The process of starting up a company is exhilarating; the biggest and baddest roller coaster ride I’ve ever experienced. Today I closed my seed round in the morning (yes!) then discovered a few hours later that a shopping comparison engine feed upload process works as if it were built by apes (doh!). Luckily I’ve surrounded myself with a small, but exceptionally bright team which seems to be a couple steps ahead of whatever the shopping comparison engines throw at us. What we’re working on is not as easy a problem to solve as I originally expected…which makes the solution that much more valuable for both merchants and shopping engines.
With all the web 2.0 hype in Silicon Valley, it feels good working on a solid solution to a serious problem. While I love reading Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch and think some of the young companies he profiles are smart with incredible prospects, I’m really happy to be sitting here in my office Friday @ 6pm and not making my way over to the TechCrunch August Capital Party – where the final pair of tickets went for $501 on eBay. I have a business model that doesn’t depend on acquiring 3m uniques, being bought out by Yahoo! or Google within a year, or relying on Google AdSense ads. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…it’s just not the path I’ve chosen.
Because I’m focused on the new company, I haven’t posted much on ComparisonEngines.com, VerticalSearch.net, or SearchEngineWatch. Don’t worry, I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Our beta release is quickly approaching. If you’ve already contacted me to participate, you’ve either already heard from me or will be hearing from me soon. If you’re interested in participating – I’m looking for any merchants that submit or want to submit to one or many shopping comparison engines – please send me an email (‘brian at comparisonengines dot com’).
