Tag Archives: David Galper

Now Stalking the App Store: Product Hunt Sets up a Blind in the iForest

What is it boy? Scalable turnkey digital media platforms to disrupt traditional paradigms?
What is it boy? Scalable turnkey digital media platforms to disrupt traditional paradigms?

Like a What’s What of the tech world, Product Hunt recently claimed the throne as both the tastemaker and newsbreaker for interesting and innovative apps, gadgets, and other geek-affine products. It’s only natural, then, that the Reddit-like social sharing platform would take its growing audience into Apple’s App Store, where it could potentially generate immediate purchases among its extensive consumer base. Of course, Product Hunt covers far more than apps, but you can’t deny the impact of a highly trusted and wildly popular review, commenting, recommendation, and reporting system suddenly embedded within the territory it investigates.

All good news, right? Well… as any person with two brain cells to rub together can surmise, this could shift the power balance of the product sharing website from consumer to company. If the Product Hunt app finds itself sitting next to a different app that it’s supposed to be evaluating, who’s to say payola won’t come into play? While new inventions, those who review them, and conflicts of interest make ordinary bedfellows in the tech space, this latest development seems only to reinforce this type of specious and accepted practice. With great power comes limited objectivity, true believers. Read on here.

Startup Earnest Chooses Massachusetts to Launch Loan Program

Earnest, a San Francisco-based programming startup sponsored by Cambridge’s Atlas Venture and Andreessen Horowitz, has picked Massachusetts as the first state to launch its low-investment credit program.

Earnest offers recent college graduates and millennials credits of between $1,000 and $10,000 at investment rates more level than Mastercards to help pay for moving expenses, wedding trips, engagement rings, home rebuilds and other “life turning points.”

The credits are legitimacy based instead of credit-based, said CEO and author Louis Beryl.

As opposed to choosing whether to give an individual a credit absolutely dependent upon a financial assessment and record of loan repayment, Earnest’s product investigates information including wage, funds, instruction history and future pay potential to evaluate whether the individual meets all requirements for an advance.

“We assume all the praise scores into record however we attempt to create a picture of the entire individual,” said Beryl, who beforehand used around a year as an accomplice at Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The startup utilizes programming and exclusive calculations to help focus credit qualification.

Earnest can offer low investment rates — 6 percent for one year — at short of what 50% of the normal premium rate at present charged on a particular advance or Visa in light of its low overhead expenses.

“We have a comparative plan of action to Amazon.com as in we … arrange extremely shabby wholesale financing from the capital markets and afterward we have a minimal effort framework,” Beryl said.

Beryl said he began the organization in the wake of uncovering direct that it was so testing to discover low-investment Mastercards or credits for movement costs when he moved on from Princeton University in New Jersey in 2003 and moved to New York City.

Around twelve individuals in Massachusetts are utilizing Earnest for credits in this way, and the startup arrangements to have “a couple thousand” customers broadly inside a year, Beryl said.

The startup likewise plans to secure giving licenses in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, California and Illinois in the not so distant future, Beryl said.

Earnest has 11 workers in San Francisco and doesn’t want to make any contracts in Massachusetts.

The startup is sponsored by an undisclosed sum raised a year ago from gurus, for example, Atlas Venture, Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital.

Chart book Venture was the biggest guru in the round, and is “concentrated on putting more capital into the organization,” inside the following six months to one year, said Jeff Fagnan, accomplice at the early stage VC firm.

Earnest’s model is goal-oriented and has potential to be transformative in the credit business, he said.

“The upside is boundless, however like a great deal of these things, it takes luckiness, aptitude and a ton of execution,” he said.

Source

Startup Schools in Boston

Startup Institute CEO Aaron O'Hearn

Startups should be scalable and The Startup Institute, formally known as the Boston Startup School, is no different. The Startup Institute is an eight-week program for professionals who are looking to gain the hard and soft skills needed to thrive in the chaotic environment of a startup. The program has four tracks that include web development, product and design, marketing and sales/business development.

“We’re trying to change professional education by coupling it directly to industry,” said Aaron O’Hearn, CEO of Startup Institute, in an interview with ReadWrite. “Right now, education doesn’t prepare people to be great employees for small companies.” Originnaly a branch of Techstars Boston and created to help local startups scale and hire, The Startup Institute has rebranded and expanded to Chicago and New York.

These “Startup schools” are becoming very popular in the industry and the Boston area. Intelligent.ly, a professional development firm for start-ups, is also based in Boston’s Innovation District. This is a growing trend with many of these organizations popping up in startup sectors across the country.

 

Twitter to announce its IPO

Twitter is in the process of announcing its IPO. The major concern for Twitter executives is that they will repeat what Facebook did in announcing their IPO. For those unfamiliar, Twitter is a social media website in which members can post a short message on whatever topic of interest they may have. The site has garnered 200 million monthly users and continues to grow.

Recently, Twitter has purchased MoPub for $350 million. They are a mobile advertising firm which sells ads across various different vehicles. This is good for twitters current revenue stream coming in at $583 million this year in E-marketing as there will now be additional revenue from their sub company. Analysts project that by next year Twitters revenue will be just shy of a billion dollars. The company shows lots of promise in its growth and the projects it takes on.

To avoid repeating what Facebook did in their IPO, Twitter has joined forces with large banks such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsh Bank and JP Morgan. They are working hand in hand to create a strategy that won’t diminish the value of the shares. They don’t want to overprice their shares like Facebook did, so they are looking to follow the model of companies like Linkedin Corp and Workday Inc who had successful debuts.

Twitter’s major concern is to retain its customer base by not changing the platform of their social media application to just another advertisement. The company only has 3 ways of advertising versus Facebook who has a plethora of different methods. This can be daunting to the user and is creating a disingenuous experience. Mark Zuckerberg made it clear when he initially created Facebook that it should be used solely for social interaction and not as a means of advertising. That is why Twitter executives are so concerned with maintaining their customer base and their company image.

#BNTmob Event: Mobile Strategy 101 and Mobile Technology Exhibition

I would like to share a free event in the start-up and technology scene in Boston happening next week on Tuesday, July 9, 2013  from 6:00 PM to Microsoft New England Research and Development Center

Attend the event and be sure to learn about strategies for mobile, learn about new mobile technologies and apps from local startups, and network with the Boston/Cambridge startup community! This event is presented by Mobinett Interactive hosting the Mobile Strategy 101 portion. In this session, attendees will learn about processess and tactics that brands and startups can use to get started with mobile.

To learn more about the event, visit the Meetup page.

To get connected on social media, follow @BostonNewTech and use the #BNTmob hashtag in social media posts.

The Evening’s Agenda:

  • 6:00 to 7:00 – Networking, Dinner & Exhibition
  • 7:00 – Announcements
  • 7:05 – Mobile Strategy 101 with Chris Requena
  • 7:45 – Mobile product 1 minute pitches
  • 8:00 to 9:00 – Networking & Exhibition