People’s Software Company

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Entries from August 2008

Tech Stars, reflections on

August 25th, 2008 · 2 Comments

So, it’s finally starting to seem real that TechStars is over.
It was an amazing summer, with so many great people to work beside and learn from. The mentors and sponsors involved with the program are impressive, and many of them spend time and effort to help us understand specific issues and/or to coach us [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Notes from the road

August 24th, 2008 · No Comments

Day 3, Davenport, IA > Erie, PA.  610 mi.
8:30 AM, elaborate gas station mini-mart, Geneseo, IL:
Me: “Do you have any creamer for the coffee that came from an actual cow?”
Clerk: “No.”
NPR.  Joe Biden’s speech. Lots of talking heads talking.
2:30 PM, rest station 40 miles east of Toledo, OH:
I see a group of Mennonite women — [...]

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Tags: EPIC!!!

Crashed out in Napa(aka roadtrip report)

August 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

So Demo Day was great, more on that in the next post. This one is about the acute homing instinct that–despite many very tempting reasons to stay longer in boulder–from great new friends to dgcohen’s post Investor Day BBQ to tubing and finally having more fun with my fellow TechStars08 people who were staying [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · being a co-founder

And so it goes, aka Gone, but not forgotten

August 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

From the igniter fellas:
” If TechStars is officially over, why are we still working in the Bunker on Saturday evening?!”
–via twitter

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Write When You Get Work

August 22nd, 2008 · 6 Comments

It’s the day after TechStars and I’m in North Platte, Nebraska, with only 1,704 miles to go to my hometown of Watertown, MA. Over the summer I suspended H2otown, the community site I run for residents of the town, which was terrible for me and the people who missed it. In retrospect, I [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · the need for speed

WhozAround: A Better Way to Plan and Schedule on the Go

August 20th, 2008 · 3 Comments

Today we’re presenting WhozAround? the application we built, at TechStars Investor Day.  WhozAround? works off your contact list, whether it’s your social network or an email list, finds out where people are, and lets you message them across a range of delivery channels, then takes the data for these personal events and puts it into [...]

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Tags: live · product · startup life · techstars

The Filly Class (I know it’s not a race)

August 20th, 2008 · No Comments

Some of the TechStars 2008 companies are amazing. All of them are interesting. Because we’re almost at the end of the TechStars program, we’ve been talking a lot about what we’ve gotten out of it, what we learned, and where we fell short or would have done things differently if there was a do-over. We’ve [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Being new

August 13th, 2008 · No Comments

I’ve been rushing all summer-rushing to build a team, rushing to get product, rushing to figure out what our core values to users was and what kind of market share we could hope for if we executed well. I spent a lot of time looking at the other TechStars companies, many of whom had been [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

WhozAround: it’s like Twitter for calendars

August 13th, 2008 · 4 Comments

WhozAround is like Twitter for your calendar — it’s a fast, simple free way to make getting together easier. You don’t have to join YASNS (Yet Another Social Network Site) to get it, because it plugs into Facebook and Twitter to make what you’ve already got more fun and useful for you.
Eventually you’ll be [...]

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Tags: live · product · techstars

Paul Graham: Funding-raising survival guide

August 10th, 2008 · No Comments

Very timely post from YCombinator’s Paul Graham on raising money for your start up. Some snippets:
“Investors evaluate startups the way customers evaluate products, not the way bosses evaluate employees. If you’re making a valiant effort and failing, maybe they’ll invest in your next startup, but not this one. But raising money from investors is [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized