MU graduate creates Internet business
Picture Cloud is a Web site business based in Cornell Hall.
Published Feb. 14, 2006
Next time students want to sell a product on eBay, they might want to check out a new program on the Internet called Picture Cloud.
Picture Cloud is a Web site business based in Cornell Hall that takes a series of digital pictures from different angles and combines them into rotating three-dimensional images.
Founder Paul Pattison said he wanted to design a new program that would help people create images to either sell products on the Internet or for entertainment.
The program allows customers to view the image from all sides.
"Essentially, there are no rules," Pattison said. "People can make whatever they want. I don't want people to be confined to only creating pictures of cars or houses they want to sell."
Pattison said most of his revenue probably will come from people wanting to sell items on eBay, but he has used the program on projects such as photographing a baby.
Pattison graduated from MU with a degree in engineering in the summer of 2005.
He began to develop Picture Cloud in May 2005 and approached the Missouri Innovation Center about his business in October 2005.
The Missouri Innovation Center is an organization on campus that helps students, teachers and staff take their ideas and help them make them into entrepreneurial businesses, said Jake Halliday, president and CEO of MIC and a professor in the College of Business.
"Paul's venture tends to be an exception because up until now we have focused on faculty and staff businesses," Halliday said. "However, I think there is a wildfire of entrepreneurship on campus, and we will hopefully work with more students soon."
MIC helped encourage Pattison to start his business by introducing him to people in his field who know about the business, introducing him to possible investors and by providing him with capital, Halliday said.
"I would like to see this business maybe doing $30 million to $50 million worth of business and based in mid-Missouri providing professional employment for MU graduates," Halliday said.
Internet business have an advantage because once something is on the Internet, it becomes national and global, Halliday said.
He also said MIC wants to make sure Pattison perfects the product before introducing it to consumers on a large scale.
"This product is great because anyone can do it," Halliday said. "It is very important with a product that will take off like this that you get out the wrinkles beforehand because you don't want it to be crippled by its own success."
Pattison said he plans to keep his business at Cornell until the business has outgrown the hall.
"I hope this type of technology gains traction and starts a trend of how digital images are shown on the Internet," Pattison said.
MIC has helped other Columbia businesses get started.
One of those businesses is Renewable Alternatives: Advancing Technology with Nature's Products.
Rusty Sutterlin, owner of Renewable Alternatives, said MIC was helpful in planning business strategy and accounting and secretarial services.
"We started with nothing, and now we have something," Sutterlin said.