Startups Archives - Page 3 of 144

How to Enhance a Job Hunt Using Social Media

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Many job agencies are using social media for recruiters as a way of sourcing the most talented individuals. As such, it makes sense to get ahead of the game now, by following these simple steps in order to boost your online social media profile.

There are several super-smart ways in which you can enhance your job hunt through using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn:

Tell the World You’re Looking!

Start off by making announcements on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook that you are looking for a job. If possible, give details on precisely the kind of job you are after.

Network on Facebook

Carefully go through your list of friends on Facebook and don’t be afraid to reach out to people individually. That person might be able to get you work experience or even introduce you to their boss or a colleague who is hiring.

Check Your Privacy Settings

Ensure that you keep your private life private by selecting the ‘Friends only’ setting in your privacy settings on Facebook.

Check Out the Hiring Manager

Before submitting an application, look up your hiring manager on LinkedIn and try to find out as much information as possible about them. This will help you to better tailor your application to their wants and needs.

Add a Hyperlink to Your CV

In the contact details section on your CV, add in a hyperlink to both your LinkedIn profile and your Twitter handle. Doing so shows a potential employer that you are Internet savvy.

Make Connections Happen

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know! So find out the names of the people you need to be rubbing shoulders with and start following them on Twitter and retweeting their links. With any luck they should soon also be following you. Don’t forget to also add them or their company on LinkedIn.

Use Google to Your Advantage

You may wish to check what happens when you type your name into Google, as a potential employer is likely to carry out this basic check before offering you an interview. If you are less than pleased with the results, start using your LinkedIn profile as much as you possibly can. Doing so should bump your profile to the top of the search results for your name, hence an employer will look at this before anything else.

Get Involved on Twitter

Look out for chats focusing on the industry you work in and try to participate as actively as you can. Joining these conversations will help you to make contacts and to showcase your knowledge of the industry.

Ask for Advice via Social Media

Each of the networks mentioned are superb places in which to seek advice from recruitment agencies and other job-hunters. You can get loads of useful hints and tips by following career experts. By using these simple tips, you should be in a much stronger position to make the right connections online, thus greatly enhancing your chances of landing a suitable job.

Indiana’s Snappening Brings Event Planning to Your Phone

Three-year-old Indianapolis company Snappening has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $20,000. The company will use money from the flexible funding campaign to develop an app to go along with their current website.

In 2011, Crystal Grave agreed to help a friend plan her wedding. With plenty of experience in corporate event planning, she expected it to be no problem.

For Crystal, the process wasn’t too troubling, but she soon realized that an average consumer would find it impossibly hard to navigate. Without something as simple as a comprehensive database of venues, someone with no knowledge of the industry could waste days in research and still not find what they needed.

In answer to the problem, Crystal created Snappening.com. Focused mainly in Indiana (for now!) the site helps you find a venue and/or an event planner for any type of event.

As the company grows, a mobile app seems the next logical step. So, in coordination with Indiegogo’s International Women’s Day initiative, Crystal launched a crowdfunding campaign.

The mobile app will bring the same search engine users experience on the website. It will also help you locate venues nearby using the GPS on your phone and allow users to connect with several potential venues at once.

Through the mobile app, Snappening also wants to expand nationally and across vendor categories.

Event planning is a $6 billion/year industry, and that doesn’t really even cover the average party planner who is looking to plan a party or wedding. While there are tons of apps to help plan and prepare, nothing quite covers the niche Crystal and Snappening are shooting for. They’ve spent 3 years slowly building their presence in Indiana and gaining revenue through premium memberships and advertisements.

Now with a proven business model and lots of experience, they’ve put themselves in a good position to grow bigger and bigger. Check out their Indiegogo campaign and see what you think.

Packback Ramps Up Before Shark Tank Debut

Tomorrow Chicago-based Packback will face the sharks of ABC’s Shark Tank, looking for investment in their textbook rental company.

We talked about Packback last summer, after meeting them during Chicago Tech Week. The company–begun when the 3 founders were still in school at Illinois State–allows students to rent textbooks by the day, effectively cutting college costs by thousands of dollars.

What do the textbook publishers think about this? Because the system is effectively rent-to-own, the publishers are actually recouping revenue from the used textbook market, as all of Packback books are the newest version available.

The company is an active part of the Chicago tech scene. They incubated at 1871 before moving to new offices at Catapult Chicago with their growing team.

So, what does a tiny startup do to gear up for a big TV debut? In their own words:

The urgency of preparing for the episode has drawn our team closer than ever as we’ve taken our 2 month product roadmap and have condensed it into the next three weeks. We’ve launched our new site with new features as we’re hoping to empower students to make more informed decisions when buying or selling books. Our free sell tool allows students to compare textbook buy-back prices from popular online retailers to find the best offer and maximize their cashback. Students use our real-time price comparison engine while buying books to ensure they find the lowest prices across the web, and of course our digital inventory of $3 to $5 digital textbook rentals has been growing every month as we continuously sign on publishers.

The recent 16 hour-straight days at the office have been taxing but it’s been awesome to see what we’ve been able to accomplish. Our amazing cast of investors have been extremely supportive of our appearance and we’ve recently had the pleasure to have spent a lot of great time with our board of directors Mark Achler and Howard Tullman.

The frenzy is justified. According to some estimates, a spot on the show equals $4-5 million in free marketing. Products and apps on the show see a huge spike in traffic and interest any time their episode airs. It’s common for apps to hit the #1 spot in the app store within moments of their segment ending, especially if the sharks actually like the company.

And products the sharks don’t bite on? Even many of those go on to win big.

Either way, there’s no doubt Packback’s 16-hour days will be well worth it come tomorrow night.

GripeO Launches Web & Mobile App to Help You Complain Effectively

A couple of years ago, my husband and I were planning a trip to New York City so he could run the NYC marathon. Thanks to his coaching job requiring him to be at a meet the day before the race, we didn’t get to make our normal trek 2 days early. We were going to be right up to the wire.

Then, early in the week of the race, Hurricane Sandy hit. Lots of back and forths between the mayor and New York Roadrunners Association, but the race was finally cancelled late Friday night, the day before we were supposed to leave.

“But, there was a hurricane in New York, maybe you heard about it,” my husband protested to the airlines as we asked for a refund.

I took to Twitter, complaining and hastagging the appropriate companies. Eventually, they did the right thing and refunded the cost of our flights. I’d like to say my complaints on Twitter did something to help that, but let’s be real. I was just one person complaining on Twitter that night.

New complaint platform GripeO is looking to change that.

Launched out of beta last week, GripeO lets customers post their customer service complaints on the platform, then notifies the companies that a customer has an issue. Businesses can verify with GripeO and take care of the problem right there.

Why not just continue to complain on Twitter?

“The effectiveness of complaint management on Twitter is vastly over rated for both consumer and business,” GripeO CEO Mike Klanac told me.

So, the make it better, GripeO allows customer to post their complaints on the site, but then share them socially so their friends see them, too. Customers can create a “meme” of the complaint, and the platform suggests hashtags and structure to help the complaint go viral.

No company wants that, y’all. Companies that choose to verify on the platform can avoid that awkwardness and potential PR issue by mediating with the customer right on the site.

While the company is not yet generating revenue, they plan to make money by selling leads, premium tools, and intelligent advertising. In their beta, they tested with 200 users and 4 companies, and they’ve currently signed up a few more big companies since launch.

GripeO is live now, so if you have a complaint you can check it out on their website.

Caktus Wants to Make Music Discovery Social Again

It seems like everything’s going social these days. Just last week we wrote about Startup Bus company TrustVino, who is trying to put your friends’ favorite wine recommendations on your phone.

