Freally.com is a platform for giving away and receiving free items, in order to promote recycling and save the planet!
IPitch: What problem is your business or idea trying to solve?
Freally: Freally.com is a platform for giving away and receiving free items. We promote recycling and a green environment by encouraging our users to post items they no longer need. The primary objective of Freally is to reduce the amount of landfill and rubbish in the world! And thereby, make the world a cleaner place.
At the same time, we want to offer this service using the latest Web technologies, making the process the simplest and most user-friendly.
IPitch: How long have you been in business for?
Freally: We had 5 months of plan & development and 1 month of alpha testing, and we have been on our public beta testing currently for 3 months.
IPitch: Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Freally:
Eric Bae
The founder, Eric Bae is a software engineer with a PhD in Computer Science (data mining and knowledge discovery) from the University of Melbourne. He has 5 years of industry experience and has been passionate about Internet & Web start-ups for more than 4 years.
Xiangwei Meng
Co-founder Xiangwei Meng is a software engineer currently working at a financial services research centre heavily involved in stock and capital markets.
IPitch: How much traction do you have in the market?
Freally: At our current public beta testing, we have registered users from almost 100 countries around the world. These users visit Freally often on a daily basis. Currently, we receive around 2 or 3 posted items per day on average. This is not much and we are working hard to market and promote Freally.com to a wider base of users around the world.
The most amount of traffic is derived from Australia. However, the second most traffic has been coming from South American region, which is quite interesting. In order to handle such a demand, we have launched Freally in Portuguese for catering for these users.
Our traction number is not so impressive for now and this is one critical area we are focusing on at the moment.
IPitch: What’s the end goal / exit strategy for your business?
Freally: The ultimate objective is to be the #1 site for promoting recycling and having the best features to provide such service. Since our users exchange items within their local areas only, our primary business model would be targeting local-specific business to advertise at an affordable rate.
Another possible exit route would be an acquisition by recycling management firms or businesses that are focused on environment and sustainability.
IPitch: Are you looking to raise money?
Freally: Yes, we are looking for investors who can help us market and promote Freally.com to local areas and also to expand world wide. Such an exposure can help us implement our business model and to start generating revenue.
IPitch: What does an ideal investor look like to you?
Freally: An ideal investor for us would be one who understands and is keenly interested in the concept of Freally. We expect the investor to understand the concern for the environment and the market potential it has where sites like Freally.com can not only create a successful business, but work to help our environment become sustainable. We would want a partnership where guidance and directions are provided, at the same time, provide flexibilities to develop and improve the current product according to our skill sets.
IPitch: Personally, (for the directors or employees) what challenges have you faced in establishing and running a startup?
Freally: I’ve found that finding and receiving business advice and mentorship from other entrepreneurs in Australia rather difficult. There is possibly not sufficient government support or many opportunities for different entrepreneurs to meet together. Such opportunities exist widely in US and Europe.
IPitch: Have you come across any resources that you think are just awesome, and you’d like to share with other Australian Startups. If so, what are they?
Freally: OpenCoffee - Entrepreneur meetups that occur every fortnight in Sydney.
IPitch: Is there an opportunity you’re looking for to bring your Startup to the next level? If so, what is it?
Freally: Yes. We are always on the lookout for investors, partners and others who want to join and help Freally grow together.
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