A Q&A with LiveHive co-founder and CEO Ramon Nuñez. The San Jose-based company, previously known as CaptureToCloud, was founded in 2011 and recently rebranded and relaunched as LiveHive.
SUB: Please describe LiveHive and your value proposition.
Nuñez: First and foremost, LiveHive excels at fostering collaboration for ad hoc projects that arise when an individual or team needs to gather content from different sources. We built the product to solve today’s collaboration conundrum that takes place because we store so many different types of content in so many different places. When it comes time to collaborate with a partner or team, there’s no easy way to put your content, conversations, and people into one place—so we created LiveHive. With a visual and interactive interface, users can leverage LiveHive to streamline their workflow and increase efficiency on projects.
SUB: Who are your target markets and users?
Nuñez: Although we’re targeting small teams and professionals in SMBs, LiveHive can easily be used by anyone who wants to bring all types of content into one place to get work done. LiveHive can also be used in the enterprise without hassle because we’re a cloud service which requires no desktop software or onsite servers. Furthermore, LiveHive is a great solution for employees in distributed workforces, because it pairs perfectly with the growing BYOD trend and is accessible from anywhere with any device.
SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?
Nuñez: Keeping in mind that this is a large space with a lot of players, we are closest to the newest collaboration solutions like Huddle and Igloo.
SUB: What differentiates LiveHive from the competition?
Nuñez: In regards to Huddle and Igloo, we are different because we aren’t trying to deploy a new Intranet or tackle enterprises. As mentioned earlier, we are focused on lightweight collaboration for ad hoc projects and we are best at content aggregation and visualization. Furthermore, we’re much more visual than other players in the space, and we’ve incorporated elements of some of the most popular consumer apps, like Pinterest, that makes organizing and tackling projects more fun and engaging.
SUB: When was the company founded and what were the first steps you took in establishing it?
Nuñez: The company was founded in May of 2011. Some of the engineers had worked together in a previous company. We brainstormed various ideas and decided to build a cloud solution focused on enabling people to work together better. We put together an advisory board right away. They were very helpful in shaping the ideas.
SUB: What prompted you to rebrand and relaunch?
Nuñez: Our mission has always been to create a work management and collaboration solution for small-to-medium businesses. The company started with the first piece of that mission, which was gathering and aggregating content, and initially we built a unique capability around capturing web content. This was the starting point, but ultimately as we added functionality, we felt like we needed a name that reflected a holistic solution.
SUB: How did you come up with the name? What is the story behind it?
Nuñez: We wanted a name that reflects a fun and robust solution that helps people get work done together. We chose the name LiveHive because we think of a ‘hive’ as a place where work gets done and ‘live’ adds a dynamic element to it.
SUB: What have the most significant obstacles been so far to building the company?
Nuñez: It’s difficult to rise above the noise level in the industry with so many new mobile and cloud solutions, so market visibility is a challenge. Also, there’s a shortage of engineers, especially iOS engineers.
SUB: You raised $4.7 million in Seed funding last summer. Do you plan to raise more funds in the near future?
Nuñez: It was a Series A that we raised in July, 2011. We plan to raise more funding sometime in 2014.
SUB: What are your goals for LiveHive over the next year or so?
Nuñez: We will be focused on acquiring more users and building partnerships. We’ll also be adding more key functionality to our product.
LiveHive – www.livehiveapp.com
