Internet Tech Boston

Interview Questions to ask Startup Management

February 1st, 2010 No Comments

I’ve been in startups since 2002. At the time of this writing, that gives me 7 years experience in startup life. I’m not sure if that means I have “a lot” of experience in startups. Probably not. But, I do have “some” experience in startups, and I’ve learned a few things the hard way. One of the things I’ve learned is how important it is to pick the “right” startup to join. In the past, this was not really a top priority for me – I was young(er) and more focused on the more typical aspects of a job offer – compensation, job function & title, and location. I fell for all the hype of working first for a DotCom and then a Web 2.0 startup. Now I’m old(er) and more picky. I don’t want just a job at a cool company, I want to find a place that I can believe in. Here are a few questions I’ve found myself asking the management at startup companies, when I’ve been interviewed by them. I pass them along to you in the hopes you’ll avoid some pitfalls. These questions mostly apply to a Venture-backed software company.

Management

Who is the leader in this company? Ask this question of everyone you meet at the company. If the answer is different. There’s a problem. If nobody knows who the leader is, there’s a problem. If the answer involves more than one person, there’s a problem. If everyone agrees on who the leader is, ask yourself – Do I like and respect this person?
How is the product engineering team given its priorities/workload? If there is no defined process, there is a problem.
How much time does the CEO spend in the office? I’m not sure what to look for in an answer here. Some companies benefit from the CEO being there, supporting and rallying the troops. Some companies benefit from the CEO being elsewhere, closing new business. Find out what type of CEO he/she is, and then arrive at your own conclusion.
How many members of the VP/Exec team vs. how many non-execs? It’s not uncommon in a startup for people to get a fancy title in lieu of cash. Over time, this could result in too many people with VP Level titles. If that problem is not rectified, the organization gets top heavy with too many chiefs, not enough indians. Nothing gets done.

Strategy

What is your current business strategy? Understand that a strategy is just an educated guess. Don’t expect anyone to really knock your socks off with the perfect answer – they won’t. But, trust your gut here. Does it make sense to you? If the management refuse to answer, that probably means they don’t have one, or can’t agree to one.
What are the corporate objectives for the next 12 months? This is a setup for the next question . . .
What was your business strategy 12 months ago? If the objectives for next 12 months are completely out of left field when compared to the last 12 months, that’s a bad sign. If the objectives are all different, AND there’s a ton of VPs, you should walk out of the meeting.
Describe the product roadmap? The phrasing of this question is somewhat important. Use the word “describe” so that they have leeway to answer with “non-existant,” if that’s the truthful case.

Customers

Number of Customers? You might have taken an interview at this cool startup because you know they’re working with a handful huge, recognizable brand name customer. Don’t be taken in by that 1 or 2 names. Quantity is more important than quality.
Customer industries? You’re looking for laser-focus here. If the customers are all over the map, that’s indicative of a lack of focus. Startups can not usually suffer from lack of focus.
What is required to create a satisfied client? Don’t put too much stock on on the specifics of this answer. Instead, look for a simple, tight response. In some cases, you’ll be left wondering- “Do these people even know why their customers became their customers in the first place?”
Who is responsible for generating new business? Employees at startups wear many hats. But, the function of acquiring customers and closing them is not one you want shared by technical folks.
Who is responsible for maintaining the client relationship after the 1st sale? Again, you’re looking to make sure they’ve thought of this. You’ll be surprised at how many startups do not include client satisfaction as a core commandment – until it’s too late.

Company & Culture

Mission Statement? Core Values? Positioning Statement? In their haste to “be successful,” startups often overlook the important foundational work required to make themselves successful. Any company that skips all of these steps is being sloppy and setting themselves up for failure. Don’t believe anyone who tells you they’ve purposefully skipped the step because “we’re a startup and startups don’t need those things.”
How many employees and in how many in each location? The website might say they have offices in San Fran, Chicago, and Boston. How many “virtual sales offices” comprise this list?
What is the turnover rate? I join startups to be part of something I can believe in for a long time. Make sure others agree with this company’s vision.

