Episode description

Mark Zuckerburg, Tom Houge’s coming up behind you. Sean Parker, Tom Houge’s Fipeo.com is better than your Airtime.com, and Tom built it for less than 1% of the $33.5 million you invested to launch Airtime.

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Tom Houge is the co-founder of Fipeo.com and he was Tom Russo and Ken Cook’s guest this week on Open for Business. Tom represents what is great and innovative about the start-up world. Fipeo is a video chat platform that takes Facebook’s 4.74 degrees of separation and reduces it to zero. Unlike its’ massively funded competitor Airtime, Fipeo zealously guards privacy yet connects people and resources with real connections via video. Fipeo’s applications and revenue opportunities are abundant.

While discussing Houge’s start-up journey what also came to light are the serious shortcomings in the start-up environment in CT. Where start-up environments thrive around the world there exists a passion from all stakeholders, and a earnest curiosity that needs to be satisfied. Houge’s experience in CT makes it painfully evident that passion and curiosity are not at the forefront of the state’s initiatives to foster start-ups.

Tune into to Tom Russo and Ken Cook’s fascinating conversation; hear about the birth of potentially the next Facebook; hear how the start-up environment in CT cannot sustain what Fipeo needs.

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