Shuffle Chat
Company Name: Shuffle Chat
Mission: “Have More Fun”
Started: January 2010
Where: Babson Park, MA
Contact Info: colin@shufflechat.com
Employees: 2 Founders, and a few interns
Founder’s Past:
Colin Winter
Colin started his first website at age 12 and has been fascinated by technology and the Internet. Colin ran a computer repair business throughout High School. After having some success building and marketing a few websites, Colin started a formal website design and marketing business his senior year. After graduating, Colin took a year off before coming to Babson to pursue a web app startup company for bloggers. Colin is the typical serial entrepreneur.
Jonathan Jacques
At age 6, Jonathan received a magic set for Christmas and fell in love with the craft. By age 10, he turned professional in the art of magic. He started studying marketing (online and offline) at age 12, to help grow his magic business. He currently performs 250 shows per year all over the world. Some of his biggest shows include multiple shows in Las Vegas, the Connecticut Sun’s game at Mohegan Sun Arena for over 8,000 people, performances in Europe, and several shows at the Big E. Jonathan is now pursuing business and entrepreneurship at Babson.
How The Idea Began: Jon and Colin noticed a video chatting trend on the Internet and recognized the potential for a more mainstream brand. Other sites like this on the Internet are taboo. You find weird people on these sites doing weird things. As a result, the general public is embarrassed to visit these websites. We want to change this by making our website more fun!
ShuffleChat.com lets you video chat with random people from all around the world. You just click “Shuffle” to chat with a new person. This video chatting format brings all sorts of spontaneous fun and users are encouraged to make each others’ days. ShuffleChat has a bunch of cool features planned for down the road and is very excited to launch the website April 8th.
Favorite Thing about the Business: Like in any business, the customers come first. Without them a business is nothing. We love to engage our users! We get to have tons of fun video chatting with them and hearing their stories.
Worst Thing About The Business: Dealing with people who try to abuse the website.
Lesson Learned: It is very important to plan, organize, and prioritize your startup. This becomes exponentially more important when it is a time sensitive business.