Boswell

If I had a ton of cash these are the companies I would invest in

Title pretty much says it all!

I love reading about start up’s, I’m interested about what they hope to achieve and what motivates them and how they plan to achieve it. In an ideal world I’d be stinking rich and spend my days investing in start ups, but it’s not an ideal world so I’ll stick to my day job and write about who i’d invest in if only life was fair…

Spotify (music)

Music is cool, disrupting the status quo is cool so therefore spotify is cool. You know what else is cool, 2.5 million subscribers which spotify has just announced. It has taken full advantage of facebook’s open graph and despite criticism has increased it market share.

Reason: This company is exciting. 

Instagram (photography)

No shock here, regular readers will know of my love for this photo sharing app. It currently has 15 million users based solely on the iPhone, it has plans to launch an android version this year which will obviously just increase its presence. It’s not only the amount of users it has that makes it attractive, it’s the fact the users are what i call quality users, dedicated to Instagram, helping to fuel it’s social aspects.

Kevin Systrom (CEO) has slowly put together a small but exciting team of talented individuals, as I write this it consists of just 8. The trickiest move going forward will be working out how it will make money without losing its special quality.

Reason: A company I love, that at some point will get bought for big money.

Tnooz (media)

Pronounced “t” “nooz” (Tnooz), this travel tech media company has become the must read site for the industry. Not only does it produce quality content but also in my opinion, is ahead if it’s rivals when it comes to using social media to promote itself.

It also provides some interesting lunch time reading with its tlabs feature which showcases start ups and unlike others, revisits them to see how they have progressed. They have inspired me to start learning to code after I read and watched their thack feature. Some have called it the tech crunch of travel but I don’t think that does them justice.

Reason: Top of their game and only getting better, good group of intelligent people.

Tumblr (blogging)

The site that hosts my little blog is quickly becoming the fastest growing micro-blogging site in the world 1299.5% in 2011 and although it can’t possibly continue at this rate it shows no real signs of slowing.

What I would do first at tumblr though is fix their iPhone app, it’s pretty bad… I’ve tried to write this post 4 times now but it keeps crashing!!!

Reason: Fascinating concept, getting bigger everyday.