San Francisco-based Boreas Gear, Inc. is funding its latest product through Kickstarter, in an attempt to build a modular pack system that provides three bags in one. If you’re a bag enthusiast like myself (that might not be a real thing but I still have tons of them) then you’ll appreciate the idea of a simple system that makes it easy to covert a single frame into a daypack, waterproof bag and simple hydration/light carry bag quickly and easily.

The SF-based team founded Boreas Gear in 2010, with the intent of designing packs centered around versatility and good design. Founder and Creative Director Tae Kim has a design background and grew up in Alaska, where he spent plenty of time in the great outdoors. The bootlegger is designed to be the perfect companion for a whole host of outdoor activities.

Besides offering the three different pack configurations, it also boasts something called “Super-Tramp Suspension” which uses pull-straps to shift the weight carried in the pack either closer to or farther away from the back, making it possible to adjust it perfectly for either hiking or biking on the fly. If you’ve owned a specialized biking pack, then you know that the added breathing room can really come in handy, especially on longer rides.

The Super-Tramp Suspension system can then be used interchangeably with three pack tops, including the Torpedo, the Hopper and the Scrimshaw. The Torpedo is a lightweight hydration pack, which can be outfitted with a water bladder to keep you from getting thirsty on long rides or trail runs without adding too much weight. The Hopper is a daypack that has plenty of room for a lunch and gear for a full day on the mountain and the Scrimshaw is a completely submersible waterproof bag, perfect for rain, snow, or use in watersports like canoeing or kayaking.

The system is designed to be used either with any individual bag or with all three, and the project has already blown past its $10,000 funding goal. Boreas Gear has been designing and manufacturing packs for years now, so there’s relatively little risk in terms of the company delivering on its planned July ship date. Pledges for bags start at $65 for the frame + a single pack and range up depending on what options you’re interested in.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Most of us have faced that sense of dread that comes when our phones lay drained and dysfunctional right when we need them the most. Sure, we could beat ourselves up for not charging them as long as we should have (or perhaps making a bad choice of phones), but that’s where this particularly cute Kickstarter project comes into play. Devotec’s Fuel micro charger is a terribly tiny rechargeable external battery for when a smartphone’s charge goes south at an inopportune moment.

How small is it? Think “clip it to your keychain small.” And it’s shaped like a little gas can! How quaint.

As you could probably guess from its size, there’s only so much juice you’ll be able to squeeze out of this thing. The Fuel’s internal battery is only capable of holding about 500mAh worth of charge, which Devotec figures will give your smartphone up to a half hour of extra talk time — more than enough to fire off a few frenzied emails or to make a brief emergency call or two. I’ve come to appreciate bulkier fare like Mophie’s PowerStation Duo, but folks looking for a pint-sized lifesaver that won’t weigh down their bags will find something to like here.

For this first production run, Devotec is focusing mostly on churning out Fuel chargers with microUSB connectors, but the team is also plugging away on Lightning versions for the iPhone 5s in your life. There’s still no ETA on when to expect them though, so iPhone 5 owners may want to look elsewhere for now — after all, the first-party microUSB-to-Lightning adapter costs nearly as much as the Fuel itself.

Devotec’s Kickstarter campaign launched less than a week ago and the team has already blown past its $20,000 funding goal, but you can still lock in your order for a microUSB model for around $18 at this point. The final retail version will cost $25, so the cheapskates among you may want to jump on this now (like I just did).

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Derek Andersen is the founder of Startup Grind, a 35-city event series hosted in 15-countries that educates, inspires, and connects entrepreneurs. He also founded Commonred (acquired by Income.com) and is ex-Electronic Arts.

There are virtually no companies in Silicon Valley that exit north of $100MM or create a billion dollar business, that don’t raise Venture Capital funding. Charles and Kai Huang, the founders of Red Octane are the exception having done both. They went on to sell more than 30MM units of Guitar Hero becoming one of the top videogame franchises of all time. Recently I sat down with Charles at Startup Grind and heard this fascinating story.

In 1999 Charles and his brother Kai founded Red Octane. Launching six months before Netflix, the goal was to be the Netflix of videogames. But six months after they launched the dot com bubble burst and so did their business. As funding completely dried up, the capital intensive rental business became unfundable. Of that time Charles said, “It looked like the whole valley was just going to die and go away. So that’s when we scrambled and looked at video game hardware, and eventually videogame software. That was the beginning of what was many lives of Red Octane.”

