It’s easy to take electricity for granted. When we plug something in, it usually works. If it doesn’t, the problem probably isn’t with the outlet (though I have had that happen). Our electric system has been around for well over a century, which is why it’s so reliable. However, keeping it up to date still requires a lot of innovation. That’s where Utilidata comes in. They’re a Providence, RI based company that delivers “value to utilities and large energy users by improving operational decisions through the use of new data extraction and digital processing techniques.” We all know that measurement is usually the first step in improvement, and that’s why Utilidata is all about using data to optimize energy efficiencies.
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For most of us social media is a time waster. It’s mindless entertainment that fills in gaps in our days. But for some people it’s a job. For them the mobile app just won’t do. They need power tools to manage all of their social media accounts, and that’s exactly what Sprout Social offers. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that offers “a management and egnagement platform for social business.” Sprout Social’s software offers all of the tools that one might need to engage with customers, publish content, and analyze the effectiveness of social marketing. This kind of platform is a must have for any company that takes social seriously.
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When I think about potential new websites that I’d build, I usually look for underserved niches–gaps to fill. There are so many companies building large generalist sites that you really need to do something different to have a chance at building a real business. At least that’s my take. Emerge Media has a completely different philosophy. They are a Chicago, IL based company that is “taking on the essential roots of everyday tasks and breathing real life into the technology behind them.” They’ve been launching new sites in broad niches with a lot of competition. It seems crazy to me, but it might just work.
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Whenever I buy electronics, outdoors gear, or kitchen equipment, I do a ton of research. I want to ensure that I am buying the best that I can afford. It’s easy to spend hours on this stuff if you’re not careful. While that can be a form of entertainment for some people, it’s a lot of time to spend on something that might only cost a few hundred bucks. What if you had someone to read all of the reviews and even test the products for you? That’s what The Wirecutter does. It’s “a list of the best electronics and gadgetry, each pick chosen mindfully and in accordance with many hours of research, interviews with the world’s most knowledgeable experts and testing, all backing up smart opinion.” While lots of other sites are constantly churning out new content to get more eyeballs, The Wirecutter just wants to give you all of the facts that you need to make the best purchasing decision.
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When you get into the corporate world, one thing that will blow your mind is how much companies spend on employee travel. It often seems stupid, and a lot of times companies realize that travel expenses are a huge cost center. What if you could incentivize and reward employees to help your company reduce travel spending. That’s what Rocketrip does. They’re a New York, NY based company that aims “to enlist employees as engaged partners in managing corporate travel costs.” How does this work? Employees get points for activities that save their company money. They can redeem these points for rewards. It’s pretty simple.
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When I take the dog for a walk, I need my keys, wallet, phone, and treats. That’s a lot of stuff to stuff in my pockets, and I’m NOT going to start wearing cargo pants. We’re not that far from a day where the phone and the treats will be all I need to get me by, and August is a company that is doing it’s part to take the keys out of the equation. They’re based i San Francisco, CA, and they’ve developed a “safe, simple, and social way to manage your home’s lock.” Smart locks are going to be a thing, and August seems to be one of the first companies to get the product right for the average consumer.
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Having a personal chef would be pretty life changing. Not only would it make healthy eating much easier, but it would also free up a ton of time. Unfortunately, most of us can’t afford to employ a chef full-time. So how can regular people get the personal chef experience? Kitchensurfing is a New York, NY based company that matches “up chefs and people who need a cook at high and low price points and for a variety of types of engagements, from cooking lessons for the kids to fried chicken parties to 10-course anniversary dinners.” Almost anyone can afford a personal chef when it’s only for one night.
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One of the most amazing things about the surge in popularity of crowdfunding is that it has allowed many businesses to get off the ground with zero inventory. Instead of having to guess at how many of something you should make, they can pre-sell the product and it deliver it at some undetermined date in the future. While this is totally awesome for those who are able to take advantage of it, the large majority of businesses still have to hold inventory if they ever want to sell anything. The goal is to get “the right product in the right place at the right time at the right price,” but that often doesn’t go as planned. Optoro offers a fix. They are a Washington, DC based company that “unleashes hidden revenue for retailers and creates value for shoppers” by helping businesses with “reverse logistics.”
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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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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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A lot of people like to listen to something while they’re working, studying, driving, or exercising. I’m not one of these people, but when I do listen to something, I prefer to be a passive listener. That’s why I like the radio. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of crap on the radio. The Internet is full of great “radio” stations, but discovery can be a pain. TuneIn is a Palo Alto, CA based company that “enables people to discover, follow, and listen to what’s most important to them — from sports, to news, to music, to talk.” They offer access to more than 100,000 live radio stations and 4 million podcasts. They have 50 million users, which seems pretty big considering that I hadn’t heard of them before.
