Your memory of your great grandparents comes down to a few old black and white pictures if you are lucky and other than genetically, you are may be quite disconnected from them. But imagine a day and age where your great great grandkids can access your life through a collection of all of the photos, videos, and documents you’ve been storing in the cloud. The only problem is that your cloud storage is all over the place in Gmail, Evernote, DropBox, and iCloud when you need it to be more accessible and interconnected. MiMedia, your personal cloud may be the only cloud you need to care about. It bills itself as the safe and user friendly space to keep everything you want stored for future generations to come.
Today we sit down with Chief Marketing Officer Jackie Stone to discuss the driving force behind the need for MiMedia and how the company has built traction quickly.
Tell us about the product or service.
MiMedia is a next-generation personal cloud. It’s the digital home our memories deserve, finally. All the photos, videos, music and files you care most about in one awesome spot – safe, organized and accessible always on all devices. MiMedia cares about families and private sharing and has built a unique feature called “MiDrives,” which allow for personal media to be kept securely and shared privately among invited family and friends. We’re about simplifying, enjoying and sharing our digital lives and not getting buried by data or putting special moments in boxes. We offer consumers a rich and engaging experience plus powerful tools to curate, personalize and (re)discover your digital memories. MiMeda was recently ranked as a top cloud solution by About.com. MiMedia is NYC made, with people passionate about changing consumers’ digital lives for the better.
How is it different?
MiMedia is the only consumer cloud that focuses on consumers needs. MiMedia is not tech titan that is looking to sell you more hardware or advertising based on your actions. MiMedia is device agnostic and allows consumers to easily share across multiple operating systems. MiMedia is available on phones, tablets and web. A few key features make MiMedia more than a cold locker– or just a storage box– MiMedia provides Wallpaper which allows you to see photos from friends and family on your own device– this is the first of it’s kind. The MiDrive provides private sharing environments for friends and family to collaborate together by creating visual stories with chat and comments. One of our favorite features is ThisDay which is a proprietary algorithm that resurfaces photos, videos and music in a unique setting to the user based on either “surprise me” or a specific date in time.
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
Our primary market is parents between the ages of 24 and 45 who are amassing a lot of personal media each year and sharing it with their friends and family near and far. Our secondary target audience are passion verticals that focus on photos, videos and private sharing: travel, action sports, culinary, pets, wedding, photography, videography. MiMedia provides a solution with easy and automatic organization, personalized and customizable environments – plus automatic uploads.
What is the business model?
Our business model is freemium to paid subscription; We offer 3 different types of plans:
- Free 10GB
- Basic Plan 500GB for $85 annually or $7.99 a month
- Plus Plan 1TB for $100 annually or $9.99 a month
What inspired the business?
We started this company because we had the same problems as you and there was no one cloud that was consumer centric.
Our digital lives were a mess. Photos, videos, music, document files were everywhere…we had different devices, different platforms…it was made worse each year with our purchase of a new phone, tablet or computer.
There had to be a better way. Our current options were not what we wanted, we did not want to:
- Put our stuff in digital boxes never to be seen again.
- Get trapped into any operating system or ecosystem just because we tried their phone that year.
- Have to recreate everything if we decided to move to a new phone, new computer and new operating system.
- Struggle on how to set up our personal cloud or be surprised on how it actually worked.
- Put our private moments in highly public places just to share with family and friends.
- Have our stuff in a cold environment that was not friendly or easy to use.
This is supposed to be fun. After all, the moments we captured were fun. So, we decided to build MiMedia to fix this…for you and us. We wanted to have:
- An easier way to be in the cloud…couple of clicks and, boom, you’re there.
- Organization that is simple but powerful.
- Tools to control, manage, curate and personalize our content the way we wanted it.
- Private sharing environments for family and friends.
- Reconnection with our moments, and resurfaces gems we forgot about.
- A beautiful, visual experience…a place to hang out in and have fun…because, after all, it’s our stuff, our memories, our friends and family and all these things are ours to enjoy!
You company counts a number of large brands as clients. What types of partnerships do you have?
Retail: RadioShack; we are the personal cloud solution at RadioShack- consumers are offered an exclusive plan of 250GB for $35.00 annually or $3.99 a month; the plans can be purchased at select RadioShack stores; or online at www.radioshack.com
Global: Micromax in India:. New York-based MiMedia has built the next generation consumer cloud platform that enables consumers to organize, manage, share and (re)discover all of their personal digital content (photos, videos, music, and files), on any device (smartphones, tablets, desktops), whenever they want. MiMedia offers consumers a rich and engaging experience. The “MiDrive,” a unique feature, allows for personal media to be kept securely and shared privately within family and friend circles. The updated features within the “YU Gallery” powered by MiMedia will provide users powerful tools for enhanced curation, organization, sharing and chat capabilities.
What’s that been like operating out of Brooklyn?
One of the reasons we launched in Brooklyn is because startups here share the same characteristics as the city. They are high energy and scrappy, with a strong motivation to get things done and done well.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
We plan on growing our core customer based with our freemium model — who doesn’t love free! And will be adding on new partnerships across multiple industries.
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
Don’t listen to all the people that doubt the concept or tell you no.
If you could be put in touch with anyone in the New York community who would it be and why?
All the moms and dads that live in NYC– why? Because they are our core customer and need a platform like MiMedia.
Why did you launch in New York?
Brooklyn! Chris, our CEO, loves the startup environment of Brooklyn, and we are thrilled to be part of that story. We also are close to the Brooklyn Tech Center and hope to be able to hire and grow our tech team from there.
What’s your favorite rooftop bar in NYC to unwind?
The Press Lounge at Ink48 Hotel– it’s the most beautiful views and you feel like you have been transported to another place.
