Everybody Helps

CrossLoop is "Walted" Way Waaaay Up Globally

As I type this I know its all happening but every other moment, I go Really? 

So here is what happened to all of us today - Walt Mossberg (below with Steve Jobs), the Personal Technology Columnist of The Wall Street Journal, reviewed the CrossLoop software and Marketplace of Helpers. It was an extremely detailed, very well written and objective review - it shouldn't surprise us since Walt is know for exactly that for the many many years he has been reviewing technology products.

The entry on him on Wikipedia says "Walt Mossberg is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers on information technology. In 2004, in a lengthy profile, Wired called him "The Kingmaker", saying "[f]ew reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry's successes and failures"".
He was also named as one of the 100 most powerful/influential people in the world by Vanity Fair for 2008!

He is the highest authority, in my opinion, in terms of technology and the most trusted brand.

Walt's stamp of recognition is going to do wonders for all us. This also means we are now going to be discovered amongst millions!

The Wall Street Journal has the second highest circulation in the US with over 2Million readers

• Online, they have 17M unique visitors a month 
• They have the most number of online paid subscribers - over 1M 
• They are one of only 2 newspapers in print actually growing  
• Here is an in-depth segmentation of their audience  
• If you want to read Walt's past columns, they are all here for free 

So here all the coverage we received today:

• In Print and online today: "With CrossLoop, Users Can Get Help from Techie Friend". This article is currently right in front on the homepage of the "Tech" tab!
• His personal video review of CrossLoop below (link here)

• Walt discusses CrossLoop on Fox Business News below (link here):   

I dont think we all at CrossLoop can thank him enough for this opportunity but nevertheless, a HUGE..No, HUMONGOUS, Thank you from all of us to Walt!

I also want to take this moment to thank the CrossLoop Helper who provided Walt with such a great experience - the prompt response, the permission-based approach to solving problems mentioned by Walt and of course, the expertise to solve the problem. It made a big difference. 

Note that one never knows the significance of the next customer so the best we can all do is treat everyone in the best possible manner!  

I need some more time to digest what just happened so rest assured another post coming soon on this milestone real soon...on a blog near you!

A VERY Good Afternoon and Good Luck!

CrossLoop Funding Wrap Up

About a little over 48 hours after our Series B funding announcement, here is the exciting and very positive feedback we received about our story through all these outlets that covered us. Impossible to list them all in this post so the following are a few examples, a collage and a location to read them all.

"Rise of the Machines takes hold"

 CrossLoop Raises $6M Series B

 

CrossLoop Announces $6M Series B Venture Capital Funding

Tech Support company CrossLoop Closes $6M Series B Round

 

Online Computer Help company CrossLoop Gets $6M

CrossLoop gets $6M for Peer based Tech Support

CrossLoop Offers Crowdsourced IT Help

 

CrossLoop Raises $6M for Development of its Elegant Marketplace

Here is a collage of some more and I have added a PhotoStream on the sidebar on the left. 

 

All the articles are here

On behalf of everyone at CrossLoop, we thank all the reporters, bloggers and media professionals who stopped to listen to our story and then helped us tell it! Oh - and I don't want to forget my father, my mother, my brother, my cats Romeo and Cleo without whom all this would.....

Signing off on my 100th post (!!) - Good Afternoon and Good Luck!

CrossLoop Raises $6M to further Lower the Bar for Computer Support and Training

We started our journey with a desktop screen sharing software to help and get help on one's computer. It became immensely popular because it was:

- free and

- worked and

- was grandma-friendly

With the mission of enabling anyone to get help on anything, easily, immediately and cost effectively, we then began to complement our technology with people who can help, who want to help and who like to help. We embarked on this phase in December along with El Dorado last year with our Series A funding announcement. The fundamental notion was to provide all that was necessary to get computer help - technology and people who cared about the Customer.

The next phase of our journey came when we opened up our Helpers, over 5,000, to everyone in April.

Now we have over 11,500 Helpers signed up on our Marketplace - the largest one-stop shop in the world for all computer tech support and training needs!

Now we get to celebrate another big milestone as a small company - we are proud to announce our Series B venture financing of $6M led by Venrock along with El Dorado!

We welcome Rich Moran from Venrock to our Board. Apart from authoring the best seller Nuts, Bolts and Jolts (his 6th book), Rich has appeared on NPR, in Fast Company and he also writes a personal blog here. 

First and foremost, we recognize that our CrossLoop Helpers and consequently us, are first in the people business. Rich brings a rich background with expertise on organizational effectiveness and social science and very very importantly - he does it with humor. We love that since we are all about being a FUNomenal company!


Along with Rich, we are also very excited to welcome Andre Haddad, the CEO of Shopping.com (an eBay company) to our board! His Bio is here.
 
From an experience perspective, we are a marketplace where we want Customers to find the most relevant Helpers for their needs. Andre's rich entrepreneurial and international experience through iBazar (a leading European marketplace, which he co-founded and eBay acquired in 2001 for $140M) and eBay, brings tremendous knowledge and experience to all of us since we have Helpers in over 130 countries and total users in over 190 of them!  

