Towards Personalization: Strands Founder Francisco Martin (Part 2)

SM: Did you cash out and make a clean break from Intelligent Software Components? FM: Yes. Part of the deal with Banco Santander was the partial purchase of shareholder equity. I cashed out and took sabbatical leave in September of 2002. In February of 2003 I moved to Oregon.

Towards Personalization: Strands Founder Francisco Martin (Part 1)

Dr. Francisco Martin, serial entrepreneur and the CEO/Founder of Strands, has found his niche applying AI solutions to various technology problems. At Strands he has developed an intelligent agent which understands and learns your personal tastes via several different methods.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 8)

SM: Have you seen advertisers take advantage of the platforms? RY: Yes, we have. Advertisers are interested in, and this is not exclusive to applications, identifying methods that will result in more users having a higher level of engagement with them. Applications provide a terrific way to do that. It can be accomplished through a

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Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 7)

SM: Social networks are becoming the voice of a generation. RY: Another thing to think about is that people are fundamentally social. What is happening online is a reflection of social behavior in the real world. Sites like ours just enhancing natural behavior.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 6)

SM: A lot of rep firms have a reputation for having very high commissions, often upwards of 60%. Are your rep firms requiring commissions that high? RY: No, they are not. It is a volume and scale business. Compared to what it would cost us to build and hold our own sales force, as a percentage of

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Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 5)

SM: How did you fund the initial startup? Where did you get the funding? RY: We had a rolling round, primarily from friends and family, with a target goal of $250,000. The first $10,000 came from my dad.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 4)

SM: How do you rank in the Spanish speaking countries? RY: We are the number one social networking company. SM: Do you have any idea why? RY: Because we targeted those demographics. We focused on Spanish speaking users.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 3)

SM: What business did you think you were getting into in 2003? RY: The business we thought we were getting into could broadly be defined as communication. We thought we were providing an option beyond what people were doing with email and instant messaging. Over time, new methods of communication have continually been invented. It

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