Day[0] as Intern[1] at Shelby.tv

As I swung open the door at “Cyberdyne Systems” yesterday morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect. A few months earlier, after chatting with Reece and Chris about a potential internship, I’d been assigned to Project G.O.A.T.S., during which I was tasked with the odd job of finding (yes, seriously) real-live goats for SXSW. Most interns have to do some kind of cold-calling, but have you ever tried to convince local farms and mobile petting zoos that you just need to borrow their goats for the weekend to use as mascots at a giant tech conference? Not as easy as you might think.

So clearly the team at Shelby was crazy right? Well, yes. But is it pure insanity or the kind of directed madness that gets results? You tell me: Top Brands at SXSW

So this team matched the kind of brand awareness reserved for giants like Nike and CNN on a budget that probably cost less than the actual flights to Austin? Count me in.

Fast forward to my first day. I smiled as I passed the signs for Cyberdyne Systems that indicated Shelby headquarters. I was greeted by Reece, who’d lined my desk with a bunch of awesome Shelby gear and welcomed me to the office. It was pretty clear from the start that this office was a straight out of a tech entrepreneur’s dream. There’s a conference room set up with webcams, whiteboards lining the walls, a command center/workspace with tons of monitors, and an astroturf covered ping-pong room with a drum set and an original N64.

I sat down with Reece, who briefed me on the company mission and his “Get sh*t done” philosophy. He said that he wanted me to attend conferences, shadow some of his meetings, and he even put a reading list together for me of some of his favorite books and blog posts, part of which you can find here. It’s almost like he wants me to learn something during my internship. Weird, right?

I spent the rest of the day getting set up and playing with the brand new Shelby GT which, if you haven’t checked it out yet, is awesome. Do yourself a favor and sign up for the beta here. FYI, I’m crashing at Chris’s desk for the time being, right next to my favorite picture of all time:

But with all of the craziness and eccentricities aside, there’s one more thing that’s very clear when you step into the Shelby.tv office: focus. For the majority of the day people are jacked in, headphones on and in complete concentration. Sure there are group meetings, lunches, and rounds of ping pong in between, but I’m guessing it’s this level of focus that got them to where they are today. I’m so excited to be joining the incredibly talented team for the summer and will continue to update you on my progress.

- Zach || intern[1]

An American in Amsterdam: TNW Conference 2012

//reece

A few months ago, my friend CBM suggested I go to The Next Web Conference. At first, I thought - “Amsterdam’s cool and all, but I’ve already been and I’ve got a startup to run…” But when a free conference pass turned up, then a free hotel room from a friend who couldn’t cancel, and finally acceptance into TNW Startup Rally - a pitch competition at the Conference - it was a no-brainer. 

So last week, I flew to the city of pancakes, pot, and prostitution - wait, I mean Pancakes and Pitches! Pancakes and Pitches! - to see what the European tech scene is all about, show Amsterdam what’s new with Shelby and of course, represent America.

I was excited to see a great turnout for the Conference, with startups, investors, and press from all over Europe. Amsterdam, UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic were the “locals,” but teams flew in from as far away as South Africa and Korea as well. So cool to see that type of entrepreneurial energy.

Compared to my trip to Italy last month, there was definitely more appetite for risk in this crowd, but it still lacks the full ecosystem of NYC or Silicon Valley. That being said, I think it will get there. It just takes time, knowledge share, and continued investment. 

The Startup Beta Rally, in which we participated, featured existing companies that are launching something new. So I got up and showed a quick demo of Shelby “GT” - our new version in private beta. [You can get on the invite list here].

The judges - including awesome people like Werner Voegels (Amazon CTO) and Alexis Ohanian (Reddit founder) - liked our vision, so I then had the chance of presenting to the larger audience on the main stage… the largest audience I’ve ever to which I’ve ever presented. Pretty fun, though I admit I wished I’d had my team there with me like TechStars Demo Day last year.** [It’s just more fun when you get off stage and have Spinosa waiting with a giant “FUCK YEAH!”]

