The BizSpark startup of the day is crowdzone (mobiTeris), based in the US. Below you will find an interview with Murgesh Navar, CEO of mobiTeris. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.crowdzone.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
CEO. At a young startup this translates to Head cook and Chief dish washer. My role is to envision the product and service the market needs, work with my exceptionally talented and passionate team to bring it to fruition.
What did you do before creating your company?
Most recently, Founder & Chairman of VoloMedia, a downloadable media analytics and advertising company. Customers are major media companies such as NBC, ABC, Fox, etc. Previously I have worked on Interactive TV and 3D Graphics, developing the very leading edge products of the time by building stunningly talented teams.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
Building a great product and making the world aware of its existence is our main mission. Microsoft’s recognition of our tiny company is a great honor.
What is your company’s mission?
To come alive at every sporting event, connecting fans at the game with fans watching the game at home and in sports bars around the world, enabling the fans to seamlessly share their experiences of the event with text, pictures and video. To enable sports teams and leagues to instantly influence networks of fans with real-time offers of goods and services.
How large is your market opportunity?
We are addressing a $5 Billion new market opportunity enabled by new services to mobile consumers. This goes beyond our initial focus on the sports market, which is really our first anchor market. As you extend traditional mobile advertising along the path of direct marketing, merchandising, transactions and commerce, you realize making a direct impact on transactions with mobile creates a huge new market opportunity. Our products fall into two categories (i) Instant Influence™ real-time marketing solutions and ii) Mobile transactions, we call BuyFi™. With some modest market assumptions, we can see our business ramping to a $100 million annual revenue opportunity over the next several years.
Do you have any unique IP?
Yes. We have some very fundamental patent cover in the space of mobile transactions and social networks.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
We started building the products in late 2009, with a small seed round. Now we are actively taking those products to market, with great amount of early success I might add. We expect to need about $500K to validate the market and make revenue generation a repeatable process as we expand our product and sales footprint. We have just started planning to finance this need. We have had good luck in the past with investors who understand young companies and can help with their domain expertise. We will be seeking a good investor match.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
We have 7 employees, 5 in product and engineering.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
At the moment we are filling our expanding needs with outsourced contractors. So, not hiring.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
We are excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile platform and are working to establish a strong anchor presence. We are currently launched on the iPhone, and expanding to Android and Blackberry smart phones. On the backend, we have an Instant Influence Portal that runs in the cloud allowing teams and leagues to tap into their fans’ location and activity in real-time and make valuable offers.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
If there were five of me, I would be starting five different companies. As everyone can witness, we are in the midst of an explosion in personal, connected and mobile platforms – phones, tablets, etc. We are also approaching an era of realizing ubiquitous utility computing, also called the cloud. Marry the above two with access to a global talent pool and global markets, you have the perfect conditions for a tsunami of innovation and change. Major aspects of life - health, entertainment, transportation, energy are all in the process of fundamental transformation. I think Internet based software is going to play an integral role in all of these changes.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
I like how easy it was to get started. Every entrepreneur with an idea willing to take the risk should be given an opportunity. Programs like BizSpark help entrepreneurs in the early stages when there is not a lot to validate the idea. Every bit of encouragement helps.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
You mean older entrepreneurs are wiser and don’t need good advice? Seriously, everyone needs advice and guidance. Starting up a new business requires a lot of belief – have faith, but validate. As the name of an old western suggests, there are only two types of startups “the quick and the dead”. One should not be afraid to continuously morph until they find their market. More importantly, attract a team that is nimble and not afraid to change dearly held assumptions.
Who’s your role model?
People who can mobilize and catalyze change in society when change is needed. Behaviors don’t change easily, but sometimes progress depends on such change. I do not want to name any specific person because there are many people in history who have accomplished mass change and had mass impact. I am looking forward to a leader who can convince us to change our fossil fuel based energy habits.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
If you have the talent and passion for an idea, pursue it.
The BizSpark startup of the day is DashSoft, based in Egypt. Below you will find an interview with Remon Zakaria, CEO of DashSoft. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.dashsoft.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
Chief Executive Officer.
What did you do before creating your company?
Consultant for the Ministry of Administrative Development.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
I feel honored & glad that we’re doing something right!
What is your company’s mission?
My company mission is to position Egypt as a very good potential competitor to Outsourcing giants such as India, providing resources with very good education & experience yet with very affordable prices.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
Provide offshore technical services for companies all over the world.
