November 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Silicon Valley is littered with the corpses of companies that figured building something cool was a substitute for building a serious business plan. And I generally don't take that type of effort too seriously. But having said that, I have a hunch that a gung-ho group of Israeli entrepreneurs may be on to something.
The 11-month-old company is called SeeToo. Its product -- a service, really -- is an interesting variation on instant messaging and file sharing. Instead of sharing music, SeeToo customers will be able to share home videos with a friend, or maybe a group of friends, instantly, using only a browser and a tiny client.
Co-founder Yoav Ilan walked me through a demonstration -- he in his New York office, me at my desk in San Francisco. Ilan pointed his video camera out the window and shot a few seconds of a yacht cruising the East River. He sent me a link via e-mail. I clicked on it, Firefox opened a window, and there it was. A few seconds later, the scene shifted and I was watching a clip of his baby daughter happily crawling across a room.
If I'd been on the other end -- that is, the originator of a video -- all I'd have to do is go to the SeeToo site, download a 600KB client, point it to the file I wanted to share, and send an e-mail or IM to my friend. That's it.
For now, SeeToo runs only on Windows. The client works with a standard Flash codec and is scalable, depending on the capabilities of the hardware and the amount of available bandwidth. Any Flash-enabled browser will do.
Here's why Ilan thinks SeeToo will be successful:
• There a need. "It solves a real-life pain point. Everyone wants to share videos with their family and friends."
• Video technology has become simple, portable, and always available (think cell phones as well as video cams).
• Storage is cheap.
• Bandwidth is readily available.
Also on the plus side: Ilan and his partners have been around for a while. The lead investor and active board member is Yossi Vardi, who founded ICQ, then sold it to AOL for a bundle. Ilan founded and sold MessageVines, a wireless IM venture. Ilan says he learned an important lesson at MessageVines, which was not really a success. "Sometimes you can be too early." But for the reasons bulleted above, he figures the time is right for SeeToo.
For now, the angel-backed startup is focusing on perfecting its technology and building a customer base. SeeToo recently launched a private beta and is taking applications for testers on its home page. The company has 10 employees, split between New York and Tel Aviv, where the engineering team resides.
Ilan says he and partners have some ideas of how to monetize the service, but haven't yet settled on a plan. The site could be advertising supported, or it could work on a tiered licensing model.
There are a number of companies building out the IM model (Meebo comes to mind), but I don't think any of the others offer the same type of functionality. That could change, of course.
But you have to like the energy and enthusiasm Ilan conveys. "I've been infected with the entrepreneurship bug; it's a lifestyle," he says.
I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net.
Posted by Bill Snyder on November 29, 2007 03:00 AM
November 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A San Francisco startup lets smaller businesses hedge their bets against profit-killing weather
Weather, either too good or too bad, can do a real number on a business. Pity the ski resort that has no snow or the golf course awash in spring rains. No one can control the weather, of course, but an innovative startup using Web-based technology offers a way for smaller business to "insure" themselves against the ravages of weather.
You'll notice I put quotes around insure. That's because WeatherBill
doesn't sell insurance, although its product has some similarities. The San Francisco startup claims to be the first to sell a financial instrument known as a weather derivative to smaller companies. The derivative is used to hedge against the risk that weather will damage business.
Here's a recent example: The Flagstaff Nordic Center was planning to open its season with a fall festival in early October. The center, which has acres of trails for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, generally needs lots of snow, but the festival wouldn't succeed without clear weather, says Wendell Johnson, who founded the resort.
Johnson calculated that bad weather would cost him $5,000 to $10,000 (not counting lost business) so he went to WeatherBill's Web site, picked the amount of rain that would force cancellations, and quickly found that he could buy a derivative for $750. As it happens, the weather was good.
But if the festival had been rained out, Johnson would have been reimbursed. Unlike an insurance policy, the weather derivative pays a flat rate and there's no need to prove damages or deal with a claims adjuster. The only proof needed is data from the nearest weather station, Flagstaff airport, about 25 miles away, which is collected automatically by WeatherBill computers.
Weather derivatives are not new. Indeed, they are a $60 billion industry that until now has been the exclusive province of giant energy firms worried about unexpected fluctuations in temperature, says WeatherBill CEO David Friedberg.
But by using a Web-based front end on top of a cluster of open source servers, WeatherBill has reduced its own costs by several orders of magnitude. The system collects and processes data from a variety of sources, including feeds from the U.S. Weather Service, writes "odds" on the weather a customer wants to hedge, and then sends a check to the customer.
A much larger company, Nephila Capital, stands behind WeatherBill, and pays all customer claims. Companies like Nephila are known as reinsurers and act to spread risk beyond the primary issuer of an insurance policy or derivative.
