• Backyard Brains, which enables high school teachers to incorporate neurophysiology into their lessons.
• Carrier Mobile, which aims to replace hand-written logs for truck drivers with cell phone software.
• CrowdClarity, which uses the wisdom of crowds—often called crowdsourcing—to assist in product development.
• Mobil33t, a mobile development company primarily focused on smartphone application development.
• My BandStock, which allows bands to raise money from their fan base to make records.
• Phonagle, which focuses on team-based multiplayer games incorporating social networking.
• Quazie.net, which focuses on iPhone applications and other ventures.
• Shepherd Intelligent Systems, which tracks public buses and posts their locations online through Google Maps.
• WOMP Software, which creates and distributes lightweight, easy-to-use software.

The TechArb is a temporary home to these startups, but with the support of the university and local venture firm, RPM Ventures, it may be a more permanent space to foster entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan.  Full article from the University of Michigan News Service.

Since it’s just us three, we do what we want. If we have engagements during work time, no problem. We have a very cheap and flexible work environment – maybe not always so comfortable for visitors (or ourselves at times), but, it’s what we’ve created and it keeps our space fresh and highly usable for a variety of activities.

Flexibility and not having unnecessary expectations for others is key. For instance, we try to start each day (although it’s more like every other day) with a 20 minute episode from one our favorite TV shows. We all understand just how invested in the company we are. We know that if we take it easy one afternoon, we’ll be back in action the next morning, full force. One thing that enables this is that we all work very closely. We have an open space, no private rooms or cubes. We share and communicate constantly, solving technical challenges, planning our work, reflecting on our work habits, throwing out interesting experiences and ideas, making jokes and everything else. We’ve developed a rapport and camaraderie that allows us to be open, not afraid of taking risks or proposing out-of-the-ordinary ideas.

We enjoy working hard as well as taking time to relax. We do it all together and are able to solve problems (technical or not) together faster and better than if we were working on them alone.

This culture is tough to scale as new people join the organization bringing with them diverse experiences, interests and ideas but I think we’re keen on coming up with ways to make people feel included and valued members of the team.

We hauled Gaurav’s table tennis table over to the office a little more than a week ago. Gaurav is really good. It’s pretty pointless to play against him.