Startup Survival. 2 Weeks Of Cash.

They were gamers and were playing a lot of Playstation 1 games, especially the pirated stuff out of Japan. Dance Dance Revolution was just making it’s way to the States so they stated selling dance pads. “We realized the dance pads that we were buying and reselling were garbage, because they were breaking down and we thought we could make better dance pads than this,” Charles said. “I literally packed my bags, went to China, visited a few of these factories that made dance pads, figured out how they made them and took a bunch of suggestions that users had given us and incorporated them into new designs and so we started coming out with our own dance pads and believe it or not, that kept the company afloat (from 2001 to 2003).”

Everything was sold online due to lack of cash. “We had to start that way because we couldn’t afford to sell to stores due to cash flow. The way it works is you sell to Gamestop and they don’t pay you for 60 to 90 days. We didn’t have the money to do that, so we had to sell everything online because when somebody orders with a credit card, you get paid in two days.”

The company’s number one rule to survive was simple. Don’t die. “As long as your company doesn’t die, smart people will find a way to make things happen, but if you let your company die, that’s it, you’ll never have another shot.”

For two years the company ran with less than 2-weeks of cash in the bank. Seriously. Every week they hoped to make enough money to make the next payroll. One time Charles had drafted the email to lay the employees off because they didn’t have enough money to pay. They decided to wait until after Thanksgiving and when Black Friday hit, orders poured in. “It was like a gift, like money falling from the heavens,” Charles said. “Like ‘where are all of these orders coming from?’ Then that actually gave us enough money to make payroll and we made enough money over the next month to continue.”

Product Pivot, Guitar Hero Is Born

Once they realized that Konami could ruin their dance pad business if they decided to stop selling it in the US, they needed to be more in charge of their own destiny. They took a popular arcade game called “The Groove” and partnered with the developer to bring it to the console. This took their company from $1MM in revenue to $9MM and the profits allowed them to work on their second game, Guitar Hero.

They knew the music genre was working in Asia, but it hadn’t translated to the US or Europe. They took a look at music games and found Guitar Freaks. “We said, man this thing is fun, but if we could just make a few changes, we think that would be a `partnership was perfect. Red Octane made the hardware and Harmonix made the software.

“Guitar Hero was an incredible experience in that in the first day that we talked about it in February, to the day we released it in November, everything about it just seemed like this magical experience. You know, you hear musicians say how sometimes the right songs just flow from your head? It was like that, every idea just came so smoothly.” They demoed the game at E3 in true underdog fashion they weren’t even on the main show floor. They were down in the basement with the other indie games. They won Best of Show awards going up against Madden, Need for Speed, Tony Hawk, and others. The budget for the original game was $1.7MM.

But they were still fighting. Retailers didn’t want to carry the game because the large box didn’t fit on the shelves and there was no precedence for that type of game selling well despite the positive consumer buzz. GameStop was the only retailer to carry the game. “They were almost obligated to take every videogame product because GameStop was where hardcore gamers shopped, so you have to have everything.”

To pay for the inventory, Red Octane tried to raise money again. And while they had done $9MM in revenue the year before, they were unable to raise $3MM. “It wasn’t like we were a startup that was burning cash, we were already profitable. At the time, videogames were just considered an uninvestable category by VCs. So, in order to get the game out, my brother and I took out second mortgages and took on credit card debt and to buy inventory for the launch of Guitar Hero.”

The game launched in November 2005. Best Buy forecast the game would sell 30K units between November and the end of January. The day it launched they sold 3,000 units in the first two hours. Best Buy called that day and wanted 80K more units the next week. Because of the hardware the games were built and shipped from China. That shipping delay turned Guitar Hero into the hardest game to find that Christmas season. They sold $45MM worth of Guitar Hero in the first 11-months and then they were acquired by Activision for north of $100MM.

I worked at Electronic Arts at the time, and a few years later I sat in a meeting with the head analyst who had looked at the Guitar Hero acquisition opportunity. He said at the time EA didn’t want to buy Red Octane at that price because there was no past data to support that Guitar Hero would continue to produce. They were wrong.

Over the next few years Guitar Hero went on to sell more than 30MM units and gross $5B in sales. It also completely transcended pop culture and the game became the world’s opportunity to finally be a rock star.