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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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Last night Amy was bragging to me about how popular one of her pins on Pinterest has been. Apparently she was the first to pin something repinned by thousands. Pinterest always struck me as having far more commercial potential than most other social media sites (LinkedIn being the biggest exception). Yet most of the software developed for marketing on social media sites seems to be focused on Facebook and LinkedIn. Ahalogy is a Cincinnati, OH based company that is “pioneering the science of discovery on Pinterest.” It’s not “some do-it-yourself suite.” Instead it’s “a marketing service, powered by [their] network and technology, and paid for performance.”
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If you’ve watched as much Seinfeld as I have, you’re familiar with Lloyd Braun. He’s the guy who George Costanza’s mother wants George to be more like. Anyway, the real Lloyd Braun was Larry David’s lawyer and manager. I’m not sure how similar he is to the tv character, but let’s hope it’s not very. Anyway, the real Lloyd Braun moved away from the legal side and started a company called BermanBraun. The company recently rebranded as Whalerock Industries, but it’s still “a media company for the 21st century, one where the best and brightest minds come together to create world-class content, spanning all mediums and screens.” They’re based in Santa Monica, CA, and they’re behind some brand that you may be familiar with–for instance they’re managing Moviefone for AOL.
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There’s an episode of Saved by the Bell where Zack Morris convinces Mr. Tuttle (the head of the teacher’s union) that Mr. Belding called him a “spineless jellyfish.” That’s a pretty big insult to someone who is in charge of negotiating against you. Our spines are both metaphorically and anatomically an essential part of our being. That’s why the thought of a spinal injury is absolutely terrifying for most people. Luckily, we as a society have made a ton of progress treating spinal issues. Whether it’s an injury, disease, or deformity, K2M is one of the companies leading the innovation. They are based in Leesburg, VA, and they “deliver and develop technological innovations which enable surgeons to more effectively treat the world’s most complex spinal disorders.”
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My dog is getting neutered today. I didn’t want to do it, but it was medically necessary. One of the problems with having an intact dog–especially in a bit city–is that a lot of dog boarding and daycare places won’t accept your dog. That’s actually not a big deal for me because I’d much prefer that Garçon stays with someone in their home when we go out of town (usually it’s the in-laws). Rover is just what I need for when the in-laws are out of town. It’s a “community for dog lovers to connect owners with sitters for home dog stays.” The Seattle, WA based company just raised $12 million in funding (they’ve raised a total of $25 million), so the market for this kind of business must be bigger than I would have thought.
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The original idea behind employer funded health insurance was that it was supposed to improve productivity by keeping employees healthy. That’s still generally the point, but today it seems that health insurance is mostly about fixing problems after they happen instead of prevention. Corporate wellness programs are the answer for employers who want to keep employees healthy (and lower insurance costs). Limeade is a Bellevue, WA based company that is aiming to “measurably improve well-being in the world through happy, healthy, high-performing workforces.” How do they do this? By offering software that makes rolling out a wellness program a snap for employers.
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Last week we looked at a company called Destination Maternity that has done really well become expectant mothers are often big spenders. Guess what–once they have the baby they keep spending. This is good news for Kids II, which is an Atlanta, GA based company that has “been inventing and reinventing baby toys and gear for over 40 years.” Even though they’ve been around for a while, their continued innovation has made them “one of the world’s fastest growing baby product companies.”
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About 10 years ago I bought a Magic Bullet (in a store, not through the infomercial). I don’t often need a blender, so it has served me well for making the occasional smoothie, pureeing veggies for soup, and chopping herbs. That’s why when it came to our wedding registry, we didn’t do what many couples do and register for a top of the line blender (though we did register and receive a food processor that haven’t even used yet). The consensus top of the line blenders seem to come from Vitamix, an Olmsted, OH based company that is “improving the vitality of people’s lives and liberating the world from conventional food and beverage preparation boundaries.” That’s the kind of hyperbole that you can only expect from the company that created the first infomercial in the U.S.
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While having the baby boomers leave the workforce should be a good thing for our generation in terms of employment outcomes, the mass retirement will likely bring new challenges. As people age they not only head more healthcare, but they also need more care in general. Sometimes that can be provided by families, but sometimes it needs to be done by professionals. Relias Learning is a Cary, NC based company that educates those professionals by offering “online training to senior care, health and human services, corrections, and intellectual and developmental disabilities organizations.”
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We all have at least one friend who has a brilliant idea for an app or website, but no way of building it. They think that if they can just find some geek to develop it for “equity,” they’ll be instant millionaires. Building a digital business isn’t even close to that easy, and marketing/business talent is just as important as tech talent. Most people who want to start a company on the web need to either figure out how to do it themselves or pay a lot of money (not equity) to get someone to build it for them. Even then, most agencies are designed to help clients later in the game. That’s not true with Digital Intent. They’re a Chicago, IL based business that helps “clients identify products customers will pay for, design compelling user experiences to make customers happy, and rapidly build high performance products that scale.”
