Crafty startup + more things

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Lisa, a former colleague from Yahoo! has joined a crafty startup. The Yahoo! alumni network has a bit of a reputation with crafty startups. Hack Day pioneer Chad Dickerson was instrumental in the growth of Etsy. My Mum now has a compelling web application:

In a nutshell, Wool and the Gang is a knitwear brand where you can either buy our designs hand-knit by artisans in Peru or you can buy a kit to make it yourself. We have some pretty exciting plans which I can’t go in to detail here but suffice it to say I’m excited and so are a number of investors here in the UK.

That’s why I’m looking to fill out the team to completely overall the online experience and build something which is currently super secret. If you know anyone for the following roles, please pass them my email rodwell@woolandthegang.com

1. User Experience – KICK ASS! We’re starting from scratch and need brilliance. I suspect this is not full time but a contract position as we design the new site and product

2. Marketing Associate – Great opportunity for a young, smart whipper-snapper who wants to get in to marketing (PR/email/content/social etc.) I’m willing to train but must be smart, love fashion, creative and good with the odd number

3. Front End Developer – full time.

Wool and the Gang as a crafty startup taps into the Etsy marketplace. The side hustle, bored pensioners or part time gig to channel one’s creative side into. I’m not surprised. Over the years, as I occasionally went home and joined my Mum on fabric and knitting wool shopping trips, the customer base I have seen in the shops have gotten younger. The market seems to be like a dumbbell, with young and older people engaging. It will be interesting to see if this can be extended online with the rise of the successful crafty startup.

Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner’s first album as Electronic is being reissued, you can stream it for free via a nice looking app on the great satan of social networks here.

BBC Labs great interactive illustration of the UK class system was fascinating and shows in a positive way just where the license fee goes despite UK politics. Class is a complex concept for people who’ve never lived in the United Kingdom.

It was so embedded in UK culture that it was referenced in this skit on modernity.

Root Blog posted the excellent documentary Synth Britannia. None of that guitar and drums crap, real music. Despite the UK’s place as ground zero for punk, heavy metal and glam rock from the 1980s onwards it pioneered a lot of electronic music styles. 

Japanese company Denso Corp. came up with a killer smart phone application, an key ring finder. I imagine that his works far better than the version from the 1980s gadget catalogue Kaleidoscope (US readers think Sharper Image catalogs of the same vintage). tMore Japan related content here.