ZEROmail – Co-founder Search Goes On
The search for a co-founder has been an interesting experience. Personally I feel that with ZEROmail we’re solving a huge problem with a massive market that isn’t very crowded. It seems that because email isn’t very “sexy” like group buying or social networking few startups focus in this area. The popularity of add-on apps like OtherInbox, Xobni and Rapportive clearly shows the potential in this market. It quite amazing to hear about the effort that email power-users go through to create “systems” within their existing clients to keep their email manageable. This is clearly not a nice-to-have. I believe that this is what many have been waiting for, with credit card in hand…
But what use is a good idea without a good team, right? Well, I bring 28 years of coding experience + the experience of having co-founded, grown and exited a successful startup to the table. In the last few years of running StartupCamps, Katrin has been the one of the most impressive designers I’ve come across, with 6 years of commercial experience and most of all an ability to get stuff done… quickly. So I think it’s safe to say that we have a team that knows how to execute well.
On top of all that, this is not just an idea… I already use ZEROmail as my primary email client.
While the 2 of us can probably build the system at least until open beta, things would move a lot faster with an extra coder on board. So we’ve been looking and from where I’m sitting I don’t understand why coders aren’t lining up to get on board… Maybe it’s not “sexy” enough… Maybe this highlights a problem with the Australian startup scene. Plenty of ideas people that are ready to come on board, not many coders. Maybe I just haven’t been able to reach the right people yet.
Anyway, time to widen the search… We’re happy co-founders from anywhere, as long as they are willing to relocate to Sydney… The way I see it, a lot of talent has moved to Silicon Valley, time to bring some back to Australia…
And since you’ve read this far, why not help us out and either send the following to your network or give some suggestions in the comments on where we could post this!
ZEROmail looking for technical co-founders
Email used to be fun. We’d get emails, respond to them, and all was good. Now we get heaps of emails every day and spend way too much time dealing with them. At the same time, email clients have hardly changed in the last 20 years. It’s time to reinvent this tool, to bring it into this day and age. This is the goal of ZEROmail!
We’re looking for great hackers that can (eventually) work full-time on ZEROmail in Sydney. We’re happy to talk to people from anywhere as long as you’re willing to relocate to Sydney. All founders have the same equity arrangement (in short, equity share is based on hours worked).
We are currently in closed beta and we’re aiming to open up the beta in 6-8 weeks. Code is in python, web framework is Tornado, database is Postgresql.
The current team consists of Katrin Suess, designer and front-end coder with 6 years of experience and Bart Jellema, experienced entrepreneur and great hacker with 28 years of coding experience.
So if you think you’ve got what it takes and are excited about joining a startup that will change the way we deal with email forever, send us an email (b@rtje.net) now! If not, please pass this on to any great hackers you know!
Some more info:
http://www.itwire.com/it-people-news/people/45481-jellemas-zeromail-hits-closed-beta
http://blog.bartjellema.com/2011/02/28/zeromail-still-looking-for-founders/
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/joshuagrech/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/sydney_startup_brings_inbox_back_to_zero/
ZEROmail – Still looking for founders
It’s been an interesting month for ZEROmail (previously Project Inbox ZERO). We started with a team of four, but unfortunately Stephen decided to focus on his honours this year (as planned) and James wasn’t a good team fit. Also, Katrin has been working only part-time on ZEROmail and we took last week off because my sister was visiting.
Despite this we made huge progress and two weeks ago we entered closed beta with around 40 users. How does it work? ZEROmail copies all mail in your inbox to our system and you can manage your inbox on ZEROmail parallel to your existing inbox (GMail or any IMAP email account). Initially ZEROmail will not make any changes to your original inbox. When you are happy with the way ZEROmail works you can choose to synchronize your inboxes and keep them in sync.
Features already implemented include filtering out notifications, groups and newsletters. All three got their own spot in our ZEROmail interface and are displayed differently. All newsletters can be read in one view (like Google Reader) and notifications are displayed similar to notifications in Facebook which saves you heaps of time and clicks in dealing with these. We’ve also implemented sender profiles. When selecting an email a profile of the sender appears next to it. It displays details from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Gravatar, Profile pictures etc. if available. Personally I already use it as my primary mail client.
All code is written in Python and the webserver is Tornado. As a database we’re running PostgreSQL and all attachments are stored on Amazon S3. Even though 4 weeks ago I wrote my first line of Python it has proven to be quite a fast development environment. The only downside has been that it’s still a somewhat immature language with standard libraries that still have bugs/no proper unicode support/etc and other libraries simply being incomplete or not available at all.
Today is an exciting day for ZEROmail as both Katrin and myself will be working full-time on ZEROmail from now on; no distractions. We’re still looking for founders. In particular we’re looking for great hackers in Sydney that can (eventually) work full-time on ZEROmail. Any founder will have the same equity arrangement that Katrin and I have. Interested in making email better? Email me now!
