Back from Reboot 10, Completely Rebooted
Posted on July 3, 2008
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Finally back from Copenhagen and settling in again to get back to work.
Overall it was another amazing go around this time as expected. Just as with my first Reboot 2 years ago, it was all about the people, vibe, forward thinking and collaboration. The conference itself is extreamly casual which lends greatly to the overall vibe. You’re not “stuck” in a particular place, there are always people all over and comfy beanba Read more
Tags: Conference, Copenhagen, Design, Free, Innovation, Party, Reboot, Reboot 10, Web 2.0.
Posted on July 3, 2008
Filed Under Art & Design, Business, Design, General, Marketing, Podcasts, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Travel, Web, WebDev
Intruders.tv Interview with SugarStats.com at TheNextWeb 2008 in Amsterdam
Posted on May 9, 2008
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Back in April at TheNextWeb I Met up with two great guys, Jude and James, who were shooting tech startup interviews for Intruders.tv.
I was able to do a quick 6min SugarStats.com interview and they were finally able to put it up on their site.
I was able to go over the how we started, the problems with diabetes as well as a little about our technical setup and where we’re going as a company.
Check it out:
http://uk.intruders.tv/Marston-Alfred-of-SugarStats-com-Online-diabetes-management-tool_a410.html
Tags: Amsterdam, Intruders.tv Interview, Marston Alfred, Online Diabetes Management, SugarStats, SugarStats Interview, SugarStats.com, The Next Web 2008 Amsterdam, TheNextWeb.
Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Business, Design, Diabetes, Entertainment, Podcasts, Ruby on Rails, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Travel, Web, WebDev
BrainTree vs TrustCommerce for Credit Card Processing and Recurring Billing
Posted on April 23, 2008
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We’ve been using TrustCommerce.com for a over a year with SugarStats to do the recurring billing/subscriptions and credit card processing. Overall it has been a pleasant experience even though we had a few bumpy bits.
I’ve recently found out about BrainTree which seems to offer everything TrustCommerce does and then some in an all-in-one solution. While I’m a big fan of the “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” saying, we’re considering switching.
TrustCommerce Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Great Rails/Ruby Integration and API
- Fairly good support
- Great security and risk/fraud protection practices
- Decent prices
- Excellent recurring billing/subscription support
Cons
- Support has slowly been going downhill. I even hear sales is non-responsive to new accounts.
- Online Web Portal is a bit lacking and cumbersome for statistics
- Need a separate company to be the merchant
- Can’t combine multiple apps into one TC account
BrainTree
Pros
- Seems to also have a superb API.
- Rails/Ruby integration via a few diff plugins and especially great support via ActiveMerchant
- Active community
- Quickbooks Export/Import
- Good reporting/Analytics tools in web control panel
- All-in-one solution which includes merchant and gateway
- Can have multiple sites behind one web control panel login
- Great security and risk/fraud protection
- Supports both major credit cards AND Paypal/Google Checkout/BillMeLater
- I hear support is great
- Fee’s: ???
Cons
Don’t know yet.
The real benefit I’m seeing is the multiple sites behind one login, Paypal/Google/BillMeLater payment and the active community/ActiveMerchant support. If the web control panel interface is at all better than TrustCommerce I’ll be very please as well.
Tags: ActiveMerchant, BrainTree, Paypal, Recurring Billing, Ruby on Rails recurring subscriptions, Subscription, SugarStats, TrustCommerce.
Posted on April 23, 2008
Filed Under Analytics, Business, Design, Hosting, Ruby on Rails, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Web, WebDev
CEO Space, Updates and the Latest Happenings
Posted on December 20, 2007
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Been a while but so much has happened in the last few months.
CEO Space – Los Angeles
For the last few weeks I’ve been in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego. Part vacation and part business, we’ve been able to get a TON done regarding the business end of SugarStats. CEO Space was a huge success for us and we we’re able to meet literally hundreds of amazing business contacts and potential investors who share our vision. If you haven’t heard of CEO Space, I highly recommend you check them out: http://www.ceospace.net/
Viva Las Vegas!
We also took a nice road trip to Las Vegas which was really nice as I haven’t been there in years. While most of it was for fun and play, I was able to have an excellent studio interview and meeting with Charlie Cherry of the DiabetesPowerShow.com podcast. We had Manny Hernandez of TuDiabetes.com conference in and we recorded an live episode regarding diabetes goal setting and resolutions for the new year. I’ll post when that episode goes up.
As for accommodations, we stayed at Treasure Island and I have to say they have some of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept on. It was literally like sleeping on a cloud 
Thats a good thing considering the price. Over all the stay was excellent and it was great to see so much more new development happening.
SugarStats.com Updates
I mentioned a bit of it above, but theres a ton happening here. We’re ready to ramp things up and really get things going. We’re working on a ton of small changes and have some larger ones in the pipeline and already hashed out. With all the great contacts and people that we met at CEO Space who share our vision it will only greatly improve SugarStats as a whole and as a company. You can expect big things happening in the coming 3-6 months!
Tropical Paradise – Volcano, Hawaii
Now that CEO Space has passed, we’re all back together in Hawaii. Being literally on top of a volcano and in the middle of a tropical rain forest is amazing. I have to say it is also nice to be in the same building, let alone timezone, as my partners finally as I’ve been working out of Holland for the past few months. Only downside is we’re so far in the forest that we can only get dial-up!! 
I guess I’ll have to deal with it 
Tags: CEO Space, Las Vegas, SugarStats, SugarStats.com, Volcano Hawaii.
Posted on December 20, 2007
Filed Under Business, Design, SugarStats, Tech, Travel, Web
A List of Useful Online Diabetes Resources
Posted on November 29, 2007
1 Comment
ReadWriteWeb, one of my favorite blogs, has a nice post on some cool Health 2.0 online diabetes management resources available to people. Unfortunately Richard the editor recently was diagnosed with diabetes which prompted the post.
“In this post, I’m somewhat selfishly going to review the diabetes sites and apps I found across the Web. But this post also serves, I hope, as an introduction to the more general topic of ‘Health 2.0’ – a.k.a. healthcare that uses the Internet.”
We’re grateful they included SugarStats in it, its always nice to be featured on one of your favorite blogs 
“SugarStats has potentially very useful aggregation, graphing and trending tools, plus you can share your stats with relatives or other diabetics. SugarStats also has a mobile version – even Twitter integration!! Overall, SugarStats is an excellent use of web 2.0 to enhance healthcare treatment.”
Very cool 
He goes on to list various resources from helpful learning material, to diabetes social networks (TuDiabetes.com) to Online Management with SugarStats.
Good stuff, check it out: A Health 2.0 Overview, Through the Eyes of a New Diabetic
Tags: Blood Sugar Control, Blood Sugar Log, Diabetes Blog, Diabetes Tech, Health 2.0, Online Diabetes Resources, SugarStats, TuDiabetes, Type 2 Diabetes.
Posted on November 29, 2007
Filed Under Diabetes, Health & Food, SugarStats, Tech
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I'm Marston and here you'll find my rantings, rhetoric and other useful info. I dig tech, photography, quantum physics and organic food. I'm the founder of SugarStats.com and thats my days developing.
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