Auctomatic is all about “making selling online easy,” and though the company’s service has yet to be released, it appears to be well on its way to accomplishing that goal; to date, Auctomatic has nabbed over $400,000 in funding and the creator of Gmail.
I use the term “nab” figuratively, of course – Paul Buchheit, who “suggested the company’s now-famous motto ‘Don’t Be Evil’ in a 2001 meeting on company values,” appears to have come along quite willingly. Paul Graham and Trevor Blackwell, who are the two other members of Auctomatic’s Technical Infrastructure Team, have had dealings with Yahoo, so it’s a pretty well-rounded group.
(Speaking of which, Blackwell is “the inventor of the eunicycle and as a side project, he has built two other balancing vehicles: a two-wheeled balancing scooter similar to the Segway but with different steering, and a self-balancing unicycle.” Nifty.)
And that’s not even counting the self-proclaimed “A-Team.” According to their Auctomatic bios, cousins Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar attended Oxford and co-founded boso.com; a recent feature in The Irish Times does a good job of describing brothers Patrick and John Collison.
Harjeet, Kulveer, Patrick, and John as known as a “Thinker of Stuff,” a “Shrewd Operator,” the “Chief Bottlewasher,” and a “Code Monkey,” respectively, and Web 2.0 Ireland notes, “based on the team and the advisors they have put together they are on an upward curve.”
Mashable’s Pete Cashmore seems to agree. “The site’s tools include listing templates, scheduling, bulk listing, image hosting and inventory management,” he writes, and then adds, “As an eBay PowerSeller in a previous life, I can confirm that these tools are essential to anyone handling high volumes of listings: what’s more, PowerSellers are happy to pay for the convenience.”
There’s no Auctomatic news, as such, right now; on July 2, the corporate blog assured readers, “We’re working round the clock to finalise the app – we’re hoping to have the beta up in a few days.” A note follows that might explain the delay; Auctomatic wants to get things right on the first try, and not merely embark on a journey full of bugs and patches.
But the buzz is building – the project has recently been mentioned at both alarm:clock and VentureBeat – and by all accounts, Auctomatic is a company worth watching.