How did you get the idea for your company?
I got the idea of my business because I was a computer sciences student & saw firsthand the caliber we’re graduating & how competitive they can be in local market, think about a global market & how big the difference they can do!
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
I built the company from 0 money, big profit wasn’t my plan, stability was #1 & afterwards cash evolved. I am currently looking for 2 million dollars funding for a very ambitious hardware/web/mobile system idea that has proven success.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
We have 25 employees, 22 of them are developers.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
We’re hiring for senior positions for web, Silverlight & .NET Services positions.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
.NET platform, because it’s very flexible, a very good set of rich features with stability & global communities support.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
I think the whole market is evolving to the cloud services & mobile applications, especially with the very fast paces of mobile hardware development.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
I think BizSpark is one of the best ideas that Microsoft has ever done, the idea of supporting companies & remove the big software investment at the beginning minimizes the risk of startups significantly which will increase the number of companies in the field & the development of the software business overall.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
Go for your idea, first make sure that it will work by hard researching, believe in it & never give up no matter how closed doors might be in front of you, there’s always an open door.
Who’s your role model?
My role models are my mentors who helped me being in this business, they’re Patrick Hynds, Stephen Forte & Remi Caron.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Don’t be afraid to build your own company, there’d be so much support for your step by companies & communities, don’t give up on your idea to leave your fingerprint in the market & maybe history!
The BizSpark startup of the day is RelayFoods.com, based in the US. Below you will find an interview with Zach Buckner, CEO of RelayFoods.com. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.relayfoods.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
I am the founder and CEO of RelayFoods.com, an online grocery and delivery service currently serving Richmond, VA and Charlottesville, VA communities. We offer groceries, specialty and artisanal foods, and food from over 50 grocery stores, restaurants, and local farms from the Virginia area.
What did you do before creating your company?
Prior to founding Relay, I was Vice President of Technology for Elder Research, Inc., and the inventor of a next-generation industrial sensor line at Visi-Trak Sensors, LLC. Before that, I earned a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
Grateful – and very excited to see our business growing and being recognized. At Relay, we feel we have built something really special that has the potential to help bring together people, businesses, and farms around one of the most important economic and community-related issues facing society: the ability to make good tasting, healthy, and community supportive food decisions. If – as a marketplace -- we can enable businesses and farms to reach new customers and allow people to shop many different businesses at one sitting, we will be helping to support local economies even as we make headway against some of the negative 21st century global trends – less driving has got to be a good thing all the way around.
What is your company’s mission?
Relay’s mission is to make eating quality, healthy, and sustainable food simple. We will accomplish this mission by educating individuals and families about the foods they eat, creating connections between local producers, food retailers and end consumers, and bringing food to easily accessible locations.
How did you get the idea for your company?
I was out shopping with my family – my wife and three kids – and we needed to get to a number of places, which meant battling traffic, navigating stores, dealing with moody children – you know, the usual. And I began to think how this picture might be improved. Why not enable people to get things they need and strip away – or at least lessen – the pain points in the process? That was the beginning. From there, we set about building a robust ecommerce platform, narrowed our focus to food, and assembled a wide array of food vendors. We created a marketplace. And people understood immediately that they could basically follow their taste buds to great food and also patronize the kinds of community businesses and farms they always wanted to support at the same time.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
To date, we have raised $1.25M from angel investors in the Charlottesville area who have had great success investing in the grocery industry. With this we have grown our operation, created a web infrastructure, and developed the software engineering support necessary to serve two markets simultaneously.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
We have consolidated our Charlottesville and Richmond operation around 35 core Management, Marketing, Merchandising and Operations personnel. Currently, we have one full-time developer and two part-time developers.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
Yes, we are adding to the team as growth requires.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
We are building around Microsoft’s Web Technologies: ASP.NET MVC, IIS 7, and SQL Server. We did an extensive survey of our options before getting started, and concluded that Microsoft’s platform offered the best ‘bang for the buck’. A more refined set of tools (like Visual Studio, Linq-to-SQL, etc) enable us to spend far less time developing, which dampens the largest single “line item” in development. And it’s more pleasant to work with better tools!
