This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
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1. THE BEGINNING
This innovation initially came to life when…
…we became frustrated with the tools available to enable collaboration on projects among people who can’t meet face to face. Most of these tools, such as email, are outdated, awkward and/or laborious to use, and really only do half the job. Working closely with clients as an extended team, going back and forth with feedback and amends, we needed a tool that enabled us to see and hear what each other were thinking about any piece of work that had been produced. It had to be quick and easy to use no matter your location, and permanently record our exchanges.
2. WHAT & HOW
The purpose of this innovation is to…
…recreate the way people collaborate in a meeting in a natural and human way – without the need for an actual meeting or to be available at the same time. This occurs via an app we’ve called Blrt.
It does this by…
…enabling you to talk, point and draw over images, documents or even web pages just as you would if you were in a face-to-face meeting. Your words, gestures and instructions are recorded within the Blrt app and exchanged with others to form a permanent conversation in the cloud. This means that you can access your Blrt conversations from any device.
3. PURPOSE & BENEFITS
This innovation improves on what came before because…
…humans are best at communicating when they can use their voices and hands to show people what they mean. Other ways of collaborating like email, the phone, file sharing systems, project management software, video conferencing – and even meeting in person have limitations. Most only do part of the job, most are awkward to use, some need everyone present simultaneously.
Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…
…taking the best bits of the ways people communicate, and eradicating their limitations. Without the need for fast internet, people can convey emotions, communicate visually, vocally and with text, respond in their own time, and create a record of conversations.
4. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
In the past, this problem was solved by…
…writing long-winded emails, or making messy mark-ups to documents, or trying to make others understand what they were looking at while on the phone, or getting busy people together at the same time for a video conference or meeting, or using complicated collaboration software. All of these solutions have limitations that Blrt can overcome.
Its predecessors/competitors include…
…emails, phonecalls, markup tools, video conferencing, are old ways of collaborating. We’re tracking other companies in the collaboration space, but none can enable voice and gestures to augment communication without users needing to be available in real time. Blrt can.
5. TARGET MARKET
It is made for…
…anyone who needs to collaborate with people remotely. Our addressable market has been quantified by Gartner Research, who stated in 2013 that 630m business people worldwide used a productivity suite of some description, and that this number is projected to grow to 1.2b by 2022. We’ll commence by targeting freelancers, who are not typically supported by enterprise level collaboration tools. There are currently an estimated 53m Americans freelancing – approximately 34% percent of the total workforce. This number is expected to balloon to 50% by 2020. We envisage that these percentages are representative of the rest of the developed world.
It is available for sale through…
…Apple App Store and Google Play. Blrt uses a freemium model – the app is free to download and use, and premium features are available at cost. We’ve also developed plugins for Atlassian’s Jira, and WordPress, which are open-source.
Our marketing strategy is to…
…use a mixture of paid advertising, growth hacking, promotional partnerships, social referrals and bounties and distribution services. Our user-base has been growing organically at 10% per month even before we’ve started marketing. A focussed campaign targeting people in the marketing/advertising and architecture industries will commence shortly where our 15 years of digital marketing experience will be put to good use.
FINE PRINT: This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
