StartUp Beat

Editor’s Note: This is a new Q&A series from StartUp Beat that features entrepreneurs who have successfully guided their startups (or multiple startups) to maturity. It is a complement to StartUp Beat’s coverage of early-stage startups and an effort to provide further insight into the experiences of tech entrepreneurs.

Bio: Tony is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur. In his role as CEO, Tony oversees all aspects of their rapidly growing business and plays a central role in developing and driving the company’s vision. Tony has over 20 years experience in developing successful startup technology companies. Prior to his involvement with mediaFORGE, Tony co-founded and served as CEO of ezADit.com, an online aggregator of offline college media—acquired by Y2M, a subsidiary of MTV Networks. Tony was also President and co-founder of Precision Data Link—which was acquired by The Profit Recovery Group (NASDAQ: PRGX) in 1998. In his role at PRG, Tony held a key position as Senior Vice President where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations, strategy and growth of the Logistics Management Division and was tasked with identifying, managing and integrating five additional acquisitions. Tony is an active member of the Utah Technology Council and is passionate about technology and marketing. Tony is an accomplished musician, enjoys outdoor sports, and spending time with his family.

SUB: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?

Zito: I played in a band in high school. We wanted to make a CD and none of us had money to pay for it, so we developed a plan to raise money through live performances and by collecting small investments from friends and family. We successfully raised the money needed to make our CD, which generated enough sales revenue to fund a second album. It was a great experience in fund raising, marketing, budgeting, etc.

The budding entrepreneurial spirit I felt as a teenager was realized professionally when I started a telesales company in 1992 that sold household products to consumers with door-to-door delivery. During the two years I ran the company, we grew from one lone office to seven offices across the Rocky Mountain region and employed as many as 60 people when I sold the company.

SUB: What prompted you to start mediaFORGE in the first place?

Zito: I was introduced to the early technology through a prior business partner who had already made a seed investment. It was a desktop application for dynamic content delivery—a widget. I spent some time looking at the underlying technology and getting an understanding of the value it could create in various markets. I got really excited about the applications and opportunities to leverage dynamic content within display media. I knew that mediaFORGE’s technology was uniquely positioned to solve a big problem in the display ad industry, particularly the way success was being measured. That’s when I jumped in as CEO and made a personal investment in the company.

SUB: Was there a point at which you knew mediaFORGE would hit it big?

Zito: We always believed that mediaFORGE had the best ad platform and most supportive business model. But it wasn’t until we ran our first real retargeted ad campaign and saw the performance data that we knew we were onto something special. It was not a surprise that the data supported the value of the mediaFORGE model, but we didn’t realize it would work exponentially better than we had anticipated. It was one of those scenarios where we had five people standing around a computer monitor, refreshing the screen constantly, watching the campaign performance metrics roll in—and then a moment of relief and excitement when we realized that the results we were seeing not only supported our concept, but had the kind of impact that could establish mediaFORGE as an innovator in the industry.

SUB: Was there a “tipping point” (for lack of a better term) when mediaFORGE really picked up steam and where it started growing exponentially?

Zito: From the beginning, mediaFORGE has had a dynamic widget technology with a ton of potential. When I started, a lot of that potential had yet to be realized. The tipping point for mediaFORGE was when we applied the technology to our first retargeting campaign. We distributed online display advertisements with interactive features facilitated by our technology. And boom! There were impressions, engagements and revenue. Armed with real in-market product results from our initial campaign, we secured a significant amount of new business and growth over the next quarter.

SUB: What were the first steps you took to establishing mediaFORGE?

Zito: Client validation. It doesn’t matter how great your product is if you don’t have someone who is going to pay for it. Working closely with clients to understand their goals and interests has been a key factor in making mediaFORGE a success. It allows us to build products that we know our clients want, and gives our clients the security of knowing they’ll get what they pay for.

mediaFORGE embraced this concept of client collaboration from the very start. We demonstrated the proven capabilities of our dynamic ad platform as the premise for initial dialog with our early prospects, but it was our clients who said, “this is great, but I’d pay you a lot more if it could do…” The key to our success was our ability and willingness to revisit the initial concept and add the “…”

SUB: If you had it to do over again, what would the first concrete step to establishing mediaFORGE have been?

Zito: In my general experience, selling is the first real step to establishing a business. I’m a big believer in establishing a demand for your concept, then building and designing based on market feedback. The key to doing this successfully is to focus on a single idea and execute against it. Eventually, whether your idea is right or wrong, you’ll at least engage in the right conversations with prospective customers that will expose their real needs and serve as the impetus to reiterate and deliver what the customer really wants and is willing to pay for.

SUB: What were the most significant obstacles to growing mediaFORGE to maturity?

Zito: At one point, we lacked the financial resources to recruit, so a very small team had to manage a lot of growth, meaning we couldn’t expand sales opportunities as quickly as we wanted. Even more frustrating was that we had a very small marketing budget. We knew we were doing something special and we wanted to spread the word, but we simply could not facilitate a traditional marketing effort. We had to get creative and find less mainstream ways to get our message out.

SUB: What kinds of outside funding did you raise?

Zito: We raised $1.5 million in venture capital shortly after the company was founded in 2006. Prospector Equity Capital led the round with a smaller private equity fund called Gazelle Investments participating as well. Since then, we’ve raised some additional capital along the way that enabled us to go from a proof-of-concept sales initiative to a growing enterprise.

SUB: What was the metric/milestone that indicated to you that mediaFORGE had moved past startup stage?

Zito: Like many companies building a business in the difficult economic environment of 2008, our primary milestone was to “get profitable.” We wanted to build a sustainable business that could thrive in any environment, which we did. But the metric/milestone that most indicated our evolution beyond startup stage was our first $1 million quarter.

SUB: What were the most important lessons you learned about entrepreneurship while building mediaFORGE?

Zito: Don’t assume you know what your prospective client really wants, or what they’re willing to pay for. Engage your clients in conversations with the goal of aligning your product with their interests. Iterate and reiterate your concept. Be flexible to adapt your original idea to meet actual and/or changing market needs. Very few startups end up doing what they originally set out to do. Sell, sell and sell. It’s all about people—your team and your client.

Posted by startupbeat at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Encore Career Institute is a new online education venture backed by Creative Artists Agency, The Sherry Lansing Foundation and Poizner. The startup has partnered with the UCLA Extension to offer courses specifically tailored to professionals going back to school for professional development or a new career (hence the name “Encore”). The company, which recently closed a $15 million Series A funding round, was founded earlier this year and is based in Los Gatos, Calif.

SUB: Please briefly describe Encore, and the value proposition you bring to the education market.

Poizner: The Encore Career Institute is a new online company formed by leaders in the field of education and technology to offer certificate programs for baby boomers in need of employment, seeking a second (“encore”) career, or looking to enhance their current careers. Encore will offer full end-to-end counseling, from upfront career guidance, to innovative online courses, followed by assistance with the job search process. Encore’s national focus will broaden the highly respected curriculum and certificate programs of UCLA Extension to a larger audience, enabling boomers throughout the country to improve their lives and careers with new skill sets.

SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?

Poizner: There is really no other company who is focused on job-oriented online certificate training for baby boomers with both career counseling and employment guidance to help students looking for jobs or switching careers.

SUB: What are the primary differentiators between Encore and the competition?

Poizner: Unlike any other online education program, Encore Career Institute will offer end-to-end career counseling. Upon entering the full Encore certificate program, students would have access to a career assessment that would provide individuals a method to accurately assess their skills, identify what jobs are needed in the marketplace, determine the potential matches for these skills, and how to increase a person’s education to make themselves more competitive in that new industry or field. In addition, following course completion, Encore students would be provided guidance during the employment search process.

SUB: How are you marketing/promoting Encore and reaching potential new students?

Poizner: A founding partner of Encore, Creative Artists Agency, the world’s leading entertainment and sports agency, has extensive experience in marketing and brand-building and has long been actively involved in education initiatives on the local, state and national levels through the CAA Foundation, the agency’s philanthropic arm. The agency will access its vast resources and expertise in these areas and others to market the new Encore program nationally.

SUB: What was the inspiration behind Encore?

Poizner: At roughly 77 million strong, the baby boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) are an enormous population which can greatly benefit from the mission of Encore and the curriculum of UCLA Extension. While some baby boomers are well-positioned in their careers and have plans for retirement, there’s a large portion of boomers who are looking for a new challenge or unable to retire. Unfortunately, many retirement accounts were impacted by the recession—and these boomers need to continue working. The key is to help this audience determine the best choices given their experience, skills and goals.

Research shows baby boomers have been high consumers of education, and they place a high value on education. But we also know this audience wants and needs to get this education in a convenient online platform that incorporates peer community and support. Encore Career Institute will give baby boomers quality education from a proven online provider through a technology platform and environment designed specifically for them.

SUB: When was the company founded, and what were the first steps you took to establishing it?

Poizner: Encore was formed earlier this year as the result of combining the complementary visions of passionate executives in the technology, education, and entertainment sectors to address the needs of baby boomers, while improving online education. The Sherry Lansing Foundation, which has pioneered work in late-career job training, was a motivating force and, along with Creative Artists Agency, conceptualized Encore. Together with myself, we formed a partnership with online learning leader UCLA Extension to provide program content.

SUB: Is your partnership with UCLA Extension exclusive, or do you plan to partner with other schools in the future?

Poizner: Our current focus is solely on the highly-respected and world-renowned curriculum of UCLA. We certainly expect the partnership between Encore Career Institute and UCLA Extension to be successful and for other schools to have interest in partnering with us. We’ll evaluate those requests on a case by case basis.

SUB: You recently raised $15 million in funding. How do you plan to use the funds?

Poizner: Encore will be building a next-generation learning platform which will leverage web development tools, social networking technology, mobile devices and new multimedia technology to improve the online classroom experience, offering boomers the opportunity to complete a comprehensive certificate program in just one year and providing them with the skills needed to pursue careers in many fields, including finance, education, health care and environmental sustainability, among others.

SUB: Why was now the right time to raise outside funding?

Poizner: We knew this was the right time for Encore Career Institute because the baby boom generation is about to redefine the notion of “retirement”. Baby boomers are now hitting or approaching retirement age, but are unable to retire due to financial constraints, thus increasing the need for re-education. Encore will be offering our programs right at the beginning of this social shift.

SUB: Do you plan to raise more funding in the near future?

Poizner: We are very pleased and fortunate to have raised $15 million from InterWest Partners and Granite Ventures and this has allowed us to shift away from fundraising towards execution.

SUB: What have the biggest challenges been so far to building Encore?

Poizner: We are growing very rapidly and are always in need of new talent.  So, we encourage anyone interested in joining our venture – either on the marketing, engineering, or the academic side – to please contact us at www.encoreci.com 

SUB: Where do you see Encore in about a year from now?

Poizner: Encore certificate programs are expected to begin in the Fall of 2012. Roughly a year from now, we’ll be marketing the certificate programs for that initial fall semester. We encourage people to stay tuned to both the UCLA Extension website and the Encore website for updates and certificate program descriptions leading up to the launch.

Encore – www.encoreci.com

Posted by startupbeat at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Cloud

Citrix Makes Strategic Investments In Graymatics And Gizmox (via TechCrunch)

Enterprise Software

ANSYS Acquires Apache Design Solutions For $310 Million In Cash (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: MediaRoost
Website: www.mediaroost.com
Headquarters: Metuchen, New Jersey
Founders: Mark Krieger and Fred Pack
Year Founded: 2011
Investors: Self-funded
Employees: 3
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): "MediaRoost’s Twitter Management Tool, TweetRoost, helps groups and individuals monitor & manage tweets, bringing order to the chaos."

By Mark Krieger, co-founder and president

Product Overview:

Designed for departments within large or small organizations (sales, marketing or customer service), and agencies (marketing, advertising and public relations) that manage one or more Twitter profiles, TweetRoost provides a central platform to manage, assign, tag, search and archive Twitter conversations. Automatic brand-monitoring is provided.

Unlike other Twitter management solutions, TweetRoost includes a powerful saving capability that enables users to permanently archive all incoming and outgoing Twitter streams. Users and groups can internally tag, comment and discuss via threaded conversations all Twitter interactions and utilize auto-assignment, routing and approval functionality to support social media processes and workflow. 

Founders' Story:

The founders of MediaRoost, Fred Pack and I, have over 40 years of experience in the technology industry. We met 35 years ago and launched our first company together in the late 1970’s, providing commercial programming for PCs. In 1982, we sold the business and in 1983 we founded UniPress Software, the maker of FootPrints service desk solutions. FootPrints was one of the first Web-based help desk and customer support tools targeting mid-market enterprises. In 2006 we sold UniPress Software to Numara Software and nearly five years later launched TweetRoost.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy:

Having previously worked with Springboard Public Relations, MediaRoost chose Springboard as the agency of choice to assist with product development and media relations. MediaRoost has been featured in a number of publications, including placement in InformationWeek and OneForty. The company is also utilizing its blog and social media to promote its thought-leadership.

The TweetRoost Difference:

TweetRoost offers businesses the ability to manage their social media accounts, monitor their brands, coordinate with coworkers and do so through a streamlined dashboard. Because social media management in an organization is often handled by more than one person, TweetRoost provides various capabilities such as assignments, tagging, scheduling, threaded conversation, commenting and permissions that allow teams to effectively communicate across the board. The application also offers keyword monitoring and analytics to continuously track a brand’s online presence and track the success of social media campaigns. Most importantly, TweetRoost can automatically run saved searches which can be used to track a brand over time. By recording what has been said in the past and what is currently being said, companies are provided with the ability to spot trends and mark valuable insights about their brands. TweetRoost creates a simplified workflow to save time, keep teams organized and execute social media in the most efficient way possible, all while providing the full functionality of the social sites.

Business Model:

TweetRoost offers integrations with third-party CRM, service desk and project management tools such as Salesforce.com, ZenDesk and BaseCamp. MediaRoost offers a free 45-day fully-functioning multi-user trial version of TweetRoost. After 45 days, users who do not purchase can keep a permanent single-user version without some of the advanced features. The permanent full-function version costs $15 per user per month.

MediaRoost – www.mediaroost.com

Posted by startupbeat at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

EDITD serves up real time information and analysis on trends and market dynamics for the fashion industry. They recently secured $1.6 million in seed funding. The London-based company was founded in 2009.

SUB: Please briefly describe what EDITD is, and the value proposition you bring to the fashion and apparel market.

Watts: EDITD connects fashion, luxury and apparel people with the data they need to make better decisions. By applying analysis to social, commercial and creative information, we give businesses the power to quickly understand trends and market dynamics in real time—now, in the past and future. EDITD provides factual, actionable information for trading, product direction and strategic decisions. It’s like a Bloomberg for the fashion industry.

SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?

Watts: There’s a number of companies that sell fashion inspiration to the fashion business, but the critical thing that’s so important to the value of our product is the real-time strategic information that’s especially for product design, merchandising, buying and strategy.

Trend forecasting companies that you know now like Stylesight aren’t competitors—inspiration and runway shots are important, and we cover that ground too, but that way of operating has become less relevant as the entire industry becomes so much more rapid and less seasonal.

SUB: What differentiates EDITD from your competitors?

Watts: Currently, fashion retailers and designers forecast what garments they should stock or produce based on instinct and what sold last year or last season. As a result, often the wrong designs are put into production, which is extremely costly when they must be discounted or disposed of. Half of all garments sold at retail are sold at discount (U.S. market, Bain & Co), so this problem is epidemic.

EDITD provides real-time information, which is fast becoming critical for apparel companies. As in other industries, apparel is moving to just-in-time manufacturing and replenishment, both in the high end as well as the mass market. This change represents an opportunity to use data to make decisions that are closer to the commercial reality, and trade more competitively.

SUB: What was the inspiration behind EDITD? Was there an “aha” moment, or was it a concept that was a long time in developing?

