Featured Startup Pitch: Momentage’s app pulls multimedia elements together to make social media posts into ‘storytelling moments’

By George Castineiras, Momentage co-founder and CEO

Elevator Pitch: Momentage, the leading online community for the new creatives, is bringing together individuals from around the world through the unique Momentage mobile app that allows users to combine photos, videos, and SoundImages into a single post to create a vivid storytelling ‘moment.’

Product/Service Description

Momentage: Craft and experience moments.

Momentage is a mobile application for the new creative seeking an innovative way to share multimedia stories. Momentage evolves instant sharing of visual experiences by allowing users to combine photos, videos and SoundImages into a single post. Momentage creates rich storytelling moments for users, while elevating social media as a whole.

Founder’s Story

There were three things that told me I was onto something when I presented the idea of Momentage to others. First, my wife and children loved Momentage! This meant to me that its appeal crossed demographic barriers. Second, I was offered $250,000 for the idea back before it was even technologically feasible. I filed intellectual property dating back to 2006, knowing that it was an idea ahead of its time but that its day would come. Lastly, the number of people that wanted to join the company was far greater than the number I needed. This includes people willing to drop high-paying jobs and other startup ventures that were much further along. This showed me that others shared my vision of Momentage and saw its potential.

Marketing/Promotion Strategy

Momentage uses an organic approach. We shower our most active users with praise, hold launch events, bring on influencers via email, work with our existing Momentage community to create strategic partnerships and gain exposure, created a college ambassador program, and more. We also use services that keep us connected to all of our users such as Appboy and Apptentive, and create viral buzz though blogging, social media, newsletters, and other channels.

Market Opportunity

We all know there are hundreds of photo and video sharing apps, but we haven’t run across one that combines all media into one post so elegantly. We take pride in being the leader when it comes to this.

How We Differentiate From the Competition

Most photo/video sharing apps are visual communication apps that serve a purpose in a world where seeing and being seen as well as immediacy and authenticity in communication is the new norm. The sheer magnitude of the information we all receive each day requires the ability to take it in and absorb it quickly. Momentage provides an experience that enriches the communication with video and SoundImages, and supplies both the creator and the receiver with significantly more context. Said another way—we offer books and not dictionaries.

Business Model

Right now, we are solely focused on the Momentage community. In 2014, we plan to introduce our revenue model that is quite different than what is being offered today. It is beyond conventional advertising.

Current Needs

We are always looking for great talent to be part of our Momentage family, especially technologists and designers. We are bootstrapped at this time, but we do plan to raise capital during the first quarter of 2014 and beyond as the business grows.

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Headquarters: San Francisco