Designers You’re Going To Love This Madrid Startup, Concept Inbox

ConceptInbox,Madrid startup,startup interviewThe best designers in the world hate having to deal with technology. As crazy as that sounds they want to create things and design things. They don’t have the time to worry about how to share it.

Now a lot of designers, at least the good ones, know that they need clients and need good relationships with them. In many ways good designers need these same personal traits that web developers have. But outside of that, great designers should be tasked with great design.

It’s that premise, and of course simplicity, that’s inspired Oscar del Rio, Miguel Angel Gaton, and Yesica Gonzalez, three entrepreneurs based in Madrid, to create “Concept Inbox”.

“As a designer, all you have to do is send your designs by email to an address that we provide, and automatically this will generate a workspace where your client and you will be able to interact quickly and easily. With Concept inbox, you can manage all your design projects with a single tool therefore avoiding distractions, and focusing on what really matters which is getting quick approval and saving time and money.”  del Rio told nibletz.com in an interview.

Check out the rest of our interview with del Rio below:

What is Concept Inbox?

Concept inbox is a powerful, straightforward, and extremely easy to use tool for designers, to improve interaction with their clients, in order to get feedback, and quick approval on their designs.

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

As a designer, all you have to do is send your designs by email to an address that we provide, and automatically this will generate a workspace where your client and you will be able to interact quickly and easily.

With Concept inbox, you can manage all your design projects with a single tool therefore avoiding distractions, and focusing on what really matters which is getting quick approval and saving time and money.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Oscar del Rio (CEO): Studied Music (Bassoon / Piano) and Software development. Microstrategy Business Intelligence certified. 7 years experience working on design / development areas and 3 years as an entrepreneur. Started 2 companies, 1 success, 1 fail (this is third)  and collaborate with others as an advisor / mentor

Miguel Angel Gatón (CMO): Computer Sciences Engineer, Master degree in Marketing. 5 yrs experience (Michelin) as Media Planner and Online Marketing manager. Co-founded 3 companies.

Yesica González (CFO): Computer Sciences Engineer, Master degree in Finances. Co-founded 3 companies.

Where are you based?

Madrid, Spain

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

Madrid startup community is growing every day. We have great startup accelerators, tons of events and an extensive network of mentors

How did you come up with the idea for Concept Inbox?

Concept inbox is made by designers, for designers. We really love design, but it also can be very stressful …The questions, last minute changes, misunderstandings, endless calls and interruptions that can cause setbacks on deadlines.We suffered this for years, so we tried to simplify it. Concept inbox is as simple as sending an email.

How did you come up with the name?

The name came up thinking we’d like to have an unique tool with all the incoming feedback from our customers about our concepts / designs. Like an email inbox but with no penis enlargement or viagra messages and that stuff.

What problem does Concept Inbox solve?

Concept inbox provides an easy workspace to use, where designers can share designs with clients, get feedback from them and get approval faster, avoiding endless calls and misunderstandings that cause delays on deadlines

What’s your secret sauce?

We are focused on providing tools to drastically save time to both designer / agency and customer. Now we are developing the new version of the platform which includes some of that new tools.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

We have received 40k € from Telefonica’s accelerator Way

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

We’ve been up and running from September 2012, and we already have over 3000 designers from 17 countries using the tool.

Concept inbox was selected as one of the TOP50 Startups at Pioneers Festival, Vienna.

Also we were chosen from 450+ startups to participate in Wayra Madrid acceleration programme.

What’s your next milestone?

We are working hard to launch a new version of Concept inbox in two months.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

Since the beginning of the project we had the support of many different mentors, from serial entrepreneurs to multinational professionals with extensive experience.

They have helped us to look at the big picture and see things from other points of view.

What’s next for Concept Inbox?

We’re about to launch the new version and also looking for funding to let more people to know our service.

Where can people find out more?

 See the mobile email startup we like better than mailbox.

