The Stevie® Awards has opened entries for The 15th Annual International Business Awards, the world's premier business awards competition, which attracts nominations from organizations in more than 60 nations and territories each year.

All individuals and organizations worldwide—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small—may submit nominations to The International Business Awards. The early-bird entry deadline, with reduced entry fees, is April 11. The final entry deadline is May 9, but late entries will be accepted through June 13 with payment of a late fee. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Juries featuring more than 150 executives will determine the Stevie Award winners. Results will be announced 9 August. Stevie Award winners will be presented their awards at a gala banquet in London, United Kingdom on 20 October.

The International Business Awards recognize achievement in every facet of the workplace. Categories include:

• Management Awards 
• Entrepreneur of the Year Awards (new for 2018)
• Company of the Year Awards
• Customer Service Awards 
• Human Resources Awards 
• Information Technology Awards
• Marketing Awards 
• New Product Awards 
• Public Relations Awards 
• Web Site Awards, Smartphone and Tablet App, and other media awards

A variety of new categories are introduced for the 2018 competition, including a new group of categories to recognize the Entrepreneur of the Year and Founding Teams in many industries. In addition to seven new Software Solution categories in the New Product & Services section, there’s a new selection of categories to recognize Content Solutions. There is one new category, Best White Paper or Research Report, in the Publication categories and one new category, Engaged Community of the Year, in the Marketing categories. There are two new PR Campaign categories in the Public Relations section. Finally, there are four new Lifetime Achievement Awards categories in the Management section.

Stevie Award winners in the 2017 IBAs included: Cisco Systems (USA), Domino's Pizza (Turkey), Freelancer.com (Australia), Garanti Bank (Turkey), KT (South Korea), Llorente & Cuenca (Spain), Meltwater (USA), MSLGROUP (USA), PRIZM (Hong Kong), Sunny Side Up (Japan), Syncron (Sweden), Telkom Indonesia (Indonesia), Thai Life Insurance Plc. (Thailand), Viettel Group (Vietnam), Weber Shandwick (United Kingdom), WNS Holdings (P) Ltd. (India), and Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting (USA).

As the global population increases, the oceans continue to suffer from overfishing. Since 1977, Manatee Holdings Ltd. has pioneered the use of sustainable aquaculture as an environmentally conscious way to meet the global demand for seafood while preserving the Earth and respecting the natural ecology necessary for marine life.

Based in British Columbia, Canada, Manatee Holdings is striving to meets its mission: to create the most environmentally beneficial food production operation on land or sea around the world, specializing in harvesting gourmet foods from the sea. Most of these foods are used in the sushi market.

Lourdes Gant, winner of the Silver Stevie® Award for Woman of the Year in The 14th Annual International Business Awards, is co-owner of Manatee Holdings with her husband, Eric Gant. Ms. Gant has been recognized internationally for her efforts in leading Manatee Holdings to develop environmentally conscious production practices in response to ocean acidification and overfishing. Canada magazines PROFIT and Chatelaine have recognized her as one of 100 Top Female Entrepreneurs—#84 in 2012 and #5 in 2014.

“I like to call myself a blend between serious business acumen and open-minded joy,” Gant states.

She works to find a successful balance in her career and her invigorating personal life, realizing they are not mutually exclusive.

Walking on fire, breaking an arrow with her throat, and splitting a board with her hand are just a few of her epic accomplishments. Some of her other feats include scaling the Burma Bridge and Possum log,;rapelling down high cliffs; zip-trekking in Canada; parasailing in the Bahamas; skydiving in Hawaii; swimming with dolphins in Mexico; and hiking the Andean mountains with llamas. The list goes on!

Beyond her personal accolades, Ms. Gant has earned a bevy of professional credits from auditing certifications from the International Register of Certified Auditors (IRCA) to earning her MBA and CPA. 

