HipCal History
While giving an interview recently I realized that some of the important dates in HipCal history were getting a little fuzzy. Here’s an official time line;
Fall semester, 2004 - I make the first version of MyPIMP in my EIW class at RPI. ~30 fraternity brothers and friends were using it.
Winter break, 2004 - Pete & I were talking on AIM and decided that we wanted to make a website. We chose MyPIMP since it had already been started.
Spring semester, 2005 - Pete, Chris, Tawheed, Glenn, and I start planning features, prototyping, and working on the PHP framework.
Summer, 2005 - Pete, Glenn, and I stay at AXP in Troy and work on the site daily. Chris and Tawheed work from the east coast while not at their real jobs.
September 4th, 2005 - Launch! MyPIMP goes live and we start spreading the word around campus. Most new users are our friends and classmates.
Fall semester, 2005 - We continue adding features including an interface upgrade, Groups, iCal support, and DST support.
November 17th, 2005 - We change the name of the site to HipCal, enabling more users to feel comfortable using the site. We did not take church calendar users into consideration before this point!
Winter break, 2005 - HipCal is having some serious server issues. We weren’t really sure what to do since none of us had run a website before…
January 19th, 2006 - We get an email from Rikk Carey over at Plaxo asking if we’d like to chat. We give him a call and are soon booked on a flight out there to meet the team.
February 5-7th, 2006 - We fly out to Mountain View to meet everyone at Plaxo. Product visions are shared and both sides seem very excited about moving forward.
Late February, 2006 - Legal documents are passed back and forth while we try to figure out what each of us would be doing at Plaxo.
April 10th, 2006 - Mark Jen visits us in Troy while on the east coast for a blogging conference. We get our office set up as a Plaxo satellite office so we can start working.
Late April, 2006 - Pete and I are doing tons of press interviews (under embargo) while getting slammed with homework. It’s fun.
May 1st, 2006 - News of the acquisition finally goes public! Here’s some more press.
May 16th, 2006 - A small Plaxo + HipCal party is thrown at the Plaxo offices while we’re out there on a 4 day visit.
May 20th, 2006 - Glenn, Pete, and Tawheed graduate from RPI.
June 5th, 2006 - We begin our road trip across the country.
June 10th, 2006 - We arrive at our new place in Los Altos.
June 12th, 2006 - First day of work at Plaxo!
— Year of work —
June 24th, 2007 - The new Plaxo 3.0 is released.
The next few items added to this list will be very exciting. I wish I could add them now, but you’ll just have to wait!