Techcrunch has a good review on how to build ……

1) Very neutral comments.. The way you write and the cheesy / ridiculous copy of your website (and business model itself) makes me believe you know nothing about the web industry.

2) Can you please list the 5 web apps you developed in the last year? I believe you are a scammer because if your company did develop anything significant it would be listed in your portfolio.

I agree that you should always review both the positive and negative posts to find common ground on a subject. However, I would not place merit on reviews that did not perform sufficient research. Nearly every assumption or perceived fact stated in the articles that you posted are incorrect.

In fact, our team at dt had the courage to leave a comfortable and successful way of building apps for clients because we found ourselves getting too similar to the many “apps factories” that are trying to commoditize our industry. We did this to improve the chances of unique and ground-breaking apps making it to market.

I encourage those that have posted negative comments to get in touch with us personally as I am confident that we are in the same corner fighting for better apps created in a better way.

RE: Our Projects. We have developed nearly every project in our portfolio and built close to 5 web apps in the last year. Tierranatal.com is a site that deeps a bit deeper than your typical social network. It puts the spotlight on Mexican townships, not individual people and allows those who have immigrated to the US stay in touch with their hometowns. They speak Spanish, but they are actually Mexican.

I can’t really reply to the last posts as they just seem to be copy and paste jobs of the articles that you originally mentioned as comments.

Digital Telepathy offers three design my business options with varying service levels based on the length of each plan. The 15 day plan provides a wannabe startup with market research, strategic alignment, scalable revenue model, instruction manual for project completion and a concept summary delivered as a “Biz in a Box”. The 45 day plan offers (in addition to the 15 day plan) “initial buzz building,” and a range of design services including basic prototyping, usability testing, blueprints, concept mapping and other design services. The 90 day plan adds development services including full scale back-end development for beta release, front end development, private beta invites, feature development and more.

The Biz in a Box service isn’t for those already in the industry, or those with a lot of experience, although Digital Telepathy also offers services for existing startups looking for advice on taking their business to the next level. I know when I was previously involved in a startup it was difficult to know where to start, and who to get advice from. Even when you do find someone it’s often not a cheap experience either, the consultant I dealt with previously charged 6 figures to basically guide us in the right direction, without providing any development services.

Digital Telepathy is passionate in helping startups they believe in. DT’s Sarah Carr described the change of direction to me as follows: “It’s pretty cool because we are basically saying to our clients, to the Internet/social space, and to the entire WORLD that we are going to actually DO what we love to do and just get rid of all the crap that bores us to death.” I asked CEO Chuck Longanecker about the cost and he responded “the most important thing for us (dt) is to work on projects that we are passionate about and enjoy doing. The second most important thing is to eventually get paid for what we do, so that we can keep doing it.”

Prices range from $15,000 through to $250,000, although each project is calculated on a per startup basis. It may sound like a lot of money, but it’s a lot of service for your buck, and it is competitive.

Wow.

I agree that services are more palatable to clients when laid out like products: like boxes of cereal on the shelf. However, the way that this whole story is swallowed, unexamined, baffles me.

How can a company offer a turn-key business-in-a-box service without regard for the specifics? By taking a common denominator approach, and not paying a lot of attention to the client’s need for differentiation, I bet.

This reminds me of the era in the last bubble when everyone’s logo looked the same, with an electron swooshing around the name of the company.

Now, everyone will wind up with the same business plan, disgorged by the same process, sitting in a similarly crafted unique position.

Full disclosure: I have had no contact with DT, and I am not knocking their intentions. Hell, they may even have people specifically asking them to do what they are doing. And, yes, in a sense I am a competitor, since one fringe of my consulting work at The /Messengers touches on marketing, although my major work these days is product strategy and application design.

Here’s my own extremely helpful diagram, detailing my unique way of working with clients in 15, 45 and 90 day engagements. Nothing like a visual to clear things up.

How Work Works

I wonder if Digital Telepathy used their own 15 day process to come up with this business model?

Ted / 12.Nov.2007

I think I’ve been pretty clear so far that the quality of engineering in Web 2.0 is, uh, sub par. Maybe, some of the people who develop these things shouldn’t be writing software. It could be that the best career path for many “JavaScript engineers” is suicide.

