These three videos explain what many of the digerati fail to mention -- software is not really eating the world. It's really creating new growth. It is now so easy to get software -- you can get free Windows and Azure stuff through Microsoft BizSpark -- and it is so easy to get information about the software ecosystem and the problems faced by consumers and enterprises -- that we are seeing a huge order of magnitude increase in use cases that show software is actually bringing ideas, jobs, economies and people together.
In the consumer market and the enterprise market, it's not about the bright shiny device. It's about solving a problem. And software is just another tool in the hand that creates solutions.
First, a demonstration that provides context: Donald Leka at New York Tech Meetup this week demonstrating Glide, which syncs software for music and photo sharing through all devices running Windows 8. It looks like this app gets out ahead of Dropbox and Box.
Then there is Steven Guggenheimer, who just took the helm of Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism division, explaining at LeWeb the context around what makes the Windows 8 value proposition so worthwhile for developers. He takes a crib off of the concept that Leka leads with -- that there are three types of device platforms -- the Apple way, the Android way, and now the Microsoft way. Microsoft ends up being a happy medium between the rigid, hardware-mostly position of Apple, and the fragmented, software approach of Android, which is so multi-device led that apps makers are not going to be sure whether their software / app will work on a device.
Then I leave you with this -- a measure of how small affordable platforms are for any kind of coding team to build on. Developer Evangelist Sonal Mane, based in Chicago, sits down with a Startup Weekend team and figures out what they are doing to eat the world with their software.
I encourage you to listen to how the two developers describe the culture they work in, and the people that they interact with -- at the end of the day, it's not the wonderful thing you build. It's the solution that brings people together and helps them.
General Manager of Bing Fund Rahul Sood showed up in NYC this week to open up the new Windows App Lab. Here is how things went down at We Work Labs.
In many developing countries, the barriers to building rapidly a medical personnel and infrastructure are so huge that millions of children die every year due to complications from easily treated illnesses. One of those illnesses is pneumonia, which actually kills more people than HIV in Africa each year. And the sad thing about it is, a simple diagnoses of chest complications is all that is needed to distribute penicillin to the patient. The problem there is twofold: sometimes field doctors don't have the right equipment. And worse, sometimes they don't have any training.
So a team of doctors, researchers and hackers came up with StethoCloud, which takes a regular stethoscope and hooks it up to a smartphone so that a simple set of code can diagnose the patient quickly. The system runs on the Windows Azure cloud.
But here is what is interesting about it. With the cloud, it would make it entirely easy to treat the disease as a living, breathing data set. Uploading to the cloud data from millions of diagnostic tests would enable doctors and researchers to see how the disease behaves in the community. Inherent to this, I think, is a switch from treating the disease at every individual source - which is kind of reactive -- to understanding the disease as an organism. It's kind of like every Aspen tree is really one single Aspen tree. Disease moves through communities the way ideas do, passing from each susceptible source to each able spreader.
Right now, medical infrastructure, even in the developed world, masses huge resources against treating the individual. It spreads out a ratio of, say, 5000 possible patients to each doctor, and creates a workflow that is reactionary rather than predictive. That's really because all a doctor can do is apply her basic knowledge against a series of presentable symptoms. What if you reversed that? What if, by using smartphones, you were able to build, at scale, a platform of disease data?
What I think happens then is that you can leverage the huge power of the cloud to make a predictive diagnosis of where the disease will be next.
We don't often see disease as a collecdtive organism, because we don't treat it collectively. StethoCloud will be one of the first steps to understand that behavior, and I would bet that with more of this kind of smart phone technology, we might also see a huge decrease in the presentation of pneumonia, and, who knows, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and more.
StethoCloud placed second place in the Microsoft Imagine Cup and was presented with $50,000 yesterday at the Microsoft Silicon Valley headquarters.
Starting this evening, it is now possible for BizSpark startups to use RightScale to ramp up quickly on Windows Azure. If you haven't looked into Microsoft BizSpark yet, this would be a good time to do so. BizSpark gives young startups making less than one million dollars in revenue some free software and access to low-cost computing hours on Windows Azure.
We also offer hands-on support at many of the incubators and accelerators around the world.
It's super simple to qualify. For more about the community of founders, engineers, and developers we serve, you should visit our Facebook page for BizSpark.
RightScale Cloud Management is the bridge between your applications and your cloud infrastructure. The MultiCloud Platform provides a universal remote to conveniently access your public, private, and hybrid cloud resource pools from one Dashboard and API. The Configuration Framework provides intelligent cloud blueprints to configure and operate your servers in a dynamic and completely customizable fashion. The MultiCloud Marketplace™ provides a one-stop shop of cloud-ready components. The Automation Engine gives you the power to provision, monitor, scale, and manage entire server deployments efficiently and reliably. Governance Controls allow you to keep watch over access, security, auditing, reporting, and budgeting through a “single pane of glass” view.
Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. It's actually just a promotion for a startup that uses busy intersections and photo-taking kiosks to promote brands using digital / social campaigns. On busy Michigan Avenue in Chicago stands one of those digital kiosk promoting a bank.
It's an effort by Elevate Digital to make location-aware and people-aware advertising that gives people what they want as soon as they need it, but not at the micro level. They meet people in public spaces using interactive displays
This is an example of one of the companies our evangelists work with, and the kinds of company that can end up being a Microsoft BizSpark member.
We provide startups less than five years old and making less than one million in revenue. You should check out the site and look through the requirements.
Elevate Digital develops street-level technology that connects people where they live and work. We have seen this kind of technology in Seoul, Korea, where at busy subway platforms commuters waiting for their trains interact with celebrity content and even create their own content to compete for brand rewards and contests. Elevate Digital places their digital kiosks running branding campaigns at the street-level, usually in major metropolitan cities, so that people can take their photo, play interactive games and enter to win contests. Their latest campaign is about how Benny The Bull, Tommyhawk and Hubert have Bieber Fever!
The digital interactive display sits on Michigan Avenue, and is being used to promote a campaign for BMO Harris Bank. Contestants can qualify for tickets to see Justin Bieber in concert.
If that video doesn't tell you enough, here's a 14 minute interview with Digital Elevate founder George Burciaga.
Here's a video that explains it.
At the recent Foundercon, the private networking event hosted by TechStars, I was fortunate enough to meet Andrew Stein, VP of Development at Distil and an alumni of TechStars Cloud Accelerator.
