Fondu: How and why this startup started, stopped and refocused all within their first 6 months in business – with co-founder Gauri Manglik
December 8, 2011 
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In July 2011, Gauri Manglik launched her first startup, SpotOn – a mobile recommendation engine for local restaurants, bars and coffeehouses. SpotOn was a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist as well as one of the 25 top startups to watch in New York City. I covered this part of their journey here: SpotOn: How they are creating the Netflix of mobile recommendation engines for restaurants, bars and coffee houses – with co-founder Gauri Manglik.
This is the story of what happened after that conversation: The closure of SpotOn and the birth of the latest initiative, Fondu. In Fondu, Gauri and her team are trying to build a community for sharing opinions about the places we eat and drink.
One of the key things from our first conversation was the process by which Gauri’s team made development and product direction decisions – they listen to their users – and this is a perfect example of not being too stubborn to shift your focus when it becomes clear you are not going down the optimum path.
Enjoy!
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About Gauri Manglik
Gauri Manglik is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fondu.
Before founding Foundu, Gauri worked as a developer at BlackRock and at the NYU Stern Center for Research Computing. She graduated from NYU in 2010 with a BA in Computer Science.
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