Author Archive for Joseph Colosimo

Mozilla Firefox – Blake Ross

Posted by Joseph Colosimo 
· Tuesday, December 10th, 2019 
· 6 Comments

Born in 1985, Blake Ross was the son of a psychologist and lawyer.  He had a great upbringing and took an interest in software development.  He continued down this road and graduated from Stanford in 2003.  He completed his first project which was a website at the young age of 10 and continued on to create small video games.  Blake started working for Mozilla after college and had the idea of making a user-friendly web browser.  He began working on this idea with a co-worker, and they released the first version in 2004 which was called Firefox.  Firefox grew quickly, with users loving how easy it was to use and surpassed 100 million downloads.

The driving force behind Firefox was Ross’s mother becoming frustrated with Internet Explorer and wanting something easier to use. Ross took this to heart and eventually granted his mother’s wish.

At it’s peak, Firefox was used by 33% of Internet users, behind Chrome and Internet Explorer.  It continues to be used but only by about 9% present day.  It is so cool to see a young man see a small issue his mother has, and take it upon himself to solve it.

6 Comments
Categories : Technology

Waze – Ehud Shabtai

Posted by Joseph Colosimo 
· Tuesday, December 10th, 2019 
· 5 Comments

I’m sure most of you have heard of or use Waze, the GPS app.  This app has revolutionized the way consumers drive by alerting them of dangers, traffic patterns, and policemen ahead.  Many drivers have switched from the traditional Apple Maps and Google Maps to Waze over the last few years, myself included.

In 2006, Ehud Shabtai founded and developed FreeMap Israel, a service aimed to offer users a free map of Israel in Hebrew.  2 years Later he founded the company Waze to commercialize the product. Between 2010-11, Waze raised 55 million dollars to update the app to include real time events.  As its traction began to grow, Waze saw an opportunity in the U.S. to capitalize on a market with few competitors.  They entered the US in 2013 by Google acquiring them for 966 million dollars.

Currently, Waze is used by over 130 million monthly users.  They generate money by using ads that benefit both the app and the user.  For example, McDonald’s may see that you are near their restaurant, and show you an add for a BOGO drink.  Also, users crowd source the information within the app such as where a crash took place, where a large pothole is, or where a cop is hidden.  This separates them from Apple and Google Maps, which do not have this feature.

5 Comments
Categories : Travel

Travis Kalanick & Garrrett Camp – Uber

Posted by Joseph Colosimo 
· Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019 
· 2 Comments

The story of how Uber came to be all started on a winter night when the pair was attending a conference and could not get a cab to get back to the hotel.  Initially, they thought of a time-share limo service that could be ordered via an app.  They did not act on the idea, but when Camp returned to San Francisco he bought the domain name ubercab.com.  Camp experimented with the idea with prototypes and eventually persuaded Kalanick to come back and help him.

The official launch came in May of 2010 in San Francisco.  The user would order a ride to pick them up at a select location at a select time on the Uber app.  The ease and simplicity of the process led to a quick rise in popularity. Today, Uber is still the leading service in cab services, but Lyft has emerged as a big competitor.

I recently used Uber for the first time, and was very impressed with how easy and efficient the service works.  As nice as it is for those looking to get a ride, it has also created a lot of jobs for people looking to become an Uber driver.  It is not super hard to get certified, and can be a good side job if you live near a big city.

2 Comments
Categories : Transportation

Heinz Ketchup – H.J. Heinz

Posted by Joseph Colosimo 
· Monday, November 4th, 2019 
· 3 Comments

Henry John Heinz was born in Pittsburgh in 1844 from German immigrants.  Interestingly enough, his second cousin was Frederick Trump, who is the grandfather of Donald Trump.  He started out packing food in Sharpsburg, PA where he founded Heinz Noble & Company with a friend. They primarily sold horseradish but went bankrupt in 1875.  This did not stop Heinz, as he founded F & J Heinz with his brother.  One of the company’s first products was tomato ketchup, and Heinz ended up buying out his other 2 partners, resulting in the present day name H. J. Heinz.  He continued to develop the company, adding many new products such as mustard, salad dressings, and sauces.

