The Internet of Things is becoming more and more present as the days go by. One company planning to bring it to you is Muzzley, who aims to be the single point of entry for the devices and apps available today. I talked with Eduardo Pinheiro, their CEO & Co-Founder.
In a nutshell, what is Muzzley and how did the idea come about?
We realize that the world around us is being smarter and smarter, meaning that the machines are starting to have personality and relationship with persons too. In order for you to interact with that world, the manufacturers are using your mobile as the center of interaction with it. The problem is that you start to have hundreds of different apps to interact with hundreds of different devices. We are your single entry point for your smart world.
How has the Internet of Things (IoT) changed the way we live and interact?
Internet of things (IOT) is still in the very beginning of it’s potential. In a real internet of things world, the power plant of the city can interact with your smart appliances and, with your permission, they can act according to the price of the electricity. As you have the auction for advertising in Google with keywords, the power plant can do exactly the same with the electricity in a near future. Of course this can save a lot of money to the end-consumer/companies. John Chambers says the Internet of Things will have five to ten times as much impact on us as the Internet itself. IOT is the machines talking with each other (and with you) to provide you a better, easier, economic day life.
How can developers get involved?
Developers are essential for IOT, of course. In fact, I believe that most of the university courses (and before of it also) should start to give development knowledge to everyone. I don’t mean that everyone needs to be a great developer, but everyone should have a minimum knowledge of it (the basics) to better operate in the future. It’s essential for understanding how the things work and be more productive in our work days. People will understand it with IOT. The physic, mathematical, doctor, mechanical of nowadays will be not enough for the evolution that waits us.
How do you see the startup landscape in Portugal?
Portugal is evolving exponentially in this area and with serious recognition of it from outer ecosystem. Of course we still need to work hard, but everyone that is involved in Portugal Startups ecosystem is working hard for it and, surprisingly according to well-known Portuguese bad attitude when it comes to work together, in this environment everyone is working together in the same direction. The incubators and the persons who manage it (example: Startup Lisboa with João Vasconcelos, Ana Santiago and all the team) are one of the most responsible for the development of it.
There is also smart money available for the ecosystem for different phases. As an example for seed rounds, Portugal Ventures with José Franca (entrepreneur with an exit of $170M) and his formidable team between networking and office space for the startups in Silicon Valley, is bringing knowledge from other ecosystems (from Silicon Valley for example) for mentoring the companies, Espirito Santo Ventures (with Sérvulo Rodrigues that is an International reference in the Venture Capital community) and makes you International connections with companies like Samsung, Faber Ventures (having over 15 years of experience in business innovation and growth) that open doors for your startup to appear in Techcrunch, for the Series A the entrepreneurs have Caixa Capital that can follow international venture capital.
We have mentoring from Portuguese success people who are already succeeding in international ecosystems like Jose Franca (exit to mips), Carlos Oliveira (exit to Microsoft), Norberto Guimarães (exit to google), Pedro Vieira (exit to Underwriter Labs) between so many others. What we can request more??? We (entrepreneurs) just need to work hard and better than all the others.
What other startup is on your radar and why?
I have hundreds of startups in my radar (competition and not). The ones that I’m proud to tell you about are the Portuguese ones 🙂 Example: Aptoide, NMusic, Hole19, Crowdprocess, Codacy, My Child, Prodsmart, yonest, Recibos online, Consulta click, Mobiag…. between all the others. Why? Not only because the potential of the business, but essentially because of the people who are managing these startups.
To find out more about Muzzley visit https://www.muzzley.com/
[…] Muzzley Great technology which opens up a lot of new possibilities for the modern living room experience (and beyond). Muzzley really connects the dots for how mobile can be leveraged for complete connectivity. […]