Company description
Hanginout is an interactive mobile video q&a solution that brings authenticity, relevancy & entertainment to social networking
Team
Team:
- Justin Malone, Co-Founder: Malone Kreativ, Brandgineers, Callaway Golf, chi.mp, NASCAR, mSnap
- Chris Dunn, Co-Founder: Mobeze, Bubble Motion, Covad ( public CFO ), Santa Cruz Networks ( licensed to Skype ), Pacific Venture Capital, Plural ( sold to Dell ), GE Capital
- Peter Gumeson, Sr. Engineer ( Ruby on Rails & Video ): Stemmgent, Brandgineers, mSnap, Coherent, BoldTech, Tensegrent, Navidec
- Vanessa Hutchinson, Sr. Engineer (iOS & Mobile ): Mobeze, InstantEncore, Naxos, Melodis, Xringer
- James Miller, Sr. Engineer ( Ruby on Rails ): JK Tech, Stemmgent, 1st Pacific Bank
Board & Advisors:
- Giovanni Coglitore: Facebook, Rackable/SGI ( IPO )
- Philip Schneider : Biogen Idec ( IPO ), Gen-Probe
- Per Gasseholm: Blend, Ashworth, Blue Marlin, Levis
Business model
Business Model:
Consumers: Free mobile platform ( ad revenue )
Brands: Engage their users in a more compelling way ( premium ad revenue & subscriptions / productions )
Social & Subscription Networks: Platform licensing ( revenue share )
Competitive advantage
Competition
Since we sit at the cross-section of Internet video and Q&A, we see both markets participants as potential competition. While our competition may come from existing online video players (YouTube, VYou and UStream) and Q&A sites (like StackExchange, Cloudy, InboxQ, Answers.com, Ask.com, Hipster.com), we believe the most viable players we see for the next-generation Q&A arena are: Google (because of its recent acquisition of Vark), Facebook and Quora.
What’s unique about Hanginout is unlike the online video sites - we allow publishers to interact through video not just broadcast. As for the Q&A sites in the market, they all are textual based and structured around a question not around a profile instance, which is difficult for publishers to extract interest data specific to them. That being said, we believe we are uniquely positioned to present the market an offering they have not yet seen.