Comments for Startup Search Exposes the People Behind Web Startups

Startup Search Exposes the People Behind Web Startups

2007-06-01T19:06:59Z

I wanted to write about this yesterday, but the site was down for a couple of hours and I couldn't get to it. On Wednesday evening, blogger Niall Kennedy officially launched his new venture Startup Search, a directory of the web startup ecosystem -- companies, products, people, and investors.

Each company, product, person, or investor has their own page on Startup Search that includes general information, logo or photo, blog posts, a Flickr photostream, and Google Map. Evan Williams' page, for example, includes a quick bio, photo, contact information and map, head shot, and an overview of projects he is involved with (though oddly, it does not mention Twitter).

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In addition to the directory features, Startup Search provides analytical tools as well. Each entry is assigned "buzz" and "traffic" metrics. Buzz is measured using data from Technorati and Yahoo! about links and blog mentions, while traffic is measured by data from Alexa, Quantcast, and Compete. Niall hopes to add more statistical coverage in the future. Personally, I would love to see more relationship data, revealing how interconnected people in the startup ecosystem are. For example, how many degrees of separation are between Josh Kopelman and Jeff Bezos? Or, do Pierre Omidayar and Mark Cuban have any investments in common? It would be great to have that information at your fingertips.

Startup Search currently has information on 41 companies, 50 products, and 88 investors. I can easily see this site being added to my arsenal as a tech blogger. It can be hard to dig up information on past funding rounds for start ups, or who is involved with each project, and this site could certainly make that a far easier process. Startup Search will also be a fun resource for web startup junkies (as I suspect many Read/WriteWeb readers are!) assuming Niall can keep it up-to-date and continues to expand his data set.

Comment from Dan Grossman on 2007-06-01

2007-06-01T19:37:17Z

Interesting. A few pages loaded then the site became unresponsive for me (very poor shared hosting?). Loads of white space between page content and footer. Stray "&bull" in the header. Not a very polished site.

Comment from Nick Cho on 2007-06-01

2007-06-02T01:16:52Z

Great idea. The site does need some work though. I hope they create a feature that allows people to submit startups they know about or are involved in.

Comment from Niall Kennedy on 2007-06-01

2007-06-02T03:12:33Z

Thanks for checking out Startup Search! I decided to release early and iterate in the open, so not everything is perfect.

Twitter is an interesting case, and not very typical in the Web startup world. Twitter was a side project of podcasting site Odeo, a company co-founded by Evan which received venture funding from a group of angels as well as Charles River Ventures. In October 2006 Evan Williams bought out his investors and took back ownership of both Odeo and Twitter, rolling both into a newly formed Obvious Corp. Twitter entered an incubation and Odeo was later sold. Twitter then graduated from the incubator. Evan Williams is now listed as a Twitter investor with a funding event occurring when he purchased the company and began the incubation process.

Degrees of separation is more interesting when you step back and look at someone's past. You'll see PayPal execs funding each other or members of Indian entrepreneurship groups collaboration. Some data is easier to track than others.

Startup Search is just getting started. Thanks for checking it out!

Comment from Nakamura on 2007-06-02

2007-06-02T15:31:22Z

well this is one helluva resource! i bet people (as also Josh mentioned those willing to become startups) will take it with hype. it's always interesting to see the connections and who's behind whom in that VC world.. i can imagine how big that data base of Niall will be couple years from now! ;)