In the first of a series of short interviews with players from the Web2 and cloud computing sector we put the spotlight on Marc Gingras at online calendering service Tungle
What gave you the idea for Tungle and how long has it been established?
In two previous startups, when we grew to five-six people, it became a pain to schedule meetings between each other. So, at the time, the only option available was to buy an Exchange server. This was quite expensive – $500/user – and also required someone with experience to set it up and maintain it. In addition, the bigger problem was scheduling meetings with clients and partners – and the Exchange server didn’t help in this regard.
There had to be a better solution – but after some research, we couldn’t find anything that could solve the problem. That’s when Tungle was started in 2006.
How many people work for Tungle and how did they come to the company?
The Tungle team is composed of 17 hard working, dedicated individuals. The core of the team worked together in previous successful startups. For example, Fang, Tungle’s CTO, was my partner in my first startup that we eventually sold to Entrade, which at the time, was a NYSE company, in 1999. Rod, our VP of BD, worked with me at Nimcat Networks, a P2P VoIP startup that we sold to Avaya in 2005. The majority of the team has worked with other team members at some point in the past.
What has been the biggest challenge so far?
Our biggest challenge has been to make Tungle easier and more effective than sending an email or making a phone call. That’s why our goal is to make the integration of Tungle as seamless as possible.
And what challenges do you see for the future?
Our challenge is to continue to make Tungle simpler, more efficient, and more natural. If we are going to solve the problem for the masses, it will only be achieved through simplicity.
Do you have any plans for other services?
Tungle prides itself in being the world experts in helping business professionals schedule meetings. Our focus will remain solving this problem for different segments.
What do you think are the major obstacles to getting people and businesses to use web based services?
I don’t think that’s an obstacle. The challenge is to offer a simple service that solves the problem. The pain is there – people are wasting tremendous amount of time scheduling meetings. Our research shows that for every meeting, users of Tungle save approximately 15 minutes – just think of the hours saved each week for people whose businesses revolve around meetings.
Our challenge is offer a solution that fits into the workflow of different business professionals, and is so simple that they can bring the solution into their day-to-day in a matter of minutes, and don’t have to learn a new system or leave the environments they’re familiar with.
What is the biggest incentive to get them to switch to cloud based systems?
As mentioned in the previous question, I don’t think that this is Tungle’s biggest challenge. Great companies are attacking this problem and having tremendous success. Salesforce.com is a poster child for cloud based systems. Google is gaining good momentum – and even Microsoft is moving in this direction. More and more, it’s becoming mainstream.
How do you see web based services in five years time?
I believe that web based services will be a combination of hosted services and a rich client experience. Users will be able to access and interact directly with a web based service from a browser, but will also use rich clients to benefit from the added capabilities and user experience of their access device – such as a Smartphone, Gaming Console, etc.
What happens when someone puts a digger through the cable?
People will realize that we need to have a wireless, satellite based Internet.
Read the Web2 and More review of Tungle here.
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