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
We’re clearly not the only one think this way, but we feel that computation-as-a-resource will be the concept that marks the coming decade in computing. Good strides have been made in this area, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
I wish we’d known about it sooner! For companies like ours that have chosen to develop atop the Microsoft platform, BizSpark has proven to be fastest way to get moving. And we also see the program as a great way to connect with other high-potential startups and link with great people who can serve as support, advisors, or even investors.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
I’ve kept a running list of “lessons learned” while developing this business. Three that seem especially relevant to software entrepreneurs are:
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Don’t pick an industry that’s already over-served by other smart software entrepreneurs – like building tools for other software developers. The signal-to-noise rate is just too high in these areas, and the competition is just too plentiful. Explore beyond the 15 sexy niches that all your friends are packed within.
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Don’t underestimate the importance of developing a marketing plan. I’ve noticed that entrepreneurs (especially engineers) frequently underestimate the sheer difficulty of getting marketing right.
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Before picking a technology platform, gather data from other startups to get an assessment for the true cost of developing on various platforms. Ask questions like: how long did this take to build? How many developers were in place? What’s the going rate (translation: how much did you pay) for a software engineer? The true cost of software engineering is dominated by labor costs, not licensing fees.
Who’s your role model?
I most admire entrepreneurs who have been not only successful in their careers, but also fruitfully invested in their families and faith. Three individuals that immediately come to mind are Dr. John Elder (a UVA professor of mine who runs Elder Research, Inc.), Dr. Ken Elzinga (another professor of mine from UVA), and Marian Noronha (President of TurboCam International).
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
That entrepreneurship is an adventure not to be missed. It shouldn’t be tackled without the right gear (deep experience gained from working with another established business is key), but once well equipped – it’s worth the risk.
The BizSpark startup of the day is Kabbage, based in the US. Below you will find an interview with Robert Frohwein, Founder & CEO of Kabbage. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.kabbage.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
Founder & CEO.
What did you do before creating your company?
Founder, MediaWheel, Founder & CEO, LAVA Group, Inc., SVP, ZapMedia, VP, Security First Network Bank, Attorney, Consultant, etc.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
Extremely excited. We feel extremely fortunate to be in the BizSpark program and be a Microsoft partner. We’re also very honored to be selected because the selection really validates Microsoft’s commitment to us and their belief in what we’re doing.
What is your company’s mission?
To end the financial crisis and provide working capital to the fastest growing segment of retail in the world – online retail.
How did you get the idea for your company?
Great ideas are combinations of existing concepts with some twists. I previously was involved in a company that utilized online marketplace data to identify counterfeit and fraudulent products being sold online and also did a lot of work for financial institutions. I simply asked myself is what would eBay do if they combined these two areas and applied it to their general business and, voila, the idea came to me.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
We’ve raised $2mm through angels and we’re about to commence a new investment round. In our current round, we are seeking $5mm-$10mm.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
7 employees, 3 of whom are developers.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
We continue to seek additional developers and will really increase our development team after our next round of funding.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
We are building on VS 2010 ASP.Net MVC 2 because of its ease of use, the clean separations of concerns, and testability. The platform along with the new Entity framework has allowed us amazing productivity gains and much shorter development cycles.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
There are a world of opportunities. In our industry, there are lots of opportunities to provide fintech to various groups. Also, developers should look at all areas of business and technology and ask the question: how might social media applications impact these areas. This will surely help generate many great ideas.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
The program has been a lifesaver for us. We continue to be amazed at the varied resources available to us. Everything we do, from project management, to development, to hosting is Microsoft based and it is all thanks to BizSpark.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
The first idea you pursue is unlikely the eureka opportunity, but it always sets in motion a path that will get you there.
Who’s your role model?
Bill Gates, of course.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Don’t be afraid to address big problems facing our world. Technology can save us in so many ways.
The BizSpark startup of the day is SiSense, based in Israel. Below you will find an interview with Elad Israeli, Co-founder and CEO of SiSense. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.sisense.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
Co-founder and CEO.
What did you do before creating your company?
Before co-founding SiSense, I served as a Product Manager at global IT services firm Ness Technologies (NASDAQ: NSTC). Previously, I was a Product Manager at Anysoft and, before that, I co-founded and led technology development at BiSense, a BI technology company.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
We are very excited to have SiSense named 'Startup of the Day' by Microsoft BizSpark. We bring an entirely new approach to business intelligence and it is gratifying to be acknowledged by a site such as BizSpark.
What is your company’s mission?