Project Inbox ZERO – The Team
Two weeks ago I put out a call for co-founders to join me in my quest to make email better. Unlike startups that are in stealth mode (which I normally refer to as fail mode) I decided to describe our plans in detail before we even started. The result? We got heaps of responses from people pointing out similar services and startups, giving advice and feedback on the idea. Thanks to everyone who commented as this saved us heaps of time!
More importantly… we’ve got a team!
Katrin Suess – Katrin has worked since 2004 as web designer/developer. She is one of the best designers/front-end coders I’ve come across.
James Boyden – James is an experienced coder with a background in NLP (Natural Language Processing) and 10+ years working experience in highly optimized C++ and Python.
Stephen Merity – Stephen is a natural born coder with strong NLP and machine learning skills and his resume speaks for itself.
Bart Jellema – I just try to keep up with the team… (28 years coding experience and having co-founded Tjoos help)
This Monday we officially start, but we’ve already had a few extremely productive nights of hacking. For the techies: Everything is written in Python, we use PostgreSQL as database and we use the Tornado web framework. At the speed we’re going we should be able to get our first beta out in about 2 weeks. Sign up for it!
P.S. If I sound a bit over-excited, it’s because I am… 
Project Inbox ZERO – Who wants to join?
Email used to be fun. Sometimes I got an email, I responded to it and all was good. Now I get 100 emails a day and spent way too much time dealing with the dreaded email. At the same time email clients have hardly changed in the last 20 years. We now have HTML emails (unfortunately) and threading (thanks gmail!). But that’s about it. It’s time to reinvent this tool to bring it into this day and age. This is the goal of Project Inbox ZERO.
Imagine an inbox that isn’t cluttered with facebook notifications and newsletters, but only has “real” emails and the other messages are converted into what they actually are: notifications and newsletters. Do you ever find yourself scrolling back through emails trying to find someones phone number? What if your email client was smart enough to automatically collect and organize this information from your emails? How nice would it be if you had all relevant information at your fingertips when you received an email from someone: Some photos, their latest twitter updates, what social sites they are on and whether you have connected yet.
Are reply and forward really the only 2 things we do with emails? What about things like: “Turn into todo item”, “Snooze”, “Enter this invoice into my accounting system”, “Send a canned response”, “This email is way too long, please summerize”, etc, etc
Personally I believe email clients are still stuck in the 80′s and it’s time to build an email client for this day and age. Let’s make email fun again! I’ve started development and I’m looking for co-founders that are as excited about this as I am to join Project Inbox ZERO. Interested? You should contact me now!
Sign up for the beta here!
Scott Thomas (SimpleScott) on Designing Obama
I’m at Web Directions South today pretending I’m press filling in for Kim Heras. I’ll be putting together a full post for TheNextWeb about the day, but I thought I’d share the interview with Scott Thomas here.
StartMate applications are open!
Sydney’s new incubator (like Y-combinator) has just opened the applications. This is your chance to get some seed funding, but more importantly to be mentored by some of the best entrepreneurs in Sydney. If I wasn’t one of the mentors, I’d probably apply to this program myself. Anyway, time to get your applications in: http://www.startmate.com.au/application-process
So what is StartMate exactly?
Startmate is a group of startup executives offering mentorship and seed financing to founders of Internet and Software businesses based in Australia. Our first program is in the first quarter of 2011 in Sydney and applications will open later this year.
We want to help the most exceptional technically-focused founders create world class companies that solve customer problems.
The three month program offers a $25,000 investment, mentorship from more than 20 successful founders, sage legal counsel and a two week trip to Silicon Valley. At the conclusion of the program there are two demo days, one in Sydney and one in Silicon Valley, where you present in front of early stage investors.
We strongly believe in lean startup principles. The biggest risk in a startup is not whether someone will steal your idea or if you can build a product but rather that no one will care. Startmate is designed to help you win your first customers and work through the initial stages of customer discovery.
Personally I’m excited about the final selection process. Instead of some pitches and interviews, the plan is to run a camp like the StartupCamp I ran last weekend to really figure out how the teams work when the stress is on.
22 Ways To Fail
A while back I did a short presentation at Startup BarCamp Sydney on how to most effectively drive your startup into the ground. This list is a mix of things I’ve read, experience from people I’ve spoken to and a little bit of personal opinion. This post has been sitting in my draft for a while as I was going to add more info. But here’s is just the list I used:
Team
- Single founder
- No technical team member
Idea
- Refine your business model before you start
- Do in-depth market research
- Write an impressive 40-page business plan with awesome graphs, charts and projections
- Build a “nice to have”
- Be in it for the money
- Stick to your idea no matter what
- Don’t tell anyone about your idea, they will steal it
- Don’t network, it’s a waste of your time
Funding
- Seek funding before you start
Development
- Outsource all development
- Don’t quit your day job
- Make it perfect, don’t launch until it is
- Spend lots of development time making sure your app is scalable before you have any traffic
- Add lots of cool features (twitter/facebook integration etc)
- Give up when you hit a barrier
Growing
- Don’t talk to your customers until the product is finished
- Assume that when you build it, they will come
- Don’t waste time on your hiring process, any coder will do. If they don’t work out, give them a second chance
- Don’t listen to your customers/users, you already know what they want and need
- Don’t worry about the business model
Keep in mind… this is the perfect recipe for guaranteed FAILURE…. so you might want to try the opposite
How many of these are you guilty of?
