> Lesson: You can achieve a lot with just a few people and a little money<p>... if your rent/insurance etc. is magically paid for you by a fairy for the whole duration of your startup's early stage. Easy! If you don't get the lesson, read it again: <i>You can achieve a lot with just a few people and a little money.</i><p>People seem to dismiss this factor too easily and assume that anyone can become an entrepreneur the moment they decide to become an entrepreneur. No, it's not that easy for the majority of people.
And 10 years later, sharing stuff with people nearby still kinda sucks.<p>1. Instant Messaging Apps work for photos and contacts, but it's stupid that you need to transfer things via cloud (makes everything hellish slow when the network isn't fast)<p>2. Airdrop works only between Apple Devices, and when the stars are aligned just right. Other devices might appear, or they might not. If it works, it's fast.<p>3. USB drives are still the easiest way to share anything between computers. (SMB / AFS / NFS / SCP / rsync are all annoying to set up and always seem to fail for hard to debug reasons)<p>I think the opportunity for something like Bump is still there, but it seems that most people just don't care enough about the inconvenience....
Seems like the graveyard of a lot of those '06 - '08 dreams.<p>Imagine all the things we can do with these new iphones, and so cheaply too! -> no that world didn't happen -> working for the BIG 4.
Passed out at the office from pushing too hard... took a weekend off. I could never find that kind of drive to pursue a commercial endeavour.<p>Cure cancer? Maybe. Build a cute app? No thanks
“I might find an iPhone veteran...”.<p>This was an email chain in October 2008? The iPhone had only been out for a little over a year, the official SDK for 8 months, and the store for 3 months.
huh, I was just wondering what happened to bump the other day when I was asked for a business card and contact info. Had no idea this is how the story played out.
Huh. I always thought bump had turned into the Android feature called "nearby". Had no idea Google photos was what came out of the bump acquisition.
I remember Bump from their early days 2009 / 2010, they were demo-ing at either SFBeta or SFNewTech (don't remember which, I used to work with the organizers of both events back then).<p>It was pitched as a Business Card / Contact info exchange app back then and I do remember getting a demo of it where 2 guys bumped their phones to exchange professional contact info. I thought it was funny, didn't think I'd use it.<p>Interesting how their story played out. Looks like the Google acquisition was more of an acqui-hire and less for IP...<p>EDIT 1: Found a demo video from 2011 - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUOpFuOP6_k" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUOpFuOP6_k</a><p>EDIT 2: Another video from the founder in 2010. <a href="https://youtu.be/2Ir2bg253ag?t=7" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/2Ir2bg253ag?t=7</a>
Bump was always pretty much a joke. It's amazing that these guys saw decent success without really contributing anything of value to anyone. Also, how do you work so hard you collapse when you really aren't doing anything?