8 ms·

Kevin Rose Steps Into Part-Time Role at Google Ventures to Build a New Startup

42 points by _mayo 12y ago

mikelbring 12y ago
Link to his new company: http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/
- AznHisoka 12y ago
  nothing interesting. Wish ppl would give more coverage to apps that actually are useful, not just famous ppl sighs
- themoonbus 12y ago
  It's either that, or the next Wes Anderson movie
- jchendy 12y ago
  I hope that's not a new trend in domain names... "No dude, there's three dashes between the r and t, you're gonna get the _other_ other North"
- shiftpgdn 12y ago
  I'm sure it's just a place holder until he can secure north.com or some variant of that. The foundation video series run by Kevin seems to have gone through a dozen domains.
idlewords 12y ago
I admire this guy's talent at failing upwards.
- wierdaaron 12y ago
  He'll be CEO of HP in no time.
- vram22 12y ago
  +1 :-)
- ulfw 12y ago
  A true valley inspiration
jason_slack 12y ago
This doesn't surprise me. To me Kevin seems to have a drive to tackle the latest interesting trends in social and always with a new twist. Success or Failure. This is a good quality. Good Luck Kevin.
bluthru 12y ago
Kevin seems to be full of ideas. I look forward to seeing what they release.
tuneladora 12y ago
interesting domain name n-o-r-t-h.com i wonder if the hyphens could become a trend like "getX.com"
dchuk 12y ago
What an absolutely terrible domain name: http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/
- jk215 12y ago
  "I want my landing page to look like a wes anderson movie"
- nodesocket 12y ago
  I was thinking the same. North.io? North.co so much better.
- argonaut 12y ago
  The product's name is not north. North is more like the design/dev agency.
- chatmasta 12y ago
  Actually, I'm not so sure. It's easy to tell people: "North.com, with a hyphen in between every letter." It's not that hard to type, and once you've typed it once, it's in your address bar. From an SEO and aesthetic perspective, it's a shitty domain name. But from a branding perspective, it's not bad. It's memorable, easily verbalized, and allows him to brand under "north" instead of some longer or abstract name.
elwell 12y ago
> Nowadays he says, a lean startup can work specifically on product and design, and leave the infrastructure side of things to someone else. Probably not true. Anyway, that's not what the plan is: > He envisions North as a team that has one product person, one design person, and a full-stack engineer
aaronbrethorst 12y ago
If the model sounds familiar, that’s because it was kind of the idea behind Milk. But the world has changed since then, according to Rose. “The biggest thing that’s changed in the last three years is that back then we spent a lot of time spent building out the back end… But the scaling piece is a solved problem,” Rose told me. They shipped one app, Oink. Oink didn't fail because of the amount of time required to build out the backend. It failed because it was a me-too product in a sea of me-too products, and didn't do anything to differentiate itself or provide meaningful value to its users. Edit: On an unrelated note, it looks like Kevin must've been binging on Wes Anderson films recently. The North website looks like one of Anderson's film title cards. Compare http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com and http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ Edit 2: Yep, Futura. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage and check out the CSS on the North website.
- jcampbell1 12y ago
  I sort of laughed as well, but everything he launches has a big PR launch day, and I imagine there was excessive engineering time spent on making oink scalable. I think the statement makes sense if you are Kevin Rose, but it is ridiculous as a general insight. Worrying about scaling before you find out if the dogfood is any good is nuts.
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    Oink was invite-only at launch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/03/kevin-rose-oink-app-store/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/03/kevin-rose-oink-app-store/
- bluthru 12y ago
  From what I remember, Oink differentiated by being about the things inside stores/restaurants instead of the businesses themselves. For example, if you were in the mood for a certain dessert, you'd see the ratings of the dessert in a city versus the ratings for the place.
rglover 12y ago
Cool vibe to it. I've always enjoyed how Kevin organizes things. Curious to see what they'll be working on.
utnick 12y ago
What does he mean that scaling a mobile backend is a solved problem? What has changed?
- ojbyrne 12y ago
  Conventional Wisdom.
- benologist 12y ago
  Services like Parse - https://parse.com/ https://parse.com/
penland 12y ago
Did anyone else actually laugh out loud at the "Scaling is a solved problem" line? Guess I can take off early for the weekend then.
thetimbanks 12y ago
It's weird to see a shopping cart powered by Squarespace at n-o-r-t-h.com http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart

