Microsoft Innovation Center Brussels

CHEQROOM (http://www.cheqroom.com) smartly combines QR code stickers and smartphone/ web apps to help small businesses easily track their valuable equipment. The team behind the solution is Bitmunks - a young web start-up that loves creating simple, yet powerful cloud software.

The idea of CHEQROOM sprouted some time again, in the head of co-founder Vincent Theeten. At the helm of the IT department, he was responsible for managing an inventory of around 100 pieces of IT equipment, from laptops, smart phones and beamers through to cameras, etc. Keeping track of who had what was a total nightmare: items were broken, misplaced or never returned. He lost hours chasing down people and equipment. Yet Vincent couldn’t find an affordable, simple solution on the market that could help him easily track and trace the devices.

Inspired by “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries, he started working on the prototype for CHEQROOM. His first objectives were two-fold:

• develop a basic yet workable solution to the problem he had been experiencing, based on only technologies that SMEs are using today
• test if there is a market for the product and find out if people are willing to pay for it

Then came Bitmunks: Vincent joined forces with Kurt Delaplace, an experienced software engineer, and Kristof Derdaele, an IT services provider to develop clear, yet powerful web applications. With a real company, the combined experience and the complementary skills – creative, technical and business development - of the three founders, the team was well equipped to develop the prototype into an actual product.

Over the past few months, Bitmunks has been talking to prospects and early customers about the equipment management problems they are facing. By better understanding users’ needs, they’ve been able to cut features that were not needed and focus more on what gets their job done.

Besides fine-tuning the technical aspects of CHEQROOM, the Bitmunks team also made a great leap forward in the field of ‘business’, over the past months. The four-month BoostCamp at the Microsoft Innovation Center gave them the hands-on knowledge they need to build a healthy business and provided a great opportunity to talk to other starters and have their project challenged by successful entrepreneurs. “It gave us a serious boost,” says Vincent. “We now have a better insight into our business model and pricing. If things don’t turn out as expected, we know what we can change and why.”

At the end of October, Bitmunks did a soft launch of the new CHEQROOM. Several companies with smaller and larger equipment inventories are currently testing the product. The web and iOS apps are ready, and in January they will start working on the Windows8 version. As Bitmunks sees huge business potential for CHEQROOM in the United States, they are already talking to several prospects there.

The founding team will soon make a capital injection into the project, to finance further market research and development efforts. By the end of this year still, they hope to find an external investor that helps them boost the introduction of CHEQROOM in the US market.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Vincent Theeten
Chief Munk, Bitmunks
+32 57 77 92 92