Web start-up companies at this year’s Tech Crunch conference face a financial climate that has dried up venture capital, forcing them to turn to friends, family and foundations.
Dan Olsen (MBA ’98) said he could not secure any venture capital and had instead turned to his friends — and their willingness to work for food — to develop his “real time discovery engine” that scans Twitter, Facebook and many other places in a specialized search called Yourversion.
“My friends come over and code all day on Saturday and, at the end, we have a barbeque and beers,” he said. “I give food equity.”
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