I went along to the rather awesome Geekn’rolla event at the end of April, which, with the exception of a few volcanoes induced issues, was a great event. The tech community were out in force, proving that, despite the downturn and ascertations otherwise, innovation is still alive and kicking in Europe. There was also a huge amount of support on offer for new start ups, in the form of mentors of older ‘more grown up’ companies. This is an invaluable source for new entrepreneurs, and it was great seeing already busy CEO’s offer up their precious time to pass on the lessons they’ve learnt.
In between some fantastic talks (notably Jason Trost, Smarkets; Ewan McLeod, Mobile Industry Review; Andrew Scott, Rummble; and Morten Lund, Everbread and Tradeshift), there were sessions of three minute pitches. Much like Dragon’s Den, some rather brave entrepreneurs got up to sell their company to a panel of judges, and a dauntingly large audience. Being somewhat of a wimp myself, I thought these guys deserved a medal just for getting up there, but alas, there were only prizes for some. Here are the ones I think will rock it this year…
The judges’ winner of the three minute pitches was Cortexica, who specialise in visual search. A relatively new company founded in 2008, its first application, unsurprisingly (and somewhat disappointingly) only for the iPhone, is called WINEfind’r. Other than the limited availability, it looked very interesting. All you need to do is take picture of the label, and you’ll get prices from various merchants. You can also find out some more about it, review it etc. They created the app to demonstrate what they can do with visual search, a market which is fast growing, and one which, I think, will prove to be more and more important in the near future.
Another winner, voted by both the audience and the judges, was Graph.me. I have to be honest and say these were my favourite. Whilst there were things that needed smoothing out, I liked the pitch and I love the idea. It went live in public beta on the day of the event, so go try it out now. Basically, it allows you to graph yourself against other people – on a number of different topics. You can start a trend, and graph everything in your life, from shoe shopping to friends (and why wouldn’t you?!). You can poll others too, so you can get competitive with friends, using the Facebook Connect tool. They are also looking at apps for the iFamily, so watch out for on the move graphing coming to a town near you soon!
iGlue is a rather nifty little tool, and one which I think, could make a big splash this year. It’s got a catchy name (don’t sue them Apple) and an awesome tagline: ‘the superglue of the net.’ It allows you to search for content, then when you hover over words it gives you more detailed information, which you can chose to click through to. The way I like to think about it, is that the articles have a second skin, one which can fill you head with more knowledge than you’ll ever need – amazing. I cannot wait for it to go mainstream. These guys, unsurprisingly won one of the judges awards – and rightly so, it rocked!
Pownum also deserve a mention. A site which allows you to rate and slate companies, the idea behind this is that there is power in numbers. By having a site which companies themselves have to sign up for, the hope is that the feedback you give – either positive or negative – will have a real effect on how the company is run. Companies pay £5,000 for the ‘right to reply’ to comments, half of which goes to charity. The aim of the founders is to donate a massive £10million to charity over the next five years – for this alone, they deserve some serious credit!
Finally, there were, unsurprisingly, a lot of music start-ups pitching, which could create a battle for dominance (between themselves and current giants Spotify) in the next couple of years. All had their pro’s and con’s, but they were a pretty revolutionary, so it’s going to be interesting! First up of these was Decibel, a company which describes itself as powering the next generation of digital music. A big tagline, but they didn’t disappoint. It believes that the experience listeners now get is less than in days gone by. The argument is, that when you load a CD on to your PC, you get only the bare minimum on information, and much of it is incorrect. With Decibel, you get a whole host of information – everything from location, to composer, birth date and participants. I like to think of it as six degrees of separation for the music world – it tells you everything, so you can see who has performed on each other’s albums, and how everything is linked. It is an amazing database of knowledge, and something which many music lovers will adore.
Next up were Gigaboxx, who want to sell music to consumers via mobile. The idea is, you never want something as much as you do when you’re hearing it (this is very true), so why not enable people to do just this. Then, instead of paying at the time, the cost is just added to your mobile phone bill. So, if you’re at a gig, Gigaboxx will Bluetooth you the bands site, which (having been made by them), will work perfectly on mobile, and allow you to purchase tracks, ringtones and videos. This, to me, seems like a great idea. I know I can never remember the name of that song I heard that I loved, and by the time I do remember it, another one has come along and replaced it instead. Not only that, but we live in a mobile world – all the signs are pointing towards Smartphone’s as the future, so by basing a model around this, I think these guys can be hugely successful!
Finally, there was Musiio. These guys are very much still at the prototype stage, and were looking for investment or a technical partner, but their idea is genius. Giving the music back to artists and allowing them to connect directly with fans. This is a really interesting concept, given the constant heated debates between music companies, artists and sites like Spotify, so it’s worth keeping an eye on this, as if it materialises, it could really change things. Personally, I think if the three above joined up, they would have an amazing product on their hands!
