Marketing And Advertising

EWC Presenter: A Web Content Creation and Management Platform that Simplifies the Way Users Develop and Maintain Content for Web and Mobile

April 17, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

EWC Presenter is a web content creation and management platform that simplifies the way users develop and maintain content for web and mobile.

We had a very insightful and interesting interview with Mr. ‘Payman Taei‘; Founder and President of the US (Frederick)-based start-up “EWC Presenter”.

“EWC Presenter” is a web based platform to create, edit and enhance thousands of users web presence.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Taei’ regarding his internet start-up company “EWC Presenter”;

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

I am the Founder and President of EWC Presenter (www.ewcPresenter.com), a web content creation and management platform that simplifies the way users develop and maintain content for web and mobile. We’re all about creating efficiency and simplifying the way users interact and manage their web presence. Our service is geared towards anyone with little to no technical knowledge who wants to take charge of their website be it creating, editing or adding engaging features to their websites.

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

EWC Presenter is an extension of Easy WebContent which was founded in late 2008 as a simple website editor geared towards anyone who wanted to easily manage the content of their websites without coding knowledge or changes to their existing website. In 2010 we extended our system to allow site owners to add various interactive features to their site and today we have leaped into creating an easy to use yet powerful site builder that gives non technical users the ability to develop and maintain their web presence.

And today with EWC Presenter we are changing the way engaging content is created.

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

EWC Presenter is currently free to everyone; We aim to continue supporting our freemium model long-term and offer an extended version of the service under a premium subscription plan as we have already done for our HTML Editor and Site Builder.

EWC Presenter is a cloud based system; giving us the ability to scale and serve our users growing needs deploying regular upgrades and features to users without the need to manually update or pay upgrade fees for new version releases.

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

Our team comes from different walks of life. I would say that we are extremely diverse both in culture and skill. It’s a great cohesion with each member and whenever we conduct meetings it’s always a creative mission. Our team met at our Web Development company HindSite Interactive, an award winning web consulting company which incubated and supported Easy WebContent from the start. Without HindSite Interactive we likely wouldn’t be here today.

We have members that work in the Easy WebContent office and some that work from the comforts of their home, so communication is key to our functionality and success.

We use a few different modes of communication depending on the task at hand. Design oriented tasks are often done in person between our design team; while development oriented tasks are handled through our CRM system, email and sometimes skype or chat. We’re quite open and flexible and open to all communication means; whichever best serves the purpose.

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?

Our goal is not to give users every possible feature you can imagine. It’s about giving them features and capabilities that most users need in a easy to use and user friendly manner.

Additionally although some users want out of the box solutions, we find that many also want to have a certain level of control and flexibility. For example you may like a certain theme we offer but you want to make it your own by changing colors, graphics and even minute adjustment such as border, spacing and margins.

Our offering give you these abilities while eliminating the headache of any coding and design experience.

Pollfish: A Survey Web Platform that Allows Anyone to Create a Survey, Select Audience from Pollfish Distribution and Get Answers

April 1, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

Pollfish.com

Pollfish is a survey web platform that allows anyone to create a survey, select audience from Pollfish distribution and get answers.

Start-Ups.Co had an in-depth and intuitive interview with Mr. ‘Giannis Zaoudis‘; Co-Founder and CTO of the Cyprus-based start-up “Pollfish”.

“Pollfish“ is a survey platform which provides access to millions of targeted users.

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

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

Pollfish is a survey web platform that allows anyone to create a survey, select audience from Pollfish distribution and get answers. Pollfish builds its distribution with mobile app developers who embed Pollfish SDK into their apps, in order to gain revenue.

Pollfish can be considered as a marketplace similar to the mobile ad marketplaces that already exist.

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

Pollfish has been founded on March 2013 and it has already over 150,000 users and two paying customers. Currently we are expanding our network in England and we are in discussion with well known research companies for the next surveys. The next goal is to hit 1,000,000 users and be able to make worldwide surveys for big firms.

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

Pollfish potential clients are anyone that wishes to create a survey and get some answers. Clients can be individuals, market research companies, advertising agencies, firms and others. Pollfish focuses on the online surveys market, while re-channeling it through existing mobile apps!

Pollfish provides a one-stop solution from survey creation to delivery of results. Pollfish introduces survey distribution and targeting as a service! Distribution is built through partnerships with mobile app developers who embed Pollfish SDK into their apps. Clients pay per completed survey and revenue is shared with the developers.