The new music app Caktus launched on Sunday at SXSW, and they’re essentially doing the same thing with music.

You sign up through Facebook or Twitter (on your iPhone or iPad). In the app, pins are dropped on a map to show where your friends are listening to music. You can see the song they’re listening to by hovering over the pin, and play a sample or buy the track from iTunes. If you already have the song on your phone, you can listen to it in the app.

The company ran a 6 week beta with 50 users, mostly in the Indianapolis area. In that time, they saw 10,000 plays through the app. That kind of traction got them an invitation to launch and SXSW.

“The app came about because my brother always got to the bands first,” cofounder Dane Regnier told me when we talked at SXSW last weekend. “Once we moved away from each other, it just wasn’t easy to share what music we were listening to anymore. Caktus makes that a lot easier.”

Obviously passionate about what he’s built, Regnier was bouncing and talking fast, quick to explain features and data points from the app.

“We’re social-first,” he said when I asked about Spotify’s stream. “No one else did it that way.”

Most social apps bank on building a huge user base they can then market to. Caktus is going a different way by jumping on the Apple affliate program to bring in revenue.

Despite being “social-first” Caktus will have an uphill fight to battle other discovery methods like Spotify, Pandora, or basic word of mouth. Still, the app is beautifully designed, and like a lot of new music startups, independent artists and bands are a big focus for them. Those little guys can often get lost (or screwed) on the bigger platforms.

Check out Caktus on their website.

PlateWave Uses License Plates to Help You Find Love

You’re driving down the street in your new car and you see heads turn. You’re not going to stop the car, get out, and talk to that person, are you?

Or, on the flip side, you’re the person on the street, and you see that car drive by. That car’s driver just happens to be a fairly good-looking person, too.

Up until now, what did you do? In short, nothing. You gawked at either the guy or gal opening the door, climbing in, and zooming right out of your dreams.

Or, if you were the driver, you kept driving, hoping that by some magical happenstance you might someday see that same bystander on the side of the road staring at you again. Then all of the stars would align and you’d fall into each others’ arms and live happily ever after.

Marcus Ackerley, though a thoroughly happy and long-time married man, came up with a solution to each of these problems. A Brit who happens to drive a fairly nice car, Marcus got a call one day.

“Were you out driving today?” his car dealership asked. And he had been. The seed was planted.

Fast forward four years and Marc’s created PlateWave, an app that helps people find and connect to each other using registration (or license) plates. Savvy, eh?

His first aha moment came when he ran a little math through his head, though.

“What are the chances of someone knowing someone at the dealership I bought my car at? Now what are the chances of someone knowing someone at every one of the hundreds of dealers across the country? What kind of chances exist that I’m driving in my own town and not traveling across the country at the time when they see me? Altogether, they’re virtually zero.”

“What we’re talking about here is visual social discovery,” Ackerley said, “You see something or someone and you’re interested to the extent that you’d like to make some kind of comment. And if it’s easy enough for you to send them a message…it’s a whole new, easy way of contacting people.”

And that it is. It kind of reminds me of a Tinder for cars, actually.

His second aha moment came when he met his technical partners. “There is a way of doing it. It’s just a really, really big project,” the tech side of the project, Sean Wilson and James Black of Underground Creative, a UK-based web development firm, said. And though it’s been roughly four or so years in the making, they’ve done it.

Though PlateWave is only available in the UK as of now, they expect to be scaling to a country near you soon, so be sure to check out PlateWave at platewave.com and follow @PlateWave on Twitter.

Tyler Sondag is a startup connoisseur with a hand in anything and everything you could imagine. Hailing from the ever-developing Northwest Mississippi, an alum of Saint Louis University and currently a transplant to St. Louis, Missouri, one of his main missions in life is to get and keep young people engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Follow him on Twitter: @MrSondag.

Is Your Startup Considered “High Risk”?

