Prince William app developers aim to curb improper cell phone use on the job

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — With Silicon Valley thousands of miles away, where can a tech startup go for advice and investment?

One local app developer says it’s a great idea to stay right here and take advantage of the area’s surprisingly supportive tech community.

Natalia Micheletti, the co-founder of the workplace app Engaged, has spent the last year getting her app up and running with fellow co-founder, Tim Hylton. Natalia told Potomac Local that experts in the Greater Prince William region have given them invaluable support and networking opportunities that came as a surprise to her and Tim.

“One of our biggest mistakes was feeling like we had to get out of our Manassas ‘bubble,’” said Micheletti. “We thought we had to go to D.C., Silicon Valley, and New York City to be successful.”

But these big cities, while renowned for their tech support, are inundated with competition, which quickly leads to disinterested investors. “At one meeting in D.C., we stood in line for an hour just to shake hands with a potential investor,” Micheletti recounted. “By the time we got to him, he’d heard hundreds of pitches.”

By contrast, places like CenterFuse, a co-working space in Downtown Manassas, offer a lot of direct attention and resources for tech entrepreneurs. “I can walk up to any of the businesspeople in CenterFuse and introduce myself, and they’ll remember me,” said Micheletti.

“We’ve experienced a much greater sense of community here than in the metropolitan areas,” she continued. “We’ve attended networking events, met mentors, found coworking spaces, and so much more.”

The Gainesville couple’s app, Engaged, is not yet available on the Apple App Store, but is scheduled to roll out in the next three to six months. Its purpose is to “help business owners enhance their productivity and increase sales by limiting and preventing unwanted cellphone use at work,” said Micheletti.

“Our main goal is to put control back into the business owner’s hands,” she added.

Neither Natalia nor Tim had formal tech experience before launching Engaged. They previously owned and managed six locations of Great American Cookies.

“We loved it, but as we continued to grow, we couldn’t be in all of our locations at the same time,” said Micheletti. “One of our biggest problems was employees using their cellphones when they weren’t supposed to be.”

Although they had rules, regulations, and cameras in place, cellphone use still happened on a frequent basis — often enough that Natalia noticed they were losing sales and cookies weren’t being made right.

“We thought we couldn’t be the only ones with this problem,” said Natalia. “There’s got to be a way to fix this. That’s how we created the concept of Engaged.”

If a business owner integrates Engaged in their business, employees would open the app when they start the day, punch into a virtual time clock, and have it going throughout the day. A rewards system is also built into the app — the more that employees use the app, the more rewards they get.

The app was beta-tested at five of Micheletti and Hylton’s bakery locations and sales increased by 22 percent and productivity by 60 percent within the three months they were using it.

Next, they are looking to test the app at businesses in the region.

“We’ve spoken to a lot of business owners here, and this is something many of them are looking to integrate so they can build a better work environment for employees and customers,” Micheletti said.

George Mason University’s Science and Technology Campus at Prince William County’s Innovation Park can do a lot for local tech innovators as well. The University’s Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) is the only institute of its kind on the East Coast and one of only four global affiliated facilities established to support early-entry entrepreneurship into the simulation and game design industry.

Late last year VSGI partnered with CenterFuse to “advance and strengthen business resources… for high-tech startups, game-startups, and small business startups.” In October, they hosted a “Get Serious, Get Startup” open house.

The Institute is also hosting its fourth annual mobile game competition, where students and recent alumni of all Mason schools and colleges can enter to pitch their game apps and receive development help.

Winners of the competition receive $15,000 of paid development time, split among the first place winner ($10,000) and runner-up ($5,000).

In 2018 the winner was Leo’s Lighthouse for an interactive storybook platform for kids aged two to six. Runner-up was The Wizard of Murandabo, a classic point-and-click adventure game for kids aged 10 to 14 years.

The deadline to enter a pitch is April 1.