Watts: (Co-founder Julia Fowler) is a fashion designer, and we started the company to address her frustration in the lack of provable, factual data to make commercial decisions about fashion. The reports available were all based on intuition and were often written up to 18 months in advance. There was no concrete data and nothing even close to real-time information. My expertise in building technology that exploits big data helped the idea become a reality but the process is ever evolving as the industry changes.

SUB: When was EDITD founded and what were the first steps you took in establishing it?

Watts: EDITD was officially founded in 2009, but the idea had been in incubation for a couple of years before that. After relocating from Australia to London, we put the plan into action, Julia worked full time on development of the concept while I developed the software in evenings and weekends while I worked as a consultant on other projects.

SUB: How are you marketing your services?

Watts: We’re lucky enough to have great word-of-mouth and PR, the buzz surrounding the company is a great driver for the business.

SUB: You recently closed a $1.6 million seed funding round. How do you plan to use the funds?

Watts: Doubling down on our data, and expanding our team and the breadth of our product. We’re hiring, actually, so anyone keen to apply should check out our site (http://editd.com/jobs).

SUB: How was the company funded to this point and why was this a particularly good time to seek outside funding?

Watts: We funded it personally. The timing for our business was right to raise outside capital, we knew we could accelerate growth and improve the product significantly with investment.

SUB: Do you plan to seek more funding in the near future?

Watts: We’re always looking to have the best people involved in growing the company.

SUB: What have the biggest obstacles been so far to building EDITD?

Watts: It’s taken us thousands of hours to get the product to the point where we are expressing data in a way that fashion natives can understand.

SUB: Where do you see EDITD in about a year from now?

Watts: We are planning to grow the business over the next 12 months, this involves expanding the amount of data that we capture and analyze, increasing the client portfolio and obviously, growing the team.

SUB: As an entrepreneur who has successfully navigated the bad economy, what advice do you have for those entrepreneurs just starting out?

Watts: It’s conventional logic now that the best time to start an innovative business is when the economy is “bad”—there are tons of benefits that I won’t reiterate, but one of the important ones for us is that we’ve been able to innovate while your competitors are shoring up.

The product we have increases efficiency and profitability for the fashion industry, which is always welcome in a bad economy—so I think the confluence of the timing has been great for us.

Timing isn’t something you can rely on, so the best advice to anyone starting out is to just go for it, and take advantage of the environment around you.

EDITD – www.editd.com

Posted by startupbeat at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Mobile

Square snags $100M at massive $1B valuation (via DealsBeat)

Animoto raises $25M to invest in mobile video creation (via gigaom)

Web Content

Social browser RockMelt raises $30M from Andreessen-Horowitz, Accel Partners (via MediaBeat)

Health Video Site HealthGuru.com Lands $6 Million (via TechCrunch)

Blue Jeans Nabs $23.5M For The Video Conferencing Platform To Rule Them All (via TechCrunch)

Finance

Dynamics raises $35M round for computerized smartcards and payment systems (via VentureBeat)

Enterprise IT

SAP Ventures Leads $14M Round In Collaborative Sales Software Developer SAVO (via TechCrunch)

Big Data Storage Startup Basho Nabs $7.5M (And Accenture CTO Don Rippert) (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 06:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: This is a new Q&A series from StartUp Beat that features entrepreneurs who have successfully guided their startups (or multiple startups) to maturity. It is a complement to StartUp Beat’s coverage of early-stage startups and an effort to provide further insight into the experiences of tech entrepreneurs.

Bio: Adam founded Model Metrics in an effort to accelerate the adoption of Cloud Computing within enterprise organizations, with the goal of bringing these companies all the value of the technology, from rapid implementation to ease of use, enhanced analytics, and tremendous ROI. Adam earned his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and his undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a board member of the Illinois Technology Association and a member of the Kellogg School Entrepreneurship Advisory Board.

SUB: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?

Caplan: This is my first.

SUB: What prompted you to start Model Metrics in the first place?

Caplan: After completing my MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, I was working at a company that was an early adopter of salesforce.com’s cloud computing technology for customer management. I was blown away by the technology and its potential to disrupt traditional enterprise technology, but was less impressed with the implementation process. I knew there had to be a better way. I took a gamble that cloud technology would be the way of the future and that companies would need experts to implement it. I began pulling together a business plan out of a Chicago Starbucks, and in 2003, Model Metrics was born.

SUB: Was there a point at which you knew Model Metrics would hit it big?

Caplan: It wasn’t long after we founded Model Metrics that I knew we were onto something. When we founded the company in 2003, the cloud computing industry was heating up and salesforce.com was taking off. As the desire for cloud technology began to outpace traditional enterprise software, salesforce.com grew rapidly. And as they grew, the need for our services followed. It was the perfect storm.

SUB: Was there a “tipping point” (for lack of a better term) when Model Metrics really picked up steam and where it started growing exponentially?

Caplan: There have been two tipping points. The first was when salesforce.com opened up its platform to allow developers to build any cloud application on it. Now we weren’t just implementing customer relationship management (CRM) technology, but building net new cloud applications that bring tremendous innovation to customers. We were one of the first to build expertise on salesforce.com’s platform and have now extended to other cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services and Google. As a result, we’re known for building really custom, enterprise-class cloud applications.

The second tipping point was the introductions of the iPhone and the iPad. An entirely new market opened up for us as enterprises want to enable the cloud on the latest and greatest mobile devices. We saw an opportunity to be the first to mobilize the cloud. This has translated into a watershed of success for our business.

SUB: What were the first steps you took to establishing Model Metrics?

Caplan: The most important first step was quitting my job. To embark successfully on something like this, you need to do it full time and really feel the financial burden. You need to take a risk.

The other key step for us was finding an effective channel strategy early on to get leads. For us, it was salesforce.com. This allowed us to focus on building our service.

SUB: If you had it to do over again, what would the first concrete step to establishing Model Metrics have been?

Caplan: If I had to do it over again, I would have begun building processes to scale the business from the very beginning. This includes making investments like hiring employees within the first year so that we could scale more quickly and take advantage of the opportunity we found.

SUB: What were the most significant obstacles to growing Model Metrics to maturity?

Caplan: Because we’re in a relatively young market, our challenge has been recruiting people with the right expertise. Since the number of cloud developers is still growing, we’ve had to hire and train people, and as a result, have built a highly effective training program on our methodology.

This training program has also helped us to overcome another obstacle: Scaling our business to meet the market opportunity. We’ve had to learn how to bring scale to everything we do given our fast growth rate, from our hiring and sales processes to ensuring our employees deliver a consistent and excellent service to our customers.

Lastly, we’re also in a very competitive and fast market and have to continuously work to ensure we stay ahead of the game so that we can differentiate through our expertise doing complex and mobile cloud development. We’ve done this through having a laser focus on taking on the right kind of projects and executing to our best ability.

SUB: What kinds of outside funding did you raise?

Caplan: To date, we have received funding from private investors.

SUB: What was the metric/milestone that indicated to you that Model Metrics had moved past startup stage?

Caplan: I knew Model Metrics had moved past the startup stage when we won our first enterprise-wide deal. This wasn’t doing an implementation for a small division of a company, but a top down strategic cloud implementation. A couple early ones that we won were Abbott and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. We had gotten past any question of our ability to execute.

SUB: What were the most important lessons you learned about entrepreneurship while building Model Metrics?

Caplan: The most important lesson I’ve learned from building Model Metrics is to not be afraid of focus. In an entrepreneurial spirit, there are lots of ideas and opportunities. Being able to have focus on doing one thing really well pays off, and leads to being able to execute on those other great ideas and opportunities down the road.

Posted by startupbeat at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Social Media

Viralheat Grabs $4.25 Million For Affordable Social Media Tracking And Intelligence (via TechCrunch)

Ifeelgoods Raises $6.5 Million To Ride The Facebook Credits Wave (via TechCrunch)

Impermium receives funding from Greylock, Accel, AOL Ventures and more, wants to be social anti-spam (via VentureBeat)

Digital Agency MartinJAY Acquires Assets Of Social Media Analyst SocialBlaze (via TechCrunch)

Web Content

Online Travel Network Operator TravelShark Raises $5 Million (via TechCrunch)

Enterprise IT

FlashSoft raises $3M for software that speeds data center processing (via DealsBeat)

Posted by startupbeat at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Loffles
Website: www.loffles.com
Founder: Brandon Yoshimura
Headquarters: Providence, Rhode Island
Year Founded: 2010
Employees: 4
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): “Loffles is an online giveaway service for consumers that provides advertisers with a new channel for consumer targeting and engagement.”

By Brandon Yoshimura, founder and CEO

Product Overview

Loffles is an online sweepstakes service for consumers that provides advertisers with a new channel for consumer engagement and businesses with a promotion solution that maximizes brand impact.

Consumers register on loffles.com by completing a user profile. This enables Loffles to recommend relevant giveaways while simultaneously capturing data points that allow advertisers to target specific audiences.

To enter a giveaway, a user must first choose a contest from our prize catalogue. After clicking a prize, a user is presented with a 10, 15 or 30-second video ad. After watching the ad and answering a few questions to confirm message reception, the Loffles user is entered into the giveaway drawing.

Founders’ Story

At Loffles, we noticed something: people like winning stuff. That’s why lotteries and sweepstakes are hugely popular. But online, we couldn’t find a fun site dedicated to providing great prizes. So we decided to change that.

We put lotteries and raffles together to make Loffles: the best online destination for people to win prizes.

Prizes cost money, but we didn’t want to charge our users to enter drawings. So we went to advertisers. They pay a lot of money to have you watch ads. But today, that’s hard to do. People DVR, or jump online, or change the channel whenever ads show up (hey, we do too!). We figured if we could find a way to ensure people paid attention to ads, we would find the money we needed for prizes. People who played would win, advertisers would win, and we would win, too.

So we talked with people, and found out what they wanted. That was easy: they wanted free cool stuff. Next we talked to the advertisers. We found out that they wanted their ads watched by the right people. So we created a system that presented targeted ads to specific demographics and threw in some fun, branded viewer quiz questions to prove to advertisers that the right people were watching.

Then we bought prizes.

That was the fun part. We figured out all the stuff we’d love to give to our friends—TVs, basketball tickets, tech gear, vacations—and just bought it all. Our friends are super busy, so we made Loffles fast and fun to play. Users just pick a prize, watch an ad, answer a few questions, and they’re entered to win. Since our friends are on the move, we made a mobile site, too.

And most importantly, our friends like to play fair, so we found a site that provides the best random generator around for giveaways: www.random.org/randomness.

It was a lot of work, but Loffles is a lot of fun. It’s fun to play, and it’s fun to run!

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

To date, Loffles has generated more than 2,000 registrants on our landing page (www.loffles.com). These are interested consumers who want to be a part of Loffles when it launches. However, only a select group, less than 100 people, has had the opportunity to explore our beta site (beta.loffles.com). The fully functional Loffles website is launching to the public on June 27th.

We are planning to support our launch with aggressive press outreach, social media initiatives, direct communications to our registered users, and outbound marketing to the greater consumer community.

We are eager to show the tech community that a few students from Rhode Island can compete with the best innovators in the world. We have a simple, clear and compelling value proposition for consumers and advertisers. The prizes are loaded. The ads are set. We’re ready to go.

How Loffles differentiates itself from the competition

The online sweepstakes market is a particularly fragmented space characterized by scams, spam and one-time offerings.

Spam and scams include the increasingly prominent “You are the ‘1,000th visitor—collect your prize!” or “Punch the boxer and win an Ipod!” popups and banner ads. Many of these opportunities lead nowhere or include barriers to entry (e.g. “Sign up for a 5-year subscription to Magazine X to collect your offer!”) which consumers are loath to accept.

One-time offerings include brand-sponsored contents (e.g. the Office Depot “America’s Messiest Office Sweepstakes” in which users could submit a messy office picture online to enter a $10,000 drawing). While these contests have value, they occur randomly, require different entry actions each time, and are difficult for consumers to discover.

Loffles brings a first-of-its-kind approach to the online prize space that allows consumers to find and enter relevant giveaways in a simple fashion. Loffles also provides consumers with a “sweepstakes in their pocket” through its mobile site. The ability for users to enter contests from anywhere at any time is unique to our service and brand. We will benefit by establishing a brand presence in a fractured online market.

Business Model

Loffles earns revenue from two primary sources: tiered display costs for video advertising and monthly fees for hosting branded sweepstakes.

Ad display prices vary depending on the requested specificity of targeting, number of views, video length, and question detail.

Brands can use the Loffles platform as a sweepstakes solution service as well. Loffles offers video hosting, contest management, metrics, live tracking, and legal indemnification in exchange for a monthly service fee.

Loffles’ current needs

We have raised $500,000 in seed capital and are now looking for the venture money to build our brand. We are seeking an additional $2,000,000 in second round financing in order to expand our sales and technical teams, purchase premium giveaways, and increase our online brand presence.

Loffles – www.loffles.com

Posted by startupbeat at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Mobile

ViVOtech gets $24 million as NFC momentum picks up (via gigaom)

Web Content

Tasty! Meredith Launches Recipe.com, Acquires EatingWell Media Group (via TechCrunch)

Foursquare Lands $50 Million Round of Funding (via ReadWriteWeb)

IT/Data Management

Soluto raises $10.5 million for anti-frustration crusade (via VentureBeat)

Posted by startupbeat at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: This is a new Q&A series from StartUp Beat that features entrepreneurs who have successfully guided their startups (or multiple startups) to maturity. It is a complement to StartUp Beat’s coverage of early-stage startups and an effort to provide further insight into the experiences of tech entrepreneurs.

Skiddy von Stade, co-founder, Chairman & CEO, OneWire

Skiddy was founder and served as President of F.S. von Stade & Associates from 1995 to 2007, which was voluntarily dissolved upon founding of OneWire. Prior F.S. von Stade & Associates, Mr. von Stade was Head of the New York office of The Oxbridge Group, an executive search firm specializing in the financial services industry. Before becoming an executive search specialist, Mr. von Stade rose through the ranks from Junior Associate to Vice President at Alexander and Alexander, an international insurance brokerage firm. His excellent performance was rewarded as he became the youngest employee invited to join the Summit Club, a membership he held during the last three years with the firm. Mr. von Stade graduated from the University of Vermont. An outdoorsman and conservationist, he serves as an advisor to the Board of Trustees of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Brin McCagg, co-founder, President & COO, OneWire

Brin has more than 20 years of entrepreneurial executive management experience. Between 2003 and 2007 Brin served on an Executive team managing the turnaround of two companies owed by the private equity firms ABS Capital Partners and Monitor Clipper Partners. From 1998 to 2001, Brin founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of TradeOut Inc., an internet based liquidator of excess business inventory. TradeOut was funded and partnered with GE, Goldman Sachs, eBay and Chase Bank. The company filed to go public in 2000 but was ultimately sold. In 1991 Brin co-founded and managed Full Circle, Inc, a hazardous waste recycling company, and served as President. In 1995 he was promoted to Chief Executive Officer when the company merged with Environmental Technologies, Inc., a NASDAQ listed company, which he managed through mid 1997. Brin started his career as an investment banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Brin received his MBA from The Wharton School.

SUB: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?

von Stade: In 1995, I founded and managed a successful executive search firm that was focused on financial services recruiting.

McCagg: I am a serial entrepreneur.  In 1983, while in college, I started a company that imported Aborigine art from Australia. In 1991, I co-founded and managed Full Circle, Inc., a hazardous waste recycling company. In addition, I founded and served as chief executive officer of TradeOut, Inc., an Internet based liquidator of excess business inventory. OneWire is my fourth entrepreneurial venture.