SiSense is leading the way to a new era of business intelligence where fast and flexible BI is available to any business user analyzing any type or amount of data. With SiSense’s do-it-yourself approach to BI, BI evaluations and evaluation and implementation projects are fast and inexpensive, requiring little or no investment in IT resources, consultants or new computer hardware.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
We enable fast, easy do-it-yourself BI over any amount of data from any number of sources, with no need for data warehouse or OLAP projects.
How did you get the idea for your company?
Long and hard past experience with traditional business intelligence implementations coupled with the advances in hardware and software technology led us to believe BI can be done with a saner approach, minimal upfront investments and short implementation cycles. We designed our products along these guidelines.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
We were privately funded by an angel investor until July 2010, when we received $4M in series A financing from Genesis Partners (Israel), Opus Capital (USA), and our original angel investor.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
10 / 8.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
Developers, pre-sales and support staff for our Israeli office.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
C, .NET C# and ASP/Ajax.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
Business intelligence software which is faster, easier, more powerful and less expensive than the traditional BI platforms.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
BizSpark is fantastic for us as a startup, as it gave us access to the most advanced development platforms available at prices we could afford.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
Don't belong. Never join, Think for yourself. Peace.
Who’s your role model?
A combination of Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Business Intelligence is not as challenging as it used to be. Download Prism today and find out for yourself.
The BizSpark startup of the day is BEST IT Solutions LTD (Quilink), based in Israel. Below you will find an interview with Yevgeny Safovich, CEO and Co-Founder of Quilink. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.quilink.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
My name is Yevgeny Safovich and I am the CEO and co-founder of Quilink.
What did you do before creating your company?
I have over 14 years of experience in the field, specializing in e-collaboration. In my last role before Quilink I had a pleasure of managing a group of brilliant people in Comverse. We were responsible for all Microsoft related technologies in IT department, developing large scale distributed enterprise solutions. I hold a degree of B.Sc. in electrical engineering from Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
I am very happy that Microsoft has recognized the potential of Quilink, and nominated us the most promising startup of the day!
We carefully designed Quilink to perfectly integrate into the Microsoft environment and together with other Microsoft products provide a complete solution for Contacts Management. Therefore this recognition by Microsoft is an important milestone for us.
What is your company’s mission?
Our mission is simplify and enhance connections between people and businesses worldwide, by keeping their contacts always at-hand and up-to-date.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
Quilink brings an innovative solution for search, sharing and organization of contacts for businesses and private users worldwide.
How did you get the idea for your company?
I believe that contacts are one of the most valuable assets of any person and even more so for businesses. However in many years of our careers, both my partner Ronen Abramov and I, have seen that companies are lacking the tools to properly handle those assets.
Companies and people, even the most disciplined and punctual ones, keep losing tracks of their contacts. Employees are coming and leaving, people are constantly changing their phones and emails addresses, and connections are lost. This is how we set ourselves a mission to improve connections both for business companies and private people.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
Till today Quilink was completely funded by the founders. We wanted to bring to the market a working product that will speak for itself and only then seek an investment. Now that we have a working product and customers that like our solution, we are ready for the next step – massive deployment, and are now seeking funding for this purpose. I’ll be happy to provide more details to potential investors.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
We have 3 employees actively working for the company and a couple of subcontractors working on-demand. Up until now most of the development was done by us – two founders.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
We are not hiring at the moment.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
Quilink is currently based on newest Microsoft platforms, tools and technologies, such as .NET 4.0, Windows Azure Services, Visual Studio 2010. We chose those tools and platforms to take advantage of the existing R&D knowledge and to reduce time-to-market.
In fact we are currently preparing a success story together with Microsoft describing how Microsoft Windows Azure cloud helped us to rollout out our solution to the market. Looking backwards, I believe it was a good choice.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
Communication and sharing of information is one of the most significant aspects in our lives. Nowadays, that people communicate via numerous channels, many have several mobile phones, emails, multiple social networks, etc., the technology has the opportunity to help us keep our connections alive and expand them. I think that one of the most important opportunities in the Software/Internet era is embracing the concept of SAAS. This model allows businesses all over the world to provide their services to practically unlimited amount of customers, making the world more connected and increasing business opportunities.
