Headquarters: Huntsville, Ala.
Launched: April 2012
Mission: Help you have a better mobile experience.
Mobile devices are the tech industry's hottest battlefield right now. To interact with touchscreens, we usually use our fingers, but Microstylus founders Don Mikell and Nevin Langdon want to bring back a tool that's nearly as extinct as the Palm Pilot: the stylus.
The idea stemmed from their desire to draw better pictures on wildly popular mobile app Draw Something.
"We were avid Draw Something players," Mikell said. "We bought a regular stylus to draw better and we could -- and then we couldn't keep up with them." The styluses kept getting lost.
Enter Microstylus, which is designed to plug into an iPhone jack. That saves users the hassle of trying to hold on to the gizmo when they're not using it. In less than a month, the crew has sold 4,000 styluses. Customers pay $10 a piece or $16 for two devices.
Microstylus is working on developing styluses for different uses of mobile devices. Their target audience includes artists and gamers. The self-funded and cash-flow-positive entrepreneurs hope their quick success will lead to retail distribution -- and better stick figures on Draw Something.
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