Written by Allan Da Costa Pinto. Allan is a Technical Evangelist who works with startups and software developers in the northeastern US to build apps for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Azure
Andrew and team have built a set of services around various back end cloud technologies to offer clients the ability to “Protect your website against web scraping, content theft, competitive data mining, and more, without impeding your end-user,” he says.
To improve their algorithms, Distil collects vast amounts of data to query for trends and analyze usage patterns. Since going live in April 2012, they have faced an ever-increasing data explosion problem. “At one point, we had tons of logs on a single mysql instance.” With a very small team focused on their core competencies, Andrew didn’t have much time to research and ramp on new technologies to solve his data problem.
By his own admission, Andrew is definitely a non-Microsoft technologist, “I know very little .NET”, he said. “We do a lot of perl and PHP.”
By virtue of being enrolled in Microsoft’s BizSpark Plus program, Andrew did have access to hours of free cloud computing on Windows Azure and was able to see an opportunity to simplify his data problem. He was able to use Windows Azure SQL Database and Azure Blobs and Queues, to offload, process and query the data in a cost effective and efficient manner. Given his background with mysql, Windows Azure SQL Database proved very familiar to Andrew and he realized the benefits of not having to worry about up time, data replication and management of this solution built on Windows Azure. In his words, “Microsoft manages those details.”
BizSpark Plus “makes it really easy to jump on Windows Azure,” said Andrew. “We keep building on it!” Not bad for a non-Microsoft guy who knows very little .NET.
If you are building highly scalable solutions or unlocking business value from huge volumes of distributed data, consider Windows Azure!
P.S. Andrew has done some cool things with connecting his Ubuntu based VMs and Windows Azure, he intends to blog about it on the distil.it blog, stay tuned!
Back in the early part of November, I cruised around San Francisco looking for developers to talk to, as I do normally. I was introduced to Emil Anticevic, a developer working for Imaginary Feet. He was working at the time on one of the first Windows 8 apps that would go into the Windows Store. His team is run by Tom McLeod, a well-known developer in San Francisco. They are based out of RocketSpace on Fremont Street.
Update: Includes link to app in Windows Store.
This interview is from November 2. Frametastic launched in the Windows App Store about three days ago. In the interview, you will see that the sharing function doesn't work when he hits the charm in the Windows 8 interface. We found out after I stopped the video that this was because he was unknowingly working with a version of the app that hadn't had the connection for sharing worked out. It works.
Here's the full interview, which offers an honest view on working with Visual Studio. "It's a really good developing environment," says Anticevic. He says that it's a really easy interface to work with once you figure out the Windows 8 design.
Visit us for more information on how Microsoft BizSpark can help your business with free software, visibility and technical support.
Microsoft Technical Evangelist Steve Seow takes us through the 54 hours of glory that go into doing a Startup Weekend and coming out of it with something awesome. And if no product, at least a bunch of great friends. You can get in touch with Steve on Twitter @SteveSeow.
Are you in the matrix? Is the Twitter handle itself a complete distribution system for what you know and when you know it? Is it a time stamp? What is social media, if just a hyper aware network of nodes that know more than you know, but that are accentuated in their knowledge discourse when you talk to them and add to their information base? What do bees have to do with product cycles and marketing?
These, and other questions, have everything to do with Fake Grimlock making an appearance at Foundercon, the private networking event hosted by TechStars today in Boston. Fake Grimlock, a person invented complete from social network interactions by an as yet still unnamed individual proves that social media networks are eating the world.
And by "world," I mean, what you think you know about your own assumptions when building a startup.
This post is written by Douglas Crets, Community Manager, Microsoft BizSpark. The opinions contained herein have yet to be disproven, so start doing that in the comments below. I welcome having my points blown apart. Microsoft BizSpark is very happy to partner with TechStars, by the way. For more information about them, please visit our TechStars page.
Here is the hard light of truth about startups -- they not only form new businesses around complex problems, they also transform our perceptions about what is real and what can be taken for granted about our business ideas and our markets.
@FakeGrimlock (on left), the giant metal robot dinosaur, being interviewed on stage
at FounderCon in Boston. Photo Courtesy: Clare Tischer, @clareyt
Read some of this interview in BostonInno with FakeGrimlock. Here's a really important nugget:
But which of these is the real lesson? I put it a bit more bluntly to GRIMLOCK. For all his belief that his ideas are gaining an audience despite not having a credible name attached to them – a belief rooted in a faith that the truth will prevail – are ideas the real reason why he gets gigs like FounderCon? Or does it have more to do with the giant dinosaur mask he wears on stage?
GRIMLOCK told me he doesn’t much care. I asked the related question: If we don’t know who you are and what you’ve done, why should any of us trust you?
“That’s easy,” he said. “Try it. If it doesn’t work I was wrong.”
This is not exactly groundbreaking, but it is something that every entrepreneur should consider. let me break it down in the way I know best to describe it. Consider this me putting FakeGrimlock into context
1. Your social network is the first layer of your customer base
2. Therefore, your social network is your marketing organization
3. You don't drive the message, your customers do, when you reach out to them, interact in their lives, and offer them your product.
4. Your product is a reflection of your work, and your customers' passionate interests, their very real and deeply felt need to solve problems, and the need to find success in their lives.
For my money, I do not believe that you can convince someone that your product works by telling them that it does. So, if you are a service, or a product distributor, or a lean startup, your first and foremost marketing and community management activity should be finding out if it does.
What I like about the FakeGrimlock perspective is that it is totally in sync with the way social networks have distributed the reality of product life cycles. People for years would struggle at a company like GM, or Ford, or GE to create the perfect door hinge, or the perfect light bulb, and then once all that was proven with marketing focus groups and testing (focus groups, mind you, that were given leading questions to compare x with a y), they sent out messaging that convinced people that this was true before they even bought the product.
Social networks and web=based, or cloud-based services are different. The product is a functional part of the web, solving a problem brought on by the web, or experienced in the web, by people who have cheap, simple, and openly available networks on which to tell you if their experience is working or not.
There is nothing now but a membrane of belief separating the company and product maker from the consumer. You have to choose how to speak to the consumer, and in many cases, as FakeGrimlock is saying, the best way to interact with the customer is to listening. The listening feeds a cycle of satisfaction and success.
Success, in other words, is whether the consumer had a direct line into the company and the product and made it something that solved his particular problem. This is how social networks are eating the world. They are like a swarm of helper bees bringing information back to the hive. They signal to the core of the hive where the nectar is. If you can't listen to that, or they can't communicate that information, the hive dies.