SUB: What prompted you to start OneWire?

von Stade: After nearly 20 years in the executive search industry, I witnessed firsthand how quickly the war for talent has evolved. My vision was to revolutionize career and talent management by developing technology that resulted in precise career connections with only a few clicks of the mouse. OneWire was then born to address inefficiencies in the traditional model of recruiting and provide a single-platform solution that could connect candidates and companies at all levels. We were certain that with my deep experience and knowledge of the recruiting industry and Brin’s entrepreneurial background, we would be able to build a revolutionary product.

McCagg: I enjoy tackling new challenges and building new products that fill a need in the marketplace. I’ve done recruiting at prior jobs and am well aware of the processes and frustration associated with finding and hiring talent. Teaming up with Skiddy, who I have known for 20 years, provided me with industry expertise, and we were confident that we could build a new category of product.

SUB: Was there a point at which you knew OneWire would hit it big?

von Stade and McCagg: Over the past three years, we have spoken with the top management or heads of HR at over 400 financial services and Fortune 1000 firms. These conversations constantly reinforced our conviction that a single, cloud-based, career and talent management system is needed and will dominate in this industry. 

SUB: Was there a “tipping point” (for lack of a better term) when OneWire really picked up steam and where it started growing exponentially?

von Stade and McCagg: We’ve experienced very strong customer and user growth to date; however, when one of the largest banks in the world adopted us across 14 countries, it reinforced that we are building a product that will revolutionize career and talent management.

SUB: What were the first steps you took to establishing OneWire?

von Stade and McCagg: From conception, we have had a complementary dynamic, resulting in a strong management team and secure foundation upon which the company could grow. An early step we took was to differentiate ourselves from the competition by building our technology using structured data. We felt that if candidates completed a profile using structured data, our technology could precisely connect candidates and companies in a controlled environment.

SUB: If you had it to do over again, what would the first concrete step to establishing OneWire have been?

von Stade and McCagg: We think we did it right. Looking back, we’re certain that one of the most crucial first steps we took was to meet with the heads of HR at a number of top global investment banks, and take a white board to their entire recruiting process—dissecting each step to find the redundancies and inefficiencies we sought to correct. We did not build this application in a vacuum, but instead received the buy-in and feedback of these future clients.

SUB: What were the most significant obstacles to growing OneWire to maturity?

von Stade and McCagg: Behavior is hard to change. A large obstacle for an early stage company is convincing potential users that their current process is antiquated and highly inefficient. Some folks prefer to continue using certain systems because it’s all they’ve known for the past 10 years or so, even though it’s incredibly time consuming and costly.

SUB: What kinds of outside funding (if any) did you raise?

von Stade and McCagg: We are funded by over 100 individual investors—all leaders of their industry and invaluable in providing suggestions and counsel.

SUB: What was the metric/milestone that indicated to you that OneWire had moved past startup stage?

von Stade and McCagg: We have had many milestones, however when customers began to utilize our product on a global basis, it reinforced that there are significant opportunities for growth for OneWire.

SUB: What were the most important lessons you learned about entrepreneurship while building OneWire?

von Stade and McCagg: To build a great company, you need great people. We’re very fortunate to have a very dedicated group of employees on our team. Our team is our biggest asset and this company would not be where it is today, if not for their hard work and commitment.

Posted by startupbeat at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Cloud

OneLogin Raises $1.5M For Enterprise Cloud-Based Identity Platform (via TechCrunch)

Web Content

Baidu Makes $306 Million Strategic Investment In Chinese Travel Search Engine Qunar (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: ADmantX
Website: www.admantx.com
Headquarters: Hartford, CT
Year Founded: 2010
Employees: 12
Investors: Atlante Ventures ($2.8 million, closed 6/8/11)
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): “ADmantX reads URLs and knows consumers ‘frame of mind’ in real time for superior contextual ad data including emotions and buying intention.”

By J. Brooke Aker, CMO

Product Overview

ADmantX is a contextual targeting data provider that improves the match between ads and content using semantic and natural language processing technology. We provide unique data channels on buyer intention and emotions that represent a consumers “frame of mind” in real time. This advanced contextual data is cookie-less and a viable alternative to behavioral targeting or can supplement the same. Recent Yahoo research suggests a combination of behavioral and contextual targeting generates 40 percent better ad engagement.

Founders’ Story

ADmantX is a spinoff of Expert System which is a leader in semantic web and natural language (NLP) processing platforms. Thus ADmantX was born from a 20 year history of spell checkers, grammar checkers, NLP, semantic networks and semantic coding tools across hundreds of corporate and government engagements. Now tuned for the digital advertising vertical space ADmantX is uniquely placed to excel at providing contextual data at a speed, depth and accuracy level not seen before.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

ADmantX uses a B2B marketing and promotion strategy. Our customers are the ad networks, demand and supply platform vendors, publishers, advertisers and their agency partners. We reach them with a direct sales force, publication of thought pieces, blogs, speeches, webinars and conference attendance to build awareness.

ADmantX also makes a full-featured version of its product available online for limited trial and use. Private, cost free trials are also part of the company’s marketing and promotional strategy.

How ADmantX differentiates itself from the competition

All semantic data providers to the online ad world must analyze URLs for people, places, things and content categories. ADmantX does this as well but at a greater depth than most with 35 entity types and 700 standard categories. Self-Serve, real-time design tools allow for the creation of new categories from combinations of standard categories. This gives ADmantX a nearly unlimited ability to tune semantic data matching algorithms.

Two additional data channels distinguish ADmantX. One is the emotion readers are likely to be experiencing as they consume content. The other is the buying intention content may elicit in readers. Buying intention is geared to direct response advertisers and emotions are geared to brand advertisers.

Business Model

ADmantX uses a traditional CPM model based on volume. Pages are analyzed and stored in a rolling cache with simple java script integration at the page or ad server level. Consumers who open the page call the semantic data associated with the URL and the data is integrated for ad placement in milliseconds. High volumes can be priced at three cents CPM.

Current Needs

ADmantX is expanding its sales professional staff in North America. We are looking for seasoned digital ad and digital media technology professionals who can sell to ad networks, platforms, exchanges, publishers, advertisers and agencies.

In 2012 ADmantX will be looking to raise a second round of funding to complement its sales, marketing, infrastructure and product efforts.

ADmantX – www.admantx.com

Posted by startupbeat at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Online Education Firm Encore Raises $15 Million; Steve Poizner To Serve As CEO (via TechCrunch)

Allegiance Raises $12 Million For Customer Feedback Platform (via TechCrunch)

Ringleadr Raises $500K, Launches Service To Let Users Create Their Own Deals (via TechCrunch)

Social Media/Gaming

Social Games Developer Social Point Raises €2.4 Million (via TechCrunch)

GreenTech

GE, Kleiner Perkins And Others To Put $63 Million In 10 Home Energy Tech Companies (via TechCrunch)

Enterprise IT

SolarWinds Buys Network Security Company TriGeo For $35 Million In Cash (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 06:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Virsto offers cost-effective and efficient storage for virtualized environments (servers and desktops). The company recently closed a $12 million Series B funding round. Founded in 2007, Virsto is based in Sunnyvale.

SUB: Please briefly explain what Virsto offers, and the value proposition you bring to the enterprise storage market.

Davis: Virsto Software provides innovative solutions to address the growing need for cost-effective and efficient storage for virtual servers and desktops. Companies worldwide use Virsto to achieve breakthrough increases in performance, reduce storage capital and operating costs, and streamline provisioning and data management for virtual computing.

SUB: What was the inspiration behind Virsto? How did the idea develop?

Davis: Server virtualization fundamentally changes the way servers interact with storage. The existing storage architecture was designed 20 years ago and was woefully inadequate to cope with the highly random I/O that virtualized workloads generate. (Co-founders) Serge, Alex and I took our deep background in storage and file systems and designed a software-based solution from the ground up to focus on virtual machines and their unique challenges with storage.

SUB: When was the company founded, and what were the first steps you took to establishing it?

Davis: Fall 2007. After incorporating Virsto we met with dozens of companies in the server virtualization and storage ecosystem to validate assumptions and help generate the spec for our product prototype.

SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?

Davis: Virsto Software is the only vendor taking a software-only approach to solving the intrinsic challenges of storage in virtualized environments. There are competing approaches to solving this problem, with SSD appliance vendors such as Tintri and Atlantis, and older architectures being applied to the use case, such as Datacore.

SUB: What differentiates Virsto from its competitors?

Davis: Virsto offers a software-only approach that integrates directly into the hypervisor and works with any block-based storage. Virsto has a unique approach to sequentializing all I/O writes from VMs, and with very sophisticated mapping and logging architecture, that delivers dramatic performance increases while simultaneously reducing the amount of storage required for each VM. Because of the highly scalable snapshots and clones, Virsto also dramatically simplifies and accelerates VM provisioning.

SUB: How are you marketing your software?

Davis: Virsto has multiple routes to market. We are supporting a direct sales motion, partner sales channel, and are actively engaged in OEM discussions.

SUB: You recently raised $12 million in Series B funding. How do you plan to use the funds?

Davis: Virsto will use the proceeds from our recent funding round to significantly expand our go to market functions; expanding our sales and marketing organizations to capitalize on our two-year lead in the market, as well as continue to invest in engineering, development and support staff.

SUB: Why was now the right time to raise more outside funding?

Davis: Virsto raised funding in our A-round with the explicit goal of developing a mature product offering and establishing early customer success. We are very pleased with the high investor interest in this round of funding. The investment community sees storage virtualization as a very large market opportunity and values the proven executive team that Virsto has assembled, as well as the track record of execution and achievement of our stated goals from prior investment rounds.

SUB: Do you plan to raise more funding in the near future?

Davis: Virsto will continue to execute against the goals that we set for our B-round investment. We see continued interest from the investment community and we will evaluate opportunities as they arise.

SUB: What have the biggest challenges been so far to building/growing Virsto?

Davis: The largest challenge has been finding skilled development resources to deliver enterprise-class infrastructure software. We have been very fortunate to have such a skilled group of engineers, developers and Q/A resources.

SUB: What are your goals for the company over the next year or so? Where do you hope to be?

Davis: Virsto has always had a multi-hypervisor vision and we are focused on continuing to execute on this vision and launch multiple new products in the second half of 2011. We will continue to ramp our sales and customer acquisition and have set clear goals for these activities.

SUB: Finally, a question I always ask: as an entrepreneur who has so far navigated the down economy successfully, what advice do you have for those just starting out with a new business?

Davis: Validate that the problem you are trying to solve is a big, big problem. Find a differentiated way to solve it. Execute, execute, execute.

Virsto Software – www.virsto.com

Posted by startupbeat at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Mobile

Glympse Raises $7.5 Million To Help You Share Your Location, A Few Hours At A Time (via TechCrunch)

Shazam Secures $32m (via MobileMarketing)

Cloud

Virtualization And Cloud Security Startup Bromium Raises $9.2M From Andreessen Horowitz And Others (via TechCrunch)

GreenTech

To Help Companies Curb Their Environmental Impact, Enablon Raises $15 Million (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: This is a new Q&A series from StartUp Beat that features entrepreneurs who have successfully guided their startups (or multiple startups) to maturity. It is a complement to StartUp Beat’s coverage of early-stage startups and an effort to provide further insight into the experiences of tech entrepreneurs.

Bio: Siamak Taghaddos is the co-founder and CEO of Grasshopper, a company which has empowered over 100,000 entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses with a Virtual Phone System. A lifelong student of marketing, Siamak is one of the youngest CEOs to be named to Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing companies and is the founding supporter of National Entrepreneurs Day. Find Siamak on Twitter - @siamak.

SUB: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?

Taghaddos: I had a few random ones growing up including computer repair “firm” in middle school but my first real venture was PagerWholesale.com. After someone difficulty finding a cheap pager on a high school kid’s budget I found a cheap distributor in California, setup a website, and resold pagers throughout the US to kids and small businesses. A few years later I sold the site to the distributors and founded Grasshopper.

SUB: What prompted you to start Grasshopper in the first place?

Taghaddos: Running Pagerwholesale.com in high school wasn’t easy. Customers would call my house, my mom answered the phone with my little sisters screaming in the background. I knew there had to be a better way but couldn’t find a good solution. There were a few companies offering virtual office systems which I used and resold for at first, but the opportunity to create a solid company serving entrepreneurs like myself and the kids I saw running businesses from college was big.

SUB: Was there a point at which you knew Grasshopper would hit it big?

Taghaddos: Even before I started. Something always told me the demand for virtual phone systems would be big.

SUB: Was there a “tipping point” (for lack of a better term) when Grasshopper really picked up steam and where it started growing exponentially?

Taghaddos: We were profitable 2 months after launching and getting signups every day so there was always steam and exponential growth.

SUB: What were the first steps you took to establishing Grasshopper?

Taghaddos: At the same time I wanted to create a Grasshopper-like service, my business partner today was looking to do the same thing. So when we met at college randomly and saw our skills complemented each other, it was a simple hand-shake to get started. He immediately started figuring out the technology while I focused on the business side and getting the startup capital we needed.

SUB: If you had it to do over again, what would the first concrete step to establishing Grasshopper have been?

Taghaddos: I wouldn’t do it any different.

SUB: What were the most significant obstacles to growing Grasshopper to maturity?

Taghaddos: We needed $1.5 million to start Grasshopper and did it with less than $300k, so bootstrapping a telecom with everything involved on the infrastructure side was difficult but an amazing learning opportunity. It also took a few years for us to sharpen our skills running a business.

SUB: What kinds of outside funding did you raise?

Taghaddos: Self-funded with family help.

SUB: What was the metric/milestone that indicated to you that Grasshopper had moved past startup stage?

Taghaddos: When we outgrew our shared office space with our fourth employee and moved into our own office.

SUB: What were the most important lessons you learned about entrepreneurship while building Grasshopper?

Taghaddos: Being resourceful and depending on no one except yourself and your co-founder. Also, a founder with a good eye for design and great designers to implement their vision is a tremendous asset to any company. Just look at Apple.

Posted by startupbeat at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Peter Thiel, Lerer Ventures And Others Put $600K In BestVendor (via TechCrunch)

SAY Media Acquires Digital Agency Sideshow (via TechCrunch)

MyGengo Raises $1 Million To “Own” Translation (via TechCrunch)

Cloud

Cloud-based development environtment startup Cloud9 raises $5.5M (via DealsBeat)

Taleo Acquires Talent Management Software Company Jobpartners For $38M (via TechCrunch)

ScaleXtreme Raises $11 Million For Cloud-based Systems Management Software (via TechCrunch)

Ping Identity Raises $21M To Provide A Secure, Single Sign-On For Enterprise Applications (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Red Foundry
Website: www.redfoundry.com
Founders:  Jim Heising, CEO, and Ron Franczyk, Chief Software Architect, Andrew Newman, CTO
Headquarters: Chicago
Year Founded: 2009
Employees: 14
Investors: I2A Fund and OCA Ventures
Company Description (in 140 characters or less): “Red Foundry is a complete solution for building and managing mobile apps, combining limitless creativity with business agility.”

By Jim Heising, co-founder and CEO

Product Overview: Red Foundry is a complete solution for building and managing mobile apps. Our unified platform enables everything from stunning content-based mobile apps to powerful enterprise solutions, while reducing the mobile app development cycle from months to days. We currently support mobile app development on iOS, including iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and this summer we will release our Android solution for Android phones and tablets.

