots ParkatmyHouse Launches in U.S.

U.K. based ParkatmyHouse, an Airbnb-like marketplace for renting parking spaces in crowded areas, just launched in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.

Considering that homeowners and business owners tend to have parking spots that go unused throughout the day, ParkatmyHouse connects property owners with drivers in an attempt to turn those unused parking spots into cash and help drivers save money.

Since launching in the U.K. six years ago, 150K+ property owners have earned $5M+ through renting parking spots, the press release states.
 
"We're not talking about a few bucks," Anthony Eskinazi, CEO and founder of ParkatmyHouse, said in the press release. "Property owners with...

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