Last week Tim, the CEO of Wawadoo made time to have a drink with me. I had met his co-founder, Chris at open coffee club last week and was anxious to find out more about the young Alphalab company.
Wawadoo is the recommendation engine for events. As they explain it, “just view our list of events, vote ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ if something interests you, and receive increasingly accurate recommendations on things to do every time you choose.” On the concept level they may have something: how many times have you wondered what to do or found out about something you wanted to go to after it was over?
I was excited to hear that Tim’s thought this through much further than the concept level, it’s a potentially interesting business model. Like many interest-based sites, there is a lot of potential for related business to leverage targeted advertising. For example, if I’m a bar I could advertise to people who frequently attend events at the neighboring concert hall or happy hours that are similar to mine.
The difficulty in a business like this is getting to critical mass. The users have to be present in order for the businesses to find value. Tim and Chris, the founders of Wawadoo, think they can do it. “We’ve seen a great response from local organizations. I think they see something like this as the future of finding an event” says Chris, the COO of the company (and a talented developer). “We haven’t opened the site yet and we already have interest of event promoters and organizations who want to co-promote with us,” Tim added, “This will be a great way to get the word out to users. It also means that the businesses must see something there.”
Soon you’ll get to decide. Go to www.wawadoo.com, enter your email address, and you’ll be one of the first members of the public to try it.
Since Groupon is now a household name, I was excited to see the news that ShowClix, a local startup and Innovation Works portfolio company, landed a partnership with them.
The partnership comes just after they experienced a 275% growth in new clients in 2010. Now with this new deal with group buy juggernaut Groupon, ShowClix’s is proving once again their local startup to watch.
I remember a few years ago when I first saw there ticket scanning doohickey at a local show. I thought, “What is this, there is no way this scanny thing is going to take down Ticketmaster”. I’m glad there making me put my foot in my mouth on that one.
ShowClix has also announced that there are over 100 new features for administrators of events. You check out the video below so see some of them in action. These new features add more robust social media intergeneration and tracking. Two very important thing to success in this Facebook and twitter dominated world.
ShowClix Introduces New Event Ticketing Admin from ShowClix on Vimeo.
Read the full press release after the jump.
[click to continue…]
AardarQ, a provider of a B2B AppStore framework for embeddable devices, just received $100k in funding from Innovation Works. Employing six people with plans to grow, AardarQ looks to build their customer base from two to three.
“The Innovation Works funding is a stamp of approval for our technology and our team’s ability to grow the business,”
- Pittsburgh, PA – February 10, 2010 AardvarQ™, LLC, provider of the industry’s first configurable, B2B AppStore™ Framework, today announced that it has been added as an Innovation Works portfolio company (http://www.innovationworks.org). Innovation Work’s resources will be used to expand AardvarQ’s AppStore Framework and to service initial customer demand.
AardvarQ’s AppStore Framework enables embedded device manufacturers to offer an innovative user experience for their B2B customers via a fully configurable online storefront. In addition to providing a steady flow of valuable productivity applications for their devices, AardvarQ enables device manufacturers to obtain detailed usage profiles for their installed base through its Web-based Device Dashboard.
“AardvarQ is a great addition to the Innovation Works portfolio,” said Richard Lunak, President and CEO for Innovation Works. “Their AppStore Framework provides a very innovative approach for embedded device manufacturers to stay connected with their installed base.”
Commercial devices are regularly purchased in bulk by large field service organizations with the assumption of a five- to ten-year usable life. Once shipped, manufacturers often lose track of these devices as they are assigned to a geographically dispersed mobile workforce. Whether a diagnostic, medical, point-of-sale or industrial control device, maintaining connectivity plays a crucial role in a manufacturer’s ability to manage a positive customer experience.
AardvarQ uniquely addresses this challenge by providing a virtual channel between a device manufacturer and their installed base of commercial devices. Device users are driven to the manufacturer’s branded AppStore to browse and install a steady stream of new/updated productivity applications. Upon accessing the AppStore, each device uploads a usage log that details the device’s location, usage and performance.
