Breck’s Homepage

The top story on CNN.com right now is called “Lottery Scratch Off Scandal”. Virginia was selling some scratch tickets even though all of the jackpots for those tickets had been claimed. This isn’t news to me. At SeeMeWin last year, we built ScratchBase–a live updated database of scratch ticket odds and expected payoffs–(the website for it was at ScratchTicketGuide.com) which revealed the real odds of every scratch ticket in the country–including revealing all the tickets where the top jackpots were sold.

I think there would have been solid demand for our product(in paper form mostly, but also online). The lottery, believe it or not, is extremely popular among Americans. This story, along with hundreds like it, is receiving tons of visits. We were certainly creating products that people wanted.

But although its nice to feel vindicated that what we were working on at SeeMeWin was something people wanted, I don’t miss it a bit. I really am not a fan of the lottery. It’s a silly thing. While building something people want is important, it’s also important to build something YOU want.

The MIT $100K is hosting an Elevator Pitch contest this afternoon and SeeMeWin will be there! We’ll be making a pitch which, besides explaining what SeeMeWin is, will contain two new pieces of information: 1) we’ve opened our new office in Cambridge and 2) We’re hiring!

It should be fun and there may just be some scratching at the event.

If you’re in the area, drop by and cheer us on.

from: http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/archives/pictures/life-lessons-flowchart.png

SeeMeWin in a nutshell: