Startup Weekend was held this past weekend at Caltech and the turnout was fantastic with a slew of startups presented ranging from food sites, game development platform to a hands on lab concept for kids.
Bill Gross from IdeaLab was the keynote speaker with the Mayor of Pasadena Bill Boggard also participating.
We hope that many of these ideas will come to reality and make a public debut in coming months. Some could be way ahead of what the public is ready for, where some could facilitate other developments.
Here’s a quick recap of the startups presented.
1. Gaming platfom
2. INSPIRED, dining app, similar to Yelp, but focused more on storytelling, learning about the owner, sharing your memory from eating at the establishment. With off menu items, specials, Guisados was featured in the presentation. Customers to local businesses. The app was shown in concept, but with only 5 minutes to present..
3. TextHacker – (310) 736-2683, brings text messaging to customer service, there is now chat and voice, ivr, but with over 4 billion text sms enabled devices in the world, support / customer service is prime for disruption, does this idea really make sense? The option apparently would be to use voice or text, Judd and Devin. www.devine.la:3000/account
4. DoLab, Physical Space, DoLab.org, workshops, science, monthly subscription, $250 sliding scale.
5. Eureka Games – eurekagames.net, apps, kids , mobile gaming, immersive experience, kids become part of the game, with wearable. Kids watch over 45 hours of TV per week. why not get them active with physical activities. Mobile gaming with wearable interface. A parent activity monitor. Target audience, kids 4+ to under 10. Could even attract older audience. Example of characters was presented.
6. MyMedOffer – suture self, William Choung, target audience are customers looking for plastic surgeon. Would buy tokens to reveal surgeons interested in the patients needs, surgeons would not pay for service, customers would. Tokens could cost $5.99 for 2. Could be expanded to other practices, i.e. dental, etc.
7. Bakemapper: bakemapper.com, home bakers, California recently passed the cottage law, AB 616, allows home prepared food to be sold legally, with half day training. Check out the site concept at bakemapper.crowdmap.com More on this one to follow.
8. We Assemble, weassemble.com, group decision making platform. Target audience is the 100,000+ home owner associations with 10-15 units. Small HOA’s. HOA budgets from 10k to 500k yearly budgets. Jonathan Edewards from the Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association. Offline asynchronous process. Nudge meetings forward, cost $1-2 per member. Timer built in, increases productivity. Can be used for other meeting formats.
9. nXtreme, the kinetic energy charging walking stick. Hiking stick. Great presentation, they had a prototype. Has a USB port and on board battery. Options include a camera, weather radio, and more. radical, high usability, basic Powerstick would retail for $199, Photo/Adventure Powerstick, $249-$299.
10. Helpster, Edward Wang, College Students need things done, and others want to do tasks to earn “tokens” credit for cash. 21.6 million college students, market. The favor driven world.
11. MarketPlace – mrktplc – make stuff, sell stuff.
twitter fb api, price model, $0-$15-$25
Auto posting, craigslist, backpage, dashboard, to control ads
social referral, small business, individuals.
https://mrktplc.herokuapp.com/
The winner was announced at the reception which took place after the presentations.
Eureka Games was the winner! Congratulations to the team! We hope to see more from them on their development. The website for Eureka Games: www.eurekagames.net