Although it sounds like you could have a good time betting on the weather, Freiberg, a former Google exec, says that can't happen. WeatherBill demands proof that customers are a business with a net worth of at least $1 million.
Even so, it's rather fun to go to the Web site and see the odds on a particular weather event. For example, if I wanted a policy against heavy snow, say three inches or more in Boston on Christmas Day, it would cost me $400 for $10,000 of coverage.
Launched in January of 2007, WeatherBill was initially funded by angel investors; earlier this month it raised $12.5 million in venture money from a number of sources including Enterprise Associates and Index Ventures.
By the way, the always-interesting Michael Lewis recently wrote a lengthy article on weather derivatives for the New York Times magazine. Freiberg was rather irked that WeatherBill wasn't mentioned, but it's still a good piece.
I welcome your comments, tips and suggestions. Reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net.
Posted by Bill Snyder on November 1, 2007 03:00 AM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hot jobs, high energy: The Web 2.0 startup
I’ll level with you. Sometimes my job, which involves lots and lots of talking, makes me tired. Really tired. Especially when I’m at an event where lots of people are vying for my attention, and I’m vying for the attention of many others. But the days I spent reporting InfoWorld’s special report on getting hired at a hot startup were different. They were energizing.
I’ve rarely found a collection of people imbued with so much optimism, and the energy to (excuse the cliché, but I have to say it) turn a dream into reality. What a change from the dreary years following the dot-com bust, and what a relief from the woes of other parts of the economy.
Startups are hot. And a lot of the credit goes to the men and women who labored behind the scenes for years, techies and entrepreneurs who saw enormous opportunity to leap beyond the world of Web 1.0.
The current generation of startups will make fortunes for some (far from all, of course) and provide satisfying jobs for many more. Will it make a better world? That’s another discussion.
As I pointed out in the report, there are a few lessons that really stand out for the job seeker.
• If you’re good, you’re “in the driver’s seat,” as the CEO of Lending Club.com put it. There’s lots of jobs, and with baby boomers retiring and colleges turning out fewer computer scientists and engineers than in the past, the supply/demand equation is breaking your way.
• Techies who have a business background, or at least have a real understanding of the business process, will get the best jobs and be the least likely to wave goodbye to positions on the way to India and China. I was struck by how many times I heard that message from men and women who actually do the hiring.
• Having said all that, remember that the bar is very high at the hottest startups. Do your homework before the interview; if possible download the company’s product and think about how you would make it better.
• Sure, there’s money to be made. But again, I was struck by how often CEOs told me they are determined to keep the lid on salaries.
Finally, I wish you good luck in your job search and I hope the report was helpful and interesting.
I welcome your comments, tips and suggestions. Reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net
Posted by Bill Snyder on October 8, 2007 01:09 PM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hot jobs, high energy: The Web 2.0 startup
I’ll level with you. Sometimes my job, which involves lots and lots of talking, makes me tired. Really tired. Especially when I’m at an event where lots of people are vying for my attention, and I’m vying for the attention of many others. But the days I spent reporting InfoWorld’s special report on getting hired at a hot startup were different. They were energizing.
I’ve rarely found a collection of people imbued with so much optimism, and the energy to (excuse the cliché, but I have to say it) turn a dream into reality. What a change from the dreary years following the dot-com bust, and what a relief from the woes of other parts of the economy.
Startups are hot. And a lot of the credit goes to the men and women who labored behind the scenes for years, techies and entrepreneurs who saw enormous opportunity to leap beyond the world of Web 1.0.
The current generation of startups will make fortunes for some (far from all, of course) and provide satisfying jobs for many more. Will it make a better world? That’s another discussion.
As I pointed out in the report, there are a few lessons that really stand out for the job seeker.
• If you’re good, you’re “in the driver’s seat,” as the CEO of Lending Club.com put it. There’s lots of jobs, and with baby boomers retiring and colleges turning out fewer computer scientists and engineers than in the past, the supply/demand equation is breaking your way.
• Techies who have a business background, or at least have a real understanding of the business process, will get the best jobs and be the least likely to wave goodbye to positions on the way to India and China. I was struck by how many times I heard that message from men and women who actually do the hiring.
• Having said all that, remember that the bar is very high at the hottest startups. Do your homework before the interview; if possible download the company’s product and think about how you would make it better.
• Sure, there’s money to be made. But again, I was struck by how often CEOs told me they are determined to keep the lid on salaries.
Finally, I wish you good luck in your job search and I hope the report was helpful and interesting.
I welcome your comments, tips and suggestions. Reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net
Posted by Bill Snyder on October 8, 2007 01:09 PM
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