Naptime!

Sundancing in the Dark South by Southwest is basically right around the corner, but it seems several techies needed a break before March offers the excuse for a tax-deductible trip to Austin. Investor Scooter Braun is be there (for obvious reasons), as is VHX cofounder Casey Pugh, ABC News's Maya Baratz, onetime Myspace prez Jason Hirschhorn, and Thrillist cofounder Ben Lerer. Judging from Mr. Lerer's Instagram, Gary Vaynerchuk is also along for the ride.

Startups are taking advantage of the festival's halo of hipness. The creatives at Kickstarter have devoted a page to Sundance entrants funded on the platform, and cofounder Yancey Strickler says he'll be in attendance. Uber will be there--and handing out hot chocolate. "All you have to do is tap the Uber app and we will come wherever you are to deliver sweet salvation from the epic cold," the company promises. Not to mention helping sooth the pain of Uber's high fares.

Two of the cast members of "Start-ups: Silicon Valley," Hermione Way and Marcus Lovingood, are in Park City and hosting something called Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley. In case you'd like a reminder of why people sell out for reality TV, here is the view from their window, as tweeted by Mr. Lovingood:

Popcorny Lest anyone get the idea Mr. Lerer is all high-minded indie films, all the the time, we'd like to point out this little admission via Twitter: "I sorta want to see Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (I understand this makes me a stupid and bad person)."

Don't Kiss, Do Tell Speaking of Ms. Way, it seems she's still a tad confused by the concept of "discretion." To recap: Earlier this month, she was caught in a hottub on Necker Island with several people, including her host Sir Richard Branson and One Direction's Harry Styles, fresh off his breakup with Taylor Swift. Naturally, at least one tab came calling, checkbook at the ready, but Ms. Way turned the offer down. She explained in a lengthy Facebook note that she couldn't bring herself to violate the privacy of her fellow guests on Necker Island, who were very high profile, you see.

Well, it seems Ms. Way has decided releasing just a few more details won't hurt. She's now written a piece about her week-long visit for the Next Web, promoted on her Facebook with the teasing title, "What really happened on Necker." Did she mention the quality time spent with famous entrepreneur Richard Branson?

The week was jam-packed with activities on Necker including morning tennis tournaments with Richard Branson, kite races to Anagada and yacht racing.

Has anyone ever been this smug about not making out with a pop star?

Corrections for $2,000, Alex? Foursquare made its third appearance on “Jeopardy,” this week. According to cofounder Dennis Crowley’s Instagram of the blessed event, the app-savvy woman guessed correctly and went on to win $40,000 that night. As Mr. Crowley pointed out, Alex Trebek’s prompt was actually 1 billion check-ins behind Foursquare’s current totals. “Gowalla,” one Instagram commenter guessed facetiously--name-checking the Foursquare competitor that was acquired by Facebook and then shuttered last year. Considering the recent PrivCo report that Foursquare will be acquired for less than it raised by the end of 2013, you might want to watch the schadenfreude.

Now You Know "What is the plural of Sex on a Beach?" angel investor and Tumblrer Rick Webb recently wondered aloud to himself on Twitter (as one does). Luckily, GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci was ready with a riposte: "It is plural, masterbate on the beach is the singular." And there you have it.

GIF Out of Here Buzzfeed is hiring an intern to run the company Tumblr. In keeping with the tech world's slouch toward goofy-ass job listings, the announcement asks, "Can you make an animated GIF of Joe Biden drinking a beer with a red panda?" If so, running Buzzfeed's Tumblr might be literally the only job in the world for which you are ideally suited, you crazy diamond.

Sartorial Corner Don’t get it twisted: In the wake of Michelle Obama’s bold new haircut, AllThingsD’s scoop mistress general Kara Swisher would like everyone to be aware that she, Kara Swisher, does not have bangs. “Side sweep. Never bangs, despite my mother’s best efforts at various D conferences where she got hairdresser under her thumb,” she tweeted in response to someone who suggested otherwise.

Who are you gonna believe, the fine-feathered Ms. Swisher or your lying eyes?

Pieratt. (Photo: Brooklyn Beta)

eBay announced on its blog today that it has acquired Svpply, the NYC-based social shopping site that curates personalized collections of clothing and products. Located on Broome Street in Soho, Svpply raised $550,000 in seed funding back in 2010 from investors like Founders Collective, Spark Capital, SV Angel, Dennis Crowley and Jason Hirschhorn. Since then, Svpply has been bootstrapping itself to 620,000 product views per week and 140,000 registered members (as of May).

