Living Proof's Restyling Spray Featured on Today Show

Below is a clip from July 9th's Today Show where Kathie Lee Gifford raved about Living Proof’s No Frizz Restyling Spray — even said it would “change your life”. Not bad! Today Show Style Editor Bobbie Thomas then included Living Proof in Today's Summertime Makeup blog post:

"[Living Proof's Restyling Spray] is the newest save-my-hair spray beauty buffs are raving about. The spray repels dirt and oil allowing you to go longer between washes and provides a thin, lightweight frizz barrier for all hair types.”

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Announcing Dogpatch Labs San Francisco Roster

We are excited to announce the newest Dogpatch Labs class here in San Francisco. It includes entrepreneurs and companies that have been part of the lab over the last few months and those that just recently joined (new additions: AdCru, Animoto, Burbn, FanPop, JibJab, LearnBoost, Milennial Media, Recruly, StickyBits, Task Rabbit and Wild Pockets). As always, we look for great, exciting entrepreneurs who thrive in open and collaborative environments. And we aim to have a diverse collection of individuals, companies and verticals. The current batch of residents certainly represents that! You can view the TechCrunch write up here and rosters of all three Dogpatch Labs here.

Dogpatch San Francisco

AdCru is a pay-per-follower ad network for Twitter founded in September 2009.


Animoto (San Francisco) generates custom, professional-looking slideshows from user-uploaded music and photos. Their “patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end motion design” drives the web app. (TechCrunch coverage)
Burbn is a new way to communicate + share in the real world. (TechCrunch coverage)
Cardpool is a gift card exchange service where anyone can buy, sell, or trade their gift cards in a safe and secure environment. (TechCrunch coverage)
EGG HAUS is an interactive agency. We help our clients create and deploy engaging branded experiences on every consumer platform.
FanPop is a network of user-generated fan clubs for different topics of interest created and maintained by the community of fans.
FanPulse welcomes you to your world of sports. FanPulse (launching January 2010) is a new sports-service that lets you easily follow the sports you love and talk about them with your real friends. (TechCrunch coverage)
Formative Labs - working on ideas that solve problems and change consumer behaviors.
Formspring: Ask questions, give answers and learn more about your friends. (TechCrunch coverage)
Hollrr - Want to help your friends discover a great new product? A quick Hollrr is the easiest way to let them know what deserves a shout out. (TechCrunch coverage)
JibJab (San Francisco): Headquartered in Santa Monica and founded by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, and backed by Polaris, JibJab is a leading e-Card business. (TechCrunch coverage)
LearnBoost is an education platform for secondary schools.
Millennial Media delivers the largest reach – 83% of the US mobile audience – through the largest mobile advertising network in the US. (TechCrunch coverage)
Mr. Tweet looks through your extended network to help you find effective relationships and information most relevant to yourself.
ProfessionL centralizes all your recruitment management needs into one unified web-based software application that can be used by any business that recruits (including recruitment specialists).
Recurly makes subscription billing easy for developers and organizations of all sizes.. (TechCrunch coverage)
The Start Project - turning ideas into action. (TechCrunch coverage)
Stickybits brings the physical and digital worlds together with barcode stickers which trigger audio, video, photo, and text messages when scanned. (TechCrunch coverage)
startupSQUARE is a marketplace where entrepreneurs can meet one another and brainstorm their next big business idea.
TaskRabbit(formerly runmyerrand.com) helps individuals and small businesses in a community outsource their tasks and deliveries, leveraging the latest technology and the social networking paradigm.
Trazzler helps you answer one question, "Where should I go?" by recommending trips unique to your location and Travel Personality.
Twylah: your personal assistant on twitter.
Wild Pockets is an end to end solution that supports creators throughout the life cycle of 3D game development
Yardsellr - In the tradition of neighborhood garage- and yard-sales, Yardsellr makes it easy for you to list and sell, or find and buy whatever you want. Yardsellr helps spread the word about your item within your online "neighborhood" – social and messaging networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Living Proof Launches "Hold" on QVC

Before getting to more iPad posts (see this am's here and here), I have a couple of portfolio related posts.

