If you aren’t having fun running your business, what’s the point? TY iWorkTheLight

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Mari and I initially planned to run a smaller contest to give out movie tickets. But thanks to the power of Twitter, I got connected with Pascal Levy-Garboua, founder of the app SixDoors. This app aims to “make it easy to shop local.” For now it’s only available at the Apple App Store, so those using Android, or Windows, will have to wait.

I have a lot of praise for the women entrepreneurs that stepped up to contribute towards the $300 Oakland Grown Gift Card prize. But there are plenty of open-minded and forward-thinking men as well, including I LOB Resources’ Jason Frando and yours truly 🙂

Q and A with SixDoors

Answers provided by Pascal Levy-Garboua

Who is founder/s and what lead you to start this company?

We are two founders – Thorsten (CTO) and Pascal (CEO) – but you could extend the founding team to the four people you see on our website.

Thorsten is the CTO, and SixDoors is his third Company. He started a mobile gaming Company when there were no smartphones, one of the largest European social gaming publishing Company (Plinga), and has been the CTO of the largest German dating site.

Pascal is the CEO, and SixDoors is my second Entrepreneurial venture. Previously, I co-founded VirtuOz, a software Company that does “Siri” for the Enterprise (and was acquired recently by the people who power Siri!). I also started a company that launched a few local search products in France.

SixDoors started the day where I was fed up spending hours at local toy stores trying to find a gift for one of my kids’ friends and sending my wife pictures so that she would tell me what to buy. I was busy with work and spending 2 hours on that, there had to be a better way!

Do you have any plans to add independent grocers? Or farmers market vendors on SixDoors?

We will have a few independent specialty grocery place (mostly selling fine foods from specific countries) but our core use case right now is around products you would bring for a party or around gifting. This is where we can really make a dent in a differentiated way.

Is an android app in the works?

Not for now. We want to get things right on iPhone first and then we will move to the web and Android.

What does “local” mean to you?

I have always been a strong supporter of buying local (ie. in your city from neighborhood stores with store owners [whose kids] go to school with your kids), and both Thorsten and I are big city guys: we love cities for their stores, cafes, restaurants, where you can walk to etc… That’s what make cities exciting and unique.

Talking and working with stores, we realized how hard it was for them to compete in an Amazon world. We hope to bring them the edge that will allow them to keep expanding, first locally, and then who knows 😉