Canada Next Up: Dan Debow & Rypple

In that continuing to quest to keep the Canadian love happening, I present to you Dan Debow, serial entrepreneur, really smart guy, Canadian, and founder of Rypple.  Rypple takes a page out of ‘social media’ (yeah, I know, the term is being destroyed, sorry) and combines Dan’s WorkBrain knowledge to give us a system that allows people to get honest feedback via their circle of friends in a systematic and anonymous way.

BusinessWeek has a great write up here  which talks about this Facebook-like performance review system:

“Even more immediate: new software from a Toronto startup called Rypple that lets people post Twitter-length questions about their performance in exchange for anonymous feedback. Companies ranging from sandwich chain Great Harvest Bread Co. to Firefox developer Mozilla have signed on as clients.”

The Harvard Business Review speaks about Feedback:

“I admit I caught myself falling into this Boomer mindset trap just last week. I was attending a conference that included a discussion of a new web service called Rypple. It's in the beta stage, but you can try it out. It's designed to allow you to receive short, quick "feedback" anonymously from people you select to ask (you need to designate a number of people so the anonymity of any one respondent can be protected). So, for example, after a meeting, you could send a quick question - "How could I make my recommendations stronger?" -- and receive a variety of suggestions back.

My first reaction, I admit, was a little skeptical (okay, maybe even negative) -- as you know, I'm a Boomer. My gut was saying "Ugh -- why would I want to subject myself to that?" (Interpretation - to being "judged" multiple times a day). And the anonymous part felt really threatening. The only thing worse than being continually judged is being continually judged anonymously.”

There are other stories out there on Dan’s new service. When you hit the website you’ll see his customer Logo Salad which is pretty impressive for a start-up.  He’s had some angels toss in coin and Michael Hollend from Edgestone Capital Partners did the Series A.

All Canada. Well done, Dan.

Comments

[Daniel Debow]

Rick:

Thanks for the great shout out. We really appreciate it.

Three points:

1. This ain't a solo gig! David Stein co-founded Rypple with me and George Babu. David and I are co-CEO's together and having a great time as partners. David was a co-founder of Workbrain and led sales, marketing and biz dev efforts there. We're fortunate to have a really talented founding team - some ex-WB, some from elsewhere - all awesome.

https://www.rypple.com/about.shtml?tab=team

2. Mostly Canada, but not "All Canada". We've got some great US angels, including Peter Thiel (PayPal, Facebook) and Joe Sigelman (OfficeTiger), on board as well.

https://www.rypple.com/about.shtml?tab=investors

3. Rypple's not just for personal performance feedback. We're amazed by the uses people are finding for Rypple. David Priemer just blogged about this:

http://blog.rypple.com/2009/04/17/i-never-thought-of-using-rypple-for-that/

Thanks again Rick.

Daniel

ps: We're hiring.... so if you're an awesome Java dev with a passion for user-driven WebAp design - shoot us a note: jobs@rypple.com

[David Priemer]

Thanks for the post Rick!

Wanted to add that there are another couple sentences in that last post from Harvard Business Review that help complete the thought and provide a but more context:

"But the Y's at the conference were loving the service -- already sending out requests for feedback after their presentations. And, as I thought about it, I recognize that my initial reaction was a classic Boomer view -- rooted in judgment and assessment -- while they were busy learning."

Indeed, Gen Y's love our service because it provides them with a tool to source the feedback they crave, but much like the rest of the social media world these days, we're seeing users from all generations really take to the service as well.

Cheers,
David

[Rick Segal]

David,
Thanks. I never know what 'fair use' gets people in a snit, so I'm stingy with the quotes.

best,

>R<