Inside two innovative San Francisco area startups that are seeing sizeable success

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It’s not every week that I get an inside look into two companies that are absolutely nailing it, both with real results and with PR and awards.

But these two companies are why I travel so much and like visiting the companies themselves (I think I’m the only tech blogger who actually VISITS most of the tech companies they cover). Why? Because you can see a lot more about how people work together and what the culture is like better if you actually visit than if you just do interviews over Skype or something like that.

These two companies impress from all angles and are evidence of some new trends in startups:

1. Companies are springing up that sell access to APIs. Twilio, SimpleGeo, and others (Twitter makes a good chunk of its revenue by selling access to its firehose feed, too).
2. A new raft of enterprise-focused companies are finding major revenue sources around how social media is changing business. Spigit joins a bunch, from Jive, Yammer, Salesforce Chatter, Box.net, etc.

What I like about both of these companies is that they have a business model from the start!

Anyway, enjoy this inside look.

Spigit (they help companies get more interactive, engaged, and innovative):

Twilio (they help companies build new kinds of telephony-based experiences):

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Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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5 thoughts on “Inside two innovative San Francisco area startups that are seeing sizeable success”

  1. regarding Twilio, just the concept of empowering users *who are NOT developers* to develop prototype applications, in a true professional toolset (so that pro devs can extend it later) always gets me excited.  I know very little about telephony, despite having grown up in a 2-generation PT&T household, but I still could get passionate about working somewhere to empower users in that way.  In my opinion that should always be the #1 job of devs like myself – empower the regular folks.

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  2. regarding Twilio, just the concept of empowering users *who are NOT developers* to develop prototype applications, in a true professional toolset (so that pro devs can extend it later) always gets me excited.  I know very little about telephony, despite having grown up in a 2-generation PT&T household, but I still could get passionate about working somewhere to empower users in that way.  In my opinion that should always be the #1 job of devs like myself – empower the regular folks.

    Like

  5. Thanks for the Spigit shout out, Robert.

    Spigit has been experiencing tremendous growth over the past year. In addition to welcoming a number of industry-leading Fortune 1000 customers, Spigit added two new products to its social business suite: SpigitEngage for SharePoint® and SpigitEngage
    for Facebook®, both of which have significantly enhanced the company’s
    market presence.

    Spigit also received an additional $10M in funding
    from Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm, and was
    recognized for a number of prestigious awards including, Network Products Guide’s 2011 best “Social Media and Entertainment, Networking or Collaboration Solution” against Salesforce.com’s Chatter platform, JMP Securities’
    list of “Hot 100: The Best Privately Held Software Companies” and CIO’s
    list of “Twenty Companies to Watch In 2011”.

    With a lot more exciting news and announcements to come, stay tuned at http://www.spigit.com

    Thanks!

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