Shiny Heart Spotting: On Beach at Fortunes Rocks Tidal Pool

A few months ago, Frank started noticing hearts in random places which he dubbed “hearts in the wild”.  First it was the back of a chair at a NYC cafe, then a wine bottle, then fireworks – and it continued on. Since then, it’s become a game for us to be out, spot a heart, snap a pic with our phones and then send to Flickr/Twitter as a “Shiny Heart Spotting”.  A couple people have jumped in, sharing their pics with us (the heart shaped clouds were the best) and now we’d love for more people to join in the fun. To send us your own heart spotting, Tweet us at @shinyheart or upload to Flickr and tag it with “ShinyHeartSpotting“.  Here are a few of our favorites so far. Be sure to follow Shiny Heart Ventures on Twitter, Facebook or AIM to get the latest spottings and product updates!

Frank Gruber and Jen Consalvo work near the pool at the Hilton Embassy Row Hotel in Washington, D.C. They pay $15 a day for pool access. WASHINGTON POST / TONI L. SANDYS

We’ve had some major excitement here at SHV recently. As you may have seen in one of the nine ten (and counting) major press outlets that featured our story, we (Jen & Frank) were recently profiled as part of Mike Rosenwald’s (@mikerosenwald) story on Digital Nomads. Now we know there are many, many people out there who have lived this way for years and we are somewhat new to the game. But that makes it even more exciting for us and in a way, makes us feel like we’ve found our tribe. We love discovering blog posts and tweets from people whose work lives reside outside of an office (whether they work for themselves or not) – and sharing info about how they get things done. We’ve received so much encouraging feedback – we’d just like to say thank you! Also, a few things…

1. Many of you are asking about what we’re going to launch and when. We should have one announcement in the next 2-3 weeks so make sure you sign up for our email updates (at the top of this page) or follow us on twitter so you are one of the first to know what’s going on.

2. No, we don’t spend a lot of money working from places like the Hilton pool. That was one place we had wanted to try out for a while, but will reserve for only special occasions since they charge extra for the wifi. Frank does actually go into the AOL office as much as he can when he’s in town (but most of his team is distributed across the country anyway) and Jen works from home (she calls it “the nest”) to save money. Both of us like to mix it up once in a while though and keep looking around for interesting new places – especially on the weekends and when on the road, since for us, work doesn’t really stop. To understand this “connected 24/7″ life, check out Peter Shankman’s post “Why don’t you do some work?“.

3. If you haven’t seen the article, here are some links… sorry, can’t resist! This is our first version of a “Press” page

• WashingtonPost.com – Digital Nomads Choose Their Tribes: Teleworkers Find Camaraderie in a New Kind of Colleague
• WashingtonPost.com – Digital Nomads Choose Their Tribes VIDEO
• HeraldTribune.com – Roaming through the work day
• MercuryNews.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for diners and pool decks
• SiliconValley.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for diners and pool decks
• Los Angeles Times – With wireless devices, telecommuters cut the cord
• Jakarta Globe – For Digital Nomads, the Office Is Wherever They Want to Be
• Omaha World Herald at Omaha.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for coffee shops, pool decks
• Austin Statesman.com – Digital nomads ditch cubicles for cafes pools: With Wi-Fi lifelines and willing employers, workers ply their trade wherever they please
• The Seattle Times – Cubicles foreign to digital nomads
• TheDay.com Connecticut – Digital Nomads Ditch Cubicles For Diners And Pool Decks

We’ve been on the road quite a bit in the last month, and between the two of us we’ve hit Maine, Milwaukee, Chicago, Taipei and New York in just a few weeks, with a few more trips on the horizon. We like to consider ourselves digital nomads and have a goal of being location independent in order to experience as much as we can – definitely a lot more than when chained to an office desk. Thanks to the developments of wireless technology and lots of devices, we are always connected. While many people love working at larger companies and thrive on daily office camaraderie and a certain level of stability, we like to feel the freedom of unrestricted mobility. Whether we are jumping on a Skype call via our iPhones while reviewing new devices in downtown Taipei, sending our developers daily feedback from coastal Maine or responding to an email thread while watching our favorite Chicago baseball team rally to pull out an exciting win, we remain productive from virtually anywhere. Not that life is always that exciting, but with family and friends scattered, global tech events and lots of frequent flier miles, we like to take advantage of any change in scenery.

In real-estate the emphasis is always put on “location, location, location!” and thanks to ever-evolving technology we can now be productive from almost any location – the devices and connectivity leave us no excuse. And while we understand that there is no place like home, we like to think we have many homes – the primary one being the World Wide Web. So we embrace our unrestricted mobility as much as we can, allowing us to experience more in life while continuing to move the ball forward. Who needs vacation?

Whimsical offices of SkinnyCorp

In one of my last posts, I said we wanted to use this space to talk about companies that inspire us, so, this first company is one that we have both admired for awhile and have had the good fortune to meet – skinnyCorp. Maybe you’ve heard of them or their most awesomeness product/website Threadless. Here’s what we know and like… and hope to copy the hell out of (not their products – just their awesomeness).

• They have a great mission that really defines who they are and what they’re about.
• They take fun seriously – it’s consistent in every single thing they do, especially in their offices (they have an airstream IN their office!)
• They are creative problem solvers. For example, they’ve created systems and invented their own solutions when no others could be found.
• They honor the communities they’ve built – online and offline.
• They care about how they do business; the design, the experience, the quality, the people – they all matter.
• They make money. For real.

Check out Frank’s video of his office visit with skinnyCorp last year.

Here are a few more links where you can learn more about this inspirational company:

• 7 Reasons Why Threadless Rules by 37Signals.com
• My Visit to skinnyCorp (threadless.com) by EricJohnOlson.com
• Visiting the Threadless.com Office in Boulder by SomewhatFrank.com

We have several more companies in the queue that we’ve been checking out. If you know of any that you think we’d be interested in looking at, please leave them in the comments or email us at friends@shinyheartventures.com. Thanks!