What is your business model? How does your Startup, Mobile App or Service MAKE MONEY ?

So during my interview series of appbackr,  I didn’t let Jagat go without asking him the same question.

Jagat presenting appbackr at the SFAppPitch at pariSoma

What is AppBackr’s business model? How does appbackr make money?

Jagat: We make money — currently it’s a transaction model. First of all, we take a cut from the buyer’s side when they are purchasing the bulk amount. Let’s assume a 99 cent application. What the developer is getting is 25 cents of that. We take initially 10 cents out of every cent. When the actual application sells on the iTunes market, the buyer gets 53 cents back, we give the developer an additional 11 cents – that’s 39 cents out of the 69 cents or so that he will receive after Apple takes it away. We take — depending on conceptual or finished app, we take 2 to 5 cents.

Then of course, the one thing I did want to add — because we have a criteria to actually put the application on the marketplace — we want to make sure it’s a serious, serious application. We actually do charge a parking fee for that application on the platform. The first month is free, but if you want to keep it on there additionally, right now it’s $25 a month. We’re working with partners — we’re willing to work with developers to figure out how better that money can be spent if they want to actually work with us.

After he told me who he was (and wasn’t) and what he does, Jagat Bhuyan, the Director of Developer Marketing at appbackr - explained in detail what appbackr, the Company is all about, what business problem they are solving and what value appbackr provides to both mobile developers and informed intelligent buyers. He also spoke about app submission and verification process for the app developers. Finally, he gave a peek into his role at appbackr as well as the background of the four founders of appbackr.

What is AppBackr? Tell me a little bit about how you were founded and what business problem you’re solving.

Jagat: AppBackr is the first wholesale marketplace for iPhone and iPad applications. What we’re doing is, we’ve created a platform to bring together the developers with people that can back their apps — we’re calling buyers — and come together and innovate through collaborations.

The company was actually formed out of an idea from a company called Embarkons, which is one of the companies from our founders as well. He is a big backer of peer-to-peer financing. He’s out there creating conferences and stuff or talking about this new theory that — not only the peer to peer financing, but micro-financing type idea.

appbackr was basically a project that came out of that company.

What is the value in appbackr for developers and for the Buyers?

Jagat: Let’s talk about the value from both sides. The interesting thing with this platform we’ve created is there is definitely benefit on both sides.

Start with the developer. One of the issues that we see is that they have great ideas. Developers are the lifeblood of the app marketplace. They have great ideas. The problem is that they don’t always big pockets. Most of the time these guys have full time jobs. Most of these guys are using side projects and developing stuff on their own and using their own funding. It just becomes a very convoluted process for them.

On the other side, what you have is the buyer. For them — the buyer might have — they can classify as all types. They may have the money, but currently there’s no model to really get return from iTunes at this point.

Basically whether they put their money into a conceptual app or a finished app, you either get 27% return or 53% return. Either one of those numbers — less risk with the finished applications obviously, right? But either one of those numbers is a pretty good return on any marketplace you’re looking at.

appbackr - as seen on SFAppPitch at parisoma - san francisco

I saw the video online and you said you verify the applications. How do you do that?

Jagat: Before we allow the applications to be put up on the marketplace, the developer has to be a registered developer through iTunes. Additionally at this point, we have what’s called a verification tag that the developer themselves have to — there is a fee to create that because we have to actually go through and do that verification.

It is something that — if they want to seriously use the marketplace to fund some apps, they have to have credibility. This is a way for them to gain credibility as random people take a look at their application. That tells the buyer, this guy has the ability to actually finish what he says.

On the other side, for the buyers, we don’t verify the buyers, but we allow the developer to verify themselves in a sense, right? We let them decide who should and who shouldn’t buy their applications, right? We let them decide, do they want to sell to their own internal network or do they want to just let it out in the open to anybody and everybody?

What is the security or guarantee for the developer? Say a buyer says he’s going to buy it. What if he backs off or something?

Jagat: Unfortunately for the buyer, there is no backing out because the second he makes that transaction, the developer gets the money immediately. It’s an instant transaction. That’s why we call it a cash advance. I want to buy 1,000 units of your application. It gets taken out of PayPal immediately.

When did you launch officially and how was the reaction from the developer and buyer communities?

Jagat: We did a private launch — very private launch on Tuesday (June 8th 2010). We’ve been getting tremendous feedback. Even back in April, when it first kind of came out for the PayPal conference, we ended up being one of the two winners out of 650 original companies.

I think, just in general, as far as what the feedback is — the concept, everybody sees and says, wow, that’s really cool, right? What they want is more information. They want to understand where the model is and it really — once you get to sit down and look at it, it’s really a wholesale model — most every kind of vertical has at this point.

Are you guys funded or looking for funding? What’s the status?

Jagat: We have closed a round of seed funding. We are obviously always looking for funding. We’re open to anybody that wants to talk about investing in the company.

Is this only for iPhone apps right now or any kind of apps?

