“+200.000 mobile application developers like us were suffering app discovery; we thought apps could help users find other apps within the app, where the user already is.”

Pictured left to right – Juan Moreno, Paolo Rau, Rodrigo Carrearas, Raul Moreno

Interview by Kevin Ohashi of KevinOhashi.com
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This is part of our Startupbootcamp 2010 Coverage.  We will be profiling many of the teams that have recently completed this seed funding program in Copenhagen, Denmark.  You can also read our interview with the founder of Startupbootcamp, Alex Farcet.  The format is slightly different from our regular format.  Each interview will begin with a set of questions about the experience of going through Startupbootcamp and follow up with questions about the specific startup.

Disclosure: I know many of these teams personally and have worked with some of them informally to varying degrees.  However, I do not have equity in any of these companies nor have I received any type of compensation from them (other than a couple beers!).

Juan Moreno is a Co-Founder at Kinetik.  Juan and his team are from Argentina.  Juan studied Economics at San Andres.  He interned at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Ashoka. He was also an Analyst at KPMG.  His first startup was called Mobiliciouz which he started with his brother, Raul, who is also working on Kinetik. Kinetik is part of the inaugural Startupbootcamp group in Fall 2010.

Kinetik is a cross-promotion network for mobile applications. They help developers find, connect, and collaborate with other developers. It allows developers to sign up and use their system to earn credits every time one of their users signs up for a cross promoted apps.  Each credit then earns the developer an install of their own app from other apps in the network.  Developers are allowed to curate the list of apps that they cross-promote to maintain relevance and ensure only high quality applications are getting promoted from their own application.

MO:
Where did you hear about Startupbootcamp and what made you decide to apply?

Juan:
Through Techstars, they told us about their global affiliates. We decided to apply because we lack the mentorship in Buenos Aires and we knew in Copenhagen the mobile space is more advance, therefore we could meet more people who could understand and help us with our idea of helping mobile app developers get more users.

MO:
After going through the Startupbootcamp program, what did you find added the most value to your startup?

Juan:
All of SBC mentors who were kind to talk to us. We listened, shared opinions and received lots of feedback. It made our progress more fun, as we got lots of smart people helping us to realize the idea.

MO:
What sort of progress did you make while in the Startupbootcamp program?

Juan:
We’ve been testing it with a few hundred apps and seen some interesting numbers. We are now open for all categories of mobile apps to apply. Some leading partners, like World of Warcraft have seen great initial results. Android apps represent more than half of our members and we expect this to grow with our new sdk for the recently released android tablets.

MO:
Looking back, what could be improved upon for seed funding initiatives like Startupbootcamp?

Juan Moreno: 
The office space next time could be a bigger and more open working space which could spark further collaboration with the other teams.

MO:
What was the most exciting day for your startup at Startupbootcamp? The most stressful?

Juan:
Investor Day Presentation: It’s always good to finish with a great presentation and hear from the people who saw you from day one “you guys really killed it out there.”

The first week, we thought we come with a solid product but after a week of talking with the mentors we felt we could improve much more.

MO:
Seed investment programs/startup accelerators are starting to attract talent from other regions and even internationally.  You have a special honor of being the only team from outside of Europe and had to make special visa accommodations for the program.  You are facing one of the big challenges after finishing Startupbootcamp, where do you base yourself?  Could you tell us about your thought process so far?  What are the choices you are debating between and what opportunities do they offer for Kinetik?  What are the disadvantages of each?

Juan:
It’s true, there are great talents internationally and now there is a growing market to address internationally as well.  For Kinetik addressing the South American market is natural. SBC introduced us to great people so we could potentially partner and grow the European market.  Some interesting events for us next year are Google I/O and Apple WWDC so maybe we could be getting ready for that in the USA. We’ll see…

MO:
Kinetik reminds me of the very old cross marketing tactic used in the 90’s: web rings.  Sites that all linked to one another in a ring, generally in the same niche, to send users to one another.  Of course, it was a very primitive system back then.  How did you come up with this idea? 

Juan:
We had developed some apps ourselves and for clients and knew that with +200.000 mobile application developers like us were suffering app discovery; we thought apps could help users find other apps within the app, where the user already is. If you are a developer and have a catalogue of apps then you naturally cross promote between them but if there was a way to promote with other apps you’ll reach even more users so that’s why we started Kinetik.  

MO:
Kinetik is an interesting name, what is the story/significance behind it?

Juan:
Kinetik has its roots in the Greek word Kinesis meaning motion.  It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetik energy.

We give mobile developers the tools to connect and get a little push. Like gravity all you need is a little push!

MO:
You’ve got a few early users, what interesting behaviors and trends have you noticed?

Juan:
Currently people assume that if you are in a game you want other games, but this is not what we are seeing, we are seeing games choosing news, social networks, and productivity apps and recommending them to their users… and we’ve seen surprising good performance… so users don’t stick to a niche, they have diverse interests similar to of all of us with our groups of friends.

MO:
You’re not ‘officially’ launched to the public yet. What can we expect at launch from Kinetik?  What are your long term plans/goals for Kinetik?

Juan:
We are open for mobile developers to apply. We are working on few things like the catalogue, were we are making it easier for developers to find the right partner to work with. Our analytics dashboard will give developers more information on their performance and their user reach.  However, what we are more excited about is the profile section for each app.  Developers can expect this to be ready in the coming month.

We’ll continue to build great products for mobile app developers to find, connect, and collaboration with other developers.