2008.09.08-10: TechCrunch50 Conference

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the much anticipated TechCrunch50 Conference this past week; however, I managed to look into the presentations. A common question many of the panelists posed was whether the finalist companies were features or actual businesses irrespective of their viability or potential.

On the positioning of CopyBox, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com commented, "The danger is that you're perceived as a feature and not a company." Unfortunately for many start-up hopefuls, this is a common pitfall. Anywhere innovation and ideas flourish, not just hotbeds like Silicon Valley, basic economic principles still apply: there is not enough adequate leadership, human capital, money, or time (because much success is based on timing and windows of opportunity seem to be shrinking in many industries as the world becomes more networked and competitive).

It was more obvious that companies like Gazopa were features, but pretty cool nonetheless. Jeff Weiner of Accell Partners and Greylock Partners complimented Causecast for stressing the "story, not the functionality," a message Chip and Dan Heath couldn't stress enough. Dropbox was one of those companies that could either be a feature or a platform. I did have a chance to test it out since the conference and it truly is as simple as advertised. Then there were clever "knock-off" platforms like Yammer that were rebranded niche versions of incredibly popular businesses - in this case, Twitter. I cried a little at their elegant entrance into an unaddressed segment of a newly established market.

Below is a list of companies I found particularly interesting:

• Causecast - Ryan Scott. Sean Parker, founder of Causes on Facebook and Myspace, enjoyed this presentation as much as I did.
• Closet Couture - Christine Elia was obviously well-prepared.
• DotSpots, even though this is a saturated market, Farhad Mohit came from Burning Man to give the presentation!
• Fotonauts - Jean-Marie Hullot gave an amazing presentation. They're also backed by Reid Hoffman, the Carl Icahn of the tech industry. It's a really nice social complement to Microsoft's Photosynth.
• GoodGuide - in an increasingly global economy and society, it's important for every global citizen to understand the impact that their consumer habits have on the rest of the world...
• GoodRec - the panelists were dead on when they said this is powerful with Twitter.
• Grockit - while I think they have a novel idea, they're missing the private preparation that people naturally do in most activities. I truly believe in the power of the Music Genome Project and Pandora's monetization of that database. Fotonauts seems to be well-positioned to do the same thing for photos on the internet by simplifying the association of Wikipedia and GPS tags. In this presentation, I heard no speak of harvesting and monetizing the "learning" data set byproduct of the user process - better understanding mistakes people make and what they do to improve their understanding (or memory) of the subject matter. As the web continues to become more open and connected, it seems counterintuitive to have a closed system, and dangerous not to have a proven point system for something as serious as personal knowledge, expertise, or skills.
• iamnews - these guys still have a long way to go from concept to shipped product but i wish them the best of luck.
• ImindI - i hope these guys pull something off. It's unfortunate when innovative minds are hampered by a lack of business sense or the expansiveness of the innovation's edge. Visual thesaurus is a great example of how to monetize a similar technology; it's not as sophisticated and didn't require initial input, but ImindI can easily reduce barriers to adoption if the solution can in fact import del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, web search histories, etc. and there is something beyond raw data input and output to establish more engaged contribution and usage.
• My favoritism of entrepreneurship and continued learning inclines me to say i'd like to see this technology applied
  
• Me-Trics - great idea, but will be hard to execute without a ton of partnerships. Analysis is has nominal value without a holistic view of inputs and outputs. However, it's better than going to a doctor who has no information about your regular activities so corrective measures are typically standard procedure, not a unique analysis per patient. My parents are both physicians and encourage patient self-awareness because it both helps them make a better assessment but, more importantly, it empowers them to take appropriate preventative measures so they stop calling my parents at 1am to be told to "go to the emergency room or wait until our office opens tomorrow."
• Other Inbox - this hits close to home with respect to what we're doing at Epostmarks. It takes a similar approach to some of the same challenges Facebook overcome with features like Page Updates when "fans" subscribe to receive notification much in the same way that emails function today.
• PostBox - this his even closer to home here at Epostmarks., and more so for a Rochester Institute of Technology start-up, Digsby, that I'm a supreme fan of and often promote to my friends and colleagues. PostBox also contains some similar though less robust functionality to an Outlook plugin developed by Xobni. Tim O'Reilly made yet another interesting point with regard to scalability of PostBox by saying, "The difference between theory and practice is always greater in practice than it is in theory." The reason the small guy will always have at least a glimpse of opportunity is the desire for users to have service neutrality. However, the last thing we need is a new inbox especially one that is locked to a desktop. Almost any business ompeting in a mature market such as ESP without providing a truly disruptive innovation to the mix or becoming vertically/horizontally integrated in the value chain is doomed to fail.
• Swype - great demo. These guys are veterans.
• TrueCar - the auto industry definitely needs an independent arbiter.
• VideoSurf - Extending search beyond text-based medium was inevitable, but the application of Computer Vision still requires some additional refinement.