Jagat: Excellent question. Here’s the thing. The reason this is really interesting is, we’re taking it and we’re applying it to the iPhone and iPad right now. There’s definitely benefits there. It’s highly visible. It’s highly popular. It’s Apple.

If we can prove that the model works, then not only do we look at Android and Symbian and Java or whatever else it may be, but then all of a sudden you look at e-books, you look at digital music, you look at all of these digital media value pieces and the model will work there.

Curious to put the question to bed, I finally got Jagat into a corner at a recent SFAppPitch event at pariSoma. Jagat told me that he was the Directory of Developer Marketing for a Company called appbackr. appbackr is taking a new unique approach to solving the problem that most mobile app developers face these days, which is

How do you fund your app development without being forced to give up a share of your App to potential Investors?

"It's all fun. That's why I am here!" - Jagat @ appbackr

The interview with Jagat covered a lot of areas and answered a lot of questions that I thought app developers and potential buyers would have, so I have broken it up into different parts. In this 1st part, Jagat talks about the people that create appbackr and then explains his unique role in the company.

Tell me about appbackr – the company and the founders.

Jagat: The company, well at this point, there’s been development on the company for about six or seven months. We did a private launch on June 8th, 2010. The founders – and this is something that really helps us – we have four original founders. Three of the four are entrepreneurs that have taken small companies and sold them to larger corporations!

The original founder – the CEO – is Trevor Cornwell. He sold a company called Skyjet to Bombardier seven or eight years ago.

Sam Zappas, he was a senior executive at ArtistDirect. I believe they took somewhere in the range of $97 million in strategic investment before they took it public.

Craig Hall is one of our lead investors. He sold a company called Skywire to Oracle for $250 million.

Our final guy, his name is Robert Clegg. Robert Clegg is a phenomenal product guy. He’s the mad scientist!

What’s your role in the company?

Jagat: I am what we’re calling a Director of Developer Marketing. As I mentioned in the beginning, it’s an interesting marketing kind of strategy here. For me, what we’ve set up is that first, we’ve got to get the applications in the marketplace, then we’ve got to drive the buyer.

It’s really a simultaneous thing, but I’m concentrating on the developer side. We do have someone in the company that is concentrating is on the buyer side, but it’s all one fluid strategy.

You also sound a little bit like a developer evangelist. Are you doing that unofficially?

Jagat: My background for the last two years — I was at Sun Microsystems and they had a program that catered to startup companies. I’m not a developer myself, but I’ve been in the developer world for some time now. I used to lead the business development for the US portion of that program.

I’ve been dealing with startups for some time. I’ve been dealing with developers for some time. I understand the pain and the dynamics that are associated with a startup. It’s all fun. That’s why I’m here.

How do we do fulfill our philanthropic needs while ensuring that our donations are going for a cause that really really needs it?

Rick Sutton and Joe Fabris solve both these problems in an ingenious way with their Plus3Network mobile App and the accompanying website plus3network.com

Plus3 Networks is an App that tracks individual App users’ active lifestyle, rewards them with kudos / karma point for every step taken, every calorie burnt and then helps corporations donate money and resources to various organization based on the amount of healthy activities carried out by the individual App users.

I met Rick Sutton, the CEO and Co-Founder of Plus3 Networks at the SFAppPitch event here in San Francisco. Rick explained to me the idea behind the Free App, motivation for people to use it and do good simultaneously, the App Business Model, community reaction to the App and much more.

What is Plus3 Network?

Rick Sutton:Plus3 Network motivates people to be more active, to create healthier lifestyles. The secret sauce behind what we do is utilizing corporate philanthropy so as you do something and log it into our network, whether it’s walking the dog or riding the bicycle, not only are you doing something healthy for yourself, but you’re also moving money to charity courtesy of our corporate sponsors.

It’s not your money. It’s corporate philanthropy where they sponsor you through your healthy deeds to make the world a better place.

Let’s say I download the app and use it. How does it work? Let’s say I went out for a walk today. What happens?

Rick Sutton: We have a GPS location-based platform on the iPhone app. We also have a hand entry app if you don’t want to use the GPS. Seamlessly, you can launch the network on your iPhone. It will begin to log the distance and time you spend doing a particular activity. You can edit that activity on the phone, automatically upload it to your Plus3 web-based account and it will seamlessly move the money to charity.

So you have a set of sponsors who are looking to give charity for each mile or something like that?

Rick Sutton:When you look at it from the sponsors’ perspective, the members on our social network become the Pony Express and they replace the postbox. No longer does the company send the philanthropic donation directly to the charity. They power our members to move that money forward.

By being more active?

Rick Sutton:Yes. We do two things. We create a healthier America through physical activity and we also create donations to very needy causes that resonate with the individual.

What category does it fall under?

Rick Sutton:I don’t know what categories there are. I’m just here showing it off.

What is the status of the app?

Rick Sutton:It’s on iPhone right now.

How much does it cost?

Rick Sutton:It’s FREE!

What is your business model? How do you make money?

Rick Sutton:We make money by two ways. We have employee wellness platforms, where companies use us to inspire their employees to be healthier and they pay us a platform fee, based on the number of employees they have.

