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NYC Startups to Watch (timeinc.com)
39 points by pospischil 4796 days ago
5 comments

Looks like it is time for me to make a data driven index of NYC startups. This is such fluff.
Your indices of FB follows and twitter followers and Alexa rankings aren't "data driven." They take some numbers as inputs, sure, but that doesn't mean they're data-driven.
Is this a coping mechanism for dealing with burnout for you?
I find it interesting that one of them is literally "like facebook, but for dogs".
Yeah, I lol'd at that. We actually made this joke at a meetup once: "Hi, we're a social network for people that like to share photos of their pets." Guess the joke's on us (or their investors whomever they may be.) Good luck to them if they can make it happen.
Klooff, if the pet lovers on HN want to check it out: http://www.klooff.com/
Interestingly, they are a Chilean company, incubated at Startup Chile ( http://startupchile.org/startups/klooff/ )
Not a Chilean company, although they did participate in Startup Chile.
Loosecubes is now closed: https://www.loosecubes.com/ Anyone knows what happend to them?
Yup. Was a big head scratcher around here. They raised $7.8M and shutdown 6 mos later. Rumors are they ever actually closed it, which would make a lot more sense than they burned over $1M/mo.

http://betabeat.com/2012/11/what-happened-to-loosecubes-new-...

The CEO gave an interview this February

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/report/loosecubes-pioneer-ri...

> A large part of that reported $7.8 million never actually came through. McKellar says that the investor syndicate, led by New Enterprise Associates, stopped funding the company. Faced with the decision of whether to operate on a severely amputated budget or to close down, she opted for the latter

That would make sense. They just disappeared all of the sudden.
Not sure, will look into it but loved the concept and the design as well.
What was it?
What would Time know about this?
Use Time's previous "Most Promising Startups" for their success rate:

2012 - http://www.timeinc.com/pressroom/10nycstartups2012.php

2011 - http://www.timeinc.com/pressroom/events/10nycstartups/

But then, how do you rate a startup as successful? Number of users, revenue, is being acquired a good or bad thing?

These articles are really just signalling devices for which shops overspend on PR and/or have good looking founders.