Plinky evolves into Thing Labs

Simeon Simeonov — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:40:37 +0000

Just about a year ago Jason Shellen and I started Plinky. A lot happens in a year. Jason and team built a very cool product that eliminated much of the pain associated with staring at the blank text box of your blog editor wondering “What am I going to write about?” Plinky is doing well but the mission of the company has expanded into helping people participate more easily in the conversation Web, which is, well, the fabric of conversations on the social Web. So, yes, it means we are doing something that now also puts Twitter in the picture.

The new name is Thing Labs. What else is new? New address in San Francisco and the addition of Chris Wetherell (co-founder of Google Reader with Jason) and the tech he’s been quietly building. Lots going on. Follow the company on Twitter to stay in the loop.

Tagged: Chris Wetherell, Jason Shellen, Plinky, startups, Thing Labs

Starting Up Plinky

Simeon Simeonov — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:10:46 +0000

Om Malik broke the news today about Plinky. Plinky is the brainchild of founder/CEO Jason Shellen, a former Googler who worked on Blogger and shipped Google Reader. Jason and I partnered up last fall and just raised our seed round from my partners at Polaris Venture Partners. I’m co-founder and interim CTO. We have a small, sharp team of Web developers who are busy building cool things. We can’t tell you more at this point–you know how it goes–but you can sign up at Plinky.com to keep in touch. Thanks go to the dozens of people who provided great feedback along the way. We listened. You’ll like what you’ll see.

In my six years at Polaris, Plinky is the fourth company that I have helped launch and the second company I have co-founded. Last fall I decided to switch my focus fully to helping entrepreneurs launch companies. Many of the entrepreneurs I’ve talked to are looking for help. There are not that many people in the venture business who both know how to do this and have the bandwidth to do it well. Think of me as a serial co-founder who helps shape the idea, raise capital, build the team and execute. I have founding equity in the companies, which aligns my interests with the entrepreneurs’. In order to have time to partner and engage deeply with my co-founders, I have stopped doing traditional investments and taking board seats, although I remain a partner at Polaris and 100% dedicated to building companies that Polaris invests in. My partner VCMike did the Plinky investment and will be on the board.

HighContrast » Jason Shellen

Plinky evolves into Thing Labs

Starting Up Plinky