Today, we have a lot of relationships to manage. You may have 1,000-plus friends on Facebook or a couple thousand followers on Twitter. Now maybe you’re just way more popular than I am and are used to managing so many relationships, but for me it’s not an easy task. Thankfully, creative entrepreneurs are trying to find new ways to solve this problem and Hashable is a definite step in the right direction.
To me, Hashable is like your personal little black book that allows you to not only keep track of all your relationships but remember how you met them, what you were doing, and how these relationships connect with your other relationships. It’s quite slick really. You can utilize Hashable with their iPhone app they released earlier this month, you can simply filter your content through Twitter into Hashable, or you can log in to the Hashable site directly and enter your connections.
Hashable encourages you to tag the person or relationship that you want to manage and then add a hashtag (#) to add context to that relationship. Standard hashtag labels include #meeting, #lunch, #beer, #justmet, and #thanks. As a more visual learner who does much better remembering faces than names a simple hashtag label will help me manage and remember my relationships.
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Here’s an example of a Hashable tweet from one of the app’s super users, Trevor Owens of New York. (See the New York Observer’s article: “Is This 21 Year Old Intern Really the Most Powerful Networker in New York?“) Screenshot from twitter.com/to2.
Hashable is still in beta but went to a wide audience in September. Lately, I’ve heard a lot of buzz online about Hashable and it seems to have really grown since the release of the iPhone app at the beginning of the month. I could foresee an app like this really exploding at an event like South by Southwest in March when lots of people are together making new relationships and connections.
I had a chance to chat with Michael Yavondite, founder and CEO of Hashable, to get a little more insight into his product and how it helps users.
Silicon Prairie News: Describe what Hashable does and what problem it solves?
Michael Yavondite: Hashable lets people build and track relationships. We now let people that either love Twitter or email or native iPhone apps a new way to develop relationships.
(Left, photo from twitter.com/mikeyavo)
How did the idea for Hashable come about and what was the process to get from that idea to launching the site?
We started out building something different, a business info site, then shifted gears. Hashable went to fairly wide audience in September and our iPhone app became available to anyone in December.
How would you recommend using Hashable? I know there is an iPhone app and people can also make their connections through their Twitter feed. What is the optimum user experience in your opinion?
Everyone should download our iPhone app or follow us on Twitter to get an invite.
What’s the state of Hashable today, i.e. number of employees, status of beta and number of users?
We have 14 employees and thousands and thousands of users.
Finally, what advice do you give to people building products for the web? What area online do you think needs the most work?
Be critical of your own idea. Building a web company is exciting yet very hard at same time.
