Blog: Richard Hackathorn

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Wednesday, 8 August 2007

Entrepreneur Crazies

Last month I blogged on the New Tech Meetup and remarked that I went through this cycle for each company pitched -- thinking what a dumb idea and then thinking what a great idea by the end.

Last night we had another six companies pitching their dumb ideas about Web 2.0 ventures. Except this time, my opinion stayed in the dumb mode. Interesting ideas, but there is no way I would invest my time and funds in any of them.

The only one that made any sense (cents?) was EventVue, which provides social networking for conferences and trade shows. There is a BIG need here! However, I was not convinced that this company would fulfill that need.

What is wrong? The Web 2.0 arena has become a mashup of cute (and fragile) technologies that defy comprehension by normal people. I feel that this arena of potentially societal-saving solutions is becoming isolated as an island for a few extreme and dedicated geeks. Yes, there are millions of downloads, but it is probably only one laptop doing that. Take that, and twitter it on delicious!

This is too important to let entrepreneur crazies hijack Web 2.0. So, persons of reason come to the aid of future technology and create ventures of substance!

Posted by Richard Hackathorn at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Entrepreneur Spirit is Alive and Well in Boulder

Last night the New Tech Meetup was a kick! Web 2.0 was spelled a dozen different ways as creative business ventures were pitched. The agenda is simple. Five startups get 5 minutes to present and 5 minutes of discussion. Each time I found myself going through the same cycle – thinking what a dumb idea and then thinking what a great idea by the end.

First up was StartupWeekend.com – a dumb (not!) idea of forming a company, crafting a business plan, and producing a product – all in a marathon weekend from Friday evening to Sunday midnight – all with a bunch of bright but naive folks. They are naïve because they don’t realize that it takes months of hard effort to get a new company off the ground. Right? Or maybe not!

About seventy geeks showed up, formed into task groups, and went to work. In the end, the company had 56 cofounders, and a working version of their website VoSnap.com. It is a social networking site to assist people in making decisions, both big and small ones, tapping the wisdom of a small crowd. If their social decision-making insights prove useful, pieces may appear in MySpace and other large social networking communities.

Second startup was FeedIt.com – a dumb (not!) idea of paying for your latte via cell phone. Isn’t paying with your Visa card just as easy? Not when you factor in the detailed information that the merchant collects about its customers, enabling the generation of highly personalized offers.

Third startup was Villij.com – a dumb (not!) idea of sharing your travel experiences. The secret sauce is in the tagging so that others can easily relate to your travel interests.

The final startup was Printfection.com – a dumb (not!) idea of printing clothing on-demand. The secret sauce is the quality of ink-jet printing on fabric at a low cost without much manual intervention. They have a $2 special. Try it!

Oh, almost forgot! Don Dodge, director of Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team, talked about his background (amazing!) and new responsibilities as ombudsman for innovative startups. It seems that Microsoft is sincerely assisting new ventures with objective advice and cutting-edge technology? What a dumb (not!) idea for Microsoft.

My compliments go to Robert Reich to taming this herd of geeky cats into a pleasant and informative event. It has become a unique asset for the Boulder/Denver entrepreneur community.

Posted by Richard Hackathorn at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)