Disqus - Latest Comments for geraldb28

Re: Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles around him

Gerald Buckley — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:37:47 -0000

What a CHICKEN SHIT!

Dude, if it's THAT bad (and I have every reason to believe it is)... put your name on it. Own it. Be a friggin pirate. Own your opinion and lead the revolution. And, of course, if you're one of the co-CEO's writing this screed you had better pray to the Great Muskie Of The North you don't get outted.

Re: Financing Options: Contests/Prizes/Accelerator Programs

Gerald Buckley — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:06:08 -0000

KC absolutely has FANTASTIC barbeque. No comparison really.

However... Oklahoma Territory Barbeque on North Lewis is super. Don't be
scared by the run down neighborhoods around it... It's THE place in
Tulsa - Their ribs are better than anything you'll buy anywhere else.
Rib Crib has fantastic smoked bologna, chopped brisket too (if that's your thing). . And
Wilsons has some extremely good sauces, though their pitmasters are
sometimes inconsistent across their stores.

Re: Financing Options For Small Tech Companies

Gerald Buckley — Mon, 16 May 2011 07:39:11 -0000

Judging by the frequency of the things - startup competitions (biz plans, biz models, etc) - seem to be popping up all over the place. Prize money with no strings seems to be a new seed round for those who score them. That was a turning point for us. Also, matching funds from the State helped. While they're carried as Venture Debt they matched any/all equity funds dollar for dollar up to $100K. Our source was a State of Oklahoma outfit called OCAST and our "award" (as it's classified) is called TBFP. I gather there are many others like them around the U.S. to help fuel the entrepreneurial fires out here.

Many have better odds of winning a quick competition as attracting an angel round. It's certainly a non-traditional path but it's getting quite a few of us across the threshold.

Re: Why Color’s bad first experience will always “color” this company in app stores

Gerald Buckley — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 23:21:55 -0000

I'll buy that. Ok, you win (again). Nothing a little mojito won't cure. Next!

Re: Why Color’s bad first experience will always “color” this company in app stores

Gerald Buckley — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:49:48 -0000

Agree and disagree with you on this one Robert. I subscribe to Guy Kawasaki's "Bootstrap as long as you can THEN gun it." line of thinking. So, we're in agreement there. But, I'm going to disagree with your point about abyssmal ratings in the early days of an apps launch by pointing out one nice example of how bad ratings PROPELLED the app to loftier heights (and a nice eBay exit to boot): RedLaser. The founders talk about this pretty plainly at http://uxmag.com/strategy/h... and it's an interesting read. Just the flip side of the coin. It really comes down to the founding team and their temperament... Time will tell. And that $41M round is plenty of motivation to get to solving the problems RFN.

Re: Here’s the “Goodbye, Groupon COO Rob Solomon” Email, Plus a What-Update

Gerald Buckley — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:29:01 -0000

Having worked with Rob Solomon's team at SideStep (when I heading up Thrifty.com) I can confidently say... Rob's no slouch of a C Level exec. The God's Country email rings true and stand tall on the last year's results. Look at the score board and tell me Chris Dixon's comment wasn't just cheeky silliness.

I am confused on one point though... Couldn't they get Yuri to buy Chicago some decent weather? ;)

Re: M&A Issues: Consideration

Gerald Buckley — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:46:12 -0000

As you're ramping down M&A... are you taking nominations for the next in the series?

As Startup Marketing was a recent hot button... could you/would you please consider the various stages of Startup Marketing the next of the bunch? Early stage, mid life, maintenance...

And, have you talked with Gary V about his Vook experience? The MBA Mondays would make one kick ass Vook series. Really admire how he executed his.

Re: Outside.in & Patch = Better Together

Gerald Buckley — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:33:50 -0000

That's classy Mark! "Entrance" rather than an "exit". Well played.

Re: Thanks for the Open Letter to RIM Developer Relations

Gerald Buckley — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:06:15 -0000

Tyler - Thanks to you guys for taking public ownership of the situation. This was exactly the right way to address Jamie's open letter. Look forward to "seeing" you in the forums as one of your newer developers.

Re: Yahoo Engineer Complains About Lack Of Innovation At Yahoo

Gerald Buckley — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:41:21 -0000

Jeremy Z was right then and Jeremy J is probably right now. If the transcoding has been done for one client (iPad) it shouldn't involve much in the way of additional agent/platform detection to enable it for others.

We're all big on "eat your own dogfood"... No one ever said you couldn't tell the chef the kibble needs a bit more... je ne sais pas. Bartz fires this guy and she better be ready to pack up and move next door to Mubarak.

Re: Getting into the grocery store with Aislefinder

Gerald Buckley — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:22:40 -0000

James - One thing I see a good deal of web app developers do is utilize the HTML5 "manifest" attribute for offline caching of content. That way, you get the best of both worlds - flexibility of the web and portability of native. Kind of like the old Google Gears but better and part of a (soon to be) standard.

There's nothing easy about what Curtiss is up to or it would have been done by now.

Re: Dear Nokia fans: you’re nuts!

Gerald Buckley — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:14:02 -0000

Mobile Safari is hobbled in some important ways (for purposes of my business anyway). It's easy things like PDF... you can't follow a link or interact with an ISO standard PDF in Apple's own Open Standards touted browser. WTF Apple!? C'mon, you're better than this.

Tell me Robert... can you click on a link inside a PDF on WP7 or Android? Betcha can.

(and I'm a fanboi...)

Apple best get it together muy pronto or they'll be lapped by others who are more feature rich and not so anal about the "user experience" or platform lock in. We've been here before and the other team won (by certain measures for a while). The reality distortion field is fading...

