So um, we have some news
It all started out with a harmless enough meeting with a certain Andrew Solimine on a wet November evening at the Toucan on Duxton Hill. Both Andy and I had met AJ a few times at various SRB meetups but this was the first time we were going to catch up face-to-face over beers. We started out talking about our different products - about Gameplan, Today's News as well as AJ's exploits with Anideo. A few beers later, the conversation slowly shifted to ideas about a partnership between Anideo and Deepcalm.
While we had never entertained thoughts of joining forces with other companies (with the exception of doing consulting work), AJ's infectious enthusiasm coupled with the fact that the three of us hit it off really well (6 hours of drinking during our first meeting is probably a good sign) led us to believe that a partnership might have some significant value. One huge advantage is that our philosophies are aligned while our specializations are complimentary. While we're all product guys-- AJ will focus on user acquisition and consumer feedback, Andy on user experience, and I will be mastering our technical infrastructure with the help of uber developer Kent Nguyen.
We met again the following week, this time with Eduardo Saverin (who is lead investor in Anideo), and after that meeting we were pretty much convinced that the three of us could really kick ass. After informally agreeing that it will be interesting for us to join forces, we dispersed for the holidays.
After some discussions over the technicalities of how we would work together, we finally agreed that the cleanest solution would be for Andy and I to join as partners at Anideo with AJ and all of Deepcalm's products will be brought under the Anideo umbrella. We signed the contracts last week we're all set to start rolling on the first of March. In the meantime, we're tying up all the loose ends - including consolidating code, domains, Heroku accounts, analytics accounts, financials and all of the other nitty-gritty stuff, so that come March 1st, we can start on a clean slate.
Some other unanswered questions:
1. Is NakedStartup going to continue?
- Yes of course. NakedStartup has been a success ever since we launched it, and it will continue and AJ will join on board as a contributor.
2. What happens to Gameplan and Today's News?
- Gameplan hasn't been as successful as we hoped it would, so it will probably be on sabbatical for a while, and maybe it might morph into something else in the future. Today's News will still continue to be available on the App Store, thought we might it move over to the Anideo iTunes account.
3. What are you guys going to work on next?
- We've been meeting once every week for the last month or so to bounce off ideas and we've discussed some pretty interesting ideas. We have some preliminary ideas about a conversation engine, which we're moulding into something more concrete, but we've agreed that we should be executing at light speed and be making sure that we don't waste time dallying around.
4. Where are you guys going to work next?
- Anideo's current office is on Orchard Road, though in all likelihood we will be moving. Tanjong Pagar and Bugis are two options - a lot of exciting companies in Singapore seem to be gravitating towards these areas.
We're very excited by this opportunity and we think this year is going to be epic, so wish us luck on our new adventure!
Posted
by Arun Thampi
