DROdio - CEO @ Storytell | Advisor at FounderCulture

Fun In The Woods With The XP Camper V2 Prototype

I've long been a fan of the XP Camper. My wife and I spent two years researching pop-up campers [https://lifewetravel.com/our-two-year-journey-choosing-a-pop-up-camper], and the XP was by far and away our favorite. I visited Marc, the owner of XP Camper late last year and did a full

vanlife

Overlanding Mecca: 2012 Overland Expo in Flagstaff, AZ

My wife and I took a road trip from San Francisco to visit the Overland Expo [http://www.overlandjournal.com/overlanding/overland_expo/] in Flagstaff, AZ this past weekend. The best way for me to describe it is a mecca for overlanders with copious amounts of offroad vehicle porn. If

vanlife

The XP Camper: Truck Campers, Reimagined

My wife Sue and I have been on a quest to find the perfect expedition vehicle for weekend trips around California, and for ‘someday world travel’. Last year, we checked out the Sportsmobile [https://lifewetravel.com/tour-of-sportsmobile-west-facility-in-fresno-ca] and Four Wheel Camper [https://lifewetravel.com/tour-of-four-wheel-camper-facility] factories. I had heard about

vanlife

Hallmark RV: The best of the soft-side pop-up campers

Sue and I visited Hallmark RV [http://www.hallmarkrv.com/] today. I’ve been emailing back & forth with Matthew for months, asking him various question about Hallmark’s campers, and I’d been scouring Hallmark’s website, Facebook page and the forums relentlessly trying to learn as much as

vanlife

Outfitter Pop Up review: Good designs, poor quality control

My wife Sue and I recently decided to take a trip to Colorado to visit the pop-up manufacturers out here: Outfitter [http://www.outfittermfg.com/], Hallmark [https://lifewetravel.com/hallmark-rv-the-best-of-the-soft-side-pop-up-campers] and Phoenix [https://lifewetravel.com/phoenix-pop-ups-truly-custom-but-questionable-worksmanship] (we also ended up taking a look at EarthRoamer [https://lifewetravel.com/earthroamer-expedition-vehicles]). We

vanlife

EarthRoamer Expedition Vehicles

I only recently became aware of EarthRoamer [http://www.earthroamer.com/], mostly because my wife and I aren’t in the market for a super-upscale camper. EarthRoamers start in the $200k range and can top $500k. However, since we were visiting other camper manufacturers in the Denver area, we decided

vanlife

Phoenix Pop-Ups: Truly custom, but questionable workmanship

Phoenix campers wasn’t originally on our list of places to visit, but someone on Expedition Portal mentioned that they were also in the Denver area, so we added them to the list. The reality was that although the owners were very nice and accommodating, it’s just not in

Find

Find The 'Yes' By Starting With The 'No'

I wrote recently about Focusing on Focus [http://danielodio.com/focusing-on-focus-why-we-sold-appmakr], but that post left me feeling like I didn't exactly hit the nail on the head with the point I wanted to make, so I'm going to try it from a different angle. I recently

Geeky

Using Geeky Tools to Plan for Our Birth

Sue is 37 weeks pregnant, so we're spending our weekends really getting our ducks in a row. Since Sue and I come from the tech world, it's an easy leap for us to use geeky tools to plan for our birth. One example is Basecamp, a

Angellist

Creating an AngelList Syndicate

I'm considering creating an investment syndicate an AngelList. As a startup founder in Silicon Valley, I see a number of interesting startup companies, some of which are fundraising. Creating a syndicate would allow others to invest in these startups with me. If you are interested in backing my

Media Companies

Matter: Powering the Next Generation of Breakout Media Companies

I just accepted an invitation to be a mentor at Matter [http://matter.vc/], a startup accelerator in San Francisco. Matter is focused squarely on media entrepreneurs. If you're an entrepreneur looking to create the next breakout media company, I recommend checking it out. Also worthwhile is Turner

appmakr

Focusing on Focus: Why We Sold AppMakr

Back in January of 2010, my co-founders Sean, Isaac and I created one of the first mobile app creation platforms, AppMakr [http://www.appmakr.com/]. At the time, we had a thriving mobile app consulting business called PointAbout, and we were building high-end (and expensive) apps for large brands. Our

office

Remote Always-On: Connecting Our Offices with Sqwiggle

In our previous startups, my co-founders and I have always had a desire to have a strong "always on" remote connection between offices. Back when we had DC & SF offices a few years ago, we tried setting up what we called "Project Stargate" [http://danielodio.

