RainMakers LIVE! : Building Great Start-Ups That Last

So there has been much talk on Web 2.0 on the internet these days, and I also briefly talked about it in a previous article. But I was part of a group of NUS (National University of Singapore) and Stanford students who finally made the whole phenomena accessible to students and to the public by bringing together 6 of the hottest Web 2.0 startups in the Bay Area for a mixer this March 11th 2006. Called RainMakers LIVE! : Building Great Start-Ups That Last, the event was held on campus in Stanford University and attracted about 80 participants that afternoon, ranging from students to venture capitalists and other startup CEOs, and also perhaps people there for the free refreshments (yummy fresh fruits and gorgeous cheese platters).

After two keynote speeches by John de Santis (CEO and President of Sygate which was recently acquired by Symantec) and Robert Pazonik (Founder of Licketyship.com) on the topics Building A Great Team and What is Web 2.0, a panel discussion on Building Great Start-Ups That Last moderated by Stanford professor, Tom Kosnik with John, Robert and Gaurav Oberoi (Founder and Developer of Billmonk.com).

The Web 2.0 startups that presented during the showcase were:

Billmonk.com…making social money painless
Doostang.com…how do you doo?
Licketyship.com…same day delivery
Meetro.com….it breaks the ice
Standpoint.com…what do you believe?
Zimbra.com…next-generation enterprise messaging & collaboration

At one point, it had almost seemed as if it was an elevator pitch competition! The order of the presentations were random, but had already been fixed before the event. So Paul Bragiel of Meetro.com went first and it was basically “wham, wham, wham”! Paul sped through giving an introduction to his location-based instant messaging (IM) software and thereafter jumped straight to a live demonstration. What could capture the audience more right? Rightly so, the audience got a visual on how exactly Paul’s description of a “location-based” IM that allows one to gauge proximity of one’s friends translated into a real product. You can see friends “within 1 mile”, “within 5 miles’…and even “random people”. What’s cool to me is that using Meetro, I can consolidate all my IMs!! Now instead of opening several programs to accomodate my two MSN accounts, ICQ, GTalk, Yahoo!, I can just use Meetro. Way cool. What’s also interesting about Paul is that he’s Polish and this is his third company. And get this, he’s only 28 this year! Oh yeah, he’s into the outdoorsy stuff as well so I might be joining him on one of his bi-monthly hikes soon. But all the Web 2.0 presenters that day were young too.

Next was one was a startup whose content is slightly more serious. Gentry Underwood and Justin Smith from Standpoint.com showed us how we could stand up for our beliefs by declaring them on the website as well as find out how many others believe in the same things you do. Great for finding out those weird fetishes huh? My take is that people want their own space on the vast and hugely anonymous web. Standpoint’s simple and nice interface makes it easy for anyone to sign up for an account immediately and start agreeing with others’ believes and entering one’s own. Justin’s personal blog also gives us an insight to what’s behind all those 669 over beliefs! (I’m pretty sure the number you actually see on the website will be different from what I’m seeing now cuz it practically escalates logarithmically as Justin adds more and more beliefs everyday). Gentry’s too. They also have entered a short entry on the event here!

Billmonk.com went third and as before during the panel discussion of Building Great Start-Ups That Last, Gaurav gave another light-hearted overview of how Billmonk can be used by all to make going out with friends less of a pain when it comes to settling accounts. Way cool, I’ve been using Billmonk.com for about a month now and my friends and I have already used it as a verb: “You just paid for this meal? Okay, please billmonk it, thanks”. Gaurav was obviously happy that we have already assimilated Billmonk into our lives fairly quickly. On our side, we’re glad that we now found something that makes our lives much simpler. Now, I no longer have to do the math in my head and risk screwing up the calculations but instead just enter it into the system. It is just an accounting system, but a very user-friendly and feature-intensive one that really does ‘make social money painless’. What’s extra cool about Billmonk is that just shortly after starting operations, Singapore is their 3rd-largest foreign market (home ground being the US)! He also blogged about the event here.

Next was Doostang.com. Seems to me to be just another LinkedIn competitor, but when you look at its success stories and testimonials from users, it seems as if the user-base is currently only populated Ivy-Leaguers who reference one and another to find jobs. Targeted market? Well, no matter what hidden strategy that Mareza Larizadeh and his team might be employing, Doostang looks set on solid ground. It has been featured in The Wall Street Journal in its Center for Entrepreneurs. Currently, Doostang is still “invitation-only” and haven’t yet opened to the general public. If you’re interested, you can RSS their blog feed and await with bated breath for an announcement stating that they’re going public. Mareza’s background as a former vice president at Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Ventures (which funded Baidu and Skype) also makes Doostang even more interesting a startup to look at. By the way, “Mareza Larizadeh” was one letter too long for the inscription on the dog tag (that’s tied to a feather and a short note as a token of appreciation – described at the end of this post), that I had to shorten his to “Mareza L.”.

Zimbra.com’s website totally belied their ultra cool technology. As they are currently focused on enterprise solutions and not targeted to everyday consumers like us, their website has a much more formal feel to it than the rest of the startups featured. Thus, before I actually watched the presentation, I already had an impression in my mind which was turned over after watching Andy Pflaum, VP Business Development, do a demo. I had thought nothing of the description “next-generation enterprise messaging and collaboration”. Too pompous for me. But then again, perhaps it was good that my expectations was “low”, cuz I was really wowed by what the technology could do. Mouse-over a date (in any format) in an email and you can see what appointment you have on that date and immediately reply with a yes or no to the say the proposed meeting time and date. Other stuff like overlapping your friend/colleague’s calendar with yours…cool stuff. But one catch “enterprise messaging”, a shame for us. Of course, Zimbra probably has its reasons for targeting the enterprise market first. As with all businesses, focus is important. Trying to reach out to too many people at a time will just mean that you fail in all markets. So oh well, let’s just live with it.

Licketyship.com was up for the last presentation. Dynamic speaker, Robert Pazonik delivered yet another presentation that was as impressive as its claim. According to Robert, for the same amount of money that we currently pay to have items delivered to us overnight to reach us in one day, Licketyship will deliver in a few hours. How cool is that? They have some partnerships that allow them to do that. (Do you know that “lickety-split” means “at great speed”?) Licketyship has gotten a fair amount of online press coverage, all you have to do is to Google it.

After the entire session, each of the speakers got a special Native Indian feather which symbolizes the passing on of knowledge and about being a mentor, a short description of the token was attached and so was an unique dog tag. These tags basically contained the main details of the event and with the names of our speakers. Our token of appreciation to each of our speakers for their time and effort.

A pity that Tony Gentile and serial entrepreneur Farzad Naimi couldn’t join us! (Farzad was supposed to be one of our keynote speakers but had to withdraw at the last minute because of a personal matter). Farzad’s corner office with full glass panels overlooks a gorgeous body of water that is part of Oracle. You can also see Visa’s headquarters a short distance away. Way cool. Farzad says he meditates everyday in that office.

For more blog postings on RainMakers LIVE! to get an insight read into what went on behind the scenes, check out a few of my co-workers: Vinod Nair and Nina George.

The mixer was co-organized by the NUS Entrepreneurs Association (NUSEA) and the Stanford Chapter of the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society (ASES-Stanford). The next installment for RainMakers LIVE! will be up at the end of the year.

Technocrati Tags: Rainmakers, Rainmakers Live, Web 2.0, Billmonk, Doostang, Licketyship, Meetro, Standpoint, Zimbra, Silicon Valley, NUSEA, NUS, ASES, Stanford, Entrepreneurs

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