Moodfish

Focus:

‍Everything but the software dev.

Overview:

Ever ask someone “what’re you in the mood for?” Ever try to Google something like “mellow things to do in Austin?” How about “where to go for a hot sweaty dance night in Austin”. We did, our friends did, and surprisingly many of our friends of friends did as well. So we did what seemed normal and built a search engine that organize live-entertainment options (live music, movies, theatre, sports, restaurants, etc..) by the mood those events evoked.

• We began with top ten lists to test our algorithms.
• We migrated to mood recipes, top combination of moods identified by our algorithms.
• We opened up local search to any combination of 7 moods: sunny, sensual, mellow, melancholy, energetic, intense and quirky. (Surprisingly, the combination of any these moods leads you to 95% of any emotional experience you’ll have. The other 5% was visceral hate, but we didn’t think it would make sense to let people search for that mood.)

We ran the company for nearly five years. We raised multiple rounds of seed funding. We won a lot of awards and hackathons. But at the end, I didn’t have the best idea on what it takes to build a business that makes money vs. a business that people enjoy using. Those two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but I also believe this was a tremendous learning experience for me.

Outside of the incredible amounts of awesome swag we designed, my greatest joy in this endeavor came down to the following:

• Working with incredibly talented engineers, designers and developers
• Testing our algorithms 3-4 times a week by attending said live entertainment experiences
• Learning what it takes to operate a tech startup from the ground up.

I still have tons of moodfish stickers, so if you want a piece of nostalgia, let me know.

Additional Links & Info

• https://theamericangenius.com/cities/austin/moodfish-decision-engine-for-dining-entertainment-and-more-all-based-on-your-mood/
• http://seobrien.com/sxsw-11-panel-to-watch-left-brain-search-google-right-brain-search-x
• https://3daystartup.org/blog/2011/11/04/3-day-startup-alumni-spotlight-nikhil-daftary-of-moodfish-com/
• http://tech.co/moodfish-your-personal-mood-based-event-calendar-2010-10/howto

Focus:

• Product strategy
• Product marketing
• Product roadmap
• Business development
• Partner strategy development
• Community management (events / local communities)
• Team acquisition & team development

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