We would call them blips

I consider blippr my first “real” business, even though I had dabbled before. It was my first real foray into something that scaled to tens—and eventually, hundreds—of thousands of users.

My partner, Chris, and I were at it again. Only this time, we had a clearer strategy. With the growth that Twitter was experiencing (it was even called Twittr at the time), we were able to scale on the backs of Twitter via integrations and reviews that were tweet-sized in nature.

It all started when we chatted about the idea over Gmail chat (remember that?!). We were busy building Judge-O-Rama at the time, but all of it was under the umbrella of our parent company, Tag Team Interactive. As a result, we were able to pivot quickly and it resulted in some real traction.

I learned a ton about product management while doing this, even if informally. Chris was the tech guy, and I was the design and marketing guy. Of course, I didn’t have any “official” design training, but I did what I could based on what I was seeing out there. In fact, my wireframes and designs were all created in PowerPoint at the time. (They were fine, I guess, but wow—those were some early days.)

While I was still learning a ton through this, it did lead to some really cool experiences. We won some contests when Facebook had recently launched their app marketplace. We were written about in TechCrunch. I met some real movers and shakers in Silicon Valley, visiting a lot of the biggest VC names on Sandhill Road. But ultimately, even after exploring other options, we were acquired by Mashable.

Unfortunately, besides my partner becoming Chief Architect for Mashable, we took only stock in the acquisition. While that looked great for a while, it ended up that Mashable sold their business in a fire sale that didn’t result in much (i.e. $0) for us when it was all said and done.

My son asked me what was happening at the time and, after explaining it some to him, I expressed, “That’s okay, son, money isn’t everything.” To which my then 9-year old wisely responded:

“I know. We have untold treasures of Love stored up for us.”

Amen to that. Besides, it was a great learning experience that led to some excellent future projects. Despite the disappointment, I look back upon it all with great fondness.