Five Minutes With Calgary’s NewPanda
Startup Calgary is hosting Launch Party 2011 on December 1, 2011, giving nine Calgary companies the opportunity to showcase their products to VCs, angel investors, and A100 members. Three companies will be selected for a two-minute pitch competition on the main stage, pitching their products to 250 members of the Calgary tech community. See the full list of startups here.
NewPanda is a Calgary startup that makes it easy for organizations to get their brand message out through all the latest channels. From one easy to use dashboard, you can create a message and send it to your contacts via beautiful email templates, interactive text messages, Tweets, and Facebook posts.
The key to a successful startup is to offer a solution to a well-defined problem. What problem does NewPanda address?
Our typical customer’s marketing team consists of a staff of me, myself and I. They don’t have the time or resources to learn, purchase, and manage multiple messaging platforms. They don’t have the programming or design knowledge to create a flyer, HTML email template, or online web page, and they don’t have the resources to hire people that do. What they do know is they are missing a huge audience if they don’t start using email, mobile, and social media.
We have integrated all of these messaging types and services into one easy to use application, drastically cutting down the amount of time, money, and overhead spent on typical marketing campaigns.
How did you conceive NewPanda?
NewPanda was born from the feedback and research of businesses that were struggling to share their message to an ever-evolving audience. In the past, marketers could deliver their message en masse via the “big three” (radio, TV, print) or via more targeted, customized direct mail. But the costs of all were extremely high and the results were often ineffective.
One of our cofounders, Bob Woehrle, had successfully developed new media products and services dating back to fax machine and Interactive Voice Response applications. As technology expanded, Bob saw the opportunity to reach people through the power of email marketing, social networking, and mobile messaging. Great services existed for all three, but not in a unified, easy to use, and affordable messaging platform. Bob took a month long working sabbatical, combined with months of research and case studies, and NewPanda was born.
Kylie Lakevold, our Canadian cofounder, gave NewPanda life through our award winning online app interface and customized content and templates now used by tens of thousands of businesses and independent professionals around the globe. Before NewPanda, Kylie was employed with Userful in Calgary as the Brand Manager where she acquired global experience in branding, user interface design, and marketing.
What is your biggest stumbling block as a startup? What steps have you taken to overcome this challenge?
Our next great challenge is to expand our scope. We’re ready to take the momentum we’ve developed in the US and create new versions for multi-tiered organizations and niche industries in Calgary and beyond. Our current challenge now is to find the right resources, contacts, and capital to take the NewPanda concept to the next level.
How has NewPanda arranged its financing? Are you actively seeking investors?
We’re a tried and true bootstrapped success story. Our founders have been able to pool their own resources, including the occasional emergency credit card, so that we’ve been independent from the start. This allowed us to bypass bringing in outside angel or venture capital as we build our foundation. We’re now looking to expand the idea of NewPanda into new industries and customized products. This will require new partners and investors. The sky is the limit for organizations and industries with a message to share. We need to find great talent and investment to launch our next big adventures.
What’s the most exciting thing happening in the tech ecosystem in Calgary right now?
The most exciting thing happening in the tech ecosystem is the growing community. Groups like Startup Calgary and the A100 genuinely care about the entrepreneur community, their ideas, and how to make them happen.
As a result of community support, the technology sector is thriving, and this is attracting talent, resources, and investors.
Marketers – what is your most valuable tool when trying to get your brand message out? Sound off in the comments below.
