Latest Venture news. » interview http://www.venture.name Capital venture news Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:04:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Interview with Kranthi Vistakula, Founder of Dhama Apparels http://www.venture.name/2009/10/15/interview-with-kranthi-vistakula-founder-of-dhama-apparels/ http://www.venture.name/2009/10/15/interview-with-kranthi-vistakula-founder-of-dhama-apparels/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:47:00 +0000 Arun tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5421892.post-8133877957092403606 ]]> ]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/10/15/interview-with-kranthi-vistakula-founder-of-dhama-apparels/feed/ 0 Interview With The Pirate Party Of The United States http://www.venture.name/2009/09/10/interview-with-the-pirate-party-of-the-united-states/ http://www.venture.name/2009/09/10/interview-with-the-pirate-party-of-the-united-states/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:10:23 +0000 Devin Coldewey http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=100558 Let's make one thing absolutely clear about the Pirate Party of the United States (PPUS): it has no interest in defending your ability to illegally download The Blueprint 3 from Waffles.fm. It just doesn't. If you had the idea in your head that the PPUS would somehow work to legalize your bad habits, well, tough break, kid: it's a legitimate political party whose goal is not to make it so that you can download the latest Lady Gaga release with impunity, but rather to effect change in the more general realm of copyright and governmental transparency. In other words, you may want to lower that skull and crossbones flag you've been flying. This past week I spoke to not one, but two officers of the PPUS. Ryan Martin, the party's Administrator, and Glenn Kerbein, the party's Operations Officer. The conversations were illuminating.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
]]> Let's make one thing absolutely clear about the Pirate Party of the United States (PPUS): it has no interest in defending your ability to illegally download The Blueprint 3 from Waffles.fm. It just doesn't. If you had the idea in your head that the PPUS would somehow work to legalize your bad habits, well, tough break, kid: it's a legitimate political party whose goal is not to make it so that you can download the latest Lady Gaga release with impunity, but rather to effect change in the more general realm of copyright and governmental transparency. In other words, you may want to lower that skull and crossbones flag you've been flying. This past week I spoke to not one, but two officers of the PPUS. Ryan Martin, the party's Administrator, and Glenn Kerbein, the party's Operations Officer. The conversations were illuminating.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/09/10/interview-with-the-pirate-party-of-the-united-states/feed/ 0 Interview: Greg Grunberg and August Trometer, Founders of Yowza, Action Heroes http://www.venture.name/2009/07/10/interview-greg-grunberg-and-august-trometer-founders-of-yowza-action-heroes/ http://www.venture.name/2009/07/10/interview-greg-grunberg-and-august-trometer-founders-of-yowza-action-heroes/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:26:22 +0000 John Biggs http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=81301 Greg Grunberg and his partners August Trometer and Rick Yeager have a successful iPhone App called Yowza - it's basically a location-aware coupon app that gives you great deals at major merchants - and Greg plays Matt Parkman on NBC's Heroes, a program I'm told is quite popular with a certain demographic. They are two very cool guys. I got a chance to talk to Greg and August about building iPhone apps, acting while topless, and was quite close to getting Hayden Panettiere's phone number for you all. CrunchGear: So… Yowza, is this your fallback move? Is this what happens when the bottom falls out of this whole acting fad? Greg Grunberg: Exactly. This is for when they're thinking about firing me and I’m like "I don’t understand, why is make-up putting some sort of an STD sore on my face? What’s going on? You know, is my character going to be killed off?" I have always been business minded, always been sorta an entrepreneurial guy, I played a character on Felicity that was modeled after me actually. JJ Abrams is one of my closest friends so when he was creating that show, he was like, I've got the perfect character Sean Lumberg, He’s always looking for the next idea. I mean I’ve been friends with JJ since preschool, believe it or not. All through college I was selling this and selling that, different businesses and stuff. ]]> Greg Grunberg and his partners August Trometer and Rick Yeager have a successful iPhone App called Yowza - it's basically a location-aware coupon app that gives you great deals at major merchants - and Greg plays Matt Parkman on NBC's Heroes, a program I'm told is quite popular with a certain demographic. They are two very cool guys. I got a chance to talk to Greg and August about building iPhone apps, acting while topless, and was quite close to getting Hayden Panettiere's phone number for you all. CrunchGear: So… Yowza, is this your fallback move? Is this what happens when the bottom falls out of this whole acting fad? Greg Grunberg: Exactly. This is for when they're thinking about firing me and I’m like "I don’t understand, why is make-up putting some sort of an STD sore on my face? What’s going on? You know, is my character going to be killed off?" I have always been business minded, always been sorta an entrepreneurial guy, I played a character on Felicity that was modeled after me actually. JJ Abrams is one of my closest friends so when he was creating that show, he was like, I've got the perfect character Sean Lumberg, He’s always looking for the next idea. I mean I’ve been friends with JJ since preschool, believe it or not. All through college I was selling this and selling that, different businesses and stuff.