The second way is a marketing platform where brands want to create relationships with healthy people pursuing healthy lifestyles. An important distinction is that we don’t take a fundraising fee or administration fee out of the donation, so if a particular activity moves one dollar, five dollars to charity, you know as a Plus3 user that all of that five dollars goes to that charity.

Can you tell me a little bit about the company? When was it founded, who are the founders, are you guys actively looking to get more funding?

Rick Sutton:You always want more funding, don’t you? You can never have enough money. The two primary founders of the business, Joe Fabris and myself, Rick Sutton. Joe’s here tonight. He’ll present. We have a couple of other co-founders that are part of the board of advisors and directors.

We did a napkin drawing in 2007. We launched the platform in late 2008, early 2009. We’ve been in business for a little over a year now.

How is the community receiving the app?

Rick Sutton:Very well. If you measure by metrics, the metrics of our user base are very strong. We have 10,000 members in 60 countries so it’s already gone global. Depending on which market you look at — the cause marketing where we talk to a marketing director about building a brand relationship or when we talk to an HR director about creating a healthy workforce, we have really strong engagement on the healthy workforce side and we have pretty good engagement on the cause marketing side.

Jim Louderback – On Video Content

“The idea that you can do both short form and long form and that short form is good for somethings and long form is good for other things and we end up in this world where it’s best screen available. People are gonna watch what they want, when they want, on whatever device they want, whatever best screen that is available.”

Jim Louderback – On Hiring The Right Crew

“It is important to be authentic. Know who you are and be who are and are passionate about something. I look for interest, passion and excitement.”

At the 1st ever App Pitch SF event here at pariSoma, I caught up with Julian Nachtigal, the Business Development Manager in the US for Econtract Pro. Julian was kind enough to spend a lot of time with me talking about the value that EContact Pro provides, how it has become quickly popular on the App Store, bagging a featured app coverage by Apple, what the Business Model for monetizing the App is and what’s in store for the App in the coming days…

What is EContact Pro?

Julian: EContact Pro is a business card reader that uses manual transcription instead of OCR. The OCR is scanning technology, which is supposed to recognize everything that’s on a business card, but we realize it’s not very accurate. It may be 70% correct at most and sometimes it doesn’t even recognize the card.

With EContact Pro, you take a picture of a card, it’s sent to a back office where people actually see the card, transcribe it and manually input it. It comes back and it’s stored in your app and it automatically syncs with your iPhone contacts too.

What category does it fall under?

Julian:It’s in the business category. Right now, it’s #2 in the Business category! It was recently featured by Apple. It’s been doing very, very well!

Is it just an iPhone app?

Julian:Right now, it’s an iPhone app. It’s going to be on BlackBerry and Android too by the end of the year. We realize BlackBerry especially is important, because it’s a really strong business tool for people. We know we have to be on other platforms and we’re working on that.

How long have you been on the App Store and how is the Reaction?

Julian:It’s been on the app store in France since the end of January and it’s been very good. It’s hit #1 several times in Business in France and it’s been featured in France.

We launched and have been in the US app store since the end of April. We got featured last week by Apple. We hit number #2 in business and it’s been received very well. It’s got a 4 Star rating in the app store.

How much does it cost?

Julian: Right now it’s on sale for 99 cents. Usually it costs $3.99 and that includes 10 credits, which are essentially 10 business cards. Then you have in-app purchases of business cards for 10, 100 and 500. 500 business cards costs 10 cents a card and is $50 for the pack of 500. We also do custom requests as well.

What’s the turnaround time for delivering the Transcribed Cards?

Julian: It’s overnight. Usually when you collect business cards, it’s at events or conferences where you’re collecting business cards all day — so you go home or start taking pictures of them during the day.

The next morning when you wake up, all the contacts have been transcribed. They’re in your app. They’re in your iPhone contacts. If your iPhone contacts sync with your address book on your MacBook, which is usually the case, or your iMac, they sync with those — if that syncs with your Gmail, then it syncs with your Gmail as well.

Julian puts EContact Pro to work right away @SFAppPitch!

Why would I want to use this as opposed to an iPhone app like Bump or something else?

Julian: Bump is really interesting, because I get a lot of people who ask me that and with Bump, imagine you meet the CEO of Microsoft. Are you really going to go up to him and say, give me the pound and bump fists with him?

No, not really. You’re going to ask for a business card. It’s a professional business tool.

Bump is fun when you’re going out and exchanging contact information. When you’re dealing on a professional level, you want to take a business card. Then you can photograph it there and hand the business card back. You can be really green about it or you can take the card back with you, take a photo and have it transcribed?

In terms of the other ones, which are OCR apps, the question is just accuracy. Do you want accuracy? For most people, the answer is yes. With OCR, it’s not accurate. You have to go back in and edit yourself. It really becomes a waste of time and you get annoyed with the app.

We want people to be happy and satisfied when they get their contact back.

Your business model is quite obvious. Are you guys profitable right now?

