Start-up company Mvolve says it is on course to launch its mobile industry business-to-business resource and networking service in mid-November. Founder Dominic Bignall says the site will function as a cross between LinkedIn and the 3GSM World Congress, enabling companies operating in the mobile space to find partners to do business with.
Bignall, who has been in the mobile business since 1999 with ROK,
Vanguard and others, says his decision to launch the site came after
becoming increasingly frustrated trawling the conference circuit to
develop relationships.
This is not about networking in terms of building a huge network and extracting value from it at a later date, says Bignall. It is
about pure lead generation, finding people and doing business with
them. I have a product to sell and I want to sell it in India. Who can
help me do that?
The concept behind the site is simple. Companies can take a free membership, or sign up for one of various levels of sponsorship, including Category, Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze. When someone searches for a product or service, Category sponsors are listed first, followed by Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and finally free members. Within each section, companies are listed in chronological order, so a Gold sponsor will appear higher up the list the earlier they took out their Gold sponsorship, providing an incentive for companies to sign up sooner rather than later. Member companies can post news, White Papers and other content to drive members to their company profile.
Sponsorship prices are 5,470 per annum for Category Sponsorship; 2,340 for Platinum; 2,080 for Gold; 1,560 fo Silver; and 727 for Bronze; with “significant” discounts for companies registering prior to the launch of the site. There are unlimited Gold, Silver and Bronze Sponsorships, but only one
Category Sponsor per Category, and one Platinum Sponsor per
sub-category.
The site has already signed up a number of sponsors, including Aspire
Mobile, Intomobiles and MyphoneScreen (Category); Wireless Match
(Platinum); NewMedia Edge, M-Movement and Glamourfone (Gold). Mobile Marketing Magazine has also signed up as a Gold Sponsor.
There are 58 Categories in all, ranging from Recruitment to SMS Broadcasting. Each Category has an average of at least three sub-categories. The Content (Audio, Ringtones) category, for example, breaks down into four sub-categories; Audio Content Aggregators (Full track, Ringtones); Audio Content Creators; Audio Content Official Licensing Bodies; and Audio Content Rights Publishers.
At the point of registering, companies select four sub-categories that they want to be listed in. This selection determines which search results they will be returned in when someone initiates a search on a particular type of product or service.
Very few companies just do one thing said Bignall. This system gives them more chance of being found when someone is looking for one of the services they provide.
To sign up pre-launch at a discounted rate, email [email protected] 
