The vast majority of mobile applications in the marketplace aren’t coming from well-established businesses, but experimental developers. The apps can even accrue a good user following, but those developers don’t exactly have the skills or desire to build a business around their creations.

“It’s laughable how many times I’ve heard, ‘I didn’t get into this to answer support requests,’” says entrepreneur Jonathan Kay.

Kay is the chief operating officer and co-founder of Apptopia, a Cambridge, MA-based startup developing a marketplace that condenses the droves of similar, one-off app projects and puts them in the hands of people looking to turn them into real moneymakers. It looks like the lovechild of eBay and a Web domain brokerage, with hints of a mobile strategy consultancy.

As you can imagine, buying and selling source code for mobile applications is just a bit more complex than auctioning off your used electronics. “I’m spending more time than I’ve ever wanted to with lawyers,” says Kay, who I caught up with this week.

The company is the brainchild of co-founder Eliran Sapir, who jumped on early iPhone trends to create the mobile app GPush, which created push notifications for Gmail on the iPhone. Despite the paid app’s popularity in the iTunes app store, Sapir couldn’t quite figure what business to sell it to for an exit, Kay says. But he kept thinking about the problem, and later toyed with the idea of creating a mobile app brokerage while entrepreneur in residence at Cambridge-based Greatpoint Ventures. Last fall, Sapir connected with the boisterous Kay—a former brand evangelist for local startup the Grasshopper Group—and left the venture firm to work on Apptopia full time.

Apptopia’s first step is to formulate a target price range for app developers to sell at, using market knowledge and algorithms. Developers then must give Apptopia access to their apps that enables the startup to gather accurate, objective data on performance, user base, and other information that will inform prospective buyers.

“Much like in eBay, we provide a professional middle ground where a buyer and a seller can actually negotiate,” Kay says.

Sellers can list their apps to be purchased for a fixed price within that suggested range or set up an auction with a minimum starting point.

Connecting buyer and seller is just part of the challenge, though, says Kay. Apptopia continues to oversee that payment and transition process, and has developed contracts with lawyers outlining the details of the agreement.

“If you put the app up, you legally are bound to send us the source code,” says Kay of the developer responsibilities. Sellers also have to agree not to … Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Are hackers and lawyers really that different?

If you hear someone talking about the two in the same sentence, you’d be well within your rights to assume it was an expansion of the old debate about whether a pirate or a ninja would win in a fight.

On first impression, the hacker (a.k.a. the software developer, the programmer or any other name you have for someone who turns code into magic) and the lawyer (a.k.a. the attorney, the guy who charges $450 per hour, or the JD) seem like natural enemies. Well I’m here to prove to you that they’re actually not that different.

I’ve taken an interesting path to understand and appreciate both hackers and lawyers. After starting my career in finance, I decided to become a lawyer and found myself as a startup lawyer representing hundreds of early stage technology businesses. Then, one day, fortune struck and I was able to join my first software company in the enterprise software space before co-founding Zaarly. During the past year, I’ve been able to work side by side with dozens of amazing hackers and witness the magic that they create.

Four Things That Lawyers and Hackers Have in Common:

Rules
When people think of hackers, they think of a culture based around spurning rules and conventions. When people think of lawyers, they usually imagine someone doing everything they can to ensure that rules and conventions stay firmly in place. This means that I’ve seen more than a few people raise their eyebrows when they learn that I’m a lawyer who made the jump into the world of the computer hacker.

Code
The hacker’s law is more internalized, while that of the lawyer is written down in extensive detail within huge tomes. But to both parties, staying true to their ethos is the most important thing. A lawyer arguing against the law won’t win the case, and a hacker making compromises in the implementation of their code will both see the results crumbling about them if they betray the nature of their role.

Language
Law can be a strange thing to the average person. It’s English, but it isn’t. The words are in English, the syntax is readable most of the time, but the way the language is used can be quite different from how it’s used in everyday speech. You’ll find the same thing with hackers. Partially in how they speak, because slang tends to come into vogue and out of it among them with lightning-fast speeds. However, it’s more in the sense of how hackers create their work. Most programming languages make use of English words and letters.