Last May, founder Ben Pieratt offered a candid perspective on first-time entrepreneurship, admitting his vulnerability. "I have zero experience or expertise in building a company," he wrote in a 2011 blog post. "So I'm learning on the fly."

Mr. Pierrat summed up a list of things he'd need to learn how to do, or Svpply would fail. Hey, in startup parlance, we'd say an acqui-hire counts as quite a success.

At least Svpply's other cofounder, parallel entrepreneur extraordinaire Zach Klein, brought some experience to the team. Mr. Klein is a partner at Founders Collective, and has had a hand in a plethora of successful startups. He cofounded Vimeo and BustedTees, helped launch CollegeHumor, worked as chief product officer at Boxee and serves as a director for both Skillshare and Svpply. According to AllThingsD, Mr. Klein linked up with Svpply in the spring of 2010 when he "connected with Ben Pieratt, a Boston-based designer who started Svpply in late 2009."

eBay's blog post suggests that the move to purchase Svpply is largely an acqui-hire:

With Svpply.com, eBay gains access to technology talent to further improve the shopping and selling experience for its customers. Svpply.com assets – including a talented team of six designers and developers – are well-suited to help eBay advance more personalized experiences and merchandising options on eBay.com.

Based in New York (see the office, above), the Svpply.com employees will work on merchandising, non-search discovery and browsing.

eBay has been aggressively ramping up its presence in New York as of late. Back in November, the online auction platform acquired NYC-based Hunch, a personalized recommendation engine. Then in April, eBay snapped up a massive 350,000 square foot office in the Flatiron. Guess they needed a few more devs to fill up those desks.

Svpply insists in a blog post that the site's not going anywhere anytime soon. "Svpply is not going away," it reads. "We’ll continue to bring our users new products each day—allowing our loyal fans to explore beautiful products and stores, all of them hand selected by the community."

Greg Leppert, Svpply's third cofounder, said the Svpply team would work on both eBay and the Svpply site. "We'll continue to build Svpply and our community and apply what we learn to eBay," he told Betabeat by email. Mr. Leppert also said that Svpply will not be rolled into eBay, but that both sites will remain distinct from each other.

"We’re excited to join the eBay and Hunch teams in the new state-of-the-art technology development center in New York City!" Svpply added in a blog post. Shake them pom-poms, y'all.

Additional reporting contributed by Nitasha Tiku.

Mr. Russell, left, and Mr. Keidan (Photo: InsideHook)

In fiction, the experts tell you to write what you know. In founding a company, you're told to fix the problems you find in your own life. So it makes sense, then that Andy Russell--a leading investor behind email newsletters like Daily Candy, Thrillist, Tasting Table, and PureWow--has decided the world needed InsideHook, another free lifestyle newsletter, but this one targeted to his own demographic: "The discerning, urban, established man who lives a fast-paced and rewarding life," as the company describes it.

In a visit to Betabeat's offices last month, Mr. Russell, who helped launch roughly one email property a year for the past eight years as a partner at the powerhouse investment firm Pilot Group, said he recognized the need to cater to the 35-to-55 set by looking at his own life. On date night, he and his wife would end up at the same sushi place around the corner. "My wife looks at me and goes 'Again? Where's the guy who climbed Kilimanjaro on our honeymoon?' Or I used to own a restaurant in the West Village called Moomba. 'Where’s the guy who started the hottest nightclub/restaurant in New York?'" 

(You don't have to take Mr. Russell's word for it. Here's a 1998 article from Ruth Reichl talking about how hard it was to compete with "the Beautiful People" for a reservation.)

Of course, even the Beautiful People get older. Through its newsletter and website, InsideHook will offer "curated experiences" that cater to the male urban-dweller who is aged out of Thrillist, but too damn successful to waste his time researching something fun to do on a Saturday night. Thrillist cofounder Ben Lerer must not mind any overlap--he's an advisor to InsideHook's parent company, Trigger Media.

InsideHook's tagline is "The Life You're Meant to Live," promising, "inspiration for the driven man," in other words hustlers like, say, Mr. Russell or InsideHook's CEO and cofounder Jonathan Keidan, a music industry veteran and former COO of the Jack Welch Management Institute, who represents the bachelor perspective. (Paging, The New York Times!)