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At this time last year, Amy and I were in the thick of wedding planning. Part of me is relieved that it’s in the past (because the wedding was awesome), but I also kind of miss it. We were lucky to have an amazing wedding planner who proposed great ideas and narrowed down the early decisions for us to make them manageable. Before we got to that point, though, we had to do our “homework.” That meant looking through all kinds of books and magazines to mark what we liked and what we didn’t like. It was a bit old fashioned, but it worked. Loverly is a New York, NY based company that brings that process online. It’s “a one-stop-shop for wedding planning where brides and grooms find ideas, people to hire and things to buy.”
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There’s no doubt that health and fitness are the most popular categories for New Year’s resolutions, but many people also want to improve themselves in the areas of education, finance, and careers. It seems easy at first–if you make better decisions, you’ll be better–but good decision making can be really hard. Tree.com is a company that aims to be the place “where good decisions start.” The Charlotte, NC based company operates a portfolio of brands and businesses that can help you whether you’re “buying or selling a home, financing a new car, sending a child to college or shopping around for a new credit card.”
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I’m not sure how we ended up here, but Black Friday shopping seems to be the latest extreme sports craze. I’ll spend a little time looking for deals online, but you won’t find me within a few miles of any major retail store. If I somehow got duped into going shopping, I’d totally wear a helmet. It’s better safe than sorry. Easton-Bell Sports, which is based in Van Nuys, CA, is one of the biggest sports helmet companies in the world. Their brands include Giro, Bell, Riddell, Easton, Easton Cycling, and Blackburn. They all come together to help Easton-Bell Sports pursue their goal of being “a leading designer, developer and marketer of sports equipment and accessories that enhance athletic performance and protection.”
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Health insurance. Need I say more? You already have your own associations with those words, and they’re probably negative. We all want to be healthy, and when we’re not, we want to know that doing whatever we can to get healthy won’t send us into financial ruin. That was the whole point of health insurance, but it seems that the opposite has happened. There’s a lot that needs to change, but where do we start? How about with insurers themselves. Take New York state for instance. They haven’t had a new commercial health insurer in a decade and a half–or at least they didn’t until Oscar came around. They are a New York, NY based startup that dubs itself “a new kind of health insurance company that is using technology to make insurance simple, intuitive, and human.”
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I’m not much of a gamer, but occasionally I get wrapped up in a mindless iPhone game. It starts as a little diversion while waiting for something, and before I know it, I’m staying up past my bedtime playing. The addiction usually lasts a few weeks, and then I forget about it and get my life back… until I discover a new game. I haven’t tried any games from Pocket Gems, and I don’t intend to… I never intend to. They are a San Francisco, CA based company that “develops free-to-play mobile games that are ridiculously fun.” While their games may be pretty simple, Pocket Gems takes them very seriously. That’s why their dual mission is to “build the world’s best mobile engineering team” and “become a global leader in the mobile entertainment industry.”
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Today is Opening Day of the NFL season! I’m probably less excited about that than the average American male (I’m a baseball guy), but it’s still a really big deal. Sports generate tons of economic activity. I know people who go to ridiculous lengths to get an edge for their fantasy teams, so you can just imagine how far actual teams and players will go (cough… PEDs). Some of the biggest advancements outside of biotechnology have come on the video side. Hudl is a Lincoln, NE based company behind many of those innovations. As they put it, they “help coaches and athletes win with video.” The technology must be working because Hudl just landed at #149 on the Inc. 5000 with 2,535% three-year growth to $14.1 million in revenue.
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As I’ve spent more time with the annual Inc. 5000 lists, I’ve noticed quite a few trends. Some carry on from year to year (companies that land government contracts grow really fast), while others are more fleeting. One trend that is continuing to gain strength is the growth in the advertising industry-especially for companies that focus on data and optimization. Videology is a perfect example. They’re a Baltimore, MD based company that has developed “a video advertising technology that works across all video screens to connect brands with those consumers they most want to reach” (“all screens” is definitely a buzzword/trend now). This platform has led the company to #136 on the Inc. list with 2,727% three-year growth and $137.5 million in revenue. Four-digit growth is so much more impressive when it leads eight and nine-digit revenue.
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I think that live sports is just about the only thing keeping broadcast television alive. I’m waiting for the day when DVRs aren’t even necessary because everything is always on-demand. Unfortunately, it’s still going to be a while because the media behemoths have a lot to lose and a strong enough market position to put up a huge fight. We’ll get there eventually, but it will happen faster if upstarts like Bedrocket Media Ventures start to see a little success. They are a New York, NY based company that “is leading a revolution in creating networks and programming that people love, delivered through the cloud.” While they may be trying to beat the establishment, they’re getting a little help in the form of $15 million of venture capital investment.
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You’ve probably noticed that most of the small businesses that you interact with aren’t all that tech savvy. Whether you’ve visited their websites or tried to make a purchase, it’s often glaringly obvious that the owner shouldn’t be anywhere within 50 feet of a computer. The problem is that being online and tech savvy is becoming more and more important to running any kind of business. Merchants who can’t keep up will have a hard time. MOpro makes it easy for business owners to do all of the technical and marketing things that they might not be able to do on their own. They’re a Los Angeles, CA based company that expands “the digital possibilities for small businesses.”
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