Web Innovators Group

WebInno Recall: Isabont

April 11th, 2007 Comments(1)

This post is the first of (hopefully) many which are another added feature to the Web Innovators Group site. Periodically, I intend to profile companies which have demonstrated either as a main or side dish at past WebInno event. These “WebInno Recall” posts will further highlight companies and their founders by providing a set of info which isn’t typically found on a company’s website or elsewhere in the blogosphere. Also, it should provide a little additional exposure for these emerging startups to those WebInno members who may have missed them at a previous event, as well as an update on new developments for those who did have a chance to see them in the past.

The first Recall profile is on the Arlington,MA-based startup Isabont, an online service which gives job seekers a simple way to create resumes and organize their job search. And true to WebInno form, the company has a great recorded overview demo of the service on its site. I recently asked the founder, Simon Clay Michael, a few questions:

Could you provide a brief overview of the service?

Isabont is an online, fully-integrated suite of tools for the active and passive job seeker. New job leads are delivered directly to your account via RSS feeds. It includes: templates to easily create resumes, cover letters and other job search documents, which you can email or print in a variety of different formats; folders to save and track all your jobs through the application process; a contact manager with diary notes; and follow up reminders to help with your networking and the calendar function offers email and cell phone alerts.

What is the founding story? What was the inspiration behind your idea?

During my job search in 2004, I found it very frustrating trying to use separate pieces of technology to manage the job search. Word, Outlook, spreadsheets and pen and paper didn’t cut it. The missing piece was having a single integrated solution to produce and track documents, manage and organize the job search, and be accessible from virtually anywhere.

What is the basic idea or premise of the company? What problem are you trying to solve? What is innovative about the idea or the approach?

We provide a full suite of integrated services to help individuals with their career-life. We’re not like Monster, Hotjobs, Careerbuilder etc. who we see as only providing limited value to job seekers over and above job listings. Isabont is the only company that provides an integrated solution of the most critical functionality job seekers need. Isabont combines a CRM, workflow and document creator into one easy to use online application. Helping the active job seeker today and beyond while they’re employed with a way to maintain and grow their networks, and keep their information fresh and relevant.

How do you plan to monetize your service?

Currently the revenue model is to offer a basic free service and enhanced premium features at $9.95 / 30 days.

What are some notable accomplishments since you presented at WebInno? How has the company changed and developed since then?

A number of things have happened since demo’ing as a side dish at WebInno in September 2006. We’ve:

• Introduced an RSS reader to harvest job listings from most online job-boards.
• Improved the quality and number of resume templates.
• Launched an improved look and feel to the site, giving it a more appealing and fresher look.
• Updated and improved the help section.
• Added video demos to guide users on how to use Isabont to their advantage.

What can you share about the company that isn’t immediately apparent from the website?

The site was built using Ruby on Rails, and we are active in supporting and giving back to the open source community.

How did you find your WebInno demo’ing experience?

In a nutshell, a load of fun with great exposure, interest, ideas, feedback and contacts. In addition to seeing, and contributing feedback and ideas to all the other cool products, WebInno is an excellent event to gain feedback from users, potential investors and partners. The number and diversity of interactions you have is like having a massive brainstorming, feedback and idea session in a very focused 2 hours, and proved to be a bonus I didn’t expect to get. We received so many product enhancement suggestions, possible partnership and affiliations, and some direct requests that made the event so valuable to participate.

Anything else to add?

The variety and range of ideas and suggestions from others really opens your eyes to a lot of possibilities, and we’re certainly open to entertaining discussion on possible partnerships and alliances. As we grow and evolve we’re going to need passionate individuals to help us get there, if Isabont, and what we stand for, interests you, we’d love to hear from you.

Note that I am currently looking for both main and side dish presenters for the upcoming WebInno event on May 22^nd. If your startup is interested in demo’ing in this forum, please reach out to me (david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com).

First WebInno Dinner Group – Widgets and Advertising

April 03rd, 2007 Comments(1)

As I mentioned at the Web Innovators Group meeting last week, I would like to explore the possibility of adding a new aspect to the organization: the WebInno Dinner Group. I am envisioning smaller informal gatherings with discussions focused around a specific topic. My goal in introducing these is to provide a forum where members of the community (who perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily connect but have a specific mutual interest in a specific subject area) are able to have meaningful in-depth conversations.

The proposed topic of discussion for the first WebInno Dinner Group is “widgets & advertising.” If you have a specific interest and background which would be relevant to a group discussion and would like to participate, please reach out to me (david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com) sharing a bit of your relevant background and interest. Depending on response and the success of this initial experiment, I will likely organize future events around different topics (feel free to suggest them to me), but seats for this one may be limited.

Next WebInno Meeting – May 22nd; Seeking Demonstrators

April 02nd, 2007 Comments(0)

As I announced at last week’s Web Innovators Group meeting, the next event will be held on Tuesday May 22^nd at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge.  All who are interested in web and mobile innovation are welcome to attend the free event.  If you are going to join us, I would appreciate it if you would RSVP on our wiki page so we can book the appropriately sized room and print nametags: http://webinnovatorsgroup.com/wiki/webinno12.  Updated details about the event will be found on that page as well.

And as always, if you are interested in demo’ing as a main or side dish, please reach out to me at david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com.  For this gathering I have a keen interest in trying to profile new startups with a mobile element to them (as we haven’t had many demo in the past few events), so please do share the opportunity with your colleagues.  That being said, I welcome the chance to highlight all types of early-stage web and mobile companies in the Boston area to the community.

The next WebInno is actually just a few weeks away – looking forward to seeing everyone then.

WebInno11 Recap

April 02nd, 2007 Comments(0)

The Web Innovators Group meetings continue to be a success.  Last Wednesday night’s filled the Grand Ballroom at the Royal Sonesta.  And for good reason – we had an impressive set of main dishes presenting to the crowd supplemented by numerous high-quality side dishes.  A number of people have written about the event in their blogs, and the following are a few excerpts (but I encourage you to click through to read the meat of the summaries and add other posts in the trackbacks/comments below):

“The BostonWebInnovators event continues to impress. Last night’s event was held in a larger hall, approximately 250 entrepreneurs, VC, developers and media were in attendance. It was great to see so many startups and their support ecosystem in one place…  Event organizer David Beisel announced the formation of dinner groups, which are a welcome addition…  The endorphin rush of being in the middle of a deal, then immersing myself with 250 peers and getting turned on to some cool startups was a welcome change to my normal day.  I hope the trend continues.” – David Evans

“Tonight was WebInno number 11. The event continues to be a huge success, they must be pushing 300 attendees now.” –John Wall

“One thing that did strike me right off the bat was how much this event has grown over a pretty short time. I attended my first back in July and there were maybe a hundred some odd people (which really impressed me at the time). This time, the event was being held in one of the hotel ballrooms because more than 300 people had registered. By the time the demos started it was standing room only - very cool…  All in all it was a good night and I’m looking forward to the next one in May.” –Greg  Peverill-Conti 

“I attended my first Web Innovator’s group meeting held at the Royal Sonesta hotel in Cambridge on Wednesday. It was a packed audience of about 200-300 people ranging from startup companies seeking funding to networkers to VC’s looking for the next best thing.”  –Gopal Shenoy 

Also, the WebInno meeting was mentioned in today’s Boston Herald in the context of the local technology community environment heating up.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the evening – demonstrators and attendees alike.