I’m not usually a big gamer, but I’ve been hooked on a few. The best games create an immersive experience that puts you in another world–you almost forget that you’re playing a game. It’s a lot like watching a great tv show or movie, which is why shows and movies often get turned into games. The world has already been created. Why not let people play in it on their own? That’s exactly what Disruptor Beam allows. They’re based in Framingham, MA, and they’re aiming “to create the most fan-centric game company in the world.” The company’s focus is on mobile/web games, and they’ve started out by working with some pretty big names.
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Every once in a while I come across a company that I’m torn on–I can’t decide whether it’s brilliant or absolutely stupid. This is one of those times. We all know that the “placebo effect” has been scientifically verified time after time, but have we really put it to work for us yet? Placebo Effect is a San Francisco, CA based startup that is trying to do just that. They allow anyone to subscribe “to prescriptions that are authored by experts ranging from New York Times best selling authors to a 3x national champion wrestler.” How can a prescription be authored? We’ll get to that.
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As I mentioned earlier in the week, media and advertising are all about demographics. Unless you have the targeting capabilities of a Facebook or Google, it’s almost always better to build your properties targeted at a specific group. For SheKnows it’s all about women. They are a Scottsdale, AZ based company that has built a “women’s lifestyle media platform” that “allows brands to distribute authentic content and integrated advertising at scale.” What kind of scale? 40 million unique visitors per month. That’s a lot.
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Most media businesses are about advertising, and most advertising is about demographics. That’s why a lot of media companies focus on owning a portfolio of properties that cater to similar demographics. For Radio One the focus is on targeting African-American and urban consumers. The company is headquartered in Lanham, MD, but they have stations and offices all across the country. If your music tastes are similar to mine, there’s a good chance that you are familiar with one of Radio One’s properties.
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I haven’t worked in a real office since my internships during college, but that office had a great cafeteria. The food was always pretty good, and the view was spectacular. The chef also made really great cookies in the afternoons. A lot of companies aren’t big enough to have a cafeteria, but they still want to offer in-house food options for their employees. That can be a huge hassle, but not with Cater2.me. They are a San Francisco, CA based company that “was founded with the goal of connecting inspired kitchens with the masses.” A lot of companies have complicated systems for ordering food in. Cater2.me does all of the administrative stuff so that employees stay well fed and productive.
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Events are inherently social. A lot of time who is going to be there matters more than what is going on. Yet all of our major social networks are about showing off what we’ve already done. If we’re going to broadcast our lives, it might make sense to let other people in on the fun. Fever is a New York, NY and Madrid, Spain based startup social network that is “changing the way people make plans.” Their idea is to take event discovery away from the calendar and make it all about the people.
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Think back to all of your years of school. Your teachers created a lot of content that helped you learn, but they also got a lot from educational publishers–textbooks, worksheets, tests, and more. Developing that content can be a painstaking process, so a lot of the times the publishers look outside for help. Since 1982 they’ve been turning to Quarasan, a Chicago, IL based “full service conceptual developer of content for publishers of educational materials and products.” They say that they cover the Pre-K-16 market, which, I think, means that they also develop materials for undergrad.
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You can do almost anything with someone else’s money–build a house, buy a car, go to school, shop ’til you drop, start a business, etc. Sometimes it’s a good idea, and sometimes it’s a really bad idea. One of the smartest times to borrow money is for upfront business expenses that will pay back over time. This is the kind of lending that Balboa Capital does. They’re an Irvine, CA based company that “has been providing equipment leasing and working capital loans to US businesses for over two decades.” They are in the business of keeping other businesses in business.
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The key to effective marketing and advertising is distilling a brand, product, or service into a simple message that the target customers can relate to. For some products that’s really easy, but there are plenty of markets where it gets really complicated–like healthcare and life sciences. If you’re a business in one of those industries, you can’t hire just any advertising agency. You need people who understand science but still excel at marketing… the kind of people who work at HDMZ. HDMZ is a Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA based healthcare and life science marketing agency. They’ve been around since 1936, but they’ve kept up with the times by excelling at understanding their clients’ businesses.
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Fashion trends are fascinating. I generally dress the same way that my parents dressed me when I was four, but I understand the urge to get ahead of the latest styles. Some people just have a sense for fashion and can pull it off on their own, but most need help. That’s why the fashion media is so big. The Internet is only making fashion move faster, and that means that the media has to be faster too. StyleCaster Media Group is a New York, NY based company that aims “to bring style to the people, empowering millions of readers to discover and share their style through inspiring features, expert tips, and innovative resources.”
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Yesterday we looked at an L.A. based non-profit called The Music Center that is all about supporting the live performing arts. Today’s organization is also based in Los Angeles, CA, but their focus is on movies. The American Film Institute is a non-profit that calls itself “America’s promise to preserve the history of the motion picture, to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation of storytellers.” The organization was founded in 1967 with Trustees including Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, and Francis Ford Coppola, so there was nod bout that they could what they set out to do.
