The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Contactually
Quick Pitch: Contactually is a proactive personal assistant for your email contacts.
Genius Idea: Contactually automatically prompts you to take action with the most important people in your network and syncs all contact data with your Customer Relation Management (CRM) system.
Contactually is like a virtual secretary minus the hundreds of paper sticky notes. It manages your email contacts and communications to ensure you don't forget to reply to important emails.
The service links directly to a user's email account, so there's no need to install computer software or browser plugins as with similar services such as Boomerang for Gmail. It is made specifically for those working in sales, business development or professional services such as consulting and financial management, although it can be used with personal inboxes, too.
"We have been talking with customers, and they say they have a nagging fear there are loose ends that aren't being wrapped up," said Tony Cappaert, Contactually's co-founder. "A customer says he is going to follow up with someone, and he doesn't. He says he is going to send a presentation — he forgets."
The company started in July 2011 when Zvi Band, Contactually's co-founder and CEO, wanted to develop a simpler, less expensive approach to CRM, Cappaert said.
"After hundreds of interviews with other professionals, we kept hearing the same thing: 'I want something that just works,'" Cappaert added.
Contactually provides daily prompts for emails it categorizes as most important on one's communication priority list. Contactually's sophisticated classification method and email reminder system do the hard work for its users. The system takes note of who a user contacts, how frequently the user contacts someone and how quickly the user responds to individuals.
The user can also organize contacts by dropping them into different virtual buckets. For example, buckets could include friends and family, co-workers, individuals on group projects, customers, investors or acquaintances. Contactually links contacts to social media accounts.
"When we see people who are important to you start to slip off your radar, we send you a reminder email," Cappaert said.
Zvi Band is well-known in the tech community. He has worked as a developer at skeevisArts, a boutique software development shop. He started #dctech, organized DC tech meetups, co-founded ProudlyMadeInDC and landed on Washingtonian's Tech Titans list. Band teamed up with his co-founders — Cappaert, formerly with Microsoft Bing Ads and Jeff Carbonella, who met Band while designing and developing web applications at SkeevisArts.
Contactually is free for now, but a paywall will appear in February for those who use Contactually frequently, Cappaert said. For most, prices will range from free to $45 per month per user. The system works with IMAP email accounts including AOL, Gmail, Google Apps and Yahoo; POP3 and Microsoft Exchange will be supported later on.
Contactually is a 500 Startups company and has about 2,500 users. 500 Startups provides financial support to early-stage companies. In total, Contactually has raised $225,000.
"We are really just hitting the tip of the iceberg," Cappaert said.
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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