She say her keys to success are maintaining a positive attitude, intuition, and following a higher purpose. Here are the 10 best habits accompanying her beliefs in transformational learning:

1. Accomplish
2. Be consciously in charge of your way of life
3. Duality (often described as yin and yang)
4. Excellence
5. Fact finding
6. Integrity with self
7. Kaizen (Japanese for “change for better”)
8. Leverage
9. Passionate mentoring
10. Living with purpose

Ms. Gant resides in Royston, British Columbia, with her husband and their son, Elan, but they enjoy travelling to different tropical countries for the winter. She practices yoga and swimming. She also practices Taekwondo with Elan. Her philanthropic efforts go beyond environmental preservation. She recently visited orphanages in Peru with the "Give and Grow" program. 

Ms. Gant is constantly seeking experiences around the world and using those experiences to transform herself. This outlook has helped her to develop Manatee Holdings Ltd. into the most environmentally beneficial food production company on land or sea.

Finding a new job is a stressful endeavor, regardless of one’s background. But for high-level professionals, the scarcity of jobs at the top creates an added challenge.

The team at Singapore-based startup JobTech is trying to make that undertaking a whole lot easier, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep machine learning. Their software provides a more accurate, unified view of the job vacancies available around the country, says co-founder Charlotte Lim.

One of the challenges that job seekers face is that more than a third of jobs advertised in Singapore are either duplicates or sham listings. JobTech aims to identify and eliminate those extraneous entries and help PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) access legitimate matches.

Lim says she became frustrated with the lack of transparency and accuracy in the job results she found online when she was searching for a job herself. In seeking a solution to that problem, she met Wee Tiong Ang, a computer scientist whose work in the AI field offered a potential solution.

“I realized he had built an artificial intelligence capable of accurately mapping job seekers to job openings through complex data analysis of roles, skills and competencies,” says Lim. “JobTech was born.”

The company’s first offering, JobTech PMET, was specifically designed to help professionals in Singapore find and prepare for new job openings. In addition to offering insights into industry trends, the software is able to identify skill-set requirements and recommend classes the job seeker can take to improve their odds of landing the position.

One of the product’s strengths is its considerable reach. It currently tracks and analyzes more than 90% of online job ads in Singapore, according to the company.

JobTech predicts the platform, which has several thousand users in Singapore, will soon reach more than 10% of retrenched PMETs nationwide.

Other potential benefits

While job seekers have been the core audience to date, the firm sees other potential applications for the technology as well. For example, it plans to develop applications that provide deeper insights into hiring practices and improve human resource management.

TalenTech enterprise application promises to help companies automate the résumé-screening process by scanning and contextualizing submissions and pinpointing those that match the job requirements.

JobTech also hopes to help public entities increase productivity nationwide by providing a clearer picture of labor market needs. In fact, the government of Singapore is already a customer.

Though the company is still very young—it launched in late 2016—it’s already gaining plaudits for its novel approach to job searching and human resource management. In October, the company accepted the Bronze Stevie® Award for Tech Startup of the Year at The 2017 International Business Awards in Barcelona.

Fostering collaboration

While AI and machine-learning technologies are at the heart of JobTech’s platform, Lim suggests that the collaborative culture within the organization is another key ingredient in the company’s growth. Lim and her team regularly get together for “scrum” meetings to make sure everyone is working toward a singular goal.

“Members share their problems in the meeting and other team members will chip in with their expertise to help solve them,” she explains.

Employees are also encouraged to organize team activities outside of work hours. “These activities help everyone understand each other better and build stronger bonds,” says Lim.

Even at companies that thrive on innovation, board meetings tend to be low-tech affairs.

Typically, directors are handed a thick stack of papers before the meeting to help them prepare. It can be a cumbersome task, one in which it’s hard to stay organized.

The Swiss firm Sherpany is transforming board meetings through Boardroom, its subscription-based software that’s designed to help members make more effective decisions, and without all the stress associated with a paper system. All the documents they need are easily accessible on their mobile device, whether it’s running iOS or Windows 10. Users can also sign in on other devices via the web using a recent browser.

