Building a Business on Helping Companies Hire Smarter

ClearFit founder Ben Baldwin always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, although he wasn’t always sure that this attitude was a good thing. “I’ve never really fit into the way other people think/act and I have a real problem with authority,” Baldwin said in interview. “I kinda thought that I was screwed professionally, until I started my own thing.“ Read more…

Sprouter Weekly Hot Startups: Where Are They Now?

Since the first issue of Sprouter Weekly, we’ve been hunting down the newest, most exciting startups each week, and serving up four of them straight to your inbox. The thing about startups is that usually launch day is only the beginning. Here’s a look at some of the Hot Startups we’ve profiled over the years, and where they are now.

The Acquisitions

 We introduced Rypple in the March 28 2010 edition of Sprouter Weekly, and knew this performance management system was big news. We profiled their founders in December of 2010, and founder Daniel Debow said 2011 was going to be their biggest year yet. Salesforce agreed, and in December 2011, Rypple was acquired by Salesforce for an undisclosed amount.

 In November 0f 2010, we thought Rapportive was big news. They had just raised a million dollars in funding, and they had integrations with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. As it turns out, LinkedIn wanted to be more than just an integration partner, and in February 2012, Rapportive announced an acquisition by LinkedIn on their blog.

 In the same issue of Sprouter Weekly that we profiled Rypple, we also looked at scheduling application Tungle. Erin interviewed their founder Marc Gringas in 2009, and his goal was 600 million users world-wide. In 2011, Blackberry maker Research in Motion decided they liked what Tungle had going on, and Tungle announced on their blog that they had been acquired by RIM on April 27.

 September 22nd, 2010, we profiled Tony Conrad’s new startup, designed to give users one page that points to all of the things they do online. About.me was in public beta mode at the time, and when they launched publicly in in December of 2010, AOL snapped them up in only four days.

 In the Novemeber 10, 2010 issue of Sprouter Weekly, we loved this photo-sharing application, and talked about how Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger raised a $500,000 seed round earlier in 2010. Two years later, Facebook would close out Q1 with the announcement that they would be acquiring the social network for $1Billion.

The Trendsetters

 For the June 2nd, 2010 edition of Sprouter Weekly, we decided that social accommodations site Airbnb was on to something. Two years later, the phrase “We’re like Airbnb for X” is a common pitch opener, and Airbnb operates in over 190 countries, and 19,700 cities worldwide.

 In our very first issue of Sprouter Weekly, way back in March of 2010, we featured group buying site Groupon. Hundreds of startups would follow the group buying trend, and Groupon would go on to raise millions in funding, including an IPO on July 11th, 2011, to raise $750 million.

Record Breakers and Heavy Hitters

 In March 2010, we featured small business community Etsy as a Hot Startup, loving the ability to buy handmade and vintage goods. A year later, they reported one billion pageviews in January of 2011, and over $30 million in goods sold through the Etsy marketplace. Impressive numbers!

 For the June 1st, 2011 edition of Sprouter Weekly we thought Kickstarter was a great platform for people to fund creative ideas. Kickstarter rounded out 2011 with over $90 million pledged towards projects, and would usher in 2012 with its largest funded project ever – Pebble’s ePaper watch has brought in over $10 million.

 We featured Pinterest in August 2011, and described them as “a virtual pinboard. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.” They would go on to amass 10 million users in 9 months, and become the fastest growing site ever.

Looking Back at 100 Founder Profiles

Since 2009, we’ve been interviewing different founders every week, and bringing their story to you. We wanted to take a walk down memory lane, and revisit some Founder Profiles from days past:
Read more…