Remember Philip Kaplan, better known as “Pud,” the guy who created FuckedCompany at the tail-end of the first Internet bubble? Yeah, him. He just joined Charles River Ventures this week as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. The EIR position is usually where venture firms park executives they want to work with but who don’t yet have a company. EIRs get to see a lot of deal flow, work with the portfolio companies, and usually end up starting their own companies which the venture firm can invest in.
For those of you too young to remember, FuckedCompany was the original deadpool site. Mike once wrote an April Fool’s joke announcing that TechCrunch had acquired the site, which some people still ask us about seriously. But it was always just one of many projects for Kaplan.
Kaplan went on to found AdBrite, which is now one of the top 25 ad networks.
Kaplan is still chairman of AdBrite, but he’s been tinkering with his own projects for most of this year, including several fun Twitter apps like flirt140 (Twitter dating), fast140 (a typing challenge game), Tweetname (domain name registry via Twitter), AlumTweet (Classmates.com for Twitter), and HitMeLater (a snooze button for email). He says he has about 16 sites or apps that are currently live.
So what’s the big idea he will be pursuing for Charles River Ventures? He’s still figuring it out, but he thinks it will have something to do with the intersection of business, social networking, and finance. Whatever it is, you can be sure it will be interesting.
Isn’t his new venture called Kaplan Index? http://www.kaplanindex.com/
Lol, I thought it was http://retro.f2bbs.com
I think business social networking is going to be the next hot spot and should be easier to monetize.
Business social networking? Could you explain pls. I have no idea
Business Social Networking? LinkedIn???
http://www.traderbots.com
Couldn’t of said it better myself.. is there a good place online where idea people who aren’t engineers can meet those with the skills to do he code and such or other like minded business people.. it just seems like everyone I meet is a liar or cheat..
um, ever hear of oDesk, elance or guru.com.
Idiot.
Right, because those sites are just bulging with top-tier developers who make $150K/year but still find time to do a 50 hour project for $99.
business social/search/twitter?
LocalHotSpot.com – getting warmer
That guy is a pud
that’s funny.
Cool gig for a cool guy, congrats pud!
You know him personally?
Just met him recently at SXSW. I was hoping he would get his Kaplan Index off the ground.
Oh Boy, here come Mr. Percival himself fresh from the salon.
Love the frosted tips Sean!
I may get $80 hair cuts, but I would never bleach.
I met him after I spoke on a panel. Smart cat.
really ?
I like turtolz!
I heard from a coworker of Pud’s that he was forced to shut down FuckedCompany as part of the conditions a VC made when they invested in Adbrite. The VC said that they were sick of all their investments ending up on the message board.
FuckedCompany was hilarious
Oh hell yes. I have his book, and it’s chock full of his particular breed of irreverent humor.
17 jazz riffs on Twitter is a bit limiting in creativity, IMO.
Pretty sweet that Kaplan can churn out the ideas like that and execute them! Sounds sort of like he’s working on a PayPal / Twitter hybrid? Tweet payment system or something like that? Pretty good idea! Micropayments are absolutely going to be the future, I think.
Rock on, pud
Got my second Computer back in Aug 1999, First one was a Commodore VIC 20, Too complex for me.
Traded it in for a shotgun. Ran across, Pud, Even wrote to him once, and he answered. Those were
the days. Thanks for the fun reading.
Didn’t he get demoted from Adbrite completely as he’s no longer on the executive page. His tweets say something like waking up earlier than noon to “act more like business people”. He brought his drum kit into work at Adbrite.
Who would let this guy screw up their company?
Just quick FYI to author:
The flirt140 link goes to a parked domain (and not Pud’s Flirt on Twitter page).
Kaplan has been churning out quite a few neat ideas and that kind of tinkering usually leads to at least one idea that will actually spark. (Like AdBrite, for example.)
Didn’t he also release http://www.spottt.com link-exchange? I recall he originally posted that concept on his personal blog — sometime last year.
Keep up the great articles, TC!
Michael
P.S. Pud kicks ass on drums. SEE: YouTube
Pud rocks! The entrepreneurial James Bond.
I tried out Pud’s “fast140″ game, http://fast140.com and scored 756 WPM, for the phrase:
But, now, my “Scorecard” is messed up.
Rank: 0 – Faster than 100% of players!
Your overall rank: #0
You are faster than 100% of players!
I wonder if flirt140 works just as fast for dating. Win.
Michael
P.S. Pud still rocks.
man, i feel old …
“for those of you too young to remember fuckedcompany … ”
thanks for making me laugh!
this guy is part entrepreneur and part clown. which one will show up at Charles River, a firm I have little respect for…
why do you have little respect for them?
This is great! I loved FUCKEDCOMPANY, I remember when I was working for NSYE MDA Thomas Kinkade I got called into the VP office for looking at such a questionable URL.
I replied this was part of my job, to find out the status of the web and quoted the Cluetrain. God Bless those innovative and frontier days.
I even bought a FuckedCompany Hoodie.
Ah Selah.
Kev
fuckedcompany is fucked
he is no gurbaksh chahal for sure
Pup is a first class failure. I am much more successful.
MW
THE FC MESSAGE BOARD STILL REMAINS! ITS RUN BY SOME OF THE DEMENTED SOULS WHO USED TO POST THERE. http://www.latestfilings.com
Think the new job will cover some laser hair removal? That man’s a beast.
Kaplan is the real deall. Hit me up old Man, lets take some of these ideas to the next level and expand the scope.
I hope Phil can coax some real venture entrepreneurial spirit out of CRV, which has lately gone into foxhole defensive mode, even after securing a reasonably large new fund. Their quickstart program is a farce, they look at new deals only from insiders who have participated in liquidity events at other venture firms (because there have not been enough at CRV to poll from that group) and those deals that do come in – even from friends of the firm – receive a cursory look and a summary “looks interesting, but probably not a big enough business opportunity for us to pursue” which means that the nice person writing the response did not even read the plan or exec summary. They hire failed entrepreneurs who are unimaginative and defensively negative, and should take the “ventures” name off of their door. They are part of the malaise in venture, and should admit that they are basically series-c investors looking for cheap pricing for so-called series-a and seed deals. Don’t expect their participation in series-be because they will fail to understand the underlying value in the deal, and will expect series-a upside, or worse, a re-cap. Their name partners are good guys, especially Bill Tai, so it is baffling that he is unable to put together a better team. Makes one wonder when the vcs’s can’t put an excellent team together, and yet they insist on entrepreneurs putting together winning teams from the start… So with all this, we have great hopes for Phil that he can call Bull%%% on the CRV brats and either push them to perform like real venture guys, or get them out of venture and back to a safe corporate job where inaction and doing nothing is a way to advance, or at least to avoid accountability…. Good luck Phil.
CRV folks, you should prepare to be accountable and auditable, as you have a new guy with no problem calling-out BS and double-speak.
Maybe that’s what the LPs need too.
Ad-Man