All Posts in startups

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 2 Comments

In this article, we speak to Max Aengevelt, co-founder of UK based startup myhomepage. Here Max shares his thoughts about the company, it’s core offering as well as his insights on entrepreneurship.

Can you give a small background of you and your start-up and its founders?

My name is Max Aengevelt. I am one of the two co-founders of myhomepage. I am a recent graduate of European Business School of London; the other co-founder is Massimo Agostinelli who still attends EBSL. Massimo originally had the idea for myhomepage together with his younger brother when working on his Apple Macbook. The way your windows can be displayed all at the same time is something that really inspired Massimo. Why not be able to view the web like this? Myhomepage is a personalized homepage, online password manager and bookmarking service that users can use as a start page. We are particularly proud to have an auto login capability that allows you to automatically login into your websites. From the original idea of being an interactive start page, we have really grown to be a one stop shop to start your online browsing. Myhomepage is a personalized start page.

There are lots of other competitors. What do you see are your strengths and weaknesses compared to them and what the future is like for these services? What is the USP of myhomepage over competitors?

There are several players in this market and we have analysed every single one. Therefore we can say with confidence we have the most complete product. To begin with we are not a widget based news aggregator, nor are we a pure bookmarking website. We offer a lot of different features that make it safer and easier for the user to navigate the web. 70% of websites require a username and password to fully operate the site, myhomepage is place that lets you organize these websites and automatically access them through our auto login feature. I personally would not be able to use the web without the clarity myhomepage gives me. One of our main competitors or alternatives is browsers. Browsers also allow you to store and organise bookmarks as well as passwords which are two of our main features. However, unlike browsers we are online. This means, wherever you are you will be able access all your favourite bookmarks and logins at any time and from any computer using any browser. Also browsers are not a safe place to store your username and password, someone could steal or hack your computer. And unlike other password managers, you do not have to download anything or pay for it. We use a patent pending technology to safely encrypt your account and passwords.

Secondly, as mentioned before, we are well aware of our competitors and no other service offers all the features we offer in one place. There are competitors offering one or two of our features but no one else offers them all in one place. Furthermore, it is designed with a simple, clean layout. We have a lot of great features which make using the website fun – we use thumbnails to display bookmarks, have a unique auto login feature, have drag and drop functionality, bookmarks are organized by tagging, you can import bookmarks and you can easily email bookmarks to your friends. Adding up all these features, myhomepage is a product that stands out from the crowd! Furthermore, ‘myhomepage’ is a great name and brand and one that is you can easily relate to and most importantly trust.

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|In: General|Last Updated: | 2 Comments

During our childhood days, all of us would have read about “Hare & Tortoise” fable. The famous lesson from the fable was “Slow & Steady wins the race” however, most of the times; the first mover advantage holds true [except in some cases like the Apple iPod !!!]

It is a universal truth that “Teams always win” hence, the term “I” carries less weight age than “We” since, “I WILL NEVER WIN” only “WE CAN WIN”. The presentation below, which is an updated version of the old fable gives an excellent insight into Teamwork

  1. Never give up when faced with failure
  2. Fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady
  3. Work to your competencies
  4. Compete against the situation, not against a rival.
  5. Pooling resources and working as a team will always beat individual performers

|In: India|Last Updated:
In this article, we have speak to Neeraj Jhanji, founder & CEO of Japanese company ImaHima. Here Neeraj shares his thoughts about the company, it’s products as well as his insights into entrepreneurship.
Can you give a brief introduction about yourself  ?
I am an Indian who spent 15 years in Japan and currently living in Sweden. My professional interest is to create innovative web and mobile applications.
What does ImaHima mean  and what is it exactly into  ?
ImaHima in Japanese means “are you free now?” and is the name of a mobile location-based social-networking service created in 1999 by my Japanese company ImaHima. ImaHima pioneered the concept of sharing current status [location, activity, mood] among friends using mobile phones.

Since then,  I have built several other internet services and my latest project is Colabolo, which is a light-weight issue-tracking software for small teams.

Can you give an insight into your flaship product Colabolo  ?
Colabolo grew out of my own needs for a better way to manage the tasks and communication within my company. Email is very flexible tool but lacks organization and sharing. Excel or MS-Project have structure but no communication. Colabolo is a communication & collaboration tool that fits somewhere between email and project management software. It is perfect for simple task delegation and assignment between team members.

Compared to other software in this category, it is much simple to use and integrates with email so it can automatically create tasks from incoming email. It can reduce the volume and clutter of email. You can find a 40-second video demo of Colabolo here

Who are the target customers for Colabolo ?
Colabolo’s current feature set is useful for freelancers and small-medium size teams.  It is ideal for teams that collaborate using computers or mobile phones sharing a large volume of tasks that need to be completed.

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|In: Design|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Design has always been one of the key aspects of any product. It is one of the foremost reasons why consumers want to grab a glance of the beautifully designed Apple Products. This also holds true why all of us love Gmail !!!

While reading about Design, I came across an interesting presentation that highlights it’s various aspects which can be split in four stages

  1. Approach
  2. Rapport
  3. Desire
  4. Commitment

I am sure you would really like the presentation just as I did.