“Bump is just a gimmick for young people” says DubMeNow CEO Manoj Ramnani. DubMeNow (“Dub” for short) is a real business, he implies, and he can prove it. Dub has been on a tear the last few months in all aspects of their business.
They’ve got real revenue: over $2.7M projected for this fiscal year. They’ve raised over $2.8 million in funding thus far, led by Syncom Ventures with other undisclosed angel investors participating. Furthermore, they have found traction in the education market and are soon-to-be deployed to over 750 Universities as a contact-sharing option for students.
Their mobile application, DubMeNow, has been downloaded nearly 1 million times – still dwarfed by the 7 million of their Y Combinator- and Sequoia-funded competitor, Bump. Bump and Dub are in a battle to become the de facto contact information-sharing application for mobile phones. Bump is clearly kicking ass in terms of users, and much of that is due to the love they’ve gotten from Apple and through PR. But Manoj doesn’t care – he argues that real revenue and partnerships are going to serve Dub better in the long-term. That statement may be suspect, but there’s no doubt that Dub is making headway.
Recently, Dub has created partnerships with DataTel and Moodle. DataTel is the 3rd largest ERP vendor for universities. Together, the two partnerships mean that over 1,000 universities will have access to Dub’s platform as a way of sharing contacts among students and faculty. Furthermore, they’ve announced partnerships with SXSW and Higher Logic, as a way for conference-goers to share information easily.
Dub was founded 19 months ago by a group of engineers who wanted to create a platform for users to share contact information. Their major product, originally available only on iPhone, launched less than 1 year ago. Founder and CEO Manoj Ramnani came to the US pursuing an MBA at George Washington University, and recently sold a mobile software services company.
Mobile business cards is a real problem and I definitely want to see some company – whether it be Dub or Bump – succeed. I’m sick of carrying around wads of paper in my pocket every time I go to an event, and then fumbling through the stack to figure out the e-mail address of that one person I want to talk to. That said, there’s a long way to go before we as a community standardize on one application – and it’ll be interesting to see which one becomes successful.
DubMeNow seems pretty cool – but I presume it’s using the same location based fuzzy logic for sharing as bump…
We recently started using flipflop on our iphones for contact sharing. It’s an extremely streamlined app – takes only one click to share your own or any other contact in your address book (uses the camera and QR-codes)
flipflop doesn’t require a data connection
I agree with you Gagan. I have been using their app on BB and it rocks. These guys are on to something big here.
Gagan,
Thanks for the review. Just few clearifications: (a)our partnership is with MoodleRooms (www.moodlerooms.com). (B) We have already booked $2.7 million this year. Our projected revenue fr this year is $4.8 million.
(C). Also please check out Apps developed on our platform on http://www.poweredbydub.com. Releasing public APIs soon.
Stay tuned for more exciting news coming from DUB.
Thanks,
Manoj Ramnani
CEO DUBMeNow
will give it a try. i gave up on business cards 3 years ago. now i take a picture with evernote, and OCR does the job for finding who i met.
I wonder if dubmenow is aware their android app is broken…can’t sign up, can’t login, can’t even use the app in any way….sad…
I’m going back to Bump, they clearly have a better product
We haven’t seen any issues on Android. Can you email support@dubmenow.com? Thanks!
well, it doesn’t support international mobiles… #fail, especially for people on the go.
International support is coming in March across BlackBerry, iPhone and Abdroid. We’re also launching a Symbian app and Win Mobile support in May. Thanks!
Chris
thanks for the info. looking forward to review it for ConferenceBasics.com
cheers
Since the first time Manoj showed me this application, I knew it would be a big hit… I am glad to see the revenue number and funding…. Congrats Manoj.
In signing up for Dub today, it appears that they haven’t learned from the recent Google Buzz fiasco. Dub needs to institute privacy controls over each data element immediately, test and adjust as necessary.
Dub needs to provide controls and up-front notifications on where and how data is released to third-parties. I’m already getting enough SMS spam.
Dub needs to allow options for some data to remain private or to be deleted – such as the original sign-up email and mobile number.
I have recently started using DUB and really like it. My company (5Touch Solutions) makes ‘mobile event guides’ that is cross-platform mobile apps for conferences and tradeshows (similar to what DUB has done for SXSW). We have been thinking of adding some sort of biz contact sharing to our feature list.
Seems like Dub is opening their API and we are definitely going to take a serious look. No point creating a unique contact sharing feature in our app when something better and more widely used is out there…
- Bob Vaez
Hi Bob – I looked at your website. Looks like a great tool for events. Would be happy to discuss opportunities to work together. Feel free to send me a note.
chris@dubmenow.com
I have Dub on my iPhone, and happily suggest it to friends and colleagues, especially those in gov’t/military who carry gov’t issued blackberry’s. I think the college deals have explosive potential. I too am tired of worrying if I run out of biz cards. I don’t worry anymore. If I have ‘em, great, if not, it always impresses potential clients to show them how Dub works.
I just got dub for my iphone and I love it! I have been looking for something like this for a long time now and finally have found it. No more running out of business cards or losing an important one for that matter. Just dub it.
I’ve meet these DubMenow guys few times in meetups and networking events here in the DC area and they are really passionate about what they do. They are always soliciting feedbacks from users and looking out for local talents.
Great to see them doing well!
The need for this product is real. The market for paper-based business cards is ready to collapse – when someone solves this one, it will happen so fast you’ll practically be able to hear it.
I’m going to to give DUB a try.
Android app STILL doesn’t allow signup…it keeps rejecting signup saying phone number isn’t in the right format, but there are only 3 fields, first name, last name and email, #fail,
Hey Rob – are you signing up with an international number? We haven’t released internationally yet, doing so in March. Otherwise, please email support@dubmenow.com. Thanks!
I’m skeptical of the figures shown here for ‘booked’ revenue and traffic. The management at dubmenow has long had a reputation inside the beltway of being a little more than liberal when it comes to creating inflated dollar figures and engaging in sleazy business. I’m guessing its the ‘create-buzz-and-cross-fingers’ strategy, but if the past is any indicator, the team at dub will eventually figure out they’ve been had. This piece sounds more like a paid shill than anything else.
Reggie,
You sound like you have an axe to grind.
Mobile crunch doesn’t do “paid shill.”
Dub works awesome. The sxsw app works awesome and the coming university app will probably be equivalently impressive.
You should keep your libelous, unsubstantiated accusations to yourself.
I won’t be libelous, and I have no axe to grind, because I really want the mobile market to kick off even more than it already has…. but I will say that there seems to be some shill-ishness in this post and some of the comments. I just don’t understand why anyone needs an app whose only purpose is to trade approximately 8 data fields between phones. If someone can explain why all of this could not be done using standard protocols (and thus with no real barrier to entry), I’m all ears. But I have yet to read/see/hear anything of the sort. Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but what is the play?
I wish nothing but success to everyone who tries to make the interwebs better places, but a company whose purpose is to help people trade contact info just seems like a dud to my tired eyes. Maybe I’m too old.
Yup. The team at Dub is indeed run by sleazy management. The CEO’s ex company has a horrible reputation at its older clients and pretty much imploded as no one wants to work with them. The Web 2.0 frenzy has given 8 data field applications crazy valuations and funding orgy.
All google, hotmail or linkedin has to do is hire 5 prgrammers and make it a feature we wouldn’t even care about. They won’t do it as data can be compromised and you expect sleazeballs to keep it safe, let us see you get mubbed