I have my personal Twitter account @anthonyrstevens, and I recently set up a specific account for my recently-launched startup, @crowdify (thanks @wesm!). Do you entrepreneurs out there have multiple twitter accounts, and if so, do you find it useful? Is the overhead worth it when you’re early into your startup life and have few followers?

I suppose the argument would be that it can be a valuable PR outlet for things that your regular tweep friends might not be interested in.

Curious to read your responses.

I wish Paul Kedrosky would fix his damned IE javascript issues, but he’s a good source of bloggorhea. Or, alternatively, if Twhirl would just let me use Flock instead of IE I wouldn’t need to use IE in the first place.

My point, if I have one, is that Kedrosky has a post up with data about the average age of tech entrepreneurs. Contrary to what your hacker Ruby friends would lead you to believe, the average age is a monumental 39 years old.

Good news for me, I suppose. I have three more years to dink around and procrastinate!

Check out this list from Bernard Lunn over at Read/Write Web describing 13 seed-funding options for entrepreneurs. It’s very useful, and Lunn has a great writing style.

Excerpt:

Self-fund on credit cards and a second mortgage. You are brave, maybe brilliant, and maybe stupid. Just don’t expect any VC to give you more than words to recognize your courage. And also remember: it will take more capital than you think. Self-funding is not bootstrapping, it is just using your money and not somebody else’s money.

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately learning about, and participating in, the local startup community in Seattle and am going to step back, take a 30,000 foot view, and spend some time telling you why I like you.

Is it your money? A lot of you have obviously made some mind-boggling fortunes. You have accounts at Charles Schwab that cause their own gravitational pull. But no, it’s not the money. Plenty of you work for a salary, have never started a company, and your 401(k) has barely begun to see five figures.

Is it your success? There’s a lot of you that have started, ran, and sold multiple successful businesses, or are running one now. You’ve been the Head Cheese at industry-changing outfits, and are a “go-to person” in your field. But no, it’s not the success. Plenty of you are still climbing the ladder, have faced setbacks, or are just starting out.

Is it your notoriety? Some of you or are on lists of Top Bloggers, or the Seattle Startup Index, or have 6,000 Twitter followers, or whatever. But no, it’s not your notoriety. Plenty of you have never been on any of those lists, and can count your Twitter followers on two hands.

Is it your smarts? Some of you are technical geniuses, or business geniuses, or both. You’re the type who program neural networks in your spare time, or can do NPV calculations five years out in your head, or can juggle 100 pressing details about your product and barely break a mental sweat. You may have had an important theory named after you. But no, it’s not your smarts. Plenty of you are average Janes and Joes, like me.

You know what it is? It’s your optimism. Every outing — no matter what — I come away absolutely enthused, refreshed, with a happy outlook on life, career, and the world. Everything is possible. Nothing is out of the question, nothing too difficult, too permanent, or too unknowable. You, individually and as a group, have a belief in yourselves that is on the far right side of the bell curve. That is gold right there. Optimism is better than money, success, fame, or anything else, because it makes the world the best of all possible worlds (h/t Voltaire).

So that’s why I like you!

Marcelo Calbucci of Seattle 2.0 released a list yesterday of the most influential bloggers in the Seattle entrepreneurial scene.  There’s been lots of backslapping and good-natured hand-to-chest “what, me? REALLY?” posting since then, and I strongly recommend anyone interested in Seattle startups to add the people on this list to their RSS reader.  I’ve already seen some outstanding information.

Are there not any influential female bloggers in Seattle?  I can’t think of any offhand, but then again I’m not plugged in like the people on this list are.  Someone must have some nominations.

Thanks for the list Marcelo!