Startup

SAN FRANCISCO--There's a whole lot of mobile startups these days, but how many of them are actually, you know, mobile?

A company called Needle is, and if you'd wandered near South Park here today, you would have seen its so-called Mobile Contact Center -- essentially a huge RV -- parked on the street with several employees working away inside.

Ostensibly based in Salt Lake City, Needle contracts with retail partners to provide them experts to chat with end users. The idea is that there's likely no one better suited to explaining a product, or answering questions about … Read more

No decision is more important in a startup's life than the decision of who to start the company with. The right founding team can quickly find product-market fit, while an imbalanced team can find themselves working two years on a product nobody wants.

"What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them," Y Combinator partner Paul Graham said in 2005. "Good people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can't save bad people."

I've seen hundreds of startups blow up because of teams that didn't know or respect each other. … Read more

"Too many single white kids are getting funded," 500 Startups founder Dave McClure says. "We're missing a big f---ing market."

McClure is kicking off the MamaBear Family Tech Conference today in Mountain View, Calif., to attack that market. At the same time, he wants angel investing to open up. It's overrun by men, he says.

"There's no lack of female founders anymore," according to McClure. He says that about 20 percent of his portfolio companies are run by women. Many are addressing family markets, he says. There are also a number … Read more

The latest effort from James Cameron has all the earmarks of a science fiction movie -- but in real life.

The movie director has joined Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt in backing Planetary Resources, a mysterious company that promises to "create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources.'"

It's not entirely clear what the company does, but according to a press release uncovered by MIT's Technology Review, Planetary Resources "will overlay two critical sectors -- space exploration and natural resources - to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.&… Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Is 3D where photography is going? Two companies at the Demo conference here today are betting on it.

ArqBall makes a mobile app that creates 3D images, or "spins," of physical objects. Designed for commerce initially, it lets you quickly create a 3D spinning model of an object for sale and embed it in a sales page. The demo made the creating app look very easy to use: You put your object on a turntable or lazy Susan, put your iPhone in a stand facing it, and run the app. The software creates the … Read more

If your world isn't already complex enough, or if you're just a control freak, it's time to add some ninja to your life.

Sensor-equipped platforms called Ninja Blocks are designed to bring the Internet of things to a ubiquitous, open-source reality.

The result of a recent successful Kickstarter project that raised more than $100,000, Ninja Blocks obey simple "if this, then that" commands to add functionality to your environment through the Web.

For instance, when your friends are playing on Xbox Live a Ninja Block could trigger an action in your living room, like turning on a lamp. Or a Ninja Block could text your phone when a package is delivered to your door. You could also activate household lights or electronics via your Ninja by talking to Siri. … Read more

Foursquare is celebrating its third-annual 4sqDay in impressive fashion.

Whenever users check in on the service today, they'll be awarded the 2012 4sqDay badge, which is accompanied with a message announcing that the startup now has 20 million users worldwide, and has hit a whopping 2 billion check-ins since it was founded in 2009.

"In 2010, Foursquare fans declared April 16 4sqDay (4/4^2 - nerds after our own heart!)," the message that accompanies the badge reads. "Two years and two billion check-ins later, you're still why we get out of bed each day. … Read more

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--It's nearly 10 a.m. in the City Council chambers here, and 43 people are waiting for their turn to speak.

These are not citizens with civic matters on their minds; divided into two lines that stretch out from either side of the podium in the center of the room, these veterans of Google, Cisco, NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Microsoft, Boeing, Sun, and others, are here looking for a new lease on their professional lives.

One by one, they lean into the microphone to introduce themselves. They mention where they've worked in the past, list their skills, … Read more

"It is easier to mine happiness than create it."

--Brian Wong, CEO, Kiip

The concept behind Brian Wong's company, Kiip, is, in my estimation, brilliant. Kiip is a mobile game advertising company, but with a unique twist. It doesn't pop ads up while you're in the middle of a game, or nag you while you're waiting for a level to load. Rather, Brian sells advertisers the opportunity to reward players when they have accomplished certain things, and he makes a set of utilities that developers can use to offer up their players' accomplishment moments … Read more