Friday, October 30, 2009

Eric Ries Talk @ MIT November 19th

We are all set for a great event coming on the 19th. Thanks to our sponsors, we are pleased to be able to present this talk free to all attendees.  By underwriting this event, these sponsors have demonstrated their commitment to the web startup community in the Boston/Cambridge area. Without their help this event would not be possible.









We have some good news. The people that signed up on the overflow list, now have a reserved seat at the event. All ticket holders will receive a confirmation email prior to the event.

Also, there are 12 slots remaining.  If you aren't able to reserve one of the remaining seats, stay tuned. There will be various promotions giving away some tickets by local tech blogs, web groups around town and on twitter.

Sign UP Here

Monday, October 26, 2009

You don't need a CTO, you need a lead developer

A quick review of the startup market here reveals a good number of nascent web startups seeking a technical founder CTO.

Socialtality

Revenue Architects

Kill Your Cube

Dating Site Startup

Recently a first time founder of a Boston startup came to us seeking a CTO for their web app. There was no great technical problem to solve, no dream team and no technical IP to create a barrier to entry. In short, nothing that would interest an experienced CTO. It was certainly a great opportunity for the right person, but that right person was a veteran developer with a track record of shipping reliable code.  Mostly the issues were scalability, time to launch and usability.

Rather than waste effort convincing the type "A" founder that they didn't want a CTO, we focused on showing them lead developers that had shipped significant products and lead teams. Other sources provided many interviews with CTOs and experienced VPs of engineering, at a considerable waste of precious time, but none could be attracted to the deal. Eventually the start-up ended up hiring three good developers and had a very successful product launch.

If you are a non-technical founder with a Web App idea, just get something built. It is all about the Minimum Viable Product. Get something in user's hands, gather feedback and iterate until you have something they love and will pay for.

Build some traction and revenue, traction is good, revenue is king. If you take off, chances are you are probably going to throw out all your original code anyway. Once you have traction and revenue,  you will be more attractive to the CTO you thought you wanted when you started out.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Serendeputy

Genotropegrzrlogo Record:  Serendeputy

Funding Status: Bootstrapped

Founders Backgrounds: Boston.com, Abuzz

Investors: founders

Industry: Consumer web, New

Offering Description: Serendeputy is your personal news assistant, a little robot who learns what you like and pulls together a page of news articles tailored to your specific interests.


CheapToday



Genotropegrzrlogo Record:  CheapToday

Funding Status:  private

Founders Backgrounds:  Myperfectgig, Cheap Flights

Investors: Private

Industry: Consumer Web, ecommerce

Offering Description:  CheapToday is a buyer’s guide and commentary site. Our deal experts hand-pick only the hottest daily deals on the internet and display them on CheapToday. CheapToday uses the most powerful computers and the biggest brains, fueled by gallons of coffee—all to bring you the best of the net at the lowest prices available.


Friday, October 16, 2009

thredUP



Genotropegrzrlogo Record: thredUP

currently hiring

Funding Status:  Seed

Founders Backgrounds: Microsoft, Foley Hoag,

Investors: ?

Industry: Consumer Web

Offering Description: We did some real thinking and figured out this whole idea of more efficient exchange makes a lot of sense for two reasons. First, most people bore easily, clothes included; second, buying stylish new clothes on a regular basis is expensive. So we thought it would be cool if you could exchange the clothes that you were bored of (old to you) for new ones (new to you). Thats really it: out with old to you, in with new more...to you. Then we got all fancy with being a personal shopper and a refresh button and starting a closet revolution. No matter what we call it, its the same great experience.