Kyle
15 year old Tal Hoffman is the Israeli founder of new social network iTimdi
Last month we brought you the story of 15 year old Jackson Gariety who’s startup #hashtraffic debuted at Startup Weekend Portland.
Now we’ve got the story of another 15 year old entrepreneur, Tal Hoffmen thousand of miles away in Israel. In his own words he describes his startup as: “iTimdi is an interests based social network. That means it lets you both create new social connections based on your interests & keep your previous ones”.
This is actually Hoffman’s second startup. His first was a new media reviews site which he did “just for fun”.
We got a few minutes between classes, and building his startup to talk with Hoffman about an interest focused social network and how a 15 year old launches a startup.
Unfortunately, I’m the only founder, though I’m looking for one more technical co-founder. My name is Tal Hoffman, 15 y/o from Haifa, Israel. I’m a WEB programmer in PHP, and know a bit ASP & C sharp.
Well, as a tech lover and programmer I thought about new ideas for new possible big websites. The fact I started to get bored of Facebook just accelerated all of this. At this point, I started to think about gaps Facebook and its competitors don’t cover and came up with this.
My parents support my, though they aren’t really tech guys. The costs aren’t big so far, and the fact I do programming work for someone gives me some money to cover these little costs.
This is my first startup, though I once built a reviews site from zero for fun matters.
So describe for our readers how an interest based social network works?
Well, interests based social network, specifically – iTimdi – lets you choose your interests.
Then, you’ll be able to post updates, share collections, create events, search for friends, etc on each interest’s page. This way, you’ll get the best opportunity to make new connections & manage them successfully.
You’re based in Israel, will itimdi come out in Israel first or are you targeting the US first?
Even though I’m based in Israel, iTimdi, from the very first day, targets to the international market, specifically, to the US. With Israel being the “startup nation”, it has some of the world’s best startups and entrepreneurship scene. The problem is that Israel is a very small country with only 7 million citizens. Therefore, iTimdi is targeted to the international community.
What problem does iTimdi solve?
Although the main social networks today provide their users ways to preserve their general connections, they don’t offer any efficient ways to get to know new ones. iTimdi does both due to a simple interface.
iTimdi’s secret sauce is the combination of meeting new friends, preserving old-general connections & customizable privacy preferences.
Besides programming I love rock music (including the best: RHCP, Eric Clapton & Led Zeppelin), drums (I’m a drummer…) and playing basketball.
My biggest plan is to keep being involved in iTimdi and making it to one of the biggest social websites players in the field.
Hopefully, after releasing the Beta – release the final version to the public and work on making it the leader in helping people really manage great, interesting social life.
How can people find out more about you and itimdi?
At the official website: http://www.itimdi.com.
For any more questions feel free to email to contact@itimdi.com.
