Internet Tech Boston

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.

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.