Well now you don’t even have to know what Ajax is to join the Web 2 Founders’ Club.
Kevin Rose Paid Some Dude $10/hr To Write Digg.com

Of course, knowing dickshit about engineering and getting into Web 2.0 is nothing new. But now, you don’t even have to know the fundamentals of business. A company called Digital Telepathy has “changed direction” (read: failed at previous business plan) to become a full-service Web 2.0 startup factory.

Here’s the deal. You pay these douchebags anywhere between $15,000 and $250,000, and they will take your idea through all of the important Web 2.0 steps. In order, they are:

* Coming up with an idea for a product that has existed for the past 15 years.
* Writing it with a shitty MySQL backend. (Includes time spent not understanding the differences between MyISAM and InnoDB.)
* Pitching it to Mike Arrington.
* Defending it in the comment threads on Uncov.

I wonder if they help you with your Series A financing, showing you how not to get horsefucked by the venture capitalists. I am guessing no.
Who’s That Drivin? Patrick Swayze!

Duncan Riley plugged this thing on TechCrunch, with the defense that “not everyone has the skills to do everything in a startup”. News flash: not everyone should be doing a startup.

If you don’t have a clue about the the engineering that goes into an internet company, then congratu-fucking-lations, you are Ron Gutman of Wellsphere. You know, the MBA type who is thinking “There’s a lot of money in that there internet. How can I exploit other people to get it?”

It’s OK. The American subprime mortgage disaster is going to drive Google stock down even further. Google stock is the currency of Web 2.0. As it devalues, there will be fewer acquisitions, and all of this shit will eventually go away.

Well, at least it’s a theory.

Posted on November 13, 2007
Filed Under Web 2.0 Kool Aid |

Digital Telepathy, a “digital marketing agency that embodies the Web 2.0 philosophy of a democratized Internet,” is hoping to make dreams a reality for wannabe Web 2.0 entrepreneurs who lack the skills necessary to get a startup off the ground. For $15,000 to $250,000, Digital Telepathy claims to be capable of providing aspiring Mark Zuckerbergs and Kevin Roses with a “truly unique business concept,” “proven user experience design” and a “completed web app” – all in three months. If that doesn’t sound juicy enough, they’ll even throw in a solid revenue model – something that the majority of the most popular Web 2.0 startups have failed to develop.

In Reality 1.0, if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was too good to be true. In the Reality 2.0 world of Web 2.0, if it sounds too good to be true, it must be, well, true.

There are always opportunists who look to exploit atmospheres of euphoria for their own personal gain and Web 2.0 has created a significant amount of euphoria. But the most telling sign that the Web 2.0 euphoria is likely peaking (besides the seven signs revealed in Bible 2.0) is that such a blatant attempt at exploiting the euphoria received a positive plug on one of the most prominent Web 2.0 blogs. This despite the nauseating, amateurish and downright unconvincing text that permeates the Digital Telepathy website:

You have a great idea. But before you elope and go get married to it, it’s a good to do a background check and make sure your friends on the web are excited about it. So, we’ll knock your idea around, ask all the right questions, and then make sure we dress it up to stand out on the big day.

Would you wait until the second story of your house is finished to make sure that the cement in your foundation is dry? Well, we wouldn’t either and we think building web apps that way doesn’t make sense either. Instead we use test driven development built in Ruby on Rails and enable you to see the process every step of the way.

The funny thing about users is that they only use when it’s easy, fun and/or useful to do so. So, if you are going to build something, stop for a second and allow us to listen to your users. We’ll then throw some design ideas on the wall and then prototype and refine those ideas until they are brilliant.

Why wait until your app is finished before you start talking about it. Instead, we’ll dress it up sexy and take it out on the town to steal some glances and get people talking about it. That way, when the clothes come off and it’s naked for all the world to see there will already be a long line waiting there to catch a glimpse.

Poor metaphors and typos aside, I would encourage aspiring Web 2.0 billionaires with more money than brains to ask themselves: if Digital Telepathy is able to build a successful Web 2.0 startup in 90 days and successful Web 2.0 startups have commanded significant valuations from investors and acquirers, just why is Digital Telepathy so eager to make paltry sums of up to $250,000 when the businesses it’s supposedly going to create for clients could be worth so much more? Wouldn’t Digital Telepathy inevitably make a lot more money building its own portfolio of startups given its apparent sure-fire methodology for creating successful Web 2.0 businesses?

