Homeslyce: Stanford's birthday club
(Credit: Homeslyce)I met a lot of entrepreneurs at the Stirr event tonight, in addition to the four that pitched their products on stage. Of the companies I had never heard of before, my favorite was Homeslyce, the brainchild of three Stanford undergrads. Homeslyce is part group buying tool (sort of like Chipin and Fundable) and part affiliate store. It's designed to help groups share the cost of birthday presents for their college friends.
To buy an item with Homeslyce, first you choose something from the site's selection, then enter in the recipient of the gift and the e-mail addresses of the friends who will be chipping in on it, as well as the minimum amount required to participate in the purchase. All the friends get e-mails, and once everybody enters in their pledge to contribute, the credit card transfers all fire at once, and the gift is purchased and sent directly to the recipient. If the item price is not met, the purchase is not made. However, Homeslyce will remind slackers to pony up.
Right now the site is slow and the product selection is weak. Homeslyce feels like a well-functioning proof of concept. But the Stanford trio working on Homeslyce has done a good job, and is smart to focus on one market. In the post-college world I could see this working beautifully for wedding presents and for other gifts as well.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