Warner Bros.

Accelerating Innovation: Turner & Warner Bros Create Media Camp

Achieving strong product/market fit [http://danielodio.com/optimizing-product-market-fit-first-be-proactive-then-be-reactive] as a startup is arguably the most important thing a startup needs to get right, as early on as possible. One big barrier to doing that successfully is often finding customers that care enough about what the startup is doing to

Social Strategy

Panel: Changing the Conversation: Should Mobililty Rewire Your Social Strategy?

I attended a great event run by MediaPost recently called the Mobile Insider Summit [http://www.mediapost.com/mobileinsidersummit/speaker/10604/daniel-odio]. Here's the panel title & summary: > Changing the Conversation: Should Mobililty Rewire Your Social Strategy? Date/Time: August 20, 9:15 AM Facebook got it.

fund

Founders: Stay out of Fundraising Prison

Founders: Soon, you'll be able to publicly raise money [https://angel.co/help/general-solicitation#gs] from accredited investors. But the SEC's proposed rules assume you'll be raising money the way institutions did 20 years ago. This means that you will be required to: * Notify

Tables

Focus on Steaks on Tables, not Table Stakes

I've been thinking about the tech buzzword "table stakes" lately. It's meant to signify that a company needs to have feature parity with a competitor to be considered competitive. Here's the Wikipedia definition [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_stakes]: > "

Internet Things

The Rise of the Internet of Things

I'm really jazzed about a term that was coined over 10 years ago but is just now really starting to become a reality: The Internet of Things, which is often abbreviated as "IoT." Here's a video by the CEO of ioBridge talking about it:

Google

The Future On My Face: My First 48 Hours with Google Glass

Back in February, I tweeted this out: > "I'm really into knowledge sharing: http://t.co/bOBw9pYSX5 [https://t.co/bOBw9pYSX5] #ifihadglass I'd endeavor to capture even more content to share with the world" About a month later, Google notified me that I'

Framework

No Sloppy Thinking: A Framework To Achieve Your Goals

After writing recently [http://danielodio.com/elon-musk-pwnes-shai-agassi-and-fisker-karma] about what Elon Musk has been able to achieve, I've been thinking a lot about blockers that cause people and companies to fall short of their goals. This assumes that those goals have been clearly defined. That's often the

Dad

What Does It Take To Be a Great Dad?

Over on my entrepreneur + tech blog [http://www.danielodio.com/], I post about an area I'm very familiar with: Technology & startups. Now, I'm embarking on a much bigger challenge: Fatherhood. Yep, I'm going to be a dad. Here's a picture of

Ideas

Ideas Are Like Sperm

I talk to entrepreneurs who have ideas, and very often they ask what they should do first. I've had the conversation enough now that I'm going to write a blog on it to give a much more detailed answer than I can in a 5 minute

Blog

Tile is Lojack for Anything

A few months ago I blogged about mobile apps [http://danielodio.com/ill-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours-apps-that-is], and a startup in particular that was unlocking data from cars via its mobile app. Recently, my wife turned me on to another great example, a startup called Tile [http://www.thetileapp.com/]. If you've

Focus

This Is Why Focus Is So Important

Barnes & Noble gave up on its color Nook reader today. From this NY Times article [https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/losing-ground-on-nook-barnes-noble-ceases-its-manufacture-of-color-versions/?nl=technology&emc=edit_tu_20130626&_r=0] : > "Barnes & Noble Changes Course on Nook | Barnes & Noble conceded on Tuesday that

Audio API

The Magical Power of Audio APIs

I've always been a fan of audio APIs / mobile SDKs. For example, if you're watching the Conan O'Brien show and you have the Team Coco app [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/conan-obrien-presents-team/id398401657?mt=8] open at the same time, it'll