Very few things in the Silicon Valley tech scene are more refreshing than observing a group of gung ho, disruption-focused Stanford students waiting to share their idea to a group of 150 of the best and the brightest. But Microsoft was born this way, so, when we sponsored the last Startup Weekend at Stanford, we decided to go one step further, and do what we are good at. Some of our evangelists actually jumped in on some teams to help as much as we could.
This blog post was written by Nisha Baxi, Partner Marketing Manager of US Developer and Platform Evangelist operations for the West coast, Microsoft
Last weekend, I experienced my first Startup Weekend at Stanford University experience. Along with StartX, GSB and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Microsoft hosted the overflowing think tank of doctors, lawyers, engineers and business folk, who, like me, excitedly watched as ideas were being pitched about 3D TV’s without glasses, location-based apps for sharing leftover food and mapping disease epicenters based on Facebook data. And 63 pitches later, 16 teams of 4-8 found a corner of Stanford’s famous Y2E2 building and began building. This went on for an entire weekend.
Our approach was far from the ordinary, but simple enough: join a team, roll up our sleeves and start coding. What better way to show the possibilities of Windows 8, Phone and Azure? Kevin Ashley, our resident app nut, with 13 apps in the store, joined a team that localizes organic food choices. Helen Zeng, the passionate fresh out of college grad, blended in well with a team that built a goal setting app. Our esteemed architect, John Alioto, worked with several teams on structuring their architectural vision, conceptualizing design, experimenting with alternative approaches and creating models. I spent most of time with a fashion startup that ultimately placed 2nd overall, going over their market competitors, customer acquisition strategy and the widely dreaded business model.
When the weekend was all said and done, the first place finisher was a hardware solution. Microsoft had several companies work on a Windows solution 1 for phone and 2 for Windows 8! Since the event, we have received over 10 requests for help building on Windows 8 & Windows Phone. Success! The lessons that I learned here re: show and don’t tell, immerse yourself and have fun! For more information on a Startup Weekend around you please visit: http://startupweekend.org/. They are hosting a huge Global Entrepreneurship Weekend starting on November 19.
This kind of participation is part of Microsoft BizSpark's efforts to work closely with startup developers, to help them with turning their disruptive ideas into growing businesses and world-changing feats of entrepreneurial excellence.
Developers have been asking me about what Microsoft BizSpark will do to get more developers and startup people together around the world. Well, it turns out our partners at Startup Weekend have more than we had bargained for. I didn't know what it was, but I kept seeing this awesome graphic about the Global Startup Battle floating around Facebook.
So, I asked John Beadle, the SF Bay Area Leader for Startup Weekend to give you all some more insight, and this is the main gist, for those of you who might be experiencing it for the first time. This thing truly is global, so everyone who has been asking me about when we are going to have more coding, developer, and founder-- meeting events you can do in places other than New York, Seattle, or San Francisco, your wait is over.
Startup Weekend, in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week GEW (initiative sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation), hosts a Global Startup Battle.
The Global Startup Battle consists of more than 120 startup weekends (occurring at the same time) all over the world during the two weekends before and after GEW. The winners then submit 90 sec videos to compete for the global championship to win a slew of prizes (shown on the site).
Says John, "If you want to follow all the news, check out #gsb2012 on Twitter or the videos (soon to come) at Global Startup Battle Facebook Page." Also, if you come to this blog a lot but are still wondering how you can use BizSpark, here is a great info-heavy blog post written by Bruno Terkaly, one of the Windows Azure technical evangelists in San Francisco.
What's in it for developers? Well, prizes, yes. But there's more. I asked Beadle a couple of questions.
Douglas: Why do you think people are drawn to Startup Weekend? It seems such a fast, and intense weekend. What do they get out of it?
Beadle: I think a lot of people will agree that entrepreneurship is skill that can only be learned through experience, repetition, and perseverance . Although Startup Weekend is set in a somewhat controlled environment, we aim to create an action oriented, learn-by-doing type of event. It's definitely intense, but I'm always blown away by how much I learn. Every time I attend I am surrounded by smart, passionate people who want to change the world. It's very addicting.
That made me think with my out of left field brain. So, I asked another:
Douglas: Do you think Startup Weekends would be an enticing addition to a school curriculum? And if so, what do you think Startup Weekend teaches developers?
Beadle: Startup Weekend would be a fantastic addition to school curriculum. Just like science and math, entrepreneurial skills can be very useful in other fields. Among other things Startup Weekend is a great way for people to practice public speaking, pitching, customer development, and work with a team. If you are interested in becoming an entrepreneur, Startup Weekend is a fantastic place to test the waters. It is one of the quickest ways to test an idea, and determine whether a business is viable. One weekend is such a small price to pay, to gain the experience, connections, and mentorship offered at these events.
Developers are turned off by the event because it appears non-technical. The problem is that Startup Weekend is sometimes mislabeled as a hackathon. Hackathons are designed to build technical and impressive projects to showcase a developers skills but do not consider the business side. Hackathons have there place, and are great for practice, but what's the point of developing something really cool if no one is going to use it? I understand that there is an art to coding, but if you're truly serious about becoming a successful developer you need to learn how the business side operates (just like how non-techs need to understand a little bit of coding). That is why Startup Weekend is so valuable - it creates a situation in which developers, designers and business people alike learn how to interact and function as a team.
There was a rush of Startup Weekend events this weekend. Here are a few of the tweets, photos and videos that came in during the events. We love seeing how fast these teams work together to create businesses, hacks, and usable stuff.
The pitches were just about to begin in Kirkland:
Pitch presentations about to start at Startup Weekend Kirkland. Good luck everybody!!! #swkirkland #gsb2012 twitter.com/ericzocher/sta… — ericzocher (@ericzocher) November 12, 2012
Pitch presentations about to start at Startup Weekend Kirkland. Good luck everybody!!! #swkirkland #gsb2012 twitter.com/ericzocher/sta…
One of the teams at Startup Weekend Ottawa created a pager app that lets you call everyone you need to when your wife is having her baby. It's called PreggoPager:
Developer Evangelist Marc Gagne points out that BizSpark once again steps up to the fore and sponsors one of the most productive weekend coding and business developing events in the startup world.
