“…go with your instincts, make calculated risks, and surround yourself with the best and the brightest” – Tango Team.
Tango, the leader in mobile video communications, enables you to connect with friends and stay closer to family in a way that is easy, spontaneous, fun and fits the moment. Tango allows you to make free video calls and free phone calls on iPhones, iPod touch, and on hundreds of Android phones and tablets, and provides high quality experience over 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi. Over 18 million people in 190 countries already use the service. Tango delivers millions of minutes of voice and video calls a day, of which approximately 80% are video.
Founded in September 2009, Tango has raised over $47M from leading venture capital firms and top individual investors including Andy Bechtolsheim and Michael Birch. Download the Tango application for free in the App Store or Android Marketplace. Tango is based in Palo Alto, California. Learn more at www.tango.me
Do you think the education you’ve invested in helped you on the road to success?
Co-Founder and CTO Eric Setton holds a B.S. degree from Ecole Polytechnique, France, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He is one of the world’s leading experts in peer-to-peer technology and video compression, even writing the first book on the subject. This experience was essential to building Tango as our service is based on this technology.
What was the “break point” or an AHA moment in your career that made you decide to build your own brand?
The idea for Tango came about in September 2009 when company founders Uri Raz and Eric Setton both wanted to find a way to easily stay connected with their family and friends who lived overseas. Uri wanted to keep his family together as they lived in different parts of the world including a daughter who is away at college. Eric, being a new father, wanted to find a way for his family in France to stay connected to his newborn daughter. They wanted to have a way to communicate and feel connected when they couldn’t be together in person. Their belief was that they shouldn’t have to give up the spontaneity of a face-to-face conversation even though someone was thousands of miles away.
Video was the right direction, but video calling on computers wasn’t viable as they weren’t always at home or at a computer. They needed a way to make mobile video calls that would be in step with their lifestyles, and to share their experiences as they happen. They also knew that video on mobile was going to be an extremely hard problem to solve. Fortunately both Uri and Eric love a challenge!
As experts in video technology, Uri, a serial entrepreneur and Eric, a Stanford PhD in electrical engineering, knew they had to build Tango in such a way to make the service work for everyone around the world with mobile devices. They developed a unique approach, using peer-to-peer and video compression technologies that would allow the service to scale to hundreds of millions of users with low infrastructure costs and provide the highest-quality video. Eric is one of the world’s leading experts in peer-to-peer video streaming and video compression and wrote the first and highly regarded book on the subject.
A year later in September 2010, Uri and Eric realized their dream of bringing to market a product that keeps them connected to their families and friends from wherever they are. Tango enables anyone with an iPhone, Android phone or tablet to make high-quality, free mobile video calls over 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi to their friends and family around the world. Tango today and bring your world of family and friends closer and keep connected to those you care about.
What is one advice that you can offer to your readers?
When we first were building Tango, we bet big that phones would be equipped with front facing cameras and 3G networks would continue to improve. Today, we’re glad we made that bet.
It’s all about timing with startups and a massive shift in consumer behavior has begun that has propelled mobile video calling from a nascent market to a multi-billion dollar business. The mobile communications market is a $600B business, and 1.1 trillion minutes of mobile phone calls were made last year. Many of those in the near future will be video calls.
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Manage Personal Connections with Founder of FellowUp – Tomer Cohen
My advice is go with your instincts, make calculated risks, and surround yourself with the best and the brightest.
What do you do for fun?
Eric is an avid kiteboarder: http://blogs.forbes.com/kymmcnicholas/2011/05/26/kiteboardings-serious-business-in-silicon-valley/
What is your favorite gadget(s), software(s), website(s) that makes your life easier and more productive?
Of course all iOS smartphones and tablets!
Both! We want to be on every platform!
Ways to Connect with you:
Website: www.tango.me
Facebook: facebook.com/tangome
Twitter: @tango_me
Youtube: youtube.com/tangome
From: http://www.moomkin.com/tango-me/
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