Posterboard, the latest project from Fargo-based Onsharp, Inc. is launching tomorrow at 1 Million Cups Fargo. The software offers a customized way to stream and display your Tweets, and can be used in bank lobbies, at weddings, ugly sweater parties, and other Twittery needs.
Or at an event called 1 Million Cups!
It’s not the first software to offer such services – competitors like Tweetwall and Hootfeed offer live-stream Twitter feeds as well at varying cost. But Posterboard seeks to fill a gap.
Onsharp, a Fargo-based digital marketing and website, ran into the problem during consulting gigs, Onsharp founder and CEO Joe Sandin said. Customers often asked for a live-stream Twitter option. Up until recently, Onsharp used a program that charged $50 a day. Others options, Sandin said, charge as much as $500 for using their software.
But the bigger issue, he said, was that most existing programs are targeted towards enterprise companies and large-scale events. What Sandin’s customers are often looking for is a program that will allow them to display tweets at small company events, or in their lobby to promote company culture.
“They [competition] are not catering to small events like weddings, small concerts, company Christmas parties,” Sandin said. “After using them enough times, we realized – we could build it better.”
The People of Posterboard
In the next 5 months, Onsharp employees began developing and designing Posterboard as a Twitter live-streaming service. The product, funded completely by Onsharp, is built to cater to the small businesses and operates on a monthly payment system: $15 per month for five filters and 5,000 pieces of content (i.e. a Tweet), and $30 a month for 25 filters and 25,000 pieces of content.
Content right now is limited to Twitter, although Sandin expects to branch out to Instagram, and maybe Facebook and Google Plus in the future.
For one day events, like a wedding, Sandin said a user could potentially just sign up for the month, or the 14-day free trial, use Posterboard, and then cancel it.
Part of the value of the product, Sandin said, is that it increases the longevity of otherwise fleeting content.
“The average lifetime of a Tweet is 1-2 hours,” Sandin said. “If people say good things about you on social media, you’re wasting that opportunity.”
Plus, he added, “You don’t have to be looking down at your phone all the time.”
The beta version of Posterboard is now live and has about 32 users, Sandin said. Tomorrow at 1 Million Cups Fargo, Sandin will present Posterboard on stage and launch it publicly to the world.
“We have to get over that initial hump of getting a couple hundred customers to pay for it, see value from it, and then from there we’ve got to get feedback,” Sandin said.
As for the future of Posterboard, Sandin said he wants to let it grow. He’s open to following a similar trajectory to Coschedule, a product developed out of a Bismarck consulting firm Todaymade that eventually grew so popular it became the sole focus of the company.
“I think it can be the kind of product that can drive a company on its own,” Sandin said.
Join us tomorrow Feb. 3 at 1 Million Cups Fargo, 9:15 AM at the Stage at Island Park.