Ohai @bizspark #SWOttawa twitter.com/marc_gagne/sta… — Marc Gagné (@marc_gagne) November 10, 2012
Ohai @bizspark #SWOttawa twitter.com/marc_gagne/sta…
Some great folks at Startup Weekend Ottawa:
Chk out this awesome trio, snapped last night! - @cheryldraper @vlennox (@startup_canada) & @bizspark !! #swottawa twitter.com/swottawa/statu… — StartupWeekendOttawa (@swottawa) November 10, 2012
Chk out this awesome trio, snapped last night! - @cheryldraper @vlennox (@startup_canada) & @bizspark !! #swottawa twitter.com/swottawa/statu…
Startup Weekend Kirkland UFOs spotted:
Yo, Microsoft BizSpark!Thanks for the mini UFO's! (flashlights) @bizspark #GSB2012 #SWKirkland @kirklandstartup twitter.com/scratchability… — scratchability (@scratchability) November 11, 2012
Yo, Microsoft BizSpark!Thanks for the mini UFO's! (flashlights) @bizspark #GSB2012 #SWKirkland @kirklandstartup twitter.com/scratchability…
Startup Weekend in Kirland Live Stream:
Special props to @nuclearragnarok for manning the cam on our livestream! Watch his camerawork at ow.ly/fct4L #SWKirkland #GSB2012 — Kirkland SW (@KirklandStartup) November 12, 2012
Special props to @nuclearragnarok for manning the cam on our livestream! Watch his camerawork at ow.ly/fct4L #SWKirkland #GSB2012
. @bizspark - giving out an awesome prize! #SWOttawa twitter.com/swottawa/statu…
— StartupWeekendOttawa (@swottawa) November 12, 2012
The title of this text is a piece of a Daft Punk’s song called Technology. Though this song was written a few years ago, it still incites me to the feeling that to do something right we must do many things in a short time, and in an automated way. Do it now and faster. It is a call for action. Perhaps it's because I dive deep into data, but this magic really speaks to me. It wasn't always the case. As much as I wanted to be ready to code, jam it, break, rip it, or whatever Daft Punk suggests as the base line activity for a modern world, there was a lot of hand holding and hand stitching in the early coding environments.
That has changed. Basically, we are in a much simpler time now.
This post was written by one of our Microsoft BizSpark Ambasaddors in Brazil, Carlos Eduardo Pinto, who founded BizSpark startup Pratical One.
When I started system development in 2003, .NET was at the beginning of its use as a programming platform. Most of the programs were using Visual Basic 6.0 to desktop and ASP to web, where I was coding. Looking back, I wonder how I could code in a jam environment. A very limited one.
Things that seems easy now -- like an autocomplete field -- were almost impossible to do back then. If you didn't get it intuitively, a developer had to waste a lot of time trying to figure out the solution. However, time is money and limited and there always a huge backlog to attend.
However, .NET grew up and spread around. LINQ replaces Store Procedures, AJAX replaces hard work at Javascript and Webservice replaces EDI (or part of it). Sounds simple now, but back in the early environments, it was certainly not.
How Times Have Changed
This week, I built a system to figure out some technical possibilities. In exactly 5 days, using Visual Studio 2012, C# and Windows Azure I created an entire system, including front end, batch and database. If I used the old ASP, it would take a month or even more, because besides the fact to code the system, I would have to find a server, set it up and so much more.
It’s like a musician has to worry about finding a place to play, set the equipment, tune it. Then, after they've busted a gut doing that, when they are tired from all the pulling, pushing and setting up, they can focus to create and play music. If you are musician, that should not be the focus. Same thing with building an app or being a developer.
Recently, Microsoft launched a new tool called Apps for Office and Sharepoint. It is in developer preview, but it reveals the company wants to help developers to focus on what they know best. Creation!
This is a good move to support those who want to resolve simple things in a coding environment, without having to be the roadie, the crew, and the performer. At least at the first glance.
In fact there is no longer excuses to create new things, as easy as possible, to make money and to win the world. More than ever, it is in our own hands do that or keep in the same old place.
Maybe we are going to move to another Daft Punk’s track; Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, but this is another conversation.
Attention friends and colleagues in Boston.
You can help Chris Brogan and his girlfriend Jacqueline Carly send food and emergency supplies for victims of Super Storm Sandy. Join our Boston colleagues at the Microsoft NERD center and bring your contributions. They are not leaving until the truck is completely stuffed with supplies. And they will willingly do what they can to take more than one truckload, too.
You can find all of the details here.
DATE: MONDAY NOV. 5, 2012TIME: 3 – 4:00pm LOCATION: One Memorial Drive, First Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142T -STOP: Kendall Square, Red Line
Image from Huffington Post Slideshow of Hurricane Sandy and Superstorm Sandy Photos
It’s exciting enough when we hear about developers taking existing apps and putting them on our new Windows 8 platform, but it’s even more exciting when it’s a brand new app that is breaking new ground – and in children’s education. Infantium is one of a number of W8 apps being developed by innovators and entrepreneurs in Spain.
CEO and co-founder Karen Marquez tells us about Infantium and the Windows 8 experience so far.
“Evidence shows that learning during a child’s early years has a huge impact on their future development. Using games to teach children for cognitive development is nothing new, but we had the idea for a more interactive approach that gets feedback from the child and then adapts to suit his or her own pace. No two children learn the same way, so learning methods should reflect that.
Infantium keeps the whole experience fun for children, but how they interact with the game is then fed back into our cloud-based service, which applies parameters to analyse the children’s actions and then creates a learning path that is specific to that child. The focus is on the acquisition of skills around symbolic thinking, languages, problem-solving, attention-at-pace and speed. We are targeting both parents and educationalists.
We presented our idea at two events – Seedrocket and Bizbarcelona – where we won a prize, but more important was the connections and visibility that gave us. The company was launched in June 2012 and at the moment and we’ve been intensively focused on developing the app, as well as building relationships with the market and potential partners.
Microsoft has been instrumental in the app right from the beginning, even when it was just an idea on a single powerpoint slide! The company’s support helped us to secure investors and that has been critical to getting our app launched. Microsoft has also helped us make the right connections, including local universities, local government, schools and other technology institutions. Carlos in the public sector team and Elisa in the BizSpark team deserve a particular mention, but the whole team has been a great help. We are also a BizSpark Plus company, meaning that we get a lot of access to resources, particularly Windows Azure.
So why Windows 8 and not another platform? The amount of help we have had from Microsoft is a big factor, of course, but Windows 8 is a fantastic product and we wouldn’t be betting our future on it if we didn’t believe that it has great potential. I really believe that Windows 8 will give us an advantage, especially with Microsoft bringing out its own tablets. We haven’t been able to create detailed predictions of the cost benefit of being on Windows 8 because we are in a new market area, but I’m confident it is the best platform for Infantium.
I’m not a technologist myself, but I know from our development team that the process of working with Windows 8 has been a learning curve, but a positive one. Our two main developers have many years’ experience in the areas of games and information architecture, so between them, they’ve seen a lot of different technology environments.
