Ever onward

I’m very proud to announce that the first version of ClayValet went public today. This is the startup I’ve been working on since January; we’re now four people working in Capitol Hill. ClayValet is a new kind of personal shopping service:
You come to our site and tell us what you’re looking for, in plain English. Real people will read your request, so you can use a single phrase or write a whole paragraph.

Our shoppers then scour the Internet on your behalf. They read customer reviews, compare prices and find expert opinions to decide which products would best fit your needs. We put their findings in a clear report and send it to you within 24 hours of your request.

Please check it out and tell me what you think:

ClayValet: We shop for you.

Work ramped up quickly this year. Our startup is now incorporated as ClayValet Inc., and we have substantial seed funding.

My top priority now is finding one or two awesome engineers to help me build the first release. If you’re interested (or know someone who might be), shoot me an email and we’ll meet up for coffee.

I celebrated twice: first in Iowa with my family, then in Seattle with friends. Since I had abandoned my book blog, I decided to make a quick list of all the books that I could remember reading last year.

Andrew, Isaac, and I just got back from Burning Man. I’ve been vaguely intending to go since 2000. Someone mentioned it a few weeks ago and I suddenly realized that this year would be ideal. The preparations were hectic, but it was an awesome experience that will take some time to sink in. My sole regret is that we only spent half of the week there.

Today is my last day at Amazon.com; I’m leaving after 3.7 years to work on a personal project - an idea for a website that I recently came up with. I can’t really talk about it too much, but I trust you so I’ll let you in on the secret: it’s mySpace for dogs.

I took a 3-month leave of absence from Amazon.com, February 1 through April 30, and spent most of the time traveling. Some notes and a few photos from the trip are in my travel journal

For the last two years (almost), I’ve been working in Amazon Web Services on a new and secretive project. Well, it finally launched: check out Amazon Mechanical Turk.