Incubate Messenger - the time delay messenger

Imagine sending a video of your baby boy drinking his first bottle to his 21st birthday: "Have a good 21st buddy - enjoy a bottle or two tonight - Love Dad." Imagine getting a video from a crazy night out in college a decade later while you're sitting at the airport for a business trip. Instant mood changer. What if your favorite grandparent could send you birthday wishes for the next 25 years? They might be gone, but they can still bring a smile to your face on your special day.

Feeling like you totally want to be a part of this? Yeah, me too. Meet Incubate Messenger - an awesome app creating unique, memorable connections between friends and loved ones. I have the great honor of working near Founder Michael McCluney. He is one hard working, passionate guy. Learn more about his startup below! The future is in your hands... or should I say phone?

What is Incubate Messenger?

Incubate is a time delayed messaging application. Incubate allows a user to use their mobile device to send a message (text, voice, picture or video) to an exact minute in the future (from 1 minute up to 25 years) - all for free! Due to an incredibly strong response from brides - who want their guests to chronicle messages from their weddings and receptions to future special days - we have also created a service called Incubate Our Wedding. IOW is a monetized web portal launching at the end of October that will hopefully help us become revenue positive in 2016.

What was the trigger for this awesome idea?

In 2013, my former college roommate's wife gave birth to three lovely ginger triplet babies. Approximately three months later, much to my amusement, his mask of sanity had completely slipped. While listening to him recall the horrors of things that happen during the middle of the night with triplets, I suggested that he begin recording these raw moments while also adding his uncensored commentary. This way, on future milestone dates (turn 18, turn 21, graduate from college, etc) he could share these candid moments with his kids to everyone's enjoyment. He then opined that he had neither the time nor the organizational skills to keep track of this content over that amount of time. However, he stated that if it were possible to simply send the message to the future with his phone, he would absolutely do it. Thus, the seed for Incubate was planted.

What is the coolest story you have gotten from one of your users?

We have been lucky enough to present in numerous classes at UGA over the last year. A student in one of those classes told his girlfriend about the app and she demanded that he have a messages waiting for her a midnight on her birthday - he obliged and sent the message over a month in advance. In the meantime, they broke up. We were contacted by this student asking us to delete this message (Incubate messages are locked when they are sent to the future). We let him know that we'd think about it as we didn't want to set the precedent for manually deleting messages for every regretful college kid (isn't that what snapchat is for?). After several weeks we saw him at another UGA event. He approached us and immediately thanked us. He informed us that his she received that message and was so endeared by it that there was a short-term mea culpa. So in short, Incubate brings people together.

What traction do you have?

We launched in March and were in the 5 digits within six weeks. Downloads slowed when we stopped all marketing as we learned of UX and functionality upgrades that needed to be made. We still get word of mouth downloads but not in the same quantity we were getting int he Spring and early Summer. We are set to launch upgraded versions again starting in a few weeks.

What do you love most about being in the Village?

The energy and the people. Actually, the people as the energy is a direct reflection of the awesome people who come to chase their dreams every day.

Any words of wisdom for other entrepreneurs?

Have an indomitable will. If you allow yourself to be deterred, it'll happen.And finally, you must watch their promo video. It's hilarious.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aPu1FGOt5g