I met with Brandon DeCuir of Divvy, a new very early stage company in Seattle. They're implementing a local social networking application that allows people in a location to share. My advice to him was to try to be "SOMETHING TO SOMEONE". In other words, he was at the stage in the process where he was interested in the idea that people in a geographic area like a neighborhood or a city block would want to share lots of stuff like tools, toys, DVDs etc. Sure, it's an interesting idea but I told him to choose an audience and an item that people wanted to share regularly (daily or at least weekly). Ultimately, as we talked I told him to either focus on letting condo owners in a condo complex to share tools (kind of an interesting idea) or to let gamers in a block exchange cartridges. I'm not sure if either of these ideas is really a great idea for a business (I don't think I'd pursue either of them) but I tried to give him constructive feedback while cautioning him on the challenges I've faced at Judy's Book.
August 31, 2007 by Andy Sack.