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All startups are high risk, in a sense. But some startups fall under the formal definition of “high risk,” where finances are concerned. These are the startups that deal with travel booking, adult encounters, e-cigarettes and vaporizers, and other designated “risky” financial transactions.

Banks often do not want to do business with startups that deal in these arenas, labeling them “high risk merchant accounts.” That means that these startups have to find another way to process credit cards and accept the financial transactions that will keep their businesses going.

If you’re working on a new startup or considering launching a startup this year, you’ve probably already been thinking about what the New Year means for business. You’re thinking about increasing efficiency, expanding reach, innovating, and designing. You’re definitely thinking about earning money. But what if your high risk startup is getting in your own way?

The trouble is that many startups, especially those based around mobile technology, involve “high risk” business categories in at least one aspect. Think of all of the travel websites and apps out there, the ones that let you book flights and hotels at the tap of a button. Think about all the dating sites that require subscription payments, and all of the apps like Tinder. The line between a “low risk” idea and a “high risk” idea is often unclear, and it will be difficult to know on which side your business is going to fall until you’ve already gotten started.

If you have already started your startup, you may already be finding yourself running into banks who do not want to do business with your “high risk” company. If you haven’t started your startup, you may be surprised to learn that your big idea is considered to be “high risk.” Either way, you need to figure out a solution to help your business grow.

Luckily, there are many companies available to provide financial solutions your high risk merchant account. These companies both work with businesses in high-risk categories as well as businesses that have bad credit — after all, the only real way to get out of a credit problem is to bring in more customer revenue, which is often difficult if banks are unwilling to help you achieve that goal.

These companies provide a third party service through which you and your customers can process financial transactions, giving you the opportunity you need to earn revenue and build your business. They help high risk startups become less risky, by giving them a way through which to earn money, and by helping them establish a foothold in their respective markets.

So. Are you launching a startup this year? Are you hoping to change 2014 by making it the year of your company, or app, or website, or product? You may be high risk, and may not know it yet. But that shouldn’t be a barrier to entry, and shouldn’t be a reason for you to set your startup dreams aside. Create your business plan, hire your team, start working on your startup, and know that you have options if banks consider you too risky. Being “high risk” doesn’t mean you’re at a high risk of failing. It only means that you need to look for alternative strategies to help you achieve success.

On The List Brings Exclusive Concert Experiences to Regular People

Startup Bus is rolling on along, and companies are talking, coding, and pitching fast.

On the Tennessee Startup Bus, On the List dominates the back seats. Even on little sleep, the team is hyped up and excited about their product.

Imagine you’ve gotten tickets to the hottest show coming to town this month. Most likely, you bought your ticket on a platform that charged outrageous fees, and you’ll be far from the stage or squashed in a crowd. That’s how concerts have always been, and it’s what we’ve come to expect.

Meanwhile, a brand–say Heineken–has spent $50,000 on sponsoring the event. That means their name is branded along the event and probably plastered all over the venue. Unfortunately, because we’re all used to branding at this point, you may not even notice the signs.

On the List solves both of these problems. As a fan, you pay the same amount for tickets, but brands sponsor add-ons that make your experience exponentially better. Forget signs or hats. What if Heineken sponsored your beer during the show? My guess is you’d remember Heineken fondly after that, and it’ll probably cost them as much or less than the “big” sponsorship.

The idea was originally pitched by Jack McCann. As a concert promoter in Nashville, McCann had first hand experience in the gap between brand sponsorship and audience engagement.

“When I was a kid I played a lot of Connect the Dots,” McCann told me when I asked about his initial inspiration. (Forgive him. We’ve been up for many, many hours.)

“The idea of throwing money at the big picture and hoping for a halo effect seems like that’s just not effective anymore,” he said once we got serious. “Brands needed a better value proposition. I thought it would be innovative and disruptive to allow them to directly connect with the fans. It gives brands an agile opportunity to curate the fan experience.”

