DiscoveringStartups -Tech Startup Reviews

Visage Mobile is a leading enterprise mobility management company that enables businesses to take control of their mobile budget and inventory and set policies that govern employee usage of smartphones and mobile broadband. Its flagship product, MobilityCentral, is a cloud-based SaaS application capable of quickly analyzing data from thousands of employees across multiple carriers. Its customizable reports and actionable metrics are displayed in user-friendly graphs, giving companies unprecedented insight into their mobile activity. which provides usage data on over 50,000 U.S. employees spread across all geographies and industry verticals.

We are unique in our delivery model and time to implementation. Most businesses can be up and running in days rather than weeks, which is traditionally the time it takes to manage a businesses mobility. Our competitors are mainly BPO services/consulting companies that focus on telecom. They are known by the acronym TEM – Telecom expense management. We do not find competitors taking the same technology and value proposition approach (i.e., cloud-based SaaS app) as we do at this point.

According to market research firms, there are currently 20 million corporate-liable smartphones in use in the United States, representing 13 percent penetration of the total U.S. workforce. By 2012 this penetration rate is expected to increase to 20 percent, led by IT’s adoption of mobility management tools to help manage cost and complexity.. Our product helps IT departments of corporate America deal with these trends/challenges. On the one hand there is a push to enable the employees of a corporation to be more productive by having access to corporate apps while they are on the go via mobile broadband and smartphones. We address this chaotic environment where these devices are growing like weeds by providing a cloud-based application that brings together 3 sets of data – employee/HR data, device data and carrier billing data – and with data providing metrics/analytics/budgeting/visibility/policy setting so that an IT department can get control and manage to a budget.

See above. The more smartphones that are adopted and the more the workforce becomes mobile – the more businesses are going to need a solution that manages their mobility quickly and easily to save cost and support policies.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.visagemobile.com

Gloto provides agencies, brands, and publishers a powerful platform to drive brand-safe, integrated media campaigns across mobile and Web channels, enabling engagement and amplifying reach.

Gloto’s patented self-serve platform provides a single point of management for brand content, user-generated content, and advertising across mobile and web. Benefits include greater reach, better relevance, higher engagement, and lower distribution costs and complexity.

Brands, agencies, and publishers are spending an increasing amount of money to reach customers through mobile, social, and local channels. Our platform allows them to easily and efficiently manage distribution and monetization in an chaotic, ever-changing environment.

We are currently making money by licensing our hosted platform to major brands and media companies.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.gloto.com

A platform enabling venues (cultural, travel, tourism, sporting institutions, hospitality, to publish mobile apps and websites for their visitors.

Our system enables publishing to multiple platforms (android, blackberry and iPhone, as well as mobile web and HTML5) from one place at a low cost and allows for a very custom mobile presence. In addition, we have a robust analytics system that enables institutions to monitor what users are doing on their sites/apps.

Yes

Institutions pay a set up fee to publish and then monthly hosting fees to maintain their sites and apps. Where applicable, we also take a revenue share of app + mobile commerce sales.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.juncanoo.com

Mob4Hire is a global community of people who come together to make the mobile experience better.

The Mob4Hire community allows mobile developers and market researchers to receive real-world feedback from users all over the world to ensure that their application/mobile website/advertising campaign is well tested from both a functional aspect (“Don’t Crash”) and usability aspect (“Don’t Suck”).

Therefore, be more able to receive positive reviews, persistent/frequent use and commercial success. (“Get Sticky”).

Ultimately, Mob4Hire significantly reduces costs and time to market by connecting mobile developers with eager, lower priced, crowd sourced testers and market focus groups.

Mob4hire was formed in 2007 to help solve the daunting testing problem that occurs when mobile developers are faced with the tremendous variety of handsets, networks and platforms that exist today;

The Mob4Hire network of testers can speed up the mobile development process at all stages of development in a highly cost-effective manner.

Mob4hire partners with RIM, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola via MOTODEV, Wavefront, Perfecto Mobile, NAVTEQ, Flurry, Infostretch and O2 to help their developers make better products.

The mobile space in both consumer and business applications and websites requires real world feedback.

Mob4Hire can be of assistance in all parts of the development cycle.

Our products include MOBTEST, MOBSURVEY, MOBACCELERATOR, and MOBEXPERIENCE.

We are making money already. Effectively Mob4hire is a broker and receives money for every transaction that happen on the site.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.mob4hire.com?type=discoveringstartups

ChompStack is the easiest way for a restaurant to build a mobile version of their website. Reach more customers, promote your menu, and attract new business with an easily accessible mobile website. Compatible with iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and more!

ChompStack is designed to work well on all modern smartphones, and is not just limited to the iPhone. Because ChompStack is entirely web based, restaurants don’t have to worry about convincing customers to download a separate app to keep on their phones.

The mobile internet is growing rapidly, and consumers are turning towards their phones to search for nearby restaurants to eat. It is incredibly important for restaurants to have a mobile friendly version of their website for customers on the go.

We charge a monthly service fee.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.chompstack.com

Webalo connects smartphones — securely, bi-directionally, and transactionally — to enterprise data and functionality without the need for coding, SDKs, or ICEs. Instead of spending money on software development tools, learning how to use them, paying to maintain them, waiting weeks or months for highly paid developers to write custom programs, Webalo can be configured in hours to connect any enterprise applications, even from multiple vendors, into a simple set of smartphone menus. Those menus use the standard UI of their BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone/iPad, Palm, Symbian, or Java-enabled device to take users directly to the content they need.