Founders’ Story: The founders of Red Foundry are Ron Franczyk, Andrew Newman, and me. We worked together over the last decade building the security software firm GIANT, which was acquired by Microsoft and became Windows Defender. Our organizational roots stem from a love for creating mobile apps. Together we designed several chart topping mobile apps, including the humorous Stachetastic and the innovative Pearl Jam mobile app. Discontent to simply be hired guns for mobile app development, we created a comprehensive mobile app system to help businesses big and small quickly create, deploy and monetize mobile apps. The result was RFML, Red Foundry Markup Language, an HTML-like environment in which developers can quickly reuse successfully tested modules of code while still delivering unlimited customization. Thus was born Red Foundry,  a comprehensive mobile app development platform that helps organizations design, build, deliver and monetize apps without compromising the user experience.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy: Our marketing strategy supports three key segments. First, our web with free mobile app development tools allows a wide variety of developers serving the small and medium business segment to develop an app on our platform at no charge. As developers seek more features, such as analytics, content management and push notifications, they upgrade to a modest monthly fee to manage the app. Second, we have a direct sales organization that works with our enterprise clients on a rapid mobile app development program called IGNITE. Our IGNITE program provides our clients a beautiful mobile app with a variety of business functions in less than 10 days, and we train our client to use the platform to create new apps or modify existing apps. Our third program addresses the digital media market through a value added developer network. Developer organizations use our platform to significantly increase time to market and apps created per developer.

How We Differentiate From the Competition: Unlike cookie-cutter solutions, Red Foundry’s development system combines powerful business functions, like in-app purchasing with unlimited creative expression. Mobile app developments that required months are completed in days, allowing developers and organizations to apply greater focus on the user experience. To demonstrate the power of our RFML, Red Foundry recently transformed commodity weather data into a visually stunning experience with WeatherVane, the number five ranked weather mobile app for iPad, and we completed the app in less than a day. In addition, our technology scales to the skills of the developer so that an organization can start with basic functionality and migrate into advanced customization with our RFML technology. Even experienced developers benefit from the reusable and customizable code modules available with our platform.

Business Model: We have two primary revenue streams. Our IGNITE program, mentioned earlier, provides enterprises with an accelerated mobile app development program and comprehensive training for a fraction of the cost of developing a mobile app through an independent design organization. IGNITE engagements range from $11,900 to $17,900 depending on the complexity of the mobile app, but rarely exceed 10 days in development. Our second revenue stream comes from a recurring monthly fee per app built. Our flexible monthly app fee structure ranges from $39 per month per app to $599 per month per app depending on the functionality required of the app.

Current Needs: We need people who are as passionate and excited as us about the impact mobile is having on society. We are currently seeking mobile app developers who not only love developing, but also have an inherent desire to teach others how to develop mobile apps. We are also expanding our online educational program with a variety of short videos to help new clients quickly create mobile apps. We completed our first round of institutional investment for a total of $1M in November 2010 and have expanded the team and our customer engagements. The level of demand for mobile apps is increasing so quickly that we may seek a second round to help accelerate our customer acquisition and product features.

Red Foundry – www.redfoundry.com

Posted by startupbeat at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content/eCommerce

VibeDeck Raises $2 Million For Direct-To-Fan eCommerce Platform For Musicians (via TechCrunch)

Daily Deal Wallet CityPockets Raises $735K; Adds Secondary Marketplace For Deal Resale (via TechCrunch)

Web Content

Virtual World Technology Developer ProtonMedia Raises $4.5 Million (via TechCrunch)

Game on – Bluefields scores angel funding to help amateur football teams get organised (via TechCrunch Europe)

Posted by startupbeat at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: This is a new Q&A series from StartUp Beat that features entrepreneurs who have successfully guided their startups (or multiple startups) to maturity. It is a complement to StartUp Beat’s coverage of early-stage startups and an effort to provide further insight into the experiences of tech entrepreneurs.

Bio: Robert Jordan has been launching and growing companies and helping other entrepreneurs do the same for the past 20 years. He is author of How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America (RedFlash Press), a collection of interviews from 45 leading founders who created $41 billion from scratch. His first startup, Online Access, landed on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies. Jordan’s newest endeavors are RedFlash project implementation team, and interimCEOinterimCFO, a worldwide network of interim, contract and project executives. He blogs for Huffington Post, and has appeared on Good Morning America Money and ABC News, and been interviewed and quoted in such print and online media as Bloomberg Business Week, Forbes.com, Crain’s Chicago Business, and USA Today. Find out more at www.HowTheyDidIt.com.

SUB: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?

Jordan: I started Online Access, the first Internet coverage magazine, midway through business school; I dropped out of school as soon as the business plan was done. That was my first full-time company with investors and employees. Before that I dabbled. I started a coupon book in high school, kind of like a competitor to the Entertainment Coupon Book, just for companies around Chicago. And then when I started in B-school, the Chicago Cubs made it into the playoffs, and we created a version of the Trivial Pursuit board game, called Cubs Mania. Even though the Cubs lost in the 5th game (of course), we sold tens of thousands of games and that paid my tuition bills.

SUB: What prompted you to start Online Access?

Jordan: A fellow B-school student had just bought a brand-new PC and a modem and didn’t know whom to call. A light went on when he said that. I thought I’d launch something like a phone book. Remember, this was pre-Internet, so we were dealing with big online services like Dialog, Lexis-Nexis and CompuServe. There were thousands of databases accessible online, but no one was writing about them.

SUB: Was there a point at which you knew Online Access would hit it big?

Jordan: It took a long time for it to catch on. But when America Online decided to flood the US with 50 million disks a year, I thought things would heat up for us. And then our distributors started requesting that we produce hundreds of thousands of copies monthly for newsstand sales, and that was pretty exciting. Then some of our big advertisers, like AOL and CompuServe, started a bidding war over prime advertising space in Online Access…and that was nice.

SUB: Was there a “tipping point” (for lack of a better term) when Online Access really picked up steam and where it started growing exponentially?

Jordan: There was a pre-Internet moment when Prodigy finally launched, after $1 billion invested by IBM, Sears, and CBS, and after lots of years in development, and Prodigy decided to run full-page ads all across America educating everyone about going online. That was the first rising tide—and it lifted a lot of boats, including ours. We instantly saw more people buying Online Access and subscribing in record numbers. People wanted to know all about going online, and we were the only magazine on newsstands that could tell them. Of course the real tipping point was the launch of the World Wide Web—that was game-over in the good sense.

SUB: What were the first steps you took to establishing Online Access?

Jordan: I wrote a business plan with the help of seven other students, although I was already convinced, business plan or not, that I had to leave school and start the magazine. At the time it looked just plain nuts. I left the #1-rated business school to launch a company with no funding or team or anything. This was way before the Internet bubble, and you just didn’t do that. With business plan in hand I started knocking on investors’ doors for funding. There was no email at the time, so this meant a lot of phone calls. I also started looking at office space, which is funny, because it turned out that my future landlord was the reason I got to launch. A developer bought a landmark 1893 skyscraper in Chicago, and after I walked through, they asked me what I’d like my offices to look like. They were refurbishing the Monadnock Building from top to bottom after years of neglect, and I sketched something out. They called me 45 days later and said, “Your office is ready.” I was kind of shocked—I hadn’t signed a lease or even said anything about taking it! My space was on the top floor facing south, and it was beautiful, as if I had walked into the original building in 1893. I called my lead investor, and even though I hadn’t finished raising money, he said “go for it.” And I was in the game.

SUB: If you had it to do over again, what would the first concrete step to establishing Online Access have been?

Jordan: One thing we got right was to lock in our biggest and best advertiser early on, so I wouldn’t change that. If I were doing it all over again, I would have invested more in direct marketing to build a larger subscriber base. We fell in love with retail sales on the newsstand and with big advertiser programs—both great—but there would have been a better annuity stream from more subscribers.

SUB: What were the most significant obstacles to growing Online Access to maturity?

Jordan: When we started, most consumers had no clue what it meant to “go online” and that discovery process for most folks took years. This sounds obvious now in a world that is completely online and has been for a 15 years. At the time it was heavy lifting. I also made assumptions that were just plain wrong. Like assuming we would only be of interest to big advertisers if we had a 100,000 rate base. Totally unnecessary and money-draining. We just needed to show up, look great, and be credible to gain their trust.

SUB: What kinds of outside funding did you raise?

Jordan: I raised $450,000 from five individual investors.

SUB: What was the metric/milestone that indicated to you that Online Access had moved past startup stage?

Jordan: The original Online Access went bust after two years. I bought the rights out of bankruptcy court, went back to the vendors, advertisers and investors and started again. The restart was immediately profitable and stayed that way. The combination of profitability, having a capable management team that would take initiative and make decisions, and employing a staff to do most of the work—that’s past startup stage. Maybe another definition is that when you can take a vacation, and know that good decisions are being made without consulting you, your baby has grown past startup.

SUB: What were the most important lessons you learned about entrepreneurship while building Online Access?

Jordan: The first and biggest lesson was that my zeal and enthusiasm as founder was key. I don’t mean rah-rah stuff or jumping up and down. I mean the real core of your soul knowledge that you have to do what you are doing. It was the vital thing, the most important thing that employees and investors and customers had to see. On a practical level I thought my biggest challenges would be in making sales and designing product. Those were the tangible things I could picture in my dreams before launch. But they ended up not being the big challenge. For me the big enduring lesson was in learning how to lead people—employees, investors and customers. I came to realize I was just one piece of the puzzle, and that to be really effective and have a company that could accomplish amazing things, I had to form and lead a team, and that a great team would have people who could initiate action on their own.

Posted by startupbeat at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Spotify Scores $100M in Funding, Will Launch This Summer in U.S. [REPORT] (via Mashable)

Posted by startupbeat at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Infineta Systems brings Hyper-scale WAN Optimization solutions to the enterprise market. The San Jose–based company was founded in 2008, and recently closed a $15 million Series B funding round.

SUB: Please briefly describe what Infineta is, and the value proposition you bring to the WAN optimization market.

Kanaya: Infineta is a provider of Hyper-scale WAN Optimization systems. We make a product—called the Data Mobility Switch—that helps customers improve the movement of critical network traffic traversing between enterprise data centers through a combination of unique technologies in traffic control, network layer optimization and data reduction. The value realized by customers is significant cost savings, enhanced WAN infrastructure performance, and improved reliability for their critical applications.

SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?

Kanaya: We compete in the broader “WAN (Wide Area Network) Optimization” category of networking. Established companies in that space include the likes of Riverbed, Cisco, and host of other, smaller players. None of those WAN Optimization companies solve the problems that large enterprises experience in what is commonly referred to as the inter-data center WAN, or network connectivity between two or more of their large data centers. The industry is starting to refer to this segment of the WAN infrastructure as the Hyper-scale WAN, where machine-to-machine traffic is pushing for higher levels of throughput and reliability. In this sense, Infineta’s competition is the status quo of upgrading bandwidth, compromising the amount of traffic to move, and even sitting pat and doing nothing. All of these choices are detrimental to data protection, network efficiency, and, ultimately, incur an enormous cost in the face of growing datacenter-to-datacenter WAN traffic—which the industry experts peg at 3x growth over the next two years.

SUB: What differentiates Infineta from your competitors?

Kanaya: Simply put, Infineta’s flagship product, the Data Mobility Switch, operates at a scale and throughput level that others can’t match. The end result is a very cost-effective solution that improves high speed, latency sensitive data traffic to support critical initiatives such as BC/DR (business continuity/disaster recovery), cross-site virtualization for private cloud build outs, and Big Data processing for multi-site deployments.

SUB: What was the inspiration behind Infineta? Was there an “aha” moment, or was it a concept that was a long time in developing?

Kanaya: The core leadership team at Infineta—including myself—have spent the better part of our careers working to solve core infrastructure challenges to make IT more powerful, efficient, and cost effective. While it may sound boring, these are the foundational issues customers face year in, year out. The “aha” moment is really when we looked at the explosion in inter-data center traffic and zoomed in on the “why” and “how” attached to this growth trend. Then, we invested an enormous amount of time meeting with the day to day leaders of IT—the guys vested in making sure initiatives such as BC/DR are carried out without hiccup, architects tasked with making data center assets more flexible, the high performance computing folks rolling out distributed systems.

The insight we gained was as amazing as it was simple. The inter-data center WAN is where all of this innovation is running across, and the WAN cannot scale to support it. There must be a better way than the status quo of adding capacity that, in the end, may or may not solve the problem. IT is not a gamble, so how do we get them out of the casino? The DMS was the answer. With Infineta’s products, customers can drastically reduce the amount of high speed traffic while filling the WAN links. This delivers faster completion of critical workflows, instant 5x to 10x increase in network capacity, and immense cost savings by lengthening the life of current WANs and pushing out expensive circuit upgrades. That’s the net value we deliver. Better performance. More reliable, efficient network capacity. Lower costs.

SUB: When was Infineta founded and what were the first steps you took in establishing it?

Kanaya: Infineta was incorporated in mid-2008 with two co-founders and an idea. I’d say the first steps were to prototype our systems and fine tune our data reduction algorithms. There’s a lot of stuff in-between—such as filing patents, buying computers, and so on—but those are the major steps. Then, we began hiring the first of several key engineers. Recruiting talent is a 24/7 effort. I can tell you first-hand that all of those articles stating that hiring talent is critical and hard are actually true. Luckily, we have a fine group of people who are up to the challenge of making a significant impact on customers with a game-changing technology.

SUB: How are you marketing your services?

Kanaya: Fundamentally, I’m a strong believer that marketing starts at identifying a real problem customers want to urgently solve. Then, it’s figuring out the initial product requirements, route to customer or market, identifying collaborative as well as gating factors as it relates to market entry, and honing the proper messaging and positioning to shorten the time-to-mindshare. For us, marketing is not product promotion or merely finding selling channels. So, that’s the basic marketing strategy. Build the right product, find industry allies, message to customer value, and then deliver on that message or promise.

On the execution front, we will initially sell to large enterprise through a direct sales force. Over time, as we mature, we will enlist strategic VARs and technology partners for a better channel mix. Orchestrating a complex channel mix too early is not something we will pursue largely because the initial crop of accounts will require “high touch” and involve longer sales cycles due to the newness of our solution and trial periods the inter-data center WAN solutions require.

SUB: You recently closed a $15 million funding round. How do you plan to use the funds?

Kanaya: We’ve begun shipping DMS so the latest funding will be allocated to building out our sales and marketing. We’ll also invest in engineering, as well.

SUB: Why was this a particularly good time for you to seek a Series B funding round?

Kanaya: Generally speaking, infrastructure investments are not top-of-mind for the venture capital community as a whole, as many prefer to focus on more capital-efficient deals. Any time that you’re building infrastructure or, in our case, hardware, there is more capital required and some VC’s shy away from that. The good news is that we’re addressing a large market opportunity with highly differentiated technology, and that gets the right people to notice.

SUB: Do you plan to seek more funding in the near future?

Kanaya: Most likely, yes. For now, we need to stay focused on building the business with the resources that we have. We’ve got plenty to do!

SUB: What have the biggest obstacles been so far to building Infineta?

Kanaya: Finding the right talent is by far the hardest thing with building highly skilled engineering teams tasked with building first-ever, complex systems. We’re not a Web 2.0 application startup that can crank out a beta product and upload it to the web in sub-12 months or even 6-months. Our full system (hardware plus software) development cycles are long relative to software projects. Given all of those factors, I’m proud of our team for being able to deliver version one of DMS in two years. A lot of people had to sacrifice time spent with family and hobbies to get us to where we are today. Constantly articulating and reinforcing our mission has been instrumental in keeping things moving forward. But, as I’ve said, recruiting talent as a startup grows is tough business.

SUB: Where do you see Infineta in a year from now?

Kanaya: I see Infineta translating vision and product into customer value. It’s that simple.

SUB: Finally, as an entrepreneur who has successfully navigated the waters of the bad economy, what advice do you have for those just now starting out with new ventures?

Kanaya: Great question and one that I often think about. I’d say it’s really three things. Conviction, guts, and perseverance. My VP of marketing once reminded me of Mark Twain’s quote that “90 percent of life is just showing up.” I’d say the same is true of early stage startups. Ninety percent of being at an early stage startup is about showing up. By showing up, I don’t mean going to work and clocking in. Every single day, you need to go in and put in your best effort—both for self-respect and for your teammates. To do so, however, you need guts. There’s a lot of uncertainty, incomplete information, and unexpected problems that come up with great frequency at startups. To internalize it all and have the courage to move forward and seek solutions, you really need guts. And, no one can persevere or be courageous without conviction—a belief in what you are doing. You can work on the conviction part but the guts and perseverance are traits people bring with them into a startup job. So, you have to have an antenna to be able to find talent with those characteristics.

