

Kevin Rose Steps Into Part-Time Role at Google Ventures to Build a New Startup - _mayo
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/15/kevin-rose-google-ventures-north/

======
aaronbrethorst

        If the model sounds familiar, that’s because it was
        kind of the idea behind Milk. But the world has
        changed since then, according to Rose. “The biggest
        thing that’s changed in the last three years is that
        back then we spent a lot of time spent building out
        the back end… But the scaling piece is a solved
        problem,” Rose told me.
    

They shipped one app, Oink. Oink didn't fail because of the amount of time
required to build out the backend. It failed because it was a me-too product
in a sea of me-too products, and didn't do anything to differentiate itself or
provide meaningful value to its users.

Edit: On an unrelated note, it looks like Kevin must've been binging on Wes
Anderson films recently. The North website looks like one of Anderson's film
title cards. Compare
[http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com](http://wesandersontitlecards.tumblr.com)
and [http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/](http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/)

Edit 2: Yep, Futura.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)#Usage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_\(typeface\)#Usage)
and check out the CSS on the North website.

~~~
bluthru
From what I remember, Oink differentiated by being about the things inside
stores/restaurants instead of the businesses themselves.

For example, if you were in the mood for a certain dessert, you'd see the
ratings of the dessert in a city versus the ratings for the place.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Right. There were at least half a dozen other apps in the App Store doing the
exact same thing that launched before Oink. It's been a couple years since
I've thought about this space, at all, but some of the others were:

* Stamped: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/26/stamped/](http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/26/stamped/)

* Chewsy: [http://chewsy.com](http://chewsy.com)

* Foodspotting: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foodspotting/id350727118?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foodspotting/id350727118?mt=8)

* Ness: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ness_Computing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ness_Computing)

------
dchuk
What an absolutely terrible domain name: [http://www.n-o-r-
t-h.com/](http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/)

~~~
chatmasta
Actually, I'm not so sure. It's easy to tell people: "North.com, with a hyphen
in between every letter." It's not that hard to type, and once you've typed it
once, it's in your address bar.

From an SEO and aesthetic perspective, it's a shitty domain name. But from a
branding perspective, it's not bad. It's memorable, easily verbalized, and
allows him to brand under "north" instead of some longer or abstract name.

------
elwell
> Nowadays he says, a lean startup can work specifically on product and
> design, and leave the infrastructure side of things to someone else.

Probably not true. Anyway, that's not what the plan is:

> He envisions North as a team that has one product person, one design person,
> and a full-stack engineer

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utnick
What does he mean that scaling a mobile backend is a solved problem? What has
changed?

~~~
benologist
Services like Parse - [https://parse.com/](https://parse.com/)

------
mikelbring
Link to his new company: [http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/](http://www.n-o-r-
t-h.com/)

~~~
shiftpgdn
I'm sure it's just a place holder until he can secure north.com or some
variant of that. The foundation video series run by Kevin seems to have gone
through a dozen domains.

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jason_slack
This doesn't surprise me. To me Kevin seems to have a drive to tackle the
latest interesting trends in social and always with a new twist. Success or
Failure. This is a good quality. Good Luck Kevin.

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thetimbanks
It's weird to see a shopping cart powered by Squarespace at n-o-r-t-h.com

[http://www.n-o-r-t-h.com/commerce/show-cart](http://www.n-o-r-
t-h.com/commerce/show-cart)

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idlewords
I admire this guy's talent at failing upwards.

~~~
wierdaaron
He'll be CEO of HP in no time.

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tuneladora
interesting domain name n-o-r-t-h.com i wonder if the hyphens could become a
trend like "getX.com"

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bluthru
Kevin seems to be full of ideas. I look forward to seeing what they release.

------
penland
Did anyone else actually laugh out loud at the "Scaling is a solved problem"
line?

Guess I can take off early for the weekend then.

------
rglover
Cool vibe to it. I've always enjoyed how Kevin organizes things. Curious to
see what they'll be working on.

