Versatile mShopper puts pricing tool on cell phone
Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News
Published September 17, 2007 at midnight
BOULDER - David Gould was in between jobs in early 2005, interviewing for a possible new career with venture capital firms in San Francisco.
That's when the two-time East Coast entrepreneur woke up in the middle of the night with this idea: Use cell phones to key in a product bar code and instantly find out the best price in the market.
It wasn't the best time to start a business, however: Gould's wife had a baby on the way.
But his wife, Heidi, a consumer products veteran herself, gave Gould the OK to spend a month on market research, and they went from there. In the past year, they moved to Sugar Loaf and opened an office in downtown Boulder.
Last week, the fledgling business hit pay dirt, when Sprint Nextel said Gould's mShopper would power Sprint's new mobile shopping portal.
The service is a bit different from how it was envisioned. It enables cell-phone subscribers to compare prices online of 7 million products offered by more than 100 vendors, including eLuxury, eBags and Shoes.com, and purchase products with credit cards. Sprint is offering the service at no additional charge to subscribers of its data plan.
"Sprint customers get a powerful shopping tool that they can use on-the-go to buy products or compare online prices to in-store merchandise," said George Ranallo, Sprint's director of consumer data applications.
In addition to the private-label arrangement, mShopper launched an online service last month that any cell-phone user with Web-browsing capabilities can use.
Gould, 46, counts mShopper as his third startup. He once headed a personalized entertainment content wholesaler called Imix.com, but it became a victim of the dot-com bust. The Harvard MBA also has worked as the manager of Virgin Mobile USA's mobile content division.
"That's what I like doing - building new companies," Gould said last week over coffee in downtown Boulder.
He was quick to praise the 10-employee "team," which includes his wife and a number of technology veterans. He called Boulder a "terrific place to start a company."
Gould's market surveys found consumers would be attracted to a mobile, online shopping service. But he knew he had to come up with a simple way to key in a product brand and make, get price comparisons and order merchandise. Patents are pending.
The service also can be used by vendors to text message alerts about hot deals. Users can talk to live agents.
Juniper Research estimates mobile purchasers in North America will spend $505 million in 2008 and $1.9 billion by 2010. MShopper also is eyeing the European market.
Consumer electronics may be an obvious category of interest. But Gould sees great potential for shoes and apparel. For example, if a consumer finds a store is out of stock in their size, they could use mShopper to immediately order the product online.
MShopper gets a commission based on each sale, and makes money from small ads displayed on the price comparison screen.
The company is self-funded and financed by angel investors, but it's working to get an initial round of venture capital. Gould said the site should hit 1 million unique visitors a month by year-end, and he is hoping the business soon will be cash-flow positive as well.
smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155
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