The obvious answer is that Digital Telepathy would rather take your money because it knows the truth: there is no such thing as a “biz in a box” – even in Web 2.0 You can’t write a check and have someone deliver a great turnkey startup. Building a great application doesn’t ensure that you’re going to be able to execute on a strategy that drives success. And with seemingly dozens of new Web 2.0 startups launching daily (most of which are copycats), the idea that somebody has a formula for creating so much buzz for your service that users are waiting in line to use it is patently absurd. But the self-proclaimed “digital visionaries” at Digital Telepathy want you to believe that this is all possible despite the fact that anybody with an iota of common sense should smell something funky.

This is what Web 2.0 has become: a dream. The startup itself is now a commodity that is packaged and sold. Web 2.0 proponents love to celebrate that reduced barriers to entry make it possible for the next generation of Internet entrepreneurs to innovate and build new businesses, but few seem ready to acknowledge that most startups fail and that for every Web 2.0 success, there are and will be dozens of failures. The myths of Web 2.0 that will drive people to use services like Digital Telepathy will inevitably lead to disappointment. In my opinion, while there are viable business opportunities in the space we call “Web 2.0,” the sooner the Web 2.0 bubble pops, the better off the market for innovation on the Internet will be.

If you’re not convinced by now that Web 2.0 is getting a little bit long in the tooth and that outfits like Digital Telepathy are trying to exploit the hopes and dreams of wannabe Internet entrepreneurs who read about Facebook’s $15 billion valuation and want to get in on the action, you need look no further than the fact that Digital Telepathy claims to be the “first carbon-neutral digital marketing agency.” BS 2.0 never smelled so good.

What a joke.

Is there a way to “Block Sender” on TechCrunch to eliminate the spam Duncan writes?

I recommend anybody considering using “biz in a box” for your business checking the company portfolio first. If you read the descriptions you will find that all of the projects they feel comfortable listing are just graphic design work. There is not development but an unknown Spanish social network with nothing special. Nothing hey have done is “recognized”, “successful”, “has mass adoption or has a scalable revenue model”

I RECOMMEND YOU READ A MORE OBJECTIVE AND HONEST REVIEW AT:

http://www.dram...g-in-the-tooth/

“There are always opportunists who look to exploit atmospheres of euphoria for their own personal gain and Web 2.0 has created a significant amount of euphoria. But the most telling sign that the Web 2.0 euphoria is likely peaking (besides the seven signs revealed in Bible 2.0) is that such a blatant attempt at exploiting the euphoria received a positive plug on one of the most prominent Web 2.0 blogs.”

AND:

http://www.unco...a-box-seriously

“Here’s the deal. You pay these douchebags anywhere between $15,000 and $250,000, and they will take your idea through all of the important Web 2.0 steps. In order, they are:

* Coming up with an idea for a product that has existed for the past 15 years.
* Writing it with a shitty MySQL backend. (Includes time spent not understanding the differences between MyISAM and InnoDB.)
* Pitching it to Mike Arrington.
* Defending it in the comment threads on Uncov.”

AND:

http://www.stow...al-telepat.html

“How can a company offer a turn-key business-in-a-box service without regard for the specifics? By taking a common denominator approach, and not paying a lot of attention to the client’s need for differentiation, I bet.

This reminds me of the era in the last bubble when everyone’s logo looked the same, with an electron swooshing around the name of the company.”

“I wonder if Digital Telepathy used their own 15 day process to come up with this business model?”

I recommend anybody considering using “biz in a box” for your business checking the company portfolio first. If you read the descriptions you will find that all of the projects they feel comfortable listing are just graphic design work. There is not development but an unknown Spanish social network with nothing special. Nothing hey have done is “recognized”, “successful”, “has mass adoption or has a scalable revenue model”

I RECOMMEND YOU READ A MORE OBJECTIVE AND HONEST REVIEW AT:

http://www.dram...g-in-the-tooth/

“There are always opportunists who look to exploit atmospheres of euphoria for their own personal gain and Web 2.0 has created a significant amount of euphoria. But the most telling sign that the Web 2.0 euphoria is likely peaking (besides the seven signs revealed in Bible 2.0) is that such a blatant attempt at exploiting the euphoria received a positive plug on one of the most prominent Web 2.0 blogs.”

