I recently came across Bravisa (Santa Clara, CA), an interesting ecommerce tool that allows anyone the opportunity to become a retailer without having to deal with the hassle of buying, stocking, shipping or servicing the products they are selling. Here, they go straight to the good part. As a registered seller, you would receive your own bStore where you can pick products to sell or design from the 250 currently available Bravisa products. Bravisa has negotiated wholesale prices with various manufacturers that you can markup to sell at a profit. Bravisa takes a 10% commission on products that are sold. For example, if you markup a product at $5.00 U.S., Bravisa takes a commission of $0.50 while you profit with $4.50 in your pocket.

Balaji of Bravisa had this to say when asked about how Bravisa differs from other popular ecommerce sites like EBay:

“Seller = Retailers (as apposed to an Affiliate). This means that with Bravisa you can make profits similar to companies like Amazon.com (not like their affiliate programs) without the retailer hassles. Like Cafepress or Zazzle, Bravisa offers a variety of products that you can personalize by adding you own images or text to create unique products. When your customer clicks on products in your blog, they go directly to your store and can’t access other competing stores, which increases your revenue potential. Bravisa can add products from new and competing manufacturers very quickly. If you aren’t excited about the current selection and can suggest other products, Bravisa will do its best to add those products.”

Quickly going over the site; I found it quite straightforward and pleasant to the eye. Personally, I liked their initiatives like their current plan to keep the bStore active if you haven’t sold anything. Another one is that there is currently no limit on the number of products you can have in your store. Also, they are planning to host forums where users can exchange ideas on related topics, but currently offer a blog which is another great tool to built relations. In terms of payment options, Bravisa is looking at paypal in the future, but currently offer cheque mail outs for earnings. Overall, I think these guys are doing their part to be open with sellers by offering a wide range of versatility and that goes a long way in creating that special rapport with users. Hope to see these guys take off with more quality products to sell.

Click here to visit Bravisa.

Musicplustv.com is a 24/7 online network broadcasting exclusive shows, interviews, live performances, music videos and other video, audio and image content. The company was founded by Marc Cubas and Dennis Tzeng towards the end of 2003 and went live on June 15, 2005. At the end of March this year, the site has included social networking and on-demand video hosting and archiving capabilities to its third version. By doing so, the site has also increased traffic tremendously.

I recently spoke to the Director of Media Relations, Bryan Kim about his site and this is what he had to say:

How did the idea come about?

“Marc and Dennis wanted to build a platform for talented and emerging artists.  To this day, every employee and contributor at MusicPlusTV is an avid music lover.”

How does the site differ from other online broadcasting sites such as MySpace and YouTube?

“We’re often compared to MySpace and/or Youtube, and while we do offer social networking and file hosting, our main platform focuses on our own television content production. All M+ shows are professionally produced and edited, ensuring a measure of consistent, branded quality that is usually absent in the vast majority of user-generated content.  In many ways, it’s the natural evolutionary step from the purely user-generated content era. In essence we combine the best in traditional and new media television experience, offering the passive experience of watching a continuous channel as well as accessing past content on demand in a social, interactive hosting platform.”

Who do you see as your competition?

“ManiaTV, based in Denver, is probably the most direct competition in that they’re the only ones that offer a streaming, network-quality television channel online.  They’re a lot better funded and hyped than MusicPlusTV, but our audience is bigger.  And while I’m a bit biased, I believe our online platform is richer and our content, more compelling.”

Can you describe the underlying technology behind the site, and how the site works for users?

“The live television stream is streamed via Windows Media Player.  The on-demand video content is played via MusicPlusTV’s custom Flash player.  Every piece of content is associated with an embed code that users can then use to post any piece of video content.  All content is hosted in their appropriate profile pages. Subscribed users (subscription is free) can host up to 100 files of each: videos, pics and audio.  Each file can be as big as 120 MB. We’re currently working on a robust customization system that will serve the needs of both the amateurs and professional designers.”

Have you raised any outside funding to this point?

“Marc Cubas, CEO and Co-Founder, personally provided the seed money for MusicPlusTV.  Last November, we received an investment from Kenai Investment, a Bay Area based private equity firm.  We are currently talking to several potential angel investors at the moment.” 

Overall, a very proactive site that offers various user friendly features such as commenting on content, a news blog, various category or keyword searches for content. I did come across content that was not exactly related to certain categories, but that is not much of a concern. As traffic and the site grow; changes are bound to take place as the site adapts to new demands. In addition, I like the fact that the video content is fully-embeddable and the multiple file uploader option is a great time saver.  These guys are on a roll and I hope to see more trademark content in the future. 

Click here to visit http://www.musicplustv.com

I recently spoke to Nathan Kaiser of npost.com (Seattle, WA), a job board specifically targeting small to medium sized startup businesses. The site has over 50 companies listed and over 170 interviews with CEOs and entrepreneurs discussing about their insights, ups & downs, revenue models, funding and hiring practices. In addition, the site has a listing of upcoming networking events as well.

As per Nathan, the mission of the site is to “focus on the niche market of bringing together startups with the type of individuals who want to help build, grow, and create something new and dynamic. Entrepreneurs drive the economy. It is this zeal for creating something new that we want to promote.”

We can all relate to the difficulty of finding jobs and it is always welcoming to see websites that add to our resources for real world needs. So, as a keen job seeker I navigated through the site and found it very clean and well organized. It was not overwhelming and confusing as some job sites are. I have to say, the idea of having upcoming networking events with an option for registration is a good idea. The only thing that I would like to see in that area would be career related job fairs as well.

The revenue model is straightforward. Job opportunities are cost effective at $80 per job per month with satisfaction guaranteed. Advertisements on individual pages and the homepage are another source of revenue.

Overall, the site is a pleasant addition to the job market focusing on startups trying to gain momentum in the industry. I look forward to seeing how the site evolves over time and expands to other states.

Click here to visit npost.com

TimeXchange.net (chicago, Illinois) is a member based social business network that facilitates the interactions of people who work on projects and report data via a timesheet. Timexchange.net acts as a platform for members (workers, managers, administrators, and/or clients) with their own respective accounts to establish permission-based connections with other users to report, approve, or collect timesheets, invoices and expense reports. 

As there are countless sites out there that provide applications to serve this purpose; I asked Joe Piekarz, president of timexchange.net about his services. This is what he had to say:

Why is it different than your competitors?

“Yes there are a million apps already, but every timesheet application we looked at, hosted or enterprise, has the same limitation; cross-organizational interaction. Let me give you an analogy. Imagine if email was solely an enterprise application (as it once was, remember PROFS) and that you could only send emails to people who were members of the same system you were on. You would have to log into two separate systems to send the same message to people in two separate companies. That is how most timesheet applications work, but that’s not the business reality of how project teams are staffed. For example, I could be a freelance contractor placed on a project by a staffing company at a client who requires timesheet approval on all projects. The client has their system for collecting time. The staffing company has theirs. And I have my own records to keep. In this example I would fill out the same timesheet information 3 times for each task. It’s a waste of time. But if I could enter my time once and route it to all the required parties regardless of organizational affiliation, my life would be easier, less mistakes would be made, and everyone would still get what they need.”

What is your business plan?

“Our goal is to build the largest network of timesheet-based members and change the way timesheets are done. We want people to use the words “timesheet” and “timeX” interchangeably as in “please get me your timeX so I can pay you”. Our business plan is to offer the basic application and network for free in an ad-supported model. Once we have achieved a certain critical mass, we will role out a subscription-based upgrade for users who want features such as electronic payment of invoices or other busines to business functions. We also have a channel of integration partners who, for a fee, “mash up” or connect our data to other business applications such as project management, vendor management, procurement, HR and financials. As the community grows, so will the features in both the free and premium versions.”

“We take a great deal of input from our users and make supporting them and their ideas a cornerstone of what we do. As part of our business plan, users are encouraged to think of themselves as setting the direction that we go with the service. For example, later this year we will roll out a version for the legal community that is personalized for lawyers. A user will simply tell us in their profile that they are a lawyer and instead of the label project they will see the label case file.”

“It’s all about growing and responding to the needs of members. If we do that well, they will be our best sales channel because they will bring other members into network just because they are using it.”

Why did you start this website? 

“Because I have been in professional services for over 20 years and have yet to see an organization that doesn’t have issues with timesheets. They are the life blood of how projects are managed and how service providers are compensated, but are far to often just a pain. We think there’s a better way and that timeX is the answer because of it’s peer-to-peer and end-user orientations.”

Any other information that you believe is relevant to your startup will also be helpful?

“We are not backed by VC money and have been funded by owners and friends. We are not actively seeking an influx of funding, but are aware that growth and the wants of our members could make that an issue.”

Overall, I have been impressed by the fact that Joe has created timeXchange.net that acts as a problem solver for a particular community as opposed to just creating another alternative option. I had a chance to navigate through the site and found it simple and self explanatory especially with the snapshots. Another great thing about this site is the fact that it would appeal to any business regardless of the size. A small company would stand to benefit here such as a tutor invoicing the parents or a large corporation with many projects to reports to. Personally, I think Joe is right on track with his business plan and I wish him good luck in revolutionizing the whole payroll process. 

Click here to visit TimeXChange.net.

Cylive (pronounced ’sy-liv’) is a site created by Kiran S. Bettadapur from California that enables users to create, store and share a wide array of digital media content (mp3 audio, video, photos, personal writings) from one platform. The registered users have the option of sharing content publicly through the publishing feature so all users can see the content. In contrast, the private feature allows the creator to see the contents of their creation. In addition, the friends feature permits users to share the contents only among chosen users.

Cylive allows users to collaborate with their friends and family to jointly produce and publish content for public consumption. Users also have the power to customize material in new and unique ways. For instance, they can create a photo album with a voice clip attached to each photo in the album about how and when they took the snap.

Cylive is based on a content-type agnostic platform that gives users the flexibility to control who can do what and when with their content. For instance, you can assign ‘add photos’ privilege to everyone in your family, but only give ‘view photos’ right to your friends. These privileges can be either be specified individually for your contacts on Cylive or can be set through time restrictions for these rights.

Once published the content can be user rated, commented on and added to their favorites such as delicious. These features in addition to the blog section allow the creator to inform users of new updates, issues and build further rapport with users. This is a great approach for any new venture.

Personally, I found the site pleasant to look at, easy to navigate and understand. I thought that the concept of creating a site that allows users to tend to their content management needs on one platform to be quite innovative. This site is not just about blogging; the site has made an honest attempt to allow users more versatility. In terms of advice, I think that over time Kiran will add features to the site to make it more user friendly. For instance, a rating option for the comments themselves would be a great idea similar to the ratings and the number of views for articles. This will most likely take time as the website grows. Anyhow, I wish Kiran to keep improving his site with new features and user friendliness. My advice to Kiran would be to constantly be in touch with the users and see how they are responding to the experience in terms of their concerns and feedbacks. This is fundamental to any new venture wanting to succeed, as success is definitely a collaborative effort.

Visit Cylive now for further details