Kyle
Ottawa entrepreneur Brenden Palmer knows there’s a better way to share documents. There’s more to sharing documents than just allowing access. That’s what separates his Ottawa startup NoteShares, from cloud based document storage lockers DropBox, Box.com and their hundreds of clones.
Palmer tells nibletz.com:
“We are not a hard drive in the cloud, and that is not what our premise and model is. We focus on creating a social community around user uploaded content. The point of using the platform is to share your documents and content, whereas other services and platforms like Dropbox, and Box.com simply allow you to have access to that content anywhere (which we offer as well). The differentiator is the ease of use and access that allows you to share this content and these documents with others who are using the platform. We don’t just allow access to share this content, but the social aspect around the document is the most prevalent aspect of our service and platform. Another thing that differentiates us is that we are launching our platform as a free web service.”
What is NoteShares?
NoteShares is a social document sharing platform that allows you to connect with friends, share photos, and create new opportunities to learn, educate, and share. The platform creates a social experience around documents and user uploaded content.
In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)
If I had to explain NoteShares to my grandmother I would start with something that she already has experience with, say, sending emails for example. Almost everyone connected to the internet uses email in some way, so I would start there. People have traditionally only shared documents (really all attachments) in one way before services and platforms like Dropbox, and Google Drive, and that is through sending them as attachments through email.
I would then go on to tell her how this is a terrible way of sharing documents with a group of people, as in, sharing those documents socially. That is what NoteShares aims to accomplish. NoteShares is creating an online social platform that makes it easy to share and discover new content and documents that you would not have otherwise had access to.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
My name is Brenden Palmer, founder & CEO at NoteShares. I am currently the only full time founder on the team, but have some extensive experience developing web applications for local clients here in Ottawa, Canada. I am also studying Software Engineering at the University of Ottawa.
Where are you based?
We are currently based in Ottawa, Canada.
How did you come up with the idea for NoteShares?
I came up with the idea for NoteShares in my first year in university, while I saw how people were sharing documents with their friends. They were constantly sending emails to all of their friends with a bunch of attachments, trying to keep track of which documents they had already sent, and to which friends they had already sent them to. I thought to myself that there must be a better way, and then the idea just hit me.
How did you come up with the name?
Originally I was going to somehow include documents or docs in the name because the whole premise of the platform is social document sharing. I then thought of a note, and how, usually, a note is in some way personal to the person who wrote that note. Again, since the whole premise of the platform is sharing documents (notes), we ended up with NoteShares.
What problem does NoteShares solve?
NoteShares solves the problem of how to share documents socially. We’re focusing on making a simple and effective platform for documents people already have created, or will create in the future.
Are you bootstrapped or funded?
Bootstrapped.
What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
It’s impossible to just come up with one specific challenge, as they are all unique in their own ways, and there have been a lot to overcome.
There have been a lot of technical challenges, as you can imagine, in trying to create a platform for documents because all documents have different formats. The challenge is making it universal, and making the platform “just work”.
What’s next for NoteShares?
NoteShares is currently planning for a beta launch in January, and people can sign up on our website to become beta testers here!
Linkage:
Here are more Canadian startup stories at nibletz.com
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