AND:

http://www.unco...a-box-seriously

“Here’s the deal. You pay these douchebags anywhere between $15,000 and $250,000, and they will take your idea through all of the important Web 2.0 steps. In order, they are:

* Coming up with an idea for a product that has existed for the past 15 years.
* Writing it with a shitty MySQL backend. (Includes time spent not understanding the differences between MyISAM and InnoDB.)
* Pitching it to Mike Arrington.
* Defending it in the comment threads on Uncov.”

AND:

http://www.stow...al-telepat.html

“How can a company offer a turn-key business-in-a-box service without regard for the specifics? By taking a common denominator approach, and not paying a lot of attention to the client’s need for differentiation, I bet.

This reminds me of the era in the last bubble when everyone’s logo looked the same, with an electron swooshing around the name of the company.”

“I wonder if Digital Telepathy used their own 15 day process to come up with this business model?”

I also strongly agree with Lars (#53), you can hire many companies to do each part profesionally, or you can have a creative team of people doing much of the work for you.

If the communication and brainstorming is in place during DT’s process, it’d be a great way to get things done.

I’m seriously thinking about giving them a try with my next project.

But I think that’s where Chuck and the people at digital-telepathy differentiate themselves. You *can* outsource your software development, you *can* hire a consultant to give you advice, you *can* try to create buzz through an ad agency, you *can* read Business 2.0 to find out what’s going on in the world (or wait, no you can’t do that last one any more). Or you can find a team of people with experience and knowledge to handle all of that in one place.

I think one of the things that truly sets digital-telepathy apart is that what they offer actually IS a “biz in a box” (slightly less physically impossible than a “pie in a sky”). I know this because they helped me get my latest venture started (http://www.myteamcaptain.com). And while I hired them for more specific, smaller aspects of my business’ development, I can’t speak to their ability to execute their new end-to-end business model from personal experience. I do know one thing, however. There aren’t very many other organizations with the ability to effectively do everything they are talking about in one stop.

San Diego is not San Francisco. But the beauty of the Internet is that it doesn’t have to be. Chuck and his team have experience in all of these areas and from my experience and from talking to their clients, they have executed on them very well.

Continue being skeptical and asking questions – I can guarantee Chuck and digital-telepathy will have your answers.

LOL!

Thanks for your comments. You have definitely built an impressive business and seem to have a solid understanding of the entire life cycle(s) of growing a business.

To clarify The 90 Day Web App – this is just the tip of the iceberg with the creation of the basics for a new online business. It’s by no means a finished product. It is meant to jump start an concept and take it to market. Our Cultivate process is designed help continue the innovation management and provide insights for organic growth of the product. Our goal to help inspire innovation within our clients, not define it for them.

I would be interested in talking with you more offline.

We work with Series A companies on an equity basis to:

- Crystallize the opportunity into a practical product
- Rapidly visualize the product so it can be validated and help close investors, customers and partners
- Identify high level product plan
- Build Beta version

We partner with the leading VC firms (General Catalyst, IDG Ventures, Softbank, North Bridge, Kodiak, Venrock etc.) to both help them on the deals they ‘hatch’ and also bring them deals we help cultivate. Our services extend to Series A and Series B companies, as it is not just about what you can create/define in the first 90 days, but an evolving and refined ongoing strategy that will make the company sustainable in the long run. We work with funded companies on a fixed price/fixed deliverable basis with a cash + equity model.

We work with experienced investors and entrepeneurs and this is what they say the ROI of our service is:

“Getting it right the first time”
“Accelerated development by 50%…at a fraction of the cost”
“Reduced product execution risk”
“Instrumental in helping communicate the vision”
“Focused our team and closed our key partnerships”
“Lifted my valuation”

Samples of clients include Sermo, Bungee Labs, Enpocket (acquired by Nokia), Systinet (Acquired by Mercury), Pragmatech, ScanScout, Awareness Networks.

On the comment about geography, I couldn’t agree more. Being in Boston gives us proximity to the entrepeneurs and investor community. We are able to make the connections and introductions between entrepeneurs, investors and increasingly more difficult to find resources. I believe it is critical for a consulting firm to be able to sit face to face with the client and be plugged into the local community.

That said, I am from San Diego originally and wish you guys the best of luck. It will be interesting to see how your model grows and I agree with you 100%, there’s no better job I could think of that helping entrepeneurs start successful companies.