Depending on the programming language, a layman might well be able to make a guess about what any line of code does from examining the words used. However, like the lawyer, the programmer is using standard words in a very formalized way to create meaning that will often be totally incomprehensible to most people.

Not only do both the lawyer and the hacker use their own unique variants on language, they have to explain it to people on the fly. The lawyer needs to translate pages of law into words their client understands. Likewise, the hacker needs to be able to take the code they write, the images in a data flow diagram, and translate the meaning of any given piece to people at a moment’s notice.

Community
Perhaps the most important shared aspect between the hacker and the lawyer; in the end, they both depend to a huge extent on sharing and cooperation. Despite the fact that both are often seen as lone wolves, each role is among the most community oriented that one could imagine.

The lawyer is part of a large process of law, with each person adding to it, building on it, and implementing or testing various parts to make it all stronger. Together, lawyers work to create a social construct which connects us all together. The hacker does a very similar thing in their own specialty.

Similarly, the entire computer industry exists as it does precisely because of hackers sharing their discoveries and ideas with each other and building on it to create a larger whole. In the end, I’d say that’s the biggest similarity between the two roles.

When I was a lawyer, I specialized in helping hackers build innovative startups and provided full legal guidance as they grew. Now, as a part of that endeavor on the hacker side here at Zaarly, I find myself humbled by how this new community works together to create original platforms for the future of the industry.

So, who would win in a fight between a lawyer and a hacker? We’ll call it a draw.

Cross-posted from the Zaarly blog.

Comments (6) | Reprints | Share:          

Rocket Lawyer, a San Francisco-based provider of online legal documents and attorney-finding services, said today that has collected $18.5 million in Series D financing. The round was led by August Capital, with Google Ventures and Investor Growth Capital also participating. August Capital partner David Hornik has joined the company’s board. “We see a large market opportunity for legal solutions that are easily accessible and affordable to users,” Google Ventures partner Wesley Chan said in a statement. “Rocket Lawyer’s combination of an intuitive user-driven front-end with a strong technology-based platform uniquely positions the company to scale and deliver the type of ‘wow’ user experience that online customers love.” The startup has now raised $28 million all told.

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

Avvo, the Seattle-based company that runs an online ratings service that profiles lawyers, said today it is expanding to provide online ratings of physicians. Avvo says its service will offer consumers detailed information on a doctor’s “background, experience, and disciplinary record.” The company says it has compiled profiles on 800,000 physicians around the country. Avvo raised $10 million in March from DAG Ventures, Benchmark Capital, and Ignition Partners

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Anytime a consumer Internet startup raises $10 million, it’s big news, especially around Seattle these days. So you’d think Avvo would want to tell the world about what it’s doing with all that money, which it just raised in a Series C investment round from DAG Ventures, Benchmark Capital, and Ignition Partners.

But founder and CEO Mark Britton is staying mum about how the $10 million will be used, other than to say it will “expand and enhance” the company’s products. I tried to get him to say what that means. Maybe Avvo will buy each of its two million unique monthly visitors a drink (joking)? Or pick up Cliff Lee’s 2010 pitching contract for the Mariners? No dice. OK, so Avvo, which runs a free legal services website with lawyer ratings, profiles, and a legal advice forum, is trying to maintain a low profile to keep its competitors in the dark.

Is this one of the best funded, but most boring startups in Seattle? No way. Just when I’m about to give up on learning anything revealing about the company and just ask him for a good lawyer joke, Britton launches into a very interesting historical narrative about where Avvo really comes from; the challenges of making consumer ratings work; and his lessons learned from working at Bellevue, WA-based travel site Expedia and observing Seattle-based Amazon from across town.

First, an update on how Avvo is doing, and why it chose to raise money now. Britton says the company is “approaching cash-flow positive quite quickly,” and that he and the company’s board discussed whether to use sales to fund its new initiatives (which shall remain a secret). “We think we have some really big ideas about how we can continue to expand on our success. One of our big initiatives has been sitting on the shelf for a year. We could not help but feel now is the time to pursue these initiatives. We could have financed them with excess cash flow, but as the Web proliferates, there is tremendous opportunity cost” in not expanding with a large new investment, he says. “We’ll meet in the next week, and we’ll put a stake in the ground for when we roll out these different elements.”

