It’s amazing what startups in an accelerator program can do with $40k and three solid months of mentoring, laser-sharp focus – and some very long days and nights.
Here’s a sneak preview of Entrepeneurs Roundtable Accelerator’s 7th class of companies, and each and every one is proof of why that intense focus all pays off.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE 10 STARTUPS THAT ERA IS ABOUT TO UNLEASH
Image credit: CC by Justin Brown
Poacht
Poacht is a covert job search app for the currently employed that allows you to be on the market, without having to submit a single application. Or anyone – re, your current employer – being any the wiser for it. Simply connect via LinkedIn (your personal information remains confidential, until you decide otherwise). The Poacht algorithm finds the best matches for you, and employers reach out with an interview request. Then it’s up to you whether or not you want to pursue it, and remember: they’re paying for the privilege of talking to you.
Poacht has quadrupled its user base in the past month alone, and over 200 companies have signed up to recruit through Poacht.
“We are already seeing candidates landing jobs through the platform faster and cheaper than any other method,” co-founder and CEO Maisie Devine told AlleyWatch. “The success of Poacht beta makes it clear that experienced professionals want a smarter and smoother way to change jobs and employers are eager to find them, without having to sift through the noise. For the next version of Poacht, we are taking a page from the automated options trading and ad-buying industries to make the lead matching even more effective.”
Pull
Who said that there are no take back? (You know – that moment when you’ve regretted a message, immediately after having hit ‘send?’) Yeah, Pull is changing that, with an automatic 5-second undo button, in case you change your mind about that last text you sent.
But there’s more to it than that.
“At Pull, we recognize the special significance of text communication in the broad ecosystem of messaging,” said founder Lauren Talbott. “It’s still the fastest, simplest, and most flexible way to reach someone, which is why it continues to connect us across all parts of the country at all hours of the day. But with all the data we put into it, we should expect more out of it. That’s why Pull is raising the bar to show users a side of their texts they have never before had access to.”
The mobile messaging distribution platform also lets users privately share conversations, is available in Google Play, and you can use it to schedule texts, cancel them within 5 seconds of hitting send, share them with friends who don’t have the app, track the health of your conversations in real-time, and text normally via SMS.
Pull even allows you to share parts of conversations with friends.
The company launched their open beta August 21st on Android, and have already gotten over 900 signups – and counting.
Seems that users do want more control over their texts so, all in all, message received.
MobileSuites
MobileSuites is a mobile app that lets travelers instantly request any service offered by their hotel (e.g. room service, housekeeping, spa services).
“We believe that ‘on-site’ mobile access will be the next major evolution of travel,” said co-founder Basel Fakhoury. “HotelTonight, Priceline, and Expedia have made it incredibly easy to book hotel rooms on mobile devices, but there are no ubiquitous services that simplify the ‘on-site’ hotel experience – MobileSuites is filling that void.
“We launched the app with ~500 hotels in early September, and are now live at almost every Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Hyatt Regency and W hotel, Le Meridien, St Regis nationwide, as well as Westins in major cities. Try us out next time you are traveling! We can be downloaded here, or search for ‘MobileSuites Hotel Network on the App Store.’ We plan to cover every major hotel chain in the U.S. by mid next year.
Scentbird
Scentbird is a fragrance subscription service that offers women access to 350 luxury perfumes for just $14.95/month.
That’s right: Your favorite luxury perfumes delivered to you monthly, for less than the cost of a movie ticket. Have they struck upon something that’s just the ticket? They piloted a subscription model (the first packages are being shipped on September 25th) and 90% of Scentbird’s subscribers have already pre-filled their queues for the next 12 months.
That tells you something.
“60% of women who wear perfumes love to switch them – that is over 63 million women in the US alone,” said Scentbird CEO Mariya Nursilamova, “We’re the only company specifically catering to these consumers.”
Which explains the order fulfillment.
Nursilamova’s own personal favorites? Ange ou Demon le Secret by Givenchy and Un Jardin Sur le Nil by Hermes.
A little birdie told us.
Chicory
We all know that home cooked meals are generally healthier for us. Cook at home and you literally know just what’s going into the pot. But home cooking does take time – and so does shopping for ingredients, too.
