Software is moving to the web and as it does, tech companies are becoming easier than ever to launch. One of the most notable changes to the tech industry of late has been the emergence of a significant number of startups that have succeeded after raising only hundreds of thousands of dollars. Joe Kraus, CEO of recently acquired JotSpot was able to bring them to market on $100,000. Reddit took even less money and were just acquired by Conde Nast. Reddit’s primary backer, Paul Graham’s fund Y Combinator, has become the poster child for making a successful startup with only tens of thousands of dollars in funding. Charles River has also scaled back the size of some of their investments as entrepreneurs are willing to take less money in exchange for more control. Y Combinator primarily invests in software and web services. Twice a year (Fall and Spring), teams submit applications about their ideas, focusing less on business models and more on vision and the founders themselves. Summer teams interview during the Spring in San Francisco, while Winter teams interview during the Fall in Cambridge. If selected, the Summer teams work in Cambridge, while the Winter teams work out of the Bay Area. The last application drive was Oct 18th, with interviews happening this past weekend. Startups are usually funded 3 months living expenses, or $6,000 a person. Y Combinator’s investment is not so much in money as it is in the experience and connections the group provides to the teams, often shared over their weekly dinners. The money teams get is a bare minimum, often stretched by living and working in an apartment or moving in with friends and family. The young teams (usually around 23 yrs. old) may be under-funded compared to investments by other funds, but companies such as Thinkature and JumpChat have shown themselves formidable competitors to larger startups. While the Y Combinator team ponders what they saw in last weekend’s interviews for the next round of funding, we thought now would be a good time to take a look at the last batch of Y Combinator companies. Many of these companies are still in heavy development, but if you’re wondering what kinds of services are receiving funding from this innovative fund – here are some short introductions. JamGlue – An online application to mix and share music tracks online. The site features an online audio → Read More
Collaboration between distributed users online is widely recognized as one of the key next steps in software development. The products available for collaboration are becoming increasingly light weight, powerful and easy to use. Two companies that we’ve found entering into this market with compelling, but markedly different, products are ConceptShare and Thinkature. Both products let users create shared visual workspaces that can be marked up and chatted in. If you are a visual designer, someone planning events or otherwise looking to stop emailing or faxing visual objects back and forth – one of these two services might be just what you are looking for. Thinkature is simpler, free and available now. ConceptShare is more powerful, subscription based and due to come to market in a few weeks. Adobe, Microsoft and other large companies offer collaboration tools, but these two small companies provide something faster, simpler and less expensive. Tools like Conceptshare and Thinkature serve a different purpose than systems like WebEx because they allow for both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. Since they are entirely browser based, they should also work cross platform. ConceptShare ConceptShare did a demo at TechCrunch Party #7 and is now nearly ready for launch. People who have requested beta accounts will be given access next week and the product will be available commercially in about two weeks. It’s a very impressive tool aimed primarily at visual designers. The product is built in Flash and the three person company has taken about half a million dollars from a local angel investor. Conceptshare workspaces can include multiple concept pages, comments appear in individual threads that can be clicked through one at a time so they don’t become overwhelming, images can be drawn on and zoomed into. Screen captures can be imported by simply providing a URL. All the modules of the workspace can be resized by dragging their borders; so if I want to see the last 15 lines of chat instead of having the image being discussed taking up the bulk of my screen I can easily make that change. Prices haven’t been absolutely determined yet, but a single workspace with up to 5MB of storage will likely be free, there will be a number of intermediary offerings and enterprise subscriptions will start at $200 per month. High end subscriptions will include the ability to fully brand your workspaces. Another feature that Conceptshare is offering is an → Read More