Every day thousands of mobile applications are released to the different app stores around the world. Different monetization methods are used on these apps following the successful ad model. Pollfish is taking advantage of this model to deliver more revenue and happy users to the developers! Users responding to Pollfish surveys can win prizes or discounts through Pollfish partnered retailers, something which brings in additional revenue to Pollfish as users are channeled towards the retailers and get commission on the sales while simultaneously keeping users engaged.

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

Pollfish team started working in January 2013 with the vision to change the global landscape of how mobile surveys are conducted! Pollfish has 5 founders, which are spread, in two different countries (Cyprus and Greece). The team is working remotely though Skype for the last three months and managed to take the project from an idea to a minimum valuable product with 150k users on the platform and two paying customers!

Pollfish team members know each other for a long time and has previously founded other startups and worked together in different projects in the past!

John Papadakis – Founder and CEO: John is responsible for the team coordination and sales. He is also building the back-end of Pollfish platform.

Andreas Vourkos – Founder and COO: Andreas is responsible for the operations of Pollfish and sales. He is keeping the balance in this group of fellows. He is building and supporting the Pollfish Android SDK.

Giannis Zaoudis – Founder and CTO: Giannis is responsible for the technology of Pollfish. He is dealing with the server side issues and he is developing the front-end of the platform.

Vasileios Mitrousis – Founder and Head of Mobile: Vasileios is responsible for anything regarding the mobile part of Pollfish. He is dealing with the fragmentation issues and he is building and supporting the Pollfish iOS SDK.

Zissis Bellas – Founder and Art Director: Zissis is responsible for the user interface, brand development and anything else related to the image of Pollfish. He is building the mobile UI, the website, the promo videos and other.

John, Giannis and Andreas have graduated from the same University and have been friends for more than 9 years! John and Giannis have co-founded a San Francisco registered startup (http://www.pajap.com) in the past. John and Giannis have won different competitions around mobile and web development.

Andreas and Vasileios have co-founded Wajee Mobile Ltd (http://www.wajeemobile.com), a mobile software house startup. They built their own augmented reality SDK libraries from scratch, being among the few companies in the world with that kind of ownership and won different competitions such as Cyprus Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012, Cyprus Hackathon 2012 and others.

Zissis was introduced to the team later on and became a perfect match! Zissis took part in many of the most well known advertising campaigns at Greece during the last two years! All member teams have been working full time on this project for the last 3 months.

Pollfish introduces a new innovative way of monetization of mobile apps in the global scene and additionally exposes and targets the elusive mobile user to survey! Below we highlight some of the most important advantages of Pollfish platform:

• Pollfish is following the widely spread and successive mobile advertising model. Pollfish builds its distribution with mobile apps developers who embed Pollfish SDK into their apps, in order to gain revenue. Each completed survey can provide 10-20 times more revenue than ad clicks! SDK integration is easy, fast and does not reserve any extra space to the developer’s app. Therefore, Pollfish can bring monetization to mobile developers in a complete different way than ads and with much more higher rates!

• By 2015 there will be more mobile users than web users. Mobile users are a very attractive segment, not easily accessible for market research. Pollfish brings full survey experience to engaged mobile users in an easy and not intrusive way! Pollfish builds its distribution through partnerships with mobile app developers who embed Pollfish SDK into their apps. Clients pay per completed survey and revenue is shared with the developers.

• One of the most important things in market research is targeting. Pollfish provides access to its clients; to the audience they really want. Pollfish ongoing targeting system continuously learns and improves by fully taking advantage of its user base. Pollfish is a distribution and targeting service for surveys, with access to a specific and hard to access audience, mobile users. Pollfish is a scalable product that can grow and expand to an international level.

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Filed Under: Marketing And Advertising, Web Based Applications, Websites Tagged With: Giannis Zaoudis, mobile, Pollfish, survey

Gozoop: A Digital Services and Products Provider Agency Based in Mumbai and Dubai

March 12, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

Gozoop.com

Gozoop, a young and entrepreneurial digital services and products provider with presence in India and UAE has created a niche for itself in the ecommerce space

Start-Ups.Co had an insightful interview with Mr. ‘Rohan Bhansali‘; CEO of the India (Mumbai) and the UAE (Dubai)-based start-up “Gozoop”.

“Gozoop” is a web marketing agency based in Mumbai and Dubai.

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

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

Gozoop is a young an entrepreneurial web marketing agency based in Mumbai and Dubai.

We are young in the sense that the average age of our 50 member team is 22. We are entrepreneurial in the sense that we run our own in-house online businesses, blog networks and even make investments in other online businesses.

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

Gozoop started in April 2010. We like looking at ourselves as a start up.

Since we started we have grown to a team size of 50+ with presence in India and Dubai. We are pursuing starting off in Singapore soon.

We are also simultaneously investing in our product businesses – Zozolo and Decidebuddy.

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

From the service point of view – We help companies and brands optimize their digital presence. 70% of our business is on retainer model.

As far as our products go we have Zozolo and Decidebuddy.

Zozolo.com which works on a SaaS model. Decidebuddy.com is a review portal which is still in pre monetization stage.

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

Ahmed, Dushyant and I used to work at JPMorgan where we met. Initially Ahmed and I started a venture called RaAstudios. Dushyant was RaA’s first client wherein we helped him with his venture Blogertize.

Dushyant joint us in April 2010 to form Gozoop. Gozoop bought over RaAstudios in October 2010.

Am going to try not to give a cliche answer. I think what makes us different is our culture. This translates into quality and transparent service to our clients.

Other than that we look at our clients’ business from a business point of view, not just a service point of view. We can do this because we heavily invest in our own product businesses.

Explainify: An Animated Explainer Video Production House that Create Remarkable Videos for Businesses

February 20, 2013 By admin 1 Comment

Explainify.com

Explainify (explainify.com) is an animation and video studio specializing in the creation of short, to-the-point stories – Explainer Videos.

We had a very interesting and in-depth interview with Mr. ‘Eric Hinson’; Founder of the US (Arkansas)-based start-up “Explainify”.

“Explainify” is an animated explainer video production house.

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

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

Explainify (explainify.com) is an animation and video studio specializing in the creation of short, to-the-point stories – Explainer Videos. We work with anyone that has a website, idea or business on awesome videos that are less than 90 seconds – the average attention span of the viewer.

Explainer videos are the hot new thing for businesses. They increase sales and conversion rates dramatically! It’s the easiest way to give your perfect “elevator pitch” every single time to millions.

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

We launched in January of 2012, but didn’t actively look for explainer video work. It was more of a means to pay the bills by doing some agency work that a friend had. It gave me some much needed time to get everything ready for things to be successful once I hit it hard. As far as stages go, we are building a network of great clients and trying to knock out killer videos for them.

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

Explainify offers multiple video packages. Our projects are customized to tell each client’s story most effectively, so pricing is often quoted to match the project priorities and creative direction. We start by discussing our client’s needs. Then, together we decide what would work best for them. We have a specific process that helps us and clients know what to expect.

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

The team started with just my wife and I. I met her at an awesome bookstore her family owned. We’ve added one more since – and he’s a huge help! I worked with him at Rockfish, the agency I was at before launching Explainify. He’s a super fun guy, we get along great and make things happen together. My wife’s main focus is scripting, concepting and design. Stuart does animation and sound design. We all really do a little bit of everything and we love it that way. We all have a hand in every part of the project. We feed off each others strengths and creative abilities to come up with the best solution for our clients. It’s kind of like a being in a band. You may write an awesome sounding riff by yourself. When you bring that riff to rehearsal the other bandmates take it and expand on it making it even better than it was before.

The biggest thing is that we don’t make long explainer videos. We 100% believe there is no need to go over 90 seconds with our videos (and there’s tons of research to prove it). If we can’t tell your story in under 90 seconds, we’re probably not the best fit for each other.

We’re fortunate enough to be able to say no to people that we don’t think would be a good fit for us to work with. It’s not all about money – we want cool projects, awesome clients and most importantly – to have fun. We’d rather make less, enjoy ourselves and have a more successful result for our client.

Selling to the Masses: A Consumer Product Accelerator that Helps You Get your New Product into Mass Market Retail

January 28, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

SellingtotheMasses.com

Selling to the Masses consists of three elements: webinars and weekend trainings that help entrepreneurs figure out where they want to go with their new consumer product ideas; mentors from Fortune 500 companies and major universities who work directly with entrepreneurs; and a product incubation lab where we bring our network together to support the most promising products.

We had a very insightful and in-depth interview with Mr. ‘Jeff Clapper‘; Partner at the US (Arkansas)-based start-up “Selling to the Masses”.

“Selling to the Masses” is a Consumer Product Accelerator that Helps You Get your New Product into Mass Market Retail.

Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Clapper’ regarding his company “Selling to the Masses”;

1. What is it exactly that you do and what “Selling to the Masses” is all about?

Most new products fail. Between the moment when you get a great idea and the moment when you breathe a sigh of relief that your product is successfully launched and selling, there are so many individual points of failure that it’s a wonder any products make it to market.

