My Experience at the TechCrunch Meetup in Seattle

Yesterday, I attended the TechCrunch Meetup in Seattle which took place at the Showbox across from the historic Pike Place Market. The event was an opportunity for attendees to network, meet and greet with startups, with the main focus being the startup pitch-off. Unfortunately, the speakers were not quite loud enough for me to hear all of the startup pitches, so I missed a handful of the pitches before I moved close enough to the stage to hear the proceedings. Here are some of my thoughts on the startups that I recall.

Red Ride: This company is trying to become the 'Kayak of ride-sharing' by aggregating the various ridesharing options (e.g. Uber, Lyft) available so that users can make a decision on the fastest and/or cheapest rideshare vehicle at a particular moment. This seems like something that fans of ridesharing would find very useful.

HearIt: This company lets users create a 'playlist' of text content (e.g. blogs, docs, web pages) that can then be listened to via text-to-speech (similar, in some respects, to Audible). It's limited to Android at the moment, but this seems like an interesting app to watch since the Googles, Apples, and Yahoos of the world are moving into this space.

Hypejar: This startup focuses on creating a community around products that have not yet entered the market. Honestly, this seems like it isn't very different from an interest site like Pinterest.

Braintree: This is essentially a competitor to payments processing platforms like Stripe and Square. As far as I can tell, nothing really differentiates it from the other competitors.

Pigeonews: As far as I can tell, this is not yet a company so much as it is a Kickstarter project (which has not yet reached its funding goal as of this writing). If you liked Google Reader, Google Currents, and/or Google Alerts then this may be a service for you.

Apptentive: This is in some respects similar to Crittercism or HockeyApp, but rather than focusing on app crashes and analytics, this company is focusing on being able to have conversations with customers so that they don't leave a poor review of your app on the App Store. As a developer, I understand the desire to have more communication with customers than what Google and Apple provide (i.e. slim to none), but I fear that this could very quickly devolve into spammier apps.

Coach Cheetah: If you've ever participated in a recreational sports league, then you know it can be a hassle to assemble a team and keep it participating during the season. This company provides a platform to simplify and manage this process.

Poshlight: This company has an app that lets users create 'levitation' photos using their phone. Users take two photos of the same subject, one photo with the object at the appropriate placement, and one photo of just the background. The 'levitation' magic trick pretty much boils down to letting users 'erase' the parts of the photo they don't want so that the underlying background photo peeks through. It's like Photoshop masking in an app container.

Lootcheck: I wasn't entirely clear how this service would work. It sounds like users would use their phone to take photos of everything in their house (i.e. inventory), and then their system would tell users how much value they have. It was presented as a way to make insurance valuations easier, as well as a way to figure out a source of money should the need arise to sell items. However, it seems as though this would be information that is most interesting to burglars. No need to take chances on what you will find when breaking into somebody's home, because if you can hack into this data source then you pretty much know what everyone has in their house.

Skyjuke: The idea behind this app is that it allows you to share your music by streaming to your friends connected to the same Wi-Fi network. There are other services out there like this, but I'm not sure that I've seen one with this particular 'locality' twist.

DailyDollar: This company lets you register your credit card so that users can have a digital copy of their receipts without requiring any sort of scanning process. As far as I can tell, this is the sort of 'service' that really should just be a feature of a larger product such as Mint.

In summary, this was an interesting event with quite a variety of attendees and startups. I hope to continue to attend this event in the future.

What If Creating a Startup Was Like a Videogame?

The folks at GeekWire have produced a nifty animation that shows us what it would be like if creating a startup was a videogame. The graphics and sound are deliciously retro, and the story has tons of industry in-jokes. I almost spit on my screen when I saw the 'pivot' sequence.

Bonus: The story takes place in Seattle. Pay attention to the Space Needle for something amusing.

Employees at buuteeq Have an Awesome Travel Perk

Mitch Pittman, over at KING 5 News:

Lots of jobs have benefits: health care, paid vacation, maybe a 401k. But how about yearly all-expense-paid vacations to anywhere in the world? Perks like that are generally reserved for the world of tech start-ups, such as buuteeq, which offers that annual vacation benefit they call “Trotamundo.” The only catch, if you can even call it that, is you have to visit with three hoteliers you stay with along the way and then tell your coworkers about your experience.

Folks, that is one great perk. Presumably, the requirement to visit hoteliers means that buuteeq can qualify some portion of the employee's vacation as a business expense (and a tax write-off). That's a good example of a win-win scenario.

By the way (in the interests of full disclosure), I happen to be friends with Lisa Tran, one of the buuteeq employees featured in the video.

'Engineering Serendipity'

Greg Lindsay, writing for The New York Times:

Silicon Valley is obsessed with serendipity, the reigning buzzword at last month’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival. The term, coined by the British aristocrat Horace Walpole in a 1754 letter, long referred to a fortunate accidental discovery. Today serendipity is regarded as close kin to creativity — the mysterious means by which new ideas enter the world. But are hallway collisions really the best way to stoke innovation?

