"Welcome to the Consumer Revolution."
The invitation is a lofty ideal-but one that might well be realized by the 16-member team of the Duke start-up company, shoeboxed.com.
Shoeboxed, Inc. has designed technology to organize digital receipts and fight spam, with other ideas still in the pipeline. Its groundbreaking tools will provide a unique e-mail address for Internet shoppers and "read" their e-mails to filter receipts into folders, called shoeboxes.
The launch has been months in the making, with signs heralding its debut posted across campus.
"We've had a lot of users sign up to be notified when it's launched," senior Dan Englander, vice president for corporate communications-and former Chronicle and Towerview staffer-says. "It's really impressive because honestly, at the time, our site didn't really say much."
Working from Berlin, Germany over the summer, they've struggled against fatigue, language barriers and-incredibly-a patchy Internet connection.
"If you want to attract a really good team you need to be in an interesting place," says Taylor Mingos, Pratt '07 and Shoeboxed, Inc.'s founder and chief executive officer. "People aren't being compensated at Shoeboxed-they're working for the idea."
Team members said there isn't a typical day working for that idea, either, with people working across time zones (some members are still in America).
"The idea of a 'day' is really sort of problematic," says Alex Oliveira, Trinity '07 and chief marketing and operating officer. "Within 24 hours we're working-but it's not chaotic, it's very focused."
Mingos was in Berlin last summer as well, then with little more than a suitcase full of clothes and books about Internet startups.
"I had this idea about digital receipts-I didn't really have a plan, I just knew I wanted to be in Berlin for the World Cup," he says.
When he got there, he started working for studiVZ.com, a social networking site that has become the most popular website in the country-a sort of German sister to Facebook, ahead of even Google and Yahoo! in number of visitors.
That summer gave him the experience and the network he needed to work on digital receipts-Michael Brehm, executive director of studiVZ, is the seed investor for Shoeboxed. When Mingos returned to Duke, he began assembling the team.
"Back in February, I was sitting in class and Taylor had left a message, 'I found you on Facebook so this is a cold call, sort of just seeing if you're interested,'" says senior Tee Bishopric, chief technical officer.
Mingos says the team members came from all sorts of contacts, noting that despite their diversity, they're all united by the company.
"We have a very dedicated team," Mingos says.
Some members of the team are even weighing taking leaves of absence to focus on shoeboxing.
"I think the work has to justify being away from the people you love," Oliveira says. "And so far it has, it's been very rewarding."
In September, however, the team will return to Durham.
"Before I got to Duke, I had never taken a [computer science] course, so it's really because of Duke that I'm able to do this-creating this site that is arguably very sophisticated," Bishopric says. "Duke's resources are really impressive. It also speaks to the caliber of students we could attract by staying."
-Chelsea Allison
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