A team of guys coalesced around it and got to work. And by got to work, I mean got to work. During our crazy trip, the team has validated their concept, built their service, and signed up users. One team member made 50 phone calls yesterday, pacing the bus and recruiting users. On the List is smoking through this Startup Bus thing.

You can go ahead and sign up on their website.

TrustVino Helps You Find the Best Wine Around

My favorite startups are the ones I that make me say, “I want that!”

When I heard the pitch for TrustVino, I wasn’t too impressed. Untapped for wine. Eh, cool, I guess, but not ultimately exciting.

Then the TrustVino team kept talking. Their tagline is Wine, Socially. Similar to a social network, they utilize “friends” and a stream (or, “pour” if you will). Users download the app and have access to the company’s wine database. From there they can start finding friends, recommend wines, and add their own favorite wines. Then, the next time they’re at the wine store, they can pull up the web app and get a recommendation from their friends about the next wine to try.

TrustVino can be used by wine snobs and wine newbs alike. More knowledgeable wine drinkers can expand their expertise, but they can also accumulate a “following” of people looking for great wines. People just getting into wine, who are overwhelmed by the options, vintages, and flavors, can get quality recommendations as they explore the wine world.

Most social media models rely on huge user bases to monetize through ads. TrustVino is shooting for revenue out the gate, with an affiliate model that allows people to click through to Wine.com to buy the recommended wine. They have some interesting ideas for other revenue streams that can implemented when the user base grows.

Oh, yeah. This awesome app I’m already anxiously awaiting is being built on the Tennessee Startup Bus.

“Initially we thought this would be a cool app to build on a bus about wine,” cofounder Roxanne Spielvogel told me. “But when we started telling people about it we realized that this was actually a real need in the market.”

The idea was pitched by Boaz Reynolds on the first leg of the trip. By the time we got back on the bus in Chattanooga, the team was formed and they were ready to go.

“Ultimately this is something I wanted to use, something I wanted to have. It’s selfishly mine,” Boaz Reynolds, cofounder of TrustVino. “The team gravitated to the idea in Chattanooga, and it just kind of organically happened.”

You can follow TrustVino on Twitter, and they’ll let you know when the app is ready.

There are some amazing companies being built on the Tennessee Startup Bus, and the other buses crisscrossing the country. But TrustVino is the first one I’ve heard of that I’m wishing was a thing right this minute.

Because, hey, we’re stuck in Baton Rouge, LA thanks to ice, and I need a drink.

Here’s Why Startups Should Keep Up With Tax Law Changes

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The art of running a successful startup business is not as linear as stated in the fundamental courses of finance. There are a lot of intricacies involved, such as legal and tax matters, that need to be complied in order to lead a successful startup. The causal link is that startups need to focus more on non-generating aspects, such as tax compliance. A stat report on startup business points out areas that led to failure: 46% of failures are caused by incompetence in the taxation domain… Food for thought. Tracing tax exposure and keeping up Tax changes can interfere with business success in various methods. A simple way to explain this is when a business is selling the product(s) in different forms. For instance, a startup sells software that can either be downloaded or bought on a disc. The delivery variability means that the tax rate can vary. This is where state based regulations play a major role. If the software is downloaded in Texas, the tax rate is going to be different. Likewise, if the product is bought as a disc, it falls under the ‘tangible good’ category, the tax rate being different. Since the state laws on taxing digital good vary on a routine basis, tracking them requires a non-conventional approach. State laws also have a far reaching impact on startups. Contrary to the ‘academic’ belief, the physical presence of a startup is not the only way to create tax exposure. A good example is the ‘nexus’ effect, which is created when enterprises do businesses in different states. For instance, a person runs a startup enterprise in California and does a sales deal in Miami. This action requires the business owner to register and file Florida state sales taxes. The dynamism of tax structures demands a focus on financial factors that affect business environment. Startup entrepreneurs can boost financial literacy through financial seminars and insights on the future of wealth management. Also, they can take advantage of webcasts, tax news applications and online newspapers to keep up with the latest in tax laws. It is also important to mention that the best way to manage taxes is by complying with them, rather than looking for ‘safety nets’. For instance, state laws also require startups to show their foreign capital. This very reason led to a startup, Beanie Babies is to be levied a penalty of $53.6 million for tax evasion. The plain cause behind the issue was undeclared Swiss accounts, deemed as a safety net. However, state laws within Illinois allowed the U.S. attorney to pursue a case. Financial complexities are a common occurrence within the marketplace and are being further compounded due to the presence of newer kinds of financial products. As the state and the Fed tries to keep up pace with the development, they would keep evolving the tax ecosphere. It is therefore necessary for a startup to have a sound tax structure in place that takes all the changes into consideration. Not only will it ensure compliance to government laws, it will play a vital role in the long-term success of the business.

