VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – February 4th 2009
John Stapleton, Business Tech, AP
“Thursday was a huge, huge day for us” exclaimed Noah Bloom, co-founder of Zedmo, a Vancouver-based startup developing the universe’s greatest location-based mobile social community.
“I was just going about my day as I normally would – checking my email, browsing the news stories on my America Online portal, and updating my eHarmony profile, when I received a phone call from an angel, who claimed his name was Mike” continues Bloom. “I didn’t believe Mike for a second, so I quickly looked around the room of 2010 cohort enemies – uh, I mean companies – to see who could be playing this evil trick on me. Anthony was sitting in his chair not on the phone, Jamie was busy tweeting his next publishable masterpiece, Mack was under his desk wearing a hood, and Team Romania was hard at work shining their Google pens. Daniel, my co-founder, was busy complaining about his recent ski accident, so it surely wasn’t him pranking me.”
What happened next, forever changed the face of Zedmo. A struggling startup duo of Bloom and Daniel Wolfe, who dropped everything to join the 2010 Bootup Labs Cohort, were, until yesterday, surviving off leftover sandwiches found in dumps around the city, and the occasional “fresh” peanut butter and tuna sandwich.
“Being a startup is very tough,” says Wolfe. “It’s not like in the movies where you can rub a lamp and a naked woman comes out of it. It’s tougher than that.”
As you can tell by now, the Associated Press mandates us writers to write our stories in such a way that the reader needs to read all the way to the end of a story to find out what the story is actually about. But, because I know my audience is fairly small, I will cut to the chase here.
Nester’s, a top-notch grocer (according to some, but not all… ANTHONY NICALO…) located just steps from the Bootup Labs office in one direction, and steps from Zedmo’s underground home lair in the other, has made a significant investment in Zedmo. Without acquiring any equity in Zedmo, Nester’s has injected $5,200 worth of groceries into the startup. Terms of the deal are still a bit shady, but a spokesperson for Nesters, Mr. Michael Grocerman, has told the Associated Press that, “…the orange juice cannot be diluted.”
So, how did Daniel Wolfe ever score such a great co-founder, with the ability to close investments so early in the game? We asked, and he explained.
“I have what’s called a silver tongue. That’s it.”
And you thought the Olympics were the biggest story out of Vancouver.
When asked what Zedmo plans to do with this influx of food, they were quick to point us in the direction of their appointed PR agency, for reasons of secrecy and not giving too much away to the competition:
“First, they supplied the 2010 Cohort with Odwalla juices, so as not to cause any unfriendly conflict or envy around the office. Further to this, Zedmo hopes to build on this investment by purchasing fancy foods and supplies, such as turkey, cheese and crackers, and non-generic cling wrap. No further comments, my clients are very tired from the celebrations last night.”
Although this recent investment has placed Zedmo founders Noah and Daniel in the spotlight among “everybody who’s anybody” from the Valley up to Vancouver, the dynamic duo promises to remain down to earth, although sources tell the AP that Daniel was spotted drinking Tropicana orange juice, while Noah was seen washing his hands with a bar of Lever 2000 – for all his 2,000 body parts (including hands).
For more information on Zedmo and their location-based mobile application, please contact info@zedmo.com
PLEASE NOTE: Zedmo is still accepting further investment, so don’t be shy.