#launch2013

So this may seem like it’s a little late but it’s not. It’s been that kind of month. At the begging of the month I was fortunate enough to attend the Launch Festival in San Francisco and I wanted to put down a few thoughts for all of you that care.

First I have to tell you why I went up there at all. Although I code and build stuff on a daily basis I was not making the trip to enter the hackathon or launch a new that app I had been working on. I did go up there for an informal launch of Sabio. How do you launch a Developer Bootcamp for Women and Minorities? Well according to me you get in a confined space with 4-5 thousand other people in technology and talk a lot. And walk a lot. You talk to a great many people about what you are doing and get their feedback. Anyone who was nice enough to listen was then grilled by me on their great idea.

Yes, I said grilled. The best thing I could do, I thought, was to put them through their paces so that they could get some good practice at delivering and selling themselves. That’s really what goes on at these things right? People sell or people trying to sell. I say this in a good way. I say this so that if you find yourself in a room like that you show up in the right mindset. Being an entrepreneur you have to sell yourself and your product. But you knew that.

Aside from this I also did get a chance to get some great networking in. I met some great people and talked some good shop and learned a thing or two.

So here are the highlights that I thought I should point out.

The Launch team was #*%@% great. I volunteered with them Sunday through Wednesday night so I had a good opportunity to get to know them a little bit. They put in a ridiculous amount of work and dealt with all that stress so much better than I had expected. More than once I watched them deal with attendees with a surprising amount of patience. This is important b/c the people behind all this to-do, behind the curtain that make things work are the most important thing in a company and at a large scale an industry.  The people on the other side of the spectrum have a great way of sticking out like sore thumbs and they usually get a lot of the press time so I think it only right to acknowledge them. BTW when I write “sore thumbs” think booth babes or those that would hire them to attend a tech event.

The Diversity Panel was a great addition to the week. As someone noted, it was unfortunate some of the people who probably should have stayed seated got up and left to the other areas when it started. Given the circumstances surrounding the recent events, I thought it was great the panel was given the center stage and not one of the side stages. I do wish it could have gone on a longer though. Whatever length it was, it was just too short. I say this b/c it felt like there could have been much more to say. Perhaps this is b/c of where I stand on the question of meritocracy in our industry and b/c I long for a solution.

You walk around thinking it’s a normal day and then you walk into someone like Cara . She was at the demo pit with her company http://www.speakerfile.com/ , which you should check out. She was one of the lucky people I grilled the last day we were there. When I was done she was nice enough to ask me what it was that I did and why was I at Launch. After I gave her my 30 second pitch and exchanged some thoughts she did what few people have done for me. She flat out hooked me up and gave me a name, pointed me in a direction and said go get ‘em! If you know this business of building a business, you know this usually happens at the exchange of some political good will or currency. You know this usually does not happen with strangers and much less so to someone pitching an idea that is not going to get anyone rich.  As it turns out that last day of Launch was a strange day indeed. A brief discussion of bicycle security protocols with another demo pit attendee put me on the radar of this guy, @kitmueller.  Over a beers and burgers with some other launch attendees he offered to put me in contact with some people that I have been on my radar for some time.

So my first standout of the actual apps there is https://www.fotopigeon.com/. What they are doing is pretty special IMHO. One of the problems they are trying to fix is the ease in which you can send photos to loved ones that happen to be incarcerated. This is a population we like to forget about as a society and that is a mistake. Helping them while they are away and helping them stay grounded somehow or invested in people on the outside can only be positive.

My second standout is something I wish I had when I was a kid, http://rockyourblock.com/. These guys are trying to keep our teens busy, out of trouble and teaching them how to run their own business. That’s my version of it, head on over to their site to get it from them. 

The start ups at LAUNCH Festival 2013 had five girls in mind.

Girl #1: The Alcoholic.

There are plenty of apps out there that can help you find your next drink. Not many though can help you stop. Drinking.

The cofounder of Addicaid is an alcoholic. Her name is Sam and she prefers AA meetings that offer snacks and attract other young people like herself. Sounds reasonable. Why shouldn’t these preferences be met like every other preference in life that can readily be addressed with a mobile app? 

Addicaid is a meeting locator, as easy to navigate as Yelp. It connects you with meetings happening throughout your city, that speak to your personal preferences. Beyond apps and reviews, the Daily Dose feature consists of engagement tools like picture prompts and fill in the blanks to help create daily habits that reaffirm your commitment. These can be shared with the community and offers a way to look back at your progress.

