chrisco

I’m the founder of a startup called BuzzPal - The World Is Your Party http://www.buzzpal.com. We're basically a cross between social networking and online dating, with a "world" and "party" flavor. That’s about all we’re saying publically at this time (“stealth mode” and all).

We’re currently looking for a few people, especially one technical person with the desire and ability to become a key team member, possibly even a co-founder. You can learn more on our "jobs" page.

We’re also doing an internship program this summer, which will be located in Gothenburg, Sweden, the second largest city in Sweden, the largest city on the west coast, and home to the largest student population in Sweden. Gothenburg is also home to Chalmers University of Technology, the top university in Sweden and among the top research schools in Europe. We’ve got a special website for, but you have to register (and you have to qualify).

So what’s my story? I’m an American from Washington, DC, who went to college in Florida and Colorado, then got my MBA from Georgetown and went into venture debt and equity financing in the TMT sector (technology, media, communications, publishing, and technology). I cashed out of that startup (in a small way -- employee, not a founder), then went into corporate finance (financing power plants).

I then took two years off, moved to Europe, traveled, got married (met my wife on Match.com), and began work on BuzzPal (and StartCo.eu). I own over 350 domain names -- not to sell, but to develop over time, as we work off the backlog, developing the highest priority names first. The priority is determined via a matrix that not only considers the name in isolation, but more importantly considers it in relation to the other names -- things like synergies, network effects, economies of scale, opportunities for discovery and to create options and leverageable components.

My CV is here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/comella.

FUNDING:

We are bootstrapping. I am the founder and lead investor, using my own capital, at least through initial product development, after which time outside capital will be raised to the extent it is needed to accelerate growth beyond what the startup can fund internally.

If you wonder why we don't raise VC first, it's because 1) tons of money is not required to launch a startup these days, and 2) we don't believe in that model. We think it is wasteful in terms of resources and costly in terms of the amount of equity and control you are required to give up for a small amount of funding.

We believe in bringing in outside capital only AFTER proof of concept, which in the case of a web application means after it's out there. It also allows for the possibility that outside capital is not required at all. Regardless, the strategy is to only sell ownership and control if/when necessary to accelerate growth.

Get in touch. We are looking for contacts in Europe and the USA. We will consider having people relocate to us or ourselves relocating to them.

Cheers, chrisco