The Big Idea

We're a Cloud Computing start-up building a next generation sales-oriented distribution engine that is unlike anything else currently available. It's a simple and elegant concept that enables content owners and product merchants to sell more on an increasingly fragmented and competitive web. We call it the Virtual Distribution Server, or VDS.

In the real world, distributors are an essential part of the supply chain, receiving products from suppliers/manufacturers, and, in turn, supplying hundreds or thousands of stores. On the web, the key principle was to disintermediate, to eliminate the middlemen, by building your own ecommerce site and sell directly to your customers. The little guy can build a snazzy website, look like a billion dollar company, and get rich; the web is the ultimate direct marketing channel. However, we believe that the web is becoming so competitive, with so many websites fighting for an audience, that it is increasingly difficult to make yourself heard above the noise. As a result, the web audience is fragmenting, just like the TV audience did in 80s & 90s. We believe that there is now an opportunity to reintermediate, to create a new class of intermediary. In a nutshell, we believe the internet needs distributors too.

VDS acts as a virtual distributor because (a) it's not shipping physical products, it's shipping data, and (b) it's not a real server in our data center, it's a virtual server existing in Amazon's cloud. The VDS ships your content to all the websites that are known be successful sales channels for your particular type of content. If you have photos, there are at least 20 ecommerce sites that sell meaningful amounts of photos. If you sell cars, we convert your cars to data, by generating a generalized metadata database which describes your cars. And then we ship that data to 50 ecommerce sites that sell cars.

For most people, keeping their own web storefront current is enough of a challenge. Finding a way to talk to even one or two other websites is cumbersome. 10 or 15 or 20? It's almost impossible! iSyndica VDS solves this problem by automating the distribution of this data to hundreds of websites dealing with both physical products, and electronic content, in multiple categories. In other words, instead of selling on one or two websites, now you're listed on 10 or 20 or 30. While smart marketing, active promotion, and good products always play a part... there's no doubt that it's also a numbers game: the more people see your stuff for sale, the more chance you have of making a sale. It's simple: VDS helps you sell more.

For a subscriber, iSyndica has a clear benefit: we will multiply sales by 50% to 500%. With such an increase, conventional wisdom would suggest that a pricing policy of several percent of sales would be justified. However, we have adopted a low price model to rapidly establish ourselves as the leader in this brand new category. We are positioning ourselves by releasing a product that is first and cheapest (from FREE to $149). We will deliver the 80% of functionality that will make the most sense for users, and together with our sales multiplier and our low cost model, this delivers a compelling value. This is the classic mass-market model, with the goal of having a subscriber base measured in 100s of thousands. (Our previous successes include 2 million users of a software application, and 16 million customers for an ecommerce leader, so, with a little luck, even millions.)