“We started out by building an Exchange Server app for the 1G iPhone. Then iPhone came out with theirs and we became instantly obsolete…overnight.”

Thus was the humbled beginnings of Precognitive Research, the two-man team in Minnetonka that has since pivoted and — starting with pooled funds of $2,000 — churned out 3 iPhone apps, is working on a blockbuster of a 4th, and currently manages AppleJuicr.com.

James DonFransesco and Andrew Sinesio, two long-time pals who both have “day jobs” at LifeTouch in Eden Prairie, knew from iPhone inception that making iPhone apps was their destiny. DonFransesco, who’s previous business architecture background at BestBuy instilled what he calls the “Best Buy approach” of building a business in stackable modules, operates as the business strategist and creative force. His partner, Sinesio, who honed his enterprise Java skills as part of the Imation Mafia (which has bred several active entrepreneurs since), does what DonFransesco calls “the real work”.

Together they’re rabidly driven to do things differently than most app developers do — as demonstrated by their next product.

The EcoHero impact

“We were inspired by Haiti when they had a lot of people that were so easily enabled to give money by text messaging…so why not through a video game app?” reflected DonFransesco.

EcoHero, which is still under development, is a graphics-rich game that allows the user to start with a submarine tasked with cleaning up an oil spill.  Throughout the game is multiple opportunities to buy various virtual goods, the proceeds which will go to numerous causes to help the human and environmental victims near the Gulf.  Awareness is every bit the goal as fun explains DonFransesco.  “It’s a game that allows people to buy a battery for their ship….and that 99 cents will go to a fisherman that needs it.”

Eventually there will be a dashboard section within the game that transparently breaks out where the money has gone and options for the player to dictate where their virtual goods’ revenue will go — whether they want to help the Louisiana shrimp farmers or if they want to kick their proceeds towards the Nature Conservancy’s oyster reef restoration project.  Throw in some game-mechanics for top donors and Precognitive is excited about the rush of bringing this one to market.

A bold email to another app development outfit called 6thMega, whom they thought would be their competition to beat, has actually turned into a partnership which will make both companies stronger by leveraging “goodware” — shareware with a grander purpose.

Experiments in Apperang

Rob Weber was approached by DonFransesco at MinneBar in May and managed to get himself pitched on giving Precognitive a spot in Apperang’s private beta with one of their earlier apps, ElevationPro.  Apperang, a service from W3i, distributes apps to a network of thousands of users who are paid money to download them.  Technically, the developer pays for each download plus a small fee to Apperang for facilitating the process.

Just like small business strive to rank well on Google, as do app developers within the iTunes store.  Starting with a $500 budget, Precognitive “only paid $280 net-net out of our own pockets to achieve an Apperang improvement of about 60 positions.” In theory, a higher position means more organic buyers which equals broader awareness and even more downloads.

“I give the service a thumbs up and will definitely use Apperang to bring future apps to market, ” James testified.

A blossoming marriage

“I’ve just stopped telling Andy about all of my ideas, now I just log them.  I think there’s times he just wants to slap me,”  muses DonFransesco, noting how their project lists grows as fast as his brain spits them out.

Behind LifeTouch’s HQ lies a lake which takes 30 minutes to walk around; it’s during these breaks that much of the company’s progress has stemmed from.

“We think it up, sort it out and spend all our nights and weekends executing.”

And how to decide when an App is “ready enough”?   It’s a process.  “We’re always negotiating,” he says with laughter.  “We used to play together in a Quake clan, so we knew we worked together really well.” The geek’s acid test to compatibility, no doubt.

It certainly is for these two persistent entrepreneurs, who’s tagline “Clearly, What’s Ahead” is where their passion and brainpower is going these days. And most nights too…clearly.

“Card.ly, a Web service that allows anyone to create sweet-looking online business cards (see my personal site robinwauters.com for an example) has been acquired by Workface, the company behind digital business card creation tool BusinessCard2. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.”

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Read the News Release…

“GeaCom is committed to breaking the language barrier in critical communication. To improve service, reduce costs and to save lives we are developing an innovative new solution…Phrazer.”

Beating out Inveni (formerly known as Open Preferences) & Curation Station, GeaCom nabs $20k cash + services as the company proceeds compete against the winners of five other divisions for The Cup on Sept 13 (and  an additional $20,000).

“Honestly, when it’s down to three companies like it was, out of so many, you know there’s lots good things that can emerge from a contest like this.  We’re pleased to make it this far,” said  GeaCom CEO Mat Johnson in response to the achievement.

A product of thisCLICKS, When I Work was created to solve the problem of irregular shift scheduling for employees and managers in retail chains, coffee shops, restaurants, student work study jobs, etc. . The software as a service  is able to notify employees of work schedules and shift changes via the mobile web, email and even text message. For example, an employee can remotely request a shift change, alerting other employees automatically rather than having to contact each employee and/or manager separately.

Halvorson says the next step is to “focus on conversions and retention” in response to the 150 business that have signed up for the free version since publicly launching the product last month — including Dunn Brothers (Oakdale) and Patrick McGovern’s Pub in St. Paul

The true magic in When I Work is the scheduling approach. Most other scheduling software services use a “calendar-based view”, whereas When I Work has the option to segregate the schedule by individual employee shifts.  When I Work is also supported via iPhone/Android app as well as through the WebKit engine, offering cross-platform convenience.

Built using the Kohana PHP framework, Halvorson strives to “iterate fast and release often” with an emphasis on talking directly with the end-users to continuously improve the functionality and utility of his product. ‘The goal is to do scheduling and do it better than anyone else,” he says when asked about extending to services like payroll, noting that the technology will eventually have an open API for further integration and greater enhancement.

Currently, there are four people dedicated to working on When I Work, backed by support from the entire thisCLICKS team, a full-service website and application development firm. The company anticipates releasing other applications, specifically in the healthcare/IT space. “Ideally I’d like to have a few different web applications in the thisCLICKS portfolio and be known for exceptional customer service,” says Halvorson while looking ahead.

“Our Startup Spotlight guest this week is Matthew Foust from Audiofile Engineering in Minneapolis.

Matt and Evan Olcott (his co-founder) established Integral Studio in 2000 and Audiofile Engineering in 2004 to concentrate on Mac-based audio tools for the audio industry as well as awesome iPhone/iPad/iPod-Touch tools like FiRe (Field Recorder).”

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“Minneapolis-based enStratus helps companies manage their cloud-computing activities. Cloud computing is a term for using data or applications that are stored online rather than on a desktop computer’s hard drive.

“In 2010, what we’ve done is managed to become a global business,” says George Reese, the company’s founder and chief technology officer. And he has numbers to back it up. As of mid-August, 80 percent of the company’s new customers this year have been from outside of the United States. A year ago, enStratus didn’t have any non-domestic customers.”

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“enStratus announced today that two leading cloud computing thought leaders have joined its Board of Advisors – James Urquhart and Simon Wardley. The enStratus Board of Advisors provides industry and customer perspectives to assist in the development of new cloud management solutions, partnerships and go-to-market strategies.”

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Formerly known as Mxapp, Prodality is the combined result of two successful internal technologies (Lunchbox & Waitmaster) and collaborative experiences between fellow developers, tech entrepreneurs and local software companies.

“There’s plenty of people in Minnesota who can produce great technology, but if there no real-world business strategy, what happens?” questions the President of Prodality, Parag Shah. “Clearly, some tech entrepreneurs excel at both areas while others fail. We’re here for the those who know they can’t do it all.”

Shah is the consummate entrepreneur who has been scratching his itch since high school when he formed Shah Ink to seize a middle-man opportunity in the ink cartridge business. While a student of entrepreneurial studies at the U of M’s CSOM, he conceived Mxapp, LLC and Lunchbox — a targeted marketing platform to put restaurant menus into the hands of mobile consumers.

Mxapp, a 2009 Minnesota Cup student division finalist, eventually spawned a text-based paging system for restaurant hosts called Waitmaster. Both products are currently deployed amongst restaurants such as Granite City and Buffalo Wild Wings, which generates revenue to support the greater Prodality team, including Sarah Young and Whitney Johnson.

More recently, the firm has collaborated with local startup 4Crowd, Golden Valley-based IntelAccount, Quality Bunker and another stealth Minnesota  startup that operates in the “digital legacy” space. It’s through these experiences that the idea to create an agency model for other local  startups was shaped according to Shah.

“There are pain points that we have learned to identify early on. From ideation and market research to sales, distribution and customer development –  our team is focused on partnering with ambitious Minnesota entrepreneurs and startups who want to work smarter together to increase the collective odds of winning,” says Shah. “It can be as simple as coming to us with an idea or a problem, discussing what needs to be done, determining who brings what to the table and establishing an equity partnership to get after it.”

It sure sounds simple when coming from the amiable Shah, but will it work and is it sustainable?

“Startups are risky business and it may not work out, but we’re learning every day and are willing to put skin in the game to prove our belief in and commitment to truly innovative technology partners. I want to build Prodality to the point where we’re working with the best talent in the field to help get new Minnesota tech to market faster,” he says.

Considering the noticeable uptick in the Minnesota startup community, it’s not hard to imagine a growing market for Prodality’s services, whereas the real challenge will be in not spreading too thin on stakes under-performing investments.  Compared to the incredibly low probability of success that every startup and new technology (in general) faces, more collaborations and diversification of this nature only seem to make sense.

“When Google acquired video compression technology company On2 for $106 million last year, the search giant also got encoding SaaS Flix Cloud as part of the deal. Now it looks like Google is shuttering Flix Cloud in November (and will stop accepting new customers as of tomorrow), and encouraging users to move to newly launching encoding startup Zencoder.”

Read More…

Over the past two months, ten judges have reviewed the detailed plans of ten semifinalists and trimmed the list down to the three that will advance to the next stage — pitching the review board.

In no particular order, the 2010 Minnesota Cup High Tech division finalists are:

“Open Preferences is a consumer web service for media (starting with movies and television) that facilitates personalized discovery and empowers word-of-mouth.  Users can discover new content, receive highly personalized recommendations (based on their custom taste profile), and share with friends. We are revolutionizing personalization online, by using data to improve people’s lives.”

“Curation Station is software which enables brands to gather, select and share the best content on any product, subject or category—the kind of marketing effort that makes your customers smarter. It’s easy to implement. And the results are remarkable.”

“GeaCom Inc. is committed to breaking the language barrier in critical communication. To improve service, reduce costs and to save lives we are developing an innovative new solution…Phrazer.”

The Minnesota Cup High Tech division winner, to be coronated on August 31st, will receive the following awards and benefits prior to competing against the winners of five other divisions for the grand prize on Sept 13 (and  an additional $20,000).

• $20,000 in seed capital

• Business organization (or services of similar value) from the law firm of Gray Plant Mooty

• Accounting assistance from Lurie Besikof Lapidus & Company, LLP

• Scholarship to The Collaborative’s 24th Annual Minnesota Venture & Finance Conference on October 14, 2010

• Video production and 3 months of hosting via Startupshoppe’s Minnesota Startup Showcase

The Minnesota Cup was Founded by Scott Litman and Dan Mallin in 2005 through a collaboration with the University of Minnesota – Carlson School of Management and Wells Fargo bank.  What is now largest statewide business plan competition has since engaged 1000’s of Minnesota entrepreneurs across 6 distinct divisions:  Student, Social Entrepreneurship, General, High Tech, Clean & Renewable Technology and BioSciences.

Last year, Alvenda won both the High Tech division as well as the overall Cup.

Congratulations to the three Minnesota Cup High Tech division finalists as well as the initial semi-finalists! This is an intensely competitive division full of many solid plans and early-stage ventures with great potential.