About Stashmatic
Dave Ferrance and I created Stashmatic for collectors, catalogers, and hobbyists — for anyone who needs to organize and track items or information. I grew up among several generations of collectors. That meant a childhood of flea market weekends and visits to relatives' houses full of interesting things to look at but not touch. That obsessive gene was passed on, and I turned out to be a collector too.
Two things have always been frustrating about trying to keep track of my collections. First, typing all the information into a spreadsheet or a database was always too daunting a task. Second, I was usually just as interested in what I didn't have as what I did. I wanted some way to keep a running checksheet of what I needed to complete (well, at least approach completion) my collections.
But wait. What if we could create a shared online database? If a lot of people got together and started entering bits and pieces of their collections, that would help everyone. Luckily I met Stashmatic's other founder, Dave Ferrance. Dave took those ramblings, added a few of his own, and together we created the site you see today. Stashmatic is built around a shared community database of information ... to add an item to your personal Stash, enter it into the database and indicate whether you have or want it. Once it's in the database, any other member can add the item to his or her collection. Stashmatic launched in December 2006.
I know that anyone who has a website asks for feedback and suggestions. I just want to emphasize how interested we are in your opinions and how committed we are to developing the best community site for collectors. We first developed Stashmatic for how we think and work, which I bet is different from how you think and work. So please let us know how! We have big plans of where we're going from here, and we want to make sure that your feedback is incorporated. Thanks so much for your interest.
Best,
Jon Phillips
Stashmatic has offices in Chapel Hill, NC and Albuquerque, NM.
About the Founders
In 1995, Jon was one of the first employees at the interactive arm of Digitas (NASDAQ: DTAS) where he led agency teams and directed client relationships; he founded the agency’s web measurement practice and opened their first branch office, in San Francisco. He joined Desktop.com in 1999 and served as Vice President of Marketing and Product Development. Since he couldn’t stop collecting books or book reviews, he took a professional break from the Internet to start the literary magazine Bookmarks. He remains the executive editor and publisher there.
Jon gets obsessive about wine, Bruce Springsteen, David Foster Wallace, and the Legion of Super-Heroes.
When Dave isn't building fully functioning clocks out of legos or out of wood from scratch, he's tracking waypoints and participating in 48 hour motorcycle rallys. Or at least he was doing all that before his son was born a few months ago.
Dave collects job descriptions too. He has worked with financial transaction security, video games, human resources, simulators, and yes, even collector websites. No stranger to collecting himself, he has previously collected stamps, coins, watches, and scotch, but currently is only seeking out unusual experiences.