Company Profile: Umagram

David Rostan pitched Umagram.com - a tool that extends functionality of Twitter with file sharing, group chats and personal messages-  at ER 34. He answered our questions on his start-up:

1- What is the startup's product? How is it used?

Umagram lets you send private messages to *anyone* on Twitter without the current limitations of Twitter.  That is, no character limit; no mutual-follow DM dance; send files, pitches, demos and photos; have threaded conversations with private groups; and keep a history of your entire conversation. Umagram is simple to use – sign in with Twitter and send messages to as many people as you want.  A message URL is Tweeted by you to the message @recipients.  They get the message by signing in with Twitter and the conversation flows from there. We now support email authentication and send message notifications by email – a frequently requested feature.

2- What problem are you solving?

Because of Twitter’s limitations, freelancers, entrepreneurs, PR professionals, job seekers and all networkers cannot send mutually-beneficial messages to anyone who is currently outside their “network”.  Even if they are connected, they cannot send anything of value or take the time to send a rich message or introduction.  With Umagram, they can – simply and without spam.

Brands on Twitter are forced to make first contacts with customers that begin like this “Sorry! Please follow us and DM us your email and then we will contact you”.  With Umagram, the first message is a solution, an offer or a proactive step that has already been taken by the brand to deliver outstanding service.

3- What is your business model?

Our revenue will come from subscription accounts with expanded file storage and other premium features as well as from enterprise accounts for business who want to use Umagram for Twitter customer service and marketing.

4- What's your current status; ie. how many users? profitable? Previous funding? Looking for funding?

We launched publicly 4 weeks ago and are focused on getting feedback from about 1,000 early users.  We are self-funded now and are looking for angel funding.

5- Who are the founder(s), their backgrounds?

David Rostan (@davidrostan) is the founder and CEO.  He has worked in marketing and strategy for fortune 500 companies and has worked on start-ups for the last 3 years.
John Holdun (@johnholdun) is the CTO.  When he was an art school student, John he decided that his passion was in building useful things on the internet – and he has been doing it ever since.

6- Any other message you want to convey?
Umagram is a new-generation tool for connecting that enables the power of social search to deliver connections, by design, that weren't possible before.

© ER Accelerator 2011.