Why this site, and not a startup of my own?
Because I am a comedy writer, not an entrepreneur.
The business plan that is the basis of this site took shape because I want to develop a sitcom that showcases the best ways to leverage the Internet to increase educational and economic opportunity, and it turns out that producing this sitcom is inseparable from launching the markets-maker described in the plan, not least because:
- Launching a markets-maker costs money.
- Raising money from investors is easier if the marketing plan is good.
- A sitcom is an ideal centerpiece of a marketing plan (e.g., a plan for operating marketing as a profit center).
To the entrepreneurs that this site is designed to encourage: when you are looking to staff your writers’ rooms, I’m around… 
More about my education and work experience (from a previous version of the business plan, written before I conceded that I cannot be a comedy writer and an entrepreneur):
Upon entering Colgate University in 1984, my consuming aspiration was to become a humor essayist in the James Thurber mold. Toward this end, I settled on a three-step plan for developing a comic persona:
- Identify the value I want to serve most.
- Serve that value.
- Mine the experience for comedy.
The plan also features two corollaries:
- The more pro-social the animating value, the more likeable my comic persona will be.
- The more effective I am in the service of this value, the more likeable my persona will be.
Once enrolled at Colgate, I became increasingly aware that many people do not enjoy the opportunity to realize their full potential. Toward improving on this, I concentrated in political science and economics. What I learned prepared me to recognize the Internet’s potential to expand educational and economic opportunity, which I did in 1992. Since then I have immersed myself in the research and design work that has given rise to this business plan. Along the way, I completed coursework at Stony Brook University commensurate with a B.S. in computer science; co-founded a medical software company, Medicine Rules, specializing in diagnosis support (for which the company received an Innovation Award from the National Institutes of Health); and served as the Director of Digital Services at Metropolitan Telecommunications, a telephone company and ISP based in New York City.
Needless to say, the male lead of the sitcom described in the plan is based on my comic persona.