The high usability and visual appeal of the Windows 8 user interface is also important, because that means children will find the games intuitive and fun. Our games feature all kinds of characters, from our child hero Rufi, his cat Oswald and his wizard friend Somnus, who together visit all kinds of places, from meeting famous painters like Vincent van Gogh, to helping to save Daedalus from the Minotaur.
It is early days for Infantium but we’re really excited to be part of the Windows 8 community right from the beginning.
For more stories like this, and to find out how Microsoft can help you go from idea to app, visit Microsoft BizSpark. It is a community of over 50,000 startups working closely with Microsoft, which offers free software, support and visibility in the startup ecosystem.
How do you beat unemployment? You spark a startup movement with education initiatives and a focus on being global.
Elisa Garcia Ananzo leads Microsoft’s next generation focus in Spain, working closing with students, academia, start-ups and investors to support the innovators and entrepreneurs of the future. As everyone knows, Spain is having a tough economic time, with a high unemployment rate. In this guest blog post, Elisa looks as some of the challenges facing Spain and some of the projects in place.
Elisa has worked for Microsoft since 2007, with a particular emphasis on collaboration with students, start-ups and the developer community in general.
“The biggest issue in Spain right now is unemployment. Around a quarter of the population is unemployed and that figure rises to more than 50 per cent among the under 25s. So, for young people, earning a living is very hard. Even if we didn’t have our current economic problems, there simply aren’t enough jobs to support everyone. So, what is the answer?
There are obviously lots of components and we can only play a small part in a much bigger picture, but here’s what we are doing. Within Microsoft Spain, we’ve had an initiative running for over 18 months focused on how to address unemployment and we are seeing two trends, which are also helping to solve the problem. One, as people leave university and realise they can’t get the jobs they want, then they are creating their own employment by starting their own companies. Second, there is more of a focus on thinking ‘global’ from day one, rather than just looking at the local economy to support a new business.
In both these areas, we can – and are – providing proactive support. Through our BizSpark program, we are working with some of the country’s top incubators to nurture talent, whether still at university or have already started a business. We can give them access to the latest developer technology tools and services (including Windows Azure, Windows 8, Windows Phone), support, networking and market visibility. And with over 60,000 members worldwide, BizSpark is a great way to connect young entrepreneurs with a global network of potential investors, partners and customers. So, that can really help a start-up with high potential to have a global launchpad. A good example is online accounting provider Ifacturas, which was recently a Microsoft BizSpark startup of the day.
The work we do with Wayra – the incubator backed by Telefonica - is a good example of how industry players can collaborate together to support the next generation. Together, our two organisations work together with the very best of Spain’s start-ups, 10 in Madrid and 10 in Barcelona. They are given VIP treatment, or in other words, the kind of support that a top national account might expect to receive. One example is startup Tedcas, which has developed touch screen interfaces for the healthcare industry
For students, we have a variety of initiatives – global competitions like the Imagine Cup are a good example – but at a grass roots level, we can help them develop apps. What we’re seeing is students start to build their own apps for fun and then realising that this could lead to their future employment. So again, we can equip them with the technology and support they need to make that process as easy as possible. It also looks very cool on their CVs if they have an app launched on the Windows store – it’s kind of an endorsement for their talent. For instance, Camilo Galiana built a WP app called chicken implosion which is being positioned as one of the top games apps in the Windows Store.
We can’t solve the very complex problem that is Spain’s unemployment, but we can do our bit. Spain is home to some of Europe’s brightest and most innovative students and entrepreneurs and it makes my job worthwhile to think we can make a small difference.
Worldwide, online auction sites are the way that many people buy a variety of products, but often they lack local feel and focus. This is one of the main reasons that Switzerland-based ricardo.ch online auction site has been so successful and since launch a decade ago, is now used by over 2 million registered users, pinging 340,000 unique visits per day.
Ricardo is also one of the first Swiss companies to deploy a Windows 8 app, making it even easier for its customers to upload, offer, bid and buy all kinds of items, wherever and whenever. We've asked Paulina Wielinska, who is in charge of the mobile business at ricardo.ch, to tell us why the company felt this was the way to go.
Ricardo has been so successful because we are focused on creating a marketplace just for Swiss users. We are not the only dedicated Swiss online auction site, but we are the market leader in the country. We are constantly looking at ways in which to maintain that advantage, by looking at how we can serve customers even better and a big part of that is our mobile strategy. Mobile is important to us because it increases our penetration and drives more traffic to our website. We have to go where customers are and these days, that is increasingly on their mobile devices, not just smartphones but tablets too.
We’ve already deployed iOS and Android apps and that’s helped us to grow our mobile traffic, but we really believe that Windows 8 has huge potential and we are very excited to be there from its beginning. We feel that it will definitely give us an edge over our competitors. The app contains no advertising, so income depends on user traffic on the website, which is why it is so important to also reach Windows 8 users.
Because the platform was new to us, there were some ways of doing things that we had to get used to, such as the horizontal scrolling, but Microsoft supported us every step of the way. Despite this being a new platform for us, we were able to bring the Windows 8 app to market in less than 3 months. The design guidelines are very strict and clear and we helped Microsoft fine-tune some of these, for instance where even greater controls were beneficial, or where a more relaxed approach was needed. It was a good collaboration.
Of course, what really matters is the user experience and I love the fact that with our app it is very appealing to the eye, using the Windows user interface which is clear and well-structured. Once you’re familiar with the Windows 8 functionalities and shortcuts, it’s very easy to use. The ‘snap view’ is a differentiator from other platforms: users can track the status of their bids while working in another application.
I encourage other developers to build Windows 8 apps, because it is a positive experience and a great business opportunity. There is a lot of training available, as well as hands-on support from the Microsoft team.
We are top of our market but it’s a competitive one, so it is essential that we continue to look for new opportunities: innovations like Windows 8 helps us create those.”
The Microsoft Research and Development Center Israel is hosting a new edition of Think Next starting Monday, November 5, and one of the highlights will be a keynote by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. In it, he sits down and talks to Avi Hasson, Israel's Chief Scientist. The guys in Israel decided they make it a bit interactive, so they've issued this challenge on Facebook. What would you ask Steve Ballmer? If the team likes the question, your question will be given to Ballmer during Think Next.
There's much more. Demo fest - Great demos from startups and Microsoft labs, including Windows 8 devices. So, if there are stories you have been waiting to here about, then Think Next will be one of the places for you to get firsthand experience with the building of those apps.
