We’ve all had this problem: you’re trying to reconnect with an old friend, but he changed his phone number. You emailed a former colleague from work, but he switched jobs and has a new email address now. An Austrian startup swync takes care of this problem with their mobile app that automatically synchronizes and updates contacts to ensure you’ll always stay in touch.
“On average, each person has three hundred contacts in his/her smartphone’s address book. Within one year about one-third of this contact data is outdated,” explains Benedikt Aichinger, the CEO of swync. Instead of managing that address book manually, he created an app that will solve this problem once and for all.
How does swync work? After downloading the app, you need to register with your first and last name, as well as a phone number or email address. Once you’ve done it, your profile is visible to all of your swync contacts, and updates automatically each time you introduce any changes. You can also keep track of who you shared your details with, staying in control of your private data. If any of your contacts changes any information in their profile, you will be notified, and the updated data will appear in the app.
swync has three founders. Benedikt Aichinger, the CEO, has over ten years of experience in selling complex IT solutions. Wolfgang Gumpelmaier-Mach, the CMO, is an independent digital media consultant and one of the leading crowdfunding experts in Austria and Germany. The third founder – Harald Weinberger – is a tech enthusiast and the CEO of mobile agreements, a full-service mobile agency based in Linz, Austria. He joined swync as the CTO.
Since the launch in 2016, swync has gathered about 1000 private users and expects this number to grow quickly. Their primary focus at the moment, though, is developing a B2B solution that will help companies in efficient communication. The first such account is already being implemented and tested with Rotes Kreuz OÖ (Red Cross in Upper Austria) – the company will use swync to stay in touch with their 20,000 volunteers.
A unique feature of swync is that it fulfills the requirements of GDPR – the European Data Protection Law, which will come into effect in May 2018. This compliance ensures that any company which introduces swync will keep their contact data correct, secure and accurate.
