Written on September 20, 2008 – 10:54 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Here’s another great idea I heard during Web 2.0 Expo New York. Dania Gerhardt from social collaboration platform Amazee (review here) told me about her brand new office in San Francisco. Somewhat surprised, I asked her how an-angel funded start-up could afford that. To my excitement, she told me the Swiss government provides promising tech start-ups like Amazee a shared office space in downtown San Francisco. Isn’t that a genius way of supporting your national start-ups?
The building is called Swissnex. Here’s an explanation from the web site:
Swissnex San Francisco is initiated by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research (SER) as a public-private venture, and managed in cooperation with the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, swissnex San Francisco is an annex of the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco. Vital financial support is provided by public and private sponsors sharing swissnex San Francisco’s commitment to “connecting the dots.”
Amazee got this office space thanks to the CTI Startup program, initiated by the Swiss Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology. When they enter the building on 730 Montgomery Street (which dates from 1852), they have wireless Internet connections, video/audio-conferencing, projection capabilities, and a fancy board room to play around with. What makes it even more interesting, is the fact that any Swiss with something interesting on his mind can work at Swissnex. So apart from the fact that Amazee can operate in world’s most booming tech atmosphere, they’ll also be inspired by other ambitious folks.
Swissnexx also has offices in Shanghai, Singapore, and Boston.
Does your country support a similar initiative? Or do you think that it’s actually a waste of money? I know plenty of people who dislike anything subsidized, so this post may be an interesting foundation for a good discussion.
Whatever the result of that discussion will be, I don’t think Swiss entrepreneurs like the Amazee team and Dominik Grolimund from Wuala (review here) will really mind. They have an excellent opportunity to build their presence in Silicon Valley.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on September 17, 2008 – 11:47 pm Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Amazee, the Switzerland-based collaboration service, has launched today. Co-founder Dania Gerhardt gave me a demo under a cup of coffee at the Web 2.0 Expo yesterday morning. Ever since then I’ve been suffering under an embargo, but now the time is here to get the word out.
Swiss conference tigers
Dania Gerhardt
Every conference I’ve attended since the last Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco has been enriched with the pleasure of meeting the Amazee power couple Gregory and Dania Gerhardt. Somehow, they manage to win tickets for gigs like Supernova, Next08, and both Web 2.0 Expo editions. Maybe it’s because they’re great company, good on stage, and real connectors.
Chihuahua owners for Tibet
Anyhow, between all the conferences, they’ve managed to build quite an interesting start-up. Dania and Gregory have created a platform for people to achieve goals and project together. Subjects can be “Lose fifty pounds in two months” or “Chihuahua owners for Tibet”. You meet people on Amazee not because you already know them or love the same band, no, you meet them because you have the same plans in life. That alone is a challenging starting point for a start-up. But wait, there’s more.
Drupal and Ajax
Drupal-based Amazee is a rather sophisticated site. Personal and project profiles, todo’s, schedule’s, a project magazine - all can be easily edited with the Ajax-based control panels. Although I can imagine that the control panel can be quite overwhelming for first time users. Especially the ones that are less web-savvy. And that’s exactly Amazee’s target group.
Cold hard cash
“We’re not aiming for the geeks”, Dania told me. She rather attracts “ordinary people”. Anybody who has a certain ideal can find co-workers on her community. Or sponsors. Although Amazee has a bit of sixties flavor surrounding it, the service can also help you to get some cold hard case to make your dreams come true. Dania showed me tree ways:
Financial Sponsorship – Projects can request and accept direct donations via PayPal.
Non-Financial Sponsoring – Projects can request help in the form of physical activities and supplies.
Banner Advertising – Projects can sell banner ad space on their home pages and the revenues are shared between the project and Amazee. Sponsors can instantly upload their banner.
That’s what I love about this service. Dania and Gregory have created a world for Internet users to help each other making their dreams and ideals come true. Not just with moral support, but also with some euros. A good combination, if you’d ask me. The city of Chicago agrees with me, as Amazee has been signed up to provide the social platform which will back Chicago’s attempt to get the 2016 Olympic games to the Windy city.
Respect the web presence
The only thing I’m missing on Amazee so far is the integration with other services. I can’t import my project calendars in iCal, can’t automatically load my Flickr photos into the photo gallery, and can’t add any events to Upcoming, to name a few. When I talked to Gregory about this, he assured me they’re working on that, but that it’s also very hard for them to provide it. Sounds like this Swiss start-up needs another funding round for some extra developers. It will definitely be worth the investment.
Dania & Gregory Gerhardt from Amazee.com at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco
In 12 days Switzerland-based Amazee will launch in open beta. We met the founders, Dania and Gregory Gerhardt, at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco where they are very actively promoting their start-up. The service they aim to deliver is a simple site which allows people to work on projects that need more than one person to achieve their goals. They can set goals, invite people to join them and share their projects.
This isn’t a standard project management software but more of a platform for people who want to reach certain goals and need a tool to make that possible. The goals can be as simple as ‘Clean my house’ or as difficult as ‘Change our school system’. Unlike many other project management services Amazee is being built to do serious as well us fun projects and not really aimed at the corporate project manager.
Have you ever had a goal which required the attention and engagement of more people than just yourself? Then you are on the right platform. Amazee is a free platform that allows you to state your goals and gives you the tools to connect with like-minded people to run and promote projects. Whatever your goal is, publicize and pursue it on Amazee!
Think about your life’s goals the small and the big ones. They are an expression of your personality and they indicate to the world where you are heading for. Show them. Achieve them.
They visited Robert Scoble who made this video of Dania explaining the project:
Dania was kind enough to share 50 invites with us to give to our readers. Digg this post, leave a comment and I will personally email you an invite.
Written on September 20, 2008 – 10:54 pm
The building is called Swissnex. Here’s an explanation from the web site:
Written on April 23, 2008 – 6:23 am
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