Buyou Is A Free Online ...

Shopping on the iPad is becoming one of the best ways to shop. You’re sitting on your couch, comfy as a bug in a rug, swiping through dresses, and t-shirts, and shoes! Oh my! But there’s one issue: you have to switch between all the different brand apps to enjoy yourself. Sure, you can hit up the Saks 5th Ave app and view multiple brands at once, but those brands aren’t offering the ability to reach out to you directly with their sales, content, and promotions. But that’s why Buyou, the crowd favorite here at the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley (and thus one of our Battlefield members), has stepped onto the stage with its iPad app. It’s a free online mall that aggregates various brands into one beautiful, easy to use interface. And while it’s great that the app begins learning your taste through your likes and dislikes, it’s even better that it relays that information back to its brand partners. This means that a retailer like Express will begin to learn the clothes you like and more easily target clothing you may enjoy directly to you. Buyou offers up a Featured section, to highlight special products and promotions, as well as a Deal Feed, that throws together all the hottest deals within its retailer network so you can save a buck or two while iPad shopping. You can also shop by category, and save items to a wishlist. Another pain point that Buyou addresses for retailers is their social presence. Retailers often produce a ton of content for Facebook and Twitter, and even though you may follow them, you’ve likely done so to unlock a deal or be a part of a promotion, not to surf through their content on a daily basis. Buyou filters all its retailers’ social media content through the app and presents it in an unobtrusive, thoughtful way. The app is currently live in the App Store with 32 retailers already on the platform, including Express, Bonobos, Gap, Lands’ End, LEGO, Nine West, Oakley, and The Sharper Image. The company is currently working on adding new brands. Click to view slideshow.

Talkdesk Puts Your Comp...

Most businesses need to be able keep in touch with their customers and provide customer service over the phone, but rolling out a call center can be expensive. Not just that, but most call center software today isn’t very good at keeping tabs on customers and presenting all the information that businesses need to serve them better. That’s why Talkdesk is launching its cloud-based call center software Tuesday as part of the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. The startup enables call agents to know everything about customers when they call, based on reverse lookup of the customer’s phone number, without having to ask for their information. It also integrates with the existing CRM systems that companies use, such as SalesForce, as well as helpdesk software like ZenDesk and Desk.com. But it also hooks into Twitter and Facebook to find public information about customers from social networks. Not only does Talkdesk handle CRM and help desk features, but it also allows agents to make, receive, record and transcribe calls. It gives a history of the customers’ previous interactions, including items purchased and searched, the amount of money spent, and previous calls made. Since the service operates in the cloud, all of this information is available in the agent’s web browser when a customer calls. Talkdesk is based on Twilio technology, and was founded as part of the Twilio Fund contest last year. Launching today, Talkdesk is making its cloud-based call center software generally available to anyone who wants to sign up. Because of its cloud-based infrastructure, businesses can sign up in less than five minutes. Talkdesk was part of last summer’s 500 Startups Accelerator class, and has raised $450,000 to date. It has three employees, based in Mountain View, Calif. Disrupt Q&A Q: What are the things that company buying your product gets ROI? A: When you use Talkdesk, you have all the information about the customer, and you can quickly answer problems and make suggestions. Q: Do people replace existing software, or layering on top? A: Customers we have now don’t have call center software. Q: Regulatory issues from recording phone conversations? A: You have to tell the person, but you can add information before someone answers the call. Q: Pick one customer and explain the use case? A: Chevy, for example, using for support and one for sales. They have two numbers, and can see all information about the customer. Q: What would a customer use instead? A: In the example of Chevy, they have big call centers, but nothing for this type of solution. Out goal is to eventually to go big in the enterprise. Q: Price points? A: First agent is free always. So customer tries one agent, and then expand. We charge $49 per month per agent. Q: A lot of your focus is on the telephony side of things and that’s important, but a lot is moving to social media. A: For now, we are only voice, but integrate with email systems like ZenDesk. But the phone is still the main avenue of conversation for all businesses.

With Ex-Yahoo CTO On Bo...

