In Conversation with Dannie Francis, CEO of CellCity @ Nokia Developer Summit 2009
April 29, 2009 by Bernard Leong
Filed under Entrepreneurs, Interviews
While in Nokia Developer Summit 2009, I have come across a Singaporean company, The Cell City which is participating in the “Calling All Innovators” hackathon. Their flagship product, DC2Go.net is a city guide service that is available across a wide range of digital access points. Websites, WAPsites, IPTV, digital Kiosks, and remote mobile networks such as the back of taxis or within inflight airline entertainment systems. What it makes it different is that they harnass the power of the mobile phone and have made roads in working with Nokia. I have managed to spend some time with Dannie Francis, the CEO of Cell City and asked him about DC2Go and some tips on how to engage big corporations in partnership like Nokia.
BL: Hi Dannie, pleasure to meet you. Can you tell us about your background and how you started CellCity?
Dannie: I have a PR and marketing consulting background specializing in IT and specifically software. I was the former head of Asia’s largest independent marketing consultancy firm and former head of Edelman PR in Singapore. Spent 4 consulting to Microsoft in the glory years of the mid 90s and that evolved into an expertise to advise many business leaders about positioning themselves, their management and products in markets specifically in Asia. Eventually I found myself in a position where I was designing software systems from a usability point of view and looking for coders to bring ideas into reality. It was this passion that led to the start of cellcity and a vision I had for what we could do when you unite mobile phone tech with internet, desk-based internet and IPTV technology.
BL: DC2Go is a product site specifically catered for the mobile phone from CellCity, can you elaborate what it actually does?
Dannie: DC2Go is more a city guide service that is available across a wide range of digital access points. Websites, WAPsites, IPTV, digital Kiosks, and remote mobile networks such as the back of taxis or within inflight airline entertainment systems. Having said that, mobile is a unique strength. As a Forum NOKIA PRO partner we have been developing applications for some time. Recently we embarked on a new strategy to deliver the DC2Go in component parts so users can get access to just the dining guide, or the shopping guide or the party guide, or news, weather or transport information. By partnering with NOKIA and the OVI store, we can now distribute our applications in hundreds of cities around the world and in some cases be embedded inside NOKIA phones at point of sale.
Photo: Screenshot of DC2Go site.
BL: How does users benefit from the DC2Go service provided?
Dannie: Quick access to rich content and the capability to get it on the desktop or on the go. Share it with a friend, get a map to go with it and SMS that to friends or tweet about it. Our users can even upload their own videos or make comments, add reviews, get the latest news, weather, terrorism alerts, a live what’s on guide and have the chance to see videos of favourite travel destinations. This month we are launching a .TV site, where our customers can upload their own videos or movies and share with friends or view in the privacy of their own homes.
BL: What are the three most interesting features in DC2Go?
Dannie: I think the live news and weather alerts for travelers, the capability to get it anywhere or anytime (taxis, hotels, at home or on the phone on the go and then share that information) and from our point of view as a business, the capability to build the world’s most vast advertising real estate where there is an ad on every page and served with every click.
Photo: Screenshot of DC2Go mobile app in Nokia phone.
BL: What is the business strategy for DC2Go in monetization and user growth?
Dannie: We’ve always had a single focus on our go to market strategy: Riding on the shoulders of Giants. That’s why you now see us partnered with NOKIA and internationally with Yellow Pages and in Hotels with DoCoMo Intertouch. We have different monetization strategies for each of these type of partners. In the moble arena NOKIA and it’s OVI strategy offers us a fantastic distribution capability and the capability to reach tens of millions of users. Once we reach them, we serve ads on our real estate. Then in terms of growth our focus is to build on these millions of visitors with integration with social networks such as twitter and facebook, digg and reddit etc to create and foster ways to interlink contact between all of our forums and all of the forums that our customers use. How do you reach out to get the mobile consumer to subscribe to your service? On a global basis, via every digital means necessary and available, especially via the website, via NOKIA’s OVI, via iTunes, Blackberry and Google market places, via telcos, via Twitter, via facebook, via bluetooth marketing in Singapore. In digital publishing, we are not restricted like previous publishers. We have no international offices to set up, no print costs, we can create more advertising space in a click of a mouse and more websites and WAP sites at the rate of about 20 a day and every time we do this, we get more visitors coming to our service, viewing more ads served to our sites etc.
BL: How did you get involved with the Nokia Developer Summit?
Dannie: NOKIA Forum PRO guys invited us. I guess that’s accolade in itself. Out of the thousands of developers worldwide they asked us. What have you benefited from it? During the process of getting here, we have spent the last 3 years in the Forum PRO program, so it isn’t about just being here, but all that we’ve gained along the way, early access to devices and early access to know about NOKIA’s strategies. By being 6 months ahead of the rest of the developers, we are able to adapt and put ourselves in a great position to take advantage of new developments before they come to market.
Photo: (From Left) Saurabh Dutta (Project Manager) and Dannie Francis (CEO, Cell City) at the Nokia Developer Summit 2009
BL: What are your tips for a new start-up to get involved with a corporation like Nokia when it come to development of applications?
Dannie: Find something that is different. There’s a lot of competition out there, so don’t just be another. AND here’s a big one, don’t just be Singapore-focused. Prove you can do it in Singapore, use Singapore as a test market even, but go global. This is a digital world and there are no boundaries.
BL: Dannie, We wish you and your team all the best for the Hackathon.
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