In the Microsoft Accelerator with SD’s Embarke: ‘This is Not Easy!’

technology on a monthly subscription basis, using a tiered pricing model based on the number of messages delivered.

Embarke’s first beta product, released in early 2011, could take the messages that Facebook users posted on their walls, and automatically insert them in appropriate Facebook Groups. User feedback prompted them to shift their strategy and focus instead on person-to-person communications through different Internet channels. Additional feedback on the next iteration prompted them to focus on their application programming interface, or API.

“We took six to nine months to figure out who we wanted to be, and what we wanted to be,” said Bsharah, a 41-year-old entrepreneur who told me he’s been involved in multiple startups over the past 15 years. A timeline they created for Embarke reflects their perseverance in developing and testing different versions of their technology. In other words, he’s spent years working to become an overnight success.

“We’re trying to solve as hard of a problem as we can that still has a significant customer user base,” Bsharah said.

In addition to the Founder Institute, they also participated in a variety of other local entrepreneur programs, including Lean Startup Machine and Startup Weekend. They also demonstrated their technology in San Francisco, at the Launch Festival and Founder Showcase, and in San Diego at the San Diego Venture Group’s annual venture summit.

So out of 600 applications, how did Embarke make the new Seattle accelerator’s starting lineup? In an e-mail, Bsharah writes

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.