Board & Investors

Number of people on the board? More than 4 to 6 and it’s trouble.
Number of investors? More than 2 or 3 and it’s trouble. Also, be on the lookout for investor groups that are comprised of equal numbers of Angel and Institutional Investors. Angels and Institutional investors don’t often agree on basic terminology such as “successful exit.”
Where are the founders? If the founders are completely gone from the company and not present on the Board, it probably means the original strategy of the company failed and the VCs kicked out the founders. What’s left is not the same company that started.
What is the exit strategy? If the company is looking to be acquired within the near future, it will cause them to focus less on building a strong foundation for the future.

There’s no one single question here that should make or break your decision to join a startup company. By nature, a startup is filled with risk, uncertainty, and change. But, after you’ve found out the answers to all these questions, put together a scorecard. Trust your gut, and choose wisely.

Transparency is born from confidence

January 25th, 2010 5 Comments

I occasionally smoke cigars. I’m not a cigar aficionado, there’s too much to learn and I don’t really have the time to get a full education. This is not a post about cigars. But, I know what I like and a like a good smoke every so often.

You can get good cigars cheaply online (surprise!), and I’ve become a regular shopper at JRCigars.com. There’s a lot of places you can get good prices on cigars, but I keep going back to JR because I like him. I’ve never met JR, but I like him just the same. How? Because everything JR sends me is dripping with his unique personality – every flier, every mailer, ever product catalog. He’s completely transparent. Take this headline on the front cover of his 70plus page Fall catalog – “Business stinks . . . so here’s a golden opportunity to save on name brand cigars, AND get 5 extra cigars Free with every box.” Like I said, I don’t smoke that much, and I already had a box of cigars, but immediately thought – “Hey, the economy stinks, he’s probably not selling a whole ton, maybe i should pick up some cigars on the cheap.”

Sure, there’s a “Crazy Eddie” feel to JR and it’s a bit schlocky. But, he is who he is, and he’s not afraid to put himself out there. I’m reflecting on JR and what we hear these days about the important of being “transparent online and in business.” If you follow any of the social media gurus, you’d think this novel concept was invented by them. But, you’ll also see a ton of accomplished, successful business entrepreneurs asking the gurus questions like “How do I become transparent?” My (private) response to this question is always the same, ”Do you really not know how to be yourself?”

I’ve come to realize that a very common cause of people who don’t know how to be themselves is that they don’t really know who they are in the first place. Continuing on from there, a person doesn’t know who they are, because of a central lack of self-confidence which manifests itself in self-doubt. Connect my armchair psychiatry together and you get this realization – there are people who do not allow themselves to be transparent. If you are constantly doubting yourself, it makes it impossible to be transparent to your friends and co-workers, never-mind the whole world on social media.

For me, this was a shocking epiphany. There are highly paid C-Suite execs that are so riddled with self-doubt that they are hiding in their office afraid to have an online discussion on a blog because people might not like who they are, or what they stand for. Since these folks can’t give themselves the permission they need to be themselves, they’re seeking that permission from someone else. You can guess how successful that operation will be. I’ll end this post with an incredibly schlocky statement of my own. Self-confidence comes from within – only you can give yourself the permission to be yourself.

Meta-cooking with Paul Jin of Plummelo

December 11th, 2009 No Comments

I’m constantly battling with my wife over the amount papers she prints when it comes to her recipes. I’m amazed at the sheer amount of stuff she prints, files, organizes, and keeps in drawers. I was pleasantly surprised, on a personal level, when I met Paul Jin, founder of Plummelo. Recently added to the Dogpatch Labs startup community sponsored by Polaris Ventures, Plummelo is designed to help the passionate home cook find, organize, and make the delicious dishes that the rest of us have come to take for granted. Let’s hear about this interesting new web startup from Paul himself:

Mamet: What is Plummelo and what prompted you to start it?
Jin: Plummelo allows users to collect recipes from anywhere – from the Internet and the kitchen. Plummelo will automatically create shopping lists, so the user will never have to write another shopping list. I started Plummelo because I was frustrated with trying to remember where I got a recipe from the Internet. Google helps, but do you know how many hits you get when you type in “meatball”? My kitchen recipe folder was no help either. Organizing and rediscovering recipes is a major chore and only the most dedicated have create binders with plastic sheets. It shouldn’t be this hard to keep track of recipes.