There's also the Best ways to Think Next, featuring Prof. Dan Shechtman, Peter Molyneux, Eyal Gever & Sharon Eyal.
We are also hosting a live Mobli Channel. This will ensure a live video stream of the event, in case you can't make it to Tel Aviv. Mobli is a BizSpark company, by the way.
During the event we will twt and post real time updates and news from the event, so make sure you follow us on Twitter with the #TN12 hashtag.
I was first introduced to Arie Abecassis, one of the Managing Partners at DreamIt Ventures, back in June this year. At the time, we were doing our bit to support DreamIt programs on the ground in NYC and Philly, a little in Israel, but Arie was keen to do [much] more with Microsoft BizSpark, and told me how much they rated the program.
This blog post was written by Claire Lee, Director of Partnerships at Microsoft BizSpark.
A few weeks later they announced the program with Comcast.
As Arie and I talked about our vision and mission, we seemed to share a similar philosophy for supporting startups. In fact, we both waxed lyrical for ages on what was supposed to be a short call. Arie told me the story behind DreamIt, then – and with pleasure – about the Forbes article that put them in the Top Ten accelerators.
I mentioned some of our partnerships and the work we’re doing all over the globe with accelerators. Arie said he wanted DreamIt to feature here.
Today, they do.
Since then, we’ve seen DreamIt go from strength to strength: more and more of their portfolio companies are getting funded and on a great trajectory; and they announced a fourth location, in Austin, TX. Then came the Fall 2012 program in Philly.
We wanted to enable more of the companies going through these programs benefit from BizSpark and – in particular – from the generous offer that is BizSpark Plus. DreamIt became a BizSpark Plus partner so they can make available up to $60,000 worth of Windows Azure services to startups, when they need it most.
We also wanted a way to reward really great innovation.
One of the suggestions Arie came up with was the idea of selecting four companies – one from each program/location during Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 – to work more closely with Microsoft expert engineers to build out their products. These guys are tagged BizSpark ‘Fellows’.
Basically what that means is, they get a lot of love and attention and we hope that makes a difference to them on their quest for greatness.
Going forward, we’ll publish news on our partner page
In the meantime, read the DreamIt release blog.
Dave McClure's 500 startups announced their new class today, and since 9 of those 33 teams are members are BizSpark teams, we have reason to celebrate. Percentage-wise, Microsoft BizSpark members made up nearly 30% of those teams.
Here's a rundown of those companies, and what they do. Congratulations to the teams.
Cinemacraft – Produces an interactive pictorial summary of videos, making video thumbnails come to life
CompStak – Creates transparency in commercial real estate by gathering information that is hard to find, difficult to compile, or currently unavailable
Cubie – A free messenger app for creating drawings and sharing them with friends
Dealflicks – Offers movie tickets and concessions for up to 60 percent off, like Priceline or Hotwire for movie theaters
LaunchGram – Aggregates news about products and launches coming soon in verticals such as movies, electronics, video games, and cars
Privy – An automated digital ad agency that lets customers set a budget and promo, and automatically delivers customers
Repairy – A web-based customer relationship and resource management system for car repair shops and dealerships, integrated with a spare parts marketplace
TouristEye – A travel planner application for the web and mobile devices
WhoAPI – Delivers extensive information about domain data (on a side note, we met the founder of this team in Zagreb at a tweetup held at a bar. Great guy.)
For the Russian speakers out there, here's a very handy series on how BizSpark members AtContent tweaked and worked with Windows Azure to get their company up and running. People who don't read Cyrillic can translate in Bing and enjoy the useful experience. It's important to read it, because they are using Azure as a backend to -- they hope -- transform how publishers and data / media consumers use and share on the web.
AtContent is an interesting disruption in the publishing industry. I talked to Co-Founders, Alexey Semeney and Nikita Berdnikov on a Skype call this week and got to understand the business a little better. Basically, they want to help transform blogging into a pay for articles business, which may sound like music to big publisher ears, and to the ears of small blogging businesses. But it may suffer from some issues, which Alexey and I talked about -- among them, many successful blogs got started by being free. Who will accept a pivot into something that's pay to read? We'll get into that. But first, what is AtContent, and what does it do?
Check out these links to a TechCrunch demo page and the Financial Times, one of the most successful paid circulation newspapers in the world. This Azure-hosted startup wants to make it easy for anyone to distribute articles through social networks, and then use those social networks (as well as the main pages of publishers) to serve as a kind of e-commerce store for information and media. It's a fascinating idea. If AtContent is in place, you can make your daily reading a kind of hub for media distribution, and, through sharing articles to your social networks, you can take a cut of articles you "sell" to your own readership. It's kind of like making your daily reading into a paper route. If only the music industry would have figured this out first, and made it standard practice.
We love our BizSpark startups, and we love the audacity of this Russian startup trying to do this. We think it will be difficult to change mindsets, but it's not impossible. And it may even be lucrative and beneficial to large and small publishers in the long run. Continuing to run on advertising dollars forever just doesn't seem a likely scenario, for any mainstream publication. For the best, this seems like a really great practice for any small scale publisher trying to make it big. People who will spread your articles are incentivized to accept some cut of the transaction to get your name out there for you. Spreading through cash rewards. It has worked in so many other areas, from car sales, to coupon clipping.
When you are building your company, you always end up facing that one hardest thing, or a myriad of hardest things. Every founder has experienced it, and if they haven’t, they really haven’t been a founder. At the most recent FailCon event, we dove into the hardest things Bing Fund general manager Rahul Sood has ever experienced after his talk to a lunch time crowd of founders, developers and investors. We asked him about this thinking around Microsoft’s angel fund.
The Bing Fund was recently created by Microsoft to serve as an angel investor for young startups looking to work in a few areas of the web.
This post was written by Douglas Crets, Community Manager of Microsoft BizSpark, which offers free software and support to startups less than five years old.
A high school protégée interested in gaming, Bing Fund general manager Rahul Sood developed VoodooPC machines, the first liquid-cooled PCs, with an eye of making the best PCs on the planet. In a nutshell, they were bought -- he turned down Michael Dell, who called him and emailed him personally -- and joined HP. But, as he told a crowd gathered at FailCon in San Francisco on Tuesday, he takes responsibility for taking his eye off the ball and letting HP have too much control over hiring, believing that a bigger company would do its best to bring in the right talent.
The lesson that Sood offers to startup founders as now general manager of the Bing Fund, based in Bellevue, Washington, is this: "
We asked him what are the essential pieces of what he looks for in a startup, and how he sees the developer and startup ecosystem. We thought it was important to get down to the bottom of what the head of an angel fund thinks about the world he invests in.
