IslamCrunch: What is your web application/service about?

Oprius: We are building a web based tool to handle the majority of tool needs a network marketing person requires. It happens that those needs are very closely lined up with what the majority of home based and other micro businesses need. Starting with Foundations, we provide a way to organize your contacts, tasks, and appointments. This is the base for any business organization system. We add to this Oprius Mail which incorporates all your email into your organization tool. Emails are linked automatically with your contacts along with all your other activities in Foundations. So you can at a glance see the full history you have had with any of your contacts. Oprius Mail also provides a basic list mailer for sending emails to large groups of people. We will be expanding this feature soon, but lots of people wanted it sooner in its basic form so we released it early. So Oprius provides most of your organizational tool needs in one place.

IslamCrunch: Why did you start this project?

Oprius: This all started because my girlfriend was involved in a network marketing company, Cutco. She was really frustrated in trying to keep track of all her appointments, customers, and everything else she had to do. I built a small little system for her to use. When she took it into the office and was using it there literally everybody in the office wanted to know where they could buy a copy for themselves. Thinking someone had done this before I started looking for something I could resell, or maybe tweak a little if needed. However, there was nothing available for those doing network marketing. Really there wasn’t much of anything made for people doing home businesses. There are lots of things like SalesForce, but these are way to complex, expensive, and technical for a home based business owner. Tools like ACT were the best on the market, but over the years have turned into really bloated clumsy systems. So I decided to start a business and build software for this very under-served market.

IslamCrunch: How much time do you devote to its growth?

Oprius: For the 3 partners, this is much more then a full time job. We are doing everything we can to bring Oprius to the huge success it has the potential to have.

IslamCrunch: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

Oprius: A west coast based Canadian company, we have brought in a programmer from Germany, Eastern Canada, as well as locally. Our hiring standards are very high so we have had to look far and wide. As a result our 9 person team fluently speaks 7 languages and comes from a variety of backgrounds, religions, and cultures.

IslamCrunch: What is your design/service philosophy?

Oprius: Our design philosphy is build it simple, build it easy to use, build it well, or don’t build it at all. Our goal for our summer launch is to create a system that can do the majority of your needed organizational tasks in one place. To make sure we are building it right we are working with 20 (and growing) very successful network marketers, some are their best in the field to help us build the right things.

IslamCrunch: What technologies are you currently using?

Oprius: We are using TurboGears and are featured on their home page: http://www.turbogears.org/

IslamCrunch: What are the most requested features from your users/community?

Oprius: Right now Syncing is probably the top request, which is something we are currently researching how best to implement. We want to sync with not only things like your Palm and Desktop Apps, but also your cell phone, mobile devices, and as many places where you would want to take your data with you.

IslamCrunch: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months? The
next 2 years?

Oprius: In the next 6 months we will be kicking off our big launch which is when we expect to see a huge upswing in user signups. Currently we haven’t been advertising much and letting the software grow casually with word of mouth as a way to make Oprius Foundations ever more stable in prep for the launch. In 2 years we expect a lot of the direction to come from our user base as well as our product advisory board. We have some really innovative things up our sleeves, but you will just have to wait for those.

IslamCrunch: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

Oprius: A big goal we have is to fund this company completely with friends and family money. We want to give as much of the success to those closest to us as possible. We are trying to avoid the VC route unless we have to. In this day and age it takes a lot less to start a successful company and we are well on our way to proving that you don’t need big money to make a real big success.

IslamCrunch: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the
project?

Oprius: We are always looking for great talent to join the team, but we have everything in place we need to reach our big summer launch goal. The only unknown is if our development team can deliver on what we have planed. I am very confident we will, but that is the biggest unknown right now.

IslamCrunch: Do you have a business model? If so, what is it?

Oprius: Advertising is no where in our model at all. Foundations is a free offering as an alternative to Outlook and other simple organization tools. We are building value added modules to add to Foundations. Oprius Mail was the first which integrates a full email and list mailer tool into Foundations. Syncing will be another module we will add soon. We charge a small monthly fee for these modules.

IslamCrunch: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic
or usage do you see on an average day?

Oprius: Right now it isn’t as high as a lot of the Web 2.0 companies, but we aren’t a Web 2.0 company (strictly speaking, and depending on your definition). Currently it is casual word of mouth and mainly for the purpose of strengthening Oprius Foundations and Oprius Mail.

IslamCrunch: Are there any aspects of this project that has made you proud?
Oprius: Our calendar system is one of the best out there. I would say google calendar is a bit better in some respects, but having a full software suite built around it more then makes up for it. Whenever I try out other’s calendar I am very quickly annoyed by how clumsy it is to use.

IslamCrunch: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web
right now to future generations?

Oprius: They say everything goes in cycles. In the early days computers were run as mainframes. Dummy clients would then connect to these servers to do the work for them as it was more economical. Then the personal computer revolution hit and the programs moved to the computers themselves. What we are seeing is a shift back to mainframes where the browser is the dummy terminal and the web site is your new mainframe. The difference is that instead of just being able to connect to a single mainframe and do a few tasks, you can change which one you use and do a huge plethora of things, and it is growing every day.

IslamCrunch: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

Oprius: I use RSS quite a bit, so my personal RSS generated website is up there. I subscribe to things like Seth’s Blog, XKCD, A List Apart, Guy Kawasaki, and a big fan of Creating Passionate Users before its recent huge fiasco.

IslamCrunch: What do you hope Islamcrunch can help you to accomplish?

Oprius: I hope to start and continue more conversations with people. The more feedback and input we can get the better as it makes our software stronger and stronger. I want to know what we are doing right, but more importantly what we are doing wrong.

IslamCrunch: If you could collaborate with another organization or
participate on another project, please list them here.

Oprius: One of the biggest things we would like to collaborate with right now is Syncing. We are just starting to look into it right now. Ideally we would like to work with someone who has lots of experience in the field and be able to exchange ideas and offerings.

IslamCrunch: Any other comments?

Oprius: Thanks for the interview, it was fun.

To find out more about Oprius Software, please visit their site: http://www.oprius.com/

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