Mamet: What’s the #1 unexpected thing that’s happened since you launched?
Jin: How universal the problem is, and how enthusiastic people are to the concept. I was expecting only the cooking enthusiasts and the super-organized to be interested, but the problem of recipe organization is conceptually easy to understand for anyone and because everyone eats, this solution resonated with every person, especially moms.

Mamet: By it’s nature, your user is not near a computer when using Plummelo the most. How does Plummelo bridge the gap between home office and home kitchen?
Jin: I’ve intentionally decided not to address this part of the problem yet. I’ve learned that many people do have laptops at home, so they do take the laptop into the kitchen. I’ve also learned that some are hesitant to do that because of concerns about kitchen splatter and the safety of their laptop, so they just print the recipe. Also, buying another home computer or any display device just to have something in the kitchen is not high in the home financial priority. Several years ago, there was a lot of buzz around internet appliances for places like the kitchen, but consumers didn’t really go for such dedicated devices. So, the solution I wanted to focus on was online organization rather than physical device.

Mamet: How does Plummelo fit into the ecosystem of existing online foodie communities like Food Network and Martha Stewart?
Jin: Plummelo is what I call a meta-cooking website – it sits on top of the existing cooking blogs and websites in the same way that users view them. Users typically frequent more than one recipe website and their natural process is to find the recipes they like and to collect them in some way. It’s relatively rare that a user goes to just one site for everything. Collecting recipes and organizing them is an offline process, and I want to create a simple online version of that. So, Plummelo gives users the freedom and control to collect recipes from where they want instead of being captive to any single site. Because of this last aspect, Plummelo also provides ratings of recipes from across the Web as well as ratings of recipe websites themselves.

Mamet: What does the future hold for Plummelo? What next big steps should we be on the lookout for?
Jin: We just finished phase 1 of our development plan, so now we want to use what we have to create amazing content and to support and engage the Plummelo users. So our next step is to focus on valuable content via the blog and our social network channels (Twitter and Facebook), and valuable content on the website to engage users and visitors. There are 2 more major phases that will add amazing social features and value features. We can hardly contain ourselves with excitement when we talk about what’s in store.

How to host a TweetUp

December 1st, 2009 No Comments

So, you want to take your organization’s use of Twitter to the next level by organizing an informal gathering of people interested in a fun, informal, and informative networking event? Good – you should do this every 3 months or so, to get out there and meet people, let them put a face to your brand, and answer any questions they might have.

Strictly speaking, the word “TweetUp” is defined as a gathering of Twitter users. It came into existence after Twitter first took root in the web and people needed a way to actually meet the people they were following online. Now, the phrase describes any kind of meeting, formal or informal, whose purpose is to make real world connections between people and is most likely organized and promoted with social media tools.

Sounds complicated? It’s really not. It takes some work, so don’t expect to pull this off in one day. But, if you’re considering hiring a consultant to organize and promote your TweetUp – you’re missing the point entirely. My advice would be to create a simple, targeted campaign around an informal networking event. Here’s how I do it:

Before the Event

Pick a date that works for people, and there’s not already a big event happening at that time.
Find a pub or restaurant that’s a central venue and contact them. Most pubs are willing to donate some appetizers or even a drink ticket to each guest, in exchange for you bringing in a couple dozen people to eat and drink there.
Keep the purpose of this Tweetup simple, so people understand it, and there’s no need to prepare anything. I would strongly suggest something like a “Dreamforce AfterParty – After a long day at Dreamforce, come RELAX, have a few drinks with your Sales 2.0 peers, and MEET new people.”
Try to get some money from your boss(es) to pay for a drink ticket for each guest, and a couple of decent door prizes.
Look for people or organizations that can help co-sponsor your tweetup event with. Pick the organizations that fit the theme or purpose of the event. If you sell second hand clothes, find the local tailor to be your co-sponsor.
Setup an event registration site at EventBrite with the details around the event, and directions to the location, etc. Have the logos of the pub and all sponsors prominently displayed.
Promote your event registration site on as many social media sites as you can – Twitter, your blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alltop, – EVERYWHERE. Just one post will not be sufficient. You need to create a storyline that people can follow. This is important. People will see your first tweet, and be interested – but they won’t take action until it seems like there’s enough buzz, and it’s the right thing to do.
On your blog post about this event, be sure to include a “Tweet This” button so that everyone who reads the blog post can easily tweet it for you.
Get as many co-workers, friends, and colleagues as you can to register at your event site and retweet and help promote. This makes it look like the party is huge.
Once you get a dozen or so people signed up, approach local, key influencers on a 1 on 1 basis via email, phone, Twitter, etc, and ask them “you’re coming to the big Sales 2.0 afterparty at Dreamforce – right?” By now, it looks like they might be missing out on something, so they will say – Absolutely. Make sure they sign up at your event site. The event site will list everyone who is registered to the event, and it will draw a bigger crowd if the key members of your social media community are there .
After you get the “big names” registered, use that as a moment to REALLY kick start your promotion. Example Tweet – Wow! Anneke Seley is going to be at the big Dreamforce Afterparty. Sales 2.0 people don’t miss this one!

