Venture Pimp
Oct 06
Happy yellow website tracks prices; tells you when to buy stuff; news at 11. (happybuy launches today!)
Looking to spend some cash? happybuy.com helps stretch the bling farther:
happybuy lets you browse Amazon, iTunes, and the Apple App Store for good deals, and also lets you search for specific things. It uses historical data and clever predictions to figure out whether sale items are actually a good deal or not.
The pimp has been looking for ways to expand his personal possessions without breaking the Pimpy Bank, and this looks like a good place to check. I’m adding it to my list of sites for cheapskates, and I’ll be hitting it up on a regular basis.
It’s not without its flaws — for example, it was touting the new Apple TV as having huge savings ($99 instead of $249) despite the fact that it was actually a real price cut, rather than a sale. However, for something that just launched today, it looks pretty sweet. Now if you don’t mind me, I’m off to buy an iPhone charger for a cent.
Oct 04
Phone Halo: stop losing your stuff like a crappy pimp
Today’s startup won’t stop your bitches and hoes from running away, but it WILL keep track of your keys and cellphone!
Phone Halo is a combo physical device + application for your Blackberry, Android, and (soon) iPhone. The idea is pretty slick: the bluetooth device periodically talks with your mobile phone. When they get separated — the phone makes note of it, and records the GPS coordinates. So if you lose your phone OR your keys, it will alert you as to exactly where.
The device sells for $59.95, and the application is free. It weighs only one ounce, and can be easily slipped on your keychain. Plus, the device has a little “alert” button that makes your phone ring. How cool is that?
Sep 15
NEW: One sexy bitch of a personal video publishing service
What if you could turn a YouTube channel into a professional looking video site with a couple clicks? Well, you can, dawg!
Vidcaster is in private beta right now.
The site lets you import videos from a youtube channel, set a logo for your site, configure a theme, then you instantly get a nice looking functional website showcasing your videos. You can customize, add ads, configure with CSS, add static pages, plugin modules and more. Plus, you get all sorts of analytics and nice back-end management features.
This is neat, and sounds like something I would have used in the past if it were available to me. The pimp looks forward to the public launch!
Sep 13
IdeaOffer: a crowdsourcing marketplace with blatant cash motivation. The Pimp is Impressed!
IdeaOffer is an interesting crowdsourcing marketplace, to say the least.
IdeaOffer uses real money (via PayPal) to motivate some serious crowdsourcing. I was able to Facebook connect and start using the site immediately. I answered one question about whether or not protein drinks were worth bothering with (which will net me $1.00 if my answer is chosen) and I created an offer to pay someone 35 cents for a 10-second review of my website.
As any good pimp knows, money makes the world go round. IdeaOffer seems like it has figured out an effective way to construct a crownsorcing platform, and we’re impressed. Read more how the site works.
Sep 10
Hacker Dojo Startup Fair: Sep 23rd 4pm-9pm
Startup Fair at Hacker Dojo is an event for entrepreneurs and early-stage startup companies to demo their products to angel investors and other entrepreneurs for valuable feedback, customer development, and possible investment opportunities.
Deadline for application has passed and startups are now being chosen. Stay tuned for updates on the event, as well as notification for the next Startup Fair!
Sep 08
Measy
Just like walking into the finest brothel, Measy lets you easily shop based on size, color, and “easiness”. Granted, the service is made for electronics and gadgets (not hookers), but we here at VenturePimp are quite pleased nonetheless.
The main claim to fame is that the site makes the process of selection fun and easy. I tried it out, and it was relatively painless and fun changing the slider, answering various questions, etc. It felt a little like doing one of those “Which Twilight character are you?” quizzes. (And there is nothing wrong with that, stop judging me.)
The result page was satisfying as well. It gave me my results, a Panasonic DMC-ZR1, and told me why it was chosen, which I found impressive. I could see the score for each of the metrics I specified, and, I could click a link for even more details and how they claims were backed by experts. Well done.
Measy was originally a site called Glassbooth, where voters could similarly select candidates for the 2007 election. We’re glad to see the success of that concept evolve into a hot startup to pimp!
