2012 November

BlackBox-BI: A French Start-Up that Provides Easy to Use Affordable Business Intelligence for Companies of all Sizes

November 27, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

BlackBox-BI makes creating business dashboards easy. From data load to dashboard creation, BlackBox-BI focus is to make each step as easy as possible without compromising on functionality.

We conducted a very interesting interview with Mr. ‘Olav Snoek‘; Founder and CEO of the France (Paris)-based start-up “BlackBox-BI”.

“BlackBox-BI“ aims to make business intelligence dashboards easy to build and fun to use.

Below is the full interview with Mr. ‘Snoek’ regarding his start-up technology company ”BlackBox-BI”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “BlackBox-BI” is all about?

We make creating business dashboards easy. From data load to dashboard creation, our focus is to make each step as easy as possible without compromising on functionality. Users can easily create dashboards using an intuitive web based application. There is no need for programming skills thanks to our easy to use metadata model that creates a business view of your data.

Our objective is to go from data to dashboard in minutes not months.

2. When has “BlackBox-BI” been founded? And what stage is “BlackBox-BI” currently at?

The company was established early 2011 after the idea for a cloud based business intelligence solution came to me on holiday in Mongolia.

In my day job as a business intelligence manager I noticed that we often repeat ourselves when starting a project. We needed to provision servers, buy software licenses, install and configure software etc. All this before we even got to developing the required reports and dashboards. This is a huge waste and so I set out to solve this by at first proposing a hosted BI solution based on Pentaho. This did not scale very well beyond a few customers and the user interface is not the best looking design ever. So I decided to develop a multi tenant cloud hosted dashboard solution which allows users to build advanced dashboards with ease.

We are currently pre-launch and just opened applications for our beta program.

3. What is “BlackBox-BI”‘s business model and how does it work?

The business model is very simple and transparent. Users subscribe to the service and pay a monthly fee per user. We believe strongly in transparency so there are no hidden costs, you simply pay for the number of users and that’s it.

There will be a three tiered pricing model where the first tier is priced extremely low to make advanced dashboarding accessible to small businesses with only one user. The standard and enterprise tiers will include more advanced functionalities as well as improved support contracts.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

I met my partners, Boris Guerin (General Manager at eulidia.com) and Fabien Jongenelen (General Manager at eulidia.com) thanks to an introduction by my former boss. He thought it would be a good idea I had lunch with Boris to discuss my plans and get some feedback. We kind of hit it off after I showed him a demo of our dashboarding tool. Ever since we are working together and Boris provides me with valuable help navigating the administrative side of starting a business in France. In the meantime I am responsible for software development and overall strategy.

5. What, exactly, makes you different from existing options, what will make your product and/or service stand out in the marketplace? In other words what’s unique about you and what’s new about what you make?

Usability and affordability make us stand out from the competition. There are many solutions already out there but none are as easy to use as BlackBox-BI. From our easy data management tool that lets you load data directly from cloud sources like Dropbox, to our innovative BI-Desktop that lets users create personalized dashboards with ease, the main focus is to make every step as easy as possible.

Our pricing model also distinguishes us from other offers out there. I have often been frustrated with the complex software licenses sold by other products and believe this should be super simple. We do not distinguish between different users, each user has access to all functionality that is included in their tier. We believe this will make adoption easier and gives power to the user so they can get the information they need.

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Filed Under: Web Based Applications, Websites Tagged With: analytics, BlackBox-BI, business, dashboards, metrics, Olav Snoek

TRAINlete: An Online Community that Helps Athletes of all Ages Reach their Next Level by Safely Connecting them to Great Private Sports Trainers and Coaches

November 19, 2012 By admin 1 Comment

TRAINlete.com

TRAINlete is an online community that helps athletes of all ages reach their next level of success by safely connecting them to a great private sports trainer or coach.

We had the utmost pleasure of interviewing Mr. ‘Jeremy Clouse‘; Co-Founder and CEO of the US (Atlanta, GA)-based start-up “TRAINlete”.

“TRAINlete“ helps athletes of all ages reach their next level by safely connecting them to the best private sports trainers and coaches in their area.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Clouse’ regarding his start-up company ”TRAINlete”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “TRAINlete” is all about?