Infineta Systems – www.infineta.com

Posted by startupbeat at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

E-commerce

India’s Amazon.com Flipkart Raises $20 Million From Tiger Global (via TechCrunch)

Mobile Gaming

Tapjoy launches $5M fund to port apps to Android (via GamesBeat)

Web Content

HomeAway Prices IPO Between $24 And $27 Per Share, Now Valued At $2 Billion (via TechCrunch)

Social Fundraising Platform Piryx Is Reborn As Rally.org With Top Investors In Tow (via TechCrunch)

Lumosity raises $32M round for brain games (via VentureBeat)

Mobile

Real Estate Mobile App Developer Smarter Agent Raises $6 Million (via TechCrunch)

Marketing/Advertising

YuMe Acquires UK Mobile Video Ad Company Appealing Media (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 07:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: This is a new Q&A series from StartUp Beat that features entrepreneurs who have successfully guided their startups (or multiple startups) to maturity. It is a complement to StartUp Beat’s coverage of new, early-stage startups and an effort to provide further insight into the fascinating experiences of tech entrepreneurs.

Bio: Bob La Loggia is CEO of Appointment-Plus, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based provider of online scheduling solutions for small and large businesses, Fortune 500 companies, colleges and universities, government agencies and other organizations. He has over 20 years of experience in the technology arena. Bob began his career at Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, where he gained valuable experience in systems development methodology and business operations. This experience prepared him for independent consulting roles with several Fortune 500 companies, including American Express and Honeywell. Bob started his first company in 1993, and has since been involved in four startups. As CEO, he has grown Appointment-Plus into the leading cloud-based scheduling software application used to book over 1.5 million appointments each month and over 65 million appointments since its inception. Bob graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems. He earned his MBA from the University of Phoenix.

SUB: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?

La Loggia: In 1993, after being on the road for five years, I quit Accenture to start my first venture. I had always had an interest in health and fitness, so I developed a daily fitness planner called The Pocket Personal Trainer. It was like a DayTimer, but included meal and workout planning and tracking.

Although I had learned a lot about business while with Accenture, I really had no idea how to start and grow a company. But, true to my nature, I dove in headfirst. After numerous failed attempts to get the product picked up by large retailers, I settled on mail order as the primary distribution channel.

Like many entrepreneurs, I was running on blind ambition and adrenaline. After three years, I found myself in over $150,000 of credit card debt and owed a family friend $10,000. I moved into my office, sold my truck, and took out the remaining money I had in my 401k. At 29-years old, I had nothing left.

After a couple more months, I thought I had my big breakthrough. NordicTrack was interested in using the planner as part of a package deal for their infomercials. I scraped up enough money to fly to Minneapolis to meet with them. The meeting went nowhere.

That night in a cheap hotel room outside of Minneapolis, my world came crashing down. I wept uncontrollably and couldn’t believe why I had put myself through over three years of almost nonstop work and immense stress. At that moment, I decided to close down the business.

SUB: What prompted you to start Appointment-Plus?

La Loggia: In 1999, I worked as the CTO for a dot-com startup called GlobeXPharma. It was a small startup funded by multi-millionaire John Kapoor. The company’s strategy was to disrupt the pharmaceutical distribution world using the power of the Internet.

At that time, there was a lot of media discussion about how having a brick-and-mortar presence could be important for dot-coms. So, we took a right turn and purchased a small pharmaceutical distribution company in Georgia. The strategy didn’t work and John pulled the plug on funding. We went out of business in 2001.

Between not having enough money in my first venture and having too much money with my dot-com startup, I was well equipped with a truckload of information on how not to run a company.
2001 was a horrible time for someone with my technology background to be looking for a job, so I started Appointment-Plus. Online services were already gaining steam. So, why not online appointment scheduling? It seemed to be an obvious use of the Internet.

SUB: Was there a point at which you knew Appointment-Plus would hit it big?

La Loggia: Well, we feel like the online appointment software industry is still very young. Although we’ve been very successful, we feel like we are just getting started. But, landing some key clients, such as a very large search engine company that shall remain nameless, gave us the confidence to continue to focus on growth. We knew we had the right people, the infrastructure, the culture and the scrappiness to be as successful as we chose to be.

SUB: Was there a “tipping point” (for lack of a better term) when Appointment-Plus really picked up steam and where it started growing exponentially?

La Loggia: Yes, there was a distinct time in our history that was a turning point for the organization. Several years ago, we were operating at a very profitable clip. But, we weren’t investing in the staff and the infrastructure to allow us to develop into a true powerhouse. I was running the company like a lifestyle business. We had 10 employees and not much interest in adding any more.

I then made the decision that we were going to try to own the online appointment scheduling industry instead of just being one of the players. The competitive nature I had built up over years of playing sports told me that resting on laurels always ends badly. Just like in basketball and football, there is always someone out there working harder than you are with the single objective of beating you. That thought consumed me and I became determined to work even harder to not let that happen.

I put together a growth roadmap and presented it to my team. They were immediately on board with the idea. That was two years ago. We now have 50 employees.

SUB: What were the first steps you took to establishing Appointment-Plus?

La Loggia: My systems development background with Accenture helped immensely with the initial planning phase for Appointment-Plus. But, the first step was to learn about the industry.  So, I talked to pet groomers, hair stylists, massage therapists and anyone else I could find who took appointments. What I found was that appointment scheduling was really complex and it varied widely from industry to industry. I saw this problem as an opportunity and a barrier to entry.
To this day, the nuances involved in appointment scheduling from company to company and from industry to industry is still a huge barrier to entry for our industry. Whenever I see a new competitor enter the space, I always wonder if they realize what they are getting themselves into. Simplistic systems can only serve a very narrow range of clients. You have to have a lot of features and flexibility to effective serve multiple industries. We currently serve over 100 industries, with new ones we hadn’t thought of popping up all the time.

SUB: If you had it to do over again, what would the first concrete step to establishing Appointment-Plus have been?

La Loggia: I wrote the initial code base and I still do some programming, but if I had to do it all over again, I would have hired a top-tier developer right from the start. A well-rounded, experienced technician can build an infrastructure that makes future development and maintenance much easier. This can save countless hours as you grow and have multiple developers working on the code base.

SUB: What were the most significant obstacles to growing Appointment-Plus to maturity?

La Loggia: It’s unusual to say, but it wasn’t the business model, it wasn’t the competition, it wasn’t the product, it wasn’t the sales and it wasn’t the marketing. It was me. At about the time I made the decision to try to own the scheduling software industry, I also had an epiphany that I was holding the company back.

I realized that the company could only grow to the extent that I grew. I then committed myself to becoming the best CEO and best businessman I could become. I began getting up earlier and spending a couple hours reading every morning and I began listening to audiobooks whenever I drove anywhere.

To this day, I’m still passionate about learning everything I possibly can about business—leadership, management, psychology, negotiation, finance, customer service, sales, marketing, public speaking, strategy, and anything else I can squeeze in. I just finished reading Marc Benioff’s “Behind the Cloud” and the book prior to that was “Crossing the Chasm”. Next up is “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki.

SUB: What kinds of outside funding did you raise?

La Loggia:  To this point, we have not raised money. Our growth is purely organic. We have a lot of interest from venture capital and private equity firms. I typically have at least two calls per week related to funding. I haven’t ruled out raising money, but I don’t think the time is right. I want to make sure every aspect of our business is scalable and repeatable. Right now, it’s not. We are three to six months away from having a more predictable model. At that time, raising money will definitely be an option I will consider.

SUB: What was the metric/milestone that indicated to you that Appointment-Plus had moved past startup stage?

La Loggia: I never, ever want to be out of the startup stage. I realize there are rules of thumb to define what is and is not a startup. To me, it’s an attitude. We’ve been in business for 10 years, and I still consider us a startup and always will as long as I’m CEO.

I’ve worked as a consultant to some pretty big, successful companies like Honeywell. I know what’s it’s like to have a comfortable job. I currently attend a Toastmasters club at American Express. So, I get to walk the halls of Amex every week. While they are a great company, they lack passion and urgency. The employees are way too comfortable. I never want us to be like that. I want us to be scrappy, edgy risk-takers who are always a little uncomfortable.

SUB: What were the most important lessons you learned about entrepreneurship while building Appointment-Plus?

La Loggia: You often hear that small companies go out of business because they ran out of money. That’s not true. They go out of business because the founder gave up. Perseverance is probably the most important trait for an entrepreneur. Every company has challenges both during the startup phase and for the entire life of the organization. Some entrepreneurs feed off those challenges and are energized by every obstacle they overcome. For others, the constant parade of problems gets to be too much and they eventually call it quits.

In addition to the four startups I’ve been a part of, I’ve known a lot of other entrepreneurs. Several traits I have seen in them, and I’ve seen in myself, are a level of naiveté and a feeling that nothing is as bad as it seems and nothing is as good as it seems.

Most entrepreneurs have no idea how hard it’s going to be and the sacrifices they are going to have to make. At first, it’s pure adrenaline. You have a great idea and excitedly go to work to make your dream a reality. But, after a while, the true realities start to set in. You aren’t growing as fast as you thought you would, you aren’t making as much money as you thought you would, and you are working more than you thought you would. When you realize that this undertaking is going to be the tortoise and not the hare, you have to accept some pretty harsh truths. If you fail and want to get back into the rat race, it may be harder than you think to get a job. And, if you continue to work this many hours, your health and your relationships will suffer. Although many people quit at this point, some emerge from the crowd and plow ahead with an unshakable commitment to success. Whether you hang it up or whether you throw caution to the wind and keep pressing on is a very personal decision and one that has no right answer. I respect anyone who takes a shot at making a dream come true.

I’ve learned countless lessons about business, strategy, and money. But, more than anything else, I’ve learned about myself. I’ve learned that having a solid ethical and non-material foundation can allow you to weather the toughest of situations and the hardest of decisions. 

Posted by startupbeat at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Pandora goes public, valued over $3 billion (via gigaom)

Airbnb clone Wimdu raises $90 million (via VatorNews)

Social Media

Copious raises $2M to help turn social capital into cash (via VentureBeat)

Mobile/Advertising

Tapad Brings Ad Retargeting To Mobile, And $1.8 Million From Powerhouse Investors (via TechCrunch)

IT/Enterprise Storage

Tintri Lands Another $18M For Storage Appliance For Virtual Machines (via TechCrunch)

Cloud

Cloud Technology Startup Cotendo Raises $17 Million From Citrix, Juniper, VCs (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

buuteeq has developed a unique digital marketing and booking service for hotels around the world. The service not only provides hotels with a web presence and the ability to manage reservations in the cloud, but it also enables the integrated management of social media channels. The Seattle-based company was founded in 2009.

SUB: Please briefly describe buuteeq, and the value proposition you bring to the hotel marketing and booking market.

Key: buuteeq is a Software as a Service (SaaS) digital marketing system for hotels that powers a hotel’s online reservations and marketing through the web, mobile devices and Facebook. With buuteeq the hotel staff can quickly and easily make changes to their website at any time, and those changes are immediately updated to their mobile and Facebook materials as well—making it much easier and cost effective to maintain a great online presence. With buuteeq’s digital marketing system powering a hotel’s online experience more prospective guests will learn about the hotel, and a higher proportion of them will book directly with the hotel, delivering more aggregate reservations at lower commissions.

SUB: How does the service work, for both hotels and travelers?

Key: Hotels sign up for a free evaluation of buuteeq via our website, www.buuteeq.com, and configure their hotel settings in our “BackOffice” interface which they access through any web browser—the system is entirely cloud based and accessed from any computer, no need to install any software locally. Typical set up takes just a few hours—the hotel uploads photos, room descriptions, pricing and promotional information, and any other details they’d like to mention including restaurant, spa, activities, and transportation information about their property. When the hotel is ready to go live, we help them redirect their existing hotel website domain (eg: www.my_hotel.com) to their new buuteeq-powered website—their website address doesn’t change, all future visitors see the new and improved website powered by buuteeq. Any guests that visit the new website from their mobile phone or Apple iPad will see a mobile optimized version of their site, and the same content will appear within their existing Facebook page—if they don’t have a Facebook page, we will set one up for them for free. buuteeq includes an excellent integrated booking engine that ties into web/mobile/Facebook directly, or, hotels can integrate buuteeq with their existing booking engine from a third party. Guests will now see the same information across web, mobile and Facebook, all superbly designed and optimized for converting prospects into direct reservations via the online booking engine.

SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition? What differentiates buuteeq from the competition?

Key: Our biggest competition today is the legacy relationships that the hotels may have with a web design agency. These agencies tend to be very small, often individual proprietors, and provide custom design and development services to the hotel, usually charging $60-150 USD per hour. No matter how good these agencies might be, the economics just don’t work out—the budgets of the hotel do not provide enough hours for the agency to deliver the complete, high performing materials that span across so many new and ever changing technological surfaces. Very few hotels have a working solution today to fully serve information about their property to guests using their mobile phones, even though the industry expects more than 50 percent of reservations to be made via mobile phones by 2014; even fewer hotels have a Facebook strategy. Hiring a small web agency to figure out new technologies for hotel marketing that go beyond design and into reservation systems and integrated mobile and Facebook presence falls short from both a cost and expertise perspective—it takes too much money to build a custom solution for each hotel and different capabilities are needed. buuteeq has already invested well over $1m USD in our system, with many millions more to come in the next few years, whereas a typical hotel has a budget of no more than $10,000 to $25,000 USD per year. By subscribing to buuteeq the hotel gets a cutting edge system that is second to none in design, speed, manageability and most importantly, in the performance of attracting traffic and converting prospects to reservations—which is after all the goal of online marketing.

SUB: What was the inspiration behind buuteeq?

Key: I lived in Beijing, China for two years while I ran web technology platform business development for Microsoft in Asia, and during our time as expats in the region my family and I did a lot of travel within China, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. Like most travelers, we love staying in unique hotels wherever we go—who really aspires to staying in a big chain hotel other than a business traveler obsessed with frequent guest program points? Planning our hotel stays during our trips was an absolute nightmare, so initially we used expensive tour companies to plan our trips. After a few such trips, I realized that there were amazing hotels all over the region, but that they all had really poor websites and no idea how to connect with me as a potential guest directly so both they and I could enjoy higher efficiency and lower-costs that otherwise went to the operators as commissions. After visiting the LiAn Lodge , a lovely hotel in Guilin area of southern China, I asked the front desk staff for the owner’s name, and reached out to him to start asking some questions about hotel marketing and the challenges he and other owners faced. That conversation led to 20 similar conversations with owners—and a clear vision in my head for creating a software platform which would help owners improve the quality and efficiency of their online e-marketing.

SUB: When was buuteeq founded and what were the first steps you took in establishing it?

Key: I founded buuteeq the day I left Microsoft in the fall of 2009—my family and I moved to a rural part of northern Chile and lived in a lovely little wine producing town while I wrote the product design specifications and put together the first prototypes for our first three hotel partners. I set up a team in Beijing China to do the design and development of the system, and I worked with hotels in Mexico, China, USA and Chile as early customers so that I had a good breadth of different requirements and needs to guide our design of the system. It was a great way to build a travel product—to have to deal with time zones, languages and communicating by web and telephone—all very real issues that face hotels when they market themselves via those same channels; I like to think that starting the company this way really defined our team as a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-time zone ready organization.

SUB: How are you marketing buuteeq’s services?

Key: We advertise online as well as reach out to hotels directly via phone calls and events. We spend a lot of time with hotels showing them the system via web-meetings from our two offices in Seattle, where English is the primary language, and Santiago Chile with a Spanish, Portuguese, and French speaking staff. We are also setting up partnerships so that web agencies can resell our product to their existing hotel customers and use it as a platform—this will improve the quality and cost-efficiency for the agency, while allowing them to continue to serve their customers with more specialized strategic advice and consulting.

