Unique algorithm

A company without a solid business model is like a car without wheels. Jan Gajewski, the founder of Kolomnie.pl, does not agree with this preposition. Microsoft and IBM have put their trust in his project. Should everybody follow then? By Alicja Ciszewska At first sight, Kolomnie.pl (‘next to me’) seems to be another geolocating portal, a Foursquare and Yelp look-alike. The user is able to search for a certain service provider in the nearest area, there is also an option to check-in and leave a comment about a place. However, Gajewski stressed that the philosophy of the platform is completely different from the larger players and asserted that he and his co-workers do not want to compete with the “big brothers,” as he called them. Kolomnie.pl accumulates the information available through the platforms (with their consent) and puts them in order thanks to “a unique algorithm,” Gajewski said, to provide the most extensive and the best quality content. The ultimate aim of the platform is to “become a phone book on steroids,” he pointed out. Guidebook packed with data The idea of putting in order all the various data straying on the internet popped in Gajewski’s head when he was looking for a place to take a passport photo in the US, while he was a postgraduate law student. When he typed a particular phrase, many results showed up but none of them met his needs, “I was not interested in, for instance, a modeling photo session,” he recalled laughing. He admitted that the first idea of creating a portal dedicated for businesses and providing them with tags, flopped. After many months of brainstorming with other IT specialists, the team came up with an algorithm which accumulates and classifies data from all over the internet. Such portals as Yelp, Foursquare and Facebook are the main source of information. Gajewski said that Kolomnie.pl is not meant to be another social media portal like Swarm (created recently through a division of Foursquare) or Yelp, as “the focus is on something else. We want service providers to realize that information about their businesses needs to be constantly updated and expanded. We want to be a place where all the data will be available, a sort of one-stop-shop.” On the other hand, the platform is to be a guide for tourists, a local man who knows everything about any place in any town. It will be a living and evolving information portal that will source new data on a continuous basis. Kolomnie.pl gives their users the ability to add and evaluate locations. The algorithm will even find updates from other websites, hence Kolomnie.pl will show the latest information regarding a given business.

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"We do not want to make a lot of money" What basically differentiates Kolomnie.pl from the “big brothers” is a business model based on the firm’s philosophy.  Yelp, for instance promotes local businesses, but offers business advertising as well. Gajewski and his co-workers want to support small business, therefore new entrepreneurs will be able add their location free of charge. “Our business model is still developing. We are young and socially conscientious. We do not want to make a lot of money,” he stressed admitting that it may seem like their venture seems to be unprofitable from the get go. Nevertheless, such big brands as Starbucks, KFC, H&M, Norauto, s5 gyms, Orlen or BPH will be required to pay a PLN 150 annual fee per one location. Furthermore, posting information about paid events or promotion campaigns and sales will be worth around PLN 5, for all the clients. Fees for medium-sized businesses will be proportionately lower. Kolomnie.pl will not offer any search engine optimization (SEO) services, so the micro-fees, how Gajewski called them will be the only source of the firm’s income, “we hope that the fees will let us earn as much as big e-platforms, and simultaneously we will maintain the high quality of the information we provide,” he said. Technology appreciated by giants “We convinced them with our technology,” Gajewski responded when asked why Microsoft and IBM decided to grant them thousands of dollars. Both IT giants decided Kolomnie.pl’s technology is legitimate and believed that it can be applied by them. IBM injected the project with a year’s use of software (for the beta-test stage), which may be extended further to a value of up to $120,000. Within the framework of the Microsoft BizSpark Plus program, Kolomnie.pl was provided with $120,000 worth of software. As the project consumes a lot of money, the daily maintenance costs of servers totals some €170 alone, the company is running out of funds and is looking for new investors. “We would like to find an optimistic and active investor, who will have the same passion and will not dictate the terms,” Gajewski said. AIP (Academic Entrepreneurship Incubators) which owns a 15 percent stake in his business is supporting him in talks with potential investors. 40 countries, 15,000 cities Kolomnie.pl web portal already has some 15,000 users, Gajewski proudly informed, but a mobile app is expected to be implemented around the beginning of September, when the website will be officially launched. He will then be sending an invitation to those service providers who are already listed in the search engine, adding more information about their locations on the platform. Instead of a marketing campaign, the company is going to launch an information campaign addressed to potential users alongside service providers. It is also planning to closely cooperate with voivodship authorities in the field of culture promotion, it has already established a partnership with Warsaw city hall. Since data from all over the internet is continuously accumulated and sorted, Gajewski will be introducing its business to foreign markets gradually. In order for non-Polish users to become more familiar with the platform, its name is to be translated to local languages. Furthermore, the company has been testing a translator designed by IBM, which is to be more precise and less error-prone than its Google counterpart, so that the information may become available in many commonly used languages. Gajewski said that, ultimately, Kolomnie.pl is to cover 40 countries, 15,000 of the world’s largest cities and 7 million services. Quite surprisingly, the authors of the platform want to be considered not as investors but as a common voice of “irritated” internet users. “This is not a visionary project, but a willingness to improve the internet collectively,” Gajewski pointed out. The future will show if they stay modest about their business, or become more profit-oriented like their “big brothers.”