42 points by _mayo 12y ago

mikelbring 12y ago

Link to his new company: http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/

AznHisoka 12y ago
nothing interesting. Wish ppl would give more coverage to apps that actually are useful, not just famous ppl sighs
themoonbus 12y ago
It's either that, or the next Wes Anderson movie
jchendy 12y ago
I hope that's not a new trend in domain names... "No dude, there's three dashes between the r and t, you're gonna get the _other_ other North"
shiftpgdn 12y ago
I'm sure it's just a place holder until he can secure north.com or some variant of that. The foundation video series run by Kevin seems to have gone through a dozen domains.

idlewords 12y ago

I admire this guy's talent at failing upwards.

wierdaaron 12y ago
He'll be CEO of HP in no time.
vram22 12y ago
+1 :-)
ulfw 12y ago
A true valley inspiration

jason_slack 12y ago

This doesn't surprise me. To me Kevin seems to have a drive to tackle the latest interesting trends in social and always with a new twist. Success or Failure. This is a good quality. Good Luck Kevin.

bluthru 12y ago

Kevin seems to be full of ideas. I look forward to seeing what they release.

tuneladora 12y ago

interesting domain name n-o-r-t-h.com i wonder if the hyphens could become a trend like "getX.com"

dchuk 12y ago

What an absolutely terrible domain name: http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/

jk215 12y ago
"I want my landing page to look like a wes anderson movie"
nodesocket 12y ago
I was thinking the same. North.io? North.co so much better.
argonaut 12y ago
The product's name is not north. North is more like the design/dev agency.
chatmasta 12y ago
Actually, I'm not so sure. It's easy to tell people: "North.com, with a hyphen in between every letter." It's not that hard to type, and once you've typed it once, it's in your address bar. From an SEO and aesthetic perspective, it's a shitty domain name. But from a branding perspective, it's not bad. It's memorable, easily verbalized, and allows him to brand under "north" instead of some longer or abstract name.

elwell 12y ago

> Nowadays he says, a lean startup can work specifically on product and design, and leave the infrastructure side of things to someone else. Probably not true. Anyway, that's not what the plan is: > He envisions North as a team that has one product person, one design person, and a full-stack engineer

aaronbrethorst 12y ago

If the model sounds familiar, that’s because it was kind of the idea behind Milk. But the world has changed since then, according to Rose. “The biggest thing that’s changed in the last three years is that back then we spent a lot of time spent building out the back end… But the scaling piece is a solved problem,” Rose told me. They shipped one app, Oink. Oink didn't fail because of the amount of time required to build out the backend. It failed because it was a me-too product in a sea of me-too products, and didn't do anything to differentiate itself or provide meaningful value to its users. Edit: On an unrelated note, it looks like Kevin must've been binging on Wes Anderson films recently. The North website looks like one of Anderson's film title cards. Compare http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com and http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/ Edit 2: Yep, Futura. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage and check out the CSS on the North website.

jcampbell1 12y ago
I sort of laughed as well, but everything he launches has a big PR launch day, and I imagine there was excessive engineering time spent on making oink scalable. I think the statement makes sense if you are Kevin Rose, but it is ridiculous as a general insight. Worrying about scaling before you find out if the dogfood is any good is nuts.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  Oink was invite-only at launch: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/03/kevin-rose-oink-app-store/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/03/kevin-rose-oink-app-store/
bluthru 12y ago
From what I remember, Oink differentiated by being about the things inside stores/restaurants instead of the businesses themselves. For example, if you were in the mood for a certain dessert, you'd see the ratings of the dessert in a city versus the ratings for the place.

rglover 12y ago

Cool vibe to it. I've always enjoyed how Kevin organizes things. Curious to see what they'll be working on.

utnick 12y ago

What does he mean that scaling a mobile backend is a solved problem? What has changed?

ojbyrne 12y ago
Conventional Wisdom.
benologist 12y ago
Services like Parse - https://parse.com/ https://parse.com/

penland 12y ago

Did anyone else actually laugh out loud at the "Scaling is a solved problem" line? Guess I can take off early for the weekend then.

thetimbanks 12y ago

It's weird to see a shopping cart powered by Squarespace at n-o-r-t-h.com http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart