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Ain't it great being loved
just for You Being You?
Want some more of that free love? You'll find it at petsmooch.com, where pets like you set up a profile, tell crazy owner stories, upload photos, dictate blogs, complain about leash laws, or just relax and smell the roses (or whtever turns you on) — while people just as lovable as your owner oohh and aahh over your God-given fabulousness.
In an Online World,
pets mark their territory at: |
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PetSmooch is the result of a social connection, triggering a whole new world of community.
The local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, right next to Barnes & Noble bookstore was where they all met and socialized: Tirza, a professional card dealer and Patrick's friend; Patrick Ritter, a software engineer and a Buddhist scholar; Mehmet Efe, Patrick's friend, a former writer, activist and an IT/IS Generalist; Jeff Olivares, an elemantary school teacher and a philosopher; Fritz, an actor and an environmentalist activist; Jan and Hans, Tirza's twin brothers who are aviation buffs and marathon runners; and others who regularly met at this cafe, and exchanged moments over a cup of coffee or a bergamot flavored tea.
At that cafe, sometime in early 2006, Tirza asked Mehmet: "Wouldn't it be cool and fun to build a matchmaking site for pets? Basically pets looking for friends!"
"Interesting idea." said Mehmet, "you mean owners meeting each other through their pets?"
"Yes. I was at the dog park and I noticed people meeting each other for the first time, smiling and so because their pets barked at each other and such."
"Do you have a dog, or pet Tirza?" asked Mehmet.
"Most of my life! I used to take road trips across the country with my cat and my dog. My last dog died not long ago. God, I miss him!"
"I love it!" exclaimed Mehmet, "But, let's not make it a matchmaking or dating site, rather a social networking site. After all, a matchmaking site creates the pretext of dating and limits the context. Besides, isn't it more natural and real to connect through friends and mutual interests, exchange ideas? This way, families can meet too, pets can find playmates, people can help rescue efforts, baby boomers can form a group passionate about global warming and so on! It will be like the combination of the dog park and this cafe!"
Jeff and Patrick took a break from their passionate discussion on the meaning of Samsara.
"Well" interjected Patrick, " after all, this world could always use more love, peace and socializing!"
"Seems like the two of you are perfect team for this perfect idea." said Jeff.
"Great! But I don't know how the web works, I don't know how an online business is run! How can I help?" asked Tirza.
"Just be yourself and leave it to me." said Mehmet, "Here is the first thing you can help with: Do a research and send me a document on what should be on the site for the visitors and we will go from there."
So on and off they worked on the idea at the spare times from their day jobs.
Well folks, here it is!
Mehmet Efe, Founder, Chief Barking Officer
 Mehmet Efe, a "Pinky and the Brain" fan, is the owner of Linkfinity, and founder and Chief Barking Officer of PetSmooch. He was born in Turkey in 1969 and went to school after failing at shepherding. After a decade-long career as a Journalist and 3 published books, he fell in love with the Internet in the mid 90's and greeted it as a democratizing revolution that he just had to be a part of. He taught himself how to build a web server from scratch. He became a permanent U.S. resident in 1997 and worked for clients like HP (Hewlett Packard), Pervasive and web sites like Garden.com.
In 1999, he became Digital Media Production Specialist at FrogDesign in Silicon Valley, one of the oldest and biggest design companies in the World, serving clients like Apple, Sony, Motorola, Intel, Microsoft. At Frog, during the years of the Dot-com Boom in Silicon Valley, he worked for clients and on enterprise projects like ZuluSports, MySmart, TalkCity, Living.com, eBenefits, Rentals.com, Access, Intel, Covalent, Trintech, Intershop and Symantec (If you're using Norton Anti-virus, you're looking at his development work). He worked for years in Online Learning and Education area.
When he started on PetSmooch on a weekend at the local cafe, on weekdays he was leading Quality Assurance team at Yahoo! where he was intrumental in successfully releasing the single biggest most complex project Yahoo ever undertook, namely Project Panama. Currently he is Director of QA at Shopzilla (an E. W. Scripps company).
His children have 4 pets: "Jasmine", a chihuahua, "Xena" the cat, "Pepper" the parrot, and "Fishy" the beta fish who is working on a solution to global warming. His 5 years old daughter who is a pet fanatic, now wants Mehmet to get her "a tiny horse".
He is an open source enthusiast, a member of Free Software Foundation, and New York Times never hailed him as "an astonishing genius with groove!"
To this date he has never had a drivers license. He doesn't drive. And his friends are getting tired of delivering him around Los Angeles.
Tirza van Noord, Co-founder, Chief Pet Evangelist
Tirza is co-founder and the pet evangelist for PetSmooch.
She was born in the Netherlands in 1947, moved to Canada and lived there for many years. She then moved to the States and has been living in Marina Del Rey, California since the early 1980's.
She worked as executive assistant, office manager, account manager, event coordinator and worked at companies like Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Continental Airlines.
She used to go 'barnstorming' in a "Long-EZ" all over Southern California in the 90'ies with her twin brothers as her pilots. She 'defied the death' multiple times with a world-famous spaceship designer, has been a professional table card dealer, can type 70+ words per minute and is a real free spirit.
Did we mention she is single and about to become a very successful business woman with a soft spot for pets? |
Tirza is getting ready for a flight on "The Defiant", (only two in the world) designed by Burt Rutan |
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