During the Event

Continue the promotion on Twitter right up to and DURING the event. Most people don’t think about what they’re going to do at night until that moment approaches. You want people who are asking “gee, where should I go for dinner tonight” to be told – well, did you here about that event? Let’s check that out. A “live tweet stream” of the tweetup throughout the event also helps bring in people.
If you have doorprizes, take business cards.
During the event, be the host with the most. I would avoid trying to corner one or two people and rope them into long conversations. Instead, act like you’re glad they’re they’ve come, but you have many people to see, meet and talk to.
During the event, make introductions between people. Find people, meet them, and introduce them to other new people. Everyone will think you’re special and will WANT to talk to you.
Take pictures and video of the event.

After the Event

After the event, post all your pictures and video on your Facebook page, Flickr, and your blog.
Create a special offer for only those who attended the event – a whitepaper, consultation, free month, whatever, and send it to them.
Connect with everyone on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc!

There it is in a nutshell – 19 steps to TweetUp success. From beginning to end, the whole thing should be a two week project. If I left something out, leave a comment below and help build this list. In the meantime,, get out there, meet your community, and have a little fun – and be sure to invite me to all your TweetUps, too!

You should really go to OpenCoffee

November 24th, 2009 2 Comments

Cambridge Open Coffee is a weekly event on Wednesday morning, where Boston entrepreneurs gather to talk shop over coffee at Andala’s coffee shop in Central Square. If you think of events like the MITX Technology awards as a yearly spectacle where the best and brightest come together to celebrate their work and party, Open Coffee stands in direct contrast. This a small group of people who gather once a week to discuss their technology-based business, and the specific obstacles they’re looking to overcome. Think – Halls of Justice meets Sloan School meets group therapy. It started in London, and there are Open Coffee sessions all around the world now.

There were 15 smart people in the room, and me. I was glad to simply listen to what they had to say. But, I didn’t travel all the way up to Cambridge from the South Short just to listen. I wanted to take part in the conversation, but knew there probably wasn’t much of anything new that I could teach these guys.

Chris Williams, founder of Vuuch, explains his product at Open Coffee

So, I fell back on the good advice that you can find in books like Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents. I tried my best to help them out in any way I could – with my limited knowledge, but most importantly – helping make new connections for them.

How? Well, I met Nelson de Witt, who’s a Social Entrepreneur who spends time working with small and family-run business in Panama helping them understand how to take advantage of newer technologies like eBay, Twitter, and Facebook. I don’t know much about doing business in other countries, but I do know Dan Shortell, who had been doing that very same thing in Venezeuala. I made the connection over email and hopefully they’ll be able to share some stories and learn something new.

So, check out Open Coffee in Cambridge some Wednesday morning. You’ll be in an intimate setting of only about dozen or so people, but if you’re into startups, they’ll be the right dozen or so people.

Can Tech Innovation help public schools?