SUB: You recently closed a $3.5 million Series A funding round. How do you plan to use the funds?

Key: We launched our service earlier this year and are already serving customers in 10 countries in 6 different languages. Our customers range in ADR (average daily rate) from as low as $20 USD to above $500 USD, and in size from just a few rooms to over 100. We are growing very rapidly and our recent fundraising of $3.5m USD in new capital which we closed in May 2011 is going to primarily go towards expanding our sales capacity so we can ramp up even faster and get more customers live. Our ambition is to serve 1000s of hotels worldwide—we are investing in an innovative product that will be transformative for hotels, and our early adopters have told us that the product delivers more online reservations and is much more empowering for them to manage.

SUB: Why was this a particularly good time for you to seek a funding round?

Key: We started buuteeq during the fallout of the 2008 global economic meltdown—I remember some friends asking me if I was crazy to start a travel related business during a bad economy, but of course, down-economic times are great times to invest in new businesses that will benefit from the improving economy as it returns. Our timing looks to have been perfect in that sense—we now have a great product ready for market, at a time that travel is rapidly growing, especially in markets like South America, Asia, China and Eastern Europe, which are all ideal hotel markets for the buuteeq service.

SUB: Do you plan to seek more funding in the near future?

Key: For now we don’t have plans to raise more money—we have a great team, a great product and cash in the bank…now is time for focus around go to market. I’d add that this is an entrepreneur’s dream moment in the life of a business: we have nothing but ourselves standing in our way for success—raising money is a huge, albeit necessary, distraction from the more interesting task of actually running the business!

SUB: What have the biggest obstacles been so far to building buuteeq?

Key: Call me an optimist, but there haven’t really been any obstacles—just the hard work that comes from seeing something in your head and then going off and making it real. But I think like many entrepreneurs, I see that as a big part of the fun, and certainly for me it is a joy to come to work every day to face the challenges of building our team, product and business.

SUB: What is the next big milestone you see ahead for buuteeq?

Key: Our business is about delighting our hotel customers, so I see the next three milestones as all being related to number of hotels that we serve. I remember the scene from The Social Network where Facebook’s staff has a big screen in the office that ticks off the number of users as it approaches 1 million, then 10 million, then 100. In our case the numbers won’t be as large (there are less than 1m hotels in the world), but the psychology will be very similar…it’s all about how many hotels are using and benefiting from our platform.

SUB: Finally, as an entrepreneur who has so far successfully navigated the bad economy, what advice do you have for those just now starting out with new ventures?

Key: I prefer not to lecture others about the dos and don’ts of business, because there are just too many right ways to build a business and what’s right for me and buuteeq may not be appropriate for another business, and vice versa. I would say that at the heart of every business is a really valuable and tangible benefit for your customers: in buuteeq’s case, we are confident that we have something super meaningful to share with our customers that will make their business fundamentally better. If you have that confidence in your product, it is a lot of fun to start a business even in a bad economy, as both you and your customers can win.

buuteeq – www.buuteeq.com

Posted by startupbeat at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content/Applications

While Helping Others Erase $42 Million In Debt, ReadyForZero Raises $4.5 Million (via TechCrunch)

Gaming

ROBLOX Raises $4 Million For Its Online Building Game For Kids (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shape Collage is an app that allows users to make collages out of their photos. The company was born out of the experience of its founder, a former Google employee who discovered an easier way produce photo collages to share with friends than spending hours on photoshop. Shape Collage says that its application has been downloaded more than 4 million times. The Toronto-based company was founded in 2009.

SUB: Please briefly describe Shape Collage and the value proposition you bring to the photo apps market.

Cheung: Shape Collage is software that takes hundreds of your photos and automatically creates photo collages in different shapes in just seconds. The photos are intelligently arranged to form the shape of a heart, word, logo or any desired shape in a way that optimizes the placement of the photos so that the photos are nicely spaced out and the photos are visible in the collage.

Besides being the only collage maker that automatically and intelligently arranges the photos and creates collages in different shapes, Shape Collage is also capable of handling up to tens of thousands of photos, generating collages large enough to print on a giant billboard, and can export to Photoshop format with each photo in its own layer, none of which other collage makers are capable of doing.

Shape Collage is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iPhone. We also have online and Facebook applications.

SUB: How did the idea for Shape Collage come about? Was there an “aha” moment of inspiration, or was it longer in developing?

Cheung: I was working at Google in Silicon Valley and me and a bunch of other interns were taking pictures from our random adventures in Northern California and at the end of the summer, I had hundreds of photos, but they were stuck on my computer and I couldn’t share them with my friends and family effectively. I ended up creating a photo collage in Photoshop by hand, which took over 10 hours to make. A year later, I realized that I could take some of the knowledge that I have gained in optimization algorithms in my PhD to automate this process. I then realized that the fast algorithm that I created was capable of creating collages in different shapes, which I had never seen before, and so, Shape Collage was born!

SUB: When was the company founded, and what were the first steps you took in founding it?

Cheung: The company was officially founded in March 2009, but it first started off as a fun side project in December 2007. It grew into a company when I saw the success that it was having.

SUB: Who do you consider to be Shape Collage’s competition?

Cheung: There are many other programs and websites that are capable of creating collages (Google Picasa, iPhoto, Picnik, etc.), but the real competition is alternative things to do with your photos. Shape Collage is expanding the “collage market” because most of our users have never made a collage before.

SUB: What are your target markets?

Cheung: Everyone that has photos: teenagers, college students, young parents, grandparents, professional photographers, graphic designers, website owners, etc.

SUB: How are you marketing Shape Collage?

Cheung: SEO, word of mouth, social media, online advertisement, PR, and reviews in blogs, magazines, and newspapers.

SUB: What have the biggest challenges been you’ve faced so far to building Shape Collage?

Getting above the noise of hundreds of thousands of other applications and websites to get peoples’ attention.

SUB: What is your business model? How does Shape Collage make money?

Cheung: Freemium business model. The desktop software has a free and a paid version that allows you to create collages without a watermark and unlocks additional features like saving in Photoshop format.

SUB: How many customers do you currently have?

Cheung: The Shape Collage software has been downloaded 4 million times.

SUB: Have you raised outside funding? If not, to you plan to in the future? If so, do you plan to seek more outside funding in the future?

Cheung: We are fully bootstrapped and profitable pretty much since day 1. We are not looking for any outside funding as we have no need for it.

SUB: Where do you see Shape Collage in about a year from now?

Cheung: Be everywhere where people have and take photos.

SUB: Finally, as an entrepreneur who has successfully navigated the down economy, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs just now starting a business?

Cheung: Keep an open mind, be aware of what’s going on in the bigger picture, and adapt accordingly. Shape Collage started off as just an algorithm, then it became a desktop program, then a paid desktop program, a web application, a Facebook application, an open API, and now a mobile application. None of this was planned at the beginning.

ShapeCollage – www.shapecollage.com

Posted by startupbeat at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Social Media

Everloop raises $3.1M to bring social networking to tweens (via VentureBeat)

Marketing/Advertising

Former Googlers Raise $13 Million From Bain And Greylock For Personalized Ad Solution (via TechCrunch)

Gaming

Bunchball raises $6.5M, doubles down on gamification (via gigaom)

IT/Enterprise Storage

Pure Storage Raises $28 Million, Says Flash Will Disrupt Enterprise Storage (via TechCrunchIT)

Posted by startupbeat at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: RMZ Development LLC

Product: MyStream

Website: www.mystreamapp.com

Founder: Richard Zelson

Founded: 2010

By Richard Zelson, founder and CEO

Product Overview

MyStream is a new device-to-device(s) music streaming app that eliminates the cumbersome practice of sharing headphones or using a splitter in order to enjoy listening to music with friends. Using MyStream, music fans can wirelessly share their favorite songs with any other app user(s) within range.

MyStream users simply browse their library and select the songs or podcasts that they want to share with others via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The interface is simply designed with minimal buttons and tabs. Utilizing our Live Streaming technology, users can listen to and simultaneously stream full songs synchronously with other users. Utilizing MySound asynchronous technology, users can browse through another user’s MyPlaylist, select a song, and listen to a 90-second clip of that song. A “Buy” button appears on a listener’s device next to each song or podcast that is played for them. This button creates a direct and search-free link to the iTunes store to enable instant music purchases.

Bluetooth connectivity means the app can be enjoyed in any setting, such as indoors, on the subway, or on a plane, where Wi-Fi is not accessible. Functioning as an advanced wireless headphone splitter, MyStream is design to provide users with the ability to “Share Your Music, Not Your Headphones”.

Founder’s Story

The original idea came to me while I was in college traveling abroad with a group of friends. My friend would often share his headphones so I could listen to his favorite new music. I enjoyed this sharing, but I would quickly return to my limited music collection as soon as he needed his headphones. On the train we would play music out of portable speakers, which we all enjoyed, but that was also limited. I thought, if wireless headphones, splitters and portable speakers all existed, why can’t I simply and wirelessly listen to my friend’s music when we were together. Then I thought about the “Buy Now” feature, which would encourage people to immediately buy new music, so you just aren’t exposing people to new music but also benefiting artists. Once the iPhone came out and gained popularity, I thought it was the right time to go out and build this music sharing functionality that I called MyStream.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

I think peoples’ love for music is what will spread awareness about MyStream. Not because it is just the newest trendy app, but because if they want to play a song for their friend on the bus or train they can just do it. They no longer have to share a pair of headphones. They simply ask their friend to download MyStream, and they have instant access to each other’s catalog.

We will also promote our app with online and offline marketing campaigns, using social media sites, magazines, app rating sites, our functionality viral video, and some online advertising. We will also create a grassroots campaign around local “silent disco” parties, create branded merchandise and will simply talk to anyone and everyone that will listen. We have created an app functionality that millions of people can enjoy, and now our goal is to break through the mess of other apps in the marketplace and get people to realize the real benefits of downloading MyStream.

Our MyStream video can be seen at: http://video.mystreamapp.com

How We Differentiate Ourselves from the Competition

There are no other apps out there that have the same music-sharing capabilities as MyStream. No other app can enable groups of people to synchronously listen to live-playing audio from any device in the group via both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. We also have a rich and simplistic interface that is pushing adoption faster than competitive apps. We have a very talented and experienced technology team and will stay ahead of the continually changing landscape of music apps and maintain our position at the forefront of P2P streaming audio.

Business Model

There are three key revenue streams in our current business model. The first is charging $2.99 for the app, which we believe is a very reasonable cost for unlimited use of the application. The second is through iAds generated within the application. The third is from a commission that we receive from iTunes on songs purchased by users via our Buy Now button.

Key management has explored other uses for this technology. However, those additional applications will be disclosed at a later date.

Current Needs

As we continue to expand our features and services, we will continue to explore an investment strategy to sustain growth in order to maximize all of the different verticals that our existing technology platform can already support. We will use investment to aggressively expand operations and further develop the technology in support of other devices and other commercial markets, which will create strategic growth and new application-based business opportunities.

MyStream – www.mystreamapp.com

Posted by startupbeat at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

GreenTech

Joulex Raises $17 Million To Cut Energy Costs, Consumption At Large Data Centers (via TechCrunch)

Web Content

Evolve Media Acquires Content Exchange Engine Crowd Ignite For $1 Million (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Appsfire is an apps discovery engine that utilizes personalized guides for a variety of app marketplaces.  The Paris and Tel Aviv-based company was founded in 2010 and recently closed a $3.6 million Series A funding round.

SUB: Please briefly describe Appsfire and the value proposition you bring to the apps discovery market.

Ohayon: Appsfire helps users discover relevant apps through personal guides for different app stores and marketplaces. We build unique discovery mechanisms and experiences that help people find great apps. All smartphone users are faced with the same experience when browsing an app marketplace. It is not personal, it too dense, it is hard to browse. We bring easy, customized and fun discovery to the users.

We provide a set of apps by device by specific needs (kids, cities, etc.) to help users find great apps. The engine behind is the same—the envelope changes.

On the business side we help developers better market their apps, today in acquisition and soon in retention.

SUB: How did the idea for Appsfire come about? Was there an “aha” moment of inspiration, or was it longer in developing?

Ohayon: My co-founder and I were immediately frustrated with the app store and the android market because we had a hard time finding apps. Moreover, our friends kept asking us for recommendations, which got us started thinking about the project.

Our first version was solving a simple problem: how can I share my apps with my friends easily. But we grew with a richer discovery engine: How to find the apps your friends have, How to find apps relevant to your city or proximity, What are the apps people love and not just download.
The “aha” moment arrived when we launched our first iPad app which was only composed of visual icon streams and it became pretty popular. We then realized people want a simple fun easy to browser interface. They don t want to spend time searching or processing requests or endless lists of apps.

This gave us the direction for the next steps: Set very visual, painless, fun, easy to browse experiences mostly designed for passive consumption and discovery, versus active where the user has to be explicit about what he wants.

SUB: When was the company founded, and what were the first steps you took in founding it?

Ohayon: We created the company in January 2010 and got it funded right away with a group of wonderful web entrepreneurs.

SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?

Ohayon: Any service that is promoting apps. We have indirect competition like mobile ad networks but their solution is not adapted for apps which require very low cost and efficient ad format. We have direct competition like the many discovery services (many of which are simple clones of what we do). Recently Apple decided to hit the company using incentivized download to promote apps—although those services are different than us in their form (we do not reward users for downloads), we’re competing for the same budget lines.

SUB: How are you marketing Appsfire?

Ohayon: We don’t. Ninety-nine percent of our growth is organic and due to the love our users have for our product. We’re often referred by users and influencers and our research studies are often quoted.

Developers also know us quite well. We organize regularly seminars about the app economy and participate to various events on mobile apps. We are very fortunate.

SUB: What have the biggest challenges been you’ve faced so far to building Appsfire?

Ohayon: Finding the right product experience. We’re still searching. We think with our next version we’ll introduce something really groundbreaking which will inspire a lot of services that try to build discovery apps.

SUB: What is your business model? How does Appsfire make money?

Ohayon: We help developers promote their app on our network of apps. We offer a range of solutions that are priced on a performance basis.

SUB: How many customers do you currently have? Is Appsfire available for all mobile platforms?

Ohayon: Over 100 paid customers. Appsfire is available for now on iOS and Android.

SUB: You recently closed a $3.6 million funding round. How do you plan to use the funds?

Ohayon: First we’re investing in good people. Second, we plan to invest in good people. Did I say we plan to invest in good people?

SUB: Do you plan to seek more outside funding in the future?

Ohayon: Probably around $200 to $300 million. Mode joke off.

SUB: Where do you see Appsfire in a year from now?

Ohayon: Approximately 365 days ahead. With much better products, wider range of discovery solutions and happy repeating customers.

SUB: Finally, a question I always ask: as an entrepreneur who has successfully navigated the down economy, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs just now starting a business?

Ohayon: Make sure you start because you are really obsessed with the problem you want to solve. Being obsessed = thinking about it 24 hours-a-day for at least 2 weeks since you first had the idea. If you don’t pass this test, don't shoot. Building a startup is a tough journey. You need other reasons than ambition and money to keep you motivated.

