Last night, Time Inc. threw a pretty badass party in Manhattan to celebrate “Ten NYC Startups To Watch.” Among the ten were Fancy Hands, a site that offers up a personal assistant for every and any need you might have, and Stamped, a social network that lets you put your stamp of approval on the things you like.
We pulled aside founders of both companies to find out a little more about them, their business models, and why they think they deserve a spot on Time Inc.’s list.
In the case of Fancy Hands, founder Ted Roden justified his slot on the list with staying power. He’s been working on the site, that up until a recent $1 million funding round was entirely bootstrapped, for three years, with the site alive and growing for the past two years.
In his opinion, Time Inc. chose Fancy Hands because it’s not necessarily all about how much hype you get at launch, but your ability to scale and grow over time.
For Stamped the story is a bit different. After asking co-founder and CEO Robby Stein why he was named one of Time Inc.’s 10 best startups, his answer was all about disruption.
“We think that we’re trying to do something that will hopefully disrupt the way people think about discovering new information, and really transform the model from one that’s more crowd-sourced and anonymous to one that’s extremely personal,” said Stein.
Fancy Hands is personal assistant service. For a flat fee, Fancy Hands provides an assistant to work on various projects. Started by Ted Roden in 2010. The company is entirely bootstrapped without raising any outside capital (angel or otherwise). Fancy Hands has assistants all over the USA, but is primarily based out of New York City.
Stamped is a fun and useful way to record and share all of your favorite things – restaurants, books, movies, music and more. Everyone gets a limited number of stamps to start, so you’ll discover only the best.
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