I recently wrote a post for Social Matchbox on BeCouply, a new web/mobile app for couples to take and share photos, find new date ideas, and connect with other couples. I explain the story of how they came up with the idea and chose a core set of features, and where they plan to go in the future.

BeCouply raises a couple (no pun intended) of interesting questions. First, can you be successful aggregating a bunch of features that occur elsewhere? Things like posting photos, finding date ideas, and sharing a calendar can be done on social networking sites, through Google search, and in Gmail. (Connecting with other couples is harder, though surely not impossible.) My guess is yes, since couples do spend a lot of time together so the increase in convenience is particularly beneficial.

Second, contrary to popular opinion, is it possible to successfully mix business with pleasure? Becky Cruze cofounded BeCouply with her boyfriend Pius Uzamere, and she emphasized how much she’s learned about him and how they’ve grown as a couple. It seems that, in startups in general, employees are generally closer friends than those at larger companies. Perhaps it’s the extra time spent together, or the shared commitment to a risky idea.

Third, will this app save our Facebook news feeds from photos of couples making out? We can only hope.

With another copy of Good to Great checked out from the library, I’m back to my reading.  The chapter on technology accelerators contains some particularly interesting insights:

When used right, technology becomes an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it. The good-to-great companies never began their transitions with pioneering technology, for the simple reason that you cannot make good use of technology until you know which technologies are relevant [for your company’s defining concept].

In other words, deciding what you do best and are passionate about, and how to measure your success (in other words, your purpose and goals)–and letting that guide all your decisions–is more important than jumping on the latest-new-technology bandwagon.

Another fine point, which fits with some of my thinking lately:

Those who built good-to-great companies weren’t motivated by fear…[they] are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake.

The connection here is that those bandwagon-jumpers are most often the same people who are afraid of being left behind as others adopt new technology.  But I think this point applies more broadly to a general orientation toward life: it’s best to focus and be motivated by the positive values, not by fear of the negative.