Photo search and facial recognition site Riya is now about two months old (see here for our past Riya posts). Founder and CEO Munjal Shah is in the process of memorializing the highs and lows of the launch process, and this is must-read stuff for entrepreneurs looking to launch a company down the road. I may update my “Don’t Blow Your Beta” post based on some of his advice. Part 1 is up now, look for further installments on the blog. Bookmark this stuff, it’s free consulting.
Disclosure: This is the first time I’ve written about a direct advertiser on TechCrunch – Riya became a sponsor a couple of weeks ago.
Good stuff.
COOOL
Awesome stuff from Munjal! It’s surely gonna help me have a good launch! cant wait for more ….!
I’ve never tried Afghani food, next time I go to Bangalore I’ll look for the restaurant and let you guys know where Munjal ate.
Oh, nice read by the way. Very interesting, does make one think more clearly from other people’s experiences.
I’ve blogged about Riya before. The technology seems cool, but the privacy implications of the whole thing, especially once use of the product becomes ubiquitous, is kind of scary. Combine Riya, Google searches, Myspace and other social network profiles and Google Earth and you have a bunch of hi-tech tools for total privacy invasion, or worse, stalking.
A good read but a lot of this probably won’t apply to many of the sites that get reviewed on techcrunch. Riya had real technology, loads of “coolness”, and a well developed product. That is probably the main reason that so many influential people blogged it and why they had “10s of thousands” of people waiting in line to use the service. This is not true for the majority of web 2.o sites that launch daily.
The editorial independence issue is a red herring here. The pointer here is to the blog, not the service.
I don’t know exactly what Munjal will be blogging here, but as a Board Member, I can tell you that the experience IS a microcosm of every consumer internet service, technology-based or not. The challenge is to (1) develop a theory of consumer behavior (2) build in support of that theory (3) test test test (4) iterate iterate iterate (5) and zig or zag as appropriate, discovering the real business along the way. My guess is that Munjal’s posts will be an account of how this adaptive process of launch-and-learn has been playing out at Riya. No hidden motives, just providing some transparency and giveback for the entrepreneur community.
Peter, Thanks for your comment. I removed the comment you refered to, among other trolls.
“March 27th 3:09am – someone uploads 10K porn images…”
Haha, awesome. What a great treat to operate such a site is that you can monitor what people do and have an all-access view of everyone’s stuff. This stuff makes me so jealous.
i have no idea why my comment is deleted.
I’m pretty sure the Afghani restaurant is Samarkand on Infantry Rd. In case anyone is ever in Bangalore I highly recommend it – they have great kebabs.
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