Julian: We’re very close to profitable. The next steps for us in the bigger picture is something where we can sell business card transcription credits to large companies. For example, Ford could buy 100,000 business cards and pass them out to all their employees. As they’re going out and doing sales and they collect business cards, they can do.

We also want to white label the solution to integrate it into other apps, especially CRM apps like Sales Force or High Rise – where when you meet a contact who’s really a business lead, you can add their business card, you can have all their contact information — you can add other layers that that app is designed for as well.

That’s really the next step for us.

Can you tell me a little bit about the company? When was it formed, who are your founders and are you funded or looking for Funding?

Julian: The app was launched in January. Fabian Suliman is the main developer. I’m personally responsible for the business development in the US and launching it on the US market and doing the marketing.

It’s not funded in the sense that it is self-funded. We’re doing a revenue share with the main developer, so we’re partners.

Are you looking for more Funding?

Julian:We would definitely be looking for funding, especially for doing the Enterprise solutions side of things where we do the white label and where we can integrate and we build an API so people can push information to us or pull information back.

Eventually it’s something where transcription services extend beyond just business cards. It’s receipts. It’s documents. It’s notes. There’s lots of potential for it. We’ve actually been approached by people about doing it for things other than business cards. That’s where funding is the next step to build that API.

It is from a Stadium Horn called Vuvuzela (also known as “lepatata“).

The FIFA almost banned it because of the public outcry against it, but then in the last minute, decided not to.

If you are a soccer fan who wants to blow the horn and not burst your lungs at the same time, you can.

There is an iPhone app for that too! It is called Vuvuzela and it is available for FREE on itunes.
Download the FREE Vuvuzela iPhone App here.

The FREE App has already been downloaded for over 75,000 times. If the developer had charged even just 99 cents, he/she would’ve made out with nearly 50K in Net earnings!

PhoneTell is a FREE (for end users) Android App that offers a wide variety of much needed smart phone features like call management, connection to email contacts, social networks, yellow-pages, white-pages and gigantic phone number directory of over 200 million phone numbers across the United States and Canada.

Steve Larsen is the CEO of PhoneTell. His past includes being the CEO & Co-founder of Krugle, Inc., COO of Better Life Media Group, CEO, BigFix Inc, Founding team & VP BizDev at Visage Mobile, Venture Partner at St. Paul Venture Capital , Founding team & EVP/Mktg & BizDev at Net Perceptions and Founding team & VP BizDev at TicketMaster/CitySearch.

Try that for achievements!

What is PhoneTell?

Steve: PhoneTell replaces your native dialer with a dialer that lets you connect to all of your social contacts as well as over 200,000,000 phone numbers in the US and Canada — businesses, other places you may want to call.

Can you explain that a little bit more?

Steve: A lot of times you’re in a situation where you can’t take a phone call and a phone call comes in.  What PhoneTell will do is tell you who’s calling you.  It’ll tell you if it’s Walgreen’s with a prescription, tell you it’s your dentist or could tell you it’s your best friend.  It’ll give you an answer to, rather than answer the call, to be able to send them a text message saying that you’re busy — all with just one click.

We can do that because of that database of numbers that I told you about, that we use to do a reverse lookup to tell you who’s calling.  That also helps to improve your ability to find the number that you want to call.  Even if a name isn’t in your address book on your phone, you can pretty much find it because we connect to your LinkedIn account or your Gmail account as well as connecting into white pages and yellow pages so you can find local businesses or whatever.

I’m able to respond to somebody who’s calling me instead of sending them directly to voicemail.

Steve: Instantly you can respond.  You can be much more polite.

What category does this app fall under?

Steve: Communications or connections.  It’s an app that helps you connect.  In my world, there’s two kinds of categories of applications on a mobile phone.  There are things that you do to entertain yourself between connecting with people and then there are apps that help you connect with people.  We’re one of the apps that helps you connect with people.

phonetell demo kiosk at SFAppPitch @ pariSoma, San Francisco.

What is the status of the application?

Steve: It launched on May 24th for Android.

Do you have plans to publish it for iPhones?

Steve: We will be on the iPhone in about a month and we’ll be on the BlackBerry about two weeks after that.

How much does the app cost?

Steve: It’s free to users.

What is your Business Model?  How do you make Money?

Steve: When users connect to businesses like American Airlines or United or Hertz or Geico Insurance or one of those, we get paid for connecting the user to those merchants.

What is the incentive for businesses to sign up for your service?

Steve: When people are calling you on their mobile phones, it’s because they typically want to transact.  They want what you’re buying or selling.  They’re not calling you on the phone because they’re shopping.  If somebody is at their computer at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and they type rental cars into their browser, they want something very different than the person who is typing rental cars into their mobile phone at 9:30 at night at Miami International Airport.

In one case, they’re shopping.  In the other one, they want a damn car right now!

Tell me a little bit about the company.  When was it founded, who were the founders, are you guys funded or looking for funding?

Steve: We were founded about a year ago, by Wendell Brown and [Adrien Vanzell].  The company’s been around for about a year and it’s funded by the founders as well as angel investors.

We’re always looking for new funding.  When do we stop looking for new funding?

