Honors student creates commercial business
By: Brandon Thomas
Issue date: 12/11/06 Section: News
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Danoesubroto and partner Nathaniel Bennett are working on an online company called Funclient.com, aimed to assist small businesses with customer relations management. The team hopes to make the company commercial in 2007.
Small business' report a 70 percent failure rate, according Danoesubroto. While doing a previous project with a real estate agency, he found current applications for CRM were complicated and not user-friendly. This is where the idea for Funclient.com originated, and Bennett and he took on the challenge.
The goal of the company is to provide a web-based tool for small businesses to manage customer information quickly and easily and store documents online, according to Danoesubroto.
The company is a unique choice for a senior design project because it is designed to become an actual business, rather than a mere solution for the problem of a single company. The business is catering to five businesses at this point.
Lavan Green, professor of information systems and project mentor gave the team three additional members, Sofia Angelova, Kuldoon Khraisat and David Wright, because of the complexity of the task.
Bennett is a senior majoring in computer programming and information systems. He holds the technological role on the team as the primary programmer.
Danoesubroto is a senior software development major. He immigrated to the United States from Indonesia when he was 20 years old in 2001. He has had a passion for entrepreneurship since before he was 15. He holds up the business side of the team.
"Business is like planting a seed," said Danoesubroto. "You wait for it to become a tree, but the soil needs to be fertile. It needs the best economy in the world, which is America."
Todd Masonis, founder of plaxo.com and other online businesses, is helping Danoesubroto as a mentor.
"College students have access to big people," said Danoesubroto. "…Every time [a small company] uses Funclient, it is a psychological reward to me. I made a difference."
2008 Woodie Awards

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