acquired Question Exchange during a website buying frenzy that included the geek news site Slashdot.org and the online Linux news outfit Freshmeat.net. Bernick says he collaborated with Slashdot, Freshmeat, and other VA Linux sites until he left the company in mid-2000. Before he left, Bernick says he witnessed the excesses of the ill-fated dot.com craze.
“We were in a one-room office that was 200 square feet and then we got acquired and three days later were at China Club in New York City with a laser show with the logo of our company,” Bernick says. “That’s when I knew the dot-com thing was going to end pretty soon.”
To hear Bernick, Eldersync is taking a conservative approach to business growth. He does much of the firm’s coding at his Back Bay condo. He says that the firm, while open to raising money now, may not bring in outside investors until it wants the capital to fund sales efforts. To begin sales, though, the startup needs to make sure that its online service delivers the value it promises to home health firms and their patients.
“I think we’re going to an era where we expect to look at our computers and have a dashboard that’s going to meet our needs and the needs of the people around us,” Bernick says. “We do that every morning when we look at Facebook, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get the same experience when we want to check on [mom’s health].”