]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/07/10/interview-greg-grunberg-and-august-trometer-founders-of-yowza-action-heroes/feed/ 0 Interview: Karen Dyer, video game actor http://www.venture.name/2009/07/04/interview-karen-dyer-video-game-actor/ http://www.venture.name/2009/07/04/interview-karen-dyer-video-game-actor/#comments Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:51:31 +0000 Nicholas Deleon http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=79387 Dearest CrunchGear readers: I recently had the honor and privilege of speaking to Karen Dyer, who is not only the voice of Sheva Alomar, from Resident Evil 5, but who also did said character's motion capture. I hope you enjoy it on this day, our day of freedom. Obviously, “K” is for Karen, and “N” is for Nicholas. With that... N: Well, first off congratulations. Resident Evil 5 was a big hit. It sold something like 4 million copies. K: That's what I hear! N: Excellent. But before we get into the game, I just wanted to bring up something I saw on your bio. It says here you're known for your circus skills, and I just wanted to say how that awesome that is. And I wanted to ask, where do you study that? Because I don't know if your average community college offers that type of training. ]]> Dearest CrunchGear readers: I recently had the honor and privilege of speaking to Karen Dyer, who is not only the voice of Sheva Alomar, from Resident Evil 5, but who also did said character's motion capture. I hope you enjoy it on this day, our day of freedom. Obviously, “K” is for Karen, and “N” is for Nicholas. With that... N: Well, first off congratulations. Resident Evil 5 was a big hit. It sold something like 4 million copies. K: That's what I hear! N: Excellent. But before we get into the game, I just wanted to bring up something I saw on your bio. It says here you're known for your circus skills, and I just wanted to say how that awesome that is. And I wanted to ask, where do you study that? Because I don't know if your average community college offers that type of training.


]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/07/04/interview-karen-dyer-video-game-actor/feed/ 0 Interview: Reuben Langdon, Motion Capture Artist For James Cameron’s Avatar http://www.venture.name/2009/06/23/interview-reuben-langdon-motion-capture-artist-for-james-cameron%e2%80%99s-avatar/ http://www.venture.name/2009/06/23/interview-reuben-langdon-motion-capture-artist-for-james-cameron%e2%80%99s-avatar/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:40:38 +0000 Devin Coldewey http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=75892 Reuben Langdon is a motion capture artist in motion pictures and games — you've probably directed his actions without knowing it in such games as Resident Evil 5 and Dead Rising. Most recently he's been working on James Cameron's epic CG film, Avatar. He took some time out of his busy backflipping schedule to talk to us about motion capture, having his own studio, and working with Cameron on the biggest and most ambitious CG movie of all time.]]> Reuben Langdon is a motion capture artist in motion pictures and games — you've probably directed his actions without knowing it in such games as Resident Evil 5 and Dead Rising. Most recently he's been working on James Cameron's epic CG film, Avatar. He took some time out of his busy backflipping schedule to talk to us about motion capture, having his own studio, and working with Cameron on the biggest and most ambitious CG movie of all time.


