A few friends from StubHub left a while ago to start their own venture; a “Stealth Mode” startup as they’re known around here. I was recently reminded that this is not all that common a phrase outside of the Silicon Valley world, and it can sound a little rediculous. But, compeition is fierce around these parts, and it is important for people to play their cards close to the chest until they’re ready to reveal their hand.
My friends have recently announced their idea, along with their site, to friends and family. It’s a “soft-launch” approach that allows them to test the waters before broadcasting out about the site’s existence.
From their announcement:
Noozler (http://www.noozler.com) is a community website that provides unique views on the celebrity news landscape.
It’s a pretty interesting idea. There are all sorts of sites out there with not a lot of aggregation. And this is (coments about our civilization’s decline aside) a topic area that is showing a ton of growth. There are all sorts of new faces in this scene, some are just individuals who have made a name for themselves, some are media companies, but the problem with most of these sites is that the sites themselves take on celebrity personalities and celebrity status, and nowhere is there a real community where no single entity is taking center stage.
This is where Noozler can really excel. By providing an up-to-date aggregation of information from disparate sources, providing context around the latest announcements, along with a community experience not lorded over by some larger-than-life celebrity, it can succeed as a place where people come to get their celebrity fix.
I have to give Kudos to the team as well for launching the site. Picture someone walking through a modern art museum with their murmurs of “I coud do that.” Yeah, but the point is, you didn’t. And there’s something to be said for the guy who did. Which is not to say that I think what they’ve done is easy – there’s a lot of underlying technology that makes the site tick that’s pretty impressive – it’s more to give credit to the execution. It’s one thing to come up with the idea (“I could do that” … (with generous assumptions you could come up with the idea in the first place…)), it’s a whole other thing to buckle up and get ‘er done.
That these guys gave up their paying jobs, got motivated day-by-day not to sit around and watch tv, and built this site from just a rough idea, is really an achievement. And to think; this is just where it begins.