Member Article

Stockton entrepreneur launches Google-like business lead App

A Stockton-based entrepreneur is looking for investment to propel his latest idea which has been described as “Google for Twitter.”

Maurice Olum runs Solumac Software Solutions, specialists in web-based applications, and developed his latest idea after seeing a tweet from a friend who wanted restaurant recommendations in Middlesbrough.

‘Shtream’ is a social media search engine that allows businesses or individuals to search for topics and phrases in a specific locality, and then act on real time conversations to convert customers.

The web App aims to provide businesses with a window on social media conversations that might provide them with valuable leads in specific areas.

It has been developed by Maurice and a developer at Solumac and has already gained 5,000 page views in the first few days of the initial beta version going live.

Maurice explained: “When businesses think about generating leads they think about advertising, business cards, google ranking and networking etc. Yet everyday people are talking about a product or service they might be interested in, on social media.

“A lot of businesses have shied away from social media because they don’t understand how it works but I’ve streamlined the process. This tool lets them tap into social media activity that could provide valuable leads for them, but it goes beyond leads acquisition, once registered, businesses can create and send offers, and monitor conversion rates with useful tools and graphs in a structured manner.”

Shtream is being offered as a free App and there are plans to generate revenue by building a portfolio of services that allows businesses to maximise the potential from the leads they find.

The idea has been developed over the last two years and now Maurice is looking for around £250k investment to get Shtream kickstarted.

Maurice says he is keen to grow the business from the North East and would like to create jobs here in the future if Shtream takes off.

He added: “We’re busy building traction at the moment, and that means building our user base. My aim is to connect buyers and sellers within a social media context. Businesses can use it to acquire potential leads, consumers on the other hand, rather than using traditional search engines, can simply type their town and say “Christmas gift” and be inspired by gift ideas from local businesses that may not necessarily appear on search engines’ top pages.”

“Shtream works in real time so you businesses can talk to potential customers as they mention products or services they were interested in. It’s potential gold dust and there is nothing quite like this out there as a social media search engine.”

The Shtream Facebook page can be found here, and the team are tweeting @shtream.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .