This is the first of a series of posts where I profile some of the "Madtech" (marketing & advertising technology) companies I am investing in through the Collider program*. Today we look at Powr of You. In each of these posts I will look at what the company does, what I've learnt from them and what you can do to help, if you are interested.
* Collider is a "business to brand accelerator" that works by "mobilising a pot of cash, a crack team of coaches, and an intensive four month programme to help startups become sustainable businesses".
1. What do they do?
Powr of you allows you to "Map your digital life, learn about yourself and get paid too". The company is run by brother and sister team Shruti Malani Krishnan and Keshav Malani, both of whom were born in India, lived and studied in San Fransisco and did an MBA at London Business School.
From a user side there are three steps called "connect, learn and earn":
– Connect: you connect up your favourite online apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Instagram etc. and your browser
– Learn: you get a personalised digital dashboard that visualises your online life (see below)
– Earn: when Powr of You share (anonymously) this learning from your digital map with brands, you get paid 30% of the money made.
From a brand side, companies get deeper insight into the digital habits of their target audience. The key differences versus other research methods are:
1. Completeness: it creates a total map of the target consumer's digital life across multiple channels, both PC and mobile
2. Accuracy: it does this in real time without people having to record what they do
So, for example, Dove could learn about the digital lives of 18-24 year old women: what online channels they use, when, where, what topics they are interested in etc.
2. What have I learnt?
Multiple companies are making money out of mapping our increasingly active online lives. Powr of You helps us get a share of that money, by unlocking the power of the data about our digital lives.
You've probably seen websites ask you to "Accept cookies". These cookies are used to track your online behaviour. For example, you go on a travel website, look at flights to Paris but leave without buying. If you back to the same site it may prompt you with a promotion for, yup, flights to Paris.
Powr of You tracks what you do online across different online platforms anonymously, collates this with data from the rest of the Powr of You community and then shares this with brands. The big difference is that when my data is used I get 30% of the money.
3. How can you help?
First, you can sign up as a user for free
here. Shruti and Keshav and need to get their user base up from the current 500 to c. 5,000 to make the panel interesting to brands.
Second, if you are interested in getting insight into the digital lives of your consumer, you could contact the team and be one of the first, pioneering brands to use Powr of You: shruti@powrofyou.com
Look out for future posts on the other eight Collider start-ups. And if you're interested in investing in Collider 16, click
here.
