We love getting in the holiday spirit as much as the next exhausted and caffeine-dependent startup, but if you're going to make a parody video, you better do it well [ see Gizmodo's blistering review of First Round Capital's "Friday" rendition ].

Cambridge-based Kinvey, part of the 2011 TechStars Boston class, managed to put together a clever parody of "12 Days of Christmas" featuring lines like "three sexless months," "five sleepless weeks," and "11 piping pizzas" in about three days -- most of the footage was shot on Tuesday according to Kinvey's blog post, which also has the complete lyrics. The video was up by this afternoon [ see a list of the 12 items and cameos/highlights plus screen shots below ].

TechStars CEO David Cohen rallied other companies in the TechStars family once he heard about the project, so while you see plenty of Boston shots, a cameo from TechStars Boston managing director Katie Rae and Kinvey classmates Ginger.io and Evertrue, you also get priceless shots of TechStars co-founder Brad Feld looking crazed, David Cohen with Sarah Palin, Chubaka and Lara Croft cut-outs, and Boulder-based SimpleEnergy co-founder Yoav Lurie's frustration over three sexless months.

Kinvey CEO Sravish Sridhar claims only to be the instigator of the project. Kinvey marketing manager (and singer/songwriter) Kelly Rice did the guitar and vocals and the company's creative and marketing director Ryan Light collected and edited the footage. [ Sravish asked Gizmodo not to hate on them. ]

Kinvey is a service for app developers to back up, use and operate a cloud backend for their mobile apps. Atlas Ventures led its $2M seed round announced in August.

12 DAYS OF TECHSTARS

1 space to work in rent-free [ view of Boston from TechStars Boston office; playing foosball; a shot of the TS Boston conference room. ]
2 hack stars [ Ignighter cameo. ]
3 sexless months [ Simpleenergy's Yoav Lurie; hand on shower tap; Santa in shower. ]
4 investors [ no great cameos or funny shots here -- bummer ]
5 sleepless weeks [ guy waking up in a closet; three gingerio.io team members holding up their hands, Evertrue team waving, some with Santa hats; Brad Feld looking crazed. ]
6 geeks of coding [ Nestio cameo. ]
7 cups of coffee [ lots of empty coffee cups, FullContact team sitting at their conference room table with ski hats on. ]
8 mentor meetings [ Vanilla cameo, Localytics cameo, Graphicly cameo with a dog and a book on game theory, David Cohen next to life-sized cardboards of Sarah Palin, Chubaka and Lara Croft. ]
9 servers crashing [ blue screen. ]
10 pitch sessions [ Everlater cameo. ]
11 piping pizzas [ Santa loses pizzas; Shelby.tv cameo. ]
12 companies funded [ Evertrue with 50K check from Mass Challenge. ]

SCREEN SHOTS

Brad Feld channels Ted Kaczynski.

David Cohen strikes a pose with friends Sarah Palin, Chubaka and Lara Croft.

Katie Rae does the running man.

Yes, Yoav, three sexless months.

Graphicly's cameo for "8 mentor meetings" -- which one recommended that book?

"12 companies funded" -- Evertrue has the check to prove it.

Santa bemoans three sexless months...earlier in the video you see his hand turning a shower knob to "cold."

Kelly Rice takes a break from singing to show off empty coffee cups during one round of "seven cups of coffee."

We only get to see one server crash during "9 servers crashing" -- but we feel your pain.

LAUNCH Blog