Both Rich and Andre bring a lot of deep and relevant professional experience to us and we all at CrossLoop look forward to working with them closely and bringing their best to all our users.

Finally - a little trivia which makes this a very exciting milestone for me personally.
I started my career by selling enterprise CAD/CAM software on SGI boxes in India. One of those that I sold a lot of was a software called I-DEAS from a company called SDRC - Venrock was an investor in SDRC! 

Our official press release is here

Good Afternoon and Good Luck!

Random CrossLoop Sighting in the Swiss Alps!

I am sure many of you know Dmitry – I’m sure that if you’re reading this blog you have at least exchanged a few emails with him at some point. Dmitry spent a good part of this past summer in Switzerland.  A truly unique story happened to him in the middle of Geneva which we wanted to share with you. I’ll pass the “keyboard” over to Dmitry to have him tell you himself…

Hey all! Dmitry at keyboard… back in U.S. and loooving it! I have just finished telling the story to the team, and was very much excited to share it with all of our fellow crossloopers!

Grocery stores in Geneva close very early – usually around 6pm. So all grocery shopping needs to be done either before work in the morning or right after work. One of the days I was standing in line at a grocery store to check out, and happened to notice a random guy in front of me with a “Think Geek” T-shirt. “Very interesting” I thought… My French is practically non-existent,  I started a conversation with him by a casual: “Se va?” (How are you?). He spoke english, we started chatting – turns out he is in IT industry, moved to Geneva from Canada, and has been a HUGE Crossloop supporter for close to 1.5 years now! He was beyond excited to meet me of course, he has told me that he has been trying to spread the word in Switzerland amongst his buddies, but “screen sharing” is not as popular there right now. He uses Crossloop to make some money on the side currently, but mostly just helps his family and friends. Imagine, meeting a random stranger at a supermarket, in the middle of Geneva, who happens to be a die hard fanatic of Crossloop and has been trying to promote us! Gave me that warm feeling inside that we must be doing something right!

To finish the story – a few weeks later, I was talking to building IT managers at the foyer (dorm) I was staying at in Geneva.  What do you think – yes they use Crossloop as well to do troubleshooting of the network issues! I was so truly amazed by these two encounters this summer that I absolutely HAD to share it with all you fellow crossloopers!

Signing off here, and passing the keyboard to Mrinal to do the finishing touches on the post… Good afternooooon & (mrinal take over now)

The alps was to create a dramatic imagination for a very small and big incident - a classic where the adrenaline rush is at one of the highest for us. We are a small company and in a world of about 6B people (and 2B personal computers) what is the probability of adventitiously meeting not one across the Atlantic, but two who already know your company and product.

Stories like these drive us everyday and Dmitry's definitely made for a fantastic summer for us - we had to share this with all of you. Thank you all for doing what you do to support us.

Does he get another trip to Switzerland to collect more such stories? uh no - I think we need diversity and a different perspective so I am going to try.

Good Luck!

'Bolt' with us at CrossLoop - Hiring Presentation Lead

We are seeking a passionate person for the following role so if you like to make a difference, challenge conventional wisdom and explore a FUNomenal opportunity, read on:

Presentation Lead

As the lead web presentation engineer, you will own and drive the presentation layer of our website (http://www.crossloop.com). You will take hard problems and make them look breathlessly easy to our customers. And you’ll have a lot of fun doing all this.

With over a million users, CrossLoop is a well-funded, venture-backed consumer, Internet company that is fundamentally changing the way people get help on their computers. We’re tearing down this unfriendly, fragmented, and inefficient market and replacing it with something that makes it a breeze to get your computer fixed no matter where you are. At the same time, we’re allowing people all over the world to help others and turn their knowledge into cash. Primary Responsibilities

You will be responsible for the front-end development of the website. You’ll work on innovative transaction systems, clever social applications, and some very compelling distribution widgets. You will work with the engineering and product teams to own and drive a frequent and predictable website update process. You will create and have ownership for rapid deployment environments and you must provide guidance and leadership in this area. You will contribute significantly on your own, and you’ll also grow and manage a team of presentation engineers. This position is based in the San Jose / Campbell area, with a need to visit Monterey at least once a week - and oh....you get to have meetings with Tom running on this trail. You are of course welcome to take a golf cart or a bike since Tom is known for 80+ marathons!

Requirements:

Qualified candidates will have the following background:

• BSCS or related field
• 7+ years experience in website development and/or application development
• Complete mastery of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, and Flash.
• Experience creating cross-browser compatibility strategies
• Experience with building internationalized and multi-lingual websites
• Experience in developing and working in rapid web deployment environments
• Prior management experience desired
• Strong design aesthetic, sense and grounding. We would like to see samples of your work
• Previous focus on building high-quality products
• Ability to work productively with minimal supervision and in a distributed environment

• Should be able to hold conversations during the course of a marathon .... just kiddin ... only Tom runs and we are all striving hard at the start mark right now

Hope to empower millions along with you so write to us at jobs at crossloop dot com

Good Afternoon and Good Luck!