• Technology

Two years into his tenure at New York-based digital agency Squeaky Wheel Media, Scott Wells and his co-worker, Robert Boyle, had a thought: Rather than just helping clients push their products, why not create one of their own? Other hybrid agencies had tested the waters—some with screaming success, like Invoke Media, which developed the popular social media dashboard HootSuite.

After a client shot down their pitch for a custom mobile app, Wells and Boyle approached Squeaky Wheel Media founder and president Anthony Del Monte about developing the product in-house. After the trio spent two months hashing out the details, Del Monte agreed to finance the effort—named Crowdbeacon—as an internal project, with Wells and Boyle at the helm. We talked to Wells about the service, agency collaboration and what’s next.

How does Crowdbeacon work?
It’s a free, location-based mobile app. People ask a question based on their needs and location and get direct answers from other Crowdbeacon users and local businesses. If you ask, “Where can I get a blouse right now?” other users in the area who are following “shopping” as an interest get that question and can respond.

How did you come up with the idea?
Early in 2010, we had a promotional idea for Squeaky itself, called #NYCHelps. For two weeks, we basically searched Twitter for anyone who needed help in New York—looking for a lunch spot, delivering a last-minute package—and we’d give them suggestions. Then we had an opportunity to pitch a similar concept to one of the agency’s clients in the real estate business. The idea was to connect home buyers with local information, such as what the schools are like and where the good restaurants are. The client decided it wasn’t for them. But we were still really interested.

What was the agency’s M.O. in greenlighting the project?
There’s a lot of opportunity in mobile. [Del Monte] knew that this could potentially be a separate business for us and bring some good attention to the agency.

What resources did the agency provide?
Squeaky invested Rs.1.12 crore-Rs.1.35 crore of internal manpower and out-of-pocket costs. We dedicated two full-time developers to it, and myself and Robert, who were marketing and communications focused, as well as five contract people. [Del Monte] gave us the go-ahead in May 2010. After almost nine months of development, design and strategy, we launched Crowdbeacon in February 2011.

What’s happening with Crowdbeacon?
We’re at over 50,000 downloads. But we realized that unless we had the outside funding to really market and distribute Crowdbeacon, we wouldn’t be able to succeed. Squeaky had some reservations about outside investors coming in. So in April, we began offering Crowdbeacon as a white label solution that other businesses can use to connect with their own audiences. We’ve already gotten a couple clients out of this.

©Entrepreneur August 2011 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tags:
app, crowdbeacon, invoke media, Michelle goodman, robert boyle, scott wells, squeaky wheel media