Ben Silbermann on Pinterest launch: “It was stealth without us trying to be stealth.”

Ben Silbermann, co-founder of Pinterest, shares his startup’s story at Thinc Iowa 2011, a conference that gathers individuals from startups and established corporations across the United States for a day and a half of inspiration, idea generation and collaboration.

Activity booking site EvenPanda combines Pinterest and Airbnb

What do you get when you combine two of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups and apply the concept to an entirely different vertical? You get EvenPanda.

Launching today, the Singapore-based site is an online activities marketplace that lets users sell experiences to customers. A sampling of activities include a Triathlon Starter Bootcamp, a tutorial on creative processes and design, and a Sunday brunch with Russian homemade pancakes. Read more

20-year-old Gumroad founder talks about how he raised funds

Sahil Lavingia, a 20-year-old entrepreneur, shares some tips on attracting investors. He was with the founding team of Pinterest before leaving to build his own startup Gumroad, which makes buying and selling online much easier. One of the things he did was to build relationships with investors before even building his startup. He did it through writing on his blog, and engaging investors via social media. Age is nothing but a number.

Are the Samwer Brothers, a.k.a Rocket Internet really that bad for Southeast Asia?

Many months back, I tweeted about the entrance of Rocket Internet in Southeast Asia with the comment, “Winter is coming.” Not long after, they have gotten off the ground running with an aggressive hiring spree and clones in the e-commerce space.

Rocket Internet is a company that belongs to the Samwer Brothers. They are known for their amazing execution prowess and their ruthlessness in cloning successful US Internet companies. Of course, their tactics and methods have raised the ire of many, including pro-Silicon Valley reporters such as Sarah Lacy who mounted a campaign against them.

But is the company’s impact on the Southeast Asia digital market all bad? I’ll examine this issue in detail and argue that while it may have some impact on innovation, it isn’t bad for the industry as a whole. Read more

Singapore’s very own Pinterest clone, Singterest, is an exact carbon copy

 

Pinterest has become the hottest property in the social media world, adding 17 million users in March alone.

A sign that it has become successful is when copycats start springing up. And there’s certainly no shortage of Pinterest clones: There’s Pinspire by Rocket Internet, Stylepin, a Pinterest for fashion, GentleMint, a Pinterest for “manly things”, and Thinng, a Pinterest for, erm, things. Read more

Rocket Internet’s Amazon clone Lazada debuts in Southeast Asia

 

Rocket Internet is continuing its rapid-fire expansion into Southeast Asia. It has launched — that’s right — an Amazon.com clone called Lazada, in  Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. It will open in Malaysia soon.

Besides books, the e-store is selling home appliances, mobile devices, computers, video games, and more. Read more