The tool comes packed with user-friendly features, like a personalized dashboard that allows the user to keep tabs on multiple committee matters at once. It also comes with a question-and-answer function that provides rapid feedback from members of the management team.

Board members can annotate documents or access the history of a topic with a swipe of their hand, a clear benefit to busy corporate executives. At a time when risk management is a top priority at many organizations, Sherpany believes having that information at one’s fingertips can be an invaluable asset.

The goal is to make meetings more productive by allowing participants to focus on the outcome, not the process. The company explains that its objective is to “encourage the evolution of meeting culture through a delightful, easy-to-use and secure meeting management SaaS.”

“We reduce waste by cutting administrative, organizational and repetitive work and spare resources like paper, shipping and transportation,” says Sherpany CEO Tobias Häckermann.

A Fast-Growing Market

Sherpany got its start in 2012 by launching the first software platform in which investors could cast their votes electronically. Soon after, it unveiled Boardroom, a product it saw as a game-changer in the way board meetings get done.

The market has clearly bought into the idea. Just five years ago, the company had a total of 10 corporate clients. Today, roughly 210 companies are using its technology, and its users include some of the biggest corporations in Europe.

Sherpany’s customer base and physical presence continue to grow. In addition to its Zurich headquarters, the company now has satellite offices in Paris, Milan, Lisbon and Wroclaw, Poland.

That success, the company says, is in no small part to the programmers, designers and engineers who make up much of its small staff. In total, the company has around 50 employees who have made Sherpany the fastest-growing startup in Switzerland.

Even the company’s name, a nod to the Sherpas who guide climbers up some of the most treacherous slopes on earth, suggests its emphasis on innovation. The company’s goal, according to its website, is to grasp for new frontiers and help those intrepid customers who have come along for the journey.

Considering the amount of competition hovering around the software-as-a-service market today, Häckermann is particularly proud of the business’s trajectory. “A potential customer may have to sort through hundreds of applications available in dozens of different app stores to find a solution to fit their needs,” he says. “You have to stand out from the masses, whether it be with a special feature or an outstanding service.”

Sherpany’s latest version of the app, Boardroom 3, recently earned the Silver Stevie^® Award in the “Mobile Site and App” categories at The 2017 International Business Awards, which received entries from more than 60 countries around the world.

“It gave our staff the recognition they deserved for all their hard work,” says Häckermann. “It also provides prestige for our clients, who love to be associated with the award.”

Providing access to information by centralizing, standardizing and comparing aircraft cost data worldwide is no easy task. My Sky (formerly My Jet) is a company in Switzerland that offers financial controlling and benchmarking tools for jet owners and their representatives to optimize ownership costs. They do this by collecting, digitizing, analyzing and storing all relevant financial information online for a 24/7, user-friendly service for its customers. This work has led them to win the Gold Stevie^® Award for “Startup of the Year - Business Services Industries” and a Silver Stevie Award for “Tech Startup of the Year" in The 2017 International Business Awards.

A Beacon of Trust
The concept of My Sky was first developed in 2014 by two entrepreneurs active in private banking and private aviation. Since its public launch in August 2015, My Sky has garnered business from an exponential number of business aircraft owners in Europe and beyond. Oksana Smirnova is the Head of PR & Marketing at My Sky and is excited about how quickly the company became a beacon of innovation and trust.

“Today, My Sky is a dynamic company evolving in the sectors of business aviation and financial management with headquarters in Switzerland. It currently employs over 80 experts, including in-house auditors, analysts and IT specialists.”

All their data is proof tested against the largest companies in the industry cost database. My Sky services 50 private jets and employs 80 experts in Switzerland and Russia.

Taking Off
My Sky’s mission is to revolutionize private jet ownership through technology and expertise. This has helped the company earn three international awards in just 12 months. In August 2016, they won a Bronze Stevie Award, then a Sapphire Pegasus Business Aviation Award for Innovation in April 2017, and now it has won Gold and Silver Stevie Awards.

“Winning gold one year after bronze shows that our product and our company have evolved in a very positive way and is a very important milestone in My Sky’s development,” says Smirnova.

“We also have ambitious plans on geographical expansion, and this international recognition will obviously be an added value to our unique proposition.”

Their innovative and disruptive approach provides an opportunity to augment traditional cost management practices in the business aviation industry through a smart blend of technology, data analytics and best practices.

Finding the Missing Link
My Sky considers themselves to be the missing link between industry players and the owners that remove any inefficiencies to empower jet owners by giving them more control and absolute transparency. Smirnova highlights what makes them distinct from similar companies.

“We believe the key to our success is the fact that there are no direct competitors today adopting a client-oriented SaaS approach. Accounting digitization, dynamic reporting and cost benchmarking offered by My Sky are absolutely unique on the market.”

Their unique features have allowed jet owners and their representatives to be in full control of their assets to optimize future costs while correcting past discrepancies, making sure aircrafts fly at the best hourly rate.

RapidValue is a leading provider of end-to-end digital transformation solutions for enterprises worldwide. Its digital solutions span across mobile, cloud, IoT and omni-channels to help improve productivity, stream business workflow, reduce operational cost and achieve higher ROI. They won the Gold Stevie^® Award in The 2017 International Business Awards for Marketing Department of the Year.

Rapid Growth

RapidValue, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA, in the United States, was founded in 2008 and has grown year-over-year since its inception. With eight global offices, 450+ employees, 600+ projects delivered and 15+ international global corporate awards, it’s safe to say recognition is in order. Kavyanidhi Narayan is the Marketing Manager at RapidValue and is proud of the attention the company is receiving for its hard work.

“RapidValue is extremely proud of winning the Gold Stevie Award for Marketing Department of the Year. This international award boosts company visibility in the global market and brings in confidence to the management and business development teams in upsurging the revenue for the organization.”

RapidValue is also proud to have some of the world’s top brands, Fortune 1000 firms and innovative product startups as their customers.

Driven by Innovation

Technology is evolving every day as businesses try to keep up. RapidValue considers itself to be a fast-paced emerging firm that builds solutions with cutting-edge technologies. Its collective enthusiasm is driven by its fascination of new marketing ideas for solution launches, branding and executing innovative ideas quickly. Narayan believes, “the most interesting part is incorporating new-age marketing solutions to increase brand awareness.”

Kavyanidhi supports the pursuit of balanced work-life relationships. RapidValue is rich in culture with a diverse team, so celebrating all festivals throughout the year is important to them.

“We have many talented employees. They perform dances, play musical instruments and participate in sporting events,” says Kavyanidhi. “This inspires the team to have bonding experiences that promote enthusiasm to work cohesively.”

Apart from leading the 17-member marketing team, Kavyanidhi is also an athlete and has won many championships in track & field events. She also has her own sports club for children called Galloper, which she pursues on the weekends.

From Small Beginnings to Big Destinations

RapidValue’s marketing team’s lead generation and brand building has upsurged the company revenue. In 2016-17, the team contributed 30% of the company’s revenue through marketing initiatives that netted five big customer wins. There has also been a 20% increase in sales compared to 2015 through 12 road shows, technology events and global awards

“RapidValue’s marketing team is closely knit with cross-functional teams to increase the visibility of RapidValue and the business development team, to generate leads and to drive customer wins. We motivate the entire organization to contribute through leadership articles and whitepapers.”

Kavyanidhi also believes that building the right relationship with stakeholders and working closely as a team is what brings success—not just for themselves, but also for the organization.

“This team has proved that a small group can make a difference in transforming a three-member startup into one of the fastest emerging companies in the world.”

