As never before the ability of online networks has the potential to shape the world.  Tumpang is preparing to take advantage of this dynamic by offering people who come together online the ability to put their joint purchasing power to work.

The Tumpang model is interesting.  Manufacturers are asked to discount their products if Tumpang can guarantee a group purchase of a certain quantity of items.  Then, within their site, they offer the items for sale at the discounted price providing enough people agree to purchase the item at the discounted rate.  As individuals the customers may not be able to get these ‘bulk’ discount prices – as an online mini-purchasing group, they suddenly have more power.

Tumpang is currently focused on the Chinese market…but are making moves to go international.  There are two obvious challenges at this point:

Products are often country specific so although they have international plans, this may not translate well for the mini-groups.  Will a German purchaser be interested in a kettle for the Malaysian market? See my point?

Most of the products on the site at this point seem relatively low quality i.e. Tumpang does not seem to be striking deals with Apple, Panasonic etc but rather more unknown brands. However, as their purchasing power and traction increases this should give them more negotiation strength with the bigger, more popular manufacturers.

So, Tumpang is one to watch.  This crowd purchasing approach could create another shift in online purchasing.

Andrew
Founder -Advisor Garage
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

Related posts:

1. HireThings: A $350K Virtual Investment
2. Cherrypicka: A $100K Virtual Investment
3. Bringsome: A $200K Virtual Investment

I wish I could tell you all about Flixor but I’m not allowed to today.  What I can say is that Flixor is a very cool up and coming company focused on tools that have both consumer appeal but also the potential to revolutionize the advertising industry.  I recommend you go to http://www.Flixor.com, bookmark it and watch as this company moves from stealth to a very compelling young company. If you are a potential angel – reach out and I’ll forward on your contacts – you won’t be disappointed…

Andrew
Founder – Advisor Garage
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/Community

Related posts:

1. Zaplee: Quick Intro!
2. Zaplee: An Update
3. Ning: A $500K Virtual Investment

For anyone that has read any of the posts on this blog, you’re probably used to seeing a review of the business model of an up and coming young company.  Today’s post is different. It’s a Startup ‘Quick Intro’. My goal is to intersperse the usual type of postings with ‘Quick Intros’. We’ll see what reception these quick intros get!

A friend has been working on a startup called Zaplee.com – so given that I’m particularly excited about the company and it’s opportunity, thought I would do a quick ‘drive by’ about Zaplee.

Zaplee has been working on creating consumer software to provide small and medium sized companies with call center functionality via the Skype service.  This gives Zaplee the capability to offer a other companies call center capabilities without painful and expensive setup costs and processes and like Skype, gives users very low monthly costs for ongoing call center services which have tradtitionally been unreachable by many young companies.

There are many exciting elements to the Zaplee business model but as they are still so ‘fresh’ I’ll need to wait a month or two before getting into details.  Zaplee is currently going through an angel investment round.  This is one of those ‘once in a decade’ opportunities so if there is anyone out there that wants to explore this opportunity…send me an email and I’ll pass it on.

http://www.Zaplee.com

Andrew
Founder – Advisor Garage
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

Related posts:

1. Zaplee: An Update
2. Flixor: Stay Tuned!
3. Geni: A $500K Virtual Investment

I can’t tell you how much I love this business concept!  I’m not 110% convinced about the capability to make significant amounts of investor revenues but frankly…that’s just not the point of this neat new business.  So, let me tell you about “It’s Your Movie”.  The basic idea is for the online community to fund, audition and vote for characters in a movie called “The Flirting Club”.  It’s a complete mashup of a number of popular ideas…think “The Producers meets American Idol” and you are some of the way there!

Business Model:

• Members of the public can buy a ‘stake’ in the movie of $10, $100, $100.  What’s not clear on the site is what stakeholders get for their stake although the site does say the higher the stake the more ‘say’ in the movie.
• Advertising is another revenue stream for “Its Our Movie” although as the site currently has a 4,000,000 Alexa ranking the revenue is likely to minimal at this point.
• Movie Rights and Sale:  I could find no reference to movie rights or sale as it relates to stakeholders but it is a new business so that may appear in their FAQs.

Some Core Functionality/Elements:

• Auditioning:  To audition for a part, members download the script, choose a character and video themselves. After uploading the Audition to http://www.youtube.com / http://www.metacafe.com / http://www.dailymotion.com the code is then re-pasted within the “Its Our Movie” Website so the community can review and vote on the auditions
• Characters: A summary of each character is included in the site and video auditions can be added against each character
• Voting: Members can vote on a 1-10 scale for each audition.  They will also be adding the ability for people to vote via text message/SMS
• Photos/Videos: Photos and videos of each person auditioning
• Member blogs
• Member forums (Is this a Drupal site with a skin? Hummm)

Likes:
Sometimes new business are not about money…OK, rarely new businesses are not about money because money is oxygen for startups but in this case, its about the excitement of being involved in creating a movie. Doesn’t EVERYONE want to be involved in creating a movie? Even if it’s a bad movie for goodness sake.  Now here’s a little prediction, as momentum grows for this new site then it won’t be long before Simon Cowell and the rest get wind of it.  Before you can say “Teletubbies” I’m guessing that this process may move from the web to other mediums.  When that happens then this could become a significant opportunity for the founders.  If I was a stakeholder, I’d be looking for some reassurances that I’m buying a tiny piece of that potential success.

Dislikes/Suggestions:

• Be explicit about what stakeholders are getting!  It’s great that you’ve raised $100K but if you want to hit the $1M target then I would outline what those folks were getting…really clearly!
• My understanding is that the Director is Alex Jovy. Is it THE Alex Jovy that received an Oscar-nomination for his film Holiday Romance who also went on to produce and direct the thriller Sorted starring Matthew Rhys and Jason Donovan? If so, let us know people! At the moment it looks like some obscure guys idea that is absolutely exciting but we need to know it’s legitimate and this isn’t paying for someone’s extended vacation in the South of Spain.

Additional Opportunities:

• Plug this into the TV machine and turn it into a show.

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would personally stake a virtual $500K providing someone gave me virtual percentages of the revenue.

http://www.itsourmovie.com/

Interested in other articles about Its Our Movie?

• http://www.crowdwisdom.de/2007/08/15/crowd-casting-fuer-einen-spielfilm-itsyoumovie/
• http://www.klhagen.com/provokingthought/2007/08/using-creative-new-ideas-crowdsourcing.html

Andrew – Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

Related posts:

1. Ning: A $500K Virtual Investment
2. Farecast: A $500K Virtual Investment
3. 3Luxe: A $500K Virtual Investment

Bringsome is a pre-beta, very early stage company and website that has ‘legs’.  By legs, I mean it has the potential to expand it’s service offering and revenue streams as the business grows.  So what is BringSomes business?  Helping people connect together to BringSome products from one country to another.  No, don’t think illicit drug trade mules importing bad white powder from obscure countries, think someone with a passion for flavored liquid non-dairy coffee creamer in China that would pay a small fee if anyone from the US happens to be about to jump on a plane to Beijing.  Imagine the scenario ~Mum, Dad and the kids have decided to live and work abroad but little Johnnie has a twinkie fetish – that’s where BringSome comes in. But not only that, given the price differences across country boundaries, the enterprising can use BringSome to make some extra cash.

Business Model:
BringSome does not, at this point, take a ‘piece of the action’ i.e. there are no fees for ads, no percentage off the top if someone ‘buys’ a product from another member, in fact the revenue model is currently limited to:

• Paypal donations
• Ads (Google and a few locally generated image ads)

Some Core Functionality:

• Place ads and a little ‘please bring me X because’ note along with a product shot of the item you need
• Contacts are kept private.  If you can deliver the desired product, you can ‘email’ the requestor via the site and sort out how to trade
• Very simple, quick and easy signup.  No long ‘tell me your inside leg measurement’ forms.
• Personal message center along with forums, a place to ‘Hurrah’ when you get the adored item
• Search by text or location / country or just browse
• Polls and Who’s Online

Likes:
A nice niche which could be easily expanded as BringSome gains traction.  The BringSome system is beta and somehow the lack of control and member driven content gives it a real people helping people feel.  Makes me feel closer and less removed from the community.  It would be great if Dave could somehow keep that ‘feel’ as the site scales.

Dislikes:
Just a few questions/concerns:

• There’ s very little traction building tools within the site i.e ‘Send to Friend’ or similar on each ad or page.  There are some slight elements of bookmarks and one overall ‘ Send to Friend’ but that is site wide rather than on each product.  I would recommend more member driven traction building tools especially as I may not be traveling soon to Beijing but may have a friend who is.  A perfect opportunity to send the ‘Creamer’ ad to them so they can help out the Beijing creamer fetishist!
• The site requires some logistical challenges on the back end to work.  Example, I’m travelling to Beijing and want to take that desired creamer.  I email the Beijing member and we agree where to meet so I can give them the item.  This means I have to take time out while in Beijing and find a place that I may not know to meet a person I may not know to give them creamer.  In some ways this could actually be quite interesting. It could also be a pain in the rear.  One idea – I would definitely bring the creamer to Beijing in exchange for a local person to show me briefly around Beijing.  A great way to see a new place and perhaps make a new contact or friend.
• Is there any responsibility for the site to outline legal restrictions? Are there certain goods that are illegal in one country but not in another?  If this is left to the individuals to figure out, there could be some issues down the line for a small number of members and perhaps the site (?)
• Web 2.0 sites are tough to really get going even in one country – for BringSome to work it requires decent numbers of members in multiple countries which is tougher! But you know what…I think Dave and BringSome will actually do it and I think it will because of the member driven, personal ‘feel’ that the site has through user created ads without the ‘Ebay’ish’ template other sites have.

Suggestions:

• Lost revenue opportunity:  Not requiring members to set a finders fee for the item they need and taking a little piece or charging for ads.  But perfectly understandable as it’s very early days for BringSome.  Something tells me the site will probably go that route when they reach what they feel is critical mass.
• The site requires the ad creator to write where the item they need is from.  There is a field for their location but it would help ‘matches’ if members can search not only the requestor’s location but where the requested item is from.  So, I’m in the US and I’m about to travel to China.  If I go search China ads I’ll need to wade through ads from people in China wanting items from everywhere before finding ads for items needed from the US.  Not a problem now as it has a small membership, will be an issue when BringSome skyrockets!

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would BringSome virtual investment of $2o0K! Especially if someone can bring me some Cadbury’s Crunchies from the United Kingdom to the United States (NJ/NY). Crunchies in New York just DON’T taste the same! Try not to sit on them during the flight over, they melt!

http://www.BringSome.com

Interested in other articles about BringSome.com?

• http://www.coolbusinessideas.com/archives/bring_some_over.html
• http://gridskipper.com/travel/everywhere/bring-some-foreign-goodness-finder-282176.php
• http://www.psfk.com/2007/07/hungry-expats-rejoice.html

Andrew – Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

Related posts:

1. HireThings: A $350K Virtual Investment
2. Lyro: A $100K Virtual Investment
3. Ning: A $500K Virtual Investment

Andrew
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

++

 Aime Street recently responded to the recent post ‘Aime Street: A $750K Virtual Investment’ with the following important point:

” Lucas Feb 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 am Edit

Hey Andrew,

Thanks for the 750K. Guess we’ll have to see what happens when that situation pops up. An important point along those lines is that we don’t tie down artists who upload their music with any sort of exclusivity agreement. The more people that hear the music, the better.

Lucas”

Thanks for the clarification and update Lucas.  The fact that Aime Street is focused on the good of all sides of the customer equation is clear.  Its great that a company is putting its customers first and this should ultimately ‘pay off’ for everyone.

Have your say here: http://www.andrewive.com/mdsg-forum/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Related posts:

1. Aime Street: A $750K Virtual Investment
2. Geni Speaks Back: Update
3. HireThings Speaks Back: An Update

Social Flowers is an innovative idea!  If you are part of a social network (and let’s face it…who isn’t nowadays) then using ‘Social Flowers’, you can send flowers, gift baskets, balloons to another member of your social network even though you don’t necessarily have their contact information, name, address etc.

Business Model:
Like most online flower stores, customers are charged for the actual items along with a service charge.  Items range from around $35 and can go up to $200 or thereabouts.  If you wanted to be even more extravagant than that, I’m sure Social Flowers will probably create something just for you and your social networking pal!  Thankfully there is no distracting google ads etc so this is a nice clean site.

Some Core Functionality:
Here is how the process works.

• In a social network, the sender selects the Social Flowers application. The sender then selects the recipient of the flowers from their list of friends.
• When the recipient has been selected, the senders clicks on a link which takes the sender from the social network to the SocialFlowers.com website.
• At SocialFlowers.com, the sender chooses the flower selection, goes through checkout and enters credit card information.
• The sender is returned to the social network. The Social Flowers application inside the social network sends an email on the sender’s behalf to the recipient letting them know that they have been sent real flowers.
• In the social network, the recipient receives an email letting them know they have been sent flowers from the sender. The recipient clicks on the link in the email and goes to SocialFlowers.com where they are asked to provide an address for the delivery of flowers. The recipient is returned to the social network after a delivery address has been provided.
• Social Flowers fulfills the delivery of fresh flowers to the recipient from the sender using our network of over 30,000 local florists across the United States and Canada.

Likes:
This is a nice and simple business model and it’s interesting that a ‘traditional’ business like a flower delivery service is working to cross the web 2.0 digital divide and with luck capitalize on the relationships people are establishing online.

• A key ‘like’ is that I just plain haven’t seen this kind of business before so you have to tip your hat to the maverick that thought of the idea. For that reason alone, I wish them loads of luck!

Dislikes:
I have a few concerns:

• Will people really pay $40 to pay to send flowers to a person they have never met, don’t even know their real names or where they live?  Isn’t part of the joy of giving seeing the persons face after receiving your thoughtful gift?  My wife and Mother are lucky if I send them flowers using an online service – would I or most other people really be thoughtful enough to send flowers to someone they don’t ‘really’ know?
• The site is bland.  The design could be much more innovative, especially as it’s supposed to appeal to the web 2.0 crowd. At this stage it looks like a template that they have been given by an interflora type company. Social Flowers is part of Florist One who state they are first and foremost a florist. That’s good to know but come on guys – turn the visual experience up a notch!
• I’ve received phishing emails telling me someone has sent me virtual flowers and the like.  This may cause challenges for this business model given someone is receiving flower notifications from people they don’t know. Does Social Flowers still charge even if the flowers can’t be delivered or aren’t received?

Suggestions:

• As they are focused on web 2.0 market, try using some of the common tools of this space.  Customer reviews, send to friend, bookmarking, community etc – If community members send each other flowers, add a card with a special reference number to your website so the recipient can write a ‘thank you’ and start a more personal dialogue with the sender via your site.  This would create a lot more traction.

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would virtually invest $150K as I don’t trust that virtual friends will really do anything more than send virtual flowers to each other.  But perhaps the world really is crazy and I could be VERY wrong about this!

http://www.SocialFlowers.com

Andrew – Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

Related posts:

1. Lyro: A $100K Virtual Investment
2. Ning: A $500K Virtual Investment
3. HireThings: A $350K Virtual Investment

PlanHQ.com is an online Business Planning and startup development tool.  Doesn’t sound very sexy does it but you’d be wrong. Having been crazy enough to start three different businesses, I can painfully testify that writing and even more challenging…sticking to the thinking within a good Business Plan is extremely tough.  Plan HQ is an innovative web application that helps entrepreneurs and startups not only create a business plan, but allocate tasks and track progress across the key players. If Plan HQ gets the kind of traction it should then Plan HQ will be a great little business with any number of service and product extensions for the entrepreneur.  Move over 37Signals!

Business Model:
Plan HQ has a nice and simple business model…all elements of the application are hosted by Plan HQ. No downloads, no maintenance, no hosting, no contracts – If Plan HQ does work out for you or you stop needing their service, just leave.  Think ‘Salesforce.com’ for business planning.  Plan HQ offers a 30 day free trial (http://www.planhq.com/signup/) and then the fees are based on number of users on a monthly basis.  So membership types and prices:

Mini   = $9 month / 3 users / 5 active goals
Small = $24 month / 5 users / 10 active goals
Professional = $49 month / Unlimited Users / 10 active goals

Some Core Functionality:
The Plan HQ Product is sub-divided into some management categories that are usually ‘key’ for most startups and early stage companies and of course there’s a ‘Dashboard’ so you can manage and track the imperative tasks. Management ‘uber’ categories include:

• The Dashboard - Covering main tasks, actions, upcoming goals, financials
• The Market  – Your Markets, the Competition, Customers and basic market and customer analytics
• Goals - Actual Goals, Add new goals, confidence of achievement and more
• Financials - Performance, Indicators, graphs 
• The Business Plan Document itself
• Team – Who have you got, who do you need

Likes:
I really like the Plan HQ business model and the product itself, it’s especially relevant for those businesses that are focused on moving towards significant growth and the Venture Capital route.

• The Product seems to cover the key elements of what a young company needs to focus on and allows enough configuration that the users are not ‘locked in’ to Plan HQ’s already good business management methodology
• I hate to put it like this but for those ‘new’ to building businesses from just a plan, the product can really help ensuring the key team members focus on what’s important to any business but especially the ‘young’ business…Customers, revenues, the team and fund raising.
• As its a web ap, this product is especially helpful for a distributed or virtual teams and also for bringing angels, other investors and advisors easily into the key decision making process.  It could actually help get Advisors pulling their weight by locking them into real trackable actions. Wow! Could this product really do this?

Dislikes:
Not so much dislikes as potential questions and ‘like to sees’:

• Paypal as a form of payment.  As a small business owner I don’t like adding my credit card to ongoing online services.
• The positioning is ‘Create, update, track and collaborate around your business plan’. Business Plans eventually fall by the wayside as the business scales and grows beyond a certain stage or size.  As a ‘virtual’ investor, I’d like to see how all the data captured through initial usage and the service ‘scales’ with the business. i.e. beyond the business plan and becoming an ongoing discipline and tool for managing the business ongoing.
• I’d like to see a referral program and a ‘Reseller’ model.  For example, a startup I’m involved with ‘Advisor Garage’ (http://www.AdvisorGarage.com)  has 1000+ entrepreneurs, angels and VCs onboard.  This is a service many of our members would probably like to use – can our company ‘subscribe’ and offer the Plan HQ service to our members for a fee?  I hope so! Let me know if any Plan HQ folks read this…

What’s unclear:

• how the data exports or integrates with other systems – i.e. quickbooks etc
• Are the ‘Permissions’ configurable? Will all signees be able to access all data? Would a CEO want that?

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would ask PlanHQ to include me in their ‘Virtual Investment’ plans to the tune of $750K. Once they establish this market, their are so many obvious product extensions that driving great revenues will be easy and hey…they have the tool to manage those new businesses.  Great job Plan HQ!

http://www.planhq.com/

Andrew – Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com/community

Related posts:

1. Aime Street: A $750K Virtual Investment
2. Bringsome: A $200K Virtual Investment
3. ILetYou: A $1M Virtual Investment (The First!)

“Nahum Wild | hirethings.com | IP: 131.203.101.14

Hi Andrew, great article.

You’ve obviously done your research and flicked around our website. To answer some of your dislikes/questions:

We are in the process of pushing out the charging functionality in the next week or so which includes a couple of changes to our documentation on the site. The main change being that success fees for bookings will only be created two days after the booking has been completed. This gives the supplier time to update the booking with what actually happened – if it differs from the original agreement. For longer bookings we’ll actually charge a success fee two weeks into the booking and with longer terms we are investigating either a fixed rate or staggered success fees over the booking’s duration. We’ll be watching for people that always cancel their bookings too )

The administrative side is going to be a challenge, but I believe that we’re up to that and have the right people for the job. Controlling what is and isn’t on the site will set the mood for the whole concept, it’s a delicate balance of professionalism / business and community. Do we allow hugs or not? We’re still pondering that one.

Yes, obviously repeat customers bypassing the system once they and a supplier have made the initial contact could be a problem for us. Same type of issues that auction sites undoubtedly have. We plan to learn from them and offer a service with awesome value and features that keeps people coming back to and using the site.

Recently a fantastic User Interaction expert joined the team which we are very excited about as this allows the experience to jump up a notch, including tidying up some of the obvious clutter etc…

We’ve got heaps of cool additions planned, so watch this space!

Regards,

Nahum Wild
Development Manager
www.hirethings.co.nz“

++

If you would like to have your say or ask any questions, come along to the “Have Your Say” forum above.

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Related posts:

1. HireThings: A $350K Virtual Investment
2. Geni Speaks Back: Update
3. Aime Street Speaks Back: Update

Business Model:
HireThings has a nice and simple business model…if the item you put up for rent is rented by someone, you pay HireThings either a percentage or a percentage plus cash combination depending on the value of the hire.

Value of booking*     Proposed success fee (incl. GST)
Up to $100               5% of hire/rental fee charged. Min charge $0.50.
$100 – $250              $5 + 4% of hire fee over $100
$250 – $500              $11 + 3% of hire fee over $250
$500 – $1500            $18.50 + 2% of hire fee over $500
$1500 +                   $38.5 + 1% of hire fee over $1500.

Max fee per booking = $100.

In my opinion, simple and transparent business models are always the best and this one is nice and clean given that people only pay when they have secured a hire and make money themselves.  No speculation investment required. This should help adoption…oh yeah, and they do not seem to be getting involved in the visually distracting adsense model. Thanks Guys!

Some Core Functionality:

• Members can created a ‘trusted network’ and can choose to only offer items within that network or the broader full site network
• Listing, photo upload, multiple categories including services and place hire…
• Customers can view listing’s details and submit a quote or booking request
• The Hire Things website calculate an estimated cost for the booking
• Renters are notified by email of the new customer request, and can confirm or respond with a firmer quote.

Likes:
A nice and simple concept, business model and execution -

• I like HireThings UI and the clean, fun graphics – it was a simple site to figure out and use
• The ‘Trusted Network’ is a nice angle that could help adoption and friend referral
• If a person rents an item, the renter has the fee deducted from their topped up account – simple

Dislikes:
Not so much dislikes as potential ‘watchouts’ or concerns:

• If the fee is deducted from the topped up account when the transaction is confirmed, what happens if there are challenges with the rental? i.e. item not received, received but not functioning, item not returned, item returned broken – you get the idea. 
• Are any of the above challenges on HireThings to resolve? If so, hope they have a big admin staff…
• The ‘Trusted Network’ is a nice idea but assuming you add your ‘friends’ and ‘contacts’ to this network – why wouldn’t they just contact each other outside of the system and offer to lend them the articles without incurring the commission?
• Keeping the quality of the listings is going to be a challenge as this grows…for example, there is already a listing for “Soft or Hard Hugs” in the services section – now I like hugs as much of the next guy but to hire a 3rd party? Hummm….see that blue flashing light yet? Shame there’s no photo…

One little suggestion for the HireThings guys…the front page of items is hard on the brain given the range and categories of products meshed together…you may want to create a categorization or perhaps quick read icons for the different categories.

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would ask them to ‘Let’ me virtually invest $350K. 

http://www.hirethings.co.nz/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Related posts:

1. HireThings Speaks Back: An Update
2. Bringsome: A $200K Virtual Investment
3. Social Flowers: A $150K Virtual Investment