Today, Heinz ranks number one in many categories, including ketchup sales.  They are established globally and have become a household name, especially in Pittsburgh.  Berkshire Hathaway purchased Heinz for 23 billion in 2013, the largest in food industry history.  In 2015 Kraft merged with Heinz creating KraftHeinz.

It is amazing to me that such a simple idea like ketchup could end up as a billion dollar company.  Heinz lived the immigrant’s dream; not being afraid of failure, and never giving up, resulting in a venture that is still strong today.

 

3 Comments
Categories : Food

Matt Mullenweg – WordPress

Posted by Joseph Colosimo 
· Monday, September 30th, 2019 
· 2 Comments

After searching the web for an entrepreneur to write this blog about, it soon came upon me that WordPress had to have a creator.  Before this year, I had never heard of WordPress as I am not really one to blog or read them.  As I’ve explored it more and more however, WordPress has fascinated with me with all that it has to offer.

Matt Mullenweg was born in Houston, Texas and attended The University of Houston before he dropped out to pursue a job.  Essentially, a blogging site’s software that he used to use was discontinued. Instead of trying to find a new one, Mullenweg and his friend decided to build a new platform on top of the software that was defunct.  Little did they know that they were about to start a site that would change the way people blog.

The first version of WordPress was created in 2003, right before Mullenweg dropped out of college.  He was recruited by CNET to work on WordPress for them where he made continuous improvements to the site and gained many users.  He left CNET after a few years to focus on WordPress full time and by 2011 the site had accumulated 50 million blogs.  Obviously, the increase in traffic lead to WordPress needing more people to manage it.  Presently, over 900 people work for Automattic, the company that oversees WordPress. Mullenweg is the current CEO of Automattic and is still heavily involved in WordPress.  Thousands of companies and schools use it, as well as 41 countries, making it a highly profitable enterprise that rakes in millions yearly.

Matt Mullenweg is another example of a college dropout that had a plan and never gave up.  Who would have thought that creating something as simple as a blog site could have so much success? Mullenweg revolutionized the way people now blog and as a result is a millionaire.

 

2 Comments
Categories : Blog

Craig Newmark- Craigslist

Posted by Joseph Colosimo 
· Monday, September 16th, 2019 
· 5 Comments

As a newcomer to to San Francisco in 1995, Craig Newmark started an email chain to advertise events to local software and internet developers.  Word of mouth quickly led to rapid growth, with more people subscribing to the chain.  Newmark was surprised when people started this as a platform for hiring and job placement.  Members started asking for a website version, so Newmark registered “Craigslist” and it became a live website in 1996.  Newmark realized that the site was growing quickly, so he quit his job and committed full time to Craigslist.  By 2000, he had nine employees working out of his apartment.  The site was still limited to San Francisco, but Newmark and new CEO Jim Buckmaster wanted to expand.  Five years later, Craigslist expanded to 31 more cities around the US.  A $25 dollar charge for job postings was implemented, which brought in much needed funds to the company.  Since then, Craigslist has added countless categories and specializes in personal selling of items.

Presently, the site serves more than 20 billion views per month, making it the leading classified service in the US.  As far as jobs, Craigslist receives more than 2 million job listings per month.  With a service this large, one might be surprised that they only have 50 employees.  Ebay purchased a portion of Craigslist, while Newmark is still believed to be the majority owner.  Net income is estimated around 500 million. Newmark never intended the site to be a huge money-maker, but just a marketplace helpful to the people.

I was very impressed learning about Newmark and how he took something small and revolutionized it.  As an entrepreneur, you might think you have a good idea, and then customers make it even better. In this case, Newmark was content about his email chain being used for job postings, until others came along and started using it for something different. Being adaptable and open-minded is critical for success, and Craig Newmark is the perfect example.

5 Comments
Categories : eCommerce, Uncategorized