November 23rd, 2009 No Comments

Boston’s Innovation Economy has a great startup culture and entrepreneurial environment. But, with so many of these startups focused on delivering products and services around Marketing and Sales, it gets a little tiring. I’m just not interested in hearing about the next new business model that sits on top of Twitter. Imagine my delight when I met up with Alex Grodd, Founder at BetterLesson, “an organizational and sharing platform that allows educators to lesson plan more efficiently and effectively, giving warranted focus to creating innovative content, delivering innovative content, grading, tutoring, analyzing data, communicating with parents, and finishing paperwork.” I sat down with Alex to hear about the company he founded.

Mamet: What is BetterLesson and what prompted you to start it?

Grodd: BetterLesson is a social network that helps teachers connect and share lessons, best practices, and ideas. I started BetterLesson in response to the frustrations that I experienced while teaching 6th grade in Atlanta and Boston public schools. During my time in the classroom, I found myself constantly searching for lessons on the Internet and usually coming up short. As a result, I would spend inordinate amounts of time ‘reinventing the wheel,’ creating lessons from scratch the night before delivering them. After creating a series of effective lessons, I had no good way to share them with colleagues in my school and district. I created BetterLesson to throw a wrench in this cycle, which was taking a serious toll on my instruction and morale.

Mamet: What’s happened since you launched it? things you were hoping for? Things you didn’t expect? any stats you can share with us?

Grodd: We officially launched our beta site in August and have seen really exciting growth and traction. In less than three months, we have over 2,500 registered users from over 100 schools and districts. These teachers have contributed more than 12,000 resources to the site. That being said, we still have a lot of work ahead of us and are excited to continue iterating around the user experience. We have some exciting features and UI enhancements coming up over the next few weeks and months that will hopefully have a large impact on our community-building efforts.

Mamet: In your former life, you were a 6th grade teacher. How do you see technology and public education blending to change education?

Grodd: I’ve been working on BetterLesson full-time for over a year now (I was teaching full-time until July 2008). There’s a great deal of literature on the role that technology could/should play in education. I’ll list a few areas I’m excited about:

I (clearly) think technology can play a powerful role in scaling effective content and practices to teachers and students across the globe.
Technology can play a really powerful role in helping teachers deliver differentiated instruction that targets their students’ unique learning needs and styles. There are many effective instructional video games and applications that create specialized learning programs based on each student’s unique talents, abilities, and needs.
There are a number of K-12 tools and systems (the gradebook is a good example) that have evolved very little over the past 50 years and are ripe for a big disruption.
Technology offers many exciting ways to collect and harness student data.

These are just a few…Education is a very fertile frontier for technology.

Mamet: What are some of the obstacles to bringing new technology into the public system and how are you overcoming them?

Grodd: There are many obstacles to bringing technology to K-12 schools. Many schools districts have outdated technical infrastructures. When we train teachers on ways to use BetterLesson, we see a lot of IE6 and outdated Flash, etc. We do our best to help schools and teachers upgrade their technology. Another major hurdle is that the predominant K-12 business model involves big companies selling big products to school districts via an extremely long and inefficient sales cycle. Our solution is to take an entirely new, bottom-up approach and go straight to the teachers.

Mamet: What does the future hold for BetterLesson? What next big steps should we be on the lookout for?

Grodd: Our most important milestone is to build a platform where teachers can quickly and easily find high-quality content and connect with their peers. To get there, we’re working on a number of exciting UI enhancements: a new UI focused on ‘findablility’, more powerful search, better recognition of high-quality content and high-performing teachers, and an enhanced newsfeed and commenting system. We’re also beginning to grow our marketing and outreach efforts. There’s a lot of work ahead, and we’re excited to get after it.

Hobnobbing at the MITX Interactive Awards

November 19th, 2009 7 Comments

The 14th Annual MITX Awards at the Boston Marriott Copley did not disappoint. The MITX awards attract entries celebrating innovative web design and development projects from all across the state, from small boutique firms to large marketing agency powerhouses. I was lucky enough to part of a team that won a MITX award in 2005, and believe me – when you go up against tough competition and walk away the winner – you feel really good. Be sure to keep an eye out on the VisibleGains and MITX websites for the video of agencies and in-house groups celebrating their MITX win. You’ll see a version of pure, unadulterated joy that can only be the result of working your tail off to produce a body of work that you are completely proud of – and then having a group of your people you have deep respect for, recognize YOU as a top talent. Oh, and you get a shiny plaque, too. Which is cool.

