clipDO
- Title: CoFounder
- Website: http://clipdo.com
Company
clipDO was a startup designed to provide an easy way to clip and save content from the web, as well as a social platform for discussing that content.
Team
I was the technical co-founder of clipDO, where I architected the site and developed key functionalities. Additionally, I hired and led a team of two developers.
Challenge
The project had 2 main aspects:
The MVP focused on sending content to your Kindle. We developed an API that scraped the provided website, extracted the content as simplified HTML, added a cover page, and sent it to your Kindle. Additionally, we created Chrome and Firefox browser extensions, as well as a bookmarklet for mobile use.
We employed a hybrid model that combined elements of Twitter’s public commentary and Facebook’s friend group commentary. Users could discover content that others had sent to their Kindle (if permitted) and engage in discussions by commenting on the content.
Results
The MVP worked well and was well-received by users. We generated some advertising revenue from ads on the clips. However, Amazon began improving their toolkit, making it much easier to transfer content to the Kindle. Additionally, the social media aspect struggled to gain traction, and we were unable to market it cost-effectively.
We decided to close the company after one year of operation.