Selling to the Masses is the brainchild of a group of experts in mass retail. We know how to get consumer goods from concept to successful roll-out because we’ve done it — but more than that, we understand mass retailers. We know all the steps along the way, from design to fulfillment to marketing and promotion. We know where the pitfalls lie and how you can leap across them.

Selling to the Masses consists of three elements: webinars and weekend trainings that help entrepreneurs figure out where they want to go with their new consumer product ideas; mentors from Fortune 500 companies and major universities who work directly with entrepreneurs; and a product incubation lab where we bring our network together to support the most promising products.

2. When has “Selling to the Masses” been founded? And what stage is “Selling to the Masses” currently at?

Founded in 2011, Selling to the Masses is still in its early stages. We have our mentors on board, our research is has been done and our training materials are completed, and we’ve held one weekend workshop as well as several webinars.

We’ve been able to identify the people who can benefit most from our trainings and mentoring, and to fine-tune our message. We’ve identified the strategic partners our clients need in order to get from idea to shelf, and we’re building our list of investors.

Obviously a project of this size takes a lot of work and preparation. Fortunately, we have the background and connections in place.

We’re currently working on getting the word out to the inventors and entrepreneurs we want to serve.

3. What is “Selling to the Masses”‘s business model and how does it work?

We provide low cost and free webinars to identify innovators with ideas that have a good chance of success. We encourage those individuals to proceed to the weekend trainings.

While the weekend trainings are profitable for us, we see them primarily as an opportunity to nurture ideas and entrepreneurs who will benefit from our incubation lab.

We benefit as trainers and as investors when the companies we mentor attain their goals.

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

Selling to the Masses is a project of 101 Ventures, a team of former Walmart executives and entrepreneurs working in the consumer product space.

We were discussing the work of Harvard’s Dr. Clayton Christenson, who estimates that of the roughly 30,000 new products that launch each year, 95% are doomed to fail.

We could see that some of the failures were the result of poor design, a lack of follow through, or a weak idea. But we could also see that some product failures were the result of a lack of knowledge.

Working with mass retailers like Walmart requires a lot of specialized knowledge — it’s not just common sense. An entrepreneur will have to work with and within a huge system. For many, it’s like having grown up on land and having to learn to work underwater. Without knowing how the system works and how to thrive within in, an entrepreneur can end up failing horribly right at the threshold of success.

An older company of ours, 8th & Walton, is the #1 training company for Walmart suppliers. We realized that the people who weren’t yet ready for mass retail, but needed to get there, needed to be served just as we served those suppliers.

There are other business incubators, but they don’t focus on consumer products to be distributed through mass market retail.

Companies that support inventors and innovators who want to create new consumer goods tend to see them through getting their products to market.

Getting on the shelf at mass retailers like Walmart, Home Depot, or Target is the eventual goal for these companies, but going about that goal wrong can mean failure beyond just failing to meet that goal. The investment required just to get an appointment with a buyer can put a small company out of business if they don’t make it — and an unprepared company that makes it into Walmart can be destroyed by a failure there.

We grew up in the Walmart vendor community, a very specialized neighborhood. We know exactly what it takes to make sure that an entrepreneur is ready for mass market retail. We have the top-notch trainers who can convey that information well and experienced mentors who can support entrepreneurs through the process.

Gozoop: A Digital Services and Products Provider that has Created a Niche for Itself in the E-Commerce Space

January 21, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

Gozoop.com

Gozoop, a young and entrepreneurial digital services and products provider with presence in India and UAE has created a niche for itself in the ecommerce space

We had a quick chit chat with Mr. ‘Iyer Premkumar‘; Head of Online Marketing at the India / UAE – based start-up “Gozoop”.

According to Mr. ‘Premkumar’; Gozoop, a young and entrepreneurial digital services and products provider with presence in India and UAE has created a niche for itself in the ecommerce space. Best known for its unique work culture, Gozoop is a team of 46 digital enthusiasts with an average age of 22.

Gozoop’s business currently consists of 3 verticals – service, products and web properties.

On the services fronts it helps brands and personalities with their online presence.

Services include Social Media Marketing, Online PR, Search Engine Marketing & Optimization, Media Buying, Web Design & Development and Mobile Applications.

Gozoop’s clients include Commercial Bank of Dubai, Carrefour, Mad Over Donuts, Rocket Internet, Snapdeal, FashionandYou.com, etc.

Gozoop launched it’s flagship Facebook Commerce product under the brand Zozolo.

The product featured in Mashable’s Fast Pitch 2010 and was the only entrant from Asia.

Subsequently Gozoop launched a Social Loyalty product that is currently being used by a number of brands to monitor their social media engagements. [Read more...]