Re: Anyleaf Aggregates And Delivers Personalized Grocery Store Deals

Gerald Buckley — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:08:16 -0000

Leena, http://chicago.grocio.com/ (and sign up for our twice weekly emails) or the iPad app called "Store Circulars" for $1.99. We're in 23 cities now and just announced the next 27 on Twitter last week.

Would explain why Paul Graham gave me the hairy eyeball at TechCrunch50. :)

Re: The magic of software (interview with Word Lens inventor)

Gerald Buckley — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:26:43 -0000

My second oldest is in a spanish immersion elementary school here in Tulsa and his homework is harder on me than it is on him!! So having the Word Lens module comes in really handy on a nearly daily basis. We've been recommending it to all the parents in the school and it's living up to everyone's expectations.

Re: The “Digital Newsstand” Race Becomes: Who Is More Willing To Trick Users, Apple Or Google?

Gerald Buckley — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:26:28 -0000

There are plenty of horses in the world still. Print won't go away so easily either. But, there sure are a LOT of buggy and wagon manufacturers doing other stuff these days. Content will outlast the publishers and their antiquated delivery methods.

Re: AOL’s Awkward Billboard Ad About Your Boss

Gerald Buckley — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 09:13:46 -0000

That's more a message for My_

Yes?

Re: Google As A Carrier. It’s Not A Question Of “If They Will”, But Rather “When They’ll Try”

Gerald Buckley — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:40:29 -0000

At what point would they "not" impede an acquisition? Lots of what-if scenarios out there... among them Clearwire. What if Google bought whole-hog into the sinking ship that is Clearwire (who lost Mr. McCaw at the helm today)? They have a 4G network in buildout stage. 9M paying customers. AND... it fits nicely into Google's M.O. of buy vs. build.

Question stands... What's the largest (desirable) carrier acquisition Google could get FTC approval on?

Re: Google As A Carrier. It’s Not A Question Of “If They Will”, But Rather “When They’ll Try”

Gerald Buckley — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:16:41 -0000

Don't be so sure about that Triny. Lots of horses lining up at that trough.

Re: Actually, Groupon Already Closed Half Of That Billion Dollar Round

Gerald Buckley — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:14:09 -0000

Yeah, I don't buy that entirely. There are plenty of weak-links in Groupon's armor. And I think a local, traditional media outfit (yellow pages, national radio, national tv) could enter this market and give Groupon a run. They're all just so darned scared of their own shadows they don't know which way to turn. In their column they have the LOCAL CONTACTS, THEY HAVE THE SALES STAFF, THEY HAVE THE REACH, all they have to do is execute. Which Groupon, to their credit, IS doing brilliantly, with class and at scale no less.

But for Alexander to say they're a great alternative... If I'm giving my margin away through Groupon to already paying customers... where's the business sense in that? What will be telling is if/when merchants come back around and run their second,third and fourth Groupon offers and see how those differ from their first time around the tree. Most merchants don't have the luxury to be wrong too many times before word gets out, "There's a flaw in this model..."

Since Groupon has such limited local inventory and plenty of merchants in line... It may be a long while before those merchants repeat in the queue again.

Like some others, it will be an interesting day if/when Google can say what turned them around on the deal. To offer $6B and not close tells me someone didn't like something in the equation. Question is, who and why?

Re: Actually, Groupon Already Closed Half Of That Billion Dollar Round

Gerald Buckley — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:55:23 -0000

EXCEPT... when you hear directly from a retailer who say their GOOD, REPEAT customers are buying up the Groupon they offered and are now asking those same customers NOT to do that in the future. That they are encouraged to just ASK for a discount on future purchases rather than buy the Groupon.

Why couldn't local chambers of commerce step up and compete locally with Groupon? Seems like a bigger threat - Death by a thousand paper cuts.

Re: The Public Filing "Announcement"

Gerald Buckley — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 10:51:02 -0000

Shana - Assume the disclosure window is getting smaller all the time. To an endpoint where EDGAR feeds it out to Twitter, et al in near real time. I know our filings were public pretty close to three biz days from filing maybe a day more. But, we're closely held and not all that guarded about our raise/valuation at this stage. Frankly, just glad to have the additional runway to get things right and tight. :) What Fred may be saying above is the atty's may (or may not) tell you their timeline let alone that they've even filed.

Once they've filed your shot clock is running down fast.

Re: Flight And Hotel Price Tracking Startup Yapta Is Raising A $6.4 Million Round

Gerald Buckley — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 10:07:08 -0000

The bubble is rising.

Won't help at all if Kayak has somehow chosen to close Yapta's pipeline for airfare availability. Have seen this before and it doesn't end well for the Yapta's of the world.

Re: Mobile Fanboy! Good or bad?

Gerald Buckley — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 17:32:07 -0000

Trying to be purely mercenary and looking to the Android dev SDK this past week (after having a few apps in the iOS App Store + a few updates) and I'm back firmly in iOS' camp. XCode and the iOS SDK are worlds better than the (presumably still beta) dev tools Google has lobbed out there. Confusing as hell.

I'm thinking Apple had it right the first time... webapps! If it weren't for the reach and walled garden (and relative exclusivity of being 3 of the 300,000 apps) I might hop the fence and optimize for pure web apps.

Yes, I'm an iOS fanboy. But, not for lack of giving the other side more than a passing glance.

Re: Uber CEO “Super Pumped” About Being Replaced By Founder

Gerald Buckley — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:07:31 -0000

Travis, congrats! & once again thanks for your time at TC50. Hope paths cross again soon.

Re: Top Records of 2010

Gerald Buckley — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:21:17 -0000

I can just imagine Brad and Albert flashing USV signs to each other in the hallway as they pass by listening to some of your jams. (That's a fun thing... not a diss)