A Year in the Life of AlikeList, 2009

February: The three founders (Jim, Michael and Rob) complete the Alpha version of AlikeList.com for personal and family user testing

March: The founders move into an office space in Sunnyvale, CA and hire the first team members

April: The spec for Alpha2 is completed based on user feedback. We improve search, browsing and social relevance functionality, too. More talented folks are hired.

June: Lots of product-testing and bug-fixing to get the site ready for the Beta launch
-    But there’s still time to play with the Alpha version from remote locales! AlikeList’s growing staff members hit popular vacation spots such as Seattle and Tahoe.

July: “Soft” launch: AlikeList Beta goes live!! The staff invites all their friends and family to join and try

August: We invite 500,000 people to check out and provide feedback on AlikeList via BzzAgent. We garner extremely valuable feedback for next version.
-    AlikeList is busting at the seams with people! We move in to a bigger office space

September: Second Beta version launches
-    Inspired by user feedback and our own determination to make the site more intuitive, fast and helpful, we start working on a new layout and features for the site

October: Mark Law (from AOL-owned MapQuest) and lots of other really talented product design, development and engineering people join us!

November: Company party at Strike Bowling Alley – a brief break in the sprint to complete development on V1.0 before the Holidays
-    More product-testing. AlikeList staff work around the clock to get the site ready for it’s big Dec. Launch

December: Version 1.0 launches!
-    We’re excited to get some rave reviews and feedback after announcing our funding, new site enhancements & the addition of Mark Law and team members.
(Read reviews in VentureBeat, Screenwerk, Local Onliner and more here.)

Looking into 2010:
We hope to make the site even better! As always, user feedback will help us make further refinements based on the real life usage of AlikeList. And we’ll add new functionalities to help people simplify their daily lives!