Munjal Shah, the CEO of Web 2.0 start-up Riya, is writing a series of posts recounting the first two months following the launch of the company’s public beta.  Riya offers “face recognition technology [that] automatically tags people in photos so you can search for just
the photo you want. In your albums. In your friends’ albums. In our public albums.”

In his introductory post, Munjal provides a taste of what is to come:

The last 60 days has been just a whirlwind. In the next eight/nine blog posts I’m going to recount the last sixty days of Riya in detail. Each blog post will cover a week.

I will recount the days following our launch, the cocaine like high and subsequent crash of the Techcrunch effect, the final analysis on whether Riya’s technology worked, the feedback we recieved from users, the competitors we beat (at least in traffic), the flaw in the Riya business strategy we uncovered, the crisis it precipitated, the concern I developed for the entire Web 2.0 industry as the numbers rolled in, the search for a new strategy as Azhar, Burak, and I sat in a conference room for almost 10 days straight, the customer data that lead us to a counter-web 2.0 and counter intuitive strategy, the board meeting and debate about it, and the first execution around it.

They say consumer Internet companies are all about launching, getting feedback, and iterating. Well, welcome to Riya Iteration 1.

Today, Munjal posted Episode 1: March 21 6am PST to March 28 6am.

Thanks to Tara Hunt for pointing to Munjal’s posts.