Smibs Inc. recently launched into private beta with both its business network and its first software application. Similar to LinkedIn, SmibsNet is a social business network that enables professionals to connect with one another. Smibs is trying to differentiate from other similar offerings by providing tools for small and medium sized businesses to “get things done.”
Peter Urban, the company’s founder and President, said that Smibs was conceived out of years of consulting SMBs and finding a common small business frustration: the difficult balancing act of staying in touch with your network and on top of your sales activities, while working on projects that pay the bills. Urban’s solution to that challenge is Smibs and their first extension: Doorbell, a web-based sales software application for “non-sales people”. Doorbell allows companies to manage their sales process through a slick and simple interface without the clutter of a ton of features. The application seeks to help small businesses track contacts, follow sales leads and keep up to date on who needs to be contacted and for what reason.
“What makes Doorbell unique,” says Urban, “is its ability to tie into the Smibs network. This new kind of integration makes it possible to collaborate on sales opportunities by involving others from both inside and outside a company.” All of this can be managed from the Smibs Lounge, which acts as a personalized dashboard for the user. The Lounge provides easy access to all the companies a user is working with including their Smibs applications, associated tasks and a central search across all personal and business contacts.
Based out of Edmonton, Smibs has been garnering attention in the local community since its demo at DemoCamp Edmonton 1. Smibs plans on making money by selling a “premium” package to users. SmibsNet is free to use and paid plans start at $19 per month. If you are interested in checking out SmibsNet and Doorbell you can sign-up for their private beta at http://www.smibs.com.
Go Alberta!
It's great to see a usable application that ties so much together! They saw a need and did something about it. Well done.
Looks like an interesting meld of buisness and technology. Though it's still in beta, it looks very promising.
Seems like a very well designed project. I'll have to recommend it to others.
Great application with great potential and a variety of possible uses.