Britton has some unique perspective on how the Web has affected the legal industry and consumer behavior. Before founding Avvo, he was senior vice president and general counsel with Expedia—he was there from the early days—and prior to that, he was an attorney with Preston Gates & Ellis (now K&L Gates) when he first moved to Seattle from Washington DC in 1997 (he’s from Montana). Back then, lawyers didn’t even e-mail documents to clients or to each other; today they use document sharing sites on the Web. Due diligence used to be done by calling people on the phone; now it’s done using search engines and Web documents. “While I think the legal profession still has long way to go, the Web has fundamentally changed how lawyers practice law,” Britton says.

The genesis of Avvo came in early 2006. “I saw a very big need for the legal industry to take a significant step into Web 2.0,” he says. “Public records were being digitized, and with that comes lots of transparency. There is an increasing appetite for people to see advertising [online] backed up by objective information. Lawyers are about full disclosure, it’s part of the culture.”

Britton hadn’t really practiced law since 2003, yet he found himself still helping friends and family with their legal issues—in particular, evaluating lawyers. So he had the idea to create an … Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Seattle-based Avvo, the online legal directory, said today it has raised $10 million in Series C financing, led by new investor DAG Ventures of Palo Alto, CA. Existing investors Benchmark Capital and Ignition Partners also participated in the round.

The money will be used to help Avvo expand and enhance its online products. The company runs a free website that gives ratings and profiles for about 90 percent of licensed attorneys in the U.S. The site also includes a question and answer forum where consumers can ask attorneys legal questions. Avvo says that the forum receives “tens of thousands” of questions and answers each month, and that some 50,000 lawyers actively participate on the site, including one-third of the lawyers in Washington state.

Avvo started in 2006 and is led by founder and CEO Mark Britton, who was formerly senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary with Bellevue, WA-based Expedia, and an attorney and equity partner-elect with Preston Gates & Ellis (now K&L Gates). The startup has raised about $23 million in venture funding to date. Its revenue model is based on advertising from the legal industry.

“Given the current funding environment, this deal speaks volumes to Avvo’s success and the value we bring both consumers and lawyers,” Britton said in a statement. “This funding round not only gives us the ability to continue that success, but to expand it.”

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

At a time when semiconductor startups seem to be an endangered species, San Diego’s cleantech sector continues to show unusually strong growth. Get the lowdown on that and more.

—The shutdown of San Diego’s Sequoia Communications is a sign of broader problems that are making it harder to build new fabless semiconductor design companies, according to Sequoia CEO Dave Shepard. As the complexity of system-on-a-chip technology increases, Shepard says U.S. startups are getting squeezed by sharply higher costs and dramatically lower valuations. He says the venture-backed model for semiconductor startups is broken.

—Wade sat down with Boston lawyers Tom Burton and Lewis Geffen to discuss their cleantech corporate practice at Mintz Levin. Partner Carl Kukkonen, who helped open Mintz Levin’s San Diego office in 2006, says he likes to tell people he was working with alternative energy startups before he ever heard the term “cleantech” to describe them.

—San Diego now counts more than 20 startups that are specializing in developing advanced algae biofuels, according to Lisa Bicker, the executive director of Cleantech San Diego. That’s more than double the number of algae biofuels startups found in an informal survey nine months ago. Many of those companies, though, remain in stealth mode.

—TheFunded Founder Institute is looking to expand its training camp for startup CEOs in San Diego, and eventually other cities, including Boston and Seattle (where Xconomy operates). The program, which is part-training and part-technology incubator, was launched in San Francisco earlier this year by Adeo Ressi, a founding member of TheFunded, an online community for venture-backed CEOs. Jeanine Jacobson and Cliff Currie are heading the startup of the institute in San Diego, and Currie says they plan to enroll their first class and launch the program in November.

