The Idea

In April 2009 I left Corporate America and started on a new entrepreneur adventure in small business. I had an idea on combining a user’s social media data to deliver real-time personalized advertising to online customers. The idea had great interest and secured some generous investors.

The Results

Office in Pacific Beach, #210

In May 2009 I started Ideablue Networks LLC, a small business dedicated to support the development of SocialSimple, the product. I was fortunate enough to hire some TOP TALENT people that I knew well and we opened up our office in Pacific Beach, just two blocks from the ocean. Our conference room was a trendy coffee shop right below us.

After several months worth of hard work we had a finished backend product that thoroughly analyzed a user’s social media data from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Friendster, Flicker, TwitPic, Meetup, LinkedIn and many other social networking websites. SocialSimple collected a user’s profile data, history, media, and trends to generate 30+ personalized tags that helped define that user an an individuals.

Mary showcasing SocialSimple at Twiistup 5

When we showcased SocialSimple to advertisers, we were overwhelmed with positive feedback, interests of partnerships, and licensing. In August 2009, the SocialSimple technology was acquired by a California based marketing company which will be used in some exciting new user profiling applications, including iPhone applications. Due to the acquisition being recent, specific details are currently undisclosed. We’ll keep everyone updated.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

The members of the SocialSimple team that I will FOREVER be deeply grateful to and could not say Thank You enough are Lee Waterman, Ori Guttin, Jimmy Lozowsky, Erica Negretti, Tanya Milhaud, Mary Salvatera, and Colleen McPhillips. Everyone had an equal and important role in the development and planning of SocialSimple.

The SocialSimple Team

Johnny Negretti (me) – Engineering, Business Development

Lee Waterman – Engineering

Ori Guttin – Product Development

Jimmy Lozowsky – Product Development

Erica Negretti – Operations

Mary Salvatera – Creative, Business Development

Tanya Milhaud – Marketing

Colleen McPhillips – Project Management

Johnny, Tanya, and Lee at a Mixergy Lunch 2.0 in Hollywood, CA (August 2008)

Also, Thank You to those who I bounced many ideas off of including Johan Viberg, Marzena Kmiecik, Andrew Warner, Greg Wasmuth, Scott Berg, Tyler Stample, Gavenraj Sodhi, Alex Carrillo, and the CEO & Founders Lunch group.

Being a Founder (and CEO) of a small business technology startup was such a growth experience in my professional career and in my personal life which I will be blogging much about.

Please check back or subscribe to my blog for more insightful postings yet to come.

Johnny hard at work

Many THANK YOUs to everyone who supported SocialSimple with their encouragement, advice, and most importantly, their belief in our product. We could not have done it with you!

Sincerely,

Johnny Negretti
CEO, Ideablue Networks

Here is the presentation (w/ too much text) I pitched to TechCrunch 50.

Here is a little tour video of our office in Pacific Beach

Related

• SocialSimple.com Sponsors Twiistup 5 (blog post)
• Ideablue Pacific Beach Office photos (on Facebook)
• Ideablue North County Office photos (on Facebook)
• SocialSimple Sponsors Twiistup 5 photos (on Flickr)
• Lunch 2.0 in Hollywood photos (on Flickr)