Some progress on my startup - "Plato's Forms"

I've talked a bit on this blog and left various cryptic messages on twitter and facebook about the new startup company I have founded and am working on.

I have a few bits of news to add today:

For starters, the provisional name of my new startup is "Plato's Forms." I say this is provisional because I may change the name prior to launch depending on how it grows on me and how the business model and product evolves (as they tend to do.)

The inspiration for the name is quite simple: when I first conceived of the business idea and the problems I was trying to solve, I kept thinking back to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. After the usual endless iterations of what I might call the company, I kept coming back to Plato's Forms. All I can say about the company right now is that it is a software service aimed at corporate customers that addresses some of the challenges of communicating in complex, rapidly evolving industries, like the Cleantech industry I have been involved in for the last 2 years.

So it's pretty obvious I am not founding an EV company or anything like that. The company is a software service delivered over the web, so I won't have to worry about faulty transmissions or crash testing (of the physical type.) I will stay closely involved in Cleantech in my new role at Peppercom as their Senior Analyst for Cleantech.

Since I am founding a technology company, I imagine it is important to get someone on the team who knows something about technology. So the second bit of news is that Ben Metcalfe is joining me as "Acting CTO." What this means is that Ben is advising on the high level technology issues as well as doing some of the hands on work in the early days. Ben will also help me build the initial team of developers to get the first product launched. Ben not only understands technology, he understands media, having spent a good part of his early career at the BBC working on their digital properties and establishing an award winning developer network.

I will start to post more on what I am doing with Plato's Forms here on this blog, but please understand that it may be a bit murky at first. I hope to have a first public beta ready to go in 6 months or less and will be launching it initially in the cleantech sector (hence, the synergy with my other job at Peppercom.) I will also continue to post on Cleantech topics.