EEBOTHDiscount

Spanish Startup Moodyo Is A Smarter Social Shopping Community

Moodyo,Spanish startup,TechCrunch Disrupt,Social ShoppingSpanish startup Moodyo is growing itself in the Spanish countryside away from big metropolitan areas like Madrid and Barcelona. In the town of Seville, where Moodyo was born, there are less than 10 active tech startups, making talent and capital extremely hard to find. That didn’t stop Javier Padilla though.

At a time in Spain where they unemployment rate is a whopping 26% Padilla went ahead and quit his job and with $120,000 dollars of his own money, embarked on creating a social shopping site. Others have attempted to bridge a social network with on and offline shopping but Padilla insists that Moodyo has it right.

Others in Spain must have agreed because he was able to raise $600,000 last November. Now he plans to expand his startup based on three simple ideas; I want it, I Have it and I love this, by opening up an office in New York. Padilla tells nibletz.com that they’ve spent the better part of a month, staying in New York after presenting in the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt. They’ve started forming relationships in the New York startup scene and with New York based investors.

But they weren’t alone, especially at Disrupt. That’s where we saw both Styloola and 3 Other Things, also international startups testing the waters of on and offline shopping.

We got a chance to catch up with Padilla check out our interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

Our startup is Moodyo. It’s a social shopping network that really connects the dots between consumers, vendors, brands and trendsetters. We’ve created a system where users can find the right people to follow based on their personal taste, and brands/shops can use Moodyo Insights to track the behavior of potential customers -in a non-intrusive way…- and send them targeted offers and discounts.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Javier Padilla, CEO and Co-Founder and Alex Guerra, CTO and Co-Founder.

Javier Padilla has a deep background in the Internet business. He’s a designer and coder that started building websites in 1997. In the last 16 years he has developed more than a hundred sites for companies and individuals. He co-founded in 2006 El Desmarque (http://www.eldesmarque.com), a network of news sites that has around 80.000 unique visitors each day in Spain and is profitable. He also directed the IT department of ABC (http://www.abcdesevilla.es) for 5 years (2006-2011). ABC is the third largest online news site of Spain. Javier loves music and plays drums and the electric guitar in his spare time.

Alex Guerra is a Software Engineer with a great knowledge of Java and other related technologies. He worked for several years developing big websites for corporative clients in Spain.

Alex and Javier worked together for 2 years before they decided to quit from their jobs and start a new career with Moodyo in 2011.

Where are you based?

We are now based in Europe (Spain), but in the summer a part of the team will move to New York. We’ve spent a month now in the City looking for partners, investors and we’ve got an amazing feedback from them.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Well, honestly there’s no startup culture in Seville (the city where Moodyo born). There are like two or three startups in the city and a 99% of the people doesn’t know what the word “Startup” means. It’s hard to raise a company there. And it’s more difficult to raise money so we’re very happy about having closed our first round of funding back in November 2012.

In Madrid or Barcelona is different. There’s a new ecosystem of startup companies and some investors with an interesting background. In Spain we have some recent successful companies that have been acquired by the big ones. Amazon acquired BuyVIP two years ago and Telefonica did the same with Tuenti.

What problem does your startup solve?

The platform solves many problems. First, you get recommendations from people you really trust. That’s important because we’re not uploading a bunch of products that we want you to buy but, instead, users with a taste like yours are uploading things that you may like. As we have a follow/unfollow system, all the info received by the user via email, via Moodyo or via other social networks is filtered. Also trendsetters have the chance to build a community of loyal fans and shops don’t expend money on spamming users with the wrong offer. As a result, the user finally gets the product that he needs at the best price/location and shops/brands don’t spend money spamming people with offers that they will never use.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

The unemployment rate has reached 26% in Spain. There are more than 6 million people without a job (a 26% of the active population). That’s crazy. And that means that there’s a little chance for entrepreneurs to get money from banks and people around you (family, friends and fools, the famous “3 F’s”) are out of money. So you really need to have an interesting product to convince someone to invest in your project. The first thing I did was to quit my job and put $120.000 from my pocket. Everything I had. Then I tried to find the best people around and fortunately I created an amazing team.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We won the Tech Media Europe award in February 2011. That was important because we didn’t have the product in those days and some investors validated our idea. Then we joined the Mola Incubator from Spanish entrepreneur Enrique Dubois who gave us some interesting advices. In November 2012 we closed our first round of funding ($600.000). From January 2013 the network started to grow steadily. Three weeks ago we opened the first shop inside Moodyo and we’re already processing orders everyday. So getting the famous “traction” is our last milestone.

What are your next milestones?

Getting a big amount of active users to be seen as a real opportunity for investors is the first one. We’ll do it because we’re already growing in every way. Moving to New York is also mandatory for us now from my point of view. We’re working on both things at the same time. The mobile app, that will be launched in June will help us because it’s a real tool for shopping.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Well, my first role model is my father. He taught me to work 24 hours a day if you want to succeed. Then Jeff Bezos is a big inspiration and a role model for me. I totally agree with him about how important is the team. It’s the most important thing. If you have a committed and smart team then you have a 50% of the job done. The idea is important, of course, but there are a thousand ideas that died because they didn’t have a team to support them.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley.

It’s very hard to create a new concept and spread it. When we started to talk to others about “Social Shopping” three years ago in Spain it was like… “Social…what?”. Then the media and blogs outside our country are very hard to reach. If you’re not in New York or The Valley you don’t have the chance to reach to the big ones. Now we’re starting to do it. Nibletz is one of the first sites where we’ll be featured outside Spain (and we’re very happy about that :-)). In Spain we’ve been featured in the most important blogs and newspaper.

What’s next for your startup?

Growing, growing and growing. Then we want to find new partners in United States. In Spain we have 36 pending requests to join us with a shop inside Moodyo.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

We have a blog > http://blog.moodyo.com

We’ve been recently featured in El Pais (sorry, it’s in Spanish. It’s the largest newspaper in Spain) > http://tecnologia.elpais.com/tecnologia/2013/04/22/actualidad/1366654572_098303.html

Moodyo Twitter account > http://twitter.com/moodyo

Check out more than 40 other startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here at nibletz.com

EEBOTHDiscount

Barcelona Startup: Groupiest, Create Your Own Social Networks

Groupiest, Barcelona startup,Spanish startup,startups,social networkWhen you scale down social networks to their core, you’ll quickly realize that they’ve been around a lot longer than Facebook. MMC groups on AOL, bulletin boards on Prodigy and even dial in BBS’ back in the 80’s would equate to what has evolved into the current social network. Albeit today’s social networks have many more features, users and points of entry.

While Facebook continues to grow, and currently tops over 1 billion users, siloed or vertical social networks are starting to pop up all over the place. You have your one big public network and than you have your “clubs”. So what if there is no network for your interest yet? You could opt to be entrepreneurial and create a startup for it, with a practical likeliness of failing. Or you can find a startup that lets you create your own mini social networks.

That platform is Barcelona startup Groupiest.

Groupiest allows users to create their own community of interest for free (read mini-social network). Using Groupiest users can share what their passionate about and build their own personal brand in their own network of like minded folks. Think Yahoo Groups or even Usenet on steroids.

We got a chance to talk with the founders of Groupiest. Check out the interview below:

Read More…

We Talk With 500 Startups, Madrid Startup, Traity: Recruitment With Trust & Personality

Traity,Madrid startup,Spain startup, 500 startups, startup interviewWe’ve reported on countless startups that are striving to re-invent the interview and recruitment process. It seems that recruitment may be one of the hottest startup spaces in 2012. How can you separate the good and the bad? Well one way is by knowing that Dave McClure’s 500 startups is backing this Madrid startup, Traity.

Traity is attacking the recruitment space with analytics, data, and endorsement. When you look up a book or something that may be a bit new to you on Amazon.com, you’re  a lot more comfortable knowing that the book has 100+ positive reviews right? If you’re like me and willing to take a chance on a book, having 100 reviews either positive or negative is typically an indicator that it’s at least worth a look.

Well that’s where Traity starts. Their recruitment platform reports are made up of endorsements from several people.

The other place where Traity is making a difference is in personality. Traity positions themselves as a personality based engine, personality test or as it suggests on their website, personality game. Traity is measuring the personality strengths in people like perseverance or how proactive they will be. A candidate could look perfect on paper but they could be a bump on a log in real life. These are all factors you need to know when hiring a candidate, that you may not get to see until the interview.

Speaking of interviews, here’s an interview with Juan Cartagena, co-founder of 500 startups, startup Traity

Read More…

Spanish Startup: Fiona Is Your Artificial, Virtual Cloud Based Assistant

Fiona,Spanish startup,startup,startups,startup interview,social roboticsThere’s a cool new social robotics startup in Spain, called Adele Robots,  that has created a collaborative, artificial, virtual, cloud based assistant. Her name is Fiona.

We’re not talking about Sims or avatars here, Fiona has features and skill sets that have been acquired by community collaboration, that the company calls “sparks”. One user may add a cool character trait while another may add a skill to make Fiona smarter. All of these sparks can be dragged and dropped when users create their own Fiona’s that are customizable to them.

As the company evolves, users will be able to use these cloud based, social robots for customer service, as a personal assistant or even for research. Think Siri with crowd sourced attributes that ends up actually looking like an avatar and having a personality of sorts.

Confused? Watch the video:

Now that you have a clearer understanding of what exactly Fiona is, we got a chance to talk to the founders of Adele Robots about Fiona. Check out the interview below.

Read More…

Spanish Startup: ChattyBuy Is Turning Tweets Into Cash INTERVIEW

Back in April we reported on a Portland startup called Chippify that is enabling people to send money using Twitter. Using their service, sending a payment is as easy as replying to a tweet.

On the other side of the Twitter payment spectrum is ChattyBuy who is turning people’s tweets into cash, well at least legitimate discounts saving you cash.  ChattyBuy is based in Alicante Spain, where they’ve already partnered with merchants and social media mavens to create a platform that, in some capacity pays you to Tweet, in discounts.

We got a chance to interview Alex Aitkenhead the co-founder and CEO of ChattyBuy about his unique new startup.

What is Chattybuy?
Chattybuy is a social network that turns communication into savings.
How? By rewarding users with discount points for chatting, sending “tweets” and
following businesses that they exchange for the coupons they want!
Who are the founders & what are their backgrounds?
Alex Aitkenhead    Founder & CEO
Founder of  www.quedescuentos.es an e-coupon directory in Spain.
Silvia Sanchez    Co-founder
Working as sales representative for large multinationals
Alex Fernandez   Communication
Recently graduated from university qualified in grafic design and communication.
Where are you based?
Chattybuy is a startup based in Alicante, Spain. The founder is Scottish but has lived in Spain for over 19 years.
What problem is Chattybuy solving?
More than solve a problem it’s about creating a new solution. No Social network wards users for chatting, why not be the first? Cash back sites are complex and you have to buy, in chattybuy WE reward you for using us to communicate and YOU decide where to exchange your points!
What is your secret sauce/competitive edge?
Our secret sauce is the simplicity of the product. We have turned online communication into something extra, helping user save money doing what the do most, chat, send tweets and use coupons!
What is the startup culture like in your town?
Unfortunately the startup culture in our town in non existing, in Spain most startups como from Barcelona, Madrid or Valencia. This is especially so when we are looking at technology startups.
What is one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
The main challenge was being able to produce a fully functional beta version with such a limited budget and no external investors, they are really lacking in Spain it’s always the same 4-5 people.
What is next for Chatty Buy?
The next step for chattybuy is crowd funding to help create our mobile apps and improve systems. We want the public to decide if they think chattybuy is a great concept and reward them for backing us up from just $1.
We also want to setup chattybuy as a business in NYC or London ideal cities to grow as a company and hire the best.
Hit the links:
For more on Chattybuy find them here at chattybuy.com
Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more interviews from “everywhere else”
Check this link out, help the nibletz team