One takeaway from his talk, that sheds some light on this, is that he said that founders and developers should consider Microsoft as a friendly "archangel" investor, that is looking to support startups with access to Bing APIs and other technologies that other startups don't get access to. In contrast to his experience with HP, he says that he feels immediately at home with Microsoft, because it's run by people who want to do good for the world.
Many of you already know this, if you are in BizSpark.
If you are a BizSpark company and would like more information on the Bing Fund, get in touch by leaving your name in our comments section, or sending a message to us on Twitter @BizSpark. Alternatively, you can email me. My email address is on my Twitter Profile.
If you are not in BizSpark yet, you can join here. All you have to be is less than five years old, making less than one million in revenue a year, and developing software for the cloud. Here are some examples of some BizSpark companies. And, while you don't have to be in BizSpark to be considered for the Bing Fund, it is helpful to be in BizSpark to get connected to the network.
The Bing Fund currently works with two startups, both in BizSpark, and they are taking on more soon.
Interview
BizSpark: What was the hardest thing you have had to do as an employee? As a founder?
Sood: When we sold VoodooPC to HP, I went from being a founder of a small company to being an employee of a large one. The hardest part was finding the balance between trying to preserve the culture we had at Voodoo and letting go. Although I made some mistakes during that process and some of the lessons I learned were painful, I have learned a ton in the process.
BizSpark: How do you know you are falling in love with a company to be considered for the Bing Fund? What specifically do you look for in a Bing Fund company?
Sood: Let me say first of all that “falling in love with a company” is dangerous. We try not to get too enamored of any company we’re considering, because doing so could cloud our judgment. The enthusiasm that entrepreneurs have about their startups is infectious and it’s easy to get excited. Ideally we will pick companies that Microsoft will want to acquire or partner with long term. So we have to ask ourselves questions such as: Do they have a mind-blowingly breakthrough idea, or at least a unique one? What’s the level of talent in the company? And finally, how can Bing Fund help? Do we have technology assets or expertise that will get the company to the next level?
BizSpark: Where do you fall on the change habits or make things easier spectrum?
Sood: The benefit must outweigh the cost. People will only change an ingrained habit if it’s easier, less risky, or much more fulfilling to do the same thing some other way. Technology makes it easier to do banking online, so why drive to the bank? It’s less risky to use voice recognition to send texts while driving.
BizSpark: What are some of the current burdens to development for startups, and how do you address these burdens in your work?
Sood: Many people would say that funding is the major burden but I don’t see it that way. It’s cheaper than ever to get a technology startup going, and there are plenty of sources for support, such as incubators and accelerators that are popping up in every city. Microsoft’s BizSpark program gives startups free software resources for a few years, and there are plenty of free technology stacks out there. I think the major obstacle is talent. Great talent is hard to find, and it’s even harder to keep. One way to keep great talent is to ensure your vision is clear, and the problem you’re solving is real….if this is the case then you should be on a path to success. That’s what we’re trying to do – help startups succeed.
BizSpark: Why did you decide to go from building a company to funding companies? What is the harder work?
Sood: I think it’s much harder to build a company, but that’s not why I switched gears. I’ve had success (and failures) as an entrepreneur and it’s fulfilling to share what I’ve learned to help other entrepreneurs succeed. I should clarify that what we’re doing isn’t about funding. Funding is just incidental to show we have skin in the game. We’re adding much more value through the access we’re providing to technology and subject matter experts.
BizSpark: If there was a Rahul Sood’s Book Club, like Oprah’s, what three books would you rollout to begin your club?
Sood: I would recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which delves into the science of what founders face daily – decision making. And despite the controversy, Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine – How Creativity Works offers compelling examples on how companies facilitate innovation.
It's time to do a quick roundup of what African entrepreneurs did this past week, while they were building their companies.
DEMO Africa ended on Friday, but that won't stop us from running our remaining interviews with some of the participants.
Big congratulations go to two of our Microsoft BizSpark members, SASA Africa and Flowgear, who both came away with the coveted DEMO Lion title out of a field of 40. In truth, the field was much bigger, since this competition was open to all of Africa.
In the run up to DEMO Africa -- and during -- we showcased the work of the several dozen entrepreneurs who bravely presented their ideas to the judges.
Hilda Moraa, MyOrder
What have you learned about managing a technological business that you would pass on to the next generation?
Managing a technological business as an individual is not possible. It requires a team that is passionate, talented and believes in technology as a strategic tool and not the magical solution to solve all problems. Understanding the technological development methodology and processes is also important to facilitate ensure easier management of the business.
I have also learnt that the most important thing is to execute and do it fast. As a technological business is dynamic, hence one needs to execute, release their product, test and validate. Its better to fail early then learn from the feedback that should inform a young business how to validate their products, answer their assumptions and plan effectively what should change or be added as valuable features in order to be successful. Most important, I have learnt it’s important to connect the technology with business. As the technology solution cannot work solemnly, one needs to identify how they can use that technology as an enabler to then solve the real needs that will create revenue or ‘scratch an itch’
What came first for your company – the product idea or your existence on the internet?
The existence of the Internet came first. And it was through this existence that the development of electronic tools, infrastructure, protocols of communication that have then had a huge impact to the development of electronic commerce. Including the rise of telecommunications that has resulted to rapid numbers of mobile subscribers to further facilitate execution of commercial transactions electronically.
Thanks to the growth of the Internet access via mobile phones, many businesses today are not only interested in showcasing their products online, but also allowing their customers to transact by placing orders. Their customers would like to do so through the most convenient device at their disposal: their mobile phones. A need that Myorder retail has bridged by offering a hosted solution that puts a “mobile menu” in the hands of a customer. Items that one has for sale can be selected, and orders placed. Each business gets a simple, attractive mobile web catalog. Notifications are sent to a designated mobile phone of choice when an order is placed, detailing the name and phone number of the customer, current location, as well as the pricing and details of the order.
Kekeli Buckner, KKYB Productions
I have learned a lot about managing a technological business but two of the most important things I have learned include the fact that technology keeps developing and in order to stand out as a business in that field we must be abreast with the latest trends in the industry and be innovative too.
I have also learnt to work effectively with my team and not make decisions single handedly because some of them know more than I do in the field of technology. So basically what I would pass on to the next generation is that they should think smart, be creative, work together as a team and keep the right attitude because one cannot know it all.
Who inspired you the most this week, and why?
