You’ve heard the saying “I work for beans” before I’m sure…well in David Beach’s case, they work for burritos. Literally. And no, he doesn’t even work for Taco Bell.

David, or “Beach” as he is known by most, mostly grew up in Santa Cruz, California. Now, Santa Cruz is known for its beaches, its skaters, its surfers….for being a kind of “hippy cool” town. What it isn’t known for, (or at least definitely wasn’t when David was first getting started in the field) is technology. For innovation. For the Internet. Heck, back then, the ‘Net was still this newly forming concept just starting to really catch on. Around 1993, David was a part of one of the first Internet startups, IUMA (The Internet Underground Music Archive). It was amazing, it was huge. Everyone involved at the time was volunteering. David came on as the designer. Although he was self-taught in that skill he said “Sure, I’ll do that!”, and forged ahead. There was no precedent for what they were doing; it was the most exciting thing he had been involved with at that point. He was 24 years old, engaged, working in this brand new Internet Industry. He had actually dropped out of college to start a record label, and while there, had learned a lot….and it brought him to this crazy, exciting new thing called the ‘Net.

So here they were, having CNN and ABC and Dateline come to interview them….people flying in from LA and Germany….yet people from San Francisco wouldn’t make the trip. Since they weren’t connected to the Silicon Valley, people didn’t take them seriously. After all…they were just that “hippy town”.  

Still hardly making any money two years later and getting married that year, a friend of David’s with an ad agency called him one day. He said he had a catalogue called “Egghead”, and was wondering what they should do with it. David’s immediate answer…start a website!  He formed egghead.com in the early days of e-commerce, and it did well. Besides that...he loved it. He couldn’t believe he was getting paid to do this stuff.

In 2001, David moved onto working with Yahoo! Shopping. He began looking for a house with his wife. It seemed as though everywhere they looked, there was just a reason they knew it wasn’t the house for them…schools, the house itself…whatever. Finally, although David worked in San Jose, they decided to look in Santa Cruz. David remembered growing up there and just loving the area, and decided the commute was worth it. They looked, and they found their perfect house.

David with his wife Jane, his daughter Audrey, and his son Isaac

He started meeting people in Santa Cruz that worked in the Web through different social networks. He noticed this one guy that seemed to be almost “following him around”. He could see his picture, and it seemed to matter what group or circle he joined...poof! There he was.  Finally he saw a tweeter from him saying something like how great it was to be back in Santa Cruz. David contacted him after that, and they decided to meet. They ended up talking for hours, about life and tech and all they would love to see happen. They realized they should get together and start something on the tech side in Santa Cruz. I mean…they figured there was no reason it shouldn’t be known for its technology and innovation. They have a great University, lots of people that lived there do tech stuff; why not try to do something with that?? They decided to start doing “Geek Dinners”. They sent out invites to friends and friends of friends …the kind of “let’s all get together and talk at a restaurant and compare ideas” kind of thing. They had their first one December of 2007. 

It was really exciting, lots of people thinking the same thing. Although Santa Cruz had some tech in the past, the companies all either left or didn’t succeed. But now, years later...with people working all over the world, they felt there was no reason they couldn’t have people there and attract people, and get some cool businesses and innovations. At the tail end of the night, he met Sol Lipman, this warm, friendly, positive, smart, big bear type guy….(although he was a little tipsy). David immediately liked him.

About a week later, he was contacted about having a meeting with Sol and the Economic Developer of Santa Cruz. Lots of great ideas tossed around…start a fund…a co-working space, etc. Although they all sounded great, he was still working at Yahoo! full-time, and a bit leery about getting into something like that although he knew he wanted to start his own company. Before, although he had all these impressive successes under his belt, he had always been doing it for someone else…and he wanted to try something for himself.

The very next day, he got an email from Sol saying "let’s talk about some stuff". They met for lunch, talked about their lives, their families…and then got down to it. Sol said that he wanted to start something in Santa Cruz, and asked David if he had any ideas. David indeed did.

He told Sol about an idea he had for a video site…how photos don’t have to be still images anymore...they don’t have to be still or silent. That there should be a way to capture moments, not just plain photos, or long videos….but something in between. Every camera comes with video mode…most phones too…and it’s just not being used. YouTube is out there, but more for entertainment, not content. Plenty of photo sites too. He at first thought the site should be for clips somewhere between five and fifteen seconds. With Twitter, he saw it becoming personalized, with people using it to update their friends with stuff like “Oh I like this movie”…or “Oh! I’m on vacation, it’s so beautiful!”. He thought "If we make this a video, it’s short snippets. And there’s some value to that." He thought this could really be interesting. Sol immediately liked the idea. And they got started.

At first it was “10seconds”. He says Sol is the perfect counterpart, he’s a great balance. He’s a business guy yet also creative. The social kind that doesn’t mind getting out there and pounding the pavement. Beach says that he is more introspective, doesn't like to get out there…that it makes him uncomfortable. (He laughs here). But he believes they stumbled on each other for a reason. They decided…let’s find some people and get this off the ground. But they were both employed...so they weren’t really thinking startup...more of a hobby. Like some people knit or do woodwork... their hobby is building websites.

But, as you can imagine, it takes a lot of time. It is very process oriented, with huge amounts of tech and program skills and business. So they have this “hobby” that yet takes a lot of hours and effort....and plus no one was getting paid. They recruited people…from all over…people that they had met through networking, and some, kids now grown up that Sol had known from when he had been a Camp Director.

David started designing the pages. The people involved know they couldn’t get paid (at least right now), yet they wanted to do something for them. So they decided to barter. 12 things each. (By this point the site name had been changed to 12seconds). Using their blog and Twitter, they bartered away, getting their workers whatever it was they had on their wish list. From iPhones to bricks to five hours of therapy to banjos. These guys haven’t paid a dime for anything at this point. They’ve even bartered for their bandwidth!  But every week, David buys the crew burritos. So, so far, it’s cost him gas and burritos to build his dream. (Well, and a lot of hours of work!!!). 

He says they wanted to see if they could make it, and so far so good. Besides the success they are seeing so far with their 12seconds site, they also see hoped for changes in Santa Cruz. There is a Santa Cruz Design Innovation Center being built, and a co-working space downtown. Another start-up is coming in…it’s all moving in the right direction in David’s eyes.  His point is that they can use being in Santa Cruz as a recruiting pool. Why drive elsewhere when you can stay right there and do even cooler stuff? And while you’re doing that cool stuff, why not take 12 seconds and show the world what you’re up to?

 
David Beach
photo courtesy of photographer Justin Korn. Thank you!

Be sure to check out 12seconds  and make a video "snippet"!

~The writer would also like to thank 12Second's David Speiser for all of his help in making this article possible!~

 

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Thank you David, for sharing your Story with us.

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© 2008 by Jodie Andrefski and Story of My Life®