Appsfire – www.appsfire.com

Posted by startupbeat at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Search Engine Room 77 Raises $10.5M For Personalized Hotel Room Recommendations (via TechCrunch)

VirtuOz raises $7M for virtual customer service (via DealsBeat)

Pusher Raises $1M From Heroku Founders And More To Bring Realtime Tech To Your Apps (via TechCrunch)

eCommerce

Coupons.com raises $200M to meet booming deal demand (via gigaom)

Sapato.ru, The “Zappos Of Russia”, Raises $12 Million From Intel, Others (via TechCrunch)

Online Video

VideoGenie Scores $2M From Eric Schmidt, Others For Video Testimonials Platform (via TechCrunch)

Chip Maker AMD Invests In Video Conferencing Startup ViVu (via TechCrunch)

GreenTech

Shell Spinoff Avantium Raises $43.9 Million To Develop Green Plastics, Chemicals And Fuel (via TechCrunch)

Marketing/Advertising

Taykey launches out of stealth mode with $11M VC (via gigaom)

Mobile/Finance

Visa Acquires Mobile Financial Services Company Fundamo For $110M In Cash (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: Once in a while, StartUp Beat re-runs Featured Startup Pitches from the past based on relevant news or to revisit a cool startup that has continued to build momentum. Today we’re re-running one from last September from CabCorner co-founder and COO Jesse S. Sommer. CabCorner is a mobile application company that matches-up commuters who can share a cab. Over the last year, the company has continued to build it global footprint with three acquisitions of complimentary services. But like any good idea, it has also run into some new competition—in the form of San Francisco-based Uber. Check out CabCorner…

From: September 22, 2010

Website: www.cabcorner.com

Headquarters: New York City

Year Founded: 2008 (launched in 2009)

Founders: Jonathan McKinney and Jesse S. Sommer

Investors: Self-funded

Employees: 6

Company Description: CabCorner.com connects people located in the same area who are headed the same direction around the same time.  Save costs and the planet!

By Jesse S. Sommer, Co-founder and COO

When my friend and fellow Wesleyan University alum Jonathan McKinney approached me to share an idea he was concocting, neither of us could have anticipated the enthusiasm with which the public would greet what would one day become “CabCorner.”  Our web-based, mobile-accessible “social transportation logistics utility” is designed to connect individuals located in the same area who are headed the same direction around the same time.  Its mission is to reduce street traffic, subway congestion, and urban pollution.  Yet beyond the environmental benefits, we seek to transform taxicab paradigms and habits, expanding taxi travel to a new demographic that previously couldn’t afford it.  By leveraging cities’ private taxi networks, we’re creating a new form of public transit, and driving more business to cabbies.  Currently operating in NYC, CabCorner.com is accessible worldwide.  And it’s also entirely FREE to use!

While our team didn’t invent the concept of “cab-sharing,” it’s a matter of mere modesty to say we perfected its implementation online.  And the biggest players in our space agree; our acquisition of CabEasy this past spring was followed by our acquisition of industry pioneer Hitchsters.com a few months later—and in both cases the founders of these sites approached us to join our enterprise.  We’re so grateful that the media has embraced and promoted our product, and the recent proliferation of competitors has actually benefited our company by introducing web-users to this idea.

Yet “cab-sharing” is only one of the many services our web and mobile platforms offer users.  For example, the Fare Calculator (one of our most popular features) allows even solo travelers to estimate the cost of a cab ride, while our livery cab contact database ensures that those stranded in remote locations of the city can nonetheless connect with the nearest taxi service.  Our HotSpot program—through which users can opt to meet up with their “cab companion” at retail outlets offering deals and discounts—delivers value to both our vendor-partners and our user base.  Most importantly, CabCorner claims the sector’s most advanced security and privacy features, to protect our users and ensure a rewarding cab-share experience.

Founder’s Story

Like most of the world’s greatest inventions, CabCorner was borne of that critical mix of frugality and laziness.  One evening in the summer of 2008, McKinney found himself in Manhattan facing the prospect of a long trek back home to Brooklyn.  After waiting 25 minutes for an L-train that would never appear and then finally coming to terms with a lonely, expensive cab ride across the bridge, he was struck by how many of his fellow bar-goers were tackling the exact same commute.  He hit me up the next day to explain his vision: putting people in touch with one another so they could share cab fares.  Since then, “empty backseat real estate” has been our company’s enemy number one.

Employees

CabCorner boasts ten investors, and six of these individuals serve the company as dedicated managers, communicating primarily through email and tri-weekly teleconferences.  This team has been CabCorner’s secret to success, combining a perfect array of talents, skill sets, and experiences.

Jonathan McKinney, our fearless founder and CEO, has struck relationships with stakeholders such as the Taxi & Limousine Commission and partners like SenseNetworks.  He has assembled and manages our dynamic collective.

Varun Bihani, CabCorner’s Chief Technology Officer, is a veteran website and mobile-application project manager, whose offshore development outfit, SEO savvy, and sense for new technologies powers our platform.

Ajay Rajani, our Chief Financial Officer, is a veteran entrepreneur from the world of finance with several web enterprises under his belt (in fact, he and I most recently created TasteSpace.com together).

Lou Carpino, our Chief Marketing Officer, will forever be the company’s clutch and ace in the hole.  He has been instrumental in striking strategic partnerships, reaching across many industries to craft deals.  His success in finding brand placement across the internet drives users to our site while his sales pitches this past summer netted the company its first meaningful revenue.

Leon Bart-Williams, CabCorner’s Chief Sales Officer, develops media strategy including our 4th Quarter marketing campaign, manages international partnerships, and coordinates PR/outreach activities with various media outlets.  He’s the company’s “jack of all trades.”

Then there’s me, the co-founder and COO.  Tasked with developing our enterprise documents, I also structure investments and design CabCorner’s front-end site architecture.  And as the company narcissist, I’m the company’s primary liability.

Finally, we’re proud to announce that we’ve recently taken on a Chief Investment Officer designed to entice institutional investments in our next round of financing.

Revenue Model

Relying on both flat-rate and cost-per-thousand impression-based (CPM) pricing strategies, CabCorner offers advertisers the opportunity to display rich-media banner advertisements and graphics in IAB-approved ad size units.  It also accommodates site takeovers for advertisers seeking to fully integrate their brand with the CabCorner website and mobile experience.  Most popular have been the “sponsored messaging” assets, through which promotional text and graphics are emailed to users as they interact with the platform.

CabCorner’s “HotSpot” program consists of brick-and-mortar vendors who pay to have their establishments listed as alternative cab share meeting points.  CabCorner directs “foot-traffic” to these vendors by promoting them on the CabCorner map, and announcing special offers unique to CabCorner users.  Similarly, because taxicabs are not always instantly available, we list the contact information of nearby livery companies.

And finally, our technology and subsidiary platforms are currently being tweaked for white-labeling purposes, as we explore integrations with media partners.

Current Needs

The first half of 2010 was dedicated to platform and technical development, while the year’s last three months will focus on the execution of our New York City marketing campaign.  2011 will challenge us to upgrade our service technologies, develop applications for a broader array of mobile devices, and establish a presence in additional U.S. markets and in those overseas.  While we’ve lined up exploratory partnerships in Singapore, Barcelona, Mumbai, and Istanbul, the R&D demanded by these varied opportunities requires funding beyond that which we’ve obtained.  We’ll also need to take on a public relations specialist to expose our offering to print, web, and broadcast outlets in new cities, and two employees to work with and support our partners on the ground (who are responsible for orchestrating targeted marketing efforts in host cities).  We are additionally making room for a webmaster to manage site content and inquiries, as well as produce promotional digital media.  And I speak on behalf of the entire team when I say “enough of the boy’s club”; we’d be millionaires by now if we had female sensibility on board to direct this venture.

Conclusion

Who cares if the climate isn’t changing?  I think we can all agree that minimizing the pollutants we defecate into the atmosphere is a worthwhile goal.  Thus, the demands of a planet under assault by its inhabitants, a global economy battered by man-made recession, and the reality of skyrocketing urban populations attest to the inevitability of the cab-sharing model.  Our green-focused, cost-saving solution to these challenges is the best means of bringing that model to fruition.  So please give us a chance and spread the word.  The future happened about six years ago, and it’s time we rise to meet her.  Until then, I’ll catch ya in the cab…and yes, I promise to keep my hands to myself.

CabCorner - www.cabcorner.com

Posted by startupbeat at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Marketing/Advertising

buuteeq Closes $3.5M Round to Bring a Digital Marketing System to Independent Hotels Worldwide

ADmantX raises $2.8M for semantic ad technology (via gigaom)

IT/Storage

Virsto Closes $12 Million Series B Funding to Transform Virtual Machine Storage

Web Content

ARAMARK Sells Stake In Online Food Ordering Service SeamlessWeb For $50M (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Enloop
Website: www.enloop.com
Founder: Cynthia McCahon
Headquarters: San Francisco
Year Founded: 2010
Employees: 6
Investors:  Family and friends

Company Description (in 140 characters or less): "Enloop helps entrepreneurs and small business owners auto-write business plans, test their idea and forecast their success."

By Cynthia McCahon, Founder and CEO

Product Overview

Enloop is a free software-as-a-service tool that helps everyone from the seasoned business owner to students dreaming up businesses in their dorm-rooms to quickly build bank-ready business plans and quantify the probability of success for their business idea. Users complete a simple step-by-step online form and Enloop automatically generates a customized business plan and performance score for the user, complete with text, financial forecasts and ratio analysis prepared on-the-fly, ready to present to financial institutions.

Founders’ Story

Enloop was created out of frustration. I had been helping small businesses with their financials for over 15 years and watched a lot of people break into their savings and 401ks only to end up empty-handed because they didn’t understand their risk. The simple truth was that there was no system that could help people answer the essential question of ‘How do you know if a business idea is a good idea’? Why? Because a good business plan helps you communicate business ideas, financials and the risk associated to partners and lenders. And a great business plan helps you communicate with yourself about whether the business is worth pursuing.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

We have been very lucky in this regard as we have a $0 customer acquisition cost since our launch in early May, mostly due to word-of-mouth and viral groundswell. We have a PR/social media team that handles press and community outreach to small business forums and entrepreneurs that has done a fantastic job and we have several social media campaigns that we're in the midst of developing as well. We have also been featured in Forbes, Inc., CNNMoney and most recently in ReadWriteWeb which has helped us grow our user base significantly.

How the Company Differentiates Itself from the Competition

Enloop is unlike any other business planning and forecasting service. It’s a cloud-based living document that allows anyone to evaluate the potential for success of a business idea, or improve existing businesses by using a predictive scoring algorithm (Enloop Performance Score). The system provides potential business owners with a real-time score based on industry-specific data (on a scale of 1-1,000) that updates as the user interacts with the system. This allows the user to immediately know whether or not their business idea will be successful.

Business Model

Enloop’s basic features will always be free and will be providing premium plans in the coming months, including financial forecasts, financial ratios and the ability to print out your own unbranded PDF business plans.

Current Needs

We are looking for a seed round of about $1-2 million right now.

Enloop – www.enloop.com

Posted by startupbeat at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Mobile

RIM Acquires Social Gaming Company Scoreloop (via ReadWriteWeb)

IT/App Management

Rally Lands $20M For Agile Application Lifecycle Management Solutions (via TechCrunch)

Robotics

A New CEO And $22 Million For Liquid Robotics, Makers Of Wave-Powered, Unmanned Marine Vehicles (via TechCrunch)

Web Content

Concur Acquires UK Company GlobalExpense For Up To $23 Million (via TechCrunch)

Exclusive: MyHeritage Acquires Poland’s Bliscy.pl, Now 760 Million Profiles Strong (via TechCrunch)

Exclusive: Salesforce Invests In Video Messaging Startup (And Skype Rival) VSee (via TechCrunch)

eWise Raises $14 Million For Online Payments Technology (via TechCrunch)

Social Media/Finance

Social Lending Marketplace Prosper Raises $17.2M From Eric Schmidt, DFJ, Others (via TechCrunch)

IT/Enterprise

Violin Memory raises $40M for enterprise flash memory (via DealsBeat)

Cloud?

Sun Co-Founder Scott McNealy Raises $6.4 Million For Stealth Startup WayIn (via TechCrunch)

Social Media

EDITD scores $1.6m to help fashion industry mine the social web and more big data (via TechCrunch Europe)

XYDO Raises $1.25 Million For A More Personalized Social News Experience (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Orpheus Media Research (OMR)/Clio
Website: www.cliomusic.com
Headquarters: New York City
Year Founded: 2010
Investors: Self-funded

Employees: 4-8

Company description (in 140 characters or less): “Orpheus Media Research is an advanced music research and development company that automates the search, analysis, and discovery of music.”

By Greg Wilder, Founder and CSO

Product Overview

Traditionally, large libraries of music have been very difficult to organize and search. Most music search technologies rely on metadata, or written descriptions of the music, rather than looking at the music itself. This has inherent limitations, as words can never fully describe our experience of what we hear.

Clio is the only pure music-to-music search and discovery platform that uses music to find music, producing higher quality matches and analyzing music at least 5,000-10,000x faster than existing keyword search technology. Clio eclipses traditional search methods, allowing metadata to refine, not define, music search and discovery results.

Clio combines deep musical expertise with adaptive technology to deliver highly accurate and relevant matches based on mood, emotion and texture. As musicians ourselves with extensive experience in composition, theory and cognition, we created Clio to be the first platform to look at musical context and grammar to understand and interpret musical mood, resulting in more accurate matches and the ability to quickly analyze extremely large collections of music.

Founders’ Story

In 2004, while working as a professional music composition/pianist, I realized the limitations of current music-listening technology. I asked, “Why can’t computers hear music the way people can?” Determined to overcome that limitation, I combined my 30+ years of musical expertise with the latest music cognition research to build a series of algorithms that would allow computers to hear music the way humans do—picking up on the nuances and relationships that traditional machine listening cannot recognize. By 2007, it became clear that this technology had wide-ranging implications for the industry at large. I then founded Orpheus Media Research (OMR) to hold the intellectual property and filed for the technology’s first international patent.

Two years of academic guest lectures and healthy discussion followed, as I presented my core technology at Vanderbilt, NYU, and Queens University Belfast (ICMC), among others. In 2010, Alison Conard, professor of Music Theory at Temple University, joined me and we decided to take the technology to market. In 2010, OMR launched pilot projects around the world. By the end of 2010, several major players in the music industry were piloting Myna, OMR’s first generation technology, including large music production libraries and online music streamers.

In early 2011, OMR launched Clio, the only pure music-to-music search and discovery platform designed to overcome the ongoing time, cost and quality challenges presented by the need for metadata in music search.  Building on OMR’s original Myna platform, Clio provides additional flexibility to music professionals—including popular online music streamers, production music libraries, music distributors, music publishers, and music tracking/reporting services.

Today, Clio is currently in pilot with 10 major organizations—including one of the top two online music-streaming services, production music libraries, and music publishers. Now we have our eyes on the future, imagining a world where Clio is everywhere music is, helping listeners to build the playlists they’ve always dreamed of building, but could never describe adequately through word-based search technology.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

Orpheus Media Research teamed up with a boutique technology marketing firm to launch Clio—focusing on educating both the music industry and music consumers everywhere about the differences between metadata-based search technology and content-based (or music-to-music) search technology. Find us at www.cliomusic.com, on Facebook, Twitter, or on YouTube. We also regularly attend industry events including MIDEM, SXSW, SFMusicTech, and others. Use the email form at ClioMusic.com to set up a meeting with us.

How OMR differentiates itself from the competition

Clio is the only software in the world that can analyze and decode the universal patterns that define musical identity and mood.

Far more advanced than cataloging simple metrics like beats-per-minute and key, Clio understands the flow of musical ideas, recognizes subtle differences between drum grooves, and identifies the unique performance styles of individual musicians. It finds and prioritizes the parts of the music that we, as listeners, find most important.

Unlike other machine learning or social recommendation-based solutions, Clio’s technology intuits the difference between Lady Gaga and Ravi Shankar and can find music that sounds (and feels!) like either one.

The search results, playlists, and recommendations Clio generates are so good because they’re likely the ones that you would generate if you had the prodigious memory of a computer.

Business Model

OMR operates on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model.