The Next Big Thing

When I spoke with Charles we were sitting in the Santa Clara office of his new startup Green Throttle Games, which TechCrunch announced earlier this month has raised $6MM in funding. Probably a little easier for Charles and Kai to raise funding this time around. The startup is appropriately a hardware gaming company trying to mesh with mobile. Green Throttle has released a console-like controller that allows you to seemlessly play your mobile games on your TV, effectively turning your mobile games into a console experience. See more on the controller in the video below.

When I asked him about having the energy to start all over again, he quoted some advice he got from the founder of LeapFrog when he told him, “Before you start think hard about this because you’re really signing up for the second and the third startup because if the second one goes under, you’re going to have to do a third just to prove that the first one wasn’t a fluke.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mat Morrison, Social Media Strategy Director with Starcom MediaVest Group. You can follow him on Twitter at @mediaczar or his blog.

Generally the social media marketing services industry is its own worst enemy. Time and again we think we’re turning a corner into being a useful productive part of our clients’ businesses, when some cluetard guru suddenly pops up from nowhere and queers the pitch.

“70 to 260 times as efficient”

A little background: I more or less spend my work and hobby time analysing social media data, so words like “analysis”, “research” and “data” are music to my ears. So imagine my joy when I first stumbled upon Kirk Cheyvitz’s post on Pando Daily, peppered as it is with references to data (6 mentions), research (5) and mathematical models (2). Together with some people at his agency, (writes Cheyvitz), he:

…created a mathematical model, drawing on recent research and our own experience, to directly compare the cost of delivering brand messages on TV versus Facebook […]
Since, oddly enough, such a model had not been built before, the finding probably bears repeating, so it can sink in: Not twice as efficient. Not four times. But somewhere between 70 and 260 times, depending on numerous variables. (my emphasis)

That’s the stuff to give the troops! Facebook advertising is 70 to 260 times as efficient as TV advertising? Pack your bags, TV advertising, it’s time to go home.

Sadly, as suggested by the post’s headline title (“Resistance is futile. Yet, they resist: How Madison Ave. wastes clients’ money by denying reality”), the marketing industry has cravenly, stupidly and blindly refused to accept and act on these findings (it’s worth noting in passing that in popular culture, at least, those who claim that “resistance is futile” are most often proved wrong.) Cheyvitz cites an ever-so-slightly-dry paper published last year in The Journal of Advertising Research titled The Power of Inertia, Conservatism in Marketing Resource Allocation which proves (in his words), that

Instead of investing ad budgets primarily in the media vehicles and tactics that work the best, managers spend too much on the ad vehicles that have always been the most popular with their pals and peers.

I read the article. It is quite probably the most thorough and well-constructed expression of the frustrated agency man’s cry, “blame the client!” – a cry that is as old as Sterling Cooper. Blaming the client (or a blind and craven marketing industry) is too often the frustrated evangelist’s get out clause. Does Cheyvitz hope to convert them by exposing their stupidity? That would seem to be a weak pitch strategy.

How did he come up with those numbers?

How did Cheyvitz come to those wonderful numbers in the first place? It’s hard to be sure, but he did helpfully publish his methodology in a post titled Ad Battle of the Century: Facebook crushes Primetime TV. It’s a long read, (and I don’t necessarily urge you to read it) but here are what seem to me to be the germane quotes (with my emphasis):

In the UK, using ITV’s “Coronation Street” as the baseline, TV CPMs are roughly 70 times more expensive than social media costs per thousand impressions.

And…

That 15p CPM compares to a £14.97 CPM on UK television (103 times more expensive) and £38.09 on primetime in the States (262 times more expensive).

It should be so obvious that I hesitate to point this out: one doesn’t really need much of a mathematical background to work out a CPM (for those of you who aren’t in the media world, that’s the “cost per thousand ad impressions”.) But all Cheyvitz ever needed to prove the greater efficiency of social media was to:

…directly compare the cost of delivering brand messages on TV versus Facebook

Social Media impressions cost less than TV impressions, Q.E.D. But that’s not really what Cheyvitz set out to prove, is it? On its own, a lower cost isn’t a valid definition of efficiency: efficiency would entail achieving an equivalent benefit for that lower cost. For any sensible advertiser, impressions are merely a means to an end, not the end in themselves. Some impressions are worth more than others for a reason; that’s part of the joy of the media world. Cheyvitz’s circular argument hasn’t really proved anything.

