DEMO was in Boston last night!
Last night, I walked in to FELT on Washington Street, and I was promptly met with the excitement I had heard the DEMO conference was known for. Matt Marshall, the editor at Venture Beat and the producer of DEMO is an amazing ambassador for entrepreneurs all around the globe.
DEMO is criss-crossing the country on their innovation tour, and of course Marshall mentioned that Boston is one of the DEMO team’s favorite startup communities. Last night, six hand-selected companies got the opportunity to pitch the crowd of investors, fellow entrepreneurs and members of the press. Each company was supposed to pitch for three minutes, though a couple chose to ignore DEMO Coordinator Neal Silverman’s “time is up” signal. (Anyone out there have an App to help with this?)
Marshall made it a point to excite the crowd about the current entrepreneurial climate, explaining to the audience that there is no better time than in a recession to be starting a company. Entrepreneurs will be the ones creating the jobs that our country needs. As Matt put it, “What wakes me up everyday are the companies. What drives me everyday are the companies.” Everyone at this event certainly seemed on board with Marshall’s message, with much excitement surrounding the companies and products in the room.
The companies that presented at the DEMO Challenge were:
1. Daily Commute: There are about 200 million people who commute daily. Are you one of them? Daily Commute is a mobile application and browser application that wants to help you save money every day from breakfast and gas to lunch and dinner choices. They deliver real time advice from the start of your day with gas choices to the middle and end of your day commute wise. Are you a driver, walker, bicycler, or t-rider? They have what you need, they are delivering deals specific to your route commute wise.
2. Textaurant: “Imagine a world where you never have to wait in a line ever again,” said Josh Bob, CEO of Textaurant. Wouldn’t that be a world of more efficiency and effectiveness? What if you could do whatever you would like while you wait to be seated at a restaurant? Who wants to hold a piece of plastic and wait in a tacky line for thirty minutes to an hour for a spot at a chain restaurant? Not me. “We are changing the way that you wait,” He said. Can you imagine a world where you never have to wait in a line again?
3. Tauntr: This company has only been around for five months. They are shooting for a B round of funding, and DEMO was in many ways their first exposure. The sports industry is massive, and Tauntr has about 500,000 unique visitors to their site each month. For them, “adding insult to everything” is a way to create a scene for highly edgy, topical sport commentary that fills a hole in the sports news industry.
4. Pinyadda: Short but sweet for BostInnovation’s parent company, who are DEMO alumns and past DEMOgod award recipients. Chase Garbarino, Co-founder and CEO, was to the point and displayed how to convey a point without losing the crowd. Pinyadda is a personalized and social news platform that makes it easy to get all of the content you need and want all in one place, from interesting people. Garbarino announced, though he could not share many details, that Pinyadda will be rolling out a new feature set that will be pretty exciting news consumers and publishers that is like “Foursquare or Blip.fm but for news distribution.”
5. Peekaboo Mobile: Started two weeks ago, I give these guys props for having their intern dress up in a frog suit. They started with their team to create an iPhone App to arrive into the e-commerce coupon universe. They are creating exclusive deals for all of us from the North End to the South End. Geo coding, ready to go. Whatever part of the city you are in, they can help.
Ali Powell has been in business development for four years in for-profit and not-for-profit realms. Read more of her work at thealipowell.com. She’s going to start her own company at some point, but in the meantime, she’s working on connecting, learning and writing to empower the entrepreneurial community in Boston.
Tags: daily commute, DEMO, peekaboo mobile, pinyadda, tauntr, Textaurant, VentureBeat
