Geek to God 1 – Rich Dale: Planzai #projectathene

Today I had the pleasure of spending my lunch break chatting with Crafty Devil‘s Rich Dale about the upcoming demo of their Planzai web app at Showcase.  I was aware that they had been working on a tool aimed at helping up and coming bands and musicians get off the ground, what I actually saw simply blew me away.

The project is not quite in stealth mode though I can’t say too much yet.  A private Beta is planned soon so in the meantime I can hopefully whet your appetite.  From the very moment he fired up his Macbook Pro and launched the app in a browser the user interface alone told me that I was seeing something special.  First impressions last.  This app is still impregnated on my eyeballs.

So what is it really about?  Well the teaser text on the Showcase site gives some clues:

Planzai is a web app aimed initially at the music industry, which intends to make musicians’ lives easier. Planzai helps them achieve their business goals by providing expert content, broken down step-by-step. Each step becomes a task in the user’s calender, and our content helps them understand the ‘how, when and who’ of achieving their goals. The concept is also applicable to other sectors where people need to become experts quickly, avoiding trial and error.

Before seeing it I was concerned that it might be too niche to make a real impact.  Niche isn’t necessarily a bad thing mind you but my view is that when you are bringing a new product or service to market it’s best to have as broad a spectrum of customers and potential applications as possible.  Believe me this solution has applications across numerous sectors, countries, market and demographic segments.

That is what really excited me and spurred me into naming Rich Dale as my first Project Athene Geek to God nominee.  In my post on Project Athene I talked about elevating our geeks to rock star status.  Rich has a head start; he already plays bass.  He also has Planzai.  When you have a solution that can have applications in areas as diverse as music, marriage, property development and new venture creation to name but a few as well as the potential to go viral it is going to go far.  Couple that with its potential for numerous revenue streams, price differentiation, white labelling and ecosystem development that is a recipe for some serious figures.

I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on the Beta so I can see if my hunch is justified.  I have a feeling it will.  It will certainly be one of the highlights in Derry on the 16th September.