Pixmac Founder Interview

Founded in September 2008, Pixmac is a fast-growing microstock site with a database of more than 10 million photos available for sale. The small team is based in Prague led by founder Vita Valka, a designer turned tech entrepreneur. Besides their flagship site, Pixmac also recently launched a stock photo site for people as well as vector illustrations. I had the chance to ask Vita a few questions about running his company…
Why did you start Pixmac?
There was a huge opportunity in the market. Traditional stock photos were declining, microstock was a rising star. I’m a designer and I was using sites like Pixmac for years. That was a great challenge for me.

Can you give me a brief overview of where the firm is today?
Pixmac is one of the Top 10 agencies in microstock worldwide. We have the best technology inside and we still refine it again and again to [...]

Spain Goes Groupon Crazy: 12 Sites To Find Daily Deals

I’m not much of a coupon guy nor have I tried Groupon yet. But the group-buying craze has entered Spain with a vengeance and it’s hard not to pay attention. It seems like every other month there is a new site that pops up but the game is still wide open and still too early to declare a clear winner.
For us consumers it could be considered good news because there are plenty of opportunities to find a deal if you know where to look. The compiled list below are 10 worthy sites that offer quality deals for major cities in Spain. Do you know of any other sites that offer deals in Spain? Add them in the comments!
1.) Groupon (CityDeal)

2.) Groupalia

3.) BuyTheFace

4.) Reduti

5.) Colectivia

6.) Offerum

7.) Ofertius

8.) LetsBonus

9.) Cuponing

10.) Groupola

11.) Amitad

12.) CholloCity

3 Promising Startups Emerge from Startup 2.0

Another edition of the Startup 2.0 event (part of the Nonick conference) wrapped up in Bilbao a few days ago and three startups proved to be more worthy than others.
The winners, from top to bottom, include:

Paris-based SubMate is a “social commuting” site that helps people discover and meet people with similar interests that share the same commute on the subway. The site is currently available for Paris, London and New York. I give it a year before it morphs into a dating site…

Minube is a spanish social travel network (aren’t there already a lot of these?). With Minube, users can plan their trips, compare flights and hotels and share travel experiences.

Another Spanish-based startup, Askaro, is an information exchange site that lets users ask and answer questions related to specific geographic areas (cities, neighborhoods, etc.). I’d love to see a mobile app for this — could be extremely handy.

Hey Gary Vaynerchuk, It’s Just Not That Easy

I like Gary Vaynerchuk and give the guy a ton of credit. He’s full of energy, very passionate and good at inspiring people to get off their ass and do something. But (and a BIG but) I have to be critical because what he preaches is seldom reality for most people and usually just doesn’t work.
His story is something like this: 1) Follow your passion 2) Build a business around it 3) Cash in. To this, he adds stuff like “look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself ‘what do I want to do every day for the rest of my life?’… do that. I promise you can monetize that shit” Well, guess what? That shit doesn’t usually work.
I completely support the notion of following your passion (in anything you do in life). But building a business around it and, more importantly, trying to cash in is not [...]

Grooveshark Gets New Redesign, Improved Features

Grooveshark just made a major update to their site and I’m loving everything about it. The user interface was always a strong point but they actually managed to improve it while maintaining their slick look and feel, and include some new functionalities.
The site now claims over 1 million registered users and continues to grow as they give Spotify a run for their money. Of course like many other music sites, they have a big challenges to deal with including licensing issues and the ability to effectively monetize their userbase (which pales in comparison).
If you still haven’t used it, Grooveshark is a simple music search engine that scans a repository of over seven million songs online and lets you listen for free. You can search by song name, artist, album or playlists that have been created by users.
Some of the new features that stand out:

Revamped UI with a simple list view [...]

Play.fm: for those who love DJ sets

There´s nothing new about online DJ sets but the guys at play.fm have pulled off a killer online music site.  Robin Wauters recently wrote a post about the reemergence of the site and, yes, it does impress. Based out of Vienna, Austria (my birthplace!), play.fm aims to be a hub for DJ studio mixes, radio sessions and event recordings and currently includes a database of more than 12,000 recordings.
I like this site for a few reasons, most notably:
1) It´s free – you can stream hours of music without interruption at no cost (woot!)
2) Beautiful interface – spanking clean interface  and super easy to navigate around the site. the player is just as lovely.
3) Track IDs – ever hear a great track during a set and have no idea what the hell it is? now you can try and find out with the help of community members.
4) Buy stuff you like [...]

Innovate! Europe 2009 – Round Up

I had a chance to stop by Innovate! Europe in Zaragoza yesterday for the presentations of the top 10 Master Class Finalists.  Lots of solid projects presented with varying focus… everything from web-based “passion” games to enterprise email and collaboration solutions.
Congratulations to all of the participants, in particular, NomaDesk who was recognized as the 2009 winner.
The 10 finalists included:
eBox – platform for managing corporate networks
Proactum – open source enterprise applications
Owlient – online passion games
JobiJoba – job search engine
Nomadesk – virtual file server
Climpact – climate business intelligence solution
Local Data Company – detailed retail data
Calinda – email collaboration and project management software
Arimaz – interactive toy applications
MyPrinting – personalized photo products

Europe's Top Startups: Startup 2.0 Finalists Announced

Europe’s top 11 10 internet startups have been announced for the 2009 Startup 2.0 event.  The finalists will present their projects on Friday April 24 in Bilbao, as part of the Nonick conference.  The line-up looks something like this:
CampusMovil, a home desktop
Colnect, a collectors community
Genoom, a family tree network
Gli Affidabili , a yelp-like services 2.0 guide
HelloTxt, a social networks and microblogging aggregator
Koinup, a virtual world
Mobnotes, a geo-aware social utility
SocialWhale, a twitter utility
Trourist, a social network for travellers
Twidox, a document finding and sharing website
Yoolinkpro, a SaaS collaborative intelligence solution for companies
*disclaimer: I work for Genoom

Will Barcelona be the "Palo Alto of The Mediterranean"?

I popped over to ifest 2008 the other day and sat in on a few interesting talks regarding business and innovation and the entrepreneurial scene in Europe. Both Herve Lebret and Nick Leon touched on the theme of innovation within societies and contrasted the U.S. (primarily Silicon Valley and Boston) with Europe, and tried to draw some conclusions why Europe always seems to be one step behind. Herve’s presentation went into this theme in great detail and he has also published a book on this subject (Herve, when do I get a copy?).
Nick’s talk also touched on this as he asserted that a city needs an ecosystem of innovation to align the talents and resources they have in order to build a successful innovation juggernaut (like SF and Beantown). To this end, he made a point that Barcelona could very well be positioned to be the next great city of [...]