Israel-based Samba Videos the Reactions to Your Videos

We’re big Snapchat users in my house.

No, no sexting over here. Around here Snapchat is mostly used for us to receive videos of college athletes doing stupid stuff like tackling each other over a video game controller. (My husband’s a coach, and for some reason the athletes think we want to see this stuff.)

I have to admit, though, the guys’ Snapchat videos are pretty funny. More than once I thought they’d love to see Coach’s reaction as he watched yet another one.

With that in mind, I was really excited to see Samba’s release last week. The iPhone app lets you send video to your friend and records their reaction as they watch. Then, it plays the video back to you, with your friend’s reaction playing in a little circle screen. Check out the video:

[iframe src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/Z6TbaVmHLNw” height=”450″ width=”720″ frameborder=”0″]

Obviously, right now the company is targeting college and high school students (and their coaches). Those are hot markets that everyone wants to capture. But, the app could be used for more poignant moments, too. Grandparents witnessing a special moment or loved ones announcing big news from far away. Unlike Snapchat, the videos don’t disappear. So, you can replay that sweet (or hilarious) moment over and over again.

Samba was founded in Tel Aviv by Barak Hachamov, Shay Erlichmen, Ronel Mor, and Oren Meiri. They do have competition from apps like Gigglemail and Dumbstruck, but Hachamov isn’t sweating it.

“We want to win the world in this category. It’s not going to replace anything,” he told Inc. “There is always room or a gap between services to give you an opportunity to bring something new that mimics human behavior.”

Samba had the great luck of debuting last week during the WhatsApp frenzy. With everyone looking for the new next thing, they seem to have gotten a nice boost in what could have been an otherwise normal launch day.

The company was also accepted to the SXSW Acclerator and will present on March 8th or 9th to the crowd at the annual festival.

Bourbon & Boots Brings Southern Culture to Your Doorstep

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I’m from the South.

I know. Y’all are so surprised, right?

In college a guy told me, “You guys [he wasn’t from the South] are the only people in the country who make a big deal about the South and North.”

Well, whether that’s true or not, these days Southern culture seems to be having a day in the sun. And those of us who grew up sippin’ sweet tea and swimmin’ in the creek understand why.

Bourbon & Boots is a company in Little Rock, AR that definitely understands it. They’re building a whole business off of Southern culture: Southern crafts, Southern clothes, Southern food–you name it and Bourbon & Boots has an artisan producing it.

Founder Matt Price says it best:

“Southern is a state of mind.”

Bourbon & Boots recruits artisans from all over the country that create products that fit the unique brand they’ve built. They range from kitschy bullet earrings to vintage cowboy boots and everywhere in between.

My personal favorite category is “Food and Booze,” where you can find a whole range of Southern-inspired food and utensils.

Bourbon & Boots isn’t merely an e-commerce company, though. Alongside the products they sell, they’re also developing a content company that showcases the best of Southern living. Of course, it has a little more edge than the magazine of that name. With articles like “Smooth Talk About Kentucky’s Speakeasy Bourbon” and “Tonic Syrup Nearly Ruined My Social Life,” this ain’t your grandmama’s Southern Living.