DoubleDutch is a free (for end users) iPhone App that make it very easy for hotels, event organizers, city bloggers and other similar entities to create their own private Social Check-In Apps into which their niche audience / attendees can check-in, network, collaborate and share.

Lawrence Coburn is the CEO and Cofounder of Double Dutch. Lawrence, an internet entrepreneur, has extensive experience and expertise in user generated content, online communities, location based services, widgets, and social media distribution.

Lawrence also blogs at Sexy Widgets and LocationMeMe.

Interview with DoubleDutch CEO and Co-Founder Lawrence Coburn.

What is DoubleDutch?

Lawrence: I’m the founder of Double Dutch and Double Dutch is a white label platform for building your own geolocation app.

What does that mean?

Lawrence: It means any community can have their own Foursquare-type service.  The idea is that if conference organizers wanted to offer their attendees the ability to check in to different events around the conference, the can do so using Double Dutch.

If a university wants to have a private check-in app just for their students with just their dorm information geotagged, they can do that with Double Dutch.

If a hotel wanted to have a virtual concierge where it would allow their guests to check in at tourist attractions around the concierge, they could do that too with Double Dutch.

So it’s serves as a great networking tool.

Lawrence uses DoubleDutch to Check-in at the SFAppPitch Private Event

What category does DoubleDutch fall under?

Lawrence: We call it B2B2C — which is business to business to consumer.  We’re looking for large brands, conferences, companies that want to deliver a geolocation app for their users.

What is DoubleDutch’s Apple App Store Status?

Lawrence: We have an example App in the Apple App Store.  It’s called Double Dutch and it basically shows you the features.  It’ll show you all the features that are available to your company or your community.  It’s a way to take a test run with the app.

Is DoubleDutch available for mainstream use right now?

Lawrence: It is.  You can play around with the app, download it off the store and if you’re interested in building your own Double Dutch for your own company under your own brand, contact info @ doubledutch.me.

Is DoubleDutch only for iPhones?

Lawrence: We’re going to have HTML 5 next month and that’ll work on any web kit browser.  So right now we’re just iPhone.

How much does DoubleDutch cost?

Lawrence: It’s a free app for the end user.  Our prices start at $10,000 setup fee (for the organizers) and then there’s a monthly usage fee for having your own private app.

Besides Hotels and Conference Organizers, who else can leverage DoubleDutch App successfully?

Lawrence: Another really good example is local city guides.  We’re seeing a lot of newspapers launch their own local city guides using their local content, like restaurant reviews and bar reviews under their own brand.

The New York Times launched one (Scoop)last week.  Similarly, we can help local media companies launch their own city guide using our platform.

What is your business model?  How does DoubleDutch, the App, make Money?

Lawrence: It’s through licensing.  Software licensing and then on a per user basis.  It’s similar to Yammer.  If a bunch of users end up using it, you pay more.  If nobody uses it, you don’t pay much money at all.

Tell me a little bit about DoubleDutch, the Company.  When was it founded, who are the founders?  Are you funded or looking for funding?

Lawrence: We raised seed funding in September of 2008.  We launched the geolocation product in March of 2010.  We are based in the Mission District (San Francisco).  We are 7 Employees.  My co-founder is Matthew Spolin, the CEO.

The 1st SF AppPitch will be held on June 10th, 2010, in the same week that 1000s of developers, apple fan boys and all others will descend onto San Francisco for Apple’s WWDC.

pariSoma promises “thousands of dollars in prizes for the top apps”, as named by the judges, and some great schwag to give out to attendees. Prizes include mobile ad network credit, targeted survey taking, and more.

If you are an App developer interested in showing off your App and possibly winning some prize money that you can use to fund your development, then do fill out the form here to be considered.

If you are a VC or a developer or someone interested in attending this event, get tickets here.

Current list of Apps include the following.

Evy also talks about resume analytics that help you measure and track your resume’s performance and how recruiters are using DoYouBuzz resumes in very innovative ways. Finally we find out how (well!) DoYouBuzz is performing in France in less than 3 years since inception.

Evy leaves us with some inspiring advice for all readers!

Interview with Evy Wilkins of DoYouBuzz – Part 3

"We've seen a lot of Users turn their DoYouBuzz Resume into their Own Company Website!" - COO Evy Wilkins with DoYouBuzz.com

Can you talk a little bit about the technology behind the website?  Like, are you guys using web standards like HR-XML?

We are.  We are using HR-XML.  That’s one of the really exciting things about DoYouBuzz: today all of the data that’s in a resume is highly structured, because it’s based on HR-XML and also Microformats.  And so what that means is that we are able to analyze a resume and match it with a job offer or a recruiter search.  So one thing we’re working on is coming out with a recruiting offering, so that recruiters can come and source candidates from DoYouBuzz.

And to do that, we are working with researchers in France on semantic search, because the idea is to use all of this information that’s in your resume—in a DoYouBuzz resume, you typically have twice, if not three times as much information as in a normal resume.  So we can use that information – well, there’s a lot more information to search within, and we can make matches between people, even if you don’t use the same words as the recruiter.

