We are in the final week of Profiles and Founders: Where Are They Now? As I mentioned in Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI, I’ve been contributing to Forbes for two and half years and have had the opportunity to profile great companies and interview some interesting founders. Every once in a while a reader follows up via email asking how a company is doing. I thought it would be neat to do a “where are they now?” series to check in on all the companies profiled in my column. This is the final of seven weeks of five company catch-ups. This week we check in with Make Games With Us, Webflow, Wanderu, BareBrands and Imoji.
Make Games With Us
On January 11th, 2013, I wrote about a startup called Make Games With Us, a Silicon Valley-based company that hosted 100 high school and college interns to build gaming apps in the summer of 2013. In the past year MGWU shifted their focus from games to education. They turned their summer internship into a formal course, launching the Summer Academy with 120 students across San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York City this past summer.
Their website has grown to 40k registered users, and their curriculum is now used by MIT, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon. Finally, they kicked off the pilot of the MakeSchool Gap Year, a 1 year college supplement that prepares students for a career as a founder or developer. Students learn mobile and web development, computer science theory, and development-focused career skills. The
Webflow
On May 8th, 2014, I wrote about a startup called Webflow, a popular site that empowers designers to create custom websites without learning how to code. Since May, they’ve added lots of new features to Webflow, all of which have helped web designers get more work done faster. Some of the most important features added were custom web fonts, nested navigation menus, and a (beautiful) new image gallery and lightbox component. They have also made a substantial improvements under the hood, which allowed them to finally build and host their own site completely in Webflow. They also made a video about it. Their team has doubled in size (from 4 to 8), and their customer base has doubled as well. They’re currently heads down working on some big changes slated for later this year.
Wanderu
On May 22nd, 2014, I wrote about a startup called Wanderu, the simplest way to find and book bus and train travel in the US. For the last few months, Wanderu has expanded throughout the United States launching service in the Midwest to now cover thousands of destinations across the U.S. and southern Canada. Wanderu has also brought on new partners including Miller, Hoosier Ride, Barons Bus, Peter Pan Bus, Turimex, and several others to provide even more coverage and options across the country. It has experienced rapid growth with monthly users growing more than 200% since May and has helped millions of travelers easily search for bus travel.
BareBrands
On June 26th, 2014, I wrote about a startup called BareBrands, a fashionable and customizable exercise watch. Since June, BareBands successfully completed an IndieGoGo campaign - raising over $30,000 dollars (they hit 106% of their goal). The initial batch of watches is being distributed as this post goes live. They have seven styles of the watch - all of which can be seen on their website BareBands.com.
Imoji
On July 24th, 2014, I wrote about a company called Imoji, a free iOS app that lets you turn any photo into a digital 'emoji' sticker. Since writing about them, the company has seen tremendous growth in both users and imojis created, with millions sent and shared between users. Their database of user-generated imojis continues to grow quickly, dominating the traditional set of a few hundred emoji currently available.
Additionally, Imoji has integrated with popular messaging and social apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, KakaoTalk,
With the release of iOS 8 last week, the Imoji team has been exploring different options for an integrated, customizable keyboard. They are also developing and optimizing the app for wearable technologies, specifically the recently unveiled Apple Watch.
The team has also told me that their Android app is in full development, and should be available soon.
On the financing side, the team closed a $2 million venture round just a few weeks after the launch, led by Goodwater Capital and Joe Lacob.