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Think about all of the e-mail lists that you’re subscribed to. Now think about how many of those e-mails you delete, mark as spam, or totally ignore. Every one of those senders includes you when they brag about the size of their lists, but you’re pretty much worth nothing to them (you may even have negative value). Businesses that do e-mail right know that keeping your lists manicured is a smart business decision. Unfortunately, that’s a lot easier said then done, which is why company that are serious about e-mail use FreshAddress. They’re a Newton, MA based company that helps “companies that depend on email to drive revenue by building, updating, segmenting, and cleaning their email lists.”
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When my wife gets sick, I swear that she takes her temperature every 15 minutes (she also considers 98.6 a fever because her temperature is normally lower than that). I don’t even bother taking my temperature unless I’m worried that I’m very sick. Thermometers can be important tools for tracking health, but most of us don’t use them to our full potential. Kinsa is a New York, NY based company that is changing the way that people take their temperatures and monitor their health. They’ve developed a smartphone compatible thermometer that combines with an app to provide a completely new type of health tracking technology solution.
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I live in the third biggest city in the country, yet I often feel like there’s nothing to do. Part of that is because most of the things that I like to do are outdoorsy and Chicago isn’t the best city for people like me, but most of it is because I’m not aware of all the cool things happening around me. There seem to be a million startups that have tried to solve this problem, and none have really succeeded yet. Maybe UpOut will change that. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that “is changing how locals discover unique events in their city.” They do this by pulling in event calendars from a variety of sources and curating the list to only show the most interesting ones.
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I always get confused by the terms modern and contemporary. To me they sound like they should mean the same thing, but they don’t–at least when you’re talking about art. Modern means that it was “produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s,” while contemporary means it was produced very recently. MOCA is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and they are the only museum in L.A. that is entirely dedicated to contemporary art. Their definition includes works that date back to 1940, so I guess some of their contemporary art may also be modern art–though I definitely could be wrong about that.
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If you need to make a decision about something that you don’t know a lot about, your best bet is to consult an expert. That’s why friends usually come to me for all of their meat related questions. Since text messaging a buddy won’t always get you the right answer–especially in the business world–there need to be other ways to find expertise fast. AlphaSights is a New York, NY based company that provides “today’s investors, deal-makers and corporate strategists with access to the knowledge they need to succeed.” Unlike consulting firms, they don’t actually provide the knowledge. Instead they play the role of “knowledge brokers.”
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I haven’t updated my business cards in years; in fact, I’m not sure that I’ve given anyone a business card in at least a year. I do most of my business online, so it makes sense that I don’t use a lot of paper products. More and more people are moving in my direction, so if you are going to use printed materials, they need to pop–they need to be able to compete with the interactivity of a website. MOO is an East Providence, RI based company that loves to print. They’ve even invented a word to describe what they do: “printfinity.” It’s a technology that they’ve developed that allows you to “print a different photo or design on every Business Card, Sticker or Postcard in a pack.”
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I’m pretty bummed that we’re going to have to wait almost a full year for a new episode of Mad Men now. If you need your fix, you’re going to have to take a look inside a real advertising agency. Today we’re going to do that for you, and the focus is going to be Mason Zimbler, an Austin, TX based “integrated agency rooted in the digital space.” They’re owned by a bigger company called Harte Hanks, but they seem to operate mostly on their own by combining “a love of creative” with a “desire for results.” They have quite a roster of big name clients, so they must be very good at finding that balance.
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The Yankees are in Chicago for a full week! I went to the game last night at Wrigley (and I’m going again today), but the Yankees lost, and we got soaked by a thunderstorm as we left the stadium. I was also annoyed because I tried to buy tickets off of StubHub a few hours before the game but couldn’t. They used to stop selling two hours before the game but have since changed that to six hours. I was still able to get tickets at well below face value, but I had to do it at the stadium at the last minute. The policy change was forced by Major League Baseball and its teams to try to prop up ticket resale values for season ticket holders, and it’s completely unfriendly to fans. That’s what happens when the “disrupter” gets co-opted by the big boys. Now it’s time to look for a new disrupter, and it might just be TiqIQ. They are based in New York, NY, and they aim “to make buying event tickets more transparent, efficient, and simpler.”
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What if I told you that there was a product that could increase your personal privacy, reduce your heating and cooling costs, and make your home much more stylish? You might think that I was talking about some sort of new home automation/security system, but I’m really talking about blinds. You know… shades, drapes, curtains, window treatments. You can buy all of them from Blinds.com, a Houston, TX based company that is “the world’s largest online window covering store.” In fact, they’re twice as big as their closest competitor.
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Businesses are always looking for ways to extract more value from their customers. Sometimes this means “sharing” customers with other businesses. I’m sure you’ve seen (and probably ignored) plenty of cross-promotional offers. The problem is that they often get in the way of what I’m trying to do right now. Maybe I’d actually take advantage of them if they were made a little more seamless. That’s what Cartera Commerce is doing. They are a Lexington, MA based company that offers “a comprehensive, fully-managed, performance-based offer platform for card issuers, frequent flyer programs and merchants.” What does this mean? I get offers through bank cards, credit cards, and loyalty programs. I can opt in with a click or a tap, and all I that I have to do to redeem the offer is use my card.
