thederekjohnson.com

So as most of you know, we launched Tatango.TV this week. The new website has received a good amount of press coverage since its launch (see here), and as you can imagine, people have their opinions. First off, if you’re striving to be an entrepreneur, make sure you have thick skin. People will say a lot of mean things, especially if you’re always trying to push new ideas, which we do a lot of at Tatango.

I thought it would be interesting to respond to some of the eye-catching comments to thank our supporters and hopefully lead some critics to the truth.

Daryn Said –
“Seriously, the purely-voyeuristic live stream has been done. They should try and add more value with a daily video journals from each of the key players, where they talk about what they’ve done that day, how they’re feeling, etc.”

I searched high and low and couldn’t find another startup that had ever done multiple, live video streams (with sound) from different places around their office. If you know of a company, prove me wrong. Daryn is right though, that we do need to add more to the site, and trust me, this is coming.

Derek Said –
“Seriously 2000. I can’t believe that they waste their ‘angel’ funds on this. Derek seems like an ego-maniac.”

This one was the best out of all the negative comments. I’m not sure why he put the word “Angel” in quotation marks, maybe he was trying to imply that we actually didn’t receive Angel funding??? Well just to squash any rumors, here is the press release from the actual Angel group. In regards to wasting funding, this one really got me ticked off, because it is so far from the truth. Besides the development time, which took less than a week (2 engineers), I have listed all the things we spent money on for the launch of Tatango.TV.

• Wii Game Console - FREE! (Sponsor)

• Artwork/Graffiti - FREE! (Sponsor)

• Basketball Hoop - $112

• Cameras - $394

• Bean Bags - $74

• 2 Cans of Tatango Orange Paint - $27

• Painting Labor - FREE! (Interns)

• Tatango Signage FREE! (Our CTO Made It)

• Additional Modem - $75

This totals $682. For example, this is less than what it would cost to distribute one press release through PR Newswire, and look at all the exposure we were able to garner (check out the coverage here). I wouldn’t call this a waste of investor money.

In regards to me being an “ego-maniac”, whatever, let him say what he wants. Read More →

I started Tatango in my parent’s basement just a little under two years ago. While I owe a lot to my parents for allowing us to work rent-free in their basement, to be honest, it sucked. The basement was dark, cramped and the complete opposite of fun.

When it came time for us to move the company into a real office, I knew we would do things a little different. Why not? Most of our employees are college dropouts and even though we work our asses off, we are still college students at heart and love to have fun.

So when we moved into the new office, we said goodbye dress codes, 9-5 hours and anything else that seemed too corporate to be considered cool. In the spirit of doing things our own way, we installed a full size basketball hoop where the reception area used to be, painted the walls bright orange, hired graffiti artists to do the decorating and nearly gave our landlord a heart attack during the whole process.

What we ended up with was a place that we loved to work in, even so much that employees tend to hang around the office even after they have finished work.

So why broadcast everything 24/7 and let the whole world watch us? Why the hell not! If people want to watch us, let them watch us. I think we have a pretty cool story to tell with our startup, and what better way to tell that story then to watch it play out in real time, live over the internet.

With all that being said, sit back, grab some popcorn, your favorite soda and enjoy!

Check out all the live streams here at http://www.Tatango.TV