Weasel words

“The facts clearly show” states Cheyvitz, exhibiting all the fervour of a social media evangelist:

that shifting more advertising budgets to online social platforms could significantly reduce corporate marketing expenses while spreading advertising messages much more widely.

Let’s unpack that a little. “The facts clearly show” is a strong opening. Facts are good; you can’t argue with facts. “Significantly reduce corporate marketing expenses” is also good. But “could significantly reduce corporate marketing expenses”? That’s almost a text book use of “could” as a weasel word, allowing (as it does) its author to make what appears to be a strongly-phrased and meaningful promise – without actually having to commit to anything of any substance.

To be clear, could is nothing more than a statement of faith since it implicitly allows the counter proposition: or it could not without making any judgement as to which is more likely. To put it another way, the following two statements have equal truth value: Cheyvitz’s article could be the most important thing you read this year. Or it could be a load of crap he believes without proof.

The time has come to abandon the evangelists

Being charitable, Cheyvitz might just be a little bit crazy, rather than knowingly misleading. That being the case it’s unfair of Pando to parade his madness for the entertainment and amusement of the public. The days of public visiting at Bedlam are over. It’s time for social media to grow up.

Here’s an admission. In the early days of social media we needed evangelists. We needed people who could tell big exciting stories with big exciting numbers. That is – as every entrepreneur knows – how we sell promising new ideas: by promising big, and by relying heavily on words like “could” and ideas like “everyone else is a lazy, befuddled, herd-following epsilon-minus semi moron, but smart people like you and I share a higher truth.”

Those big numbers, steep curves, and that sense of exclusive insider knowledge are attractive to a very specific kind of buyer; the early adopter. And just as there are early adopter consumers, there are early adopter advertisers.

Those early adopters been fantastic at supporting, growing and defining the early days of our industry. I’d suggest that – for many of them, social media marketing has already become a profitable part of their business. The challenge we face now is how we introduce social media to the mainstream; to the heavy TV advertisers.

We don’t sell to the mainstream the way we sell to the early adopters. The mainstream is more resistant to the big number sell; what they want to hear is that social media is a real thing; a useful and productive business tool. They’re looking for something that’s reliable. And people who throw around big numbers and empty promises don’t make them think that social media is reliable.

To the mainstream marketer, evangelists are just scary crazy people who trade in faith, fine-sounding statements and poorly-sourced infographics. From time to time they may find some – like Kooky Kirk Cheyvitz – who pay lip service to data and ROI: but when they come to investigate them, their numbers and mathematical models collapse into tinsel and glitter.

Social Media needs to change its pitch

Social media needs to change its pitch. We need to persuade sensible grown ups with grown-up budgets that they can profit from investing in Social Media. That it plays an important role in the marketing mix, not that it’s a panacea, or a replacement for TV.

We need to distance ourselves from the crazy people and their crazy numbers now. We need to start taking our numbers seriously, not simply cadge them from the latest nicely put-together SlideShare presentation or infographic. We need to interrogate them, understand them, not simply repeat them like some kind of magic spells. Only then can we really stand behind them.

And – sadly – this means that we may have to turn our backs on those who seem to share our goals most enthusiastically. It’s no longer OK to turn a blind eye to their excesses and inflated numbers. We need to choose our friends more carefully these days, because sometimes with friends like Kooky Kirk, we’re just laying ourselves and our industry open to ridicule.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

TechStars NYC graduate Moveline is having a big day. The company’s mission to alleviate the struggle of moving your home just got that much sweeter, with the introduction of an iPhone app.

Moveline, if you haven’t heard yet, is a service that lets you take a video of your belongings or FaceTime with a Moveline consultant to take a detailed inventory of everything you own. This ensures that your moving rates, whether they come from DIY moving van companies or big-time dolly-wielding moving companies, are accurate the first time you get the quote.

For anyone who’s moved, you know how much of a relief it is to get through all of moving day without hearing “You didn’t tell me the stairs were this steep — that’ll be another $250 an hour.”

Moveline takes inventory of your stuff and not only sends that info to moving companies, but helps you decide which method is best, based on how much stuff you have and how much help you might have from friends, family, etc. They also let you know which items might be particularly expensive to move, like a fancy chandelier or heavy armoire.

The newly launched iPhone app lets you conduct all of this inventory recording from the comfort of your iPhone. You can either set up a FaceTime appointment, try to call in on FaceTime immediately, or shoot a video with room labels.

From there, Moveline will send you your inventory on the desktop dashboard. Founder Kelly Eidson explained that file transfer for mobile video has improved vastly from what it was, making mobile the most comfortable tool for shooting video and sharing it.

The addition of the mobile app is big for Moveline in terms of user acquisition, but perhaps even bigger will be their foray into in-bound NYC moves. Currently, Moveline only covers out-bound long-distance moves from NYC, and in-city moves. But the caravan of dreamers, artists, and future financiers that pack up their bags for the Big Apple each year could mean a huge spike in traffic for this disruptive new moving company.

Click to view slideshow.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I’m starting Bag Week off with two bags from one of my favorite manufacturers, Nomadic. This Japanese seller of quality bags makes their rucksacks out of rip-stop fabric and offers a certain stark, compact design that is as far from your typical JanSport as a kimono is from an Ed Hardy shirt.

Most of Nomadic’s bags are quite small and the the WT-18 Wise-Walker Toto is no exception. It is about 13 inches long and 11 inches wide but expands to snugly hold a 15-inch laptop. It has a side bottle pocket and a set of front pouches for phones, notebooks, and pens. A front padded pocket is perfect for smaller tablets and the entire bag expands to hold thicker books when necessary.

Designed as more of a tote than a messenger-style laptop bag, folks looking for something considerably smaller will definitely get a kick out of this. The build quality is excellent and the bag comes in beige, black, and gray with a light blue lining. It costs $90 but in my experience, Nomadics can take quite a beating and are worth the extra investment.

The second bag, the WL-25 Wise-Walker backpack aims more at the academic set. The $77 backpack comes in black, navy, and gray and has a large 17-inch main pocket and can hold a smaller laptop although they claim to fit up to 15-inchers in there.

The backpack is surprisingly strong and light and has a bright orange rip-stop lining. It has a set of pockets in a front zippered pouch for pens and notebooks and includes a long, springy keychain attachment.

Both of these bags are far lighter than most of us are used to and they’re quite small. If you’re looking for something more compact than the traditional tote or backpack and are OK with paying a bit more for quality, I’d highly recommend Nomadic. Folks who have a hard time finding smaller backpacks will definitely prefer these models even over similarly sized U.S. brands.

Nomadic is obviously a little pricier than most other bag manufacturers but I’m a fan of the quality and the sizing. Far too many bags are too big and sloppy to be of much use while walking or commuting by train or bike, which is why I definitely recommend looking at these two thin and light rucksacks.
Click to view slideshow.

Bag Week is our yearly celebration of laptop bags. Being that they are, for the most part, quite boring, we don’t find it odd that most folks settle for janky bags they get free with their laptops. Therefore we’ve created Bag Week, a service for you proud men and women of the laptop carrying world. We’ll be talking about a panoply of travel and back-to-school sacks and if you have a favorite you’d like featured, drop us a line at tips@techcrunch.com with the subject line BAG WEEK. You can read all of our bag week coverage here

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is currently an EIR with Javelin Venture Partners and has been a columnist at TechCrunch since January 2011. He hosts a weekly TCTV show In the Studio and will now begin a weekly Sunday column, Iterations. Follow him on Twitter @semil.

“In the Studio” opens its doors this week to an entrepreneur who once founded a nonprofit charter management organization for schools in California, spent a summer in management consulting, and eventually stumbled upon a case study experiment in school that gave rise to founding his current startup.

James Reinhart and I met a few years ago in school, and I remember him talking about his new business, inspired by an operations case on Netflix. Over the next few years, Reinhart and his co-founders founded a small company in Boston, raised angel funding, packed their bags for San Francisco, and went through a number of fascinating shifts in their business model and vertical focus before eventually stumbling into something potentially big. And, for a nice touch of symmetry, the company just announced the appointment of two former Netflix executives to the company’s roster, one to lead operations and the other to the board.

Reinhart is the CEO of thredUP, a site where parents can sell their kids’ used clothes using their dead-simple process and/or where parents can buy certified, pre-owned clothes directly from the company. thredUP went through a few fascinating iterations, initially starting out as a service to allow peer-to-peer swapping of clothes, but then they found the most activity was around children’s clothing; then after focusing on the kids’ clothing market, they realized they’d need massive scale in order to capture enough value from those P2P transactions. And, as a result, Reinhart and his team may have stumbled into a big idea as a result of their constant hunt for a larger problem and bigger market, specifically to help working-class families buy and sell assets that are frequently needed and normally expensive to acquire.