Oh, so it’s more relevant and more specialized, so if I’m a chef or someone and I use different words to describe my resume, I’d still get found if someone is looking for it.

If you are a developer and you don’t use the word database, and someone’s looking for database, you know, based on the technology you’ve used we can put your resume up there – this guy is right for the job, even though in typical search you would never find him, because he just didn’t use this word.  There are lots of examples on how this is really going to change how we search for people.

I see – Okay.  So is it possible to see who’s viewing my resume and stuff like that?  Like, you know, I’d want to know who is looking me up!

Definitely, we understand that.  Today we can tell you how many people have been visiting your resume, and how many pages they’re looking at.  Are they clicking through, or are they just coming to that home page and leaving?  So that helps you kind of decide, Is my resume up to par, do I need to work on it?  You can’t actually see today who these people are. We are working on more advanced statistics.

Great! Is this service only for people in technology and programming for geeks or can other people use it, too, like if I’m a chef or a baker?

Oh yes.

Or a truck-driver!

We have truck-drivers.  We have bakers.  Yes, we even have a clown that uses DoYouBuzz.  DoYouBuzz is really for everyone.

It’s simple enough for anyone to use.  I always say, if you can drag and drop, you will be just fine.  There is  no coding.  You don’t need to know HTML.  It’s really a fun tool to use to do something that was previous tedious, which is, you know, who likes doing their resume?

So, no, definitely very simple.

Okay, so I guess that answers my next question which was going to be: I don’t know any HTML or coding, so is it fairly easy for someone with basic technology of the internet and websites to build it on their own?

Definitely.  You know, to change designs, all you have to do is click on the design you want and it changes the whole thing immediately.  Editing is in real-time, so when you’re making your edits, you see what it will look like at the same time.

It’s very, very simple.  No need to understand web analytics or search engine optimization.  We do it all for you!

Okay, cool.  And then how do you compare to other sites?  I mean, I guess you should not be comparing because everybody offers a unique service, but how do you compare to other online resume sites or other people who seem to be providing a similar offering?

Okay, that’s a good question.  DoYouBuzz is different in many ways.  Number one, we have adapted the resume – as far as I know, we are the only ones who have really adapted the resume to the web.  A lot of people might offer a service where you have a one-page kind of site where it’s basically a Word document copied onto HTML, and it’s not structured data, and you don’t get any of the benefits that come from the web.  So, search engine optimization, for example, so you’re not – on some of these other sites you’re not showing up in results, because these websites were not properly formatted.

Other differences: definitely the design and the quality.  Why do you want just a white page or very limited designs?  It’s the web, right?  You need to take advantage of that and express your personality.  And so DoYouBuzz has put a lot of energy into giving professionals a lot of choice and high quality designs.

Okay, cool.  And are you noticing any change – like, are you guys getting user behavior feedback or do you know how both recruiters and job-seekers are using your website?

Right – definitely.  Job-seekers today are…one of the most interesting things, maybe, is that they’re tweeting the resume a lot.  Having that link to a great site is a great way to make a connection with someone.  So, just a simple 140 character tweet: “I’m really interested in working with you here’s my resume” – that’s totally different.  That wasn’t happening even a year ago.

That’s true.

Another thing, too, we’ve seen a lot of users really go the extra mile and turn their DoYouBuzz resume almost into their own company website.

Oh, like small business or service offering, like accountants, or –?

Exactly.  So they will use it very much as their only web presence for their company, and have a lot of examples of their work and things like that.  DoYouBuzz makes it so much easier to create a web presence.

Okay, awesome.

Oh, and then how are recruiters using it?

Recruiters - what they really like about DoYouBuzz is that the information is so easy to access.  It’s adapted to the screen.  So, instead of scrolling around through resumes and you’ve got 500 windows open, they go to the website and in 10 seconds – and that’s all the time they have - in 10 seconds, they can see on that home page is this person someone I need to spend more time on or not?

And then when they say, Yes, this is someone who’s interesting, then they have all of this extra information, which can help them make that decision and, you know, do I call them or not?  What questions do I need to ask them?  Which is a lot more difficult when all you have is one page.

Okay, yeah, you can’t say much on one page.

No, you can’t.

So how are you guys doing in France since inception, in terms of number of people signing up and feedback from the users, positive, negative?

Feedback has been really great, especially in the last six months. DoYouBuzz is kind of entering into that phase where the general population is kind of getting to know who DoYouBuzz is.  I would say that it’s slowly becoming the norm, and this is how you do your resume now in France.  We have 45 thousands users in France.  So, that puts us – you know, just to give that a little bit of context – we’re getting into that group of some of the largest resume sites in France.

Oh, awesome.  Congratulations!

Yeah, that’s great news.  And we’re really excited, too, to be in the United States and start offering this service, too.

I’m sure you’ll do well.  So, is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?

Well, I would just like them to know that if they’re looking for a job, or if you are interested in your personal brand, you should come to DoYouBuzz, check out the service.

