The Dream Job Diaries is a new semi-regular feature that investigates the reality of various glamorous post-college paths. If you have a job or know of a job you would like to see profiled, send me an e-mail.
Update 10/8/08: I inexplicably reversed the names of Lance and Dana in the original version of the article. It has been fixed below.
9 AM
The world headquarters of Wiggio Inc. can be found on the first floor of a triplex, situated across from the fire station in a gentrifying North Cambridge neighborhood. At 9 AM, one Friday morning this past September, Dana Lampert arrived to start the new day. He had been at the office until 9 PM the night before. This was considered good. The two nights previous he had been there until 3 and 4:30 AM, respectively, coaxing along a tricky upload of their web site to new servers.
Dana is soon joined by Lance Polivy, his college friend and co-founder of the company. They begin their day by diving into the more than 100 product feedback messages that have gathered over the past 24 hours. The feedback concerns Wiggio’s flagship (and only) product: the wiggio.com website.
This site was launched by Lance and Dana the previous spring, while they were seniors at Cornell. The idea is simple: it makes organizing groups easier.
Here’s the pitch: with one web site, your group can setup shared calendars, construct polls, store files, and send mass text, e-mail, and even voice messages to members. Their primary market is student groups, though its potential audience is wider.
In this early start-up stage, Lance and Dana feel it’s important to respond personally to every piece of feedback. The process is tedious, but it helps keep the founders connected to the users. For a web start-up, users are everything. Without them, all you have is a fancy web site and a business plan.
10 AM