“Complacency” is not a word in Renee Tocco’s vocabulary.

Whether it is using her skills to encourage people to live healthier or supporting any number of philanthropic causes ‒ from helping low-income children to protecting rainforests ‒  the energetic Aussie is keen to make a difference wherever she can.

It is no surprise when it comes to her main career as a business executive, Tocco does not settle for the status quo. A former sales and business accounts manager for Telstra, Australia’s largest telecom company, she started her own commercial finance brokerage, Loanezi, in 2014. In the process, she is bringing a fresh approach to an industry that is not necessarily known for innovation.

In three years, her company has become one of the fastest-growing players in the country’s asset finance industry. “Loanezi is my greatest achievement so far,” the entrepreneur says, proud of the success her venture has earned.

For as long as she can remember, dreaming big has been one of her character traits. “I always believed that I will one day build up an empire or disrupt an industry with a revolutionary invention,” concedes Tocco, who lives on The Gold Coast, a metropolitan area on Australia’s eastern shore.

Loanezi is the marriage of that enterprising spirit with the industry knowledge she acquired at Telstra. It was there Tocco realized the impact information and communication technology could have on businesses ‒ particularly smaller ones. For clients, new equipment was often the difference between growing or falling behind the competition.

Tocco vividly remembers her first client, a woman who was starting her own real estate practice. “Without a new phone system and printer, this new little real estate business literally would not have been able to successfully function,” Tocco told her hometown newspaper, The Gold Coast Bulletin.

Three years later, the company’s trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable. In early 2016, Loanezi was already generating enough revenue to pay back all borrowed capital, becoming 100% self-funded. During the 2016-2017 financial year, Loanezi generated 450 commercial loans, outpacing its own ambitious sales goals.

What makes Loanezi different from the competition? Tocco says it is, in part, the novel use of technology, something that is transforming what had long been a “staid” finance broking sector.

The company also offers a large panel of vendors, enabling it to serve customers with a wide range of needs, including new businesses that sometimes have trouble getting financial support.

Despite the success the firm is enjoying, Tocco makes it clear the company is not pulling off the accelerator pedal. “My goal is to become the largest commercial asset finance broker in Australia within the next three years, a humongous goal that I am focused on achieving.”

In August, Tocco and her team found out they won the Silver Stevie® Award in the “Startup of the Year – Business Services Industries” category of The 14th Annual International Business Awards.

“These awards have a great impact when building a brand and trying to stand out from the crowd,” says Tocco. “The day we added the Silver Stevie seal to the website was such a fun moment, as we appreciate the impact this has in building my profile and that of Loanezi.”

Thinking Big

For Tocco, one of the biggest benefits to the company’s success is the opportunity to give back. The business has partnered with the business giving initiative known as Buy1Give1 (B1G1), providing donations for every corporate loan it settles.

Among the results of its B1G1 gifts so far: 175 days of shelter and 225 days of education for children in need, as well as the protection of 45 square meters of rainforest and 2,000 meals for orphaned children.

“My desire is to change as many lives as possible, directly or indirectly,” she says. “The bigger Loanezi grows, the more impact we can have.”

Tocco is also using her experiences to help other female entrepreneurs achieve a similar level of success. “Through my blogs in the finance industry, I am already mentoring several females and believe that will foster into perpetuity the gift of shared knowledge.”

In that same spirit, she is hoping to offer traineeships to help students achieve their business goals and tackle important challenges around the world.

“I believe young people, offered the novelty of mentorship, will thrive in whatever industry they choose as their end goal,” says Tocco. “I hope my company will be the launching pad of future leaders with a global conscious mindset.”

Swimming next to crocodiles? Traversing giant rock formations? Boogie-boarding on whitewater rapids?

It’s all part of the job for Peter “Spida” Everett, a longtime star in the Australian Football League, and his wife, Sheree. As hosts of the hit TV and radio show “The Great Australian Doorstep,” the couple explores the country’s unique destinations and take on whatever adventure they find along the way.

