Regular readers to this site are few and far in between – the lack of updates certainly would’ve been a buzzkill. But that is because I’ve spent the past one month blogging at another website – StartupDispatch.com
The idea is the same: startups, founders, cool stuff, resources, but only with a better domain name, and (I hope) a better design.
Head over to StartupDispatch.com pronto, subscribe to the RSS feed, plug into my Twitter feed and let me know if the blog is any good at all.
Yes, I realize this blog has borne a barren look the past few days. Pardon the interruption, but blame not me but exams.
Studying for semester-end graduate school exams and nursing a startup addiction isn’t exactly the best recipe to top the grade curve. Hence, the sabbatical.
I will, in the unlikely event that I can get the time to excuse myself from a daily slog through dense literary studies on the conceptualization of the speaker in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, post a few updates here. My backlog of articles runs deep. It keeps shaming me into firing up Windows Live Writer before I panic and (wisely) head back to studies. Literary theory doesn’t make for pretty reading, but it is what I do, what I love (besides tech startups, just to clear the air). But be sure, that come December 9th, when I get done with the exams, this blog machinery will be in full swing.
I’ve been collecting data on funding rounds throughout November and will post a detailed report soon. Also in the works are profiles on dozens of new startups, including a few interviews (yes, I persuaded someone to do that), and a gradual enlargement of the site’s focus towards news and resources for entrepreneurs.
I lead no hallucinatory existence though; this is a small, young blog, and I hold no ambitions of it stepping into the worn out shoes of tech-press luminaries like TechCrunch or Mashable. But if I can make this blog a worthwhile stopover – daily, weekly, even monthly – I would consider it a job well done and grant myself a generous pat on the back.
TL;DR - I have exams. So no new posts. Sorry.
With a domain like that, you can forgive the domain-geek in me for gushing over Do.com, a new social productivity app, which launched in private beta today. I first stumbled across the site a few weeks back when it was still in early alpha stage. My first thoughts then, as they are even today, were: that is one heck of a domain name!
So when I finally got my invite for the app’s beta launch, I couldn’t wait to camp out and test the service out. Someone paid a hefty, multi-million dollar fee for this domain name; it would only be appropriate that they utilize it properly.
- Remember the old line about plastic Monopoly money? Prepare to can any quip about ‘plastic money’ forever, bury it in the backyard and slide a huge rock on top because if the new Canadian C$100 bill is any indication, we could all soon be stuffing our wallets with polymer and not paper notes.
What do you do when you have hundreds of beta hungry bloggers and early adopters banging on your virtual walls with sledgehammers of tweets and emails for access to your not-quite-ready product?
Why, you challenge them to a game and hand over beta invites to the top ten players everyday. Along the way, you bag cool points, garner some press attention (we are suckers for stuff like this) and pique the curiosity of early adopters worldwide.
This is exactly what RAVN, a new startup that lets people find, schedule and book ‘activities’ online, has done with its game, RAVN hunt.
When I was younger, my father once brought home a few chunks of wood, some plywood, and a box of nails. He borrowed power tools from our neighbor and a saw from a friend. Over the next two weeks, he would gather us – me and my brother – in the garage after coming back from work and work until late midnight finishing off a cabinet. Being young, I was excluded from any physical duty save tidying up the garage floor or fetching some tools, but I watched with fascination as my father fashioned chunks of wood into a beautiful cabinet that stood a little taller than me. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but my father took immense pride in his creation and showed it to any and everybody who cared to step inside our house.
There are millions of people like my father: hands on with tools with a remarkable talent for craftsmanship. CustomMade, a startup based out of Cambridge, MA, is essentially a platform for such people, connecting them with buyers globally. I can imagine that a startup like this would appeal immensely to my father: it would allow him to no just show-off his creations to the entire world, but also, perhaps, make a neat little profit out of it.
Over a week and no linklist. Not that many would demand it, but an apology nonetheless. Sometimes, life can come in the way of linklists. Hopefully, that won’t happen too often (at least for a couple of weeks).
That set, lets get roaring into today’s awesome reads:
- OnStartups, one of my favorite websites on, well, startups, marked its 6 year anniversary with a recap of some of the best posts on the site over the past six years. Bookmark it. Read the posts over the weekend. Take notes. And then thank yourself for not wasting money on business school.
Signs that the startup culture has truly permeated the mainstream: Selena Gomez, familiar to you as Ms. Bieber and Disney star, is now a tech investor. The what, the where, the how and the why follow:
Selena Gomez joined the likes of CrossCut Ventures, Mike Jones, Kamran Pourzanjani, Brian Fitzgerald, among others in a $750k funding round for Postcard On the Run.
The history of the human race can be traced in the history of its wars.
Perhaps that doesn’t speak too highly of us as a species, but fact remains: we’ve waged wars longer than recorded history, with stones and clubs at first, arrows and swords later. Wars have shaped the contours of civilizations ancient and present, have given birth to countless inventions and innovations, and have even been the catalysts for great works of art. Would there ever be an Iliad without war? Would Hemingway have ever written For Whom the Bell Tolls in peace? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But consider that this medium – the internet – itself is a by-product of military research, and you can begin to grasp the primacy of wars in the development of human civilization.
Scour Groupon or Living Social, and you are bound to get inundated by a flood of daily dining deals. Group buying for food makes sense: there are plenty of opportunities to upsell more expensive items on the menu. Besides, word about good food can spread really quickly, enabling a business to gather a new customer base without much marketing expenditure.
But with hundreds of daily deals on the menu, how do you close in on one that will appeal to your taste buds (and your wallet)?
That’s where BiteHunter steps in.
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