One of the best parts of this job? Tracking the growth of the Seattle technology industry by focusing on start-ups; new companies hoping to solve a problem, take advantage of a consumer need, ride the wave of a trend.
And maybe, just maybe, in the process of doing all that, they'll make some investors - and themselves - a little money. Who knows?
Our starting point: Point Inside, a Seattle company founded by veterans of Real Networks, AT&T Wireless and Qualcomm. Point Inside is about to release an upgrade to its free iPhone application that it hopes will make them the Google Maps of the indoor world.
About a year ago, the company's founders "were trying to figure out indoor positioning," Kevin Johnson, Point Inside CEO, told me. "It's very hard if satellites can't see you and normal GPS techniques can't see you. We had an 'A-ha' moment when we founders said, 'Even when we can figure out indoor positions, there are no maps. So let's step back and door indoor maps.'"
And that's what Johnson's company has spent the last year working on: not just building an indoor navigation engine (and registering two related patents) but acquiring maps to some 400 locations, mostly malls. These they have combined into "smart maps," that show the user not only their position inside a mall if they're using a GPS-friendly smartphone, but also store and restaurant listings, restrooms, escalators and elevators.
Mall management companies have welcomed Point Inside's technology. "Usually it's information they want to get out there," Johnson said. "In most case, their directories are one-dimensional and they don't provide navigation. They don't tell you when escalators are down."
Retail partners are in fact key to Point Inside's business model. Johnson's company hopes to get compensated for sending more foot traffic to stores like Nordstrom. "The SmartMap doesn't just give you directions, but also lets you know what discounts and promotions various retailers are offering. It truly is a smart map." Also,, Johnson says right now there are 2300 location-based applications on the iPhone, such as Urbanspoon, "and not a one of them has indoor mapping. We hope to be able to license our indoor maps to them. There's also mobile couponing."
Johnson - the co-founder with a stint at Real Networks on his resume - has remained in Seattle for this next chapter of his technology career for several reasons. "There's good human capital DNA here. The wireless companies like T-Mobile are here. People are spinning out of Microsoft, Amazon, Real Networks. Major brands like Zumi, Eddie Bauer, Nordstrom - all important for our business, mall-based retailers. Plus you've got venture capital. All all that and you've got really exciting things happening."
But Point Inside would be a moot point if it weren't for the development of smartphone technologies and the applications that run on them. "Location-based services have now become free for developers like us to take advantage of. I can go inside my app and ask, 'let me use your location' and I can show you at the mall, We know where you're standing."
An easier development process is also allowing Point Inside to consider other phone operating system makers, such as Research in Motion and Android. And malls are only the beginning: Johnson sees uses for Point Inside when you're in a big-box retailer, a university campus building, at a big trade show, stadiums and arenas. "All big indoor venues. None are mapped today. We have them all on our road map."
Spitter.com
The next stop on the local startup express is Spitter.com, which may sound like an online shrine to a certain type of illegal baseball pitch, but it's not. It is, however, related to sports. Mashup sports and Twitter and you get...well, you get the idea.
Spitter.com is the brainchild of two pioneers in the online sports website arena, David Eckoff and Peter Gruman, who gave us Rivals.com and Scout.com. "It's pulling headlines and grouping them around your favorite team," Gruman told me from his Bellingham office. "If you follow the Huskies or the Seahawks, you're not just interested in what's going on with your team. You're interested in being efficient about it. We're pulling headlines from a bunch of different places, grouping them into that context and then presenting the community discussion around that."
Enter the Twitter part of Spitter.com. "(Matt) Hasselbeck breaks a rib. I think that's bad; what's the reaction among the community? It's kind of like a zeitgeist check. You want to know what's going on with the team but also the reaction from those following the team," Gruman said.
Gruman and Eckols have developed "spitterbot" technology to hunt down headlines and related Twitter content, and Gruman says that technology could be licensed for other areas of interest. There are also e-commerce opportunities related to merchandising that targets the sports demographic of mostly male, college-educated fans.
Because of his pedigree with Rivals.com, I asked Gruman for the most important lessons he learned from his first go-round with web-based success. "On the tech side, it's how to create a network with the linking strategy, the platform elements that create the interoperability among the sports teams and organizing the flow of the user experience. "
But an easier lesson: what people will pay for online. "There's only one thing that people care more deeply about on the Internet than sports," Gruman said.
I'm sure you can guess what that one thing is, but here's a hint. It rhymes with "corn."
Northwest Startup DEMO Fall 2009
Movie clips for casual social media games. User-generated advertising. Creating high-energy plasma ignition from ordinary automotive spark plugs.
Just three of the ideas from some local companies who hope to take the next step towards tech success. They're among six Seattle-area startups that will present their ideas at One Union Square from 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10th, for the Northwest Startup DEMO Fall 2009 competition. Admission is $25 at the door and is open to anyone who is interested in the state of tech entrepreneurship in the Puget Sound region.
DEMO Fall 2009 is sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum Northwest, and event chairman Steven Johnson tells me that for the first time, the region's six major angel investment organizations are partnering with the Forum for this contest.
"At a DEMO event, the real prize is the exposure," Johnson said. "It's not a financing pitch. When you go to the angel organizations or the venture capital firms and you do your financing pitch, you have your market breakdown and your distribution strategy and your business plan. This is just, 'come and show your cool stuff.'"
Unlike similar events in other cities, the companies involved don't have to pay to present. The winner gets a trophy, but past winners have found advisers, employees and - yes - investors.
Here are the six regional DEMO finalists and what the companies are saying about their offerings:
- Aquapulser Engineering - offers an add-on ignition modules that converts weak sparks into high-energy plasma.
- Basic Athletic Measurement - the world's first athletic testing platform "to drive consistency, reliability and validity into global athletic performance measurement and ratings."
- Exponential Entertainment - a multi-platform games service for users to discover, share and play with real scenes from Hollywood movies.
- Limeade - cross-platform mobile and social wellness tools.
- Pharoah Software - a system that controls Windows applications through a user interface for automated technical support.
- Zooppa - "the world's largest source of user-generated advertising."
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