I believe that the future will bring us solutions integrating software/internet naturally into our lives and allowing people to expand their neural networks by having more and more people among their allies, partners and - most importantly - friends.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
I was excited to discover that Microsoft has a program “exactly for us” - a program that helps companies in the beginning of their way. It is really a win-win initiative for all: for the start-ups – helping them to succeed, for Microsoft – growing the customer base and attracting new developers to their platforms, and for the industry as a whole – bringing new jobs, new technologies and ideas.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
Let your dreams take you to the sky, but remember to bind your legs to the ground. From my experience, if you have a great dream that you are committed to achieving, there is really nothing that you can’t accomplish. However it is also important to build that dream step by step, understanding how exactly you are going to reach each stair of the ladder towards you dream.
Who’s your role model?
Patrizio Paoletti – one of the greatest educators in the world encouraging constant personal evolution.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Visit Quilink at: http://www.quilink.com
The BizSpark startup of the day is YubiTech, based in Israel. Below you will find an interview with Danny Weissberg, CEO and Co-Founder of YubiTech. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.yubitech.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
I am the CEO and co-Founder of YubiTech. I have also established the Open University Entrepreneur Club.
What did you do before creating your company?
I have extensive experience in high-tech development and management with Check Point, Radvision and Mercury Interactive. I hold a BSc in Civil Engineering from the Technion and a BA in Computer Science from the Open University.
What is your company’s mission?
YubiTech plans to be a leader in the mobilization market, offering its breakthrough solution to port business applications to any mobile device in record time.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
YubiTech's innovative approach is based on a simple and intutitive drag & drop designer tool that enables IT managers/distributors/system-integrators to mobilize existing business applications (such as ERP/CRM and proprietary) in record time of a few days, without writing a single line of code.
How did you get the idea for your company?
It was a long trial and error process, emphasizing on getting an innovative solution for a real pain.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
Yubitech was funded by the Tnufa program (Office of the Chief Scientist, MicroSeed around 50k$) and Granot Ventures - $540K. We are currently looking for additional 1M$ funding.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
6 employees, 4 developers.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
Yes, UI developer
Which platform are you building on? Why?
YubiTech plans to support the following:
Mobile devices:
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Blackberry
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WM (Q4 2010)
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Nokia E72 (Q4 2010)
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iPhone (Q1 2011)
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Android (Q2 2011)
Business applications:
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
Today there is a huge demand from the market to be able to connect to business applications from your mobile. Sales persons, managers, inventory man, doctors, even your cable guy, all want to have access to their office application on their mobile whenever they are, on the road, at home, or in a business meeting. Mobile apps increase business productivity in more than 20%, and therefore Top 500 US enterprises plan to increase their investment in mobile app.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
Honestly it is the greatest Start-Up supporting program I know. Since our technology is extremely Microsoft oriented, getting free software and support has helped us and is helping us tremendously.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
Believe in yourself and your ability to succeed, always innovate, utilize the critics to improve the venture, and always be honest and ethical.
Who’s your role model?
Mahatma Gandhi (love and peace entrepreneur).
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
YubiTech is developing a truly unique solution for porting business application to mobile devices, and has the potential to become the market leader in this area!
The BizSpark startup of the day is erecruit, based in the US. Below you will find an interview with James Morganstern of erecruit. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.erecruit.com
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
My name is Jim Morganstern and I run sales, marketing and alliances at erecruit.
What did you do before creating your company?
I’ve been involved in building new companies and new business units within established companies throughout my entire career. Prior to erecruit I co-founded a real-time monitoring & analytics company, Blue Agave Software.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
With the incredible innovation and hyper-competition taking place in today’s markets, it is an honor to be selected by the Microsoft BizSpark team as ‘Startup of the Day’.
What is your company’s mission?
To improve the operating performance of the 20,000+ staffing and recruiting firms who comprise the $120B staffing industry in the United States today.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
erecruit provides a complete staffing firm management solution for both contract/temp and direct hire businesses.
How did you get the idea for your company?
