EasyWebContent.com, is a web content creation and management platform that simplifies the way users develop and maintain their web presence.
We had the utmost pleasure of interviewing Mr. ‘Payman Taei‘; Founder and President of the US (Maryland)-based start-up “Easy WebContent” about his internet company.
“Easy WebContent” is simply the easiest and quickest way to access your pages to create and/or edit your website from any standard web browser – without installing any software on your hosting account or making changes to your existing HTML web pages.
Below is the full interview that we have conducted with Mr. ‘Taei’ regarding his start-up company “Easy WebContent”;
1. What is it exactly that you do and what “Easy WebContent” is all about?
I am the Founder and President of Easy WebContent, a web content creation and management platform that simplifies the way users develop and maintain their web presence. We’re all about creating efficiency and simplifying the way users interact and manage their web presence. Our service is geared towards anyone with little to no technical knowledge who wants to take charge of their website be it creating, editing or adding engaging features to their websites.
2. When has “Easy WebContent” been founded? And what stage is “Easy WebContent” currently at?
Easy WebContent was founded in 2008 as a simple website editor geared towards anyone who wanted to easily manage the content of their websites without coding knowledge or changes to their existing website. In 2010 we extended our system to allow site owners to add various interactive features to their site and today we have leaped into creating an easy to use yet powerful site builder that gives non technical users the ability to develop and maintain their web presence.
3. What is “Easy WebContent”‘s business model and how does it work?
We are currently a premium model. We offer a full version of our tools for a 14 day trial period where users can take advantage of all features and capabilities of system with the option to subscribe to use the system as an ongoing service. Easy WebContent is a cloud based system; giving us the ability to scale and serve our users growing needs deploying regular upgrades and features to users without the need to manually update or pay upgrade fees for new version releases.
4. How did your team meet? And who in your team does what?
Our team comes from different walks of life. I would say that we are extremely diverse both in culture and skill. It’s a great cohesion with each member and whenever we conduct meetings it’s always a creative mission.
We have members that work in the Easy WebContent office and some that work from the comforts of their home, so communication is key to our functionality and success.
We use a few different modes of communication depending on the task at hand. Design oriented tasks are often done in person between our design team; while development oriented tasks are handled through our CRM system, email and sometimes skype or chat. We’re quite open and flexible and open to all communication means; whichever best serves the purpose.
5. What, exactly, makes you different from existing options, what will make your product and/or service stand out in the marketplace? In other words what’s unique about you and what’s new about what you make?
Our slogan is “It’s just that easy!” Our goal is not to give users every possible feature you can imagine. It’s about giving them features and capabilities that most users need in a easy to use and user friendly manner. Additionally although some users want out of the box solutions, we find that many also want to have a certain level of control and flexibility. For example you may like a certain theme we offer but you want to make it your own by changing colors, graphics and even minute adjustment such as border, spacing and margins. Our offering give you these abilities while eliminating the headache of any coding and design experience.
6. What is your growth like? And what milestones has “Easy WebContent” achieved so far?
We grow organically. In fact we have at time prevented growth for sake of investing to our service quality, research and development and tapping into new offerings that further strengthen our brand. Our goal has never been to have the largest user base; Our goal is to provide quality tool and services to our loyal user base and a steady stable growth rate that sustains our passion to further improve our services to our customers.
7. Who are your competitors? And what is “Easy WebContent”‘s competitive advantage over them?
We don’t have any direct competitors for our HTML Editor service; There are Downloadable software such as CoffeeCup’s HTML editor but most of our direct competitors (offering easy to use online based HTML Editors without any set-up are no longer operating).
In terms of Site Builder, there are many other Site Builders; Many have been around for a while and a few new products have recently popped up.
Our advantage is that our tools are created with the sole aim of allowing users to more easily manage and edit web content and have more flexibility and freedom in design over other tools.
8. What obstacles did you face and how did you overcome them?
When we first launched our HTML Editor, the biggest challenge was how do we create a system that allows existing site owners without any technical knowledge and configuration to their website code to access and edit it. So we set out to create a simple means to allow users to connect directly to their site to any host and an interface that woud load their entire web site layout and content so they can more easily (and visually) see their content as it would appear on their site.
Another obstacle was with our Site Builder we had seen most of our competitors don’t really provide design flexibility to the average user. Although they give you means to modify templates, it often requires good experience with HTML code and most users who want to use a Site Builder have no knowledge of that. So we created elastic themes; where we give you a limited number of themes to select from but complete visual control over making changes to your theme design to fit your exact needs be it changes to textures and colors, borders, spacing and margins, etc..
9. What are the key things about your field that outsiders don’t understand?
Just because we make it easy for you, doesn’t mean it was easy to develop. Any company be it hardware, software or any industry that involves user behavior and experience can tell you that to make things simple and easy to use comes at a cost of extra time, resources and effort to achieve that for your users.
10. Why are you going to succeed?
We truly believe our success will shine through the tools and service we provide our users. We’re never satisfied internally with our offerings. That is not to say we are not proud of what we provide; but that once we reach a certain goal or milestone we are looking for the next refinement and improvement of our system.
11. If “Easy WebContent” succeeds, what additional areas might you be able to expand into?
We are already expanding to the world of HTML5 Interactive content. We want to give users the ability to let their creative presentations and animations by giving them tools to express them. It’s an exciting transition for our team to work on new projects and to upgrade our current programs. Benefits for all to know that what you produce with our tools will be seen on any web friendly device.