Of course, marrying content and commerce isn’t always the easiest feat. Refinery29 closed down its commerce branch last year and raised money to double down on content.

When I asked Bourbon & Boots’ Price about this, he chuckled.

“E-commerce is hard. Content is really hard. Trying to nail them both is impossible,” he admitted.

But, nailing them they are. More than 2 years after launch, Bourbon & Boots continues to grow, adding new vendors and freelance writers to the ranks. They’re also looking to create their own products in 2014, a move that could stretch their resources but also provide huge benefit in growing their brand.

Personality-driven commerce sites are a thing right now. Just look at Fab, Warby-Parker, JustFab, and NastyGal for proof. Bourbon & Boots plays into that trend with a delightful business that could only be built in the South.

And, yes. They do drink bourbon and wear boots.

[iframe src=”http://indicate.io/companies/bourbon-boots/embed” height=”450″ width=”720″ frameborder=”0″]

Draft Makes the Writing Life Easier–One Feature At A Time

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I’ve been a writer for most of my life, since second grade, actually. Back then my tools of choice were a #2 and a yellow steno pad.

Since then, I’ve tried every writing trick and tool in the world. (Because that’s what writers do. We test out writing software in order to soothe our not-writing consciences.)

Even though I liked all the software I’ve used, nothing stuck.

Then I tried Draft.

Founded by YC alum Nathan Kontny, Draft is a simple web app that allows you to, in their words, “write better.”

Well, I say it’s simple. But, honestly, the feature list is a thing to be admired:

Version control
Hemingway mode (to kill the inner editor)
Commenting
Collaboration
Rest API
Image hosting
“Publishing” that sends the draft to various platforms

Actually, I’ll stop there, but the list goes on. There’s even a “Ask a Pro” feature, which allows you to get feedback on your writing when there’s no one else you can con–er, ask to help.

Launched a little over a year ago, Draft is one of those rare lovely things that is a true labor of love as well as a business. On the heels of Cityposh, his YC company that was winding down, Kontny did a lot of writing. Like any hacker, he soon found things he didn’t like about his current options and started thinking about how to fix them.

“Everything you see in Draft was a personal itch in my own writing,” he told me over the phone.

In the year since launch, Draft has accumulated “tens of thousands” of users and brings in revenue from subscriptions and the “Ask a Pro” feature. I asked Kontny about raising money, but he shrugged it off.

“I want to use Draft forever,” he explained to me. Although he has a little YC funding left over, he knows that raising a large round of VC would make him beholden to investors, which could kill the organic growth he’s seeing.

“There’s no time bomb,” he said. “If it doesn’t explode in a year, I’ll still have time to work on it.”

In so many ways, Kontny is the opposite of what we hear startups should be. He’s a single founder, mainly bootstrapping by choice, and focused on revenue over growth. Yet, the slow organic strategy could be just the thing that keeps Draft going for years to come.

DuckDuckGo: A Look at the Truly Private Search Engine

From Fast Company

When Gabriel Weinberg launched a search engine in 2008, plenty of people thought he was insane. How could DuckDuckGo, a tiny, Philadelphia-based startup, go up against Google? One way, he wagered, was by respecting user privacy. Six years later, we’re living in the post-Snowden era, and the idea doesn’t seem so crazy.

In fact, DuckDuckGo is exploding.

Looking at a chart of DuckDuckGo’s daily search queries, the milestones are obvious. A $3 million investment from Union Square Ventures in 2011. Just prior to that, a San Francisco billboard campaign. Inclusion in Time‘s 50 Best Websites of 2011. Each of these things moved the traffic needle for DuckDuckGo, but none of them came close to sparking anything like the massive spike in queries the company saw last July. That’s when Edward Snowden first revealed the NSA’s extensive digital surveillance program to the world. The little blue line on the chart hasn’t stopped climbing north since.