I just stumbled upon TheFunded.com a few days ago due to the amount of publicity it was receiving. Its an interesting idea without a doubt, and probably a very helpful to those who are seeking venture capital funding. With the number of reviews growing on a daily basis and the number of reviews currently at 326 (only a few weeks after getting started), one can expect the process of raising funds from venture capitalists to become a more transparent process as time goes by.
Additional features of The Funded include the ability to download the vCards of partners at over 3,500 funds as well as being able to edit and review different funds. The upside is that membership is free, the downside is that to become a member one must be invited by another member or submit a membership application, where one must provide a “quality reason” for becoming a member. Talk about exclusivity! Oh yeah, one last catch, if one works at or is an agent for a funding source, they can forget about getting a membership to The Funded.
I really can’t remember how I came across Brickfish, but what I know is that it caught my attention from the moment I stumbled upon it. Claiming to be a new model for online marketing, Brickfish simply offers anyone the chance to upload campaigns and allow their community to evaluate that campaign whether it be a blog, video, or photo. Brickfish breaks down users into two segments, Brands and Consumers, allowing anyone to partake on any side depending on what one has to offer. Brands range from self-branded content to branding campaigns from the likes of Reebok and Varsity Books, and Consumers ranging from your everyday average internet user to extremely marketing savvy users. Brickfish states:
“Our company was founded on the belief that consumers define brands-in fact, consumers are brands. We have created the world’s first integrated environment where consumers and companies engage with each other in ways that empower users to make a real impact. Everyone who is involved in the site and with our campaigns has the power to bring about positive change and we would like to invite you to join us in embracing that belief.”
I’ve browsed around the Brickfish website for quite a bit now and believe that there is a lot of potential for it to become a huge sensation within the next few months. With Brickfish raising $11.2 million during its Series A financing round, according to today’s press release on their website, one can only expect more great things to come from such a venture. This is where social networking meets product development, marketing, branding, and advertising, which is great in a world today where most products are driven by the needs and wants of the consumer.
Over the course of the past month I have been able to attend several guest speaker presentations here at the Rochester Institute of Technology. On April 12th, I attended the RIT New Product Development forum, where one of the many speakers, Charles Craig, who is the Vice President of Science & Technology at Corning Inc., presented on the approach that Corning has taken to taken to technology and innovation. Today, I was also able to attend a presentation by Charles Geschke, the co-founder and current Co-Chairman of the Board of Adobe Systems Inc., on “Building a Software Company”. Both of these presentations covered completely different aspects, but interestingly enough both of these presentations had the same foundations.
Both presenters covered completely different topics, but in the end, both presentations boiled down to innovation being the key to success. Craig talked about how innovation and intrapreneurship helped the company revive itself from the crash that took place in 2002. Geschke presented on how he and John Warnock were able to build Adobe to what it is today through innovation and intrapreneurship within the company. In the end, it seems that the most successful companies grow to what they are through innovation just like what Apple and Google have done according to many including Geschke.
Neither of the two presenters ever alluded to intrapreneurship being the key to success, it was always innovation and giving employees “free-time” to invent and create on their own. But then again the focus of both presentations was not innovation or intrapreneurship, but due to those two factors success in both situations was possible.
