Flixlab

Flixlab has developed a cloud-based social video platform that enables consumers to easily share raw assets and create polished movies from the video clips and pictures on their smartphones, and their friends’ smartphones, and upload them to social networks.

Strengths:

• Polished technology: Flixlab has a solid approach to rendering. Their usage of EC2 and ability to quickly deliver various types of rendered files from a raw mobile video (Flixlab currently supports iOS and is looking to support Android soon) is elegant.
• Good segment: Flixlab has a real problem to solve with a well-chosen demographic. Not everyone has (or can afford) the necessary software and hardware to render video. With no clear market leader here, Flixlab has a unique opportunity to capitalize on their technology.

Weaknesses:

• Scaling: EC2’s pricing has a reputation of being very unfriendly to scaling. If Flixlab takes off they could see their monthly bill from Amazon cutting deep into their margins.
• Clearly defined monetization model: Flixlab announced that they plan on doing some kind of freemium model for monetizing their app. While this seems all well and fair, Flixlab will need to work hard on making sure that their final pricing plan leaves them (and their investors) with the profits they need to grow.

Opportunities:

• Mobile technology growth: Improvements in lens technology, image processing, battery optimization, and effective CCD miniaturization are helping to make smartphones like the iPhone viable replacements for cameras and camcorders. If Flixlab can steal the show now, they could find themselves with first mover advantage in a sector with incredible demand over the next few years.

Threats:

• Big names: If Apple or Google decide to take Flixlab’s approach and release a native app for iOS or Android respectively, Flixlab could find themselves fighting a feature war with tech titans who have superior economies of scale in development.

Huklup

Huklup is a tool designed to help individuals facilitate introductions from a mobile phone between their contacts’ social networks. 

Strengths:

• It works: Huklup is a pretty simple app. It definitely works, and it provides you a quick means of introducing individuals to one another over various social networks.  It’s also currently available on the app store.
• Interesting usecase: The usecase Huklup introduces in their video seems like a viable one: immediately introducing one of your contacts to another one.

Weaknesses:

• Business Plan: Huklup’s monetization plan isn’t clear, and the fact that their current solution seems like it can be quickly reverse-engineered is disconcerting. If they want to secure funding, they’ll need to address both of these issues sooner than later.

Opportunities:

• Introductions as a service: If Huklup were to pivot and release their introduction tool’s code as some kind of premium developer library, they might be able to find a solid market in mobile app developers building other social apps.

Threats:

• Native feature support from social networks: While Huklup aggregates the ability of a user to send an introduction, most major social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook) already support this functionality outside of their mobile apps. Were the big names to release support for performing an introduction on a mobile platform, Huklup could find itself without a problem to solve.

Cardflick
CardFlick helps you create beautiful business cards with your phone. They allow users to quickly share cards via a patented “flick” technology that accounts for user location, provide a wealth of customization and design opportunities, and allow customers to import card data directly into suites like Outlook. 

Strengths:

• Extremely well polished product: Cardflick is beautiful. The themes are well gorgeous, the app performs admirably well, and there’s strong integration between the app and commonly used business apps.
• Clear monetization strategy: Cardflick plans to raise revenue by providing designers a chance to sell themes through the platform at a premium (similar to Tumblr’s approach) and through design deals with major brands and companies. The latter is particularly interesting given the revenue opportunities for working with major organizations – imagine how much Apple and IBM spend on making business cards every year.

Weaknesses:

• Access Control: Right now, Cardflick doesn’t support an elegant means of transmitting a card between two people. While the company is aware of this issue and working on it, using the current product could lead to you giving your contact information to someone else other than who you intended.
• Tied to the app: Cardflick requires that users either have the app or interact with a webpage representation of their business card. In order to make a phone call, Cardflick currently requires more work to use (and thus a higher time opportunity cost)  than an on-hand business card.

Opportunities:

• Branding opportunities: While businesses and individuals will probably not want to forgo using physical business cards, Cardflick provides both with exciting (and readily monetized) opportunities for branding.

Threats:

• More work to be done: While probably the best digital business card app out there, nobody has really solved the problem of being able to share digital business cards without forcing users to download the app.

Boombotix

Boombotix develops highly stylized speakers and other devices tailored to the lifestyle of urban youth and the surf, snow, and skate culture. They currently sell 3 types of mobile speaker sets that are designed to play music from devices such as smartphones and laptops.

Strengths:

• Strong retail partnerships: Boombotix has secured impressive retail partnerships with stores like Zumiez and American Outfitters – partnerships that cater well to their design’s target audience.
• Solid price point: Boombotix’s devices are cheaper than their Altec Lansing and Sony counterparts, and their unique style helps them secure their place amidst the teen and young adult demographic, and twenty-something skater/snowboarder demographic.
• Excellent financials: The company is reported to have only received approximately $150K in funding, but is currently operating with at least $250K in revenue and appears to continue growing organically. Given that they’re currently expanding to many other nationwide chains that appeal to their target demographic, Boombotix is making a strong showing as an excellent expansion-stage investment opportunity.

Weaknesses:

• Constrained supply: In order to drop their price further and maintain a solid supply chain to meet increased demand, Boombotix needs to expand their manufacturing partnerhsips in China. This is obviously a capital-intensive undertaking, and will probably require some kind of outside funding.

Opportunities:

• Economies of scale: Boombotix seems like its cost curves are subject to the traditional industrial economies of scale. With more factories building their speakers, Boombotix could find themselves as market leaders with a strong comparative advantage in producing goods for their demographic. This also adds to the likelihood that Boombotix will find the funding they need to move to the next scale of production. Unlike more complex aspects of the  software industry, many VC and private equity firms are very familiar with the intimacies of producing consumer goods and electronics manufacturing.

Threats:

• Subject to consumer spending: As a consumer electronics firm, Boombotix will find themselves at the mercy of the economy and consumer spending. International trade disputes with China, lowered consumer spending due to inflation, and other issues could impact their ability to bring a product to market and sell it with an acceptable margin.

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SF New Tech Contributor Andrew “Andy” Manoske is a PM by day, hacker by night, and sometimes in the evening he fights crime. He currently serves as a product manager at NetApp – the youngest in the company’s history – and previously held technical positions at SAP, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts. He received his Bachelors of Arts in Economics and Computer Science from San Jose State University in 2010, and was a finalist in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition and the Silicon Valley Neat Ideas Fair.

Twitter: @a2d2