In this discussion, Reinhart dissects the thredUP’s trajectory and how he made the key decisions that has taken the company to where it is today, as well as other areas they could expand once the model is proven to have a chance to scale. He is remarkably honest in the video, reflecting on the choices he and his team made and learned from. This would be useful video for any founder focused on marketplaces and online-offline operations and logistics.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Online kids’ clothing consignment shop thredUP says its recent transition from online swap meet to clothing resale service has been working. When the company was originally founded back in 2009, the goal was to offer a platform where parents could trade boxes of used kids’ clothes directly with each other. But despite some steady but slow growth, thredUP made the shift into consignment this past March. Now parents send in clothes to the service, and receive credits to spend in the online shop. Since the change, thredUP reports 50% month-over-month growth, and says it’s now on track to sell over 100,000 items during back-to-school shopping season.

The company is also announcing the addition of a new executive, Chief Operations Officer John Voris, formerly VP of Operations Engineering at Netflix, and new board member Andy Rendich, former Chief Service and Operations Officer at Netflix.

Voris has spent over a decade on automation and process engineering at a number of companies, including also Shutterfly and Cisco. Says thredUP CEO James Reinhart,  Vorbis and Rendich are “incredible assets” who know what it takes to build “a world-class operations infrastructure on a national scale.”

“Just like Netflix, thredUP will have a massive online inventory,” Reinhart says, explaining how Vorbis will help the company scale. “This type of business brings unique challenges, and requires a sophisticated operations foundation. John has the experience we need to automate evaluation, itemization and distribution of used clothing, and move inventory quickly from home to home across the country.” He adds that all-around scale will continue to be a focus for the business, in addition to forthcoming improvements to search, merchandising, and personalized shopping.

Something that thredUP already has in common with Netflix is its ease-of-use. Parents don’t have to figure out the shipping for themselves – they just request a postage-paid bag in the mail. Currently, the bag is free, but the plan is to charge a $4.95 “bag deposit” which is fully refunded when the bag is returned. All you have to do is stuff the bag with all your kids’ clothes and send it back.

There are a few other stipulations to using the service, which, in my personal experience as a paying customer, weren’t overly troublesome. Clothes have to be in relatively good condition – that is, the same stuff you would try to consign, not dump at Goodwill. There are a few lower-priced brands which are rejected, as are underwear, socks and non-clothing items. I was kind of disappointed I couldn’t unload infant clothing on the service (under 12 months), but this is because demand is low, the company has found. Pricing for the clothes sold in the online store is competitive with brick-and-mortar consignment stores, and the clothes I’ve received  have been greatly above general hand-me-down quality.

In addition to the new hires and above growth numbers, Reinhart also shared a few other metrics related to its current status. There are now over 2,500 new items added to the site each day. Plus, they’re expecting this number to grow to 10,000 by year-end, and drive daily inventory turns to 5%, which is over 6x the pace of traditional retail, he says.

Curious as to traction, I asked about other numbers related to member count and inventory. While he declined to share registered users, he said that the site has just passed 110,000 visits in July, and they now have some 80,000 items in stock, 1,000 of which are sold daily. At any given time, only select items are featured when browsing the service – right now, for example, there are 42,000 items visible, he says. And currently, visitors can browse through clothes from roughly 5,000 different clothing brands at present.

Since the shift in business models in March, thredUP has received and processed 300,000 pieces of clothing and families are earning $20 to $40 per bag on average. (That’s fully stuffed, for what it’s worth – my bags have been much lighter, and worth less.) The company is also seeing 50% return rates on customer visits, which is promising.

ThredUP is available online and via mobile (which I’ve just happily discovered, despite the apps’ launch earlier this month.) ThredUP is backed by $8.62 million in funding from Trinity Ventures, Founder Collective, NextView Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, David Beisel, and others. The company has just opened a new 60,000 sq ft. distribution center in San Leandro, and is planning to expand again in 2013.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah (@semil) is currently an EIR with Javelin Venture Partners and has been an official contributor to TechCrunch since January 2011.