It's tough to create an environment where creative professionals (such as developers) are highly productive. You have to hire the right team, you have to work on interesting things, and you have to figure out your workplace situation. The article covers a topic that has become de rigueur these days. It isn't enough to simply do the aforementioned steps; a company must cultivate an environment where developers meet each other in informal settings and 'talk shop', thereby generating fresh new ideas.

Google Works on Cool Stuff, Yahoo Doesn't

James B. Stewart, in a post for The New York Times:

As to the broader relationship between the workplace and creativity, “there’s some evidence that great physical space enhances creativity,” she said. “The theory is that open spaces that are fun, where people want to be, facilitate idea exchange. I’ve watched people interact at Google and you see a cross-fertilization of ideas.”

There should be little doubt that Google's perks (described in the article) make its offices more inviting to work at than the typical cube farm. However, let's not get carried away here. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer can add all the perks she wants and can make employees work at an office, but those don't really get to the crux of the problem that Yahoo faces in trying to remain relevant. Google employees don't enjoy going to the office because of the perks, they enjoy going to the office because Google works on cool stuff. Yahoo, unfortunately, doesn't work on cool things anymore. That's why employees can't wait to leave when 5:00 PM rolls around.

Marissa Mayer Personally Reviews Every New Hire at Yahoo

Alexei Oreskovic, in a post for Reuters:

Mayer insists on personally reviewing every new recruit, a practice that supporters say brings needed discipline to the company. Critics, however, say her high standards are hampering Yahoo's already challenged ability to fill vacancies.

Marissa Mayer is in a tough spot. On the one hand, she knows that Yahoo must fill its job vacancies quickly enough to avoid a massive loss in productivity. On the other hand, she knows that simply filling a vacancy just to fill a vacancy would be counterproductive. It's good that she is adding some discipline to the hiring process in order to avoid making bad hires, but at the same time Yahoo isn't going to get very far in hiring good people if the process takes "eight weeks" (as it did for one individual mentioned in the post).

Interestingly enough, Mayer is apparently considering bringing some of Yahoo's jobs back to the USA from India (also noted in the post). That would go a long way towards helping to foster a more closely knit corporate culture. It would also be consistent with some of her previous decisions.

Google Glass Pre-Banned at Seattle Establishment

Todd Bishop, writing for GeekWire:

“I’m a thought leader,” jokes Dave Meinert, owner of the 5 Point, speaking on the Luke Burbank Show at our news partner KIRO-FM this morning. “First you have to understand the culture of the 5 Point, which is a sometimes seedy, maybe notorious place. People want to go there and be not known … and definitely don’t want to be secretly filmed or videotaped and immediately put on the Internet.”

It is noted in the post that this pre-banning of Google Glass is done partly as a joke, but it does have a serious aspect to it.

This gets to the heart of the biggest challenge for projects such as Google Glass. The biggest challenge is cultural, not technical. It is noted in a follow-up link in the GeekWire article that the 5 Point does in fact use surveillance cameras, but that is altogether different than what Google Glass's introduction into society will entail. People are somewhat more comfortable with the idea of surveillance cameras used in a general sweep of an establishment than they are with cameras that are directly in front of them.

Some have said that Google Glass is not much different than what we already have now, where cameras on smartphones are ubiquitous. However, it is indeed different since it is far more obvious when someone is using a smartphone to record video than it is when someone is using Google Glass. It is a tad more difficult to hide a small rectangular object than it is to hide a small blinking light.

Folks, this sort of technology isn't going to just go away. We will have to decide how best to integrate it into our societal norms and practices just as we have done with other new technologies.

Best Buy Handled Its Work From Home Program Change Better Than Yahoo Did

Julianne Pepitone, writing for CNNMoney about Best Buy's recent change to its work-from-home program:

Unlike Yahoo's blanket policy, Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) said some of the 4,000 non-store employees who took advantage of its work-from home program still may be able to telecommute or set flexible schedules. But as of Monday they'll no longer have the freedom to make those decisions without a manager, as they had in the past.

Yahoo made a serious misstep in how it handled the change to its work-from-home program. The now infamous internal memo detailing the change reeks of condescension, and CEO Marissa Mayer didn't do much to avoid criticism by building a nursery in her office (thus leaving her open to claims of being a hypocrite).

Best Buy, in contrast, made a smart move. It isn't eliminating the work-from-home program, but instead is restoring checks and balances to the program. It boggles the mind that employees were able to make the work-from-home decision without input from their manager. Now, at the very least, the decision will be made after a conversation with the employee's manager.

Kudos to Best Buy for making a dramatic change without stumbling over itself (as Yahoo did).