Posted by Denis Ahearn on January 20, 2009
Once in a while someone will ask us why we decided to create OnePlace, especially when you consider the number of other online tools that are available today for helping manage your projects and tasks and for collaborating with others. We have a pretty standard response to that question that I thought would be fun to share in this blog.
Posted by Denis Ahearn on January 14, 2009
Launching a startup was never considered easy. As if developing a business plan, getting funding, and focusing hard on product development wasn't enough, the entrepreneur has to worry about attracting key employees, taxes and benefits, creating a pleasant working environment, and building a culture of teamwork and collaboration.
But today's startups face an even more difficult challenge: working effectively as virtual teams. Almost every startup these days, certainly in my experience, is at least partially made up of dispersed employees—oftentimes in different cities or states, and sometimes even spread across country boundaries. Many startups, at least in the technology field, are made up entirely of individuals in separate locations. How then do they function? How can the entrepreneur possibly succeed with his or her venture if there's no single "place" where employees can regularly meet and work? Email and instant messaging are not the answer—teams become quickly overwhelmed trying to manage their collective work that way.
Posted by Graeme Thickins on November 18, 2008
This past Wednesday evening, Riverock Technologies' fearless cofounders, Steve Kickert and Denis Ahearn, took to the stage at Minnesota's own quarterly Barcamp event to demo the OnePlace™ app in the strictly proscribed time of seven minutes. And deliver it well they did—one of ten presentations to a standing-room-only, information-hungry crowd of developers, founders, VCs and other investors, marketing folks, local media, and tech bloggers, all jam-packed into the theater at Intermedia Arts in Uptown Minneapolis. It was one high-energy event focused on technology innovation in MInnesota, in the form of ten hand-picked, highly promising startups. (In the photo, Steve does the talking, while Denis mans the controls in the foreground. Photo credit: Manish Shrestha.)