I’ve been sworn to secrecy so long about this that I was bummed when I didn’t get the chance to blog about it last week when the news finally broke about Disney acquiring Boulder-based Kerpoof.
Brad Feld has a nice write-up that’s pretty similar to my experience with Krista and her team. I spent some time helping them with their TechCrunch 40 (50? 80?) presentation in 2007, and was an occasional advisor to the company. My son Andrew was an early beta tester for Kerpoof, and I would provide feedback to the team after watching him use it without instruction.
Krista and her team did a fantastic job bootstrapping Kerpoof. They flirted with raising money a few times, but never really needed to. They funded the company by doing some lucrative consulting on the side, signing up early customers and landing a grant or two. All the while, they were building some fantastic technology that really appealed to youngsters. If you have some kids in the 3-8 year old range and you haven’t checked out Kerpoof, have them give it a try.
Congratulations to Krista and the gang at Kerpoof. This was very well deserved.
