Startup Addict Musings

Toktumi (pronounced “Talk-2-me”) is a new startup aimed at the VOIP market and competes with Skype but with additional features of a service like Gotvmail. Toktumi is targeted toward small businesses and is first downloaded to a PC and setup with features like autoattendent, mailboxes, call forwarding, conferencing etc… If gives a budding new business the professional big-business feel. From a release provided through Fiercewireless Peter Sisson the founder states:

“There are 40M people working in small businesses with one to nine employees, half of whom work out of their homes,” said Peter Sisson, CEO and founder of Toktumi Inc. “This segment has been ignored by most providers because they were considered too small, yet together they are a huge and important part of our economy. Toktumi is the first fully-featured office phone solution that businesses can set up in five minutes and use for free before they commit to anything, whether they need one line or 10.”

I have a feeling this company will not only be profitable quickly but a prime target for acquisition. Toktumi has all the ingredients to scale fast and furious. Free until you are satisfied and then $12.95 a month thereafter (plus .02 cents a call)

The company presented at Demo08 yesterday in the video below:

Om has a nice overview of Demo08 and 4 emerging trends among the presenting startups this year that you should take note of.

Tags: Startups by Startup Addict

I came across a great resource for designers and creative boutiques that are starting out and struggling with the business-side of a creative business.

Being in the creative design industry for some time I found this to be a great asset for entrepreneurs trying to stretch a legal dollar or keep a burdensome customer off their back.

Take a look at the miscellaneous creative forms you can download, that range from art approval sheets, SEO submission, terms and conditions to creative strategy. The forms are not meant for your good customers, it’s meant for your design clients that go bad. - Enjoy.

Tags: Startups by Startup Addict

We all have social identities such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace and other social profiles. We’ve also have discussed how new startups are becoming aggregators of your various profiles and organizing multiple identities into a more cohesive whole that updates across all social networks. So the question begs what if you would like to show one social profile more than another depending on who is looking at it? Ah — enter MOLI

MOLI trademarked “control your privacy” and is focusing on user profile privacy. An individual or a business can register and choose which profile information is displayed to a visitor or viewer. For instance an individual could display hobbies and interests to a set of friends, but keep that hidden from a job recruiter. Businesses can market itself and promote services based on viewership.

All in all MOLI is pretty slick with a netvibes type interface with plenty to do and an Apple aqua finish. It is definitely a nice startup, but it should be….according to PaidContent MOLI is backed by Mainstream Holdings, and has the likes of former ETrade CEO Christos Cotsakos, Home Depot founders, and Vantis Capital behind it to the tune of $29.6 million. Target Advertising seems to be the only revenue currently but I smell transactional and ancillary service fees very soon.

As I stated before social aggregation and open source are shaping up to be the two biggest trends in 2008 (and it’s early). Now all we need is a startup to merge social aggregation (SocialThing) and the privacy and profile control of MOLI.

Tags: Startups by Startup Addict

I Posted on The Funded in 2007 shortly after initial launch. The company that lets entrepreneurs rate VC’s based on their various experiences has yet again raised the ante. The new service from The Funded will allow entrepreneurs access to the elusive term sheet. If you are unfamiliar with a term sheet check out three of my favorite resources that every serial entrepreneur should have bookmarked StartupLawyerBlog, Nivi’s blog and Venturehacks. (Be sure to check out the term sheet hack section).

Most entrepreneurs get lost in the application of terms like liquidation, conversion, redemption rights and anti-dilution (all found on a term sheet). Now the new beta program will now arm entrepreneurs with the most powerful weapon of all –real world knowledge and first-hand experience on what terms are common place and which ones are abusive. This is a boon for entrepreneurs as standardization of the term sheet is inevitable. According to VentureBeat The Funded will require a $250.00 a year subscription to access this information (well worth it!).

Stay tuned, because the P2P funding feature in SA 2.0 will utilize a similar approach. (Now you know what is taking so long to get version 2.0 out the door).

Tags: VC by Startup Addict

I’m back from Costa Rica, rested and ready to take on 2008. Among the several books I read, “My Startup Life” by Ben Casnocha is worthy of mention because of the extraordinary similarities to the Startup Addict mantra and message “Dream Big. Be Great”. One would think the reason the book stood out was the fact that Ben was only 14 years old when he founded Comcate, his successful startup.

Yet, the real reason the book is a winner is the message it sends to entrepreneurs around the globe. The book is a testament that entrepreneurship has no age, and that all Startup Addict’s possess an innate drive and dedicated vision to achieve their dream. Like this blog and Startupaddict.com this book should be used as a tool to better yourself, hone your skills and progress your abilities forward. There is absolutely no substitute for persistence, and in my opinion is probably the number one ingredient for entrepreneurial success. Similar to the Henry David Thoreau quote:

“you will never live the life you imagined unless you walk confidently in the direction of your dreams.”