But, the real value of this yearly MITX event is not the handing out of awards. Really, this is where the best and brightest in interactive technology and creative design come to meet, greet, and share ideas. In addition to spending time pestering my VisibleGains droogs who were who were there supporting MITX by recording a “video winner’s circle,” I got a chance to reconnect with lots of smart people who get stuff done, like Keith Cline. He’s the guy behind VentureFizz, the one stop shop for information related to the local Boston VC, entrepreneur, and technology innovation community. I also had a great conversation with Brian Bolton, VP Marketing over at Bridgeline Software, about the value of technology workers in the agency world. Congrats to Brian, Marcel, and the rest of the Bridgeline team on their MITX win. Bobbie Carlton was there too, and I learned that her wildly successful Mass Innovation Nights is now spreading its wings and becoming more than that. This Friday, Bobbie will be hosting the first Innovation Breakfast at the Waltham IBM Innovation Center.

In addition to reconnecting with folks I know and respect, I was also able to meet some new faces. MITX attracts the people that you see and learn from on Twitter, and webinars, and other speaking opportunities. Early in the evening, I met Greg Cangialosi, a fellow online video marketing buff. His company is BlueSky Factory – an smart email marketing platform used by other smart companies like Hubspot. But, while having an office in Mass, BlueSky is really based out of Baltimore, MD. So, I was still on the hunt to meet the titans of Massachusetts innovation economy. After all, this blog is Internet Tech Boston. I met Jamie Scheu from Hill Holliday. He didn’t talk much about where he’s from. Must be his shyness. Finally, I spent a good amount of time with Cappy Popp, of Mass-based ThoughtLabs, who is just about ready to release his new book on Facebook. From what he was able to tell me, it sounds like a really good read. I’ve added it to my Amazon Wishlist.

Scott Kirsner was also there, toasting to MITX and the nominees and recipients. Special thanks to Scott for including me in his Boston.com review of the MITX and Boston History events. With Larry Weber and Kiki Mills from MITX, Keith from VentureFizz, Bobbie from Mass Inno, and Scott of Innovation Economy fame all in the same room, it was a veritable Boston home team rally. All we really needed was Bobby Orr, Larry Bird, and Tom Brady to come strolling by to turn it into every New Yorkers’ special version of hell.

Yeah – I loved every minute of it.

Goodbye VisibleGains, Hello World

November 13th, 2009 4 Comments

This week, my boss at VisibleGains had a difficult “talk” with me. It’s the one that ends with me not working at VisibleGains anymore. In this economy, I’m not the only one who’s been affected by cost-cutting measures. It’s a sucky conversation to have – no matter what side of the table you’re on. I was suprised to hear that I’d been let go due to budget concerns, and I was a little angry at first. But, that went away pretty quickly.

Now, I’m focused on finding my next big gig. For those of you dear readers that know me well, you know I’ve been running hard with VisibleGains for the past two years. Now that my schedule has recently cleared up, I have a wide open road in front of me. Yes – it’s scary not to have the security of a full time job. But, I have more freedom to reconnect with friends and family and spend more time blogging and making new connections outside of the video marketing space. I’m looking forward to getting my head up out of the day to day and being able to survey the landscape a little more broadly.

I won’t be checking my work email that much going forward, please reach me at mmamet [at] gmail [dot] com. I’m always available on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn too. That won’t change.

Thanks to everyone at VisibleGains. Everyone. You’ve all taught, guided, mentored, and helped me over the past two years. I am so lucky to have been able to work alongside an exceptionally smart, talented, and hard-working team. I look forward to staying in close contact with you guys for a long, long time. There’s no doubt in my mind I’ll soon be seeing all of you soon at a Tweetup, event, or conference in the Boston-area. We’re all lucky to live and work in such a great tech hub that’s rich with talent, ideas, and innovation.

See you all out there . . . .