TRAINlete is an online community that helps athletes of all ages reach their next level of success by safely connecting them to a great private sports trainer or coach. Through TRAINlete’s “Peace of Mind Process,” we give athletes (and their parents) the most efficient way of connecting to a great private sports trainer. For our community of private sports trainers and coaches, TRAINlete helps generate new client leads, become easier to find online and allows them to build a stellar online reputation…all of which will help grow their business.

2. When has “TRAINlete” been founded? And what stage is “TRAINlete” currently at?

TRAINlete was founded in July, 2011 and the site launched nearly a year later in June of 2012. We are currently in our Beta Phase. During this phase we are focused on four areas, and they are listed in no particular order of importance. Number 1, we are growing our community of great private sports trainers and coaches. Number 2, we are working to establish and grow relationships with youth sports organizations in the communities in which we operate. Thirdly, we are forming meaningful strategic alliances with organizations that have similar goals and interests. Finally, we are perfecting our value proposition to athletes and trainers/coaches.

3. What is “TRAINlete”‘s business model and how does it work?

Our focus is to connect athletes to private sports trainers/coaches. TRAINlete enables these two segments to communicate in efficient ways that previously did not exist. Trainers create detailed, unique, personalized profile pages where they outline their experience, background, training style, certifications and pricing to help market themselves and their services. Athletes (and their parents) have the ability to search through profiles of trainers in their area and connect in a variety of ways to narrow down their decision. An athlete or parent can connect directly with a potential trainer candidate, ask them to provide references, execute a background check or view previous feedback from clients on TRAINlete’s grading system on each trainer’s profile. We are passionate about providing and promoting a direct connection between these parties. We don’t take a piece of the transaction or mark up the cost of our trainer’s session. Our model is built off advertising, sponsorship, membership fees and other e-commerce.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

The TRAINlete Team is comprised of three life-long friends. I had the idea for TRAINlete and called up Eric Blumenthal and Blake Sundberg and informed them of my vision and we hit the ground running. I am the CEO. Eric handles our marketing, graphic design, public relations and business development efforts. Blake is our CFO and also manages our strategic alliances/partnerships. And we also have a development team that we work with day-to-day on maximizing our site.

The athlete-to-private sports training market is virtually untapped and TRAINlete stands out in the marketplace because we are one of the very few players in this space. Our users, the ‘trainer seekers’ have the ability to search through a community of great private sports trainers and connect in any way that makes sense for them. Other sites control the communication between trainer and trainee, not at TRAINlete. The trainee also has the ability to pay for the service they receive in any way that works for them. We do not mark up our trainers’ sessions and we will not take any piece of the transaction between the trainer and trainee.

Click A Taxi: A Worldwide Taxi Booking Service Mobile Transport App That will Cater to More than 5,000 Cities by End of 2012

November 15, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

ClickATaxi.com

Click A Taxi is global taxi aggregation service providing you with a hand-picked quality taxi in just a few clicks, anywhere in the world.

Start-Ups.Co had an insightful and content rich interview with Mr. ‘Søren Halskov Nissen‘; Founder and CEO of the Denmark (Copenhagen)-based start-up “Click A Taxi”.

“Click A Taxi“ is the world’s largest network of quality taxi companies and the industry leader in providing next generation digital tools for the global taxi market.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Halskov Nissen’ regarding his start-up company “Click A Taxi”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “Click A Taxi” is all about?

Click A Taxi is global taxi aggregation service providing you with a handpicked quality taxi in just a few clicks, anywhere in the world. The company’s primary user interface is our consumer app, but the system is designed to integrate with any number of back end systems to help businesses book a taxi.

2. When has “Click A Taxi” been founded? And what stage is “Click A Taxi” currently at?

Click A Taxi was founded in 2010 and went live in Denmark in October 2011. We are currently live in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia. We expect to expand to all of Western Europe and Australia this autumn. Click A Taxi will cover the Americas and major cities in Asia by the end of 2012. So we are in an exciting stage of rapid expansion.

3. What is “Click A Taxi”‘s business model and how does it work?

Our business model is based on a pay per booking arrangement with our taxi partners. Click A Taxi users are not charged anything extra for booking through the app. The taxi company they ride with simply pays us a small referral fee (+/- 40 Euro cents) for each booking they receive. The arrangement is good for both taxi users and businesses because it minimises costs on both ends.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

Søren Halskov Nissen (CEO and Founder)
Nikolaj Køster (Director of Marketing and Communications)
Peter Theill (Senior Developer)
Michael Vivet (Director of Development)

We have an additional fourteen employees based at our Copenhagen office. We are divided into an Operations Team, Marketing and Communication and a Development team.