Besides the Startup Rally, there were a bunch of great speakers like Hilary Mason (bit.ly), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit) and Chad Hurley (YouTube founder). There was also some fun activity outside, as TNW crew had a live cow in a pen for a game they called Dungville. I’ll let you figure it out from the pic.

The conference ended with the announcements of the winners for the Startup Rally and I’m really proud to say Shelby won “Best Overall Startup.” It felt great to nab that victory as our team worked really hard to get Shelby “GT” ready for launch at TNW. They got the job done. All I had to do was tell our story.

With the conference all wrapped up, I caught up with a good friend and local Dutchman, Jeroen, who took a big group of us to a super local Dutch restaurant for dinner. Really fun times with friends old and (mostly) new. 

I didn’t partake in the coffee shops and usual tourist traps because I really don’t like doing touristy things (in particular, those things), but I did walk around a ton and just explore. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and unlike most cities I’ve been. I definitely recommend going.

Special thanks to my friends Courtney Body Myers, Sophie Op den Kamp, Harrison Weber, and the whole crew at TNW for having me, and to Jeroen for being our guide all weekend.

**[Speaking of which, I can’t emphasize how much of an impact TechStars Demo Day has had on my ability to prepare a pitch and present it to an audience. This time around, I knew exactly how to prepare and how I wanted to tell our story. Thank you to TechStars, in particular the members and mentors of our class for all the help].

And The Next Web Startup Rally Winner is…Shelby.tv

thenextweb:

Over the past couple of days at The Next Web’s conference in Amsterdam, we’ve heard from some very cool speakers and met some really awesome startups. The Startup Rally which has been going on over the past couple of days has now reached its conclusion and we are able to reveal the overall winner is…[drum roll]…Shelby.tv.

Shelby.tv, is a social video startup and the only firm representing NYC at #TNW2012. Since the startup launched, we’ve watched it go on to build a gorgeous social video experience, we attended its first hackathon and it launched a new private beta release of the next generation of social video at our conference yesterday. The battle for the future of social video continues, and as was clear at this year’s TNW conference, Shelby.tv is at the top of our list.

OMGGGGGG we are so thrilled, and humbled, and…and other emotions!

Twitter - doing the right thing

reecepacheco:

Yesterday Twitter announced the Innovator’s Patent Agreement.

The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.

I, and many other smart people on the internet, agree that this is a huge step forward in fixing the mess that is patent litigation. There are, of course, some people questioning the Agreement’s definition of “defensive,” and for good cause.

In my experience, any good legal team can figure out a way to spin a good argument for their client, but it’s my hope that the mission driven purpose of the IPA - the “why” of the Agreement if I may - will encourage innovation for the good of the world, not the greedy, and it will help decision makers do the right thing.

While we don’t have a burning need for the IPA yet, I hope to adopt it here at Shelby.tv. Congrats to the Twitter team for stepping up here and doing the right thing.

A favorite quote that is all too relevant: 

…But he still thought it self-evident that one had to do what was right; he had never learned how people could want to do otherwise; he had learned only that they did. It still seemed simple and incomprehensible to him: simple that things should be right, and incomprehensible that they weren’t. Atlas Shrugged

We love innovation here at Shelby.tv and we’re excited to support the Twitter IPA.

Ode to @Shelby

Jordan Kong:

The value proposition of Shelby.tv is simple: it aggregates all the video links that is shared by people in my social networks (FB, Twitter, Tumblr). It’s a web application that I initially found superfluous, but now use regularly.

In fact, the more I use the service, the more I’ve come to realize why I need it. I’m often missing many of the videos that people share as my feed updates so quickly. When I’m just checking Twitter on my mobile for quick updates, I don’t have the time to watch a 3 minute clip of Linsanity’s greatest moments. The Shelby team has done a great job in developing a simple platform that plays cool videos that are relevant to me with minimal effort on my part. 

