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MomentVille

Today we cover a new startup MomentVille. If you are planning for a wedding then you might want to look at this site.

Founded by Geoff Evason, MomentVille is a free, stylish, and easy-to-use personal wedding website builder. Its main aim is to help people share, plan, and remember life’s special moments.

Geoff describes:
I was looking to build a wedding website. I was unable to find one that was free, fun, and easy to use. I also disliked the fact that most wedding websites charge excessive prices simply because there is a wedding!. So the core team built MomentVille from the ground up making sure it was free, easy and fun!

Let us learn a bit more about Geoff, his journey as an entrepreneur and the changing landscape of innovation in Australia.

• Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?
Geoff has experience in a range of companies including startups, and medium and large companies. Geoff’s major interest is in using technology to help make life better. He believes that technology should just work, should be easy to use, should save you time, should make things easier, and should help you enjoy your life more.

• How long it took before it was up and running?
From concept to launch took 8 months.

• What services it provides for consumer or customers?
Users can quickly and easily build their own wedding website on MomentVille.com. A website can be created in under 1 minute. Personalizing a website is a breeze. Users can edit the text in place just by clicking on it, dragging and drop elements around the page, and change themes instantly. MomentVille is the easiest-to-use personal website builder.

• What market segment verticals you are targeting for?
Recently engaged or married couples are the target market at present.

• What type of customers you are targeting and how many people are using your services?
In just over 6 months MomentVille has over 7000 registered users and websites.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
The primary marketing is through Google adwords and Facebook ads.

• How are you measuring the success of your venture? Are there any special mechanisms/tools in place to monitor the progress?
Our backend system keeps track of a range of performance indicators. Some of the key ones are:
  • Number of websites
  • Visits per website by website owner, and by guests
• What is the monetizing/revenue model? Is there any new model, which is being tried?
MomentVille.com offers both premium and free wedding websites.
  • Free websites are ad supported.
  • Premium websites have extra features and are available for a 1 time cost.
• Which are the main competitors or major players in this market segment?
There are several existing online wedding website builders.
  • The biggest of these is ewedding.com.
  • Other popular wedding website builders include weddingwindow.com and wedorama.com.
• What is unique about your venture?
MomentVille is the best wedding website builder around. There are 4 key distinctions that make it stronger than any existing competitors.
  • It’s Free: MomentVille offers a free website
  • It Never Expires: Your memories will last forever, and so should your website.
  • It’s Green: MomentVille embraces the view that the world should be left healthy for future generations and hence operates carbon neutral websites.
  • It’s the Easiest To Use: There is no comparison to other wedding websites. MomentVille is the only wedding website to embrace web 2.0 principles, AJAX, and 3rd party widgets. There is virtually no limit to what users can do on MomentVille.
• What are the main technologies used behind this start-up?
The website was built using Ruby On Rails and uses a lot of AJAX.

• What has been the most easy to use, out of the box and most helpful technology?
The web platform Ruby On Rails sped up development drastically.

• Are you using a lot of open source tool sets for this?
Open source tools are used almost exclusively. These include Linux, MySQL, and Ruby on Rails.

• What is your operating environment (operating system) and what type of database you are using?
MomentVille.com runs on Linux and uses Ruby On Rails and MySQL.

• How often do you catch up with others trying similar things and where do you catch up? Do you have dedicated communities in your city?
There is a regular (monthly) Ruby On Rails meet up in Sydney. We are constantly on the lookout for a similar meet up for entrepreneurs.

• What’s your thought on being an entrepreneur? How tough it is to start a venture in Australia?
Having lived in various countries I don’t believe that starting a venture in Australia is any harder than other western countries. It takes vision, determination and hard work.

• Which city in Australia is more vibrant and can be regarded as the Silicon Valley of Australia?
All cities in Australia are vibrant, but I highly regard Sydney’s resources, hi tech community, and excellent work-life balance.

• What do you think of new ventures and innovation coming out of Australia?
I think geographic isolation is continually becoming less of a roadblock as online technology makes starting a business from anywhere easier.

• What do you think of our TAFE/Universities and their curriculum in terms of promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation?
I cannot comment on this as I was schooled in North America.

• What do you think government (federal and state) should do to improve the culture of innovation?
More grants and tax incentives and an easier to navigate grant system would further improve innovation.

• At the 2020 conference, PM Kevin Rudd is meeting with the top 1000 people from different backgrounds to discuss and collaborate on the issues facing the nation. What issues would you like to raise if you are given an opportunity to attend?
I think the 3 main issues that ought to be discussed are climate, education, and infrastructure.
  • The climate is important for obvious reasons.
  • Australians both young and old need to continue to learn and adapt to a fast-paced economy; learning how to pass tests is insufficient.
  • Finally, Australia must embrace and drive innovation, especially in technology infrastructure, to establish itself as a leader in the world.
Do you have any advice for people who want to start their venture?
Work hard. Work smart. Don’t give up. Seek help and advice. Use the product/service you are offering. Release early and constantly try to improve your product and your processes.

Thanks, Geoff for sharing your thoughts. We look forward to hearing from you in future on the progress of Momentville. All the best for Momentville.

For coverage on other Australian startups/innovation/tech trends check this.


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