One advantage of Social Jumpstart’s offices being in Marin County, California is we’re just a short drive or ferry boat ride away from San Francisco and Silicon Valley where social networking was invented and social media is innovated everyday. This allows us the access to senior leaders of top social firms and also a first look and beta testing opportunities of emerging technology and services. These technologies have and continue to “disrupt” the norm creating both new competitive threats and even more new business opportunities.
Tech Crunch Disrupt is a conference inspired by disruptive technology. It is where the future of social media is often introduced to the world for the first time. This week, the Social Jumpstart Team had a chance to review over 100 new companies and we kept an eye towards those that can help you and your small business. Maybe not today but possibly in the not too distant future.
Packed house in San Francisco checking out emerging social media and internet start-ups
With so many start-ups and new firms demonstrating their wares it was a fire hose of information and possibilities. Here are a few of the interesting firms, sites and apps that caught our attention in particular for SMB’s this week:
This is a new Social Business Network and looks like a real winner to us especially to the consulting and professional services sector. It’s a professional networking and referral hub where people can get expert advice and give and make referrals.
Another new twist on professional networking is this Brazilian based start up, which is seeing fast growth. It specializes in peer-to-peer advice and counsel. It’s a nice collaboration platform too and is getting noticed in the press as well.
This is a start-up within a massive company – QUALCOMM. You may not know it today – or even next year but this “Geofence- image recgonition and interest sensing app SDK is poised to change the world of apps in a big way. Offering businesses the ability to recognize customers and their location and interests in real time will put a whole new level of sophisticated personalization into real time offers via mobile. It’s an exciting glimpse into the future of mobile social marketing. They have a pretty cool logo too.
This is a terrific service for a small business to help contain costs and expenditures on things that could just as easily be borrowed. An easy interface allows you to broadcast your needs to friends or search things that they may have available for you. Buy less and borrow more – the perfect companion app for the small businessperson!
This firm is so new it is sill in private beta. It could, however, become a tool to make your small business life a little easier and smoother – Password Box stores all your passwords in a single spot and makes logging on to any site or web based application a snap. Technology saves time and Password Box makes it that much easier to save even more.
They’ve been around longer than most start-ups but they are really hitting their stride now. Every small business needs to at least consider Docu Sigh to help speed the delivery and administration of agreements and contracts. They are the global leader in e signatures and a terrific service that can help nearly every small business.
On the subject of saving time Seamless is another great resource for getting food fast. Available in many major cities and growing, seamless can deliver your lunch or cater a whole party – all on line and pretty much any food you want too. Plus they provide consolidated billing. It’s a smart way to eat.
This is an important one for any restaurant or food establishment. While there are a lot of various loyalty programs out there – Mogel is coming on strong with excellent use of technology and a beautiful user experience. In addition to an automatic 10% rebate they also donate to feed the hungry and have a gaming element of a sweepstakes for the top spenders. Mogel is only in California today but has big expansion plans for the future
So there you go. Eight promising up and coming firms and apps that could play a future role in helping you and your business succeed.
