videos Archive

At last night’s awesome (thanks Charlie!) nextNY meetup, I had the chance to meet Elena Bajic. Elena is the founder and CEO of Ivy Exec, self-described as “the most elite network of professionals”. Ivy Exec is a job board for people who have advanced degrees from the top universities (so I guess my Georgia State MBA is out). Each user is screened to make sure they fit the criteria of the service.

Ivy Exec notes regarding their membership: 95% have a graduate degree, 86% hold an MBA, 47% are diverse and 41% are women. About 4,300 jobs are currently posted on the service and Elena told me that they have partnerships with some of the top schools in the U.S.

Like popular NY-based job board TheLadders, IvyExec charges users a fee which they note is a subscription charge. Elena noted that without paying you are blocked from applying to all jobs and can only apply to a select few. Full membership ranges from $22 to $42 a month.

Inc Magazine has a good overview of Ivy Exec including feedback about the service from a variety of venture capitalists. Some stats about Ivy Exec:

• started in 2006
• estimated 2009 revenue: $315,000
• net profit margin: 25%
• 10 total team members including 5 contractors

There is a lot of startup activity in the career space. Each week I receive a handful of press releases about new startups trying to make the job application process easier for both the posting companies and the applicants.
Continue reading “Ivy Exec Provides a Job Board for “Elite Professionals”” »

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.
Continue reading “Producteev Offers Social Group Task Management” »

Microsoft briefly posted an Office 2010 technical preview site but quickly removed it as it appeared to be posted early in error. There’s still a Google cache of the site which you can review.

Here’s the overview of the Office 2010 Web Applications version:

Office Web Applications, the online companion to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications, allow you to access documents from anywhere. You can even simultaneously share and work on documents with others online. View documents across PCs, mobile phones, and the Web without compromising document fidelity. Create new documents and do basic editing using the familiar Office interface. By offering more ways to access files from almost anywhere, Office Web Applications enable you to get things done according to your schedule.

The Microsoft employee in the video, Monica Mendoza, is very lucky it seems – first she was able to go work in Europe then take a trip to Las Vegas. If the video doesn’t work below – click here to view it.

After talking to a few of my friends who use Google Docs heavily, they say the demo video and images make Office 2010 look much more powerful. We’ve covered online office provider Zoho many times on CN – it will be interesting to get their take on the Office 2010 release.

I can only guess this is what Robert Scoble was very excited about on Friendfeed last week but said he was embargoed until today.

CovetedList is a NY-based startup that provides a fashion-specific search platform. Basically what CovetedList does is provide a way to find outfits that match you and your specific needs. They start with asking what should you were and allow you to refine with attributes based on you. Their initial target is 18-35 year old women. They have partnered with a variety of retailers including Macy’s.

Their tagline is “iTunes for your closet” and they are working on social shopping similar to how friends go shopping together.
Continue reading “CovetedList Offers a Fashion Search Platform (video)” »

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.
Continue reading “Hapnin Offers Hyper Local Real Time Things to Do Platform (video)” »

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

Continue reading “Q&A With Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures (video)” »

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!