“The Innovation Works funding is a stamp of approval for our technology and our team’s ability to grow the business,” says Greg Quiggle, CEO of AardvarQ. “Our growing customer base needs to stay connected with their installed base of commercial devices. AardvarQ’s unique ability to log the usage of deployed devices enables manufacturers to (1) fine tune their feature sets, (2) proactively address performance issues in the field and (3) offer targeted on-the-job training aids.”
About AardvarQ
AardvarQ is the provider of the industry’s first configurable, B2B AppStore Framework. When licensed, AardvarQ provides a branded, hosted AppStore that can be offered in concert with an embedded device manufacturer’s product lines. Located in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, AardvarQ is a privately held corporation and both an Idea Foundry and an Innovation Works portfolio company. The AardvarQ team brings more than 20 years of experience defining, developing, launching and supporting successful embedded devices within a wide variety of B2B markets. For more information, visit www.aardvarq.net.
[via Pittsburgh Business Times]
Fooala tries to bridge the gap between online food ordering and local restaurants. When I first heard their idea at last year’s AlphaLab demo day, I was like “Wow that’s a great idea”! A lot of small restaurants do not have the time or the money to launch a platform to take orders online. Even if they did, trying to promote the fact that they could take orders that way would also be costly and time consuming.
Fooala provides an open online ordering system to restaurants as a Software as a Service. This means there is no hardware or software the restaurant needs to install. Fooala ties in to what the restaurant already does to take orders by phone and fax. They take it another step to help the restaurant integrate the system on an existing website.
Now here is where Fooala get interesting, the restaurant can also tie into a network of high quality websites and applications to engage and attract new customers. A great example of this is CollegeBite.com and the Facebook game Bite Bandit.
Fooala created College Bite to provide online ordering for delivery and pickup from local restaurants. Right now it’s only in Pittsburgh but they plan to launch in other cities soon. I could take the time to explain how the site works, but if you just go to it, it’s self explanatory. Think of it as an interactive menu section of a phonebook (if anyone still uses one of those giant wastes of paper anymore).
Another great example, Bite Bandit creates an interactive food ordering experience. The recently launched Facebook game gives away valuable coupons for orders from CollegeBite.com. They tell me the game has reached thousands of people and has given away thousands of dollars since they launched it a few weeks ago.
The game is setup like a slot machine and with each spin you can win up to $10 off your net order from College Bite. You only get 5 credits a day but you can score you self some more by promoting the game and your winnings.
Fooala is making it easy for small restaurants to reach an audience they would have never been able to reach themselves. I’m really looking forward to watching what this local startup will do next.
They wouldn’t give me details but they tell me they are working on a few major deals with publishers to use their system. I am thinking it’s going to be some kind of widget that the publisher could tie in with their food section. If this is true, then this would give restaurants another great way to reach customers.
BitArmor, a provider of data encryption software, announced earlier this fall that it was named in the 2009 Gartner Group Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection. This is a pretty big deal because the Magic Quadrant is viewed by many IT vendors—and IT buyers—as the Holy Grail in terms of establishing credibility in the information technology world. BitArmor’s CEO Patrick McGregor stated in a company press release:
“We believe that being positioned among industry leaders in the Magic Quadrant is a testament to BitArmor’s unique approach to data protection: actually protecting the data itself, rather than protecting a particular device or network.”
Gartner Group uses the Magic Quadrant tool to give IT buyers the ability to evaluate vendors in a particular technology market. Using completeness of vision and ability to execute as criteria, Gartner places vendors in one of four quadrants: Challengers, Niche Players, Visionaries and Leaders.
The Magic Quadrant report is a heavily referenced source of research for IT buyers. In fact, one of the criticisms of this report is that buyers often base purchasing decisions solely on which vendors are listed in the “Leaders” quadrant. However, Gartner Group goes out of its way to warn its subscribers that the report is not meant to be a specific guide to action, but rather simply a research tool to be used as part of a comprehensive evaluation process.
Making the grade as a serious player in Gartner Group’s eyes is not only great for BitArmor, but for Pittsburgh startups in general, as it brings positive visibility on a worldwide scale to the region’s entrepreneurial environment.