For this week I would say Mrs. Gloria Buckman Yankson inspired me most. She is the CEO of Planit Ghana and has been nominated for the 2nd International Award in under a year via the 2012 Ghana UK Based Achievement (GUBA) Awards. I saw it on her facebook profile. Even though I have not spoken to her yet, I have been to events where she was giving a talk and just from listening to her you can almost understand why she is so successful. Her work ethic really inspires me.
Maxwell Donker, INNOQIK
Managing a Technological Business is very interesting. Unlike others Business whose management revolves about Business, with Technological Companies, you not only manage the business but also the technological growth and sustainability of it. One major lesson I have learnt is to one has to keep up with time and if possible be ahed of time. Technology evolves every second. Something that works better and fine today may not be up to the accepted standard the next day. You always have to make your product and business relevant to your client else the business takes a down turn.
What was the most difficult challenge your business faced this year?
Maxwell: Well, we have not been in business for a year yet, but in the short period we have been operating, a major challenge has been the process of taking clients through the learning curve and managing change. Customers always want more even when they were ignorant of the impending need. We have to help them match our services and value proposition to their needs and deliver efficiently.
How do you know when you are failing in Product Development and how do you make a correction - do you make the decision on your own, or do you consult your team?
Most of the time, decisions for corrections is in consultation with the team. This is because the decision to take a particular line or route is initiated by myself but discussed and agreed at the team level. That way everyone buys into the vision and revised to make the most out of that decision. With that in place, when changes are going to be made, every member of the team must be made aware and ready to shift for the change to take place. Identifying failure in Product development is mainly through quality assurance analysis which is also agreed at the initiation of each product segment, that way once we are out of line with our blue print we automatically know something is failing which can either be from a good source or bad.
What signals from your consumers do you look for to signify that you are winning?
Some of the few signals from consumers that signify our product or service is winning is when consumers continue to use our services and ask for more improvement and efficiency. That make me know we are still solving a need and have to make it more efficient. Another is when they are willing to give advice and share ideas t improve service delivery.
Microsoft BizSpark Member Eric Edelstein, EVLY
Be prepared for a fast but exciting journey, and accept that change will happen constantly in the early stages of growing the business. Every day at evly is an adventure.
evly is a startup, so of course, funding, funding, funding! The other thing is that as evly is in such a new cutting edge industry, the evly team spends a lot of energy and effort educating the marketplace.
Who would you like to be your mentor, and what would you ask him or her?
For most of my life, I would have said Richard Branson, but in the last few years, after reading the "7 Day Weekend", I would jump at the opportunity to be mentored by Ricardo Semler, who has steered the fastest growing company in South America, SEMCO.
Who is your mentor, and what was the last great thing he or she told you and your team?
I have a number of mentors - the last coffee I had with one of my mentors, they told me their story of how they built up their business's - that kept me inspired for days.
What has overjoyed you in the past month?
Obviously, the number 1 item was when evly was chosen as one of the top 40 in the Demo-Africa competition, allowing us to represent South Africa in Kenya in October. Also, every time we get feedback from one of the organisations using the evly software that they're getting the desired results from our software, it gets me overjoyed.
The evly team - they are the most passionate team I've ever had the pleasure of working with.
When was the last time you fell in love with a product?
About 10 minutes ago when I last looked at the evly website, and saw what we were creating.
What does something in your business vertical need in order for the product to be successful?
The organisations who use our software need to have the ability to realise that organisations who succeed in the future will need to have "constructive engagement" with their customers & fans in order to be successful.
We came up with an idea for evly, and then launched the company, and although we've pivoted a number of times to refine the product idea, the long term vision has always remained consistent.
Is the lean startup process a type of marketing, or is marketing different from customer and product development?
The "lean startup" should be a mindset for the company, as a whole. Get the forward momentum going as quickly as possible, test constantly, iterate, and change quickly and nimbly when required.
How does your company utilize next generation marketing techniques?
evly is a next generation company as a whole - our marketing follows that.
We're running this blog post today to look back at the BizSpark EU Summit which we hosted in the UK. The startups we featured there were in the running for awards at the Summit. If you were following along, you may remember that one of the teams from France came out on top.
The French contingent brought us The Commerce Guys, a group of e-commerce and Drupal developers who have figured out how to use that content management system to create e-commerce solutions that are easy to use and simple to understand.
Here is a video of the CEO of Commerce Guys, Frederic Plais, speaking at SOlutions Linux / Open Source 2011. Video is in French.
Commerce Guys, France
Fast Facts
Using the power of Drupal content management to create advanced eCommerce solutions
The big idea
Drupal is the open-source content management tool that has gained a following over the world. Commerce Guys have developed Drupal Commerce, a suite of solutions that harnesses Drupal for powerful eCommerce applications. CEO Frederic Plais says, “People’s expectations of what eCommerce can deliver has increased a lot, so merchants want to match that with sophisticated content that connects with social media and mobile. What we do is focus our knowledge and expertise on providing online merchants with the powerful, responsive, flexible and innovative eCommerce solutions they need to thrive.” Since launch 10 months ago, over 15,000 users – ranging from small companies to large - have signed up for the solution, which comprises a blend of software, consultancy and training, much of which is executed in cooperation with a growing network of partners worldwide. Currently numbering around 40, these partners range from systems integrators and Drupal specialists to digital marketing agencies who advise brands on eCommerce. Team, marketing & finance
Based in Paris, France and in the USA (Ann Arbor, Michigan). The five founders bring an impressive set of CVs to the table, all with 10+ years experience. Apart from CEO Frederic Plais, the others are: North America President Mike O’Connor, CTO Damien Tournoud (who also is one of the main architects of Drupal’s latest version), VP of Community Development Ryan Szrama and VP of Finance Tim Hill. The company raised an initial seed round with Paris-based VC ISAI in 2010 and in March 2012, completed a second round led by Paris-based Alven Capital, with further funding from Finnish based Open Ocean along with ISAI.
The technology
While Commerce Guys’ heritage may be Drupal, the open source content management system, the company has collaborated with Microsoft from its early days. Says Frederic Plais, “We know that when we are targeting the enterprise market, a lot of them are going to be on the Microsoft stack. So, if we can get SQL server to work on Drupal Commerce, this opens up a big potential market for us. We are migrating to the Windows Azure platform and KickStart – our Drupal distribution product – is already on Azure. That’s just the first step. We couldn’t scale the way we want to without going to the cloud.” Frederic continues, “There’s a strong team at Microsoft, the support has been great and we’ve been surprised at how they have such a good understanding of open source. I’m sure that this relationship will continue to grow.”