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Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

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Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#151
post #110

I just tried out the iPhone app and I'm pretty disappointed. Color seems like one of those ideas that would be pretty rad if 1 million people already used it. Because no one has the app yet, if you fire it up it's totally blank. You take a picture of yourself, post it, then the rest of the UI is whitespace. There's nothing to look at or do. It's possibly the worst first-run user experience I've ever seen. I wonder if…

I personally think they just solved a huge problem. Oh wait..what problem were they solving again?

This product reminds me of cue-cat, in the sense that it fails to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#152
Since our tiny 4 person startup built a photo sharing app with very similar core ideas, I was scared shitless this morning on first reading about Color.

That passed. Wrote it all up on the blog, but here is what I think they have wrong and our Pixamid has right:

Privacy: I think most people want to more privacy on their photos, not less. If the camera can sense who you are with (like Pixamid and Color try), by default, share ONLY with those people. By default, Pixamid shares with only your friends at he same place as you - you can choose to share with everyone there too.

Network Effects: Color™ might be cool in a world where everyone uses Color™. But we don’t see such a world anytime soon. People will use lots of different apps: Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Picasa -hell, even Ofoto (thanks Mom). We want to pull in your friends’ photos from any of these services, automatically as much as possible. See our post below about the Instagram magic we do; we’re dong a lot more of this cool stuff now.

Addressing a real problem: We are all taking more photos with our great phone cameras. But we hate to organize our photos. And if we add in Friend photos, it is even worse. Users of Pixamid get automagical photo organization as a byproduct of using the app. Each set of photos, with place, event, and who you were with. The things we will do with this in the future - can’t wait to show everyone! But we believe that our solution will revolutionize how people share photos online.

http://blog.pixamid.com/post/4060807527/the-color-tm-challen...

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#153
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bill recently acquired the domain color.com for $350K" according to Steve Thommes in the TC comments.

i might see if I can get colorapp.com for £3.50

update: I can't, its taken. But I've been offered colour.com for £350k, I'm considering it.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#154
post #110

I just tried out the iPhone app and I'm pretty disappointed. Color seems like one of those ideas that would be pretty rad if 1 million people already used it. Because no one has the app yet, if you fire it up it's totally blank. You take a picture of yourself, post it, then the rest of the UI is whitespace. There's nothing to look at or do. It's possibly the worst first-run user experience I've ever seen. I wonder if…

I personally think they just solved a huge problem. Oh wait..what problem were they solving again?

Exactly... they are only creating more of a problem, in that everyone now uses different methods to take, store and share photos. And no one organizes photos, so it is a huge mess. If only someone could address that... oh wait, we do. For less than half of what Color spent on a domain name, we build our Pixamid app...

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#155

Disclaimer: Three of us are building a pet project that has some similarities with Color. One big difference - all user generated content is private by default. That out of the way, we are certainly envious about the 100-200 million dollar evaluation they got on day one. With about 4k spent so far, in our case and with three of us chipping in any extra time we have (me - any extra time I have outside of lurking here)…

Would love to chat, sounds like what we are doing with Pixamid.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#156
post #83

'Say you walk into a restaurant with twenty people in it. You sit down at a table with four friends, and start chatting. Then one of your friends pulls out their phone, fires up Color, and takes a snapshot of you and your buddies. That photo is now public to anyone within around 100 feet of the place it was taken. So if anyone else in the restaurant fires up Color, they’ll see the photograph listed in a stream alongs…

Not really. Let's say you walk in a club at 1AM, you get to see what the party was like before you. Also clubs are usually concentrated in the same area, so you may also see what happening in the other establishments.

Not a good use case. Long shot.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#157

I just tried out the iPhone app and I'm pretty disappointed. Color seems like one of those ideas that would be pretty rad if 1 million people already used it. Because no one has the app yet, if you fire it up it's totally blank. You take a picture of yourself, post it, then the rest of the UI is whitespace. There's nothing to look at or do. It's possibly the worst first-run user experience I've ever seen. I wonder if…

When you mix location + user generated content, you need to deploy city by city.

^ When Facebook started, they deployed University by University. They understood that in order for social apps to become popular, they need a critical mass of people to work. If you're the only person in your town that tries it, you're going to have an empty social network and no stickiness.

They should at least think about expanding the 100 ft proximity to town size until it gains some traction.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#158
Currently it has 88 1 star ratings out 107 ratings, then 27 5 star ratings, so I don't really get it. I guess 27 people are right near each other and seeing lots of photos?

I love to see people striking out and building stuff and really going for it, it's something I really want to do. I guess I just don't see the part where this is worth $41M? Not trying to hate though, I think people going out and building stuff is awesome.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#159
post #61

$1m for product, $3m for marketing, $37m for curation of a constant stream of chatroullette-esque pornographic images?

This is a good point. If I'm sitting in a very densely populated area the odds that some couple within 100' are exhibitionists must be pretty high.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#160
post #83

'Say you walk into a restaurant with twenty people in it. You sit down at a table with four friends, and start chatting. Then one of your friends pulls out their phone, fires up Color, and takes a snapshot of you and your buddies. That photo is now public to anyone within around 100 feet of the place it was taken. So if anyone else in the restaurant fires up Color, they’ll see the photograph listed in a stream alongs…

Not really. Let's say you walk in a club at 1AM, you get to see what the party was like before you. Also clubs are usually concentrated in the same area, so you may also see what happening in the other establishments.

Do you really care at 1AM what the party in a club was an hour or two ago?
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