]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/06/23/interview-reuben-langdon-motion-capture-artist-for-james-cameron%e2%80%99s-avatar/feed/ 0 Interview: Jared Brown, IPhone Developer About Having His App Rejected http://www.venture.name/2009/06/22/interview-jared-brown-iphone-developer-about-having-his-app-rejected/ http://www.venture.name/2009/06/22/interview-jared-brown-iphone-developer-about-having-his-app-rejected/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:30:04 +0000 John Biggs http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=75305 Every day the Internet pays lip service to the "apps" "yanked" by Apple. But what happens when something Apple does in the SDK shuts down an entire type of app, namely the camera apps that added interesting new functionality to the phone? Jared Brown write Quick Shot, an app that added a number of cool features to the iPhone camera.
Apple has decided to strictly enforce their SDK guidelines with the release of 3.0, leaving potentially millions of iPhone users with applications that will not be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0. Maybe you are already aware of this, but I had not seen anything written on Techcrunch and thought it was compelling enough to bring to your attention. Our company, Code Monkeys at Work, produces an application, Quick Shot. It's a camera application, not unlike Night Camera. It has been live in the App Store since mid-Feb. When the 3.0 beta came out we updated it to be compatible and submitted it. Each time we submit an update to Quick Shot we cross our fingers, since we always get a different reviewer who takes issue with features/graphics/text that were already approved in earlier versions. Although this time when it got rejected it caught us by complete surprise.
]]> Every day the Internet pays lip service to the "apps" "yanked" by Apple. But what happens when something Apple does in the SDK shuts down an entire type of app, namely the camera apps that added interesting new functionality to the phone? Jared Brown write Quick Shot, an app that added a number of cool features to the iPhone camera.
Apple has decided to strictly enforce their SDK guidelines with the release of 3.0, leaving potentially millions of iPhone users with applications that will not be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0. Maybe you are already aware of this, but I had not seen anything written on Techcrunch and thought it was compelling enough to bring to your attention. Our company, Code Monkeys at Work, produces an application, Quick Shot. It's a camera application, not unlike Night Camera. It has been live in the App Store since mid-Feb. When the 3.0 beta came out we updated it to be compatible and submitted it. Each time we submit an update to Quick Shot we cross our fingers, since we always get a different reviewer who takes issue with features/graphics/text that were already approved in earlier versions. Although this time when it got rejected it caught us by complete surprise.


]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/06/22/interview-jared-brown-iphone-developer-about-having-his-app-rejected/feed/ 0 Interview: Rob Burkinshaw, Game Designer and Creator of Homeless Sims http://www.venture.name/2009/06/18/interview-rob-burkinshaw-game-designer-and-creator-of-homeless-sims/ http://www.venture.name/2009/06/18/interview-rob-burkinshaw-game-designer-and-creator-of-homeless-sims/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:43:29 +0000 John Biggs http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=74432 Yesterday we posted about Alice and Kev, homeless Sims that exist entirely in the world of Sims 3. They are a family. Alice is a girl with the traditional adolescent pre-teen worries but she's saddled with a father who is high-strung, hates kids, and is generally a misfit in the orderly world of the Sims. They are homeless in that they live in a house with no walls and sleep on park benches. They have no source of food except for things given to them from other Sims or stolen in the course of the day. They can't get clean in their own home - there's no bathroom - and Alice's sleep is interrupted constantly by Kev's rants. Rob Burkinshaw created the experiment, called Alice and Kev, as an examination of game theory and a test of his in-game photography skills but it quickly morphed into one of the most heart-breaking stories I've read in a long time.]]> Yesterday we posted about Alice and Kev, homeless Sims that exist entirely in the world of Sims 3. They are a family. Alice is a girl with the traditional adolescent pre-teen worries but she's saddled with a father who is high-strung, hates kids, and is generally a misfit in the orderly world of the Sims. They are homeless in that they live in a house with no walls and sleep on park benches. They have no source of food except for things given to them from other Sims or stolen in the course of the day. They can't get clean in their own home - there's no bathroom - and Alice's sleep is interrupted constantly by Kev's rants. Rob Burkinshaw created the experiment, called Alice and Kev, as an examination of game theory and a test of his in-game photography skills but it quickly morphed into one of the most heart-breaking stories I've read in a long time.