Click A Taxi is the first taxi service aggregator with the potential to provide truly international service for our users. There are a lot of taxi apps and aggregators on the market. But only Click A Taxi provides global or even nation-wide coverage. We provide the kind of coverage that allows our users to throw away the five different taxi apps they have for several different cities and be confident that they can use one app to get a high quality taxi service wherever they happen to be.

Pajap: A DIY Mobile Apps Service embedded with a New Technology that Allows you to Create Full Featured 100% Native and Hardware Accelerated Mobile Applications

November 11, 2012 By admin 1 Comment

Pajap.com

Pajap provides an innovative mobile service, which provides new routes in native mobile application development, end user experience and advertising methods.

We had a very interesting in-depth interview with Mr. ‘Giannis Zaoudis‘, Co-Founder and COO of the US (Delaware)-based start-up “Pajap Inc.”.

“Pajap” is a DIY mobile apps service with a new technology that allows you to create full featured 100% native and hardware accelerated mobile applications.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Zaoudis’ regarding his start-up web-based development company “Pajap”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “Pajap” is all about?

Pajap provides an innovative mobile service, which provides new routes in native mobile application development, end user experience and advertising methods. Specifically, using Pajap a high-quality native mobile application, worth of many thousands of dollars, can be created in minutes by everyone without a single line of code. Furthermore users of this app don’t have to install it on their phone. They just open it using Pajap market, QR code scanning or just tapping a web link from their browser. Applications are updated on the fly without any update process. Pajap aims to make the creation and use of native applications as easy and as seamless as websites without compromising any of the advantages of native apps. Pajap technology can lead to the next generation of super-rich, dynamic, interactive mobile ads.

2. When has “Pajap” been founded? And what stage is “Pajap” currently at?

Pajap Inc. has been founded just a few months ago, in May 2012 and we are currently building some strong relationships with current and future clients. Furthermore, we are developing the next generation of our library which will support even more great features such as camera and more. Finally we are in the process of creating a strong board team in order to design next years roadmap.

3. What is “Pajap”‘s business model and how does it work?

Pajap is subscription based and the business model is freemium. Applications made with the free tier will display ads from Pajap ad network and other major ad networks (such as AdMob). The freemium model will also work as a conduit to increase the reach of Pajap ad network to a more extensive user/application base. For enhanced application capabilities, features and larger user capacity a higher tier will be needed with a monthly fee.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

Pajap currently consists of three software engineers, John Papadakis, Giannis Zaoudis and Stefanos Mpliatsios. We met 7 years ago at the university when we came to Patras to study Computer Engineering. All these years, we have been close friends and we have worked together in many IT projects. The fact that each one of us had experience in a different field of expertise but most importantly that we’ve been friends all these years and had worked together many times, made clear to us, that we were the right persons to join the team and work together on this project. So we believe that we have a great level of communication, which will help getting this project done, that wouldn’t be easy to find in another team no matter what their knowledge and expertise is.

John Papadakis is the person, which initially had an idea, which after almost a year of discussion and planning took the form of Pajap. He is currently involved in the client side of Pajap that has to do with android development and with server infrastructure. He has three year experience in developing android applications. The applications, that he made, exist in the market currently and they are some of the best rated apps. Ioanni’s novel ideas and vision was the motive for him to create our team and work on this project.

Giannis Zaoudis is working on the server side of the project and he is in charge of the web designer along with the servers’ setup and administration. He is the person with the most experience in web technologies and web development. He has been working on web projects for 5 years, thus having a deep knowledge of how a web oriented system is structured. His experience was crucial for the team, since he had a major role in designing the web part of the project. He helped us decide which technologies and frameworks will be needed for this project.

Stefanos Mpliatsios is the all in one player of this team. In the one hand, his deep understanding in databases and on the other hand, his experience in mobile application development made him integral part of the team. He is responsible for all the backend aspects of our project, whilst in parallel he is responsible, with Ioannis Papadakis, of the UX of the mobile application.

