Greetings Digital Irish community!
Thank you all for coming to the March #NYDI meetup – we had another great turnout. We are very sorry for the uncomfortable heat in the room and for the construction noise throughout the pitches. Despite these challenges our presenters did an excellent job telling their stories and making their asks.
There is a short re-cap of the event below including the asks. Please leverage your networks to help these founders gain some more traction. Every lead helps and even more importantly see if you can incorporate using the products or services pitched last night in your business or personal lives. For young and growing companies every user counts.
The next #NYDI event will take place next month, date announcement to follow. As always thank you to our partners for making these events possible, our hosts at WeWork, TriNet, Rooney PC as well as our technology partners OnePageCRM.
We were delighted to have Michael Chin showcase his collaborative illustration app Expansive.io. Expansive is a virtual lightboard and we were treated to live sketches representing key highlights from the pitches.
Great collaboration w/graphic recorder @jonnygoldstein to sketch note this evening’s @NYDigitalIrish event. Thanks for having us #NYDI
— Expansive (@expansiveideas) March 12, 2015
Unfortunately our scheduled industry speaker Niall Harbison was unable to attend. Jon Axelrod of Entrepreneurs Roundtable stepped in at late notice to offer some insights and introduced us to their unique virtual accelerator program that is open for Irish startups. Our very own Niamh Bushnell has been working with Jon and his team to launch the Irish participants in the virtual accelerator program.
Jon spoke about what he looks for when choosing participants for their 4 month early stage accelerator programs. They select 10 startups from over 1,000 global applications to work with their expert team on product, biz dev, testing product market fit. Their core thinking is about how to move quickly in a short timeframe. Jon believes that the right team in the right market will figure it out eventually with the right support. Jon’s advice for startups looking to join accelerators is to ensure they are a good fit, with the right mix of expertise in your target market, talk to other founders who have graduated the programs and do your research.
Speaker Follow Ups
Pocket Anatomy
www.pocketanatomy.com | Video
Pocket Anatomy is an award winning app aimed at healthcare providers. Over 500k medical students are using it right now to learn about the human body. It has been called the Google Earth of the human body. Pocket Anatomy is a very effective communication tool that can be used in hospitals and improve patient outcomes.
ASK: Pocket Anatomy launch a social sharing and crowdfunding campaign on St. Patrick’s Day. They want our help to spread the word and share with our networks.
Be Cool In Your Code
www.coolinyourcode.com
This startup is all about creating video content to help local companies promote their products and services. They have launched in New York with a series of local stories where you can hear from the owners. Every zip code offers its own distinct flavor and their episodes reveal the hidden treasures that are found in local neighborhoods in New York. Their hosts cover everything from fashion and beauty, shopping, eating, culture, nightlife, celebrity, and entertainment.
ASK: BCiYC are looking for Intros to local companies that need help producing and promoting video content to build awareness of their products and services. They envisage 90% of their content will be video. They are also looking for videographers who might be interested in providing some user generated content.
MatchPad
www.matchpad.com
MatchPad is a platform that helps users discover their roommates based on defined criteria. The current platforms can be unreliable and in some cases unsafe. There is a lot of noise and clutter, untargeted results. It is really time consuming for people. Matchpad has developed a matching algorithm that put three key data points together, location, budget and similar lifestyle. There is a simple sign up process and users can connect through FB or email. They are then presented with three options. Find a roommate, find an apartment or post a room to rent.
Users are shown their top 3 results. Users can build out a profile page, that helps capture more info that you would ask for from roommates. Different questions to get more data. This makes finding roommates more efficient and saves time.
ASK: Matchpad are looking for interesting content that they can share with their community. They are also looking to build some strategic partners to help continue building the platform.
Check out the platform when you are moving next.
Jobbio
www.jobbio.com
Recent arrival to New York is recruitment platform Jobbio. They have seen impressive traction since their Dublin launch and have had more than 600 companies use their solution to acquire talent. Traditionally when jobhunters supply resumes as part of an application process these disappear in internal company systems.
Jobbio are building a jobs marketplace. Companies who are hiring can search for talent, they can also promote the benefits of working for their particular company, posting videos and other content. Jobbio will help reduce recruitment costs for companies by making it easier for companies to identify talent at the right time. Uber and Ryanair are just two examples of their impressive customer list.
ASK: Jobbio are looking for introductions to people who are hiring. They are also seeking out some partners who might be interested in helping them expand here in the US.
Initiafy
www.initiafy.com
This 2 year old training platform is expanding rapidly all over the world. Their platform helps companies improve productivity by offering training and induction programs to large groups simultaneously. Their target customers are large companies in energy, retail, utilities, retail, contract staff, health & safety and construction.
A recent example of a client they worked with is giant caterer Sodexo who provide all the catering services at Royal Ascot. Historically they would hire 3,000 people to work at the event. Using Initiafy saved them 50,000 hours of training.
ASK: They are looking for any introductions to potential customers, ideally large companies that have to onboard large groups of staff at a time. They are also looking for sales people to join their team in NYC.
Finally thank you again for attending. Please have a think about the asks from the pitches and see if there are people in your networks that might be able to help.