MyMediStats Press Release: Take Control of Your Health Records
People often lose track of their medical records, especially information relating to vaccinations and allergies. A new application, MyMediStats.com was launched during the weekend which allows people to track their immunisations and allergy information in one place, anytime, anywhere.
The website can track past vaccinations and notify users of future vaccinations. Users can print out a card which will have a unique url which doctors can access to check the patient’s vaccination and allergy information.
“People don’t always appreciate the importance of knowing their medical history until they’re in a desperate situation. This application will help to remedy that,” said Sarah Babetski, co-founder of MyMediStats.com.
MyMediStats.com was built by five team members over a weekend during Start Up Camp Sydney (October 8-10, 2010). The team members included web developers, graphic designers and internet marketers: Katrin Suess, Ganesh Shankar, Marco Palmero, Lee Xin and, Sarah Babetski.
Five people got together, having 48 hours to build a tool which will provide value back to the community. They brainstormed through many concepts and narrowed their ideas to solve one problem: the fact that many people forget their immunisation and allergy histories.
DealPinch Press Release: Stealing the deals so you don’t have to
DealPinch will launch at 9pm tonight out of Startup Camp
Sydney, a weekend long bootcamp run by Startup Australia and Seed
Accelerator.
DealPinch aggregates the best daily deal and discount sites in your city
and delivers deals tailored to you to your inbox.
Australia has caught deal site fever. Popular services in Sydney include
Cudo, JumpOnIt, Scoopon and Spreets.
StartupCamp co-host and CEO of Seed Accelerator, Patrick Driessen said,
“This unique new service brings transparency and convenience to retail
customers of deal sites, who on average have subscriptions to two or three
different sites, if not more. DealPinch also offers a new source of
referrals and a new marketing opportunity for the operators of these
sites.”
Consumers find getting a great bargain very satisfying and market feedback
is that these discount sites are very addictive.
“I am really excited about DealPinch for a range of reasons, I think it
has the potential to change the game in this market,” said Driessen.
While having a broad selection of bargain deals on offer is good for
customers, psychologically this scenario of hyperchoice can leave
customers overwhelmed. The cognitive overload that results from
hyperchoice can result in regret and anxiety instead of buyer
satisfaction.
Scanning for deals online is a daily task for many bargain hunters. The
DealPinch team heard frustration from people about the growing number of
deal site email alerts they were receiving, but these people don’t want to
miss a great deal. DealPinch is a solution that aggregates these deals,
enabling users to select categories of interest and get email alerts that
are tailored to them.
Currently, women make up the majority of the customer base of deal sites
in Sydney but this may be because deals have largely been targeted to
them, focusing heavily on health and beauty. The DealPinch team are
exploring ways to expand into underserved demographics driven by analytics
on where demand exists.
DealPinch team member, Jonathan Clarke said, “I want to see some great
deals for us manly men, there is room for growth in this market. However,
at times I also want services more suitable for my girlfriend and there is
currently nothing on the market that allows me to tailor my preferences.”
DealPinch plans to pursue partnerships with deal site operators assisting
them to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Uinfluence.me takes a novel approach to online interpersonal connections by allowing users to nominate individuals who are a significant influence in their life. If an individual wanted to be recognized in a specific field of influence, their supporters are given the opportunity to recommend that individual. In this way, uinfluence.me creates an organic and growing web of influences and connections.
A Young team of 5and gave birth to uinfluence.me under the guidance of Bart Jellema, the co-founder of Start up Sydney, Patrick Driessen and Adeline De Waziers at StartupCamp Sydney. As one of its founder Gy Sag Sohn said ‘There was a lot of work to do but it was interesting”
Uinfluence.me creates value not only by allowing the user to share its influences, but also by allowing them to create a unique situation where the user can explore the interesting fact of why people follow them. “It was really interesting to see what people have recommended me to” said New User. Since it’s a unique proposition which provides this direct relationship between the users, this creates a unique value proposition for the website.
The uinfluence.me provides the service to there users for free and make there income by providing advertisement space and having a data to which clearly indicates the market influencers. The data that uinfluence.me collect creates the most amount of value to its business as the data it collects is very rare and important in prediction market trend.