The most important thing, which we believe makes this team strong and able to produce a high quality product is the commitment, of each one of us, into this project. All three of us believed from the start in the project and made clear that we would be available to dedicate as much time is needed building this project. Our top priority is to build a high quality product and in order to achieve that, we rejected other opportunities and offers for jobs. Furthermore we have adjusted our working space and transformed it in to a house where we are working full time in this project. As far as skills that the team is missing we would say, that there is lack of experience in the finance field, which is crucial for a business but nonetheless can be overcome.

We have found the common ground between native and web applications!!

Users browsing Pajap-based applications can either open an application or “pin” an application as a shortcut. Opening an application requires an active internet connection, only for the first time. When a user opens an application, for the first time, it launches (“installs” and opens) in less than a second, depending on the network speed. The experience for the user is like opening an already-installed application. This feature provides a novel way in the use of mobile application. Until now, such an experience can only be found in the way websites operate. Usually, users have to go through a time-expensive process of installing an application. The whole process actually consists of the following parts, Market search ->selecting an application -> confirm permissions -> confirm installation. Furthermore applications occupy space at the device, thus a user, who wants an application just for one-time use may choose not to install that particular application. On the other hand websites, which don’t require installation, are way more user-friendly at this.

“No installation” is a Pajap innovation, which allows leveraging the application usage to an entirely different way. A user may open an application for a local store, restaurant, which in any other circumstances may never have installed. A website link or a QR code can be linked to a Pajap application that opens instantly to the user’s mobile phone. Moreover, native applications have other disadvantages like updating them. Users have to update their mobile applications, which is a procedure that many users tend ignore, since it is as time-consuming as the installation. Additionally, with Pajap, every time a user opens a Pajap-based application will be delivered with the latest version of that application. Modified layout, new product offers, new album covers, new top stories new UI layout, or even entirely different functionality of an app will be delivered instantly to the users of that application as the publisher intended. The update process of a Pajap-based application is entirely transparent to the user, since it happens when opening the app. In conclusion, this is the most innovative feature of Pajap, according to which applications can be modified daily in order to share a better experience with the end-user.

Pinning an application is the equivalent of installing an ordinary application. A shortcut is created at the mobile‘s home screen giving the illusion that this app is installed on the device. When the Pajap application-shortcut is selected then the specific application will open as any other app. The specific app will be opened as a stand-alone app and will be performing as top quality native apps are performing.

Pajap applications can be extracted as different apps so that developers can publish to the markets for themselves. These apps will exist also in the Pajap market, in order to exploit its features like geo-apps, which will be explained thoroughly later. Users that find these apps from the regular marketplaces will have to install that app as usual but they will not have to update it.

Label 59: A Web-Based Application that Requires No Coding Skills and That Helps you to Label Anything Interactively on your Own in Minutes

November 8, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Label59.com

Label 59 is a web application that helps you to label anything interactively on your own in minutes. It is ideal for creating engaging presentations that have interactive labels attached to them.

We had lengthy and fruitful interview with Mr. ‘Shaantanu Hans‘; Co-founder and Lead Developer of the India (Jalandhar-Punjab)-based start-up “Label 59″; regarding who they are and what their company is all about.

“Label 59“ is a web application that lets you label anything interactively. It is ideal for creating engaging presentations that have interactive labels attached to them.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Hans’ regarding his web based start-up company ”Label 59″;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “Label 59″ is all about?

We are a Web Design & Development Company based in India. Our start-up Label 59 is a web application that helps you to label anything interactively on your own in minutes. It is ideal for creating engaging presentations (e.g. product feature demos, labelled diagrams for learning material etc.) that have interactive labels attached to them. These labels are hotspots on the photo and are represented by markers. You then define content for each of these markers by adding connectors (connecting lines emerging from the markers to pinpoint finer details), arrows (linear dimension tool to highlight dimensions), text blocks (animated blocks containing text), tooltips (a hover box with information about the item being hovered over) & details window (popup window within the presentation).

What you get as a result of all this is an impressive presentation that highlights the key points on your photo when the markers are clicked or when the mouse pointer hovers over them.

These presentations are easy to create, interactive, cost effective and they help you pinpoint the finer details on any photo by taking it to a whole new level.

Anyone with little or no technical knowledge, can create these presentations with our easy to use (DIY) Do-It-Yourself online application. You can even get these presentations made from Label 59 Design Team.

