NORTH AMERICA WINNER:
Michael Hodge FullCircle
CEO Insight... Q
What is FullCircle Geosocial Network’s business model.
FullCircle is all about bringing people together based on their location in real time. We are a “GeoSocial Discovery Network" that integrates location awareness with social networking, enabling mobile and web users to identify and interact with other FullCircle members based on their physical proximity, interests and preferences — quickly, easily, safely and free. But we don’t stop there, FullCircle has added the groundbreaking dimension of enabling users to easily create location aware groups or communities surrounding an interest, passion or need, be it social or business. Further we have incorporated “geofencing” capabilities into our service whereby members can create virtual perimeters around themselves and receive notifications when people or places come within the perimeter. (
www.fullcircle.net)
Lastly we support the service through our NearbySuperDeals location Based mobile advertising/couponing delivery platform. (
www.nearbysuperdeals.com) This platform allows merchants to quickly and easily create and publish their own mobile coupons and deliver to mobile devices nearby. And unlike the numerous daily-deal emails groups out there, the cost is pay per click with starting budgets down to $10 an initiative. Our target market is anyone with a mobile devices, the web and down the road-“connected cars”.
Q Q
What are your most current company?
Acquiring the initial 500k in angel funding leading to a 3 million dollars series A funding round.
How did you do that?
I was able to use family and a personal network initially and then leveraged our initial investors to discover and inform larger funding partners.
important professional achievements at your Q
What education or prior experience helped you succeed at your current
company?
I was in the wireless telecommunications space immediately prior to founding FullCircle, however, I was a business owner for a decade prior to 2000 which provided me the experience to accept and not get unduly excited with the vagaries of a start-up. Especially one being formed in the worst recession in modern times.
Q
What lessons have you learned as a CEO?
Don’t get too excited about the highs and the lows wont bring you down.
Hire people carefully. Very easy to hire, less easy to fire.
Cash is indeed king and finally Lose the ego, if furniture needs to be moved-move it - don’t wait to find someone to do it because you are CEO.
Q Q
Do you admire another CEO or a leader (current or historical)? Why?
Alan Mulally-CEO_ Ford Motor Company. He refashioned the struggling monolith that is Ford into a highly competitive company and he did it by listening and by empowering employees to speak the truth without fear of reprisal.
How do you see the future of your industry?
Exploding. Especially in the areas of niche location based social media services and live streaming video. The way people interact with each other is changing rapidly and will be further affected by wearable devices and location based services. We are debuting a new service called BCAST (
www.bcast.com) this summer which we strongly feel is a first of its kind approach to social media and live streaming video. BCAST enables people to create their own video channels and broadcast LIVE to the mobile devices of friends, followers, facebook or the general public all the while with strong inappropriate content
Contact: Michael Hodge
CEO-FullCircle® GeoSocial Network, Inc.
Tel: 703-870-3228 (Ext 101) Email:
mhodge@fullcircle.net www.fullcircle.net
www.fullcircle-video.com
protections. It is our expectation that BCAST will become main stream with the general public, however to “prime the pump” we have already signed up a number of celebrities to participate in “lifecasting”. We expect to quickly have hundreds of thousands of LIVE streaming videos coming into our servers each day that are keyword searchable and viewable on the web and mobile devices. You can “follow” a Bcaster (in a similar fashion as twitter) and be notified when they begin broadcasting. BCAST is also advertising supported and free to broadcasters and viewers. Keep in mind that this is a LIVE service. Unlike Youtube we will not be keeping nor archiving any content. We are getting a lot of attention with this one.
Q Q
Can you please share any life or personal lessons that other CEOs might relate to?
There are two forms of economic freedom in the world, having a lot of money and having no money. I have experienced both and indeed the former is preferable.
Can you share with us a CEO humour?
I was explaining to my 16 year old son that we were endeavouring to keep our web site and mobile properties fresh and hip. He then informed me that my use of the word “hip” made me “un-hip”.
USA
48 Finance Monthly CeO AwArdS 2013
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