Get tips and tricks for developing a successful business from the Microsoft BizSpark team. Our startup blog is overflowing with real-world examples: you’ll also find practical advice about how to start a business, ways to engage in business networking, where to find developer resources, and much more.
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Sep-01 by Midori Lawler
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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.
Published: 9/1/2010 9:23 AM
Company: crowdzone (mobiTeris)
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Aug-27 by Midori Lawler
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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!
Published: 8/27/2010 4:41 PM
Company: DashSoft
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Aug-23 by Midori Lawler
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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.
Published: 8/23/2010 10:24 AM
Company: RelayFoods.com
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Aug-17 by Midori Lawler
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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.
Published: 8/17/2010 9:44 AM
Company: Kabbage
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Aug-16 by Midori Lawler
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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.
Published: 8/16/2010 10:49 AM
Company: SiSense
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