Start-Up of the Week: Nabbit
Nov 20th, 2008 by admin
The other day I heard a song on the radio that had me tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. It was one of those songs that make you want to get up and bust-a-move. It had a great beat and the singer was incredible. I didn’t know the words, but found myself humming along. So here’s my dilemma: It was a brand new song and when it ended I anxiously waited for the DJ to come on and tell a little about it. As luck would have it, the song ended and a commercial for a local tanning salon came over the airwaves. Argh! Now what? I can’t look it up on the Internet because I don’t know any of the lyrics or who sings it… Oh well. Just have to wait until the next time it comes on, right? Not anymore. Now there’s Nabbit – which happens to be one of our featured Start-Ups of the Week. With Nabbit you have the power in your hands…the ability to tag or Nabb songs and ads that you hear by pressing a single button on your cell phone. Hear it. Want it. Nabb it. Pretty cool, huh? Here’s more on Nabbit from Allison Nawracaj:
What is Nabbit?
AN: Nabbit is the only service that allows advertisers to create integrated broadcast, mobile, personalized online and direct response marketing campaigns. We attract consumers to Nabbit by offering them a free service to tag songs and ads that they hear on radio and TV. Consumers who use Nabbit for song tagging quickly become eyes and ears for advertisers to reach.
And how does it fit into the marketplace?
AN: We are the only service that allows consumers to tag ANYTHING they hear on the radio or TV. Songs, ads, talk segments…you name it and we can Nabb it. Our competition is focused on music. We feel that it is difficult to build a business on music alone. We are also the only business in this space to have an integrated advertising engine that covers both traditional media and new media.
Who are the company’s founders?
AN: John Freund, Norton Lam and Dave Wenz founded Nabbit.
Have they been involved with other start-up companies?
AN: John and Dave were co-founders of ShowCase Corporation, a provider of business intelligence and data warehousing solutions in the mid-range computing market space. ShowCase IPOed in 1999 with a market cap of $100M. Norton started Web Connections in 1995 before the Web really took off and has been involved with a few other start-ups throughout his career before working with John and Dave.
Who are Nabbit’s target markets?
AN: Our consumer target is a person 18-34 who loves music and their mobile phone. We focus on advertisers looking to drive consumers to product purchases vs. advertisers focused purely on brand awareness.
Does Nabbit compete with Napster, iTunes and others?
AN: We enhance these services by allowing consumers to link music they tag (or what we call “Nabb”) directly to them. For example, I can Nabb Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen using Nabbit. When I go to Nabbit.com there is an option to download the song using iTunes, Napster, Amazon or Wal-Mart.
What’s the business model behind Nabbit?
AN: We make money like Google does; we charge advertisers on a per-click or per-Nabb basis when consumers interact with their Nabbit ads. Nabbit does not charge the consumer anything to use the service.
Being a start-up, how is the company funded?
AN: Nabbit is funded currently through a relationship with Jump Technologies, Inc.
Does the company have a business plan?
AN: Yes. In fact we were recently named a semi-finalist in the Minnesota Cup; a contest that reviews business plans and selects companies that they believe have the most well thought-out plans. Out of 840 submissions, Nabbit made the top 20.
What are the long-term plans for Nabbit?
AN: We are focused on building a high growth business that is the leading interactive media platform in the world.
What advice can you give others looking to start their own businesses?
AN: When planning B2C businesses remember the rule of monkeys. On average a circus has to wait seven years for a new monkey to mature enough to be trained to perform. For seven years the circus must feed and take care of the monkey. That means seven years before it can generate revenue for the circus. If you are releasing a consumer application, be prepared for it to take longer and cost more money than you anticipated.
And that’s no monkey business. Download Nabbit today!
I have a problem of remembering what the song is. Always. Now I can just text into the radio station and the song is automatically saved for me, which saves my brain. Everyone should try it, you know you can’t remember everything.