Skip to main content

Bloozle – the Startup that never was

This is the story of a startup that never was. It’s a story which I want to document to crystallize learning which I myself have had from this experience and also for several wannabe innovators/entrepreneurs to read and take lesson from.

The Story
In the heady days of 2004 when me and Hemant were incubating MastishK, our talk sessions lasting into the wee hours of the morning often threw open many revolutionary ideas which we canned and kept at the back of our minds for future use.

One such idea was to create a newspaper out of blog content – essentially as we realized later, we wanted to build an intelligent aggregator of user generated content. Fast forward to 2006, when I conceptualized the idea in words and posted a prelude to it on my blog. The idea then developed further on in discussions with Aurko, Shubham and Manish.

I developed a very basic prototype of the idea (I learnt Ajax during this development phase) but it was looking very amateurish. About the same time, I got hooked on to using Google Reader and following increasing number of blogs and the realization that information overload was a potent problem also started taking root in my mind.

Finally in the summer of 2006 when I was in London and Hemant in Geneva, we met for a 5 day long Swiss tour and during the journey we finalized what we were looking for. Thoughts on our Google Reader habits, information overload (which both of us were experiencing), our canned idea of newspaper-of-blogs amalgamated into the first product spec for bloozle (a name which we came up with over the GChat brainstorming session soon after).

Soon after I came back from London and Hemant back from Geneva, we recruited* Manpreet – one of my engg college juniors – to do the core development. Manpreet, the amazing programming brain he was, created the complete website from scratch – including a basic set of JavaScript libraries with cross-browser compatibility, the core PHP based API engine for the feed reader and aggregation routines, and the front-end in HTML+JavaScript including the webpage designing in Photoshop.

... to be continued

Index of all posts in the series: Bloozle – the Startup that never was
*We recruited Manpreet as a volunteer. We never paid him in cash for his work – the idea as you will read later was to get funded and reward him big time through a joining bonus! We will now always be indebted to Manpreet though for helping convert our thoughts into flesh-and-blood (or should I say design-and-code).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How will travel industry transform post-Covid

Unlike philosophers, journalists and teenagers, the world of entrepreneurship does not permit the luxury of gazing into a crystal ball to predict the future. An entrepreneur’s world is instead made of MVPs (Minimum Viable Product), A/B Tests, launching products, features or services and gauging / measuring their reception in the market to arrive at verifiable truths which can drive the business forward. Which is why I have never written about my musings or hypothesis about travel industry – we usually either seek customer feedback or launch an MVPised version and gather market feedback. However, with Covid-19 travel bans across the globe, the industry is currently stuck – while a lot of industry reports and journalistic conjectures are out, there’s no definitive answer to the way forward. Besides there is no way to test your hypothesis since even the traveller does not know what they will do when skies open. So, I decided to don my blogger hat and take the luxury of crystal gazing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Learning from 11 years in KPMG

It is only when we give up what we have is when we can embrace the new! I quit my job at KPMG one year ago - 22 January 2016 was my last day with the firm. As I reflect back on that day, it felt more like a graduation day! The eerie mix of nostalgia, excitement, anxiety and blues of missing your friends. KPMG was not just my first job but also a place where I learnt everything that I represent professionally. KPMG is one of the institutions I deeply respect and love – and relationships I have built here will stay with me for my lifetime. In my entrepreneurial career as well, I am often reminded more of all the great things I have learnt over my 11 years in KPMG. An year gone by, I realize these learnings have stayed with me and apply equally to the world outside KPMG. Almost all would apply to those working in role of (internal or external) consultants but several are generic and can be applied across professions. I have tried to change the text so that the learnings sound ...
7 comments
Read more

Vikramaditya - Myth or Reality

  A statue of Vikramaditya at  Vikramaditya ka Tila / Vikramaditya's Singhasan Battisi On a recent visit to Ujjain, I found myself drawn to the city's extraordinary blend of history, mythology, and spirituality. As I stood before the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga, I reflected on its significance as one of India’s most revered shrines. Yet, amidst these sacred surroundings, I encountered narratives of Vikramaditya - the legendary king of Ujjain, celebrated for his valor and wisdom, who's name resonates from the folklore of locals to every part of India. Every time we celebrate a festival in India, it is marked with a tithi i.e. date as per the Indian calendar - which is called the Vikram Samvat calendar, attributed to being founded by Vikramaditya of Ujjaini (the then name of Ujjain). What struck me, however, was the curious fact that despite Vikramaditya’s pivotal place in Indian cultural memory, his existence as a historical figure lacks definitive evidence. My exploration l...
Post a Comment
Read more