Video Archive

The founders of new NYC-based Hapnin (pronounced happenin) describe the service as a, “hyper local, real time, things to do platform.” The goal is to help you figure out what to do right now. The service is currently only available in NYC although there are plans to expand. Basically the service is an aggregator of things to do from local papers and a variety of other sources.

The Hapnin team is working with a variety of newspapers and bloggers to place widgets on their sites which will drive traffic to Hapnin and to the content sources. Users can contribute events into the Hapnin system as well.
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Tonight at the Entrepreneur’s Roundtable, Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson provided feedback for a variety of startups who pitched their ideas. I will post the pitches over the next couple of days. At the beginning of the event, Fred opened up the conversation for a Q&A and I’ve posted the video below.

When asked what Fred looks for in a deal he noted:

• they look for companies that are changing the game in a big way
• companies that are shaking something up
• companies that work better than the companies in the sector
• some of the areas they are looking for deals in education, finance, energy, environment and government

Other topics in the video:

• dealsize USV looks for
• discusses his blog
• why Boxee is doing great things
• potential venture regulation
• general vc market commentary

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This morning as I left my hotel, I saw a line of people outside — but I thought to myself, “if they are going to the Apple WWDC keynote, they are going the wrong way!” It turns out the line was so long to get in, that the line wrapped completely around the block. Here’s a photo of where I picked up the line and where it wrapped around the block:

From my basic algebra class, it seemed like there were several thousand people on the WWDC keynote line. And this assumes that most people were already inside! Here’s a video to give you home gamers an idea of just how long the line was.

I didn’t see one startup out there handing out stuff to the line – this was a great opportunity with a captive audience!

This morning I met with Seattle-based TeachStreet and company CEO Dave Schappell and CTO Daryn Nakhuda. The service is described as, “a dynamic online community that brings motivated learners and talented teachers together.” I compared it to ZocDoc but for teachers instead of doctors. The easiest way to describe TeachStreet is that it’s a marketplace for teachers and students to come together for learning.

Currently TeachStreet has several U.S. cities setup including Seattle, San Francisco, New York and a few other cities. There are a wide variety of learning types on TeachStreet including music, language and shockingly there are teachers listed for Twitter.

TeachStreet uses a team in the Philippines who travel the Web looking for teachers of various subjects. TeachStreet then creates profiles in the TeachStreet system and contacts the teachers to take over the profile. It’s a pretty interesting tactic to get more profile pages. Dave did note that they prune profiles if they can’t get in contact with the teachers.

In the video below, Dave and Daryn discuss what TeachStreet is, how it works and how they plan to generate revenue. We also discuss the Seattle startup scene.

Last night at the Web2NewYork meetup in NYC, Jobs By Blogs founder John Wagner presented his new service. Jobs for Blogs offers a place where you can create a blog and portfolio that is career-related. It’s a way to show off your skills and talent. The main site is an aggregator of sorts which combines the best posts from across the Jobs By Blogs network. John says that the service is a place for people to promote themselves.

The network runs on Wordpress MU and offers job seekers a place to blog. They also offer ways to upload media to create a mini-portfolio. The company plans to generate revenue by selling listings and connecting companies with applicants.

Here’s John’s video demo:

Tonight at the Web2NewYork meetup, Gliider presented their new NY-based travel resource . Gliider’s tagline is, “plan funner trips”. Gliider allows you to save out bits of content from across the Web for locations and destinations you are interested in. It looks like it’s a Firefox plugin which allows you to highlight content and drag it to a Gliider folder.

The company plans to make money by mining the saved data and presenting you with related deals in the destinations you are considering. The example was if you save a variety of 4 star hotels in Munich, Gliider will offer up deals for 4 star hotels in Munich and if you book one through Gliider, they share in the revenue from the sale.

Here’s the demo video from the meetup:

We’ve written previously about companies and their internal policies and practices. Today I found a video from NY-based Ignighter where the two founders provide some details about how the company works from the inside. What will you learn from watching this short video? Hotness counts, Thursdays are work days, beer is good, massages are provided 3x a week, surfing Facebook for pokes is fine and multi-hour lunch breaks are fine. Also they spend three days a week just looking to hire people off the street in Union Square. Sadly they don’t seem to have a $3,000 coffee machine or a $30,000 video studio like other startups have.

Here’s the video featuring Ignighter founders Daniel Osit and Adam Sachs:

Note: This was a video the team put together as a joke for a TechStars presentation. You can check out my video interview with Daniel and Adam to see the serious side of the Ignighter business.