Posted: October 15th, 2009 | No Comments »
Through the magic of interconnected news feeds, I’m sure a lot of my high school friends will see this, (sorry), but we are hiring at EXPO. It’s post-worthy to the extent that anyone growing as opposed to shrinking has got to be good news generally, right?
Our founding sales exec, David Rubinstein, has nurtured a pioneering team that has launched the adoption of video commerce within the nation’s top brands. We’re very proud to be expanding his group to support the growing flow of F500 companies seeking insights & experiences from our authentic, accountable consumer knowledge base. As you can guess by the location of the position (Chi/Cin/Min/NYC), we’re working with some of the largest consumer brand names out there. We are looking for someone to help those companies navigate the world of social commerce safely, effectively and valuably.
Here’s the link to the job post, please pass it on freely:
Posted: March 25th, 2009 | No Comments »
Julie Ruvolo, who pops up everywhere on the digital scene all at the same time, has joined a startup that went alpha this month. www.solvate.com
The concept revolves around creating an uber-database covering answers to common customer service issues that people individually need to solve hundreds of times each day. Solvate allows frustrated customers to not have to re-invent the wheel each time one of us has a problem someone else had before. For example, something like “How can I return my cable box back to Time Warner so I can cancel my cable subscription” probably takes us 45 minutes working through TWC’s byzantine call centers before we find out our options. And even then, we probably only find the option that one customer service rep knows, which I bet would be a different option if we were connected to another rep on another day. Meanwhile, I know hundreds of other people had to have gone through this…why don’t I know what they know?
Solvate plans to standardize the ‘answers’ to these questions, so that Solvate agents (and I assume the online public) can provide fast solutions to the second client who asks the same question.
Solvate charges by the man-hour to find the solution, and is currently offering your first hour of agent time for free. So, I tried it out by asking about the best online site to find a deal for a Disney Cruise. I know that Disney itself doesn’t offer many deals directly to cruisers, but they do offer them to agents (who then can pass on the deals to cruisers). Solvate did work, I did get a list of places from “Ryan C”, my Solvate agent, that offered consistent specials and weren’t shaky fly-by-night travel sites. I’m not sure if it saved me time, since it was just an online search. But, I would guess that if my problem involved customer service reps, and phone calls, and escalations, and specific departments, Solvate would save me time and aggravation. And if I was the lucky second person that asked a question, I am sure that the pain of the first person would benefit me. I think the trick for Solvate is to hone in on the problems people would be willing to pay Solvate to solve. ate.
Good luck, Julie and Solvate. I’ll call you back when I need to cancel my cable subscription so I can get FiOS.
Posted: March 25th, 2009 | No Comments »
While some of you might not have too much sympathy for Jake DeSantis who resigned from AIG, I think that we should all feel sorry for ourselves that talent is definitely draining away from solving the complex, intricate problems we have before us.
On the one hand, I’m incensed that ex-Countrywide executives who caused the problems are able to participate in the solution for additional personal gain. But I also turned to my husband yesterday and said, “Why in the hell is Edward Liddy still working at AIG? Why doesn’t he just say ‘Screw it. YOU people try to solve this problem’ and walk away?” He’s got these idiot Congressmen judging him who can’t even figure out their own taxes. Does anyone realize that he was ASKED to take this job by Treasury Sec’y Paulson? “Six months ago, I came out of retirement to help my country,” Liddy said at yesterday’s House Financial Services subcommittee hearing in Washington. If we’re going to make a scapegoat of someone innocent, we should at least pick someone who was there when the crime occurred.
I have limited sympathy for this guy who wrote the AIG letter above, because I am *sure* in his career he was overpaid, and the money that he says he earned for AIG was enabled by a machine *he knew* was overpriced, overcomplicated, and under-financed. But, we should be careful when John Q Public thinks he knows how best to run these companies, lest we end up driving away people who really do. I certainly don’t want Senators with “wide stances” in charge of maximizing the value during the wind down of a complex financial derivative product company. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
Posted: July 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
We were proud to host Pete Blackshaw’s NYC “Tell 3000″ book party at our offices last night. It was a spectacular turnout, and lasted well past the anticipated ending time. Rick Lerner and Expo’s pres Bill Hildebolt were the hosts. Thanks to Rick and his wife for publicizing, financing and catering the event.
The books sold out, some pool was played, some wine was poured, and some great conversations were begun.
We look forward from continuing to learn from our friend and advisor as he continues to simultaneously teach and learn about this space.
Posted: July 12th, 2008 | No Comments »
We have a 19 year old intern from UCLA in our company this summer. He is pretty interesting because he’s got some great film making skills already under his belt. In discussing how to get us some great consumer video, he thought up the idea (the night before) to go to the iPhone opening in NYC. He got some great footage, edited it and put it up on the same day. Because he was in a self-professed “good mood” he left out the two “criticisms” that he heard that day about the iPhone (the whole thing about not being able to connect because of the problems Apple was having with their system). He even put together his own music.
His presence in the company is a fun reminder that fearlessness will always be a big part of entrepreneurialism. I hope you enjoy his creativeness to real consumer reviewing the iPhone!
Posted: April 29th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
So, VCs actually CAN add value!
Last night, my cofounder Bill and I attended another DFJ Gotham dinner at Sparks. It may be because we’re now on the ‘inside’ as a portfolio company, but these dinners keep getting better. There were a ton of great friends and connections — I heard over 100 entrepreneurs showed up. Some highlights:
Kevin Ryan of AlleyCorp spoke. He always is wildly pro-New York, but last night was especially engaging, articulate and funny. The best line was about how he caved and finally just started telling people that mobile was going to be HUGE (even though he doesn’t believe it) just so people would stop debating him and instead say things like “That Kevin, he GETS it!”
I ran into Elizabeth Kressel of CollectorsQuest.com at the coat check. She has a big launch coming up this week. Very excited for her and her team!
Our good friend John Foley from Pronto.com was there. We bonded over the new trends in commerce and the economy. One sharp, nice, genuine guy.
Ran into Jeffrey Stier of Sector 64 (J Walter Thompson). Always good to have advertising money in the room. But even better when that money is smart and commissioned to try new things.
I also saw Steve Rosenbaum, a new friend and visionary of Magnify.net. He told me he was going to be at Digital Hollywood next week at this panel. (Expo’s president Bill Hildebolt will be there, too at a panel called Internet Video, Advertising & Marketing: The Next Generation of Consumer Reach.)
There were a lot more folks, but I’ll just let you have to come to the next one to see who’s there.
Thanks to Jed, Danny, Ross (my friend from my banking life), Thatcher, Mark, JoAnn and Nadine!