OMR’s current needs

Orpheus Media Research is looking for hands-on technical leadership with a specialized skillset to assist with the design and implementation of optimized search algorithms over large data sets and supported delivery of proprietary APIs and other cloud-based services to a wide variety of B2B clients. The ideal candidate will have a strong theoretical background in math, algorithmic optimization, refactoring, and machine learning. Musical theory and/or cognition expertise is welcome, but not necessary.

OMR/Clio Music – www.cliomusic.com

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Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Intertainment Gets In On The Daily Deal Frenzy, Acquires DealFrenzy.com (via TechCrunch)

IT/Data Management

Mu Sigma Helps Companies Analyze ‘Big Data’, Raises $25 Million From Sequoia (via TechCrunch)

GreenTech

Greenvity Raises $7 Million For Chip Technology To Make Electronics, Vehicles Smarter (via TechCrunch)

Enterprise IT

Infineta raises $15M to move big data across data centers (via gigaom)

Telecom/Managed Services

Birch Secures $77.5 Million To Repay Debt, Fund Acquisitions And Growth (via TechCrunch IT)

Posted by startupbeat at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Vizu
Website: www.vizu.com
Headquarters: San Francisco
Year Founded: 2005
Investors: Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson, Greycroft, Innovia and angel investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, and Esther Dyson
Company Description: "Vizu measures the effectiveness of your online brand advertising and tells you what is working in real time."

By Dan Beltramo, co-founder and CEO

Department store magnate, John Wannamaker, is famous for saying, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Vizu answers that question for you.

Broadly speaking there are two types of advertising: Direct Response advertising which attempts to drive immediate, measurable actions such as a website registrations, online purchases, application completions, etc.; and Brand Advertising which attempts to influence your attitudes and opinions about products in the way desired by the advertiser.

In the online environment, measurement of direct response advertising has been a science for many years. Direct response ads have long been measured consistently based on Click Through Rates (CTRs) and Cost Per Actions (CPAs). Brand advertising, on the other hand, was often not measured at all or was measured using lengthy custom market research studies that were often methodologically compromised and only delivered results months after an ad campaign had been completed.

One of the effects of this disparity in measurement quality was that online advertising is dominated by direct response advertising. Brand advertising, which accounts for far more advertising dollars offline than direct response does, is way under-represented online. Vizu’s mission is to give brand advertisers the confidence to advertise online by providing them with the timely information and the systems needed to effectively manage their advertising spending.

Founders’ Story: Vizu originally started with an idea about how to conduct research online much faster, more easily, and more cost effectively than traditional research is conducted. Along the way we identified the more narrowly defined, but huge need for brand advertisers to have a robust, relevant, and timely measurement platform.

As a result, we pioneered the concept of affordable real time brand lift data. We chose brand lift as the metric we wanted to deliver because it is a well understood concept to offline marketers. It was also critical, in our minds, to provide the data in real time so that advertisers can optimize their brand campaigns like that have become accustomed to optimizing their direct response campaigns. We have always put a priority on delivering and affordable service because there is so much value that accrues to advertisers when they measure their advertising consistently rather than picking and choosing special occasions to measure their efforts.

At the time I did not realize it, but addressing this need for online brand advertising analytics was at the intersection of my prior professional experience which was primarily as a brand manager responsible for millions of dollars of annual advertising and in decision support systems and syndicated data services which I built at Instill, now iTrade Networks. Having designed a major in college called Decision Analysis, which dove into all aspects of individual and group decision making, I find brand advertising measurement very engaging because it rests at the intersection of art and science and brand advertising has been notoriously difficult to quantify historically.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy: Since launching Vizu we have historically done very little marketing of our flagship Ad Catalyst service. Instead we have tended to rely on direct sales and word of mouth. Fortunately, the results are so compelling that the word-of-mouth has been fantastic. In fact we can see very clearly how the word of mouth as spread throughout the digital media landscape.

We began by selling to online Publishers who use Vizu’s data as a sales tool to more effectively convey the value of the impressions and audience that they deliver to advertisers than measures like CTRs or engagement can. Once the publishers shared this data with their clients, the media agencies, the media agencies began to want Vizu’s real time brand lift data to measure ad campaigns that span multiple publishers. Now that the media agencies have been sharing our data with their brand clients and partners at creative agencies, we are seeing business expand in both of those areas. Now most of our marketing revolves around joint efforts with our clients who are seeing great results based on the actions they have taken as a result of our data.

Business Model: We sell our technology via annual licenses that are based on the number of campaigns our clients expect to measure, the number of measurement solutions clients would like to access, and the number of parties that will be accessing the platform.

ETC: We were founded in 2005 and are based in San Francisco, California. Our investors include Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson, Greycroft, Innovia and angel investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, and Esther Dyson. Currently we are not looking to raise funds; however, we are generating rather rapid growth right now and may choose to pour some more gas on the fire at some point. We are, however, always looking for great people. In particular we are currently looking for engineers, media software sales people, digital media client service individuals, and online ad operations personnel.

Vizu Corporation (www.brandlift.com) brings the same metrics used to measure and optimize brand advertising effectiveness in the offline world to the online medium. By providing the first real-time, enterprise technology platform that allows brand advertisers and their partners in the digital media ecosystem – publishers, ad networks, exchanges, and demand side platforms – to collaborate around measuring and optimizing Brand Lift metrics, Vizu enables its customers to move their target audience through the purchase funnel, from building awareness to creating intent and preference.  Vizu’s brand advertising effectiveness platform is used by over 60 percent of Advertising Age’s Top 100 Brand Advertisers and Comscore’s Top 50 Media properties to support all key aspects of the advertising lifecycle, including media buying, audience profiling, and Brand Lift optimization. The company was a 2011 AlwaysOn OnMedia Top 100 winner in the advertising analytics category.

Vizu – www.vizu.com

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Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Web Content

Spark, Lightbank And Yuri Milner Get In On OnSwipe’s $5M ‘Series Awesome’ (via TechCrunch)

Juice In The City Reels In $6 Million To Help Moms Take On Groupon (via TechCrunch)

GreenTech

Tesla Taps Public Markets Again; Raises Over $200M To Develop Model X Vehicle (via TechCrunch)

eCommerce

Walgreens Completes $409 Million Acquisition Of Drugstore.com (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Tongal 
Website: www.tongal.com
Headquarters: Santa Monica, CA
Year Founded: 2009
Founders: Rob Salvatore, Mark Burrell, and James DeJulio 
Employees: 5
Quick company description (in 140 characters or less): “Tongal allows companies to use crowdsourcing to develop fresh, high quality video content while propelling undiscovered talent.”

By James DeJulio, President and Co-Founder

Product Overview

Tongal is the leading creative social platform that empowers companies to tap into its crowdsourcing model to concept and produce video campaigns.

Tongal’s web platform circumvents the Madison Avenue system by using social media in a process that incentivizes talent around the world to collaborate with each other and the organizations that need them, creating fresh, compelling, high quality content. For a fraction of the cost of traditional means, brands can rise above the noise and propel undiscovered talent.

Through collaborative contests where each project is broken down into pieces, users compete for monetary rewards and points. The sponsor selects winners in each phase, which include submitting ideas, making suggestions or a pitch that expands on the ideas, and then producing the video itself. By breaking creativity into smaller pieces, we allow people from all walks of life to participate, contribute their unique voice and get paid for their creativity.

Founder’s Story

I was in the feature film business at Paramount Pictures and was growing increasingly frustrated with the inefficiency in how creative work was getting done and how hard it was for story to make it to screen. At the same time, I noticed that the tools to produce filmed content were becoming cheaper and cheaper and the work force larger and larger, yet costs kept climbing; it was unsustainable. I also hated, and couldn’t rationalize the oligopoly on creative work—in Hollywood and Madison Avenue. Because of this, great material often became expensive paperweights.

The final straw for me in “The System” came when I got my hands on a manuscript of The Da Vinci Code. I read it overnight, submitted it to the studio, only to have them pass on the project. Imagine how I felt that summer in airports when seemingly everyone was holding a copy—then when I saw Tom Hanks’ Langdon hairdo—that was it!

I left Paramount and formed an entrepreneurial partnership to develop, produce and finance content outside the studio system. We would hand pick a book or magazine article, buy it, and co-develop it with writers and other creative—usually people working on the industry fringe. We had some success in deals with HBO and National Lampoon, but we were ultimately still reliant on the old system; we had great material and had trouble getting it to market. It was frustrating.

Late in 2007, Rob Salvatore, Mark Burrell (Tongal co-founders) and I were having a conversation with Jack Hughes, the CEO of TopCoder, a Boston-based software developer with a global community of over 200,000 programmers who compete to develop the best code for client projects. We were brainstorming ways to apply the TopCoder model to filmed content. It just seemed to make sense, so we let the idea marinate for a couple of years, dove into the space, and Rob, Mark and I developed the Tongal model.

We realized that people now have access to smaller and cheaper, yet technologically sophisticated cameras and other equipment that was once the sole province of professionals—this has blown the doors off of what was creatively possible in the past. Making a compelling, high quality piece of media, whether it be an ad or a film, no longer needs a major production; people are already making and sharing their films on YouTube and Vimeo for free and the demand for video content across social media is seemingly infinite, so we knew we were on to something.

Since the demand from brand marketers was growing for an every day content solution we thought it would be best to start off with shorter pieces, beginning with web video and thirty-second commercials. Now that we’ve proven that this model works for those outputs for all types of brands and businesses, we realize that we’ll soon have the ability to move into (and democratize) longer-form content for the web, TV and feature length films.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

We primarily use social media to promote Tongal, through our clients and our community. We integrated the platform into Facebook and Twitter so people don’t even have to navigate to tongal.com. For example, people can tweet an Idea out with a unique hashtag and we can capture it. Lots of our clients have dedicated a lot of time, money and energy to building these social media followings; now they can give their community something to do and a way to be productive.

Our community has become as diverse as we hoped it would. Our members range from teenagers to 45+. They are 70 percent male and 30 percent female. They are U.S. based (80 percent; all 50 states) and international (20 percent; 50+ countries). In just one month, we had visits from 125 different countries. A huge factor is our ability to offer diversity in our product, and a global market perspective.

How We Differentiate from the Competition

What differentiates Tongal from other “crowdsourcers” in our space is that it’s not an open call for work; it’s a forum where people with different skill sets can collaborate and brands can truly explore and amplify creative possibilities.  The predictive element of our contests and our crowdsourced video distribution capabilities or “Exhibition” also sets us apart. In the Exhibition Phase, anyone with a strong presence online can capitalize on their social graph and audience to earn points that translate into dollars on Tongal. We actually have a patent application published on our unique methodology and process that we employ to produce content.

Business Model

We intended to lead by example, and apply the model to every component of Tongal, having crowdsourced everything from our logo to site development to marketing. That helps with the challenge of turning a profit. We make money through platform subscriptions and monthly fees for business clients.

Current Needs

We have always aspired to be a magnet for talent and we’re interested in hiring anyone that shares our vision and work ethic.

Tongal launched in 2009 and is based in Santa Monica, CA.

Tongal – www.togal.com

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Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Social Media

UberMedia raises another $5.6M, denies plans to challenge Twitter (via SocialBeat)

Web Content

Mindflash Raises $4 Million For Online Training Software (via TechCrunch)

eCommerce

OpenChime Nabs $700K From Groupon Founders (via TechCrunch)

IT/Data Management

Citrix Founder Gets $8.5M to Break Down Data Silos (via gigaom)

Finance

Lendio Scores $2 Million More To Assist Business Owners In Securing Loans (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor’s Note: The following article is part of a new series of guest articles on StartUp Beat by experts on startups/entrepreneurship who have something to say about any and all things related to the technology startup world. This article is not a sponsor post and the writer has not paid for space on StartUp Beat. This series is intended to serve as a point of discussion and consideration of issues that affect the technology startup sector.

By Doug Mellinger

Douglas Mellinger is Vice-Chairman and Co-founder of Foundation Source and Trustee at Cogswell College.

Amidst a sea of graduations occurring this month, many graduates who majored in art, science, engineering, and other non-business disciplines are the ones most likely to start their own businesses. The irony is they most likely did not receive formal business training because those courses and experiences were housed in their colleges’ business school and not their own departments. So when they start their own venture they must become a quick study in understanding the elements that make a business successful.

Most entrepreneurs don’t come from the business school world and have had no formal business training. In many cases, learning how to project profit and losses, balancing the books, and creating a business plan are all done through trial and error. This experience could be different if more colleges were focused on providing every student with the basic entrepreneurial skills to start their own business regardless of their major. 

A new national poll on entrepreneurship and education cites this disconnect, finding that colleges are not focused enough on teaching the vital entrepreneurial skills American students need to compete globally. The poll also found that colleges should implement more practical programs that enable them to create businesses while still in school.

The poll by Zogby/463 and commissioned by Cogswell College, cites that two out of three Americans say that U.S. schools are not focused enough on providing entrepreneurial skills. The survey of 2,141 Americans comes as millions of students graduate this spring and prepare to enter the workforce. But they enter the workforce at a time of economic uncertainty and increasing global competition.

Americans also say that traditional teaching methods aren’t the way to teach entrepreneurial skills. Overall, 73 percent report the best way to teach a student to become an entrepreneur is to enable them to create businesses or intern in startups. And 76 percent said that students launching a business while still in college will make them more successful in creating jobs and opportunities after graduation.

Other findings from the Zogby/463 survey include:

•    Only one in 20 Americans currently think that college is where students become entrepreneurs. That may be due to the current model of providing students with principles of business management rather than hands-on opportunities creating and growing businesses. For example, most Americans (63 percent) think entrepreneurial skills are most learned from work experiences. 

•    Seventy-nine percent say that having entrepreneurial skills is important for graduates to land a job.

•    Among the critical 18-24 age group:

-Sixty-two percent said the most effective way to teach someone to become an entrepreneur was by creating a small business or interning in a start-up. Only 2 percent said it was through class work and lectures.

-Sixty-nine percent said that work experience is where most learn the skills to become an entrepreneur.

-Fifty-seven percent said that launching companies in college would make them more successful in creating companies and jobs after graduation.

-Ninety-three percent said that entrepreneurship is “very important” to the future competitiveness of the American economy.

As evidenced by the polling, students aren’t prepared because they don’t know what a successful company even looks like when they graduate. And since most graduates are completely unprepared to start a business their first venture is more likely to fail because they don’t have the skills they need.

In terms of constructive criticism, the figure that colleges need to pay attention to most is that 62 percent of Americans believe creating a venture while in college is the best way to learn entrepreneurial skills. Attaining the right skills to start a business is possible if schools focus more on providing the basic know-how and hands on experience with creating a business.

Cogswell College is providing such experiences through its entrepreneurship program that builds in unique entrepreneurial residencies. Cogswell’s E-Tours take students through dozens of entrepreneurial companies and conducts exploratory meetings with founding teams. Each student experiences two internships with entrepreneurial companies, consisting of over 150 hours in each of the innovative companies. Students also join entrepreneurial forums to provide the beginning of a lifelong support and peer learning network. And, as a capstone course, students launch their own products, services or ventures as a part of their coursework during their final year of school.

The benefit here is that the program shapes students into entrepreneurs before they graduate, which puts them a step ahead. It also allows them to observe the right and wrong ways to go about starting a business by dealing and participating in real-world issues.

While Cogswell is among the few examples of colleges that offer entrepreneurial programs, there should be many more similar programs. Colleges and universities are always evolving to offer programs for in-demand fields and building entrepreneurial training into those offerings should be essential.

We need to reinvent the way we prepare our students to enter the business world by enabling them to start and run businesses while in school. While some argue that an entrepreneur is born with a specific skill-set, a successful entrepreneur can be made through a structured educational experience that provides the know-how to build the best possible venture. 

Posted by startupbeat at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding and acquisitions news roundup from across the web:

Social Media

Alliance Health Raises $11 Million For Condition-Specific Social Networks (via TechCrunch)

Web Content

ValueAppeal raises $1.6M for property tax appeal service (via DealsBeat)

Posted by startupbeat at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)