VentureFizz brings people and tech together in Boston

October 19th, 2009 No Comments

Keith Cline is the founder of Dissero, a recruiting firm focusing on emerging growth companies in the Northeast. I’ve known Keith for five years, and respect his ability to find the right people to fit the right jobs in emerging technology companies. For those who’ve been tasked with hiring talent for a web tech company in Boston – you know how hard this is to do with success on a regular basis. It takes a deep understanding of the technology, but also the personalities of everyone involved. That’s why I was intrigued when Keith launched VentureFizz in 2009, a destination website focused on all things Tech in the Boston area. From the start, it was clear that VentureFizz is much more than a job board. It’s a community site dedicated to bringing together the talent, the technology, the jobs, and the entrepreneurial spirit in this great technology hub in Boston and the northeast. I sat down with Keith to learn more.

Mamet: What is VentureFizz and what prompted you to start it?

Cline: VentureFizz is a destination website where people can find all that is buzzing within Boston’s technology community from one spot. There is a tremendous amount of great content out there and our goal was to help pull it all together for people in our industry. For the past seven years, I have been running a recruiting firm called Dissero, which is focused on VC backed technology companies in the Boston area. I speak with several people every day and I always ask the question – “how do you find information about Boston’s tech industry.” The responses are typically varied and it seemed apparent that a site like this would be a valuable resource. Thus, VentureFizz pulls all of this information together. Our features include: Company Research (over 800 companies, tagged and searchable), Job Board, Networking Calendar, VC Funding Activity, News, Blogs, and our Twitter feed.

Mamet: What’s happened since you launched it? things you were hoping for? things you didn’t expect? any stats you can share with us?

Cline: One word – WOW – I have been overwhelmed and encouraged by the amount of support and positive feedback from the tech community in Boston. So many people have sent me emails saying how much they appreciate the site. The venture capital community has also been very, very supportive of the site. Firms like Matrix Partners, Flybridge Venture Capital, Venrock, Highland Capital Partners, etc. have all helped out in one way or another. Every week, the traffic continues to grow at a steady clip and we currently have over 6,200 people receiving our weekly email newsletter. The newsletter has been a very popular feature, since it provides an overall snapshot of information from the previous week. We also highlight innovative companies, jobs and upcoming networking events.

Mamet: During your “day job,” you help tech companies find talented technology workers. How do you see technology, venture capital / funding, and entrepreneurship blending to change the shape of the “recruiter” role?

Cline: In the recruiting industry, there are always new ideas, cutting edge technologies, or new business models that are looking to change the face of recruiting. Some of which have been venture capital backed and very successful. For example, LinkedIn has made an enormous impact on how recruiters source for talent. Bullhorn is a Highland backed company which has created a SaaS Applicant Tracking System for staffing firms. Each company is filling a critical need in a major market where there is a significant revenue opportunity (for a VC to fund the business). On the flip side, I see a lot of “solutions” that seem overly technical and complex, where they are trying to automate too much. A lot of recruiting comes down to experience, knowledge, personal touch, and instinct.

Mamet: How does VentureFizz fit into the ecosystem of great tech communities here in New England like Scott Kirsner’s Innovation Economy, David Beisel’s Web Innovator’s Group, and Bobbie Carlton’s Mass Innovation Nights?

Cline: VentureFizz is a perfect compliment to the overall ecosystem. We are all working towards the same common goal in terms of increasing the awareness of all the great things happening, as well as encouraging innovation throughout the region. WebInno, Mass Innovation Nights, MTLC, MITX, etc. are all included as part of our Networking Events page. I also help to promote specific events, such as the QUEST for Innovation, which has a featured listing and logo on our site. I have always been a big fan of Scott Kirsner, as well as Mass High Tech & Xconomy. I hope that VentureFizz is introducing their great content to some fresh eyes.

Mamet: What does the future hold for VentureFizz? What next big steps should we be on the lookout for?

Cline: I am happy with the positive feedback from the first release of the site, but I already have several ideas for the next release of VentureFizz. My goal is to make the site more social and interactive. At some point, I would like to roll out VentureFizz to another city…but I am focused on making the site a major success in Boston first.

Keith Cline is Founder, VentureFizz & Dissero. Keith has over eleven years of experience in the technology and recruiting industry. In 2009, Keith launched VentureFizz, which is a destination website focused on all things Tech in the Boston area. Seven years ago, Keith also started and continues to run Dissero, which is a leading recruiting firm focused on working with venture capital backed companies in the area.