Startups #nofilter had the privilege of sitting down with the team behind the immensely popular CULA site. Since CULA is a team effort, we spoke with both the founder and other team members.
We covered a range of topics, including CULA’s stunning startup success, why it’s head and shoulders above its competitors, as well as a few other industry topics. Check it out below:
Click to read more interviews with startup founders.
1. For those of us who aren’t familiar with the active monitoring space, explain what CULA’s value proposition is.
Website monitoring is an essential tool for any website owner or admin. It’ll notify you instantly of any problems your website might be experiencing and in turn help you provide a better user experience for your clients.
2. How big is this industry? Are many websites already seeking your service or do you need to educate them?
It’s quite a vast industry, there’s a lot of competition. However, there’s still a lack of knowledge among business and website owners; having an attractive website is one thing, but making sure it is available at all times is a different kettle of fish.
3. Your site lists you as an alternative to Pingdom, Uptime Robot, StatusCake or !nsping – what makes your product better?
We like to think of CULA as a smorgasbord of monitoring tools. We offer two kinds of monitoring; one for total beginners and the other for monitoring ninjas. Monitoring newcomers are able to learn more about it by getting information from our tool tips and simplified tools. Professionals are able to explore detailed data. What’s more, our recently introduced server monitoring is gathering interest and proving to be a good addition to our features.
4. Are you employing any startup principles to succeed, such as establishing an MVP, bootstrapping, or lean startup methodology?
We’ve read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries from cover to cover… multiple times…
5. Can you share any data with us? Number of signups? Users?
Each week we can see a pretty regular number of signups but we’re still looking forward to a surge in our numbers.
6. What are you most excited about for CULA’s future?
Making a better product for our users. A startup, as great as it can be, does not exist without its users! CULA wants to reach out and be a truly amazing tool for anybody who needs monitoring.
7. Speaking of the future, do you foresee blockchain technology developing at all in the site monitoring industry? Or anything to do with cryptocurrency?
Right now, we’re not really pondering over the use of blockchain in webmonitoring. However, we’re quite sure cryptocurrency miners can easily use our server monitoring to make sure their mining is as efficient as it can be.
8. What are your thoughts on the Uberfication (Uber for X) movement of service-based industries and mobile apps?
We believe in sound ideas and improvement of mundane processes. Any apps that can offer real value and help people deserve to be given a try. However, it’s always up to the users to decide which ones will stick around.
9. As a startup founder, what is your biggest fear?
We’re a different kind of a startup as we are a small team that was given a budget and some time to develop a project of our own. Every day, we provide services to our regular clients with a few hours that we can devote to CULA. Our biggest fear is not generating interest in our product, developing and marketing are two completely different animals.
10. For fun: What is your go-to website for both regular news and hi-tech news?
We often take a look at Hacker News as it is an interesting mix of tech and industry info.
11. For fun: What is the first thing you eat and drink in the morning?
We’ve got a lot on our plate but it ain’t no food!
12. For fun: What website do you go to check when your internet isn’t working?
CULA.io! It’s always up! 😛
13. For fun: Any advice for Startups #nofilter, in our quest to become the mecca of startup founder interviews?
Keep up the good work and provide a platform for a lot of new startups. They always want to be heard and reach as many people as possible.
Editor of Startups #nofilter
