Startup nears launch of social-gaming app

SYRACUSE — A startup founded by Syracuse University (SU) students that aims to crowdsource predictions on a range of topics in a social-gaming app is nearing launch.

PsyQic’s president, Keisuke Inoue, is working on his doctorate in information studies. The company is an outgrowth of his research.

He says he was inspired to launch his own business after seeing many of his students work on startups. Inoue has also served as a technical mentor at the Syracuse Student Sandbox, a business-incubator program at the Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse aimed at student ventures.

PsyQic participated in the sandbox during the summer.

The company’s app will eventually allow its users to post questions on topics like sports, politics, television shows, movies, business, science, environment, technologies, and more. Other users will then attempt to predict the outcomes of those questions, Inoue explains.

The company is launching its app for iOS this month. A Web version will follow. For now, PsyQic staff members are posting questions and verifying outcomes.

The eventual goal is to crowdsource both questions and outcomes.

“That will make the questions much more interesting to users,” Inoue says.

Current users can also submit questions to staff members for posting. The company has been testing the app with a group of about 60 people.

Inoue first began forming the idea for PsyQic in January. The company incorporated in May and then participated in business competitions including the Panasci Business Plan Competition at SU, the RvD IDEA competition at SU, and the New York State Business Plan Competition.

PsyQic won second prize in the information technology and software category at the state competition and the Goldberg Prize in Technology and Innovation at the Panasci competition.

The company won some money at each competition for a total of $9,500, Inoue says. With the app close to launching, he says he plans to travel to New York City in November to pitch the firm to SU alumni and investors.

PsyQic also plans to apply to the $350,000 Startup Labs accelerator that is launching in Syracuse in the coming months.

PsyQic will monetize its app through three revenue streams, Inoue says. The first is through affiliate programs from companies like Apple and Amazon.

Since many of the questions are expected to tie in with other content, the app could prod users to download a television show or book from iTunes or Amazon to find out whether their predictions are right. Through affiliate programs, those sales would kick some money back to PsyQic, Inoue says.

In fact, he says that’s the first revenue stream the company expects to implement since it will work with any number of users.

Once the user base is larger, the firm could look to add sponsored questions from other companies, Inoue says. And eventually, it could look to data sales for market research, political work, or academic use.

Inoue says the company needs to have at least 10,000 to 20,000 users in a year to keep moving forward. Social-media apps, he notes, tend to grow exponentially.

The firm is actually aiming much higher than that. 

“We hope to have that and more,” says Meocha Belle, PsyQic’s director of communications.

The app features a Qi score that measures a user’s ability to predict accurately. The company’s goal is to make that score as much a part of the online world as a Klout score, Belle says.

PsyQic’s core management team includes three people and the firm has five interns with plans to grow that total to 10, Inoue says. 

Contact Tampone at ktampone@cnybj.com