We all get bruises along the way, it’s the entrepreneurs that keep getting up that win.

Tags: Startups by Startup Addict

I will be unable to post until next Sunday January 27th. Feel free to scan Startup Addict’s blogroll for a quick fix in my absence.

Tags: Business Blogs by Startup Addict

MySQL sold for $1 billion big ones…this is huge news. 2008 is officially the year of open source. The open source database startup MySQL was acquired by Sun Microsystems for $1 billion. MySQL was originally funded $39 million from Benchmark, Index, IVP, Intel, and SAP.

TechCrunch stated:

Startups with similar business models - managing a free open source project and bolting for-pay services on as a business model, will be happy to see this. Wordpress and OpenAds are two that we follow closely.

This news comes on the heels of Drupal founder Dries starting Acquia armed with $7 million in VC funding in a Series A financing led by North Bridge Venture Partners, with Sigma Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. VC’s are flocking to fund startups that will feed services to a growing user base in open source.

It crazy two of the most potent open source ingredients in SA 2.0 are already heading mainstream in a flurry of pay-service business models. Check out the ingredients in the Startup Addict platform:

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Just like the successful trend Red Hat procured through linux. Sun is now the Red Hat of MySQL and Acquira is the Red Hat of Drupal. “Life is good”….lets hope the services make “Life better”.

Tags: VC by Startup Addict

According toemarketer

video and social networks are among the hottest new ad formats today, they will account for $2.9 billion, or about 10% of total online advertising dollars projected for 2008.

The total online media buy or ad spending accounts for $27.5 billion in 2008 with growth reaching $42 billion by 2011. If the same growth percentage held ground that would equal almost $11 billion for video and social advertising spending by 2011.

The difficultly of the new social web is tracking it. Coming up with better metrics in itself could be a great opportunity for startups. The trend will continue and the growth inevitable, a startup could benefit tremendously by arming businesses with better metrics, tracking and usability reports. The traditional tracking of page views and unique visitor is not enough in a world of social networks, RSS,instant messaging, widgets, cross platform pulling and pushing of data. Brand exposure becomes paramount when everything is repurposed. Emarketer also sited:

As Adam Gerber of Quantcast has said, in the future, online media buying will be about “the re-aggregation of a fragmented audience that’s actually watching different things.”

Plenty of companies are tracking clickstream, but with unhappy privacy results from users. The key is to balance privacy, user and advertiser relationships so it becomes a win-win. I think Facebook’s beacon will continue to take the brunt of the work and craft a model for social networks to follow. Let me know your thoughts on social advertising today and where you think it is headed.

Tags: Social Advertising by Startup Addict

Check out the the Facebook interview on 60 minutes last night with founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Mark is still writing code and living in a 1-bedroom apartment with the mattress on the floor. Gotta love it.

Tags: Social Networking by Startup Addict

Imo.im is an instant message social aggregator that turns your social network friends (Facebook, Myspace) into IM friends. This will allow instant messaging to occur through Imo.im instead of through a single IM service like AIM, Yahoo Messenger and Gtalk. VentureBeat makes an interesting case of a possibly bigger trend:

if services that pair social network data with IM will it eventually render AIM and other IM services obsolete?

I think the bigger trend is correct but I think this trend is still wildly unclear which symbiotic relationship between social, IM aggreagtors and traditional IM will surface. Services like AIM, Yahoo Messenger and Gtalk have an enormous userbase built-in and continually rollout “social” services that seamlessly function within the instant messenger environment. The existing IM providers will develop enough social prowess to compete with the big social networks. Compete may be a strong word, but instant messaging services like Gtalk and AIM will continue to go social and force the social network user to go where the useful functionality is. IM in social networks has a lot to be desired and traditional IM has a long working history. Instant Messanging aggregation is a difficult animal because social can go IM and IM can go social, so where does that leave the IM aggregator?

I think Meebo has a huge headstart in this space and is already turning social themselves. Meebo is an aggegator, a social service and distribute killer plug and play widgets that can go in any social network. Meebo is front in center in my netvibes for my IM widget of choice. However I still find myself using traditional IM services…

For example, I have a gmail and yahoo email account….that automatically entitles me to a Gtalk IM and Yahoo IM. I find I use IM because I have email from these providers. Nothing to download, IM is just seamlessly integrated. Yahoo and Google will import your offline contacts and other free email contacts as well. If these services decide to import social network contacts, where does that leave the IM aggregator? VentureBeat nailed the bigger trend in this space and with the web becoming one big open melting pot of services, it begs that question….who will own the killer app? The aggregators or the aggregated.

Tags: Social Networking by Startup Addict