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Over the past 7 years, I’ve heard from a lot of frustrated college grads who can’t find jobs. Some of the most frustrated have been international students. They came to the U.S. to get an education, and they’d love to stay here and put that education to use. Unfortunately, the current laws make that extremely difficult. Right now we have a system that is both unfair and economically damaging. We can do better, and FWD.us is a San Francisco, CA based non-profit lobbying organization that wants to make that happen as soon as possible. It was “started by key leaders in the tech community to promote policies to keep the United States and its citizens competitive in a global economy—including comprehensive immigration reform and education reform.”
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It’s hard to feel any sympathy for software developers. They’re one of the most employable groups of people on Earth, and they can apply their skills to almost anything they want. However, they’re working in the technology industry which is defined by constant change. A piece of software that used to need to run on a single platform is now expected to work on all kinds of devices. Xamarin is the answer for developers who want their software to work for as many people as possible. The San Francisco, CA based company allows developers to write “apps entirely in C#, sharing the same code on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.” Why do something four different ways when you can do it once?
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Many of America’s great apparel brands started out by catering to a specific sporting lifestyle. Some, like Filson and Orvis, have largely stayed true to their roots. While others, like Abercrombie & Fitch, have moved far away from the brands that they once were. Lands’ End got its start as a yachting supply company in Chicago, but today it is based in Dodgeville, WI and is “an international apparel brand synonymous with timeless American style.” The company is certainly still inspired by its nautical heritage, but they definitely had to broaden their horizons a bit to get where they now are–generating well over $1 billion in revenue annually.
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I’m sure some of you are dying for a puppy update. Garçon is now 11 months old and is doing great. Here’s a picture of him with his littermate Henri. Anyway, Amy and I are ridiculously attached to the little guy, and want to do everything to ensure he’s safe, but he’s still a hunting dog. He’s going to run around off leash in the woods and occasionally get himself into somewhat dangerous situations. That’s why one of my first big purchases for the dog was a GPS enabled tracking and training collar from Garmin. It’s expensive hardware, but cheap marital insurance. It’s not a product for most consumers, but there is a similar solution from a company named Snaptracs. They are based in San Diego, CA, and they’re behind the Tagg Pet Tracker. It’s a system that “allows you to track your pet’s location and activity from your computer or mobile device.”
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Chances are that you’ve been to a few McDonald’s restaurants in your life. You’ve probably noticed that most are generally the same, but occasionally you visit one that is exceptionally nice or exceptionally dumpy. A big reason for the variance is that 80% of the locations are franchises. Franchising is a great business model when it works, but it can present some pretty tough business problems. Square Root is an Austin, TX based company that solves many of these problems. They have developed “a single platform to improve operations and performance throughout franchise networks.” It’s designed to give employees and managers “the insight, focus, and confidence to work on the right things and drive your business forward.”
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Have you ever seen an article in the middle of the day explaining that a stock’s price was rising on specific news and then seen essentially the same article in the evening saying that the same piece of news caused the price to fall? There are rare occasions when it actually works out that way, but often it’s just lazy journalism. The truth is that it can be pretty hard to explain why a stock’s price moves up or down; however, we all know that specific products can have a huge impact on how a business performs. That’s why Trefis has developed a set of tools that “helps you understand how a company’s products impact its stock price.” The Boston, MA based company “was founded by MIT Engineers and former Wall Street analysts who realized that most people do not understand the seemingly familiar companies around them.”
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You’ve probably looked at thousands of ads already today, but chances are that you haven’t thought about how they got in front of you. Behind all of those ads is a group of people who made a complicated set of decisions to get that specific message to you in a specific place at a specific time. Managing those kinds of decisions at scale is really hard. Centro makes it easier. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that works “to improve the lives of those working in the advertising industry by building media management software that helps marketers engage with audiences across all digital channels in the most successful manner possible.” The goal is put all of the options in one place so that advertisers can make the best decisions for themselves or for clients.
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I live to be outdoors. For me it’s mostly about fishing, but I enjoy hunting, hiking, kayaking, and pretty much anything else that gets me out in the wilderness. The tough thing is that I like to get away from civilization, but civilization is constantly encroaching on the wilderness. We need to find a balance, and that means getting more people involved in outdoor activities so that they’ll stand up to protect what needs to be protected. It’s better to share our special places with other enthusiasts then have them get turned into strip malls. The best way to get more people involved is to start them young, and that’s what Bay Area Wilderness Training is all about. They’re an Oakland, CA based non-profit that was “founded with the idea that California’s bountiful wilderness areas are a vast – yet untapped – resource for local youth-serving organizations.”
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Have you ever thought that you accidentally liked something on Facebook because a post suddenly showed up in your feed from a site that you recently visited? It’s creepy, right? It’s called retargeting, and it’s amazingly effective. For at least the last few years, advertisers have been tracking your movement around the web and showing you ads based on where you’ve visited. Taking to Facebook was the obvious next step, and that’s the specialty of Triggit. They are a San Francisco, CA based company that “enables advertisers and agencies to build, run, measure, and optimize retargeting-driven display campaigns from a single platform.”
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