Addicaid

Images via LAUNCH

  Girl #2: Nasty Gal.

She’s a scrappy vintage fashionista turned CEO of a multimillion dollar ecommerce site that’s turning Zappos CEOs into fanboys (see Will Young's Office Hours video from LAUNCH2013).

Seems like she's got her game figured out. Trendalytics is designed to help fashion ecommerce entrepreneurs on the heels of NG stock their virtual shelves with shit that sells. The Nasty Gals of the world can make data-driven decisions with a platform that provides analytics on fashion trends across social media.

Style may always rely on taste and intuition. But business? Can't hurt to see the numbers.

Trendalytics

Images via LAUNCH

  Girl #3: Carrie Bradshaw (circa Sex and the City movie).

She was told he would marry her, she wore a bird hat, she got stood up, then the real pain. She had to move ALL OF HER CRAP back into the apartment. Collapse.

If only she had Boxbee. New Yorkers who by nature have too much baggage (the writer apologies for the pun, they're free flowing when SATC is the subject at hand) and little space to store it in, now have a service that brings self-storage to the modern age. When you store your belongings with Boxbee you have an online interface that allows you to retrieve your items (say, extra glassware) in time for your dinner party, store your stuff with a click of a button while someone rents your place on AirBnB or you can donate or sell your stuff — again with a click of a button. Forgot what kind of skeletons are hiding in your Boxbee closet? You can be scarily reminded with a handy dandy visual inventory list that, let's face it, you'd never make with stuff cluttered in your garage. Storage with Boxbee starts as low as $3/month.

New Yorkers go wild. Alas — Boxbee is only in SF as of now. Collapse.

"For the first time ever, the convenience of cloud storage is now available for your physical world."

Jason Calacanis: "Crushing it."

As a side note, the cofounder of Boxbee is an extremely attractive gentleman.

Boxbee

Images via LAUNCH

  Girl #4: The Trekkie

If there’s anyone who knows how to use technology to solve a human problem, it’s a stalker (You thought I was going to say Trekkie. I didn't. Calm down). She dates. Things fall apart quickly. Then she does her thing. She may be inclined to check out Nano Satisfi’s satellite technology (costs $250 and you get to actually control a satellite in outer space for a week). However, she’ll quickly learn that this product is actually geared towards her cooler sister, the trekkie.

Take pictures in space. Play ping pong in space. Develop your own application to run on your satellite in space. All the stuff you would probably do if you were hanging out on the Enterprise.

Related happenings this week: Cory Booker, famous Trekkie, speaks Klingon.

Nano Satisfi

Images via LAUNCH

Girl #5: Every Girl on Facebook Over the Age of 34.

Socialparent.com. It's exactly what it sounds like. If those baby pics that have slowly invaded my Facebook feed in the past two years begin to disappear, I'll know this start up has hit its stride.

Socialparent.com

I first heard about Jason Calacanis when a good friend of mine, Sam Daoud, who happened to be a fan of Jason shared with me one of Jason's mails. I'm used to run into today's bla bla bla kind of business/technology reports, that tells you nothing useful, and I hate it because it wastes valuable time, but Jason's writings are different, they are irregular, which means he doesn't write to earn his living and he doesn't write if he has nothing valuable to write about.

Since then I started reading his mails as soon as they arrive, and when he announced the Launch Festival 2013 I said to myself this guy is REAL, his writings are REAL, his event must be real too and worths attending. But here is one little obstacle, I live in Jordan and I had to fly 20 hours to make it to San Francisco.

Anyway Sam helped me to make my mind, and I was the only one who flew 20 hours just to attend the Festival, people at the event were amazed when they knew I'm coming from the middle east. However the event was REAL, and far better than what I could imagine.

Startups pitches and demos were selected carefully. After almost every pitch you would say "Damn, they're good, this might be the next big thing". I was amazed when Jason told the audience that Zendesk pitched on this stage couple of years ago, and they are now worth of 100s millions of dollars, I'm amazed because my company uses Zendesk and I know it is an awesome tool.

After all Jason was real, very real, he was helping the entrepreneur on stage whenever something goes wrong during the pitch, he was highlighting the value the team is offering when the judges attack their work harshly, and at the end he puts his money where his mouth is.

Bottom line if you are a VC or angel investor, entrepreneur, engineer or creative designer, and you were not there, you might have missed the opportunity to invest in or be part of the next big thing. 

Personally, I will be their next year, in Launch Festival 2014.

Thanks Jason for bringing all these people together, and thanks for the 1$ ticket :)