Memtell is a social media tool designed to capitalise on the explosive growth in social networking as a means of capturing and sharing information. I sat down with Memtell CEO Pushpinder Bagga to find out a little bit more:
Q1: Lets get right into it. Give me your best elevator pitch?
Memories are priceless, yet they are ofter lost forgotten and go untold. Memtell has developed an easy to use mobile application which you can capture, share and preserve your memories for the people you care about most. We plan to make money by offering extended premium features and selling merchandise online.
Q2: So what made you decide to launch Memtell? ie, what problem are you solving?
It was a tough time for co-founder Jono Birkett seeing his grandfather at the nursing home while also working on his time management startup in Melbourne. While researching for a way to add voice content to his calendar mixed with thoughts to save his grandfather’s legacy – Memtell was born. The Memtell team made a rough product to record voice over pictures and the narrative slideshow created quite an emotional bonding with the pictures.
Memories are lost forgotten and go untold. Storing photos has shifted from the attic to in the cloud but narrating and sharing the memories behind those precious moments still remains troublesome and disconnected. We have a solution – Memtell, an online memory telling network.
Q3: Who is the target audience for Memtell?
Memtell is primarily focused on the people with Alzheimer’s and is also looking to target mothers as secondary audience to start with. While the product would help improve the mood of the people with dementia, it would tremendously help mothers establish a culture while preserving the memories of the whole family.
Q4: How long did it take you to get your product to market?
The first version of the product took us 2 months to build and was released as a website in September 2013. The mobile applications released in January 2014 for Android and iOS took us 3-4 months to design, develop and test.
Q5: Did you have investors or was it self funded with help from FFF (friend’s family & fools)?
We were able to raise an investment of $95,000 with the help of ANZ Innovyz START which helped to base us in Adelaide, build the product and most importantly form a company on top of it.
Q6: What makes your product unique?
Using voice and how we use it to connect people with memories is what makes our product unique. The fundamental idea of capturing the memory of the moment frozen in time as a photograph using voice makes the whole experience far more engaging and personal. Also, after analysing the voice and image content generated from the apps, we have built algorithms to suggest connections and memories to the users. We can search in voices and find keywords which help us tag, filter and sort content in the way we want it to be.
Q7: What is the future plans for the product?
We intend to make the product easier to use for all age groups and introduce merchandise in the near future. We are developing the product as a desktop software for Windows and Apple Computers which is planned to launch in a couple of months.
Q8: What’s the biggest business lesson you have learnt so far in your journey?
The biggest lesson we have learnt is to focus on a target market. While the product has a diverse application in a variety of markets, its very important to identify the right market fit and develop the product suited for that audience. Being focused on a target market helped us in goal setting, planning and recruiting new team members at Memtell.
Q9: Finally, can you tell our readers where they can go grab the app?
Everyone can download and use the app from the iTunes App Store and Google Play. Search “memtell” in the app stores or visit http://www.memtell.com and get linked to directly download the app for your iOS 6+ and Android 3+ devices.
