Tag: Hurricane Party

First Hurricane Party Failed, Now Forecast Shuts Down

July 10, 2012 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 5 Comments

The Austin-based startup Hurricane Party received all kinds of attention at South by Southwest Interactive 2011.
Mashable wrote about them. So did Read Write Web.
TechCocktail labeled Hurricane Party the hottest app of 2011 at SXSW.
Hurricane Party was a mobile app that let people know where the best parties were at.
Then a year later, that company largely folded and reinvented itself as Forecast.
Hurricane Party received $20,000 as a Capital Factory company in the class of 2010. The company, led by Rene Pinnell and Eric Katerman, eventually raised another $80,000 and blew through it all in 12 months, according to this interview. The founders said they took what they learned from Hurricane Party’s failure to create Forecast, an app that lets friends share their plans with other friends.
Mashable, once again, named Forecast one of the hottest apps to watch at SXSW 2012. It was also one of the companies pitching in the mobile category in the SXSW Accelerator competition.
But Forecast ran out of money and shut down its website on July 1st. Forecast posted the following message on its Facebook page and sent an e-mail to all of its users.

“The time has come for Forecast to shut its doors. Starting on July 1, our mobile apps and website will not work.

Although we’re passionate about building great products that help people connect in the real world, we have run out of resources to keep the Forecast project afloat. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to try our app, and we hope that it brought you some value.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to keep in touch, don’t hesitate to email us!

Best,
René Pinnell and Team Forecast

Austin’s A List of Startups

January 4, 2012 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce has culled through its list of Austin startups and tapped into its Technology Partnership to come up with an A-List of startups for 2012.

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce's A List of Startups

View more presentations from Laura Lorek

Hurricane Party reinvents itself as Foreca.st

November 16, 2011 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Eric Katerman, one of the founders of Austin-based Hurricane Party, spoke at Austin Startup Week at the Tiniest Bar in Texas. He said the team at Hurricane Party spent a year building a product that no one really wanted. They’ve since created Foreca.st, which is in Beta testing.
Hurricane Party was party of The Capital Factory’s startup class of 2010. The founders, Rene Pinnell and Katerman received $20,000 in seed stage funding to develop their idea.
At South by Southwest 2010, Hurricane Party generated a lot of buzz. It’s free app for smart phones that helps people plan parties on the fly.
But as Katerman explains in the video, they created something that didn’t gain enough traction in the marketplace.
So they went back to the drawing board to look at what worked and what didn’t work. (The whole adage about failing and learning from it in a startup environment.) That’s when they came up with Foreca.st, an app that lets a select group of friends know where you’re heading for lunch or a party or any kind of get together.