Another jewel from DEMO 2006 was certainly www.sharpcast.com. Sharpcast aims to simplify your digital media experience.

Photos is where Sharpcast has started their quest:

They promise to:
* Access your photos on your phone and the web
* Back up your digital photos
* Get your pictures from your phone to your computer
* See your whole photo collection right on your phone
* Recover lost photo albums

CEO & Founder Gibu Thomas was so nice to answer some questions for us:

Q: What did you do before Sharpcast?

A: Before Sharpcast, I worked at Palm (and Handspring before it was acquired by Palm) in sales and business development, specifically helping set up and manage their GSM carrier business. I went to Handspring through their acquisition of our previous venture Bluelark Systems, which created the Blazer browser, the default browser on Treos.

Q: Why do we need a better photo organization - isn't Flickr enough?

A: Sharpcast's raison d'etre is even more fundamental than that. Today, a web application experience like the one Flickr provides is only available via a browser when you are connected. There are a few problems with this:

• You are not always connected. Sounds obvious, but what if you could only access the address book on your phone when you had cell coverage?


• Mobile web browsing. This one should be self-explanatory if you have ever tried typing a URL on a cell phone keypad.


• The switching cost for consumers from giving up their rich, native application experience (e.g. iPhoto, Picasa) to use a pure browser-based solution. Alternatively, the cost of manually maintaining two copies of photos, one in iPhoto and one in Flickr.

Sharpcast extends the reach of native applications to the web, so a consumer can now organize his photos on in a iPhoto-like desktop application and automatically access the same workspace from anywhere via a web browser OR a rich, native client. Any changes he makes on his PC or mobile device or the web are kept in sync in real-time, so he can pick up where he left off anytime.

The Sharpcast user experience is identical to that provided by a Blackberry-corporate Exchange server solution, i.e. I see the same workspace always regardless of whether I use my Blackberry client, Outlook desktop client and Outlook Web Access via a browser and I get to choose what I want to use when.

Q: What is the secret sauce in sharpcasts's technology?

A: Sharpcast's underlying technology is a real-time synchronization platform that works across desktops, mobile devices and the web. We are taking the Blackberry-Exchange model that has proven to immensely popular with corporate users and bringing that same experience to consumers who don't have an IT department or Exchange server and for all the data types they care about like photos, videos, files, you name it.

Q: How many users are currently using your product?

We are currently preparing for our Alpha, so other than our employees, no one is using our product, but that is about to change soon. You can sign up to be invited to our beta at www.sharpcast.com.

Q: How do actually market the product right now?

A: Our offering is not publicly available yet (coming soon! sign up for the beta at www.sharpcast.com). So, as we get ready for our public debut, we are building awareness thru traditional press, bloggers, distribution partnerships and so on.

Q: Where does Sharpcast develop software? Why there?

A: We are a team of 20+ employees (growing everyday) in the California Avenue business district of Palo Alto. We like the proximity to Stanford, the energy of mid-town Palo Alto, easy access to Caltrain and having the luxury to take 280 from San Francisco ;)

Q: What was the defining moment when pitching VCs?

The REAL defining moment was when we had the money in the bank and didn't have to pitch VCs any more ;) But, I guess that is not what you are referring to.

We went through an arduous fundraising process because sync was a bad word with the investment community. Finally, Andreas at DFJ, who knew my co-founder Ben by reputation from Ben's work architecting the original ePocrates solution, met us on a Friday afternoon and told us he wanted to invest an hour later, bringing the year-long saga to an end.
So, I guess the defining moment for us in the fund raising process was finding out we had a reputation we could bank on with at least one VC ;)

Q: What is your TOP lesson learned as an entrepreneur?

A: Tenacity, conviction and passion are your biggest allies when you start a new venture. When people dismiss your approach (and they will), it is often not personal: listen to the constructive part of their feedback and figure out what you need to tweak or do better to make them see what you see. At the end of the day, the most important (and hardest) lesson is to be honest with yourself and know when to hold and when to fold. I guess that is three lessons.

Thank you!