Sun Tzu Series #3 of 10: “If the mind is willing…..” DudaMobile Makes Your Website Mobile, for Free!

Flying Abstract Jellyfish aka Creativity

As Sun Tzu said around 520 BC in his seminal Art of War: “If the mind is willing, the flesh could go on and on without many things.” Israel has managed to become a world technology center along with Silicon Valley, Shanghai, New York and Bangalore.  What Israeli startup founders have is the “willing mind” so they are able to start amazing companies “without many things.”

On Monday, April 23, 2012 I attended the Israeli Innovation Showcase at the Palo Alto JCC. After a keynote by Oren Zeev on the topic of whether or not we are in another bubble, Oren wisely answered that he wasn’t sure, there were seven (7) startup presentations by Israeli founders.

MyFavorite of the Seven. #4 DudaMobile, the Palo Alto startup founded by Itai Sdan and Amir Glatt in 2009. Coincidentally Oren Zeev (Partner at Primera Capital) is Chairman of the Board and was an early investor in DudaMobile. In 2010, Duda launched “a hosted technology platform for mobile devices.”

Sorry, No In-Person Interview or Great Photo of the Founders. My request for an in-person interview with either or both Itai and Amir was met with what I call “the guy no” which is when the person (usually a guy) being addressed, either pretends he didn’t hear you or completely ignores you. The result is the same. So, sorry readers, no photo of Itai or Amir, just some artistic jellyfish. The Itai and Amir pattern is that they both have BSc Computer Science and Mathematics degrees from the Ben Gurion Unversity in Israel, both worked at SAP and both have 10 years of startup/high-tech work experience.  So, no, this company was not founded in their dorm room at Ben Gurion University, both founders had willing minds and went “without many things” before hitting the high-tech jackpot with lots of hard work and relevant work experience.

What Does Duda Do? DudaMobile makes your website mobile, any website. One of the thoughtful features is that it automatically syncs with your regular website so that the changes you make to regular website are automatically updated in the mobile site for free. It is optimized for all smart phones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile), has a “click-to-call” widget (great if you are a restaurant), mobile map with directions and  it is WordPress friendly (most blogs, including mine use WordPress), offers free mobile analytics, for the free application there are dozens of templates from which to select or Duda offers ($$) advanced studio design for a custom mobile site with access to Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language–yeah, I know you all know this).

Does the Website Platform Matter? No.

How Does the Mobile Site Look? The mobile site has the look and feel of a website.

Cost? There are three (3) plans:

1. Basic. This is what we like to hear: “Free.” However like free TV you will have ads on your site.
2. Premium. If you don’t want any ads, I know I don’t, then the premium model is $9/month which is very affordable considering that you have no design costs. Although if you don’t like any of the myriad of templates that they offer,
3. Hire a Pro. you can pay for a custom design, $499 for the 1st year, then $86/yr thereafter.

Editing? It’s all drag and drop.

Viewing Platform? You website will be visible on all the major smartphone brands.

Users? 100,000 plus and increasing rapidly.

Other Startups at Israeli Innovation? Yes, there were six (6) others who (unfortunately) shall have to remain nameless because I only feature one company per blog post. Their presentations, services and prducts were also impressive and all of their founders were Israeli and probably Oren was an investor in some or all of them.

Takeaway: In honor of the recent Kentucky Derby: De Camptown Races (Stephen Foster, music and lyrics) “Camptown ladies sing this song, doo-da, doo-da/Camptown racetrack’s five miles long/Oh, de doo-da day.” O.k. so it’s DudaMobile and not Doo-DaMobile…..

Preview: Sun Tzu Series #4 of 20 will feature Pricesteps and I cannot reveal the Sun Tzu quote at this time.

© 2012 Marisa Alma McGinnis

Share and Enjoy