Past destinations have included Australia’s natural wonders like the Great Barrier Reef and Ayers Rock, as well as many of the charming small towns that dot the countryside. Wherever they go, the couple travel by car or RV, soaking up the land’s distinct character and meeting locals along the way.

From one episode to the next, the couple could be hiking Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory or exploring the wild and majestic Kimberley region in Western Australia. In recent years, they’ve ventured beyond the Great Down Under, filming episodes in New Zealand, China, Canada and the state of Alaska in the U.S.

Now in its tenth season, the show’s unique mix of cultural exploration and thrill-seeking has clearly struck a chord with audiences. The program is a staple on the television station 7TWO and on more than 40 radio stations across Australia. The show recently broke into the Chinese market, where they’ve inked a five-year deal with China Central Television, and have become the first Australian travel show to be picked up by iTunes.

Those remarkable achievements earned the admiration of jurors for The 14th Annual International Business Awards, which featured nearly 4,000 nominees. “The Great Australian Doorstep” came away with the Bronze Stevie in the Travel and Tourism Video Awards category.

“With his steely determination, Spida has taken on some of Australia’s biggest travel media outlets and come out on top,” says Sheree, deflecting her own sizeable contribution to the show’s success.

Overcoming Obstacles

Everett’s 16-year football career, in which he played for the St. Kilda Saints, Hawthorn Hawks and Sydney Swans, provided the kind of fame that certainly helps when you’re pitching a new media venture.

But Sheree insists his high profile could also be an obstacle at times, especially when the pair would try to garner seed money. “People would often say, ‘Oh, he has millions. We don’t need to support him,’” she says. But after a costly divorce, she says, that wasn’t the case.

As a result, the couple had to take on considerable financial risk to make their venture work. “When he retired, we put our entire life savings and have worked tirelessly, often with little support from the industry,” she says.

It’s fitting then, that the show caters to audience members who are looking to travel on a budget. Rather than flying from place to place and booking luxury hotels, the Everetts opt for the modest confines of an RV park and favor unpretentious local establishments. That stripped-down approach has also made the program more fun they say, allowing them to interact with everyday people and experience the countryside up close.

The attention the show is receiving is just icing on the cake, they insist. The Stevie® Award, in particular, plays a major role in helping to boost the program’s profile, says Sheree.

“It has given us higher global exposure as well as huge applause from media and travel industry personnel here in Australia,” she explains.

And its proof, she insists, of what can happen when you believe in your ideas and are willing to work through the struggles. “It’s about focus, vision, hard work and never losing sight of the big goal,” Everett says.

RAK SME was established in 2007 by Amiri Decree in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates to support young entrepreneurs with start-up projects. They provide small and medium enterprises with everything from quick and easy steps to simplify their procedures, to market entry resources. Their efforts have enabled the youth in their communities to establish and develop projects to enhance sustainable development in the Emirates. This work led them to win the Bronze Stevie Award for Company of the Year in the Small, Nonprofit or Government Organizations category of The 2017 International Business Awards.

Achieving Sustainable Development

In order to provide an attractive environment for Emirati youth entrepreneurs, RAK SME supports a mission to strengthen the national economy through the Saud Bin Saqr Foundation for the Development of Youth Projects. RAK SME is also an initiative of Ras Al Khaimah Chamber of Commerce and Industry by incorporating a wide range of services to the members of their corporation. Rashed Sawaqed is the Business Development Consultant for RAK SME, specifically focusing on Feasibility Studies and Business Development Consultancy which aims to support and develop SME's in Ras Al Khaimah.

“From facilities and exemptions to commercial license fees, industrial and sustainable development, RAK SME makes annual goals for clear and distinctive imprints during the process of promoting and supporting youth enterprises. In addition to encouraging nationals to lead businesses, diversify the economy, and achieve sustainable development.”