In an interview with Betabeat, the New York-based company announced a partnership with Ed Burns, one of the many, many celebrity patrons who frequented Moomba in its hey-day--and a paragon of maturing American masculinity in his own right. Along with the partnership, InsideHook is promoting the nationwide expansion beyond New York City that began back in May. In addition to being an equity participant, Mr Burns is curating "his favorite restaurants, travel destinations, outdoor adventures, cultural activities, style finds and products for men," the company said in a press release. Celebrities who curate in their spare time, now where have we heard that before? Oh, yeah. Categories include recommendations on Food & Drink, Health, Travel, Tech, and Action. Mr. Russell said he knew Mr. Burns through, "Being born and raised in New York City and knowing a ton of people."

InsideHook is the first startup to come out of Trigger Media, a $22 million seed stage fund and incubator for what Mr. Russell calls "subscription curation services." It was launched last fall shortly after Pilot Group cofounder Bob Pittman was named CEO of Clear Channel Communications. (You may also remember Mr. Pittman, who founded MTV, from his stints as CEO of AOL and Time Warner Enterprises.) Mr. Russell came into Pilot Group as the firm's youngest partner, focusing on digital and decided it was time to start something more early-stage outside of Pilot's portfolio of TV and radio stations. His mentor Mr. Pittman is one of Trigger Media's biggest investors, but the rest of the investor table is pretty impressive as well, including Conde Nast/Advance Publications, former MySpace president Jason Hirschhorn, former Daily Candy CEO Pete Sheinbaum, who is also an advisor to InsideHook, as well as Michael Kassan, former president of Initiative Media Worldwise, Ken Fox, cofounder of Internet Capital Group, and OneKingsLane founder Ali Pincus. (Ms. Pincus is the wife of Zynga founder Mark Pincus; Mr. Russel was an original investorin Zynga.)

Mr. Russell told Betabeat there's a "huge void in the digital sphere," for services catering to older men. "Probably one of the reasons it’s a huge void in the daily email publications is because Bob Pittman and I didn’t do it," he said. "I wasn’t exactly this demo/psychographic yet."

But that void might be in part a reflection of how tricky it is to speak to this market. After scrolling around InsideHook, it was hard not to notice the ubiquity of pun-y headlines. There's a round-up of spas that cater to men called "Spa and Order," a survival class on the zombie apocalypse called, "Dead Clan Walking," and luxury outdoor bedroom on a Central Park roof called, "Lady and the Camp."

Unless they're all New York Post loyalists, we're not sure readers will appreciate the humor. Besides, what makes a zombie training class better for a 35-to-55-year-old than Thrillist's younger demographic?

Mr. Keidan, InsideHook's CEO, said the guiding principal is making any free time you might have away from your high-powered job more meaningful. "Some of my best friends for the past five years, what have I done with them?" asked Mr. Russell, seconding the notion. "Well we’ve gone out to a great restaurant, we had drinks and we had funny conversation, but there’s no concrete memory in there."

As for those puns, InsideHook's three editors try to tailor the voice to someone charming and witty who is a "a little goofier with his friends," explained Mr. Keidan, emphasizing the editors have to be uber-connected to the top "mixologists" and "cultural tastemakers." We're definitely the wrong demo to tell if the recommendations are appealing, but the site seems little sparse in terms of regular updates, at least for now.

Nonetheless, Mr. Russell said it's the fastest growing subscription service he's ever been involved in and that's just through word-of-mouth. InsideHook refused to share any numbers, but Mr. Russell did note that they doubled subscriptions last month.

InsideHook plans on making money solely through advertising. We were very surprised to hear that advertisers actually find the rich white men segment under-served. Mr. Russell said that's because trying to reach them online via news or sports channels can cut affluence out of the equation. "We’ve walked into meetings with heads of ad sales at some very big luxury brands and we give them our pitch. One smiled and said we've been looking to spend money in this area, but we haven’t had anyone to spend it with," said Mr. Keidan.

Although the Gilt Groupes and Groupons of the world have made the market much more crowded than when Mr. Russell first entered the game with Daily Candy, he argued that "Guess what? Email is a wonderful way of delivering a great message."

"We did over a year of research into the space," added Mr. Russell. "You can only imagine how many people over 13 years have pitched me this model. And I’ve only done eight of them."