Startup of the Day (September 1, 2009) – GoGoPin

Interview between Microsoft Startup Zone’s Julien Codorniou, and Jaeyoung Chun (Danny), co-founder and CEO of MotionCloud, Inc.

Who are you?

I’m Jaeyoung Chun (Danny), co-founder and CEO of MotionCloud, Inc.

How do you feel being the most promising ‘company of the day’ per Microsoft?

We feel much honored. And being recognized as a promising startup is a great motivation for all our team members. We will continue to strive hard to stay as one of the most promising companies.

What did you do before creating your company?

I was studying computer science in Boston. Prior to that, I was a senior software architect in a company developing video conferencing software and CTI solution.

How did you get the idea? What’s the genesis?

Nowadays, nearly everyone with a computer can easily have their own space or media online. You go to sites like Facebook and MySpace, provide two or three pieces of personal information, then ta-da! now you have your own space to express and put your creativity on the Web. It takes less than one minute to get your own space on the Web. Plus, you can have a unique URL for your space, for instance http://facebook.com/johndoe or even http://johndoe.com. Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, all of these services will certainly get you a space on the Web, “online presence”, but this does not automatically establish your identity, this does not tell who you are. Yes, now you do exist on the Web, but you are just one of the million people out there trying to express “you” on the Web.

Until now technologists have focused on creating a content “holder”. But we believe that what’s important is “content” in it. Content is conversations with your friends on Your Facebook profile page, your daily blog posts on WordPress, or pictures you stored in your Flickr photo albums. And the challenge people face these days is that it is still difficult to create one’s own content online, even tech savvy people have to spend quite long time to create something online.

We wanted to provide a dead-easy content creation tool for non-tech savvy people – a tool that doesn’t require any knowledge about HTML, CSS, and FTP, a tool that doesn’t require additional software such as Photoshop, a tool that works in all Web browsers so that all you need is the Internet connection and a Web browser, and finally a tool that lets you create rich and interactive content which is searchable.

So we created “GoGoPin”.

What did you do before creating your company?

I was studying computer science in Boston. Prior to that, I was a senior software architect in a company developing video conferencing software and CTI solution.

What do you sell? What is your company’s mission?

Currently, we provide three services:

GoGoPin Business (http://business.gogopin.com/)

GoGoPin Ad (http://ad.gogopin.com/)

GoGoPin Communicator (http://communicator.gogopin.com/)

Each service has its own mission, but in general, our mission is to provide small local businesses with everything they need to run successful businesses online. We believe that one of the keys to success in online business is to have up-to-date, rich and interactive, searchable content on the Web. As Herbert Simon said “the rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention”. In today’s increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world, whatever you put on the Web must be something that attracts visitor’s attention. We’re trying to help them achieve this through GoGoPin.

What is your market?

Market? How about people? We’d like to help people who belong to these categories.

- People selling stuff on eBay, Amazon, and other marketplaces

- People running brick-and-mortar stores and planning to go online

- People posting ads to Craigslist and other online/offline classifieds

- People who want to send and receive multimedia messages with their friends and family

- People who want to create eye-appealing content in 3 minutes, but have no computer knowledge whatsoever

Funding history? VCs? BA?

We got funded by Neowiz Investment.

Growth? Internationalization?

We started GoGoPin Ad service in November 2008. We recently started GoGoPin Business and GoGoPin Communicator. We are fairly new.

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

We have total of 9 employees, 3 great developers and 2 amazing designers.

Are you hiring? If yes, what? Where?

We are always interesting in talking with creative and motivated people.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

We use Silverlight, ASP.NET, IIS, SQL Server, and few others. I have some experience with other vendor’s tools, but as far as productivity is concerned, nothing can beat Microsoft products. I’m dead serious.

Who’s your role model?

There are just too many great people.

Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/internet areas?

Where software meets living organisms.

Looking for funding? If yes, how much?

Yes, we are seeking $1.5M to expand our business.

What about the BizSpark Program? What do you think? Are you going to join? Why?

We joined the BizSpark Program fairly early. I think it is a great opportunity for startups to get together and share ideas through this program. I was at one event a week ago and met a lot of cool entrepreneurs and MS guys who are willing to help and give me good advice. On the top of that they offer great drinks and food at the event! And we enjoy accessing hundreds of Microsoft products for free.

Any advice to young Software entrepreneurs?

I’m not in the position of giving any advice, but I remember one of the Microsoft TV commercials, “People-Ready Business”. I’m sure there are a lot of meanings in this campaign, but I interpret it this way – the key to success is to ensure your people have the skills, tools, information, and resources needed. And most importantly, you need right people.