12. Why did you choose this idea and concept to build “Easy WebContent” based on?
It was based on demand by some of our lower end clients at my Web Design company HindSite Interactive, who wanted a cheap and inexpensive way to do some of the content editing and management on their own sites without having to hire our web designer for content adjustments they want to do on their own. And so we took on the challenge of creating a simple, easy to use web site editor that bypassed the need for special set-up, or software installs. Just login and edit your site.
13. What have you learned so far from launching your idea?
It’s has and continues to be a learning process. You learn new things everyday. The biggest thing has been the realization that to make things easy for the user, you have to take a proactive approach and find a balance between the number of features you provide and how you deliver them to the user. Your end users will appreciate the fine details you give them but they also appreciate flexibility.
14. Six months from now, what’s going to be your biggest problem?
Technology is ever changing. New browsers always make for more work for our development team as each release can require tweaks in our system; but this comes with the territory. As far as biggest problems, we don’t foresee problems but challenges. One of the challenges we like to translate to our audience is that yes there are tons of other tools out there, but there is something unique , simple and easy about our tool that gives the user incentive over most other tools.
15. What’s the benefit for the customer/user?
To put it in a few words: We allow our users to Take Charge of their own Web Content. The benefits for most users translates to savings of hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in website maintenance and increase in efficiency to manage your own website without having to wait on a third party designer/programmer.
16. How did customers / users find out about you?
It has been a slow and linear growth actually and we like that. There seems to be a sense of rush with most internet start-ups to grow user base very quickly and monetize. Since we have been privately funded so far, we didn’t have a sense of having to grow as quickly as we can; Instead we decided to grow organically with a loyal user base and over time that has grown into user referrals. We also have appreciated the reviews and mentions from various Technology blogs and technology magazines.
17. Who are your current customers / users? Who are your target customers / users?
Our audience is anyone with little or no technical knowledge who wants to create, edit and/or manage their online presence on their own. Majority of our end users are typically between 30 to 55 years old, male or female and a small proprietor or business owner.
We also have a white label program (Reseller) where web designers and hosting companies can resell the Site Builder and HTML editor under their own label at their own price.
18. Where do new customers / users come from and what makes new customers/users try you?
Many of our customers are referrals from other users. We also do some limited online advertising, and through mentions on various third party sites, blogs and PR. However, with our upcoming animation tool we’re looking to push our marketing initiatives to ensure that we establish a strong foundation of users.
19. What do your customers / users say about your product and/or service?
Our users have been pretty vocal about the benefits Easy WebContent has provided them. We have users that come and go like any other company, but many of our users return because of our easy to use platform. We’re not out to impress through bells and whistles, we provide exactly what the user need.
You can see user testimonials at http://www.easywebcontent.com/testimonials.
20. How are you going to scale?
We’re based on a cloud model, so infrastructure wise we can scale quickly. In terms of functionality we are actively working on new features and upgrades to our existing tools and we are launching new website Add-ons (features you can add to any site regardless of whether you even use our Site Builder/Editor or not). And we are quite excited about the launch of our new offering Easy WebContent Presenter (www.ewcPresenter.com)
21. What’s the biggest missing feature? The one thing customers/users keep asking for?
A mobile version of our Site Builder. Our Site Builder generates mobile friendly pages (pages that render on web or mobile devices); but we are also looking to deliver a full mobile version of our tool for users who want a completely separate version from their web/desktop version. This will allow users the capability to update their website on the go. Getting that last minute phone call for a meeting and right in the middle of editing you can just pick it up from your mobile device may it be a cellphone or a tablet.
22. Are you going to internationalize? And if yes how are you planning to expand your start-up’s operations accordingly?
At this time, our goal is to localize within the English market. We are not planning on taking the international market just yet. We know that expansion into the international sector can benefit us and we surely keep that within our future plans. Once the right time arises we will surely jump right into the opportunity.
23. How big do you think you can get? Why? And how you are planning to achieve your goals?
We don’t think or set goals that are too far ahead. We like to focus on our short and medium term goals and believe they will turn into long-term objectives that will surpass our expectations. Like any other company our expectations for our success are high to reach out the greater number of users that will benefit from our powerful tools.
24. Are you looking to hire a new workforce? And if yes, what job vacancies do you currently offer and where can potential applicants contact you at?
We keep an open vacancy as we’re always on look out for good talent and individual(s) that can be a good fit to join the Easy WebContent team. We have open positions for experienced and talented graphic/web designers as well as a Web Developer. One of our requirements is not so much your educational credentials (specially for designers) but past performance and a portfolio to back-up your talent. Potential applicants can send their resume and cover letter to ptaei@hindsiteinc.com.
25. Are you looking for partnership opportunities or funding from Venture Capitals (VC) or other funding sources? Or your business is self-sustainable? And if the first option applies where can potential partners / investors contact you at?
We are always open to new opportunities. We never seeked Angel or VC capital; We wanted to incubate our system internally to the point that it can sustain itself and to spark on further growth and opportunities to open up to potential investors. We believe we are reaching that stage in the near future to take on new growth and if the right opportunity arises we will seriously consider it. Interested parties could contact me at ptaei@hindsiteinc.com.
26. What advice do you have for fresh entrepreneurs?
Keep it simple and focus. If I could go back, in HindSite I would have done number of things differently. Understand the basics of dollar and cents; whether you take VC funding or it’s your own investment; allocate resources to what will have the biggest impact to your service and watch your expenses.
27. Finally, do you have any other comments that you would like to add?
We are quite excited about the launch of a new service that will allow anyone (with or without design background) to create engaging presentations and animations that are fully HTML5 based; meaning they are web and mobile friendly and supported on all standard browsers.
You can learn more and get a sneak peak at www.EWCpresenter.com
