We Launched!

Don’t you wish there were some button you could press when a website is ready to go live?  Some big red button you press that says “launch” at which point the html magically scrambles into place and a shiny new site arrives on the world wide web?  Well, in real life it’s more like editing some IP settings and DNS configurations, but the feeling of going live to the world, with or without a magic button, is still incredibly exciting.

But let’s take a step back to see how StartSomeGood came to be.  I met our three engineers while we were undergrads at UCLA.  We bonded while camping out for the best seats in the house for UCLA basketball games, braving those harsh, harsh LA winters (hey sometimes, with wind, it got below 50 degrees!), and connecting over games of ultimate frisbee, cards or, most likely, just chatting for hours on end.  

I then met my co-founder Tom while we were at Ashoka.  I, a part-time intern, he a gregarious Australian dude who sat on a big bouncy ball.  We connected over our passion for technology to drive social change and when I began laying the initial groundwork for StartSomeGood, I knew Tom was the guy I wanted by my side building it.  Like a high school freshman getting up the nerve to ask out a senior girl — or perhaps the college basketball coach trying to convince a star recruit to come to his campus — I approached Tom with the idea, and from the moment we started talking, I knew that we would make it happen.

That was October, 2010.  In the few months since, we’ve been hard at work coding, creating, conference calling, and (over) caffeinating.  The result is the site that is now home to more than a dozen amazing ventures aimed at improving the world.   And I couldn’t be prouder of my teammates for taking an abstract idea and making it a reality.

In the days to come we’ll tell you more about what we’re up to with StartSomeGood, but for now I just want to say thank you for being a part of our journey.  I know I won’t forget the excitement of our launch .  Even if I didn’t get to press that magic red button.  

-Alex. Co-Founder, StartSomeGood