Sep 03
Skydera: impressive feature-set for managing multiple cloud systems
Skydera provides a power interface to control Amazon EC2, Rackspace, GoGrid and Slicehost. The systems lets you manage one’s entire cloud infrastructure with powerful tools such as monitoring, provisioning, log management, and the automation of common tasks.
After using the system, I can indeed confirm the existence of many pretty charts, graphs, bells, whistles, and more. It is apparent the service really shines when one has many instances to manage: Skydera has features to automate instance setup, includes a library of trusted images, handles all monitoring, and reduces the chorework that is often associated with managing multiple server instances.
Skydera launched as beta on July 19, 2010 and based on the buzz, appears to be quite worthy of some serious pimping.
Sep 01
Appointment Reminder: Simple idea, amazing execution
So, my dentist’s assistant calls me today (one day before my appointment) to confirm like usual. Just as is my typical arrogant-skilled-engineer response to every situation, I think to myself: I could build an app to solve this simple problem.
Then I stumbled on to Appointment Reminder today. They nailed it. Nailed it like a hooker with a self-esteem problem. Well done, team, well done.
The service is designed for businesses just like my dentist, small law firms, massage parlors, and other professional service industries. For a monthly fee, one schedules the appointments in their system (using a modern AJAX interface, compares well to Google Calendar). The system then reaches out to clients using SMS and voice calls to confirm appointments as appropriate.
The service officially opens in October, but you can sign up for the beta test now. Plans start at $9 a month (for 10 appointments) and include a plan that costs $79 a month (for 300 appointments per month).
Appointment Reminder was built by an American-born entrepreneur, Patrick McKenzie, who is now living in Japan.
Venture Pimp is being guest written by Brian Klug for the month of September.
Aug 30
The Fridge
The Fridge wants to be your private social network:
With all of the privacy concerns around Facebook in the past few months, it was inevitable that new startups would rush in to fill the perceived need for private, tightly managed social networks. The Fridge is a cute, Y–Combinator–backed contender in that space. It offers up a simple service with a pretty clean interface and the basic functionality that made us like Facebook in the first place. Sure, there are no apps, but there’s a good space for conversation, and you can keep a lid on who can see your content.
In addition to posting messages, you can also upload photos, and The Fridge is clever enough to notice YouTube or Vimeo addresses in your messages, so they get embedded as players. It’s simple, and it works pretty well.
Of course, it’s certainly not without problems: the UI looks good, but it has some serious annoyances. In particular, the CSS buttons make the interface useless from the keyboard, which is a bit of a pain for curmudgeons such as myself. It also doesn’t gracefully fall back in the absence of Flash, so if you’re using a flash blocker, you’ll see some weirdness.
Overall, though, The Fridge looks like a good implementation of the inward–facing social network concept that seems to be all the rage (see my write–up on Micromobs earlier this year). If you’re looking for a private space to share Facebook-y sorts of content, take a peek in the The Fridge.
Aug 27
PopFeedback
PopFeedback wants to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get feedback from their customers:
PopFeedback offers you a floating bubble that prompts users to give feedback. When they click it, it expands into a targeted micro–survey — something like “How would you feel if this feature was removed?”. Assuming it’s not too invasive, it’s a pretty good idea. Collecting feedback from users is important, even if it’s hard to do, and I’d wager that your average user is much more likely to answer a single question when prompted, rather than to write an email or head on over to UserVoice*. Of course, I have my own small venture in the floating–bubble–on–your–web–site category, but I like the idea.
If you’re building something new, or looking to iterate on something you already have, PopFeedback seems like it’s worth investigating. You get 3 surveys for free, but after that, it’s $9/month for unlimited surveys.
Follow them at @PopFeedback, and check out their Upside Down Labs blog.
* Yes, let’s ignore the mild irony of PopFeedback using the ubiquitous UserVoice feedback tab on their homepage, rather than their own product. PopFeedback seems to be aiming for a much more structured approach than UserVoice generally provides.