RAK SME services provided for its’ members include exemptions from the payment of commercial license fees, economic and legal consultancy, business incubators and business admin services, training and development programs, workshops, discounts on various services (including participation in local and external exhibitions) and free industrial and commercial plots for development.

Playing a Major Role

Saud Bin Saqr Foundation for the Development of Youth Projects is one of the initiatives of the Ras Al Khaimah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Foundation aims at developing the business sector and contributing to the government's policy in the development of youth projects in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, where small and medium enterprises play a major role in the development of the national economy. Sawaqed comments on how winning a Stevie® has made a positive impact on achieving their goals.

“Winning the Stevie Award was an enormous achievement for our organization and continues to prove beneficial to our operations. The awards raised our customers’ confidence in our business and our capabilities.”

RAK SME is now organizing a practical training course entitled "Making Financial Decisions for Your Business Project" for entrepreneurs. Those interested in the business community within the framework of the plan can develop and qualify small and medium enterprises under the umbrella of the Foundation.

With more than 1.2 million titles available on Apple and Android devices, the problem video gamers face today isn’t the lack of choice ‒ it’s having more than they can handle.

Enter ANDi. The one-and-a-half-year-old UK firm that recently launched a “personal mobile gaming assistant” Gameway that helps users find new games based on their preferences and provides a single, convenient platform from which to launch them.

The London-based company says it takes the typical player anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to find a new game. And after all that effort, 72% of the games get deleted after two uses. 

By leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, ANDi is hoping that its Gameway app will lead to better matches, in a fraction of the time it usually takes to find a game.

“Data is collected from the games our users swipe, install and play,” says Benjamin Woolf, ANDi’s co-founder and CEO. “Machine learning algorithms process the data and display the right games to the right people at the appropriate times.” The company calls the feature “Tinder-For-Games,” a nod to the popular dating app.

Woolf, a graduate of Leeds Business University, says the the software can recommend games in under a minute, and with greater success. When using ANDi, people keep games for 25% longer, on average, than competitors.

An untapped market

The direction the company took was, its founders admit, somewhat accidental.

When Woolf and friend Sam Koch, who has a computer science background, volunteered together at a 2015 TechCrunch convention, they talked about the idea of creating a new mobile game together.

But when they visited the Google Play store to see what was already on the market, they found themselves swimming in a sea of choices. With that amount of selection, zeroing in on a particular type of game was virtually impossible. What people needed, they believed, was a more efficient way to find what they were looking for.

In a matter of just a few months, the pair was able to cultivate a team and put out the first prototype. Woolf says the community user base has grown by more than 15% month-over-month since being released.

Fostering collaboration 

The company’s speed-to-market is the result of a “work hard, play hard” approach. Product development centers on intense two-week “sprints,” in which the team discusses a new feature, designs it and then carries out a test so it can analyze results afterward.

The founders also carve out time for team-building. Employees regularly get together for team lunches where they can air out their concerns. Once a month, staff members will huddle around a video game console and hold friendly competitions.

“All this builds collaboration and fearless positivity, which allows all members individually to want to give their all,” suggests Woolf.

Already, ANDi’s gaming assistant is shaking up the industry, he says. “The larger game studios, publishers and other media sites are concerned how this could equalize the market for the small niche game developers and medium-sized companies who are not able to gain the same face-time due to financial restrictions,” he explains.

Thanks to its innovative solution, the company has recently earned multiple high-level honors. Among them: “Most Innovative Mobile Gaming Application 2017” by Softech and “Best Free Gaming App” at the TMT Global Excellence Awards 2017.

ANDi adds to its trophy case with the Bronze Stevie® Award received for “Startup of the Year - Consumer Products Industries” at this year’s International Business Awards.

“Winning an award as prestigious as the Stevies was a huge inspiration to our team,” says Woolf. “To be recognized by others in the global business community for our hard work is something we very much appreciate.”