The two days of demos during Launch Conference are over, and now we go back to our routine and start thinking whether those companies that presented so eagerly and promise to change the world will be around one year from now. Time will tell.
And although startups like Volta, which won “best business model”, and Green Goose, which closed a $500K financing round, are all the hype there were a few others that are worth checking out more closely.
YouEye has an interesting technology, it uses your computer’s webcam to generate accurate eye-tracking heatmaps. With no software to download or plugins, is a really slick application that can significantly improve your website giving you insight into what users are doing and where they look when they get to a certain page. Forget expensive hardware, if this solution works then you’ve got a big industry that is eager to have usability testing done cheaply and quickly.
With an amazing demo, I surely thought GolfSense from Zepp Labs would be a finalist at something. They have what seems to be a pretty impressive motion sensor device that you can attach to a golf club and it will analyze your golf swing, sending data back to your iPhone where you can see how good or bad you’re playing. Why is this a big deal? Well, golfers are crazy about this kind of stuff, always trying to get 1% better at their swing and now they have the tool to do so without having to pay for expensive lessons. Besides, the technology can be applied to a number of other industries and sectors, like tennis, physical therapy, and others.
Want to travel but not into museums and sight seeing? Interested in an unforgetable adrenaline-pumping experience? Stomp.io aims to do just that, hooking you up with adventures that will make you come back for more. It’s like Expedia for adventure-only outings (from squirrel fishing to skydiving). Although I’ve seen this before with Kijubi and others out there, I think there’s potential for a site like this to thrive. Partnerships with car rental places, and others could boost their numbers. Worth checking out.
Here’s something that I was hoping LinkedIn would offer as part of their service (may an acquisition target for them?). Graphight is a networking tool that tells you people in your network you haven’t talked to in a while and a way to classify your contacts based on importance. Ideal for sales people and a great help for startup founders, I can see the promise of the tool. Not sure it will gain momentum but is definitely something different from your typical social networking site.
You’ve heard of WebEx, GoToMeeting, LiveMeeting, and Adobe Connet (among others) and if you’ve had the same experience as I had, you probably agree they all suck. I have not used an online meeting or webinar platform that haven’t had a glitch and screwed up either the voip, the recording or my slides. It happened to me in every single platform out there and that’s why I am rooting for MeetingBurner, hopefully they can make the incumbents run for their money. Oh, and if they are lower priced, than we all benefit from it. It’s time someone came out with an online meeting software that works.
For a list of all startups that presented and for videos of all presentations, check out the official site for the Launch Conference.
Startup Web Guide 