Maria Lourdes C. Capilitan

SYSANAL(O0A)

August 5, 2008

Case study

James Currier

Founder, Tickle

James Currier founded Tickle (original name as Emode) in 1999. He was at Harvard Business School. After Graduating form College he got introduce to digital media. His idea of creating a media about ourselves pops up from his personality test that became a big issue to their campus. He also wonders why the movie industry was not discussed. Even he knows that it might failed, he just thought that it has good impact to the society.

I learned that by this site it would help people to have the right job because people would answer honestly. Also, I learned that their company was being acquired by monster in 2004. James Currier founded another start up which is called Ooga Labs, a digital media studio that develops consumer internet application.

He got started to this idea and come up that the project will do. He talked to people to have their ideas. He got paranoid from the ideas. There are people who misunderstood him because there are people who have problems and difficulties in predicting the future.

The challenging part for their company are; first, when Currier is not enough for their company because as the boss of the company, he is responsible for all system of the company. Second, developing the company for the ideas you have. Third, the people who want to know about the company. Venture Capitalists are the key to being popular of a company, because people will be attracted and investment bankers want to meet you.

The most significant happening to their company is when the launching of Dog Test. They have a lot of test on the site like anxiety test, parenting, relationship, and communication tests. For having an effective advertise they use Breed Dogs on their test because it is being advice by advertising agencies. As a result, a lot of people visit their site and their server was going down and having a lot of traffic.

One of the most hair-raising moments in their early years was they hire a VP who wasn’t working out to their company. The head of their HR create a maternity leave policy by that time Currier and his other workers didn’t know about their HR head was pregnant. Currier built a culture where you communicate. They are the largest career testing site in the world. They have problems in salary because they are running out of money.

They started to have fears when iVillage started copying them. Later on, they just disappear. The different ways of motivating his colleague is currier’s willingness to communicate with people and his understanding of their need to form their brains and their language around their relationships with one another and product that they need to create.

For currier the most surprising about having a start up is the sufferings that he encounters. He also said that start up will take over someone’s life. As their company was being brought by Monster they still try to preserve their site.