On QVC yesterday, Living Proof announced their new No Frizz Try Me Kit and the launch of their new hairspray Hold.

You can learn more about the set, watch the QVC live video (featuring Living Proof CEO Rob Robillard) and purchase the set.

Equally exciting, two of Living Proof's products (No Frizz Shampoo and Full Thickening Cream) were named 2010 CEW Beauty Awards finalists. Within the beauty industry, these are prestigious honors; and, the winners will officially be announced May 21st, 2010.

Rue La La's "Quick! Buy It." Button Enables Instant, Simple Purchases

In an effort to expedite checkout and prevent shopping cart abandonment, retailers like Amazon have pushed "One Click" purchasing and recently introduced "Amazon PayPhrase". That focus is even more important for time-sensitive e-commerce sites like Rue La La and Gilt Group - where the sale has limited inventory and time... such that a delay between "shopping cart" and "checkout" can lead to expired and empty inventory. To prevent this, Rue La La introduced the "Quick! Buy it." button... and it's terrific. See an item you like? Just click "Quick! Buy it." and it's your's in all of one click. Rue La La takes advantage of the:

- emotion: time sensitivity, buy-it-now, limited inventory; and - customer database: your billing and shipping information are on file - so one click is sufficient The result is instantaneous shopping that is easy and fun - which is what these deal / time-based shopping experiences are predicated on. It's yet another way for Rue La La to take advantage of the time sensitivity that they work so hard to ingrain in shoppers - between the limited inventory and the ticking clock, there is a pressure to purchase now... and the transaction speed (along with the language / branding - Quick!) reinforce the behavior.

Rue La la's "Quick! Buy it." Button

Each item has two options: Quick Buy or Add to Cart

One click - it's that easy

High Energy: Common Trait of Top Talent

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the Mindy Grossman's great perspective about hiring talent - look for tiggers not eeyores. The below quote is related and comes from Peter Brooke's new book, "A Vision for Venture Capital." While Brooke is describing talent that he looked for at his firms, the listed traits are applicable to all business fields. Both Mindy Grossman and peter Brooke highlight "energy" as a key component to top talent: Minday refers to tiggers as "energy-givers" and Peter Brooke looks for "high energy" with "burning drives":

"All had a number of traits...: They were competitive, diligent, tenacious and skeptical, with a high energy level and a burning desire to succeed."

Peter A. Brooke, A Vision for Venture Capital (page 176)

high-energy-now-big

2009 Holiday Gift Spending: $683 Per Person

In what Ad Age is calling "the Season of Scrooge", households are predictably cutting back on holiday shopping plans. An Accenture study has shown that consumers will be more cost conscious, shop primarily at discount and department stores, and reduce gift giving beyond the family (5% are eliminating gifts for friends and 8% to co-workers).

Also interesting, the most wanted holiday gift: gift cards. 55% of consumers hoped to receive gift cards. christmas gifts

Introducing TechNews (http://news.ryanspoon.com)

Introducing http://news.ryanspoon.com - I encourage you to test it out! About a year ago, I weened myself off of Digg (at least partially) and moved onto Hacker News. Hacker News is the best mix of technology content - from headlines to analysis to discussion.

After sifting through various services, I found SlinkSet (also a YCombinator company). Uninterested in creating a Hacker News clone or competitor, I was intrigued by the ability to 'remix' my own favorite feeds along with articles submitted by friends and readers:

Tech News SlinkSet

It is an interesting way, if you will, to create your own 'distributed feed' (ala Facebook or Friendfeed - but without the direct network). Using SlinkSet's private mode, it is also a way to communicate with a distribution list.

SlinkSet is simple and a free service. My only critique is that it is based on iframes and consequently is not as flexible as you would like (in addition to being an SEO killer). It would be powerful to either

1. open the code (like Pligg or Wordpress) and allow users to develop against it, and/or 2. create a subscription version that allows further customization

Also worth noting, SlinkSet's custom service is terrific. They have converted an installation of SlinkSet into a feedback 'wall' and the founders interact ther directly with the users. Really a terrific example of what SlinkSet can be used for and how to interact with your userbase.