“In the Studio” this week features someone who has taken on early product roles at many of the web’s definition social networking companies in the Valley, honing his craft for the last decade before packing his bags for the journey to Sand Hill Road, where he and his colleagues invest in the types of companies he’s helped build.

Now an investor with Greylock Partners, Josh Elman’s LinkedIn profile reads like the resume of the times we live in. Somehow, Elman had the foresight to work in early product roles at companies like Zazzle and Real Networks before making the jump to LinkedIn, followed Facebook, and eventually Twitter. Through these experiences, Elman has amassed a rare level of expertise in the initial growth phases of social products across so many important web platforms. Now, as an investor, he’s looking for the next generation of foundational social companies.

In this short discussion, Elman discusses how he defines “growth” versus “virality” in social products (an important distinction), explains what he and his Greylock colleagues are looking for (startups that have the potential to be durable, high-growth companies), and why he wants to meet founders and product leaders who can “incept” their users, who can explain why, over time, their product can be truly meaningful parts of their users’ lives.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

When you’re a small team going to cover the biggest electronics show in the world, every person has to act as a Swiss Army knife, able to fill any role at any time. This generally produces an incredibly heavy bag, packed with spare cameras, lenses, batteries, cords, and of course a laptop. Luckily for us, our live-camera approach to covering the show takes a bit of that burden off of our sagging shoulders now, but old habits die hard and it’s good to be prepared just in case.

Aren’t you curious what’s filling your favorite bloggers’ bags to bursting? We’ve rounded up the items we’ll be taking to CES, arrayed them, and described them for your benefit. Take a look.

Matt Burns

If computer bags were living things, I would entrust the Ogio Hip Hop messenger bag with my kids and Netflix password. It’s that good and has been my loyal partner to countless tradeshows and events. It’s not a very large bag so it takes a bit of finagling to fit everything including a Late 2010 15-inch MacBook Pro and a Canon 60D that I rarely use. The Canon S95 is my go-to walkaround camera. However, I lug the 60D around for its telephoto lens and 1080p video mode. A Zoom H1 mic (and hot shoe mount) assists the 60D and also works great for impromptu interviews.

More often than not batteries die throughout the day. I use a Verizon iPad for web browsing and Twitter rather than firing up the Core i7 MBP for those simple tasks. Also, my grandmother-in-law gave me a solar powered USB battery pack last year. I think she got it from QVC. I never use the solar part, but I still love it. It features selectable voltage, a little flashlight and two USB ports for recharging gadgets. Best of all, it has a huge capacity and recharges over USB.

New this year is a Verizon SCH-LC11 4G Hotspot that will hopefully work deep within the Las Vegas Convention Center. I’ll also be sporting a WiMM One watch. This watch was clearly inspired by the iPad Nano. The screen is fantastic and designed to function as a watch first rather than a media device with a clock app. It’s also slightly smaller than an iPad nano, allowing it to fit a lot better on my girly wrists. Plus, it connects to your phone via Bluetooth for updates and features several apps including a pre-paid Starbucks card. It’s perfect for CES.

Lastly, lip balm and gum. Spending a week in Vegas without lip balm is akin to the Amazon with only one pair of socks.

Jordan Crook

Even though I’m the only female in the TechCrunch Gadgets crew, I’ll still likely be packing lighter than most of my male counterparts. This is partially because I don’t actually have that much stuff, and partially because I will be stealing their stuff throughout the course of the show.

What I do bring, however, will be coddled sweetly by the Chrome Krakow bag which I reviewed just a few months ago. It’s easy to get stuff in and out of this bag, which is pretty crucial at a place where you’re just walking.. and walking.. and walking..

Contents will include my trusty 13-inch MacBook Pro, a hand-me-down Olympus PEN EPL-1 micro four-thirds that was given to me by Biggs, a Sony Tablet S (review unit) for taking notes in any situation where I’ll be standing, and a bunch of phones.

My new iPhone 4S will, of course, be in my pocket where it belongs, but since mobile is predominantly my beat I like to have at least one model for each of our big three operating systems. That said, I’ll probably bring the LG Nitro HD to represent Android since I can use it as a hotspot and it’s quick like lightning (read: AT&T 4G LTE). On the Windows front, I’ll be sporting a Samsung Focus Flash because it’s small and comfortable.

The usual bevy of chargers and USB cords will of course be in tow, and I’ll likely be jacking Matt’s connection from his new Verizon SCH-LC11 4G Hotspot if the Nitro HD lets me down.

