Life and Tech #12: Joke Startups

Happy Fourth of July. Instead of posting something pro USA, I figure I'll just give you a few of my newsletters. This one was sent out last week. You can subscribe at https://eepurl.com/bjalx5 (a new one sent every Thursday).

JOKE STARTUPS

I still remember when I first saw Yo (I was the first outsider to talk about it in public). The full launch story is here: https://venturebeat.com/…/how-yo-became-one-of-the-most-vir…/ ).

Back when I talked about it on Facebook, I said, “this is the stupidest app I can’t remove off of my phone.” When Moshe Hogeg, Yo's founder, first showed it to me, I think he said something like, “want to see something fun?”
It was a joke back then, built to help him tell his assistant to call him. After that it got on Product Hunt, then it got funded, and today it's an app that is actually useful. It “Yo’s” me on my phone when, for instance, the stock market goes up or down by 100 points, or there is a big earthquake somewhere, or a Techcrunch article gets 200 retweets. There are hundreds of things you can add to it.

But it isn’t the only “stupid sounding” startup that I’ve seen lately.

Goodnight poop from Throwboy. Throwboy makes emoji pillows. It's a startup I saw in St. Louis, Missouri, and it's doing well. My kids love the pillows:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153390186979655

Invisible Girlfriend. This startup helps you get an invisible boyfriend or girlfriend. Huh? The company, started by Matt Homann, won a pitch contest, which back then was a joke, at a Startup Weekend event back in 2013. Then he actually built the company.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153375203389655/

What about a startup that delivers beer? Steve Young made it so with Synek. I give it a first look here:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153375259119655/ This startup sells you a beer machine and you can buy beer to be delivered to you in packets. Sort of like Nescafe ships you coffee in little packets that you put into a machine and it makes you a latte.

Speaking of Moshe, the guy who started Yo. He has a servious startup, too. EyeIn, which launched last week, is a real time visual search engine. He spent $90 million developing it, but then this week Instagram came out with many of the same features (except EyeIn works on a bunch of services, not just Instagram). I wonder if Facebook, which owns Instagram, will let EyeIn keep using its API:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153386663559655(Instagram) and https://www.eyein.com/
Moshe caught my attention, not because of this, or the social network he runs, Mobli, but because of Yo. Sometimes it’s the stupidest apps that are easiest to pay attention to, huh?

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Other things I saw this past week.

Today I got a tour of Microsoft Research. Mind blowing stuff. Here’s three videos I did:

1) Future of quantum computing.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153391118514655/

2) Trapping mosquitoes with drones and technology.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153391242619655/

3) Future of data visualization.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153391247924655/

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Here Derek Johnson has a great list of tools for startups:https://www.facebook.com/Derekarjohnson/posts/10102528520881056?fref=nf

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Facebook open sources its IDE for developers:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153387654654655

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A look at the conference room of the future at Cisco.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153384320989655/ We will be using this on Tech on Deck during the Allen and Company event in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 7th-9th. Sign up for that athttps://www.facebook.com/events/1678325252396131/ What is “Tech on Deck?” A virtual conference of interesting people telling me the future of various things, which is why I was visiting Microsoft Research.

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Connected cars are all the rage, but here a startup, Vin.li, shows how to connect your car with its gadget underneath your dashboard.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153384477909655/

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Aisle411 shows me the latest in indoor mapping. It can direct you right to products on shelves at grocery stores around the United States.https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153375322959655/

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LaunchCode is finding jobs for unemployed and underemployed people in IT: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153375252974655/

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Justin Kan writes about how Magic, a new text-based delivery service, works for him:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153378037639655

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Conversation with the Unicorn Hunters behind the Extreme Tech Challenge, a great contest for startups attacking huge markets:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153386334994655/

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Visiting St. Louis' innovation district:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153375137779655/

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Cool gifts from Greetabl. This startup takes a piece of paper and makes unique gift boxes from it. The future of greeting cards:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153373585354655/

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Imergy ships commercial batteries that help make power grids smarter (and enable more use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar):https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153383671129655/

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Photo tips for kids with great travel photographer (and Rackspace customer) Trey Ratcliff:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153383546654655/

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Amazon opens up its Echo APIs:https://www.facebook.com/thenextweb/posts/10153409225053523

My boss loves Echo, and writes in the comments here why:https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153387374364655

I’m up in Seattle meeting with all sorts of interesting innovators and startups. Tomorrow I’m meeting with one of the best venture capitalists, Dan Levitan, in the Pacific Northwest and we’ll talk about all this and see if he has any funny startups up his sleeve.

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I read all my email at [email protected] and anything done in response to this newsletter goes to the top of my inbox. I’m also at +1-425-205-1921 or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble. Please let me know how I, or Rackspace, the leading managed cloud company, can be of service to you. Thanks too to Hugh Macleod and team for helping me do art each week for this. We love his work!

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