Speed and simplicity set Webalo apart. As a service that’s available in a hosted environment or as a virtual machine inside a firewall, startup can be immediate, and each step in the configuration process incorporates instructions so that connections can be created without investing significant time in learning. As an example, one customer sourced, tried, configured, and deployed Webalo for 350 employees in four days, and the actual configuration/deployment step took only 12 hours.

Corporations are eager to extend their enterprise resources to mobile employees. The time, cost, and complexity of such projects using traditional mobile application development techniques makes them prohibitive. Yet, using Webalo, all of those enterprise-to-mobile goals become feasible because there’s no coding to do, no new applications to develop and maintain, no new tools to learn and support, and virtually no delay when modifications have to be made. Employees will be able to interact with the enterprise from any smartphone, be productive within days, and their enterprise-to-mobile capabilities can always be current with business needs because changes can be handled, as one customer said, “by one guy when he’s got a minute.”

The current sales model is subscription based using a per user fee structure.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.webalo.com

Offers small / medium business owners access to opt-in text message marketing services and proximity advertising technology. We help you reach consumers when they want to be reached, directly on their mobile phones.

Mobile marketing is expected to be a $25 Billion industry by 2015. Our focus is on the typical business owner who is too busy running their operation to implement a mobile marketing campaign on their own. The Rapid Response program takes all the guess work out of the equation. To see response rates as high as 40%, the only thing our clients have to do is place signs we provide where customers will see them, watch their member base grow and send offers 3-4 times per month. This exciting new advertising medium combined with our platform and direct marketing approach, we expect our customer base to increase by 2,000 members every 12 months.

Recurring monthly revenue from a program that provides a higher than average ROI combined with on-going development of new applications and marketing technologies.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.rapidresponsesms.com

ExecTones solves the workplace epidemic – annoying, unprofessional, and loud ringtones. 42% of professionals surveyed said the most annoying thing they experience at work is a horrendous ringtone. We solve that problem by creating the leading Business Professional ringtone collection for Smartphones and VoIP systems.

In today’s marketplace ringtone companies closely resemble the worst used car salesmen. They are unethical, sneaky, and fill your mobile bill with unwanted charges all for childish unprofessional ringtones. ExecTones does it different. First we created the industry leading ringtone collection for professionals. We are award winning and growing every day. Secondly we are a one-time purchase. No recurring fees, hidden charges, or unethical tactics.
Our focus also reaches beyond the mobile market. Every day new voice over IP systems are being deployed in workplaces around the world. Unfortunately they too lack quality designed professional tones. We have been successfully licensing our collection to VoIP resellers and manufacturers which is a largely untapped market that is taking off.

ExecTones sells successfully worldwide, but in the US alone there are over 50 million Smartphone users walking around with unprofessional ringtones. We intend to not only tap that market but also the rapidly growing VoIP community who long for a customized professional ringtone.

The business model is simple.
1. Sell the ringtones directly to consumers directly on our website.
2. Sell the ringtone collections to VoIP resellers and manufacturers.
3. Sell and distribute through our current and new affiliate systems.
4. Sell additional products to the newly built customer base.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.exectones.com

Ruxter is an online application providing small businesses and organizations free and easy access to self-service mobile marketing.

Following the free registration, users gain access to the Ruxter Site Builder application, a easy-to-use template allowing a mobile-optimized website to be quickly created using an organization’s own text, graphics and links.

A Ruxter Site Owner’s mobile website can be viewed on any mobile device with a browser. When combined with our low-cost integrated texting capability, this allows Ruxter users to quickly launch a mobile marketing campaign for their business and begin reaching their customers with mobile coupons, news, and events sent directly to their mobile phones.

Ruxter gives anyone the power of the mobile web and permission-based mobile marketing, simply and at low cost.

Traditional mobile marketing has been dominated by apps, agency-driven mobile campaigns, and custom mobile web development. None of these fit the needs of the over 25 million small businesses in the U.S. This market has been underserved by low-cost mobile marketing tools. Ruxter fills this gap by giving anyone access to a free mobile-optimized website and low-cost texting for a simple, low-cost mobile marketing campaign.

Ruxter follows the ‘freemium’ model of online applications providing a simplified and low-risk entry into mobile marketing for small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. This low barrier-to-entry service, combined with the lightweight aspects of mobile sites; allow Ruxter to scale from launch to substantial traffic and volume without large investments in IT and staffing.

Ruxter’s revenue is derived from multiple sources: first, from bulk text/SMS sales to individual Ruxter site owners, secondly, from the Ruxter Mobile Advertising Platform, which allows Ruxter sites to extend their reach through hyper-local mobile advertising. Lastly, Ruxter provides modular “Expedite Mobile Startup” tiers of service providing new customers with site development and mobile marketing assistance.

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://www.ruxter.com

There are arguably 500,000 or more restaurants in the USA. roughly 80% of them post their menus in PDF format which is tough to read on a mobile device. Mobile Hunger is a tool to convert your restaurant’s menu into an iPhone and iPod viewable web site. More devices will be supported in the future.

Mobile Hunger is the first tool for restaurants to use seamlessly with their existing web site. Mobile Hunger works by redirecting certain devices to a mobile site.

SaaS is really big right now and first to market tools seem to have a competitive advantage.

Our revenue model will consist of a monthly fee to the restaurant, upgrades like domain hosting, removal of all Mobile Hunger Branding, data entry, Open Table affiliate, etc…

No thoughts at the moment. Very interesting!

Please visit their website to learn more: http://mobilehunger.com