User-generated video content is exploding — Youtube is now seeing 60 hours of video uploaded every minute, compared to just 6 hours per minute in 2007. This increase in volume, however, has made it so much harder to find quality content. Lately, I’ve found the suggested items in my Youtube feed to be lackluster, if not seemingly random. Shelby’s user-curated approach piggy-backs off existing social networks to populate my personal video channel. I especially like the video autoplay as soon as I land on the page — kind of like turning on a TV! 

I think that Shelby can go a step further in video curation by following Turntable.fm’s crowd-sourced model. Sometimes, I’m just in the mood to watch ridiculous Epic Meal Time episodes, or cooldancevideos. Just as how each DJ room on Turntable is theme by music genre, “channels” on Shelby could feature various video topics, such as sport clips, cat videos, or music performances from the 70’s. Watching videos on Shelby now is an asynchronous activity, while these “channels” would make it synchronous and thereby more social. 

For now, Shelby’s social functionality only consists of sharing videos via e-mail or Twitter. However, I often wish that there was a way I can highlight a scene or a line from a video clip when I’m sharing it with my friends. If Shelby can implement social video annotations or user-generated subtitles (kind of like Canvas for video), it could become the destination to watch online videos with others. As XKCD points out, Youtube parties are so common in this day and age… and no viewing party is complete without a snarky comment or two. 

The Shelby application is already awesome — and I’m really looking forward to watching it (note: pun intended) grow its user base and develop its product! Have you tried Shelby yet? What do you think?

The flattery is almost too much! (Almost…) Thanks Jordan!

Trending this Week: 4 new music videos

Once more, we’ve made it to the weekend! (Yippee! Huzzah! Zippidydoo!)

So take a second to relax and get into the Friday night groove with these hot new releases.

Nicki Minaj - Beez In The Trap (Explicit) ft. 2 Chainz http://j.mp/IyNy2b

***

Jessie J - Laserlight ft. David Guetta http://j.mp/IzoVCk

***

Drake - Take Care ft. Rihanna http://j.mp/HzEsyM

***

Jennifer Lopez - Dance Again ft. Pitbull http://j.mp/IyNNu1

“I’m your guy!”

reecepacheco:

Two years ago today we got an email from some guy with the subject “I’m your guy!”

We were hiring for our first engineer to join Dan as we built HomeField and this was the first hit we got from a blog post and some tweets about the job.

On paper, this guy looked pretty good. Built a couple apps, PhD in physics, college rower… but he also wasn’t a native coder or startup guy… regardless, we started ‘dating’… 

The first contact we had was when he and Dan attended a NY Tech Talk. It was meant to vet him technically. Instead, Dan and him talked at length about how their wives are both teachers, they both like the Mets and craft beers. SWOOON!

So he was a fit culturally, but what about technically? We had to test that, so who better to vet him technically than me, the non-technical founder/ceo, right? <sarcasm>

I met with him and asked him to explain technical issues simply and he did. Dan liked working with him, so we put him through a month long tryout. He even agreed to come up to my parent’s house on Cape Cod for a week with the team before joining full time.

If you know my team, you already know I’m talking about Henry and my point in retelling this story is that he joined HomeField at a time when we were still figuring things out [in particular, our hiring process]. He worked without salary. He made it through TechStars with us.  He stayed with us in our switch to Shelby…

I couldn’t be more grateful for that loyalty and dedication… that attitude of ‘doing whatever needs to get done’ and belief in the team goes such a long way in forging relationships and a strong team.

The line you hear is that “startups are like rollercoasters” and it is true. Rarely do early stage/first time founders have everything figured out. As an early hire, you have to be ready to throw yourself to the fire and deal with whatever comes your way. Henry’s done just that and it’s part of what makes working with this team so special. 

Thanks for being our guy, Henry. 

In closing, I thought I’d share this video I shot in fall of 2010, in which Henry nearly loses his shit as we assess some of the software our HomeField customers used on a daily basis. Laughs ensue… 

We love you Henry! Here’s to many more years together!