That’s because you’re not cooking with Chicory, a technology platform that bridges recipe sites with leading online grocers, such as Peapod. Chicory’s ‘get ingredients’ button, placed natively on recipe sites, allows consumers to get all the ingredients (and other groceries, too) that they need, delivered right to your kitchen, with a click.
“For centuries, recipes have been made up of a list of ingredients and directions,” said co-founder Yuni Sameshima. “With Chicory, online recipes are more than just text – they’re now tools that help even the busiest people cook the recipes that they like. We fundamentally change the way recipes are used online.”
Last month they launched the ‘get ingredients’ button and announced it to their network of recipe bloggers. They’ve got some other big announcements cooking – but we’ll all have to wait till demo day to hear.
AdvisorCONNECT
Now that the SEC and FINRA have finally gotten tech friendlier, you just knew that some savvy entrepreneurs were going to step up to the plate and make it easy to bring the power of the Internet – and their own connections – directly to financial advisors.
That would be AdvisorCONNECT, a social relationship management platform (SRM) that helps financial advisors find new clients. The platform provides advisors new tools to stay current with their networks, including money-in-motion alerts and a proprietary wealth graph, which identifies qualified prospects, referrals, and centers of influence.
“We’re like a Hinge for advisors,” said co-founder Jeff Tomkins. “We help match them with the right prospective clients, hidden within their own social networks.”
They’re currently working with one of the top five largest broker dealers, and that’s all we can say right now.
Bubbl
Bubbl is a mobile video clip sharing service that lets users capture online video highlights, and let’s face it: who has time to watch the whole video? At the push of a button, Bubbl grabs the short “snip” of streaming content that matters most to the viewer, making sharing and digesting video content more engaging – and easier for the viewer to decide if he/she wants to see more, or not.
There on to something. Not only did they participate in ERA, they were also part of Turner/Warner Brothers’ Media Camp Accelerator this past summer, where they worked with top media companies. Yeah, they’re on to something in this short attention span world.
NUMARI
Think of NUMARI as your online custom clothier, where every garment you order is literally made to measure. And the price tags won’t leave you with sticker shock, either. Customers select and order their garments online, submit their measurements online, and make an upfront payment. NUMARI does not stock inventory – rather its tech-enabled operational processes execute each garment on a made-to-order basis in a cost effective way. By executing custom at a mass scale, NUMARI gives stylish women the best-fitting look for them – right down to the dress and sleeve length.
“We aim to delight our customers with a better value end product, allowing us to become their go-to brand for great fitting apparel,” said co-founder Komal Kushal Raj.
Plainlegal
If you think you get bogged down in paperwork, imagine what lawyers go through. Plainlegal is changing that, and they clearly know where to focus: co-founder Nehal Madhani is a lawyer himself.
Plainlegal is a software platform that helps make law firms more productive and profitable by automating routine legal and administrative work. The platform lets lawyers focus on lawyering by automating manual tasks like client intake, document assembly, and payment collection. It also protects against avoidable malpractice claims by managing IP applications and sending regular e-mail reports with upcoming deadlines. No more dealing with excel spreadsheets. And when you’re a small to mid-sized law firm – which is the company’s target market and where they’ve been seeing traction – it’s clearly a pain point solver. In fact, it’s an open and shut case.
Traansmission
Right now, one out of five trucks on the road is traveling empty. This impacts everyone – including you. Carriers are wasting time, fuel and business opportunities. Shippers are subsidizing these wasted miles by paying rising shipping rates. Some estimates place the shipping subsidies at $1.9 billion each month! And of course, these costs are passed on to consumers.
Traansmission is a cloud-based platform that automatically matches carriers to available shipments, increasing route efficiencies, filling empty cargo space and lowering costs. And shippers and truckers communicate directly, in real time, without the hassle of a broker.
But the true value of the platform is the business intelligence. Traansmission’s recommendation engine shows which route an independent driver should take based on weather, traffic, type of equipment, time of day, overall payout, etc.
CEO and co-founder Jason Cahill is former Army Special Forces and built multinational data network used in search and rescue efforts in Haiti. He knows how to get the job done.
