Hipster’s Ludlow And eBay’s Mengerink Are Working On A Startup Called The Happy Home Company

happy home company logoDoug Ludlow, formerly CEO of startup Hipster, is working on something new called The Happy Home Company, and he has convinced former eBay executive Matthew Mengerink to co-found it with him.

Hipster, for those of you who don’t remember, was a photo-sharing startup that was probably best known for stunts like offering a year’s supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon as part of its referral bonus.

The startup was acquired by AOL (which owns TechCrunch) two years ago, with Ludlow becoming a senior director on the mobile team and then an innovation partner at AOL Ventures, before departing in August 2013.

Mengerink, meanwhile, spent the past decade at eBay and PayPal, where he was most recently chief technology officer for the X.commerce platform. He will be CTO and chief operating officer at the new startup, while Ludlow will be CEO.

If it seems like I’m spending a lot of time talking about the founders and not the product, well, Ludlow is still being pretty secretive about what The Happy Home Company will actually do. He did say his aim is to “change the way people live in their homes.”

So why talk about it at all? Ludlow said it’s because Mengerink updated his LinkedIn profile yesterday, prompting lots of questions: “It’s like changing your relationship status. It’s not really real until then.”