Valley’s own Drund project lets users organize their online life

Photo by: Rami Daud

The Vindicator (Youngstown)

Photo

Drund founder Lee Yi (right) and vice president Nayef Zarrour (left) chat with developer Adam Maga–a Thursday afternoon in their Boardman Office.

By Ashley Luthern

aluthern@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Lee Yi is convinced that one national success from a local technology startup could transform the Mahoning Valley into the next Silicon Valley.

And he’s willing to bet that success will be the company he founded, Azork Ltd.

“You gotta have something that has a major impact, and you have to be willing to take the chance. Out in the [Silicon] Valley, they do the change-the-world doctrine. Well, so do we. It’s irrelevant that we’re from Ohio,” Yi said.

Some tech experts and national press have already said that Azork’s Drund project just might have that major impact.

The words of 19th-century American author Henry David Thoreau could very well serve as the tag line for the 21st-century technology startup based in Boardman: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

Azork Ltd. launched an early release of Drund, a Web-application-management system, last month. Drund will allow users to manage their online life from any Internet connected device, such as a laptop, phone or eventually television, said the 35-year-old founder.

“Drund helps as a unification platform. The location of the information is what’s key here. The location sits in the Web or the cloud, as it’s more commonly known,” Yi explained.

Simply put, Drund will move a user’s desktop to the Web, with the ultimate goal of eliminating buying expensive hardware and constantly installing software.

The 10-man team at Drund has created some of its own applications, such as Drund TV, which organizes a user’s Hulu, Netflix and Amazon video-on-demand accounts.

Drund has already garnered national attention from Forbes magazine, Mashable and Technologizer, a tech website which partners with TIME.com. In late February, Drund premiered at the inaugural LAUNCH Conference in San Francisco alongside 100 other tech startups and entrepreneurs. Drund also will take the spotlight at TechCrunch, a conference and startup competition on May 24-26.

“We’ve accomplished some initial traction ...and we’re going to at least accomplish and prove the fact that you can be from an area in Ohio that is known for negative economic impact,” Yi said.

Drund will generate revenue from licensing, direct sale of feature sets, such as more storage, and then upgrades, although Yi stressed that everything will be free initially. The venture has been financed by local “angel” investors, he added.

The first official version of Drund will be available in May.

The Drund team is “a very eclectic group,” Yi said.

Vice President Nayef Zarrour, 24, is a certified public accountant by trade; chief technology officer Matt Robenolt, 22, started his own website design business, YDEK Productions, at age 18; and creative director Joshua Shank, 32, founded Youngstown Metro Church and The Media District before joining the Drund project when it began in May 2010.

The mostly homegrown Youngstown team brings a Midwest worth ethic, Yi said.

“The Midwest work ethic is something that gets undervalued. ... You get a lot of the Hollywood-type behavior on the West and East coast. ... We’re known for how hard we work and how dedicated we really are ... it’s part of the culture,” he said.

Many of the developers and designers are graduates of Youngstown State University.

With the local ties, the group felt it was advantageous to stay in the Mahoning Valley.

“It’s strategic to stay in Youngstown. ... The salaries, the cost of living, the rent, that’s all an advantage to us. If we were in [Silicon] Valley, it would have been triple the cost, minimum,” Zarrour said.

The company did not use the Youngstown Business Incubator as it grew, mostly because of the employees’ experience.

“We had these other entrepreneurs and the enterprise work we were doing,” Zarrour said.

“We were in a unique position to bootstrap ourselves and we didn’t think it was responsible for us to take a position anywhere, where maybe a company that didn’t have those type of resources to self-fund could [use] those resources,” he continued.

Drund is on U.S. Route 224, just west of West Boulevard in Parkside Place. The office has a few signature features, among them an alien decal on the window and Red Bull and Arnold Palmer cans stacked atop the glass wipe boards.

“The physical environment is extremely important,” Yi said.

Fun is the key factor, Zarrour added.

The team is “working long days, and technology breaks. It’s constantly adjusting and overcoming from those challenges,” he said.

One of those challenges is building an offline version so users can work when they don’t have an Internet connection, and when they do find a connection, the device will automatically connect, Zarrour said.

The larger framework for Drund is to give access to information to all people, regardless of their economic situation, Yi said.

“I have the luxury and the luck to be able to afford this,” he said, pointing to a Mac desktop computer.

“Drive two miles and this doesn’t exist. But that does,” he said, motioning to a flat-screen TV on the wall.

Yi said that in the future, if people can afford a $200 to $400 TV that has the capability of computing, publishing and managing data, then they won’t have to constantly update software and platforms.

“... It’s lowering the cost. That’s a big deal for us because we live in this community, too,” he continued.

The main purpose of technology, Yi said, was to bring humanity empowerment.

“Right now, it’s creating barriers and classes, and I don’t like that. So we are going to create technology that empowers by reducing the cost of access, reducing technical understanding and doesn’t focus on the brand of the product or how cool it is,” he said.