BizSpark Startup of the Day - score.ly
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The BizSpark startup of the day is score.ly, based in the US. Below you will find an interview with David Leibowitz, Founder of score.ly. All the best to them and congratulations for being the startup of the day!
Website: www.score.ly
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Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
Founder & Chief Crackerjack.
What did you do before creating your company?
Delivered enterprise software solutions to the Fortune 500, founded a SaaS software company, and brought 3 enterprise applications to market for Microsoft ISVs.
How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?
The positive recognition is fantastic and provides great encouragement to the team.
What is your company’s mission?
To be a hub for achievements. Specifically, to provide a home for people of all ages to respectfully and credibly boast about their accomplishments.
In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
Score.ly allows you to collect, share and discover online and offline achievements.
How did you get the idea for your company?
I spent a lot of time on social sites and on gaming platforms, where we measure accomplishment by milestone or measurable stat. There was no single home to capture this.
Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?
We won Startup Weekend and earned a cash prize from AOL Ventures. We’ve been accepted into the prestigious InSITE NY (Columbia University and NYU graduate program) which is helping us to refine our investment deck and funding strategy.
How many employees do you have? How many developers?
2 full time developer/founders.
Are you hiring?If yes, what are you hiring for and where?
Always looking for sharp business development types.
Which platform are you building on?Why?
Azure – it’s a great cloud platform that scales and is economically efficient. All of our existing experience with .NET, ASP and SQL Server was immediately transportable to the platform.
In addition to the server resources, the training material and bootcamps have been instrumental in helping us ramp up our deployment and go from 0 to alpha in no time flat. The benefit for us is that we can continue to have laser focus on developing a great application while leveraging Microsoft for the architecture, network and operational tiers, like availability and scalability.
Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/Internet area?
Plenty of opportunity in mobile of course. And the new emerging force is the gamification and measurement of social activity.
What do you think about the BizSpark Program?
People will most likely mention the software first, but we were already using Microsoft software…so we were already sold on the technology. The real benefit is the ecosystem that Microsoft has created and continues to improve. We have access to evangelists who truly want to see their startups succeed. The technology and marketing support is invaluable.
Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?
There is no time like the present.
Who’s your role model?
Bruce Lee who said “be water” – which is a great way to sum up in two words the need to be flexible.
What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?
Partnerships and relationships are absolutely essential for success.
Published: 1/18/2011 9:59 AM
Company: score.ly