25 days since the last post…For you kids at home, this is an awful, awful practice, a cardinal sin…not updating the blog at startup phase. We’ve actually had a legitimate excuse: Snagged a first round interview with TechCrunch50 a couple weeks back. Jason Calacanis himself?! (website | twitter | wikepedia | mahalo) personally did the interview which I thought was really cool at the time, especially with Google Knol, the “human search engine” killer (more on them later), literally being launched on the same day of the interview (check out his eventual Google rebuke: Is Google A Content Company? Of Course It Is. So What Should Publishers Do? ). Also, you’d think first round interviews would have been handled by a minion, not the head monarch, but I guess TechCrunch50 has a special place in Calacanis’ heart (his roots are in tech cons).
The interview, you say? Really, really fast. Screw the powerpoint, just go straight to the demo! Calacanis said some nice things (noted ButtonALL’s simplicity) and gave some legit criticism (noted similar services out in the market). But in the end, he just didn’t have a lot to say. We surmised either (1) ButtonALL is so elegant with its simplicity that the normally garrulous Calacanis was rendered speechless or (2) He was totally indifferent. Guessing the latter, we were ready to move on, but hedging our bets, we decided to withhold our next ButtonALL launch and go on a communications blackout….you know, just in case. Hence, 25 days since last post.
Well, a funny thing happened on our way to self-imposed exile. Technology blogs (including international ones) were starting to chat us up. We were getting unsolicited emails from established web companies wanting to be featured as red buttons. One significant ad network was being inquisitive. Most importantly, traffic was going through the roof! Recently, ButtonALL hit the 50,000(!) search benchmark. We have been passively watching in awe at this power of viral marketing…
At the time of this writing, 60 people have reviewed us on stumbleupon (granted not all positive :))…juxtapose this to the $31 million launch of Cuil.com (more on them later). As a comparison, they currently have 192 reviews, and that’s with Drudge Report main headline, coverage from every major news outlet, fancy PR firm, and, oh, about 30.99999 million dollars more than us. Last year’s TC40 winner Mint.com has 40 stumbleupon reviews after two full years! Calacanis’ own Mahalo has 26 reviews. Look, I understand the limitations of this metric, but I’m really, really excited about it as a crude proxy especially considering folks have only been test-driving the rudimentary version of ButtonALL in a zero marketing environment!
As you can imagine, there was some serious internal debates as to whether we should just f’ the contest and bull ahead. During this time, I had to personally bite my tongue as some of the aforementioned stumbleupon criticisms would be addressed by our embargoed version “2.0.” But you know what? If you don’t have haters, then you’re not doing anything meaningful.
So, finally, today, we get the formal rejection email from TechCrunch. Couldn’t be happier! Hello again, world, we’re ButtonALL!