2. When has “Label 59″ been founded? And what stage is “Label 59″ currently at?

Our company was incorporated in 2002. The idea about Label 59 (our new start-up) originated in mid-2011 and the work started later that year. Label 59 was finally launched in July 2012.

Currently we are focusing on spreading the word about Label 59 and growing our user base by using all modes of marketing.

3. What is “Label 59″‘s business model and how does it work?

Label 59 has both free and paid plans (credits and premium) with restriction on the number of presentations / slides.

Under the credits option, users are charged on a per slide basis. The premium user get unlimited usage. All plans are available for periods of 1, 3, 6 and 12 months.

Academic Pricing Program is available for qualified academic users. We also have an extended free plan for students.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

We are a team of 2 brothers (Shaantanu Hans & Vaibhav Hans), the co-founders of Label 59.

I handle the programming part … the coding behind Label 59, the aspect that is actually noticeable when you take Label 59 on a spin.

The aspect of Label 59 that you actually see i.e. the graphical user interface and the layout has been done by my younger brother Vaibhav, the designer at Seigospace.

All the other aspects have been handled together.

We have not been able to find any other similar option so far. What our (DIY) Do-It-Yourself Application helps you do online, is something that people used to get done from professional web designers and developers. Our greatest USP has been to bring this flexibility to the user and that too at a fraction of the cost.

citibuddies.com: An Online Social Platform That Connects People Enabling them to Re-Explore and Re-Discover their Favorite Cities Online and Offline Using a Different Perspective – the Local One

November 5, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Citibuddies.com

Citibuddies.com is an online social platform that connects people enabling them to re-explore and re-discover their favorite cities online and offline using a different perspective which is the local one.

We had an in-depth and insightful interview with Mr. ‘Aidan Mehmed‘; Founder and CMO of the Argentina (Buenos Aires)-based start-up “citibuddies Inc.”.

“citibuddies“ is a connection platform in cities that presents you the coolest things to do in the urban jungle, connects you to the right people and makes you a local in the global world . For locals and visitors. Virtually and in the real world.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Mehmed’ regarding his online social platform company “citibuddies Inc.”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “citibuddies Inc.” is all about?

We are creating an online social platform which opens up the ‘doors’ of cities for us, an online social gateway for each city. With this online network we connect people enabling them to re-explore and re-discover their favorite cities online and offline using a different perspective – the local one. No matter where you are located you would know what is fun to do out there in the city you are in or in the one you would like to go to. Thus you not only save time and money, but also you don’t feel awkward or like a foreigner anymore wherever you go.

2. When has “citibuddies Inc.” been founded? And what stage is “citibuddies Inc.” currently at?

citibuddies Inc. officially incorporated in July 2012 in Delaware, USA. Currently we are developing our beta, refining our business and marketing strategy; not to forget we are looking for enthusiastic people to join our team. Very soon we will reveal some very interesting new content which was kept secret for months and we plan to launch the beta in November 2012.

3. What is “citibuddies Inc.”‘s business model and how does it work?

The business model includes online Ads based on your geo-location, premium access (space for promotional content for business partners) and margin-based revenue from our marketplace feature. Once we launch our Mobile Apps for smartphones and tablets, we also plan on penetrating the Mobile Ads market. We strive to deliver not only a unique experience via the online network as a service, but additionally help the user to save money and time while doing it and we help our business partners to reach audiences that they cannot reach via facebook or other social networks yet.

4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?

We met in Groningen, the Netherlands during my Graduate studies there and the Doctoral studies of Darja thanks to fortunate chain of events. I was at the stage when I was seeking the next big thing to work on and fight for and once I heard about the project I was totally up for it. Darja (CEO) is busy with operations, product development and our finances, whereas my focus is marketing, sales and business development. We both try to recruit people constantly and in general, we both do a bit of everything, as a small team in a start-up, you have to. Furthermore we constantly work with volunteers for which we are very grateful for.

citibuddies provides relevant and timely information about activities/events in cities and connects you to people that might be relevant for whatever you want to do. Each activity, each event offered to you is in line with the user’s tastes and likes. You can easily use the platform to promote you initiatives and gain visibility among communities that are of your interest. Moreover, we are currently based and focused on Latin America, which offers great potential for growth in the social media and travel/leisure segments in the future.

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