Striking Writers Going into Online Video: Start Small

John Battelle has some great advice for striking Hollywood writers hoping to put up an online video startup.

Guys, it’s a great idea. But don’t make the same stupid mistakes your bosses made and claim you need $30 million to do it. Did it cost $30mm for Ninja, RocketBoom, WebbAlert or Diggnation to make serious money? Nope, it did not. Don’t take VC money and fail. Do it smart, lean and right on the web. In short, don’t do it in a packaged goods way. Do it conversational.

I know the VCs are on the make in the face of the strike, but you can’t bring high-barrier offline video thinking into low-barrier online video.