If you have any questions or get stuck, we’re there to help.  All you have to do is send us an e-mail and we’ll be in contact.  So, thank you.

Okay, awesome. Thank you.

In this Part 2 of the multi-part interview series, Evy tells us about the added value that DoYouBuzz brings to regular professionals like you and me and how DoYouBuzz can help us create and maintain a positive online presence. She also touches upon how DoYouBuzz, with it’s sophisticated search / keyword algorithms, is well positioned to bring your online resume up on top in relevant search engines results.

Then we learn that it takes less than 5 minutes to get started with creating our free online resumes on DoYouBuzz.com. Later, Evy talks about the Facebook integration that is built into DoYouBuzz and how you can network very effectively using all these services of DoYouBuzz to land that next job or gig that you have been dreaming about until now!

Interview with Evy Wilkins of DoYouBuzz – Part 2

So what is DoYouBuzz and what value does it provide to someone like me?

Okay, DoYouBuzz is about creating personal professional spaces for people on the web.  We offer a next-generation online resume to professionals.  That means it is a resume website.  So, each professional is equipped with very simple tools to create an entire website dedicated to their professional offering—their personal brand, for example.

The value that it brings to professionals is that there’s two major benefits: one is that you increase your visibility, both online and off, and secondly, you are much better able to promote yourself and your skills.

And why do I really need an online resume?

That’s a great question.  You know, today most resumes are still created on Microsoft Word, and they’re sent around as files.  And if you look at how people recruit today and where people are meeting, and where you are networking—sure, offline networking is very important, but a lot of what we do and a lot of what people think of us happens online today.  So, it might be your behavior online: how are you commenting on blogs and things like that, which networks are you active in?  All of this stuff creates an online identity, and so it’s important to manage that identity and control what people find.

So one way of doing that is to very attractively present your resume or your professional experience, or who you are online.  And what DoYouBuzz offers is a search engine optimized resume-website so that when someone looks you up, they find your resume immediately.  And that’s the first impression they get.

It’s like, when you meet someone, you want to shake their hand firmly.  Online you want to have a place where people can go and get the right information.

Yeah, because I noticed that a lot of employers are Googling and searching for people, potential candidates, on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn?

Yeah, definitely.  I believe about 77% of recruiters say that they will Google a candidate at some point during the recruitment process.  And they’re not really looking for bad pictures of you on Facebook and things like that; they’re trying to just get a better idea of who you are, which is easy today, because online, you know, we leave our opinions and our activity online so that people can learn more about us.

And so, while that might seem scary that people are looking us up, what’s interesting is that most recruiters say that a positive online presence is a big factor in a hiring decision.  So that could be something that you’ve done or created online could be that thing, that element that tips the balance in your favor.

That’s true – that makes sense.  So how do I go about creating a profile on DoYouBuzz?

It’s very simple, and in just about five minutes you can get set up—less than that.  You come to DoYouBuzz, create an account – DoYouBuzz.com – create an account.  We just need your e-mail address and a password.  And then you just start filling in the information.

If you already have a LinkedIn profile you can import it and kind of fill out the basic information on your resume, and then you can just go from there.  You can add video, you can add images, you can add documents.  And one thing that I really like to tell people: the benefit of an online resume is that you are no longer limited to that one page.

I think a lot of people, especially when they’re starting out in their career, they’re like, you know, How do I fit it all on one page? I have a lot to say, or I want to demonstrate what I’ve done.  On a online resume you use your first, your homepage, like your one-page resume, keep it short and to the point, and then you can build up your arguments – you know, explain a lot more in those secondary pages.

Okay, great.  And how much does it cost, and what are the different types of accounts you offer?

Sure! So, DoYouBuzz- it’s free!  We have a free account that gives you one resume that will also give you access to almost all of the features.  And that is free forever.  We also offer a premium account for 49 dollars a year.  And with this account you get, most notably, your own URL.  So you can have yourname.com, for example.  You can also have a larger portfolio and access to some of our more premium design templates.

Okay, which probably makes it more professional looking?

Well, the personal – you know, that URL, that is very professional.  That can surprise people.  But otherwise, you know, with a free account, you’ll have a URL that’s http://DoYouBuzz.com/your-firstname-lastname

Okay, great.  And I noticed a Facebook feature or link in you site.  So, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yeah, it’s a really exciting feature, because Facebook is definitely a place to meet people and network.  Some people use it personally, some use it professionally.  If you do want to have a professional image on Facebook, which is a great idea, you can actually export your resume to your Facebook profile and we’ll create an extra tab, so you’ll have your wall, you’ll have your photos, and then it will say “Resume“.  And if you click on that, then you’ll see the homepage content.  And then if someone is looking at that, they can click on the link and go to your full resume as well.

Oh, that’s awesome.  Another way to network.

Yeah, it’s another way to network, it’s another way to just ensure that people are getting the right image—you know, that you’re projecting the right image, or at least the image you want to project.  And the other thing, too, is that resume is then synchronized, so you don’t have to update your Facebook resume; you just update your DoYouBuzz resume.

That’s great for lazy people like me!

