Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2013, when these companies were about to raise funding rounds; Nexercise’s figures are from that time, and several start-ups may have since closed, pivoted or been acquired. TradingView went on to become a widely used charting platform.
These ideas come from 10 companies that were finalists at TechStars in the United States, where every year they pick the start-ups they think could be most profitable in an increasingly saturated market.
So here are 10 of the ideas that are about to raise a funding round. The question is whether there would be demand for them in Spain (or in your country).
1. Controlling children’s internet use
Myhipom.com lets parents manage how much time their children spend online. The company gives families a control panel that can switch internet access on and off for every device in the house at any moment, and it also designs specific programmes so that children use the internet in a controlled way. You could say the idea behind this company is parental control, only perfected.
2. Tracking weight loss
Nexercise is an app, currently for iOS and Android, that helps you keep track of your weight loss while getting in shape. The app motivates you to work out through contests, alerts and real rewards. It has already logged more than 3 million workouts, and its users have clocked up a total of 100 million minutes of physical activity.
3. How users interact with your website’s content
Pathful is designed specifically to help companies understand how people engage with the content on their website. The tool captures the interactions of every visitor with every element across the site and sends all kinds of customised reports.
4. Managing files in the cloud
Peoplematics is a platform that organises all the data we upload to the cloud, since more and more of us keep files in different storage services such as Dropbox or Google Drive. The platform aims to make the whole process simpler. It also organises and manages our files and reports on who has interacted with them and how.
5. Being single is a lot of work
Project Fixup is launching as a more innovative dating platform, trying to match people according to their work schedules, interests or very specific topics, such as vegetarian food, political leanings, favourite wines or the sport they play. It describes what it offers as a cross between “your best friend and your personal assistant”.
6. Helping with email marketing
Simple Relevance says it can help boost your revenue by between 30% and 300%. Its approach is based on analysing email marketing, fixing whatever isn’t working properly and strengthening what does work for this kind of selling.
7. Gathering information for advertisers
SocialCrunch collects information about people from all over the internet, above all about their sex lives, spending habits, work ethic and anything else you can imagine. This company’s business idea is this year’s favourite to win, since it can obtain user information that brands could never get access to. That way customers are better understood, and both sales strategies and products can be better tailored to them.
8. Helping and encouraging children to exercise
Sqord aims to get children exercising through different games, such as friendly competition or gamification. It keeps careful track of the children’s activities and gives rewards to those who do best.
9. The YouTube of financial charts
TradingView aims to be a new kind of experience for the investor community, getting investors themselves to interact and share their ideas. They don’t intend to be a social network for investors, since that idea is very worn out, but its creators say they want to become the YouTube of financial charts around the world, a place where anyone can access analyses of currencies, stocks, commodities and so on.
10. Improving the doctor–patient relationship
CaptureProof lets patients securely share their photos, videos and X-rays with their doctors, so that doctors can follow how their patients are progressing or what they are doing. Doctors can also look up their patients’ records from anywhere. This business idea may be particularly useful in countries where the healthcare system is 100% private. The founder comes from pharmaceutical sales, so she has a potential client base within the sector.
Further reading
- 5 ideas for original restaurants
- Innovative, profitable businesses from around the world
- 6 business ideas for young entrepreneurs
- Home businesses that don’t need commercial premises
Featured image: Robert Scoble, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