—Dennis Mudd has stepped down as CEO of Slacker, the San Diego-based online music streaming service founded three years ago. Mudd is handing over his duties to Jim Cady, Slacker’s president and chief operating officer.Mudd plans to remain on Slacker’s board.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Map and list updated Dec. 19: Want to know where your favorite VC gets his or her morning latte? How about where tech and life sciences entrepreneurs gather to network and discuss ideas? If you’re looking to rub shoulders with the technological elite—or if you’re just looking for a quiet cafe to have a meeting or get some work done—you’ve come to the right place.

Here at Xconomy Seattle, we’ve been keeping track of the coffee hotspots around town favored by the tech-business leaders we talk to and write about every day. We thought it would be fun to share what we’ve found, both as a list and as an interactive map you can click around on (see below). In many cases, we’ve met the innovators or investors in their favorite haunts and sampled the local beverages. In other cases, we’ve gone by what they told us. But this is in no way a comprehensive list. We’d love to hear from you about where you like to go, where plans get hatched, and where tomorrow’s deals are being discussed. We’ll update the list as we go.

It may be cliché to say the Seattle innovation scene runs on coffee, but it seems to be true. One of the amazing things about the region is the sheer number of great cafes and places to gather, talk, refuel, and recharge. There’s something for everyone, from the quiet elegance of Caffe Fiore on Queen Anne Hill to the casual charm of Louisa’s on Eastlake to the hustle and bustle of Espresso Vivace near downtown. Not to mention the old reliables, Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Tully’s (especially on the Eastside—what’s with the dearth of independent cafes over there?).

View Larger Map

And behind every great cafe is a great story. Take Trabant Coffee & Chai, known for its strong espresso, tasty drip coffee, and spicy teas. The Pioneer Square branch is a personal favorite of Dan Shapiro, the co-founder and CEO of Ontela—and there’s an interesting reason why. In early 2006, Shapiro says, he was one of several entrepreneurs pitching their companies at a Keiretsu Forum angel investor meeting downtown. “We were singing for our supper,” he says. The guy in front of him was pitching a $12,000 drip-coffee maker, and he had coffee samples for everyone (Shapiro was too wired to try any). The panel asked the coffee guy questions like, Aren’t you just going to compete with Starbucks? Why wouldn’t Starbucks just do this? He replied that Starbucks’ leaders were too set in their ways, and the only way they’d do it is if they saw it in action.

The guy was Zander Nosler of the Ballard-based Coffee Equipment Company. His machine was called the Clover, and sure enough, he was right. His 11-person startup was bought last March by Starbucks, which now has Clover machines in several-dozen stores in the Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Boston metro areas. So what does this have to do with Trabant? The local coffee shop was a key early customer of the Clover, buying the machine in the spring of 2007. “Every time I go there, I feel like I’m supporting the local startup scene,” says Shapiro.

There are many more stories, but we won’t get to them today. Instead, we present our first pass of the Greater Seattle Coffee Cluster: an alphabetical list of cafes (50 and counting), and some of the notable people you might run into there. If you’ve got a favorite spot, or a story to pass along, please do comment below or drop us a note at editors@xconomy.com. Then again, you might want to keep your local treasures to yourself…

Belle Epicurean
1206 4th Ave, Seattle, WA
Recommended by Megan Muir of DLA Piper for its pastries, good coffee, and confidentiality.

Caffe Fiore
224 W. Galer St, Seattle, WA
Martin Tobias of Kashless is known to arrive for meetings here on his Segway. Also the favorite of Paul Thelen of Big Fish Games and Bill Bryant of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Caffe Ladro
600 Queen Anne Ave North, Seattle, WA
Paul Thelen of Big Fish Games also lists this institution as one of his likes. … Next Page »

Comments (11) | Reprints | Share:          

Seattle-based Avvo, which runs a website to help people find and rate lawyers, announced it has expanded its service to Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland. Avvo’s attorney profiles are now available in 18 states, including Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon, as well as Washington DC. That covers 80 percent of the practicing attorneys in the U.S., according to Avvo CEO Mark Britton, formerly top lawyer at Bellevue, WA-based Expedia.

Comments | Reprints | Share: