Soluto Ltd., which has developed a web-based service for fixing PC problems, today launched its business model. "This lifts a burden. Suddenly, this is no longer a question, and you don’t have to make excuses," Soluto CEO Tomer Dvir told "Globes". "You only hear how successful companies established themselves after several years. It takes time, and usually happens away from the limelight. But we're now on track to become as big and successful as Wix, MyHeritage, and other big companies."
Ever since Soluto won the Techcrunch Disrupt prize in May 2010, and the media buzz over its famous investors, such as Eric Schmidt and Michael Arrington, it has been pressed to maintain the normal life of a start-up. It has had to live up to the great expectations placed in it. "People are familiar with the upside of the buzz, when everyone is talking about you, but it puts us in the spotlight without our consent," said Dvir. "Then questions began emerging about our business model. 'Hey, I've heard about you. How is it that you haven’t yet taken over the world?' was just one of the questions.
"The award brought us a large number of users at a very early stage and put us under a magnifying glass. This is different from the natural stage of a start-up. There are currently 200-300 start-ups which lack the buzz we had, and therefore are not bothered with questions."
Soluto targets its "Soluto Business" product directly to the IT managers at small and mid-sized enterprises, even really tiny enterprises in which only the owner or maybe one employee, who knows a bit about computers, helps keep the them running.
Similar to systems that until now have been installed at private customers, the Soluto Business is designed for the small and mid-sized enterprise market to fix computer problems, such as improperly installed software, a stuck app, or shortening start-up times, by remote. Soluto offers the product at a fixed fee of $8.33 per month, which it says is cheaper than 90% of prices for similar services on the market. The Soluto Business solution is designed for enterprises with 10-100 computers, or even more.
"Globes": What is different about the tools you offer an enterprise's IT manager, beside the price?
Dvir: "Today, computer people at an enterprise deal with breakdowns only when the user complains, or if they conduct period routine tests. Moreover, fixing a computer disrupts the employee's work because the IT person sits in his chair or works on his computer by remote takeover. The moment you bring Soluto into the enterprise, you get an e-mail alert about a computer breakdown, including the keys to press to fix it. The IT person can also fix a computer during the evening or early in the morning, and even if the user's computer is turned off."
Dvir says that Soluto's business of IT support has a global turnover of tens of billions of dollars. One of the ways the company plans to grow is through collaborations with telecommunications carriers and service providers, which can embed Soluto's product in their systems or offer it to their business customers.
Almost 18 months have passed since you announced your plan to offer this service to IT managers. Why the delay?
"It took time for our users to listen and learn. We studied the field while running the product, adapting it to enterprises' needs. We'll still offer the product for free to private users, who account for most of our customers."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 24, 2013
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