Month: January 2019

Mass Innovation Nights 118 in Burlington

At-event voting winners; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Mass Innovation Nights 118

January 17, 2019

Mass Innovation Nights features startup companies from around Massachusetts. This month’s Mass Innovation Nights was hosted at Workbar in Burlington. This month’s event included fewer tech companies that usual – the Boston startup scene is pretty tech-heavy – but I still attended because this month’s location was convenient for me and I enjoy supporting the local startup community.

Mass Innovation Nights 118: Workbar in Burlington, MA

NanaGram booth; photo by Geoff Wilbur

After about an hour of networking, during which attendees chat with the exhibiting companies, the presentations begin. Brief presentations by the “Expert Corner” experts are followed by presentations from four startups selected in a pre-event vote on the Mass Innovation Nights website. And, at the end of the evening, awards are given to the winners of at-event voting (during the networking hour) by attendees.

The “experts” of the evening were representatives from Workbar and East Boston Savings Bank and presentation and confidence coach Linda Ugelow. The presenting startups were Candorful, Del Sur, Sweet Mobility Cane Wraps, and Aveyo. At-event winners were Del Sur, Aveyo, Lawn Serv, and A Cloud of My Own.

photo by Geoff Wilbur

Following are brief overviews of the ten startups featured at MIN 118. As I generally point out, these are quick, high-level overviews, and they’re based on the MIN website and handouts, brief conversations at the event, and presentation. If you find one of these companies interesting, please investigate for yourself. I include links to help out, and their websites usually have contact information.

Smarketing Connect helps connect local startups and small businesses with sales and marketing experts to helping build sales and marketing programs for everything from branding to driving revenue.

photo by Geoff Wilbur

NanaGram is a service that will print and ship monthly your digital photos to whoever you select. You submit via text or e-mail, and your nana gets your pictures.

Del Sur is a Lowell, Mass.-based company that make Argentine-style empanadas with all-natural ingredients. You can currently purchase at farmers’ markets or online, and they hope to have their frozen empanadas in grocery stores this year. Yes, the samples Del Sur brought to the event were delicious.

Candorful presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Sweet Mobility makes Cane Wraps that allow people to decorate their walking canes. The primary goal is to make people more self-confident and willing to use their canes. I’m a big fan of the bright reflective wrap that makes people easy to see while out walking. There are also other bright decorative colors. They include a protected personal information label. And they’re easy to wrap around your cane.

Designer Irina Gorbman’s IG Moda creates limited edition designer leggings, tops, dresses, and accessories from meditative artwork. The company slogan of “Wear Art – Recharge From Within” describes the company’s philosophy.

Del Sur presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Candorful connects military veterans and spouses with experienced interview coaches to help them practice for job interviews. While many of those taking advantage of the service are transitioning to civilian life, it’s open to all veterans and their spouses.

A Cloud of My Own is a device that helps secure your smart home devices from hackers.

Aveyo Spoonable Avocado is a creamy avocado snack. A way to get the health benefits of avocado with the convenience of yogurt. Also, delicious. They’ll be in stores soon and are available in three flavors: vanilla bean, strawberry, and “super cocoa.”

Sweet Mobility Cane Wraps presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Lawn Serv sells lawn subscription boxes. It starts with a soil test, from which Lawn Serv creates lawn kits specifically tailored to your yard. Then, each month, a box arrives with all of the lawn care products you’ll need for your yard. It’s priced comparably to purchasing those products from your local home improvement store but without the hassle of driving to the store to pick them up… and with the advantage of being selected specifically for your yard.

Aveyo Spoonable Avocado presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Recipi is a free tool that helps small businesses improve their web presence. Easy to use, like just following a recipe.

Conclusion

As always, I’ve done my best to accurately portray the exhibiting companies and their products based upon the pre-event materials and the conversations I had with attendees. You can find company information also by following this link and then clicking on the “Vote Here” tab of the MIN 118 web page. Or follow one of the hotlinks I’ve provided to the companies’ websites.

Boston New Technology Startup Showcase #97: Mobile Apps

photo by Geoff Wilbur

Boston New Technology Startup Showcase 97

January 15, 2019

January 2019’s Boston New Technology startup showcase, BNT #97, was out in the suburbs, at Microsoft’s offices in Burlington, MA.

Boston New Technology Startup Showcase 97: Microsoft in Burlington, MA

Skafos.ai presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

It was another solid BNT event, with pizza and networking to start the evening, as well as booths for some of BNT’s sponsors.

Then it was time for the seven featured startups to present. This month’s theme was mobile apps. Here’s a quick summary of each of the presenting companies. As always, if you’re interested, don’t rely on my description, formed over the course of a few minutes, to be entirely accurate. Just consider it an introduction and dig in deeper, check the websites, contact the companies yourself, and ask the questions you want answered.

Goalden Hour presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Metis Machine‘s Skafos.ai is a machine learning platform to help iOS developers enable machine learning and AI in their apps. The team did a great demo, showing how easy and quick it is to use.

Goalden Hour is a planning and goal-setting app that also helps achieve self-improvement goals. A combination productivity and personal development tool, a combo task-manager and calendar, it’s a unique blend within a single app.

Canary presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Canary is an app to help musicians and music venues book gigs. It provides an easy way for venues to request and musicians to confirm bookings. (Side note to anyone looking to discover great new music: You’ll probably want to begin right here, at Geoff Wilbur’s Music Blog. For those of you who didn’t already know about my other blog.)

Liquid Yoga Locker presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Liquid Yoga Locker is a pay-by-phone vending machine, as demonstrated in this YouTube video, from which its company, Manraaj, sells its healthy juices. Of interest was a point that came up during the Q&A, that the refrigerated lockers contain a lock to ensure no sales occur after a power outage. Indeed, check out the video. Ingenious way to get this product into unique locations via a vending machine and app.

PartRunner presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

PartRunner is an app that accesses an on-demand delivery service for materials in the HVAC, plumbing and electric industries. The company has partnerships with supply houses, a network of drivers, and a good sense of who its target market is and what they want and need. With what seems like a strong business proposition, the company is focused on executing.

Delfy presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

Delfy is a social app for meeting new people and making new friends based on interests. Delfy relies on a freemium model with a heavy tilt toward advertising as a revenue source. This app uses an almost dating app-like approach to helping create and build adult friendships.

PinOn‘s Smart Menu is a “smart menu” app that allows restaurants to provide menu and other information via diners’ smartphones. From the diners’ perspective, it’s a customer app, but there are also waitstaff console and admin console components to the app for the restaurants. And, as you might expect, there’s an ability to provide data insights to the restaurants, as well.

PinOn presentation; photo by Geoff Wilbur

As usual, it was another interesting tour around the Boston tech startup community courtesy of BNT. And, as always, if my schedule permits, I’ll be back again next month to see a new set of tech presentations from another batch of Boston’s top tech startups.