Last but certainly not least (and possibly most important) are my new Nike kicks, which will be just as crucial as the Krakow while I’m walking… and walking… and walking…

John Biggs

I try to carry a different bag every time I travel. This one is called the Powerbag Instant Messenger and it has a little battery in it for charging gadgets. There is an iPhone cable and a USB jack. I always run out of juice half way through the day at these shows so I’m bringing this bag, another external battery that I usually connect to my phone and carry in my pocket during the second half of the day, and a huge laptop back-up battery, not shown.

I also have a 60D there with a 50mm lens, a macro zoom, and a huge lens we rented from LensRentals.com. It’s a 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS and it weighs 3 pounds.

Those cables are a collection I’ve gathered over the years. I always bring an external Ethernet jack for the MacBook Air (also not pictured) and an Ethernet cable. I have two Micro USB cables, an iPad/iPhone cable, and a few small chargers. I also have a nice mic in that little black bag there as well as a lav mic for recording in a pinch. Those batteries are in there for no good reason – I have nothing that uses them, but I bought them once and they transfer from bag to bag with me.

I’ve also got my Bose headphones there. I know there are better ones out there but these last a long time, are very comfortable over long periods, and I’m just used to them. I have a Droid Global in there, a Google Nexus, and a Lumia 710. I also have a paper magazine because I hate not having anything to do during take-off and landing. I always make sure to have “No Surprises” by Radiohead on my phone. It’s a talismanic song I that I play when we cross the Rockies and it gets turbulent.

Chris Velazco

I always make it a point to travel light, but considering this is my first CES, I wanted to make sure all of my bases were covered.

These days I use the Ohio Squadron RSS backpack, which I first starting playing with during Bag Week. I’m still not entirely sold on the white/gold color scheme, but my inner pack rat loves all the space it affords me.

I’ll be carrying my usual load, which consists of my work-issue 15-inch MacBook Pro for all the heavy lifting and my AT&T iPad 2 for everything else. As one of the team’s resident mobile nerds, I bring my iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus everywhere, but that’s not all I’ve got for connectivity. I’ve also got mobile hotspots from AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, just to be safe.

Of course since I’m an idiot, I forgot to take a few things out ofthe bag before I took the picture. You’ll just have to take me at my word when I say there’s a Ziploc bag full of USB cables and AC adapters tucked away in there, along with a Logitech M705 Marathon Mouse. Also not pictured is my go-to camera, the Panasonic GF2, for possibly obvious reasons.

And of course, who could forget the miscellaneous bits: a tin of Altoids (for the inevitable coffee breath), a tube of Burt’s Bees for my fragile lips, and a sketchbook for quick notes. Now all I need is to remember to bring the bag with me as I walk out the door, and I should be all set.

Devin Coldewey

I’m traveling light this year. Normally I’d bring a spare camera, two other lenses, and probably at least two video cameras just in case, plus a hard drive for photo storage. But with our focus on live video (which we’ll also be recording and snipping up), all that stuff isn’t quite as necessary.

So I’ve got my old Canon XSi (due for replacement, either with a T3i or X-Pro1) with the excellent 35mm f/2 on there, great for product shots though a little narrow for environments. We rented a nice fat zoom for press conferences, but I’m not carrying that thing around unless absolutely necessary. I’ll also be testing out a Panasonic GX-1 at the show (review afterwards), which will serve as a spare video device.

There’s a MacBook Air fully loaded, with plenty of space on its SSD for photos, so an external drive wasn’t necessary. Besides, that orange USB stick is 64 gigs. The silver one is waterproof, and so is my phone, in case I fall into the canals at the Venetian. I’m bringing a DS with the latest Layton in it and a nice light SF novel for the plane and down times. Then a pen a notebook from Muji for the occasional scribble. And a switchblade for the snitches. All this will go in the spacious and gadget-oriented Booq Mamba Shift.

Clearing up luggage space means I can also bring a little Seattle to Vegas, in the form of some decent coffee. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the truth is that the coffee in Vegas isn’t very good, and a damn fine cup in the morning is a great way to start the day. So I’m bringing my Porlex hand burr grinder, a single-serving french press, and a freshly-roasted batch of Cafe Ladro’s darkest. You can come to my room and have some, but the only payment I take is trade secrets.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch