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imo

imo : Communication App Making the People Connect with Eachother Better

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Out of the twenty initial employees that Google hired, only six still work there. This includes its founding fathers Larry Page and Sergey Brin. So what happened to the others? Are they off making ripples in other technology-based companies? Well, some of them definitely are, and this time around, we are looking at one such pair- George and Ralph Harik, the founders of imo.

Certain early Google employees became entrepreneurs in their own right, while others turned into angel investors, and several others worked their way up the corporate ladder and became top executives at different companies. A few of them even retired happily. But George Harik had other plans in mind when he left Google. He and his brother Ralph co-founded the messaging application imo.

The Harik brothers were born in Beirut, Lebanon, but grew up in the commercial capital, Dubai. Both were naturally interested in technology, with Georges starting his programming journey on an Apple II when he was just ten years old. The family moved to the US, and both brothers got degrees in computer science, with Georges graduating from the University of Michigan with a PhD and Ralph being an MIT alumnus, and taking up jobs centred around the Silicon Valley.

imo founders
Image Source: businessinsider.com

In 1999, Georges Harik got a call from a friend working at Silicon Graphics informing him that a friend of his was founding a company. Since he had a job of his own at the time, the invitation didn’t sound all that promising. Or that was, until Larry Page, sent him an email regarding Google, and invited him over for dinner. That dinner changed Harik’s life, as it convinced him to join Google.

Georges was recruited into Google’s initial engineering committee as a software engineer and worked at Google from 1999 to 2005. Following this, he left the company and invested in several other tech-based companies. While at Google, Georges served as the Director of Product Management and worked on applications such as Gmail, Google Talk, and Picasa. He also worked as the manager of Googlettes and was involved with the development of AdSense and AdWords Online. Following his exit from Google, he was an advisor for GV, which is the venture capital arm of Alphabet. Then he moved into the field of angel investing and funded several tech-start-ups and also co-founded hslabs, before joining his brother to found imo.

Meanwhile, Ralph was working for Oracle. The fact that Georges worked with Android applications, while at Google, opened his eyes to the future implications of this sector. This served as inspiration for him to collaborate with his brother and found a new startup. A few years down the line, the brothers quit their respective jobs and together founded the instant messaging application imo in 2007.

imo started as a web-based app and has since branched out to mobile networks, helping bridge communication gaps that existed. Ralph’s education at MIT gave him enough technical knowledge to handle imo’s initial coding in the early days. When it came to revenue generation, on the other hand, Georges’ training at Google gave him in-depth knowledge regarding internet advertising. Ralph, who is the CEO, handles the day-to-day management of the company, while Georges is tasked with product design and studying new technologies.

Since its inception, imo has grown to cover over seven million users as the application allows users to connect to more than eleven different messaging networks across various platforms such as desktops, tablets and smartphones. Users can use the application to text via either voice or video chat with other individuals or groups. The application utilises cloud storage, and hence every message sent and received via the app is stored on a web-based cloud. This allows users to switch devices with ease, significantly increasing the application’s accessibility. imo has also launched voice calling options for iOS users, making it easier than ever before to call up a loved one. Ralph enlisted his big brother Georges’ help to found the messaging app because he felt that the communication industry needed some radical changes.

While imo started out with just five employees, it now has over 20 people working for it from Palo Alto. The company has grown from being an innovative idea that two brothers had, to a considerable company whose product has over 4 million downloads with more than 50 million messages being sent every day.

klarna

Sebastian Siemiatkowski : The Founder of Swedish Buy-Now-Pay-Later Fintech Klarna

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There have been many rags to riches story, among which, Jack Ma’s rejection story is on the top. In almost every such story, the people who have succeeded once had difficulty in even earning their one time meal. But as time changes, their hard work takes them to new heights, and they only set up new examples for other people. One such story is of the founder of Klarna, a Swedish version of Paypal, which was founded by Sebastian Siemiatkowski in 2005. Siemiatkowski was not rejected, but had a similar humble background and worked at Burger King. And now, like Ma, he has also established himself as one of the successful entrepreneurs in the tech industry.

Early Life

Sebastian Siemiatkowski met his future partner and friend Niklas Adalberth, at Burger King, where both worked as part-timers. Later, the two went on to join the Stockholm School of Economics to pursue a graduate degree in Economics. At the college, they even met the third co-founder of Klarna, Victor Jacobsson.

The two while studying and working together always discussed new startup ideas, but none of them was sure about what they should really do. During their college, they decided to take a year’s off and travel the world without flying. The two went to explore the world through road trips and on ships. This way, they got extra time to think about their career.

Klarna founder
Image Source: businessinsider.com

Founding Klarna

While back from the trip, Siemiatkowski joined sales job and came across the emerging concept of e-Commerce. While working with the sales department, he got to know that it is quite difficult to sell things online, as people do not trust the online payment systems. This problem later became the basis for Klarna.

Siemiatkowski discussed the problem with Niklas and decided to build a new payment system for people to make the purchases. Jacobsson also joined in, and they participated in the Stockholm School of Economics annual entrepreneurship award with the idea. Though Siemiatkowski and his partners had a lot of faith in the idea, it could not make to the finals. In fact, it was one of the lasts. But Jane Walerud, an angel investor, showed interest in the idea and invested in it. He even helped the three co-founders to meet a good development team.

Finally, in the mid of 2005, Siemiatkowski along with his partners founded Klarna and opened its first office in Sweden. They started by offering the option of paying for the goods after receiving them. This led the consumers to trust Klarna faster, as they were hesitant about buying things online. But with Klarna, they could pay after deciding if they wanted to keep the goods.

The Success

The company received another investment from AB Öresund in 2007. In 2010, the company expanded its services to Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. The same years, Klarna also received investment from Sequoia Capital, and the company’s revenue raised by 80%.

In 2011, the company was named as one of Europe’s 100 most promising young tech companies by The Telegraph. In a round of funding, led by General Atlantic Klarna raised a $155M investment. The company also acquired the Israeli company Analyzd specialising in risk management and online payments. Klarna then expanded its services to the US. This expansion has contributed a lot to the growth of Klarna. In the same year, the company’s revenues made it one of the Unicorns in the country.

By 2018, the company registered around 60M users, and around 90,000 online merchants were using Klarna to carry out their payments. In the latest round of funding held in 2019, Klarna raised $460 million, Dragoneer Investment Group, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, HMI Capital, Merian Chysalis Investment Company Limited being the major investors. This funding round made the company value at $5.5 billion, and it became the largest fintech start-up in Europe.

Through the story of Klarna, we definitely can say that hard work can really change one’s life if it is put in the right direction.

Civic Champs

Civic Champs : An App that Helps Nonprofit Organisations to Manage their Volunteers

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In a world, where everyone is delving deeper into the competitiveness seeking powerful jobs in the corporate world, let’s have a look at the story of Civic Champs, a mobile app that is helping the nonprofit organizations manage to volunteer. According to Geng Wang and Ryan Underdahl, the founders of Civic Champs, the nonprofit organizations should focus more on their aim and less on tracking volunteers. So, as an initiative to help organizations like these, with a bigger goal to improve our world, they founded Civic Champs in 2019. It has not even been a month that the company has been established, but it is receiving unexpected appreciation and support.

The Founders

Wang went to Michigan State University and completed his Bachelor’s in Supply Chain Management and International Relations in 2008, after which, he went to Harvard to complete his MBA. Wang has a very versatile career profile as he worked as a summer intern in Shell Oil Company, worked as a content manager in a business centre, business analyst at McKinsey and Company, a summer associate at Cue Ball Capital and not to mention deeply engaged in volunteering.

Wang has also co-founded TeamCartoon.com, Rent Jungle and Community Elf. He also served as a board member at Drizzle, Advisory Board Member at The Bee Corp and Clever Real Estate. Wang is still a part of The Bee Corp even after founding Civic Champs.

Civic Champ founder
Image Source: zimbio.com

After graduating from Boise State University in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Underdahl went to Kelly School of Business under Indiana University after seven long years. In these span of seven years, Underdahl served as a District Manager (Gitanjali Gems Ltd), Store Manager (Signet), Intern at LRAP Association and currently as the CEO of Civic Champs.

During Underdahl’s days in LRAP Association, he came across Wang and both of them together along with three other employees decided to open Civic Champs.

What is Civic Champs and how it works?

Wang, along with Underdahl, created Civic Champs to help the nonprofit organizations easily deal with volunteering. The platform is created nearly six months ago as a great initiative for social upliftment. Both the volunteers and the nonprofit organizations can interact with each other in a hassle-free and efficient way, thus, making the work of such organizations even easier.

The first and the only, product of the company till date is a mobile-first platform through which the nonprofit organizations can track volunteering and can engage with them. The mobile-based application of Civic Champs is available for iPhone. Like every other application, Civic Champs also uses GPS technology, and along with that, a geofence. A geofence is a part of modern GPS technology that creates a virtual geographical boundary and based on that, the users are alerted when a volunteer is leaving or entering in a particular zone. Basically, once the data is used from a volunteer’s phone it gets tracked, and hence, the users receive an update.

The volunteers, thereby, receive messages from the organizations, if they are free to volunteer, and the app keeps a record of the volunteer hours, by collecting relevant information. Since the app is created for the nonprofit organizations, Civic Champs also receives a donation from the volunteers working for them.

The question may arise that how can there be so many enthusiastic people in a town who can be interested to volunteer for the nonprofit organizations.

Talking about that, My Sister’s Closet is one of the nonprofit organizations that are registered to Civic Champs. The organization provides professional training to low-income women and especially to those women who are not socially accepted. More than 350 people volunteer in this organization through the website of Civic Champs. With the help of Civic Champs’ database, the organisation keeps the data of the volunteers, and without wasting any time, it reaches to them whenever they require them. The story is the same for many other organizations.

The Team and Funding

Within the period of six months, Civic Champs has raised $312,000 in the pre-seed round. The company’s headquarters are based in Great Lakes, Midwestern U.S., and the team currently comprises of ten members. A great initiative taken by Civic Champs has inspired people to sign up both as a volunteer as well as donors, and it will flourish more in the near future.

Flying cars

Boeing and Porsche Partners to Target the Urban Air Mobility Market

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We are moving forward towards the future that the sci-fi writers had always imagined. We are exploring the moon and walking on Mars. And on Earth, this is time to start riding the flying cars. From Uber to SeaBubble, many companies have shown their interest in flying cars-taxis and are already working on that. And after these companies, now it is Boeing’s turn to actually bring one, and for that, the company has partnered with the top luxury car brand, Porsche.

The two companies have signed an MoU, under which they together will be working to help reduce the traffic on the road and move it to the airspace, with their new concept for the “premium” eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) air cars.

“Porsche is looking to enhance its scope as a sports car manufacturer by becoming a leading brand for premium mobility. In the longer term, this could mean moving into the third dimension of travel. We are combining the strengths of two leading global companies to address a potential key market segment of the future,” said Detlev von Platen, member of the executive board for sales and marketing at Porsche AG, Germany.

Flying cars
Image source: TechCrunch

The two companies will be working on designing a new aircraft, that will also include its development and the testing. The companies will also be researching the urban air-mobility market for highly populated cities and metropolises.

Even Boeing has already started working on its flying cars and did conduct an inaugural test flight of an aerial car prototype early this year. For now, the companies are looking forward to bring flying cars that would be used for ride-sharing that would contribute to reducing the traffic as well as pollution for the big cities.

The companies will be assembling an international team with the experience and skills in the same field. The team will be analysing the scope and the viability of the electric flying cars in the coming future. Porsche has already been working and researching in the same field for quite some time now, and according to its researches, we can expect the eVTOL market to be active as soon as 2025. The companies like Uber are already up to building flying taxis, so by 2025, we may also see the Porsche air-taxis flying over us.

belkin

Chet Pipkin : The ‘Low Profile’ Wealthiest Tech Person in the U.S.

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Most of the people are desperate to get fame, and for that, they don’t mind doing anything. But there are some people who believe in sheer hard work, and no fame is more important for them than their work. So despite having achieved a lot in life, the popularity does not affect them, and they rather try to stay away from the limelight. One such personality is Chester J. Pipkin (aka Chet Pipkin), the founder, chief executive and chairman of Belkin International, a company that manufactures and deals in computer hardware and peripheral devices.

Early Life

Chet Pipkin was born in a working-class family in California. His father worked as a machinist in World War II, and his mother was a machine operator in aircraft factories. Since his parents never had gone to a college, they wanted Pipkin to join one.

Pipkin was always interested in history, so he went on to opt for history as his major in college and joined the UCLA university. But soon, amid the revolution that the personal computers were ready to bring, he decided to switch to computer science as his graduation subject. Meanwhile, he also joined a part-time job at an electronics company to earn his daily expenses. He then joined the YMCA as a camp counsellor, he met his future wife Janice.

Chet pipkin
Image Source: theaustralian.com

Founding Belkin International

While working and attending school, he realised that though people are getting familiar with the new personal computers, they still find it difficult to connect the computers with the printers. This brought him an idea to invent cable assemblies that would help people easily connect computers with printers, and he started Belkin in his parent’s two-car garage.

Caught up between studies, job and his own business, he decided to drop off from the college. But soon, he realised that he was more focused on Belkin, so he had to leave his job too. So finally, he started to work solely on Belkin and established the company in 1983. In the beginning, he worked on inventing cables to connect printers and modems. The company’s first product was the Belkin Hamlet, which was made to connect an Apple IIc computer to the non-Apple printers.

While trying to establish the business, it was not a smooth ride, and like every other startup, he had to go through a lot of ups and downs. But he did not come out of these situations with regrets or discouragements, but life lessons. Despite the challenges, the company earned a $100,000 revenue in the first year of its inception.

Developing and selling the PC hardware for around 6-7 years, Belkin moved its focus to the USB storage devices in the early 90s. Since then, the company has focused on reinventing things and has become a leader in the field of IoT devices manufacturing and selling.

Since Chet Pipkin has always been low-profile about him as well his company, there has been no information on the revenues for the past many years. But the company is surely in profit. Pipkin has even kept the company private despite the trend of silicon valley companies going for their IPO within 4-5 years of tasting success.

In 2013, Belkin International acquired the Cisco Systems, and its further units, including Linksys. Since then, Belkin has been dealing in three divisions, Belkin International, Linksys and WeMo. Linksys deals in the data networking hardware products, whereas WeMo sells devices like wireless chargers, screen protectors, USB-C cables.

The success of Belkin has made Chet Pipkin one of the wealthiest men in the U.S.

Achievements

Belkin has been named in the Inc.’s ‘500 Fastest growing privately held companies in the United States’ list multiple-times. It has also been among the ‘Los Angeles Technology Fast 50 Company’ around nine times. The company also got featured around six times in the LA Business Journal’s list of ‘100 Fastest-growing Privately Held Companies’.

On the other hand, being the owner of such an innovative company, Chet also has been a finalist in the ‘Los Angeles Entrepreneur of the Year Awards’ three times. He even won the ‘Southern California Regional Award’ in 1996. He has also featured in the ‘Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame’ of the Dealerscope Magazine in 2006. Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce awarded him the ‘Lifetime Still Achieving’ in 2013.

snaplogic

SnapLogic : One of the “Coolest” Cloud Platform Companies

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Another software company in the marketplace to deal with data integration is excelling in the field and satisfying millions of customers worldwide. The company provides clients with better and many efficient tools to connect applications and transfer data in a hassle-free way. Gaurav Dhillon’s company, SnapLogic was founded in 2006 and is majorly known for web data integration. After the internet has bathed the world with a new aura of possibilities, companies like SnapLogic had reached cloud eleven. The never-ending demand of cloud data sources, SaaS applications and most importantly, efficient data transfer gives a pictorial representation of the success of SnapLogic.

The Founder

SnapLogic was fully functional and became public from 2006. Before Dhillon created SnapLogic, he was already a founder of 2 more start-ups, including Informatica Corp and jaman.com.

Dhillon created Informatica, a software company in 1993 based in California, the United States with $75,000 provided to him by the National Institute of Health. He didn’t have many facilities then, so with this little amount of capital, he started the company in his garage. Informatica was quite a success, and it was acquired in 2015 for $5.3billion.

Snaplogic founder
Image Source: cbronline.com

Dhillon’s next start-up was Jaman.com, which was founded in 2005 in California as well. The website ceased all its operations in 2017. Jaman was a site that provided movie discovery sites and thus, let users download videos on demand.

SnapLogic

EAI stands for enterprise application integration, and this is what Dhillon’s interest lied upon. After Informatica emerged as one of the most successful start-ups in the world of EAI, Dhillon’s passion triggered to create more in this area. According to him, a lot of areas was unexplored in this field, and he buckled up to roll the stones.

So SnapLogic was created in 2006 after Dhillon himself invested in this business, and in 2009, he became the CEO of the company. The main focus of Dhillon was to reduce the problems the users faced with cloud computing. The company is based in San Mateo, California and serves throughout the world.

Success of SnapLogic

The first big news of SnapLogic was raising $2.3million in Series A funding in 2009. The prime investors were Andreessen Horowitz, Maples Investments, Brian McClendon (Google Engineering Vice President), Naval Ravikant and a few more. After the closing of this funding round, Dhillon was declared the CEO of the company, and he announced that the money will be invested in improving the DataFlow platform. The data integrating solution of SnapLogic turned out to be very useful for SaaS applications and websites, like SalesForce, Twitter, and SugarCRM, etc.

In 8th December 2010, Dhillon announced that the company has raised $10million in Series B funding, and new technologies have been incorporated in the products of SnapLogic, which is both time and cost-efficient. After this funding round, Dhillon planned to expand the business in the European market. One of the biggest success of SnapLogic was that it became the world’s first company to integrate data that existed both on-premise and in the cloud. This was followed by the launch of elastic integration in June 2013, which made application integration in the clouds even simpler. By the end of 2013, SnapLogic provided the users with 150 various data connectors for applications like SAP and Oracle.

On 10th December 2015, SnapLogic raised $37.5 million in the funding round led by Microsoft, Silver Lake Waterman, Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, and Triangle Peak Partners. At the end of this year, the net worth of SnapLogic turned out to be $96.3million. By this time, machine learning and artificial intelligence already started spreading like a wildfire in the tech market. Taking a note, the company made a very smart move by introducing the SnapLogic Integration Assistant, an AI-powered product of the company in May 2017. In this year, the company also raised $136.3 million from the existing investors.

SnapLogic Today

The latest and one of the biggest successes in the history of SnapLogic is Gartner naming the company (SnapLogic) as a leader in the Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) Magic Quadrant for four consecutive years. The fascinating performance of SnapLogic in data integration has driven the world crazy with more time-efficient and better ways to connect applications and integrate data.