Mark Evans

Movin’ Along to PlanetEye

Nine months ago, I scratched my entrepreneurial itch by jumping out of the world of journalism for a second crack at an Internet start-up, b5media. Much like my first foray - Blanketware - I’ve learned a tremendous amount with b5. In fact, I often describe it as a crash-course MBA.

In particular, I’ve learned that start-ups are a lot of hard work and that people are as important an ingredient as having a great idea that has the right technology at the right time. (For anyone at all interested in start-ups, check out Marc Andreessen’s six-part blog series).

I’ve also gained a lot of new insight into the inner-workings of venture capital firms and how building a portfolio ecosystem is a valuable and useful tool. (Note: JL Albright and Brightspark are b5’s VCs)

One of the people I met as part of the JLA portfolio was Butch Langlois, who recently took over as CEO of PlanetEye, a travel-focused start-up, whose investors also include GrowthWorks and Microsoft, which aims to capitalize on the growing market of digital cameras, camera-enabled phones, and other digital image capturing devices with built-in GPS technology.

Not only are PlanetEye and b5media part of the same investment portfolio but the two companies have been working together recently on some exciting projects.

A few weeks ago, Butch approached me about joining the PlanetEye team to head up its blogging and community-building activities. After much thought and talks with a bunch of people, the opportunity to join a start-up that’s just about to be unveiled to the world and where I can play a major role contributing to its strategic plan and product launch was just too exciting to pass up.

So, I start my new gig on August 1.

The nice thing is I’m still going to be part of the b5 community by continuing to write my blogs. And given the growing excitement about blogs and blog networks, I’m looking forward to seeing big and exciting things from b5.

For more, check out Rick Segal’s post.