How to sell your startup to Google: Travel in first class between Seattle and the Valley

Dan Shapiro (Randy Stewart photo)

Entrepreneur Dan Shapiro –who sold Sparkbuy to Google back in May and merged Ontela with Photobucket in 2009 — offers some advice on selling your startup company at the Lean Startup Meetup Monday night in Seattle. Interestingly, Shapiro started out his talk by taking a counter position to Rich Barton’s advice at the GeekWire Meetup… Read More…

Skype, Sparkbuy, Steve Ballmer at USC and other top stories for May

gwlogoss

At a Belltown coffee shop yesterday, I spotted a guy at a nearby table reading GeekWire. I got a bit giddy seeing a stranger “in the wild” interacting with GeekWire. In a small way, it reinforced the importance of the community that we are building here. It also was anecdotal evidence of what we are… Read More…

Google buys Sparkbuy, a search engine for consumer electronics

Dan Shapiro (Randy Stewart photo)

Well, that sure was quick. Sparkbuy, the Seattle upstart led by entrepreneur Dan Shapiro, announced today that it has been acquired by Google in a deal of undisclosed size. The news comes just a little more than a month after Shapiro unveiled Sparkbuy, an online service that allows users to compare the prices and features of various… Read More…

Dan Shapiro launches Sparkbuy, a search engine for laptops and TVs

Dan Shapiro

Dan Shapiro got really frustrated trying to find a new laptop. So frustrated, in fact, that the Seattle entrepreneur decided to start a new company to attack the problem head-on. Sparkbuy, which is launching today at the Web. 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, is trying to change the way that people search for consumer electronics…. Read More…