I would like to introduce you to a new segment that I would like to call “Startup Sunday.” Start your week by learning about an early, mid or late-stage software startup that I have researched.
I am aware of the fact that it will be Monday by the time that you read this (: I had a monkey wrench in my WordPress account that prevented me from publishing it on time. Ugh, but oh well, you can still start your week with Startup Monday before you go to work.
Work “Startup Sunday” into your morning routine (all successful businesspeople have one:)! Grab
Guavus Inc.
I would like to introduce you to Guavus Inc., a software company specializing in big data and analytics for companies in the telecommunications space that was acquired by the defense contractor Thales Inc. in 2016 for approximately $215 million. Guavus is a company that I want to help make more people aware of as their product offering has tremendous value to so many different businesses.
While Guavus is technically no longer a startup, they were one recently and were successfully acquired, which is why I chose to cover them. After all, being acquired is one of the ideal end goals of most startups.
I recently finished working for Guavus on their marketing team and had some very positive experiences with the company. My primary objective was to expand Guavus’ social media efforts and increase brand awareness.
I became well-versed in Guavus’ product portfolio and want to share that knowledge with you. Given that my blog is marketing focused, I will be focusing mainly on Guavus’ Marketing Insights product. Their portfolio contains a total of 8 different products and I will discuss the other 8 in a later blog post.
Guavus’ Product Portfolio
Guavus Reflex Platform
Guavus offers several different products, but all the products are built off of what Guavus calls its ‘Reflex Platform,’ which is an analytics engine that uses AI and ML algorithms designed to ingest and perform analytics on data that the platform has not necessarily been trained to recognize before.
The Reflex platform was originally designed to perform analytics for real-time streaming applications that require advanced analytics. That is why some of their clientele is comprised of telecommunications companies such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Charter Communications, etc.
What allows Guavus to analyze data in real time is their use of edge analytics. Edge analytics do not require data to be sent back to a centralized data store before being analyzed, which is what allows for Guavus-Reflex to provide analytics in real time. According to Guavus’ website, Guavus Reflex “is designed to turn data into insights, decisions and closed loop actions in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost.”
For further flexibility and convenience, Guavus Reflex offers open APIs so that users can build their own apps on top of the platform and easily integrate their own platforms with Reflex. Guavus Reflex is capable of ingesting 5000 terabytes of data per day.
Data science professionals are taking notice of the importance that Guavus has to companies large-scale data analytics needs.
In fact, noted data science expert, Steve Akers made the following remark about Guavus, “Guavus technology is important and continues to be more important for companies with large-scale data analytics needs. Understanding one’s business is understanding data. I follow Guavus closely and admire their product suite.”
Guavus has a very sophisticated product suite and a strong reputation.
Guavus Product Overview
Guavus Marketing Insight
Given that this is a marketing and technology blog, I will mention Guavus’ Marketing product first. Guavus Marketing Insight is a marketing product that creates personalized interactions and offerings based content and URLs that the user has visited.
Digital marketing today requires personalized offers to be made at the exact right time. For example, if a user visits a website that sells dog care supplies and has viewed websites with very similar content to that dog care website, then the best way to encourage that customer to buy is to place an ad in front of them at that exact moment.
Guavus Marketing Insight does just that, Marketing Insight helps marketers understand their customer’s interests as well as their device and location, which allows for highly specific and dynamic market segmentation to be made. This is extremely important in today’s digital marketing game, as I shared in a previous post sending highly targeted ads to consumers in real time is the most effective way to increase conversion rates (or at least will be in the future).
Guavus uses what is called “edge analytics” in its products, which means that their platform is able to ingest and analyze data without having to revert that data back to a centralized data store. As such, Guavus Marketing Insight is able to analyze the kinds of content that viewers are consuming and help companies come up with a customized offer.
Below is a visual representation of this (the visual keeps up with the above example of the consumer searching for dog care related content). The progression begins where you see the words “Guavus Market Insights.” Market Insights able ingest, then analyze, then interpret the data and propose a suggestion without ever having to pass through a data store (the visual is meant to imply that the data store is skipped over). Market insights also use machine learning algorithms to learn from the data that it ingests and analyzes over time. The platform then uses AI to interpret the data and make an offer.
How does Marketing Insight Work?
Marketing Insight works by using Natural Language processing algorithms to analyze data at the abstraction layers of the OSI model, which allows for analysis of streaming Layer 7 data including HTTP header information, deep packet inspection (DPI) signatures and S1-MME mobile management entity LTE events.
What streaming Layer 7 data means is that Marketing Insight HTTP analyze data at the layer where the user interacts with the software application, which allows Marketing Insight to see how users interact with specific URL’s, thus allowing them to see what websites and what kind of content people are viewing, which allows the user of Marketing Insights to create highly specific market segmentation based on the content that the user’s target market has viewed.
Deep packet inspection signatures allow Marketing Insight to examine and manage network traffic. Deep packet inspection also typically occurs at the application layer, which allows Marketing Insight to evaluate and manage network traffic at the layer where the user interacts with the application.
and S1-MME mobile management entity LTE events is essentially the ability to initiate authentication of mobile devices. Read the linked resource for more information.
Guavus Market Insights is a very powerful marketing tool that more enterprise B2B companies should use to enhance their advertising efforts.
Conclusion
Guavus boasts several other products in their product suite that serve a variety of other niches from security to customer support. I will discuss those in a later post. However, given that my blog is more marketing centric, I wanted to focus on Guavus’ market insights product.
Overall, Guavus is a fantastic company, with fantastic people and an even better product. Guavus is a very valuable platform for Enterprise B2B companies with large-scale data analytics needs. Guavus is a very sophisticated platform with enormous potential that more CIO’s should take note of. Please consider Guavus for your business.