international startups Archives

Everhour Hopes to Make Time Tracking Easy and Fun

We’ve always said the best startup ideas are born from personal needs. The team at Weavora believe that, too, so when they created a time tracking tool for internal use, they figured they should share the love with everyone.

Find out about Everhour below:

1) What’s your startup called?

Our company is called Weavora, founded in 2009. We’ve been specializing in web development and consulting and about half a year ago decided to start a startup within the company, and it turned out to be a second breath for the team.

2) What’s your big idea?

Our cherished startup child is Everhour, a time tracking and reporting web app. It embodies our idea of a tool somewhat geeky and so simple and lightweight that even developers (who usually hate tracking hours and time sheets) love using it.

Everhour helps to track hours and analyze them afterwards via detailed time reports. The app is equally great for tracking personal activities like education, sport, hobbies as well as work. It will be perfect for freelancers who need to provide clients with precise timesheets and company owners who want to track their team’s time. Creating time entries with handy @mentions and #tags is as easy as using social media and virtually takes no time.

Working on the app, we focused on keeping the functionality just to the point with no excessive features or tricky interface. We didn’t want to make a mistake of overloading Everhour with a lot of things that in the end would be redundant. Users value their time too much to waste it on getting their bearing in the app instead of starting using it for its purpose.

Moreover, we wanted to have business software that doesn’t feel fiddly or awkward, because often such kinds of tools lose in design and UX compared to apps for individuals.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

We are organization junkies to a certain extent, and since the company launch we’ve been searching for ways to keep track of the team’s work and have nice time reports. It was important for us to analyze time spent and provide clients with precise figures and be transparent with them.

We’ve tried out a lot of things and approaches such as non-tracking time (which obviously isn’t the best solution), Excel and Google Drive spreadsheets as well as many popular time management tools and services. But every time we used a new app, something was missing or wasn’t just fitting us. You know what they say – if you want a thing done well, do it yourself, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. We designed a time tracking and reporting app perfect for our team and realized we couldn’t keep it just to ourselves. We thought it would be great to let other people see how easy and pleasant timesheets could be.

4) Who are the founders?

Mike Kulakov (CEO), Sergey Staroverov (COO), and Yury Tolochko (CTO) are the founders of Weavora, fellow students and friends. By the time of starting Weavora, they all had had deep expertise and knowledge of the field which let them avoid lots of stumbling points newly launched startups usually face. Weavora was an opportunity for them to build a dream team and work on challenging projects in line with their vision.

5) Where are you located?

The beautiful city of Minsk, Belarus

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

The startup community has been growing so quickly and actively over the last couple of years that you may call Minsk a second California :) There are a lot of smart, talented and adventurous guys here who are brave enough to bring their dreams to life. IT in general is really booming here with lots of our companies such as Viber, Wargaming, EPAM, MapsWithMe, Viaden, TrackDuck getting to the international level.

7) What milestones have you reached?

Over 1500 users have already joined us at Everhour and we’re extremely excited about it. We stick to the lean startup approach and have never intended to spend tons on advertising, so it has been the word of mouth in action so far. We love our users, are always ready for their feedback and new ideas and suggestions. The team has also recently released an updated version where we polished the interface even more to make projects, organizations, members and clients management maximum simplified.

8) What are your next milestones?

Next on our roadmap is releasing an iPhone version of the app. Lots of our users will be able to take advantage of tracking their time on the go while on meetings or at out-of-office lunches. We are also going to refine the design to provide a highly intuitive user experience. Besides, we’re thinking about adding some helpful integrations and API. And of course, we never stop improving the app performance.

9) Where can people find out more?

You can always get in touch with the team via Twitter at @everhour. Plus we have Everhour blog on time management and productivity. Our company blog is for sharing our insights and experience of working in a small team together with some tech and industry topics covered. And for those having any questions on the functionality, there is a pretty extensive FAQ section.

Medifund: Creating More Doctors Through Crowdfunding

In the United States, we don’t think much about not having enough doctors. It seems like everywhere we turn there are more doctors.

But it’s not like that in other parts of the world, and those areas desperately need good medical care. According to Jossy Onwude, the US is actually on track to be 90,000 doctors short by 2015.

Why is it so hard to get good doctors? Well, have looked at the cost of medical school lately? (Hint: it’s a lot.)

So, Onwude and his team from Startup Weekend Cebu, Philippines are solving that problem by crowdfunding medical education. They soft-launched earlier this year, and are already seeing interest from investors and users alike.

Check out our Q&A with Onwude below.

What does your company do?

We are crowdfunding future doctors for areas with shortages/the whole world.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Jossy Onwude, MD student who has founded two startups in the past

Leo, a very versatile Python programer

Faye, a brilliant Python programmer

Michael, A very good designer/User experience expert for 7 years

What’s the story behind your idea?

Medifund started when I was looking for a way to help a friend of mine who was about to drop out of med school. We searched for a way to help her raised funds but couldn’t find any. So I said to myself, “Why not start one?”

Then the idea began but now we are not just trying to help med students, but we want to create more doctors for the people of the world.

Where are you based?

We are based in Cebu, Philippines

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

The startup scene here is pretty immature. But there is progress and things are getting better. Not the way they were two years ago. The talent is there, but the major problem we face here is funding. Not enough angels and VCs.

Why now?

Because this is the best time to start. It’s been estimated that by 2015 the United States alone would face a doctor shortage of 90,000 physicians. So its better we act now and try to solve that.

What are your next milestones?

Complete our funding round, release loan feature(so that students can have better chance of getting the money they need), add marketing staff, and add more features

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

To find out more visit www.medifund.co or check out our fb page at www.facebook.com/medifund or on tiwtter atwww.twitter.com/medifund_co

Starter Pad Is A Collaborative Online Community To Build Startups

Lithuania has a bubbling startup community and Lukas Gediminas Sukys, the founder of Starter Pad, is hoping to broaden his reach way beyond his home country.

He bills his startup, Starter Pad, as a new way to build startups online. It’s a collaborative platform for entrepreneurs to reach other entrepreneurs, create ideas and then build them remotely.

“…I was thinking about ways to improve Startups building process and make new connections with entrepreneurs. After some tries to achieve these goals, I understood that Startup people using computer as main tool for building startups, so that means website would be ideal place to begin from” Lukas told nibletz.com in an interview.

For those new to starting up, Starter Pad has four main objectives to helping founders find each other and build.

Connect.

We bring all Startup specialists to one place with fully completed profiles. It’s so easy to find your CoFounder or research to hire these startup specialist. Just what you really need.

Learn.

You can learn from our community of specialists every day by watching their activity in groups, startups, questions page and other places. Give direct questions to them and ask for feedback.

Build.

If you have your startup idea, you can add it to our Startups list and begin to search for a cofounders, mentors, advisors or even investors at our Pad. StarterPad Advocates and our community are at your disposal to get the feedback you need.

Grow.

The final step after being successful of building your Startup: We help you to grow your business. get specialists which will help you to grow. Experts from every IT business role, working on the biggest StartUp hive-mind on the internet to help you grow responsibly.

Starter Pad also provides resources and ideas for legal issues, pitch development, marketing and business development.

Lukas, along with co-founder Joseph Martz, are hoping that Starter Pad can become an international place for startups to launch. As for Lithuania though, the startup scene is growing.

“Lithuania is a small Baltic country, with a population of about 3 million. Our entrepreneurial culture is relatively young: Lithuania has only 20 years out of the Soviet Union, so its a too short timeframe to have a strong entrepreneurial base. However, it seems to grow very fast. Here are based international startups like YPlan or GetJar. Lithuanians specialists are known because of their high productivity in addition to their technical skills, but our roots are a bit conservative” Lukas said.

Starter Pad isn’t alone in the collaborative, connect a founder space. There are other startups that we’ve written about here like LaunchTable, FounderSync and Cofounders Lab just to name a few.

To that end Lukas says; “Our secret sauce is to connect Startup people. There are a lot of specialists living in smaller cities and countries, who can’t attend to startup events easily. StarterPad gives an opportunity for them to connect with specialists from the biggest Startup stages and gather their experience. For Startup rockstars, it is a great way to find talents.”

What else can we expect from Starter Pad? “Our focus now is to make Startup building process more social. So we are planing to make feed for every startup, where you can post what your team is working on. We think this will engage to check StarterPad every day to see progress of Startups you are following.

“For Startup teams, it should give more motivation to build things. Community responses always trying to help to stay motivated and choose the right way for your Startup.”

You can find out more about Starter Pad here.

Israeli Startup: tawkon Is Like A Geiger Counter For Your Smart Phone

Depending on who you talk to the verdict on the radiation generated from cell phones is still out. However it is a legitimate concern to many. An Israeli startup called tawkon wants to help smartphone users be aware when radiation levels emitted from their smartphone, become troublesome.

tawkon insists they aren’t trying to make people afraid of using their phones, in fact they tell us it’s quite the opposite.

“The goal of tawkon is not to have people fear using their phones, quite the opposite. In fact, 90% of the time phones are operating at low radiation, but the level of exposure someone gets from a phone at high radiation for one minute is the same as they would get for five hours at low radiation. It’s that 10% that we want to help you avoid.

When radiation levels from your phone spike tawkon will alert you and provide you with suggestions on how to lessen your exposure (such as using a headset or speakerphone). The app tracks your weekly radiation exposure and gives you valuable data on how many minutes of “high radiation” you have been exposed to.” Mark Lerner, New Media & Marketing Manager for Tawkon told us in an interview.

tawkon wants to give their users piece of mind to be able to use their smartphones whenever they want, knowing that if the radiation emitted from their phones ever becomes a concern Tawkon will alert them.

We got a chance to interview Lerner in depth about Tawkon check out the interview below.

Romanian Startup: Outsourcing.io Brings Contract Awarding Online INTERVIEW

There’s a very interesting startup brewing in Romania. The company called outsourcing.io is bringing the contractor’s bidding and awarding process online, to an easy to use, navigate, bid and win platform. We don’t want to go as far as calling it the ebay for contractors but it allows contractors to bid out jobs online.

Right now the startup is being coded, built and developed in Romania but the team plans to open their official European office in the UK shortly.

Outsourcing.io is taking all of the contractual bidding process into account. Contractors and those submitting calls for bids will be screened and verified and it’s a paid bidding process. Contractors will be able to bid on real good, and well paying jobs and those doing the contracting will know they’re getting qualified, interested contractors who know it takes money to make money.

We got a chance to talk to one of the co-founders, George Bratan in the interview below.

Australian Startup: iPledj Is A Crowdfunding Platform For Just About Everything INTERVIEW

Crowdfunding is a really hot space right now. Obviously in the U.S. Kickstarter and Indiegogo were the first to the gate, funding everything from record albums to installation art projects and even startups who’ve gotten creative with their Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects.

Congress recently passed the JOBS Act that’s going to make it possible for ordinary citizens to crowd fund startups for equity up to $1 million dollars.

Overseas though, crowd funding is just starting to take off. Australian startup iPledj is a crowd funding platform for everything from creative projects to businesses. With iPledj just about anyone create a project and just about anyone can fund that same project. iPledg has no medium for crowd funding for equity, but if you’re a business looking to make money for a special project, you may find luck on the Australian site.

We got a chance to talk with iPledj co-founder Brian Vadas about Australia’s biggest crowdfunding startup. Check out that interview below:

What is ipledg?

iPledg is a broad based crowd funding platform on which those with creative, commercial, charitable or community projects can engage their networks (and beyond) to raise the required funds to achieve their initiatives. Whilst largely unheard of in Australia, crowd funding is one of the fastest browing forms of ecommerce on the planet. Since our inception, we have been engaging with governments, universities, industry bodies, businesses and individuals who see this as a efficient, low risk for of raising funds that do not involve loans that need to be repaid or the surrender of equity in the concept or company. The platform not only facilitates the process of crowd funding, but gives clear, concise, and simple guidelines and assistance to help both project creators and those who wish to support projects.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Andy Tompkins originated from the UK where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant before spending some time in South Africa and then migrating to Australia at the beginning of 2010. Andy has his own corporate advisory business in Brisbane, Lattice Capital, which was started by his colleague Trevor Cuss in 2008. Andy is also a panel member for the Queensland government’s Mentoring for Growth program, assisting small businesses deal with some of the issues facing them in day to day operations. It was on one of these panels that he met Bryan Vadas.

Even at high school, Bryan demonstrated entrepreneurial flair and a commercial astuteness beyond his years, having become the face of Young Achievers Australia in 1982. Using broad based skills he has assisted business start ups right through to multinationals who require business transformation solutions. In 2002, Bryan teamed up with Steve Flint to form Time Masters (Australia), offering project management, program management, and general management consultancy to small and large businesses, locally and abroad.

Having met Andy at a Mentoring for Growth panel meeting in 2011, Bryan initiated a coffee, at which they both discussed synergies between the businesses they were running. As they were about to leave, Andy casually mentioned to Bryan about an idea he had about starting a crowd funding site. Typical of most people who are unaware of this little known concept (at least at the time), Bryan asked “what’s crowd funding?” at which point the two resumed their seats and spent considerably more time going through the idea. At the end of their lengthy conversation Bryan told Andy “you shouldn’t have mentioned this idea in passing – you know now I’m going to push you to do it” and the rest, as they say, is history.

Both Andy and Bryan quickly recognised the “fit” between their philanthropic endeavours and the general concept of Crowd funding, and iPledg became not just a platform for commercial and business projects, but one for charitable and community endeavours.

Finally, with friends and close family involved in artistic and creative pursuits, Andy and Bryan realised that the passion around the creative space would also lend itself to Crowd Funding (this had been proven for years already and all around the world), so iPledg found its third pillar, that of being a platform for the artistic and creative to raise the funding they require for their projects.

And iPledg was born!

Where are you based?

We are based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, but have established the site as global platform, allowing anyone from anywhere in the world to post a project or pledge their support. We have already had projects and pledges from Australia, the USA, Asia, Europe, and South Africa, so we are already achieving the dream of iPledg being based not in one location, but potentially on every computer and screen around the world

What problem does iPledg solve?

Great for startup capital. Venture capitalists don’t “venture” anymore (availability of venture capital is down by 90% from the figures of 10 years ago). Venture capitalists say they find start-ups, but by nature they don’t – they require proven track record and a history of sales and profit (bringing on the argument that they perhaps should be called Development Capitalists nowadays rather than Venture Capitalists). Crowd funding allows for the funding of what is little more than a good idea, as long as “the crowd” also the crowd also believes that the idea is sound. Small business or start-ups can try crowd funding quickly, at low cost and low risk, and raise funds without taking on loans that need to be repaid or giving away equity in the idea, product or company. They can use such funding for prototyping, proof of concept, affording to bring in skills and knowledge to achieve a particular point in their progress, acquire tools and equipment, or to develop marketing collateral or deliver a product launch. A successful campaign will not only provide the required funding, but support the business with social proof of their concept, which may allow them to acquire greater, more formal funding from traditional sources. In addition, a well promoted, successful crowd funding campaign will not only give exposure to the business and product / service, but is a great way to offer the product / service to the market before getting underway. The founders of iPledg recognised (in their commercial lives prior to iPledg) that there was a yawning gap at the bottom of the funding ladder, whereby businesses with a good idea and little (or no) traction could not attract finance. Crowd funding offer a solution and now fills that gap

How did you come up with the idea?

I wish we could take credit for coming up with the idea of crowd funding, but it was successfully implemented before we came along. Andy know of it and he told me of the concept last year, thinking it would fill the gap of at the bottom of the crowd funding ladder that most of our SME clients were faced with when they went to acquire funding. We were also both heavily involved with charities, and had family and friends involved in the creative and artistic field. We recognized that crowd funding would provide a universal solution in all these areas to allow a new model for raising funds, that would be efficient and effective, and allow for a new voice in the heavily crowded funding area.

What’s your secret sauce?

Broad commercial experience. Strategic alliances with key individuals and organizations that give us reach and add to our credibility. The ability to weather the long road to establishing the critical mass and exposure needed to be a sustainable business model. An undying, never-give-up attitude. A passion for wanting to make a difference, to help small business and charitable / community groups (it is this motivation, what we see as the right motivation, that makes us different, as others are motivated by the financial returns being achieved by other, leading and successful crowd funding platforms. It is passion rather than the want for a quick buck that will see sustainability and success). And, of course, as sense of fun in all we do – we love our job!

What’s one challenge you overcame in the startup process?

As a shoestring startup, we had to get bang for our buck in every respect. We had to build the platform with minimal funding, and that gave us a base platform with which we could launch. This gave us the exposure we were after, which then generated enough income to generate the funds to build the full version we wanted, which launches in early August this year. We got there in the end, but we made do with what resources we had to get underway and achieve traction

What’s next for iPledg?

Continue to build awareness of both crowd funding and of iPledg. Launch iPledg 2.0 with the successful components of the current platform, but with more functionality and flexibility. Continue to work with the regulators with whom we have started speaking about investment crowd funding, and move to review global experience in readiness for acceptance of the same model here in Australia when the regulators are ready to do so,

Linkage:

Find out more about iPledj here at their website

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”