Regular readers – as well as BlackBerry users – might be familiar with BibbyCam, the Indonesian-made photo filter app whose husband-wife team we interviewed earlier this year. And now the duo, Grace Tahir and Ronald Komalaputra, are onstage at our Startup Asia Jakarta contest, vying for the cash prize that only one team can walk away with.
The free BibbyCam app has 20 image-altering filters, and users can craft their own out of a number of preset options. The resulting photos can be shared directly to Pinterest or Twitter, or just saved to your BlackBerry as a memento. It has grown to 80,000 users around the world, and has been selected by BlackBerry’s maker, RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM), as a featured ‘Carousel’ app.
BibbyCam’s pitch then turns to address what the judges will inevitably interrogate them on once their five minutes of demo time is over: monetization. The app is ad-supported, using some clever targeted ads, and the co-founders say that they’re in talks with some unnamed companies on various partnerships.
Before going onstage, Grace told me that the team of seven at the startup are readying themselves for BB10, the all-new OS that BlackBerry will start rolling out on new phones later this year. Being utterly different from the antiquated BB7, it’ll require a total rewrite and redesign of the app.
After giving an energetic and straight-forward demo at our Arena, the panel of four judges had a chance to respond. Benjamin starts by saying that “BlackBerry is not doing too well” and that it doesn’t appear to make sense not to be on Android. Ronald counters that BibbyCam can excel on BlackBerry and that its latest version is a good step forward. But that still doesn’t really address the issue of why commit to a declining mobile OS.
Fellow judge Daniel Sato sticks in the knife, saying that the BlackBerry camera sucks, and he prefers the cameras on Android devices or the iPhone. Benjamin again adds: “You need to solve user acquisition.” On a final note, Andy Zain gives his expertise by saying that apps should be disruptive, not just filling a hole. Some “tough love” from the judges, notes our MC, Richard Robinson.
The new BibbyCam web app that anyone can use.
This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2012, our startup event running on June 8 and 9. For the rest of our Startup Arena pitches, see here. You can follow along on Twitter at @startupasia, on our Facebook page, on Google Plus, or via RSS.