<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.\nName: memberly\nQuick Pitch: Memberly is a platform for subscription programs.\nGenius Idea: Promoting subscriptions as a sustainable business model.\nJack Cheng and his two cofounders launched Steepster, a social network for tea drinkers, in 2009. It soon occurred to them that a tea club, in which members receive a shipment of new teas each month, would be a perfect complement to the site. But they were working long hours to get their site off of the ground, and never thought about making the investment of time and money that starting such a program would entail .\nThree years later, they decided to revisit the project \u2014 and while they were at it, solve the subscription program logistics problem for everyone else, too. \n\"With blogs, you don't need to understand the backend [in order to make one],\" Cheng says. \"We wanted to give the same simplicity to running a subscription program.\"\nOn Thursday, the team launched Memberly. The platform makes it easy to start and organize such a program \u2014 by offering a subscription page that doesn't require coding, automatic billing of customers, auto-generated labels or a portal for handling customer correspondence.\nRight now the only programs using the site are Steepster and a vegan boutique called Little Otsu that is selling a subscription for mini art books. More are scheduled to roll out in the coming weeks. \n\n\n\n\nCheng says he hopes to appeal to businesses that would traditionally run a subscription service \u2014 such as coffee shops and wine sellers \u2014 as well as encourage people to be creative with new services.\n\"The subscription model is a really great business,\" he says, \"With something like Etsy, you have to be on call waiting to fill orders of your business will suffer. You might not get any orders for weeks and then get 15 in one day.\"\nWith subscriptions, you can plan ahead and order supplies in bulk. And, Cheng hopes, pay a 5% cut of any sales to Memberly in exchange.\n\n\n\n\nImage courtesy of istockphoto, sjlocke\nSeries Supported by Microsoft BizSpark\n\n\nThe Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/07/23/memberly/>