erecruit was founded by two owners of a staffing firm who happened to both have engineering degrees and career experience implementing large-scale accounting systems. When they sought out an integrated solution to run their own firm and discovered how incomplete most of the products were, they saw a market opportunity to develop a better solution. Many successful staffing firm owners can describe the problem, but these guys also had the engineering, process workflow and accounting expertise to pull it off.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
Every entrepreneur is open to a funding discussion, as are we. We’ve been fortunate to develop our initial customer base – a testament to our value proposition given these market conditions – and a strong pipeline very quickly. That said, more working capital would help us accelerate our growth.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
Ten employees today with five in engineering.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
We are always interviewing for engineers and sales people. We current have two open engineering positions in Boston.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
Our solution is based 100% on the Microsoft technology stack: ASP.NET; SQL Server; Windows Server; Exchange Server; integration with Dynamics. We’ve chosen this path for several reasons. First, Microsoft has incredible market penetration in our target market. Second, it eliminates the risks associated with attempting to integrate multiple technologies from multiple vendors (yes, this problem still exists!). And third, Microsoft provides fantastic support to its developer community.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
I believe there is still so much to be accomplished in the areas of personal and professional productivity. Users are required to juggle multiple devices and myriad user interfaces in their daily lives, yet they continue to be confronted with an incomplete picture of the data needed to accomplish the task at hand.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
The BizSpark Program provides a great balance of software, support and visibility. I think it is a fantastic program for those entrepreneurs who are considering or who have committed to develop their solution using Microsoft’s technologies.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
You can never find your first customers soon enough. You can never have too much cash. Spend more on marketing than on office furniture.
Who’s your role model?
I have to say my father, who taught me the values of hard work, treating people with respect and always being forthright when conducting business.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Microsoft has a great program for startups. And please buy our software.
Sopima, one of the Showcase Startups at the European BizSpark Summit, revolutionizes the way companies create, negotiate, and control their contracts by taking the contract management process online. Hear from Sopima Founder & CEO Jaan Apajalahti in the below video interview.
The BizSpark startup of the day is Sopima, based in Finland. Below you will find an interview with Riitta Raesmaa, Co-Founder of Sopima. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.sopima.com
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 Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
My name is Riitta Raesmaa and I am a Partner and co-founder of Sopima. At the moment, I am working on product management, partnerships like with Microsoft and communications.
What did you do before creating your company?
I was VP, Marketing & Channel Development in a Nordic software company that developed solutions to the IT departments. Before that, I’ve had senior management positions in companies developing and marketing ERP & Business Intelligence solutions. So I love the software business, and feel at home in sales & marketing, and product & channel management.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
Very happy and honored, of course. It feels great to be in such great group of energetic startups. Since we were one of the 18 chosen ones in Microsoft BizSpark Investor Summit in May 2010 in Paris, we had an opportunity to meet with interesting people from the other nominated 17 companies. Wonderful and useful experience!
What is your company’s mission?
We at Sopima will revolutionize contract and commitment management – and for that we will soon provide easy to use contract creation and management tools that are affordable for organizations of all sizes. We are building our operations to be an international success story!
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
Sopima revolutionizes the way companies create, negotiate, and control their contracts by taking the contract management process online.
How did you get the idea for your company?
The idea started to develop during my time at a former company, a company that Sopima’s CEO Jaan Apajalahti founded 1999. We all have had difficult times, as business managers, when trying to negotiate and manage the daily contract of various kinds. We realized that there were no proper tools for business people to handle this challenge. Jaan got the initial idea during autumn 2008, got the ‘green light’ from our first business angel, and Sopima was founded as soon as in January 2009. We knew that creating a simple way of solving the “contract issue” as an online service could be a great opportunity, and it turned out to be just that.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
At the moment, we are fully funded. Our focus is on optimizing the product with the pilot customers, and fine-tuning our sales and marketing models. Early next year, when we start our international sales, we might consider an international funding round to boost our exponential growth rate.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
We now have a team of 10 dedicated people plus an external team of software developers. On top of that, we have several close partners we are working with at the daily basis.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
As soon as we start building a larger customer support, we’ll start hiring. The location of the customer support center is on the planning desk at the moment. We are handling most of the administrative stuff via our partners.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
We are building on Microsoft® Azure™ which is a solid and highly efficient platform for us to build our SaaS solution. The platform choice was made after careful consideration. We valued the low initial investment cost, the familiarity of the Microsoft products and tools, and the partnership possibilities; both technological and commercial ones.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
I strongly believe in cloud computing (as a way of delivering the services) and in the software-as-a-service model as the way we are buying software services. With time the software industry will go on to that direction of software buying and developing. Another strong trend which opens new possibilities is, of course, social media. As Sopima is an online service, we are planning our operations and support to be very much ‘online’ too. I am active in social media, I am using about 35 social media services, and I see many interesting possibilities there.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
Microsoft has been and is a great partner for us, not only in technology, but also in PR and sales. We are in BizSpark, Metro, and the Microsoft Partner Program. We also were at the Microsoft BizSpark Investor Summit which was a great opportunity to meet our peers and Microsoftians.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
My ABC to software startup entrepreneurs is APC; namely Attitude, Passion, Commitment. Firstly Attitude – Be brave, have a winning attitude, and at the same time don’t be scared to fail sometimes. Secondly Passion – when you do what you love, it is your best guarantee for success. Innovate, plan and execute passionately! And thirdly, commitment is important – commitment towards the company mission, strategy, your colleagues, your partners. It always pays off.
