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Boulder/Denver New Tech Meetup: Location, Location, Location

May 9, 2008

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The Boulder/Denver New Tech Meetup got started with a little healthy competition this month. A dozen or so youngish men pitched paper airplanes and Patrick Cameron won by a slim margin (against anonymous). If they have a cupcake eating competition next month, I will dominate.

If you’re currently looking for a new job, you might consider a move to Boulder if you’re not here already. Iggli, Public Earth, Slice of Lime, Raspberry Marketing and TrackVia were just a few companies that announced Tuesday night that they’re hiring. Check the jobs board if you’re looking.

Test Common was first to the podium promising the least sexy demo of the night. It may not have been terribly sexy, but it was promising. It’s essentially on demand quality assurance services - a “global community for testers”. Need your software or website tested on demand? Test Common might be a solution for you. When someone from the audience shouted out that they are a dating service the presenters reluctantly concurred, adding, “”we’re match.com—we’re not responsible for what goes on during the date.” Cool idea…if you need some testing done for a short period of time (say two weeks or less) while you’re still in the early stages of a startup, for instance.

Next to the podium was Trackvia, an online database. They’re also hiring, and they are announcing funding soon, too…bonus. TrackVia delivered a powerful presentation that had the audience riveted. The presenter Matt McAdams said, “”anything i want to do with my data… Trackvia is a better way to do it.” He then demonstrated the product by showing how easy it is to search, update records and track changes using the software. Really intriguing. The pricing structure seems competitive, too. At this rate, I think Trackvia will have a strong and growing following very soon. Even TechStars used Trackvia to manage its application process this year.

Yallery.com is the first Social Art Management product and was recently soft-launched. Yallery’s driving purpose is to extend the real-world relationships people form through actual art creation and possession. Yallery’s freemium membership enables artists and collectors to share all of the artworks they have created or possess. Paid subscription memberships are available for artists and collectors who wish to access an additional level of site functionality, or for galleries that host their inventories through the site. I like the look and feel of Yallery. Like many of these companies, Yallery is hiring.

As we’ve been talking about recently, there’s a fair bit of buzz around Brightkite, a location-based social networking site. The founders led us through a demo of the site. It’s live and open to a group of enthusiastic beta testers which are talking a lot about it this week on Twitter. Brightkite allows you to see where people are in your vicinity, to post photos of your current location and to connect with people you know online in real life. The biggest question was about security issues and Brady and Martin demonstrated the privacy policies on the site, which they believe are robust. I’m a daily user of Brightkite (and a bit obsessive about privacy) and so far I have found that it is both feature-rich and safe. David discussed the security features in more detail recently.

A big thank you to Robert Reich of Me.dium for organizing this meetup. He presented on Me.dium’s new search technology which is still in pre-alpha (Colorado Startups covered Me.dium in 2006). The idea has a lot of potential–it essentially conducts searches that are based on “freshness” of a topic rather than the usual criteria. It looks like they’ll be able to use their current product, which monitors what sites its users are visiting (and which links they’re clicking,) to develop the search function. Robert emphasized that the product is still in its very early stages, but the potential is great for this new philosophy on search.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Social music network Iggli nearing private beta

December 16, 2007

igglilogo.pngBefore taking off for some world traveling earlier this month (hence the light posting frequency), I had a quick chat with Tom Higley of the stealthy Boulder startup called Iggli.com. Iggli has been busily building their “social music network” for about a year, and now has ten employees. Originally the company started as Vault Alliance, but changed both the name and the focus fairly early on.

Tom is the only founder of the company, which has been backed thus far by a handful of well known angel investors. Tom previously founded companies such as StillSecure, Service Metrics, NETDelivery and FortNet.

So what is a “social music network”, exactly? Only time will tell - Iggli plans to open to the public in mid-2008, with a limited private beta starting around February. The main thing I wanted to get out of Tom was how Iggli would be differentiated from the masses of other music oriented social networks.

Tom explained that Iggli will go far beyond simply mashing up a social network with content. He insists that it’s a social music network, rather than a music social network. The implication is that iggli will be first and foremost about the music, with social features to support and extend the experience of the music. I also learned that Iggli has forged some strong relationships in the music industry. For example, Iggli plans to include the ability for members to listen to full tracks and to form community around music and artists in ways which the artists themselves will appreciate and support.

Of course, attracting users is always the hard part. While iggli does intend to be a destination site, it will also be distributed through other services such as Facebook and mobile services which can in theory help build a substantial early base of users.

Tom says Iggli will be free to end users and will initially target 18-24 year olds directly. However, a site like this will of course bleed over to music lovers of all ages if successful. That’s a good thing, since Tom has graciously invited me to play with the private beta in a few months time and I’m “just over” that high water mark.

If you’d like the chance to play with the private beta too, you can request it here. Meanwhile, check out the Iggli blog squad which consists of about 20 bloggers in Colorado, LA, and San Francisco talking about all things music and social, many of which are quite interesting.

I’ll post my thoughts on the early beta of Iggli in a few months.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

June in Boulder

June 30, 2007

it’s been a fun June in Boulder. Not just with the first 30 days of TechStars, but in general. Last week I went to the Fuser open house (I hear there are still some closed beta invites available), but had something come up right before the Lijit open house, so I couldn’t make it over the celebrate their recent round of funding. However, I did send one of my spies who grabbed a few pictures for me.

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Tom Higley (iggli.com), Stan James (Lijit.com), Alex King (Crowd Favorite), and a few TechStars get their game on at Lijit.

Then, last night I headed over the the Six88 Rooftop Finale. These guys have thrown some pretty fun parties on Pearl street in the last couple of years. Congrats to Six88 (first covered here) who due to continued success is moving to newer, much larger offices in Boulder. But sadly, not on Pearl, and without a rooftop.

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Bill Flagg (RegOnline) and Jason Eckenroth (Six88) mug it up

Boulder is just a fun place for startup junkies. It looks like at least four of the eight out of state TechStars teams have already decided they’re not leaving, no matter what. Every day, I seem to be reading about another, another, then another move to Boulder by really interesting folks. The energy here just keeps growing.

On to July.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |