What? An online pre-production planning tool for filmmakers.
Founders? Matt Drake, Chris Rickard, Hamid Nazari and Brian Gaffney.
I (Drake) am from Vancouver in Canada and the other three founders are from Melbourne.
Chris came to Vancouver and was working for a start-up over there. We started to talk and, having a background in film, we brought up some of the problems in the industry.
Film is about five years behind in terms of technical innovation – a lot of the communication is still done with pens and bits of paper.
We thought there was a huge gap in the market for a mobile platform for filmmakers. We decided we could leverage mobile devices to get information to crew members during the pre-production process.
It seemed silly to print something off to just hand to someone standing next to you. On film sets, you’ll have the director5 looking at storyboards on his or her iPad, so why can’t the crew have the same kind of thing with schedules?
We had the idea about a year-and-a-half ago and it was clear that we needed seed funding to take this from the basement to the real world.
Surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of options in Vancouver, but there were plenty in Melbourne, such as PushStart and AngelCube.
We applied to YCombinator and didn’t get in and then Startmate came up. We thought it would be great to get over here and work on the product full time.
I had never met the other two founders, other than via Skype, before I got here. We spent eight months working on it, so that it has grown from a passion into a business.
It sounds corny, but it just felt right. We believed in it and we still do.
The focus is on pre-production, so that things such as call sheets and reports are automated and put into a format that everyone can access.
Everyone has access to the platform, so they can see the spread sheets as they are updated. The film industry is very niche and it lots of terms that are particular to the industry, so it makes sense to have an app specific to this area.
It seems silly to do these things manually when we have the technology. We did some select testing with friends and we got great feedback.
We’ve had a steady stream of Beta sign-ups and we are now looking to opening it up.
Yes – it’s felt like we’ve been learning 1,000 things a day! Things that you can’t really put your finger on, the vague things you never really think of.
Having access to 25 very successful mentors is the biggest thing. To a young start-up, money is tight and it’s good to get advice on things such as whether to spend $100 on Google Adwords.
It’s been an eye-opening experience. We’ve got all this advice at our fingertips and it’s far easier to learn the lessons you need to learn in this environment.
We were very encouraged by the successes that Startmate had last year. Last year, they got mentors involved after five months, but this time they’ve e hit the ground running – there were drinks with the mentors on the first day. It’s all very collaborative.
We wrote on a big white board a while ago “Be investable.”
We need to build traction and get users to the site. We are a bit more mature than some of the other start-ups here, so we know who we need to target first.
The goal is to be a platform for every department – everything from pre-production to the camera guys.
China and India are pumping out more films than Hollywood in terms of pure volume, so that is certainly on our horizon. We have set our sights on those markets as they haven’t grown up with the old way of doing things and should be ready to embrace the new technology.
What? A mobile app that provides location-centric messaging and event information between users.
Founders? TJ Tan, Dennis Lo, Steve Cossell and Nishant Menon.
I was working on this part-time after work for three months before Startmate. It was definitely just a dream at that stage. Things were moving slowly.
The other three founders had normal day jobs. I’m doing my PhD.
It’s a mobile and web app that combines different event applications. So, if you want to connect with your mates for a pub crawl, you set up an ETA and track them, to see where they are.
Other location-based apps dissolve immediately, but we want to build events that stay around. We are working on integrating Facebook, Google and other events, so that they can be accessed via the app.
Lots of different apps provide this kind of information but no-one combines it. Initially, we want to provide GroupOn-like ideas, based on location.
We can piggyback off GroupOn or provide an Eventbright-like idea and buy tickets via the app. There are a few ideas how we can monetise it.
It’s still in its initial stages. We’re building a prototype for Apple, Android and Windows.
I saw that Startmate said it was for people with technical skills but didn’t know quite what to do with them.
A lot of people build apps as tools but not as businesses. We wanted Startmate to help steer us so that the app can be profitable. It’s important that you know what you’re building and that it is for the customer, not just for you.
The other start-ups have such great ideas that you could tell that everyone was an engineer, rather than an entrepreneur. It’s so valuable to have the connections and to be mentored properly.
We want as many people as possible using the app and then we’ll monetise it. We will introduce some sort of gaming element so that it is not just blandly tracking people – things like incentives for showing up on time.
