Do you Doodle? A Swiss Startup Success Story
Doodle was created in 2003 by Swiss computer scientist Michael Näf, a graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH). Näf was later joined by fellow ETH-graduate Paul E. Sevinç and in 2007 incorporated Doodle in Zurich. They now have 10 employees.
The company is partly funded by venture capitalist Creathor Venture, who is engaged in more than 20 companies, mainly from Germany and Switzerland. Additionally, Doodle has also received funds from the Cantonal Bank of Schwyz (Schwyzer Kantonalbank) through that bank’s innovation foundation. In terms of income, Doodle offers targeted adverts that are displayed to users of the free basic service. Users can, however, buy “Premium Doodle” for CHF 28 to get rid of the ads. Another interesting service introduced in 2009 is “Branded Doodle”, which targets business users in particular and allows for a branded, corporate Doodle instance and offers additional efficiency and security features (CHF 480 for the whole package).
Doodle has created quite a buzz in the three years since its incorporation. The service has not only been featured in several big Swiss and European print and online media, but has also been recognized across the big pond. Doodle was mentioned in well-known blogs like Techcrunch, WebWorkerDaily or CNet and has even made it onto washingtonpost.com.
Among several national and international prizes, Doodle has also won Mashable’s 2008 Open Web Award in both the Places & Events and the Blogger’s Choice categories. In 2009 the University of St.Gallen, a renowned Swiss business school, listed Doodle as the third most innovative Swiss ITC Company, trailing industry heavyweights Logitech and Swisscom.
In May 2010 Doodle reported 6 million unique monthly visitors to their website, double the numbers of 2009. In June 2010 a new calendar view option was introduced to Doodle. The company described this as a major improvement and core of the next generation of their product. The main idea was to integrate Doodle scheduling into a user’s existing calendars (e.g. Google Calendar, Lotus Notes or Outlook Calendar). This is a smart move. It eliminates the need for checking both your Doodle and your calendar separately and also converts the traditional, old fashioned table form of Doodle into a more practical calendar view that users are familiar with. Still, it remains to be seen if Doodle can turn its success in Switzerland, a relatively small market, into a global success story.
Regardless of such future developments, Doodle is a fine example of how Web 2.0 and social communications is meant to work. First of all, a service needs to be instantly understandable and usable. Even if there is quite a lot of code, servers and what not in the background, users do not want to be bothered by lengthy introductions or hand books. Secondly, Doodle facilitates daily communications by a smart, non-intrusive way. People want and need to communicate, even if a day today does not have more hours than a day 100 years ago. The solution is to communicate more effectively. And that is what Doodle is all about.
So, let me ask you again: Do you still use email CC back and forth – or do you doodle?