Who’s your role model?
Very difficult to name one. There are so many amazing people out there helping entrepreneurs.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Even if the cloud computing opportunities give enormous business opportunities to compete on a totally different scale, it is still the innovation and execution that counts.
sordu.com, one of the Showcase Startups from the European BizSpark Summit, is Turkey’s online destination for tutoring where students can find good and affordable tutors and courses.
The BizSpark startup of the day is sordu.com (SELP), based in Turkey. Below you will find an interview with Zafer Gurel, CEO of SELP. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.sordu.com
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 Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
I’m the CEO of SELP, the company that created sordu.com.
What did you do before creating your company?
I co-founded Advancity which is one of the leading e-learning technology companies in Turkey. I was the project leader of the biggest academic e-learning project (10.000 e-learning students of Sakarya University). I worked for clients from banking to telecommunications sector as an e-learning consultant.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
I feel happy and strongly believe that BizSpark will help us a lot to get more visible to potential investors.
What is your company’s mission?
Our vision is to create a sustainable e-learning platform for learners and tutors and help them benefit a great user experience by providing all the necessary tools.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
sordu.com is Turkey’s online destination for tutoring where students can find good and affordable tutors and courses.
How did you get the idea for your company?
The average age of the population in Turkey is 28. Internet penetration ratio is 35% and increasing very fast every year. There are 16 million students and 850.000 teachers. 4.5 million students enter high school and university entrance exams each year.
We’ve observed that there was a demand for online private tutoring. We did have the technology called Perculus which is a virtual classroom software. It’s being used by schools and universities and currently, it has more than 15.000 users. So, with this core technology in hand, we thought it would be great to provide tutors and students an online tutoring platform. So, we wrote a business plan and went to Inovent (our current investor) and told them our story. They got also excited about the project and we raised our first fund. We started in the beginning of 2010 and launched private beta at the end of March. We are going to open public beta at the end May.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
After we wrote our business plan, we went to Inovent. We were in relationship with them before. Inovent is a technology commercialization company founded by Sabanci University. Sabanci University was established by Sabanci Group which is one of the biggest groups in Turkey and is one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey. So, we believed that Inovent would add great value in terms of strategic advice and mentorship to our business if we became partners.
We got a seed fund of $170K at the beginning of this year and started the business.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
There are 3 employees. And I as a CEO also doing part-time development besides managing the company.
Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
We’ll be hiring a few months later. We’ll be hiring a developer in Turkey.
Which platform are you building on? Why?
We’re building on .NET platform and using MS SQL Server as the database solution. By using .NET and MS SQL Server, our software engineers work very efficiently and develop software more bug-free. Also, by .NET, scalability is not an issue.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
I think there are really still great opportunities in e-learning, especially in the developing countries like Turkey. As we get more connected to internet and more mobile, e-learning will always be important. Also, as the bandwidth becomes not an issue and developing scalable and robust applications on the cloud gets easier, live (synchronous) e-learning platforms will gain momentum.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
I think it’s great. We’ve been accepted to the program in a few hours after we sent our company information to Microsoft Turkey. As a startup, we need to be fast and flexible. And what I see is that Microsoft is aware of that fact and responds very quickly. Also, using thousand dollars’ worth software for free is amazing.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
I advise them to work hard for what they believe and focus on what creates value. Also self-motivation is crucial. I advise them to keep themselves highly motivated which will help them inspire people and make others believe their visions.
Who’s your role model?
My father is my role model. He’s also an entrepreneur. He’s running his business since ‘90s. I always learn from him although we are in different sectors.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
I personally believe that one should do his best in his job. As sordu.com, we focus on creating value for students and tutors by providing a great e-learning platform and try every day to do our best. | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /v2/Blogs/Microspark-BizSpark-Startup-of-the-Day/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /v2/Blogs/Microspark-BizSpark-Startup-of-the-Day/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 255 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /v2/Blogs/Microspark-BizSpark-Startup-of-the-Day/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 256 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /v2/Blogs/Microspark-BizSpark-Startup-of-the-Day/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 256 |
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