A lot of folks have been asking what I’m up to and, especially for the last few weeks, I’ve been more vague than usual about things. There were good reasons, but today I’m happy to let everyone know some more details on where I’m at and what I’m up to.
My original plan was to build and launch a travel-related site that my cousin had come up with. In essence, I would’ve been my first customer. I wanted to do that to build some credibility and to have the experience of building a scalable web site up without Disney’s infrastructure and with modern open source tools (Rails, Struts 2, etc.).
The idea was good and it looked like it would be easy (or as easy as these things could be) to launch and gain traffic. Unfortunately, the idea was so good that others had thought of it (always a good sign) and at least one iteration had already raised money (not so good for me). In fact, of all of the related startups, TripIt was probably the closest to the same idea, and that was pretty crushing. I was behind these guys and a solo developer on a new technology stack (Rails). It did not feel good.
Around the same time I was reaching out to former friends and colleagues to build out the FrequentMod end of the business. One of those leads worked out. Short version, I’ve recently joined Fanzter Inc., a local CT startup co-founded by a former colleague, Aaron. I can’t say much about what we’re building (more on that some day soon), but the idea for the first product is deceptively simple and powerful. We’re hoping to launch in September.
I said when I left ESPN that sometimes you just have to take the first step off the safe ledge before the opportunities present themselves. This is one of those serendipitous things. Had I not left ESPN, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be here. Even better, Fanzter got their funding (and ability to hire me) right around the TripIt beta announcement. Timing, as they say, is everything.
On top of that, I had been working on a similar idea as one of my test/learn Rails and Symfony projects, and so I am coming into Fanzter with both a good understanding of where they’re going and what they’re trying to accomplish. To borrow a Disney phrase, there’s a lot of synergy here. 
I won’t be blogging about the company much here. I’ll most likely be blogging about this at the Fanzter company blog. I’m excited to be working on this, and you should definitely sign up for the newsletter at Fanzter.com.
PS. To those of you who have reached out to me via LinkedIn or through email about FrequentMod, Fanzter is going to be my sole focus. I won’t be taking on additional clients or work until further notice.
