Startup of the Day - Wibiya

The BizSpark startup of the day is Wibiya, based in Israel. You will find below an interview with Dror Ceder, CEO and Co-Founder of Wibiya. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!

Website: www.wibiya.com.

Interview with Dror Ceder, CEO and Co-Founder of Wibiya

Tell us who you are and your role in the company:

CEO and co-founder.

What did you do before creating your company?

Before Wibiya I founded another company in the field of Vertical Search together with Daniel Tal and Avi Smila (co founders of Wibiya).

How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?

We are delighted to be the Startup of the day of Microsoft’s BizSpark especially after all the help we got from this program during the past year.

What is your company’s mission?

Our company’s mission is to help Websites of all types to easily integrate applications and features into their websites without the need of writing any code. Websites will always be able to easily add features according to the benefit they are looking for, from increasing page views and distributing content to minimizing their bounce rate to other networks. This will allow each website to concentrate on their core business and manage everything else with Wibiya.

In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:

Wibiya is a platform for websites to create custom web-based toolbars using an application marketplace.

How did you get the idea for your company?

While still working on our previous product we understood that it is a big pain for content websites and blogs to add different types of applications into their sites and track their performance. After doing some research and talking to multiple publishers, we decided that there is a big opportunity in this market and founded Wibiya.

Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?

We raised funding from Dr. Yossi Vardi and other private investors from the USA and Israel.

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

The company has fourteen employees, ten out of them are developers.

Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring and where?

At the moment we are not hiring.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

We use a variety of platforms such as LAMP, Windows Server 2008, MSSQL 2008. We use each platform/setup according to the task, for example we use MSSQL for high volume DB which provides the power of large scale queries/hits.

Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/internet area?

I think that there are a lot of opportunities in personalizing the way we consume content today on the web. In the past few years we have seen a big shift from something I call the “anonymous web” where users surfed the web anonymously without leaving identifiable footprints to the “open identity web” where users are more open to using their real profile. Personally I think that there is a lot to be done in this space and the technology to move things forward is out there.

What do you think about the BizSpark Program?

I think that it’s an excellent program that really helps young companies move forward. I would really be happy to see more programs like this that encourage entrepreneurs to step forward and give their innovative ideas a chance.

Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?

Don’t spend too much time in characterizing and building the big vision of your product, try to build the shell of your idea as fast as possible and test it. You will be amazed how many things shift in your mind. Also, measure everything, whatever you don’t track doesn’t exist as you won’t be able to make any conclusion from it.

Who’s your role model?

Shai Agassi – Founder and CEO of Better Place.

What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?

Innovation is a key factor of success in everything we do from building your own companies to our daily life routine, give your ideas a chance, they might just surprise you.