Yottaa , the Boston-based startup that offers cloud-based web performance monitoring and optimization services for small businesses, is today announcing that it has closed a $9 million series B financing round. Each of the startup’s existing investors, including General Catalyst Partners, Stata Venture Partners and Cambridge West Ventures, re-upped for Yottaa’s series B, joined by additional undisclosed investors. Yottaa’s new round brings its total funding to $13 million and will be primarily allocated towards product development and increasing the rapidity of its product release cycle, as Yottaa gears up to add further features and components to its suite of services that aim to optimize, protect, and monotor websites and critical web apps for organizations of all stripes, but particularly the little guys — startups and SMBs. Certainly, this is no easy task, especially considering that Yottaa is now straddling two continents, with the majority of its near-50 employees based in China while its headquarters are to be found in Boston. Yet, in spite of this — and in spite of the rising star that is the popular and well-funded Cloudflare (nominally, a Yottaa competitor) — the startup has been growing fast. Led by Coach Wei, the former Chairman of Nexaweb, Yottaa has attracted over 80K businesses, thanks to its affordable software that allows businesses of all sizes to accelerate their websites and critical web apps. What’s more, over the last six months, Yottaa’s Site Speed Optimizer has grown to serve over 100 million unique visitors per month, and, as of last month, five percent of web users have visited sites accelerated by the Yottaa network. Back in February, the startup announced its Content Delivery Network (CDN) service , which leverages the startup’s patented cloud-routing technology and global infrastructure to automate realtime, front-end optimization for the websites of startups and small businesses. And speaking of that, adding to its value proposition and giving it a more defensible position in an attractive and growing market, Yottaa has been granted two patents, one being the aforementioned cloud routing technology, with a second granted in web performance and front-end optimization. What’s more, the startup has another eight patents pending approval. Two months ago, Yottaa added some impressive talent (and experience) to its team, including the addition of former Yahoo CTO Raymie Stata to its board of directors. At Yahoo, Stata helped develop the company’s technology strategy and drive key projects like Hadoop. Prior to joining Yahoo, the CTO founded Stata Labs, which developed content management technology relating to email, leading the company until it was acquired by Yahoo. Along with Stata, the startup also hired Morris Porter as VP of Sales and Business Development, who formerly led sales operations for Citrix Online and served as VP of sales at Intranets.com, which he helped transform into a $600 million business unit within Cisco Systems. On top of all this, Yottaa has been continuing with what its CEO describes as an aggressive product release cycle, turning its attention to the mobile web, launching a solution that allows users to bring a speed boost to their mobile web sites. Combining its patented front-end optimization service with a global content delivery network (CDN), the mobile acceleration software aims to address the mobile performance bottlenecks that have become endemic to the delivery and execution of the code that drives mobile applications, solving these challenges in an automated fashion. The startup’s mobile performance solution was developed in partnership with another Boston-based startup, MocoSpace, a social gaming platform that today boasts over 25 million registered users. With MocoSpace in tow, the solution has been developed to help ensure that MocoSpace and other mobile companies can offer a great users experience in both mobile apps and HTML5 games on increasingly speedy mobile devices and networks. With its growing suite of optimization and performance solutions for websites and web apps, one could see Yottaa as increasingly looking like a small-business-oriented version of Akamai. Either way, there is plenty of talent and competition in the space, but Wei thinks that the scope of the problem is huge and is only getting bigger thanks to the skyrocketing adoption of the mobile web. One could build a big company just by focusing on a particular link in the chain, he says, like mobile. It’s taken Yottaa a long time to get to a place where the team (and Wei) feel like they’ve developed a steady foundation on which to work. But Wei says that he believes the team has arrived and, instead of taking the lean startup, fast iteration approach to product development, the team is focusing on solving these thorny optimization issues with a bigger team that will focus on rolling out bigger products every three months or so. It may be an alternative approach given the popularity of the lean startup dynamic in Silicon Valley, but with one foot in China already, a handful of patents pending, and more products on the way, Yottaa may very well be following Cloudflare to a lofty valuation. For more, find Yottaa at home here.

IAB Launches Digital Me...

Ever have a bad experience with a sales person in the interactive space? That question is kind of like asking if you have ever felt the urge to breath first thing in the morning. I come from the sales side of the ISP and SEO industry as part of my interactive background. In my time, I did OK. In that time I also saw MANY who did not do OK and wondered what they said in an interview to get hired. That’s the way it is with most sales positions which is why turnover is so high and ‘opportunities’ are more than most other job segments. Part of the trouble is the learning curve for sales folks especially in a space that changes as rapidly as Internet marketing does. It’s very different than those who are actually delivering the services being sold. Sales people usually have a 30,000 foot knowledge of what they are selling. Many know just enough to close a deal. Once again this is normal although I won’t go so far as to say it is good. In fact, I would bet that many service delivery folks are ready to jump through the screen right now. Sorry. Apparently the folks at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) have seen trouble in the area of digital media sales that has gotten so bad that they have introduced a certification program for this important group in the overall mechanism of Internet marketing. The IAB’s press release states “The certification program will help raise the level of professionalism in the digital field by allowing salespeople to demonstrate their knowledge of the complex interactive environment,” said Michael Theodore, Vice President, Member Services, IAB. “Much like examinations in other fields, this test will give current job holders and job seekers a ‘score card’ to prove their understanding of the most important concepts, guidelines, and best practices in digital advertising. Businesses also benefit by ensuring that they have the most competent sales teams possible.” Let’s just say this is a long time coming. I would venture that most of the trouble that the industry experiences from customers and clients who have been burned by a provider of any kind are, at the very least, the indirect result of sales incompetence. I am very comfortable saying that because I have been guilty of displaying that incompetence (which was rooted more in ignorance rather than me being a sales scumbag) in the past. Selling in the interactive space is a difficult thing to do especially since everyone is an ‘expert’ (Now that is where TRUE certification needs exist as well. If we could develop a client certification process that would solve all the problems in the interactive world). This certification concept is a good idea so at least a baseline of competence can be established thus creating a more professional sales force. So who is behind this along with the IAB? Well to name a few there is CNN Money, Conde Nast Media Group, Disney Interactive Media Group and many more. Let’s just say it’s not a fly by night effort to extract money from people (I hope at least!). So what will be covered? Differentiating the benefits of digital versus traditional media Describing digital advertising formats Defining key digital advertising tools and technologies Calculating media mathematics Adhering to compliance standards/policies Understanding differences in digital ad formats Prospecting for new clients Aligning digital advertising products with client objectives Comprehending internal and third-party research Analyzing, launching, and monitoring digital advertising campaigns and data Reviewing opportunities to renew or upsell digital advertising campaigns To be sure it’s not exactly an Ivy League load of work for qualification. The press release describes it further There is no formal coursework required for the “IAB Digital Media Sales Certification” examination. Designed for salespeople with 2-5 years of experience in the digital industry, it is recommended that candidates have a strong command of current industry issues, players, and operations, as well as a broad understanding of every major digital platform. The test costs $350 for IAB members and $450 for non-members. While certifications can be obtained anywhere and sometimes the concept rings hollow the main thing this program has going for it is that it comes from the IAB. If Joe’s School of Digital Media Sales were doing this, it would be a non-story. But this is the IAB and they have seen enough evidence to put together this program to try and clean up whatever it is that prompted this course of action. What do you think about this kind of program? Should there be more like this for sales and delivery folks alike? Do you think it really helps? Will it add value? Will it build confidence? Let us know in the comments.

Create Your Series B De...

Editor’s note: Joe Kraus is a partner at  Google Ventures , focusing on mobile, gaming, and local services. In 1993, he co-founded Excite.com, an early Internet search engine. He also co-founded JotSpot in 2004, a wiki company acquired by Google in 2006. Follow him on his blog,  JoeKraus.com , and on Twitter:  @jkraus . One of the things I wish I had done in both of my companies (Excite.com and JotSpot) was to take a piece of advice that I now give most entrepreneurs I meet. That advice is: “Right after you sign your term sheet for your Series A, write the fantasy deck for your Series B (complete with whatever metrics, graphs and customer lists you would love to have).” I say this because of the way I’ve both done fundraising and seen it done. Whether we like to admit it or not, the way it’s usually done tends to be very haphazard and bottom’s up. It starts with… “We have about 4 months of cash left, it’s time to raise money”. With that statement, companies go about trying to weave together a narrative from the various facts that are true at the time. You look at your metrics, your sales, your customer lists and you try to create something cohesive. The problem is that it’s a bottoms up story; it’s composed of whatever facts are lying around. You didn’t set out twelve months before to create an intentional story. Your pitch deck ends up feeling a bit underpowered, a bit awkward. You try to emphasize the facts that look good and gloss over the ones that aren’t so hot. At the heart of the problem is that startups often get trapped being busy and making general “progress” instead of driving, intentionally, down a path toward a fundable story. A better approach is to use all the feedback you’re getting during your current fundraising process to create the ideal story for your next round. In the process of raising money (be it seed, series A or B), you hear from potential investors what they’re excited about and what they’re worried about. At the end of the process, you’re in a perfect position to create the fundraising pitch that would be absolute music to any investor’s ears. So, do it. Write your Series B deck immediately after signing the term sheet for your Series A. THEN, use this as your plan for how you spend that round of money. Use that presentation as the goal posts for the next 18 months. Begin with that end in mind and that presentation becomes your operating plan. Even if you don’t hit all of it, you will have a story and a company that holds together so much better than if you just run as fast as you can and try to create a story from the random assortment of facts that are lying around when you’re coming close to running out of money. [ image via the New Line Cinema film Glengarry Glen Ross ]