The idea is to make it very simple.

Further Reading.

This ends Part 2 of our interview with DoYouBuzz COO for US Operations, Evy Wilkins. In the last of this series, in Part 3, we will learn more about the technology that powers DoYouBuzz, and in turn powers your postive online presence.

Meanwhile, do check out these articles in the new media that raise awareness about the importance of creating and maintaining a postive online presence using an online resume service like DoYouBuzz.

1. More Employers Use Social Networks to Check Out Applicants (NYTimes Blogs – 2009)
2. Job Applicants BEWARE: You’re Being Googled (Monster.com – 2007)
3. 45% Employers use Facebook-Twitter to screen job candidates (Oregon Business Report 2009)
4. Job candidates getting tripped up by Facebook (MSNBC – 2007)
5. For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Résumé (NYTimes – 2006)

Evy Wilkins, COO for the US Operations of DoYouBuzz, took time of her buzz’y schedule last week to talk to me about DoYouBuzz. We met at pariSoma – San Francisco’s hottest CoWorking Innovation Loft. She spoke at length about what DoYouBuzz is, how it was formed, what value it brings to professionals, who can benefit from it, how optimized it is for search engines and how anyone can create a free profile in under 5 minutes!

I will bring it all to you in a multi-part series, starting with this 1st interview, which is about DoYouBuzz, the Company.

Can’t wait for the rest to learn more about DoYouBuzz? Then just head over to DoYouBuzz.com and create your free professional online resume today!

Interview with Evy Wilkins of DoYouBuzz – Part 1

Opportunity Clicks Everyday! - COO Evy Wilkins with DoYouBuzz.com

So tell me a little bit about DoYouBuzz.  What is DoYouBuzz ? When and Where was the it formed?

Sure. DoYouBuzz is about creating personal professional spaces for people on the web.  We offer a next-generation online resume to professionals.  That means it is a resume website.  So, each professional is equipped with very simple tools to create an entire website dedicated to their professional offering—their personal brand, for example.

The company was founded in France in Nantes, which is on the West Coast of France, in 2007.  Our product, DoYouBuzz.com, went life in 2008.  And then just a few months ago—a month ago, actually, we launched DoYouBuzz in English here in the United States.

Who came up with the idea for DoYouBuzz and Why?

The company was created by Ludovic Simon—is our CEO.  He was working for a major media publisher in France, and he just knew that he wanted to kind of change directions a bit, and so he started looking for another job.  And like most people, he was sending his resume around as a Word document and not working and he was, like, “There’s gotta be a better way to do this.”  So, he created himself a resume website, and started sharing that with people online and people were really impressed.  And all of a sudden, he started getting more requests from people who wanted the same thing than from people who had jobs for him. So he said, “All right, I’m going to turn this into my job!”

And so he created DoYouBuzz!

That’s awesome.  Tell me a little bit about yourself and about your role at DoYouBuzz?

Sure.  So, I come from a communications and marketing background.  I used to work for the non-profit world, specifically for funds that invested in biodiversity conservation.  And over the last couple of years I’ve switched more into the technology world.

For DoYouBuzz, my role is, very simply, making DoYouBuzz work in the United States—bringing it to Americans!

So, create a lot of buzz around it?

Yes, my job is to say, “Yes, I buzz” every day and make that a reality.

So, who are the other key players in the company and what is their background, like your CEO, and—?

Right.  So, DoYouBuzz was founded by Ludovic Simon. There’s a founding team that includes three core people.  There is Julien Maleinge, Jeremie Pottier – oh, the names are really funny saying them with an American accent! – and Emmanuel Mazurier.

So amongst these three – there’s a marketing background, a technical background, and a project management background. All three of them bring those skill-sets to DoYouBuzz, and previously most of the founding team had worked together at this media publishing company in France.

So I went to google.com and typed the 1st and 2nd phrase together “fuck you guys rackspace“. Guess what, the 1st search result link was the blog post I was looking for!

Here, try it out for yourself!

I'm feeling Lucky!

How delightful! I would find out soon enough that the developer was/is Allison Gianotto. My “geek” alter-ego took over, so out of intense software developer curiosity, I visually examined the post, to try and figure out how google could possibly have associated the “fuck you guys” and “rackspace” and properly decided that this was the post I was looking for, given that the HTML body of the post did not have the 1st F* phrase anywhere at all!

It turns out that the title of the featured thumbnail image has the 1st F*phase in it’s name. So that is a clue. Obviously it is not that simple, but that would be a start if I were writing a similar search engine (which I obvisously am not smart enough to do, otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here blogging about it.)

But I digress. Google’s search results are still as relevant as ever, and I can only imagine how hard their engineers and PHDs are working behind the scenes to make search results as accurate and relevant as possible! While Mark Fuckerberg is busy harvesting your social data – including your home address, email address, neighborhood, friends, preferences, even how you like your eggs cooked and how you like to bust your nuts on your woman’s face – and making millions of dollars off of you, google is actually adding value to your everyday life for FREE with it’s very accurate and relevant search results.

Think about it.