Interviews Archive

This morning I met with NY-based Producteev CEO Ilan Abehassera and our video interview is below. Last week Producteev launched a variety of new features around social group task management. What makes Producteev unique is that it allows you to send tasks from nearly any social app and receive notifications via the same social app. For example, if you need to setup a task, you can send a direct message from Twitter, a chat message from Gtalk or submit the task via email. Your colleagues are notified via Producteev on the services they are using.

Another interesting feature of Producteev is the ability to collect responses to a question using any of the social services. You post your question or need on Producteev and then push it out to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and your followers/friends can click a link and leave a comment on your task or question. This feature is called “crowdsource your tasks”. The best part about this feature is that the responses are grouped together and removes the need to gather responses on each individual network.
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One of the first posts here on CN was a recap of a presentation at the Future of Web Apps conference with Kevin Rose. In that presentation (and many since), Kevin noted that the site was built with, “$2,000 to start, using a developer on elance for $10/hr.”

Found via Andrew Badera, below is an interview with Andrew Warner of Mixergy and Owen Byrne. Owen was the technical builder of the first version of Digg. In the interview, Owen speaks about what really took place as Digg was built. Andrew talks about the “celebrity” status that Kevin Rose has received for creating Digg. Some notes:

• Apparently Kevin was nervous that he might be losing his job and needed to find something else to move to
• The supposed $10/hr on Elance is not correct Owen says – it was more and he also received equity in the company
• Digg mainly came about because Kevin wanted to get to the frontpage of Slashdot and couldn’t
• Kevin had a lot of friends who blogged about Digg and the notes on the Screensavers show helped build massive inbound links
• Owen says luck and timing played a big part of the Digg success
• Interesting line from Owen regarding luck… “luck is just probability and the more times you try, the higher your probability”
• Apparently Paris Hilton losing her cell phone was a huge help with Digg growth in the early days
• Interesting discussion from Owen’s perspective about the human side of Digg’s growth

Check out the full video interview below and the associated notes on Mixergy. Andrew pushes Owen to give tips about entrepreneurship. You can just listen to this video while you are working – it’s a must listen/watch.
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This morning I met with the SVP of Marketing and Sales for The FeedRoom, Matt DeLoca at the company’s headquarters in Manhattan. The FeedRoom provides a suite of SaaS-based online video tools. The company focuses on working with large enterprise customers with a complex set of needs. The company has raised over $60 million since their launch in 1999 although Matt told me that their Series A and B rounds have been removed from the books. The company raised $12 million last summer.

Matt noted that they have worked with companies including Playboy, GM, Intel and HP.

Check out our video interview below where we discuss a variety of items including:

• what is The FeedRoom
• comparisons to BrightCove
• and overview of their new 508-compliant video player which allows people with special needs to engage with online video
• how the acquisition of ClearStory Systems has helped The FeedRoom expand to provide a more rounded set of offerings in the enterprise video space

We have covered a good number of event planning sites here on CN. Today I had a chance to catchup with the co-founder of NY-based Pingg Lorien Gabel to find out what’s going on with the event planning service.

Lorien noted that they decided to start Pingg because the space was underserved and most of the services were "bad looking or cheesy". He says that they have a strong artist community using Pingg and creating invitations for site users to utilize for their events.

I asked about the difference between Pingg and the other 8,001,141 event planning services. Lorien believes the biggest difference is their print service. Basically with Pingg you can choose to send your invites electronically or by postal mail. The postal mail invites provide a revenue stream for Pingg. The print pricing starts at $1.25/piece plus postage. The other big differentiator is that they focus on more formal events including weddings. He sees a time when weddings are using Pingg to send invites electronically instead of traditional paper invites. Another interesting stat…over 15% of the invites sent on Pingg are for business events.

Pingg raised $2.8 million in a Series A round of funding from Martha Stewart in late 2008. The biggest player in the event market is eVite, which even though it isn’t as sexy or as strong in services as Pingg (and a few others), still does 16 million invitations each month. I asked Lorien about how he plans to grow the service and he said they are working some deals to get more distribution via Martha’s networks.

This morning I met with Daniel Osit and Adam Sachs, founders of NY-based Ignighter. Ignighter is a group dating service we covered when they first launched back in December of 2007.

Check out our interview below where we discuss a variety of topics including: what is Ignighter, what type of people use the service, how does group dating work and any success stories. Apparently some people have reported "getting lucky" after going on a group date. Lastly we discuss what the Ignighter team learned by being part of the TechStars program.

Earlier this week I sat down with Girl Ambition co-founder Hilary DeCesare. The service is launching to the public today and I was able to capture our interview on video below. Hilary describes the service as, "Girl Ambition includes an inspirational online show, games, contests and other activities that promote self-esteem and teach on-line safety". The real goal is to help tween girls (ages 9-13) feel better about themselves.

The site also offers video hosting and chat/IM. In our discussion, we talk about what makes Girl Ambition different than Club Penguin, what about boys?, how the email service works and online safety. The site also offers information for parents. I wonder if they should explore creating a desktop/Adobe Air application that could make sure the child can’t get out to the full Internet and only live within the Girl Ambition service.

Hilary also noted that MySpace deletes 25,000 profiles a day due to underage use.

Girl Ambition is launching with a multi-faceted business model. Account access is $4.95/month and they also are partnering with a variety of companies on content and sponsorships. I think there’s also a great opportunity for brands to leverage the community for focus groups and product learnings. The company is looking to raise a round of funding currently.

We covered the launch of another niche community last summer named SavvyAuntie. Both SavvyAuntie and Girl Ambition have business models and communities that are supportive and encourage heavy usage. Perhaps Hilary and SavvyAuntie founder Melanie Notkin should partner as there could be some good crossover traffic.

apologies for the sound, the cafe was quiet before we started then the staff decided to prepare for lunch!

This morning I met with TechStars Co-Founder David Cohen in Manhattan. David is in town for some meetings and also for a welcome session this evening for startups interested in TechStars. TechStars offers seed capital and mentorship for startups.

In the video interview below, we discuss a variety of topics including:

• What is TechStars?
• Can NYC companies apply?
• What’s the Boulder, Colorado tech scene like?
• Comparing TechStars to YCombinator
• Single person vs. team founders
• David’s views on business plans and revenue models
• and a variety of other topics…