senior executives and were really excited about the company. So they priced the deal, and we had another very large main investor who came in later in the round.”
Taking angel funding from such experienced executives, Sulinski says, is “almost like having investors pay you to mentor you.”
Sulinski—who will tee up to participate in the “Mobile Smackdown” portion of Xconomy’s Mobile Madness forum on March 9—says the nine-employee startup will earn money in two ways. First, it will sell its app, which it’s building with the assistance of Portland-based mobile app development house TapTapas, through Apple’s iTunes App Store and RIM’s BlackBerry App World. (The company launched a version for the BlackBerry Storm last night.) Second, it will charge a quarterly subscription fee for premium features of the app, such as advanced Web-based analytics that show players how they’ve performed under different circumstances.
Eventually, Sulinski says, the company could also sell hyperlocal advertising through the app, and license the data it collects to club manufacturers.
Maine may sound like an improbable place for a mobile application startup, but Sulinski says mCaddie has benefitted from financial support from the state of Maine (through the Maine Technology Institute) and also “has incredible support from the Maine golf community,” including a PGA instructor who is part of the company’s full-time staff. “Portland also has one huge advantage, which is really cheap office space,” says Sulinski. “We actually have an office on a golf course.”
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