]]> http://www.venture.name/2009/06/18/interview-rob-burkinshaw-game-designer-and-creator-of-homeless-sims/feed/ 0 Exclusive Interview: Ten questions with the founder of TripTouch.com http://www.venture.name/2008/01/09/exclusive-interview-ten-questions-with-the-founder-of-triptouchcom/ http://www.venture.name/2008/01/09/exclusive-interview-ten-questions-with-the-founder-of-triptouchcom/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:53:41 +0000 Eze Vidra http://www.vccafe.com/2008/01/09/exclusive-interview-ten-questions-with-the-founder-of-triptouchcom/ triptouchTriptouch.com, an Israel-based startup, has recently launched a resource hub for individual travelers. Covering more than 3000 destinations worldwide, Triptouch’s mashes up some of the services people use when planning a trip, including Google maps, Eventful, WikiTravel and so on. It is a one-stop shop, offering destination information, service booking and a live community to answer all of your questions. Gil Ruda, the founder and CEO of Triptouch, and fellow blogger at StartupIsrael, was kind enough to answer 10 questions about TripTouch for the readers of VC Cafe. Below is the transcript.

How was TripTouch born?
The seed of TripTouch was planted in a one month trip I took to New Zealand in early 2006. During that trip I noticed from my experience and from other travelers I met that the solutions on the web for travelers on the go were not sufficient. On the long flights back home I sketched on a piece of paper a few ideas. When I came back I’ve done some studying and found out that there is a business opportunity and decided to start a startup to implement those ideas. Then I had the luck to find more people who believed in this idea and wanted to be a part of it, or invest, or just give good advice.

How do you generate revenue from your user-generated-content?

One of the advantages in the online travel domain is that revenue models are well established: targeted ads and commissions from travel bookings. For now we use Google AdSense for ads and Kayak+ Hostelworld for travel bookings.

What need in the marketplace is triptouch servicing?

While most travel sites focus exclusively on pre-trip planning, TripTouch is aimed at the needs of independent travelers during their trip . Every year hundreds of millions of young people travel for a relatively long trips without planning too much and without booking ahead, and the needs of this market are clearly under served: finding what they really need in an overflow of scattered information is frustrating.
We believe that our concept of a personalized location based travel homepage is the answer for that need.

What differentiates triptouch from other travel aggregators like Expedia.com and social travel sites like tripadvidsor?

Our focus on location based services to travelers during their trip is a key differentiator from other travel information services.

We combine rich aggregated content, useful services and travel related social network functionality.

What’s your strategy to gain marketshare from the competitors?

No doubt that this is our main challenge. First of all, we are building a useful product for our target market. Our penetration strategy is to start with the segment of youth- student travel. They travel for long period of time and use the web constantly.
We are going to address them using collaborations with travel related service providers both online and off-line.

Using few initial collaborations plus a bit of guerrilla marketing and organic search we managed to get around 100,000 monthly entries only a few weeks after launching our beta site.

It looks like you are using a wiki platform as the driving technology. Why did you make that decision?

As a matter of fact we do not.. We aggregate content from various sources like Wikitravel, Eventful, Weather.com and more. The travel information is based mainly on Wikitravel. As a travel homepage we plan to extend our sources and get content from more global and local sites.

Can you tell me about the relationship with Kayak and Hostelworld ?

We use both to allow our users to book travel services. Hostelworld has more than 15,000 hostels worldwide.
Our partnership with Kayak let us use their powerful travel search engine within our site for hotels accommodation, flights and car rental.
We get referral fees for bookings and revenue share for ads.

What are the benefits and limitations of being based in Israel?

At this stage being based in Israel is fine. We approach worldwide audiences and not specific markets like the US. Israelis love to travel so we get very important feedback here. The Israeli web ecosystem is very supporting for startups these days.

If a next financing round becomes necessary, would you you approach angels or VCs? Why?

As a matter of fact we are working on our next financing round. We had only a pre seed investment made by a group of private investors. We intend to approach both angels and relevant Vcs, since we believe that what we should take now is a seed round of up to 1$M. With this sum we will get initial market penetration.

What’s your vision for TripTouch in 2008? in five years?

We have a plan with specific goals for 2008 in R&D, content and business development. Generally our vision is to build an active community of travelers who use TripTouch whenever and wherever they travel.
In five years we hope to be a world leader for the travel online content/ community services.

]]> http://www.venture.name/2008/01/09/exclusive-interview-ten-questions-with-the-founder-of-triptouchcom/feed/ 0